Chapter 33

"Get back inside, get back inside." His magic was so poor, yet he kept crawling out. I frowned and used Air Shield to knock Reynold back into the building.

The cyborgs quickly landed, so I immediately chased after them. They tried to flee, and I withdrew Hellfire because I was worried someone might suddenly dart out of an alley or something. I withdrew it just in time, because the moment I did, I saw Lusien suddenly appear at the end of the street. He wasn't carrying the Shield of the New Star's standard-issue weapons. Instead, he had a longsword in one hand and a small round shield on his left arm, and he was dressed in standard knight's attire.

A knight really was a knight. He'd recovered already? Hadn't he just been foaming at the mouth and rolling his eyes?

He let out a roar and slashed down with his sword. A huge blast of Dou Qi left his body and struck the ground with a boom. The fleeing cyborgs staggered every which way, and the flying dirt and stones even cracked several of their heads open.

The captain of the Shield of the New Star was taking the lead in destroying public property!

I immediately felt reassured. Now Lusien surely had no grounds to hold me responsible for damaging the parliament building, so I used Flame Explosion Spell without worry. Flames burst in every direction, and I sent the cyborgs who had just gotten up right back down with perfect accuracy. Lusien was exceptionally nimble too. He moved calmly through my magic, precisely severing the cyborgs' limbs.

"Lord Field!" Lusien shouted at me. "Please go easy on them! We need to take a few alive!"

Ah-

I hurriedly stopped. Fortunately, Flame Explosion Spell wasn't an instant-kill type of Black Magic. It was just an intermediate fire spell, reasonably powerful, quick to cast, and low in consumption. So although the cyborgs had now been scorched black and were smoking, most of them were still breathing.

Seeing me stop, Lusien let out a long breath, took down the last enemy, returned his sword to his back, and walked over to salute me.

That made me especially embarrassed. After all, I'd just made him foam at the mouth.

So I apologized. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to knock you unconscious just now. I've simply never contacted a knight before, so I didn't control my mental power properly. Please don't be angry."

"You're too hard on yourself, my lord. My mental power isn't up to standard. It wasn't your fault," Lusien replied good-naturedly.

"Oh. Are you all right now, then? Are you still foaming at the mouth and rolling your eyes?"

Lusien looked visibly startled. "Who told you I was foaming at the mouth and rolling my eyes? I was only dizzy for a few seconds. Why make it sound like I was a criminal who'd taken too many drugs?"

"...Priest Luolan did," I answered honestly.

Priests of Light rarely lied, and elves weren't a race given to deliberate joking either. But the knight's code also included the virtue of honesty, so had my mental power fluctuated abnormally, causing me to receive Priest Luolan's message incorrectly?

I frowned. Lusien was directing his subordinates, who had followed close behind him, to arrest the cyborgs lying all over the ground. Watching how full of energy he was, he really didn't seem like someone who'd been foaming at the mouth and rolling his eyes.

It looked like I needed to keep working on my spell training.

Before long, the Shield of the New Star had captured all the cyborgs who'd caused trouble. Reporters had rushed over after hearing the news and were crowding the entrance to the building, leaving no room to pass. The politicians were saying something, and I also spotted Reynold, who seemed to be preparing for an interview.

"Xipei!"

I turned around, and Mel suddenly appeared beside me. He grabbed my arm. "Xipei, I saw it. Was that Hellfire? Oh my god, it was so spectacular, so amazing! You controlled even Black Magic of that level so precisely. Xipei, you're just... you're incredible!"

I lowered my head slightly, feeling my face grow hot.

As Mel spoke, he cast Invisibility Spell and pulled me toward the blocks behind us. "Come on, those stupid reporters mistook you for me. That Black Magic was at a much higher level than mine... They're chasing me down and cutting me off, trying to interview me."

I couldn't help laughing as I watched Mel expertly weave through the alleys. Soon we were far from the noise, and Mel said, "All right, it's safe here. Where should we go?"

