Retire 251
by Cristae251 The Archmage’s Disciple’s Disciple (2)
“So, when it comes to the manifestation of mana, this method is more efficient than the traditional one, right?”
“If you ask me that, I really don’t know.”
“Oh, come on! How can you say that?”
“I told you, I’m not a mage. I only know the theory—I have no idea how it actually works in practice. Isn’t it simply that this method is used now because it’s more efficient than the previous one?”
“Hmmm. Fine. Then, next question!”
Kim Chaemin must surely think of his coworker from the future as some kind of vending machine: insert a coin, and out pops a tidbit of magical theory.
I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
It was strange. Until now, Kim Chaemin had always seemed to have a sensible perspective for a mage, and a down-to-earth personality for an archmage. That was the image I had of him.
How had things ended up like this, really…?
Hong Seokyoung had told me to look on the bright side.
‘Isn’t this better than someone pretending to understand, offering you empty words of sympathy about how hard it must have been?’
‘…Is that so?’
‘Yes. If I suddenly told you, with no warning, that I was from the future, would you believe me right away?’
After a moment of serious thought, I answered.
‘That’s suspicious as hell. Let’s kill him.’
‘Exactly, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘If, in that situation, you just accepted me without a shred of doubt, what do you think I’d say?’
‘That it’s suspicious as hell, so let’s kill him?’
‘That’s about right.’
‘I understand.’
Indeed, if Kim Chaemin had simply accepted the existence of someone from the future, throwing out half-baked words of understanding, it would have been harder to believe.
Of course, if you asked whether Kim Chaemin wasn’t, in fact, accepting me rather easily right now, I wouldn’t have much to say. But it felt a little different from that.
“Could you explain this part again? Why does mana refract like that? As far as I know…”
What was the right way to put it?
It felt as if, future or not, all that was secondary—what really mattered was extracting magical theory from me.
Of course, at first, Kim Chaemin hadn’t fully believed what I said. As he himself admitted, there was no reason for us to make up such ridiculous claims, so he believed it. Or, to be precise, he didn’t really believe—it was just that he judged it wasn’t a lie.
That cautious attitude changed completely after he tested the theories I explained.
Yes, come to think of it, Kim Chaemin had made his position clear from the moment I uploaded the magical theory to the contract…
As Hong Seokyoung said, it was better to have a definite reason than to be pointlessly generous for no reason.
But still.
“Hmph, I see. In that case, this phenomenon makes sense too.”
This, in its own way, felt a little…
“Manager Woo, was there ever a theory about this part in the future? Something organized?”
“Which part?”
“The refraction of mana. It hasn’t been clearly organized yet, as far as I know.”
“That was… what was it again, there was something.”
I remembered looking it up after Park Seohyun mentioned it in passing.
Park Seohyun hadn’t been a particularly good teacher. You shouldn’t judge people by their appearance, but honestly, Park Seohyun didn’t look like someone who should be teaching anyone. Maybe if she’d stayed the way she was as a child. In reality, she wasn’t much of a teacher. I only managed to keep up because of my own skills—if she’d been an academy instructor, she would have racked up terrible evaluations and been recommended to resign long ago.
Still, Park Seohyun was diligent. Her explanations were lacking, but if I showed enthusiasm in class, she tried her best.
‘That, um… the paper…’
She even lent me her magic society ID, telling me to look up papers since she wasn’t confident in her own explanations.
“I think it was summarized by a Pakistani mage. The refraction and angle of reflection of mana.”
“You know what it’s about, right?”
“Roughly…”
I glanced at the clock. I’d been stuck here all morning. It was the same yesterday, and it would be the same tomorrow.
In the end, I couldn’t help but ask.
“Mr. Kim.”
“And also… yes?”
“Aren’t you, well, surprised?”
“……”
Kim Chaemin’s expression turned ambiguous.
“Manager Woo, you sure have a lot of confidence in yourself.”
“Pardon?”
“Of course you’re an amazing person. But really, who isn’t? Every human being is a miraculous existence. Sure, you meet plenty of people in life who are worse than animals, but most people are—”
“No, that’s not what I meant!”
I pressed my temples as I spoke. Kim Chaemin started to chuckle.
“Then what did you mean?”
I let out a sigh.
“I mean… the part where I said I’m from the future. You don’t seem all that bothered by it, Mr. Kim.”
“You think I’m not bothered?”
Kim Chaemin, who had been laughing, looked at me with wide, incredulous eyes.
“Of course I’m bothered!”
“…Really?”
“Would I be doing all this if I weren’t?”
Kim Chaemin pointed to the table in the counseling room. After Seo Hanseong broke it, it had been replaced with the same model. Papers were scattered messily across the tabletop, covered in formulas explaining runes and magical theory.
I looked at Kim Chaemin. He snorted in disbelief.
“I’m very much bothered, you know.”
“…I see. I apologize. Since you only ever asked about magical theory after we signed the contract, I thought maybe you didn’t care.”
“Of course I care!”
Kim Chaemin shook his head vigorously.
“Do you think it’s easy to meet a coworker from the future?”
“Is that the kind of problem you can explain away by saying it’s not easy…?”
