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-The Legendary Mage of the New Century, the Evil Shadow Manipulator, the Child of the Forest, the Light of Nature, the Death Overlord—those titles, every one of them painfully chuuni, all described the same person, contradictory as they might have sounded.
He was so famous that countless bizarre novels about him could be found online, such as "I Woke Up as Archmage Mephistopheles's Girlfriend," "I Transmigrated into Mephistopheles and Had Lovers on Both Arms," and "Mephistopheles and the Elf's Seven Hundred and Twenty Nights"... You only had to hear the titles to know they were very... well... unrealistic wish-fulfillment smut-Moli had taught me that term. It meant, roughly, that people who couldn't take part in person could only use words to relieve their pent-up feelings... Since the man himself had never sued any of the authors over these fabrications, I guessed Mephistopheles might be a very broad-minded mage.
Oh, heaven knew, Mephistopheles was only a mage too! His exploits were quite famous, though, and, come to think of it, I could reel off quite a few. I thought the ones I knew were fairly close to the truth. At the very least, they didn't make up laughable things like Mephistopheles having eighty-one elf lovers.
Elves were the most faithful species in the whole world. No one could possibly have eighty-one elf lovers at the same time.
As far as I knew, Archmage Mephistopheles had first come to public attention ten years ago, when he was about twenty. Before that, he too had been unknown.
Back then, he was with the Kunlan Rangers. I didn't know why a mage was really there. In fact, I didn't think anyone knew except him. They were mercenaries who operated between the orc and human defense lines. After human technology advanced by leaps and bounds, the savage orcs hid for centuries, but people in the borderlands still couldn't avoid their raids where Magitech cannons couldn't provide complete coverage, especially in areas with difficult terrain such as mountains, deserts, and woodlands.
Those mercenaries were good at making a living amid chaos, and most had been professional hunters or assassins. There were always plenty of strange jobs in those parts that called for non-peaceful methods and people with the relevant skills. The Kunlan Rangers were one of the more famous mercenary groups.
That time, if I remembered correctly, an orc tribe had used a forbidden ancient shamanic art to summon an avatar of a barbarian god, intending to invade human lands, seize resources, and plunder human Magitech. Border outposts were enough to deal with small raids, but the situation then was almost at the point of war, and the soldiers could do nothing but clutch their heads and scream, just like the civilians.
The Kunlan Rangers happened to be nearby, and the two sides immediately clashed. Just as the humans were losing ground and about to suffer a crushing defeat, one of the young men among them suddenly stepped forward, no longer hiding his strength. With a raise of his hand, every orc's shadow came alive, and the dark shapes crawled up their thick necks like snakes. The attack caught them completely off guard, and the orc vanguard had charged too quickly, leaving their shamans far behind and unable to look after the advancing force. The front of the battlefield was filled with the horrifying sound of bones being crushed. The terrifying scene was captured by a news drone, and the footage still got enormous numbers of views online. Even when it was taken down, someone would upload it again, so video sites had no choice but to stop forcibly deleting it and try to reduce the gore with heavy pixelation instead.
After that, the spellcaster's fame soared. Orc shamans fearfully called him the "Evil Shadow Manipulator," while an outrageously chuuni nickname like "Death Overlord" had obviously come from social media. With the media promoting it, though, it spread rapidly regardless of what he himself wanted.
-It was easy to conclude from that astonishing spell that Mephistopheles was a black mage through and through.
Modern society was extremely strict about registering black mages, far more so than in the past. The term "black mage" had been passed down from ancient times and referred to spellcasters who paid no heed to the nature of their spells or knowledge. Some spells themselves had different attributes: healing spells, for example, were benign white magic, while instant-death curses were, of course, malignant Black Magic. Those who learned only benign spells were white mages, while those who learned everything, or the even fewer who specialized in malignant magic, were black mages.