"Hmm... I want to pick out a pet."

"Sure!" Mel said. "I've wanted one for ages, but I could never decide what to get. I know a very famous magic pet shop in the capital. Why don't we take a look?"

"Let's go! After we pick out our pets, we can go see a movie."

Mel nodded. "Right. We talked about seeing one when we were in prison last time. That movie's out now."

Wonderful, I thought with satisfaction. This is the life of a mage!

Chapter 33

When it came to pets, I'd always wanted ravens, preferably a whole flock, because I thought they looked so captivating flying around a mage tower, their pitch-black feathers dyed golden red by the setting sun. A mage would send messages from his tower, and his flock of ravens would be his messengers, flying across mountains and rivers for him...

Well, that wish seemed especially unrealistic in modern society. For one thing, letting ravens fly around outside made it easy for them to collide with aircraft. For another, I hadn't been able to afford land to build a mage tower before!

But now, I wondered if I could keep one?

Still, only letting it fly around inside the tower seemed rather restrictive. It felt like being allowed to read only one book for the rest of my life. I'd go crazy.

"Mel, what do you want to keep?" I decided to ask Mel's opinion.

"Hmm... honestly, I don't know." Mel frowned. As he spoke, he pulled a pair of sunglasses out of his pocket and expertly put them on, covering most of his face. He said, "I've always liked black cats with green eyes, but Anna keeps saying they're too clichéd. Ever since ancient times, cats have been standard equipment whenever anyone mentions a mage, so they're completely unoriginal. She's always insisting she doesn't want a cat, and I'm worried that if I get one, Anna will do something terrible to the poor thing."

I was a little horrified. "She'd even dare lay a hand on her mentor's cat? Your apprentice really needs some discipline."

"Exactly!" Mel said ominously. "I've realized that too."

The city had more than just normal pet shops-by normal, I meant ones selling natural creatures. There were also shops for mechanical pets and magical creatures. Mechanical pets were something I'd never understood. How were they any different from robot vacuums, robot dishwashers, or even toilet-scrubbing robots? Moli said the difference was that they needed to be cared for like pets... I didn't think that made any sense at all. They were all robots, so why should one get to suck up electricity in its owner's home without doing any work just because it came out of the factory labeled a "pet robot"? More importantly, mechanical pets didn't have fur and weren't cute. They were just as cold and hard, and touching one really felt no different from touching a toilet-scrubbing robot. Reynold used to have one, and he happily asked me to name the robot, but I really couldn't tell what was different between his pet robot and the toilet-cleaning robot in his bathroom. Its joints weren't even as flexible as the toilet scrubber's.

Then Moli, who spent two hours explaining the issue to me, summed it up in her usual way: "Teacher, you really are a transmigrator from the legendary era."

Come to think of it, although I didn't like them, mechanical pets weren't that hard to understand. After all, there were plenty of fanatical technology enthusiasts nowadays, of all ages and genders. But when it came to magical creatures, I really couldn't understand. I'd never thought magical creatures should be treated as specially distinct from natural creatures, because magical creatures were part of nature too. Why did they need to be specially labeled?

When the owner of the magic pet shop heard my question, he answered, "Ah, because magical creatures, as the name suggests, all have at least a little Magic Power. So they're fairly wild and relatively dangerous, and their keeping requirements are a little stricter~"

Dangerous? If he meant dangerous magical beasts like Giant-Horned Demon Oxen or Shadow Ghost Wolves, I admitted they really weren't as safe as rabbits, but...

Mel and I frowned together as we stared at the slime in the cage, which was shining a little because it had been washed so clean, and fell into confusion.

There can't be anything safer or more harmless than a slime in this world, can there? Mosquitoes are natural creatures, and even they can bite people and draw blood. What's dangerous about a slime? Could someone fail to notice it on a trip to the bathroom at night, step on it, slip, and break their neck? Or could someone's three-year-old mistake it for jelly, eat it, and choke to death?