But I had to say, ordinary mages weren't generally described as black or white, because the vast majority were neither morally fastidious nor willing to use absolutely anything. Black and white mages had always been rare exceptions. Although I believed ordinary mages, and even white mages, could kill just as well, they certainly couldn't cast a mass-killing spell with such a visually astonishing effect as rousing shadows with a wave of the hand.
People in ancient times kept a respectful distance from black mages. They generally wouldn't provoke them and even avoided mentioning their true names in public. Many black mages also deliberately wore mage robes of pure black, without a trace of another color, to show what they were—and mages who did so were definitely proud to be black mages.
But nowadays, more people thought black mages were the same as criminals, even if they hadn't used the spells they had learned to do evil. Some organizations called for the disclosure of all black mages' personal information, real-time locations, and financial circumstances. Some even demanded that black mages wear shock collars to ensure they wouldn't harm the public.
Although governments around the world hadn't agreed to those proposals, given public opinion, a mage simply wouldn't openly admit to being a black mage unless it was necessary.
A black mage like Mephistopheles, whose identity was beyond doubt and whose personal information had been publicly revealed, hadn't ended up on a wanted list of dangerous individuals or been condemned by everyone. Instead, he had gathered a huge following of die-hard fans. First, although he had used dangerous Black Magic, he had done it to save people and had, in fact, prevented a large-scale war. Second, he had the title of Child of the Forest.
Child of the Forest was a title even higher than "Friend of the Elves." For some reason, the reclusive elves had openly declared that this mage was an honored guest of their people and would even be treated as one of their own. I could hardly believe those elves even knew how to hold a press conference. Humans had always considered the pointy-eared folk in the forest very noble, so with the elves backing him, Mephistopheles Madsen immediately became an honored guest of the Federal Magic Council. He even provided military-industrial support to the Federation.
The remaining title was stranger: Light of Nature. It came from the dragons—and sounded particularly like something you'd call a savior. One day, the snow mountain where the ice-affinity blue dragons lived suddenly went haywire and became an active volcano. The ice and snow that had covered its summit year-round melted, exposing boiling magma. As luck would have it, the newborn blue dragons were at a critical stage of hatching and couldn't be moved at all. They were about to become roasted dragon eggs when Mephistopheles appeared, gathered the adult blue dragons' magic power, and cast a spell on the volcano that forced a blizzard to rage for three days and three nights. The domain of extreme cold froze even the magma, until the young blue dragons hatched and followed the adult dragons to safety. From then on, the Holy Dragon Empire regarded him as a savior, and the dragons called him the "Light of Nature."
Ah, it really wasn't easy to remember so many exploits.
Even in the age of legends, his exploits would have been enough to make him a legend among legends—so what on earth was wrong with Reynold's head, that he would take me for a stand-in for a mage like that? It wasn't surprising that he liked Mephistopheles, but how was I anything like him?
He couldn't just pick any mage, could he?
Aside from our names both having seven syllables?
To compare us, Mephistopheles and I were about the same age—I could only say about, because I didn't know my exact age. Magitech instruments said I was twenty-eight, but I only remembered the twenty-five years since my teacher took me out of the
orphan
age. Mephistopheles had shot to fame, while I still didn't even have a laboratory of my own. My teacher, who had also been my guardian during my childhood, was only an assistant at the Oslant National Magic Research Institute. After retiring, he opened a dessert shop in the outer city.
It was a long-term task of the Federal Magic Revival Project: the council and the institute specifically selected magically gifted children from orphanages and trained them to serve the Federation as mages or assistants.
So I looked at my suspension notice-
The Federation had paid for me to attend a magic academy. I figured they certainly wouldn't fire me outright before recouping the cost. In ancient times, I would have counted as a court mage.
But if they demoted me to an assistant... they might as well fire me outright. If I had to work on those strange money-making schemes for other academicians and listen to their twisted arguments that did nothing to advance scholarship, I wasn't sure I could restrain myself. Then I wouldn't merely be the first mage in history to blow up a laboratory at the National Magic Research Institute. I might become the first mage in history to level the National Magic Research Institute with a forbidden spell.