“That’s what I’m saying!”
Kim Chaemin jabbed a finger at me.
“The future? Of course it’s shocking! Who wouldn’t be shocked?”
I shouldn’t have brought it up. I should have just kept explaining magical theory.
Kim Chaemin burst out in exasperation.
“Yes, I’m sorry.”
Whether it was genuine annoyance or not, the mana around Kim Chaemin wavered unsteadily.
No, I was just curious if he was so absorbed in magic that he didn’t care about that part—not that I wanted to see him care in this way. This wasn’t a student counseling session, and I didn’t want to have to explain to Lee Miseon that we’d broken a table by raising our voices in a conversation between teachers.
As it was, when Seo Hanseong broke the table, I already got plenty of dirty looks for not stopping him. Damn it, I used to be in Lee Miseon’s position. If I ever end up in charge of budget approvals again, I should be a little kinder. You never know how life will turn out.
“Ugh, seriously.”
Fortunately, Kim Chaemin was not an unstable adolescent anymore—those years were more than a decade behind him.
Kim Chaemin let out a sigh.
“Honestly, if Mr. Hong weren’t here, and if I hadn’t—”
He gestured vaguely at the papers on the table.
“If I hadn’t checked the evidence, I’d have thought you were crazy.”
Is this where even Hong Seokyoung’s reputation comes into play?
“But the theories you explain are real. They’re not at a level a non-mage could research, and even for a mage, you couldn’t just come up with them in a day or two.”
Kim Chaemin hesitated, then added,
“And the fields are so varied. Each one is a theory that would take at least ten years to master. To know so many? Even if you were a genius mage surpassing Noah Michel, some things are just impossible.”
“Thank you for your honest assessment.”
“That’s why I decided to accept it.”
“That I’m from the future?”
“Yes.”
Kim Chaemin spoke firmly, and maintained that resolute tone as he continued.
“But what difference does that make to me?”
“…Pardon?”
“If knowing the future meant everything could be solved in an instant… would Mr. Hong or you have bothered—bothered—to tell me about it?”
“……”
“Nineteen years from now, the world ends? Because of what Ark did?”
Kim Chaemin snorted.
“So isn’t that why we’re doing all this to catch Ark right now?”
I nodded blankly. Seeing my expression, Kim Chaemin smiled again—not a snort this time, but a slightly weary smile.
As if soothing a child.
“Shouldn’t we focus on that, then?”
“……”
“Knowing the future isn’t some kind of cheat code.”
If it were, I wouldn’t be here like this now.
“Oh, wow! The world ends in the future? How could that be?”
Kim Chaemin exaggerated his reaction.
“What good would it do to tremble like this?”
“……”
“That’s why I’m focusing on what I do best. On what I can do well.”
Kim Chaemin smiled again. His eyes sparkled—the look of someone who truly believes in themselves.
“And on what has the greatest impact on me.”
“…I see.”
“For the record, it’s not magic.”
At those unexpected words, I looked at Kim Chaemin. The young archmage winked.
“It’s the present.”
Kim Chaemin’s words were clear.
And he wasn’t wrong. No, Kim Chaemin was right.
Knowing the future hadn’t been useless, but it hadn’t brought any dramatic benefits either. In fact, the present was already completely different from the future I remembered.
All I could hope was that things were changing for the better.
Maybe I should have memorized some lottery numbers. Sometimes, people need a reward they can actually see.
Anyway, because of all this, I found myself in the same position as Kim Chaemin.
Focus on the present, and do what I can.
What I can do.
What I can do…
“But I’m not your teacher, Mr. Kim.”
Does teaching Kim Chaemin count as something I can do? I suppose it does…
Kim Chaemin’s eyes widened.
“What are you talking about? You’re my teacher.”
This was why I’d tried to leave that item out of the contract. In the end, I gave in to Hong Seokyoung and included it.
“Please don’t say that in public…”
“Don’t worry. If anyone tries to make trouble, your disciple has enough power to bury them.”
“That almost sounds like you’re threatening to bury me.”
“How could you say something so hurtful?”
Kim Chaemin looked at me with wide eyes, then burst out laughing as usual.
“But I couldn’t have done any of this without your guidance.”
Kim Chaemin clapped his hands twice. Clap, clap. Mana sparkled between his palms.
“Do you remember when Seohyun failed to control her mana last time?”
He meant when we were staying at the pension. When Park Seohyun had swallowed the whole place in shadow.
“I thought it was because of Seohyun’s attribute.”
“…Are you saying it wasn’t?”
“It’s not that it wasn’t, but that’s not the whole story.”
Kim Chaemin separated his tightly pressed palms. As his hands slowly parted, petals fluttered down.
“Your teacher’s teacher, you know—”
What a peculiar title. Before I could object, Kim Chaemin continued.
“In childhood, she took the magic she’d cast by instinct and gave it structure. She established it as a single theory.”
“……”
“That’s what you’ve been explaining to me so tirelessly these past few days.”
The petals overflowed from the table and began to pile up on the floor at my feet, but Kim Chaemin showed no sign of ending the magic.
“What do you think will happen if I apply that to my magic?”
“…What happens?”
“I’ll show you.”
The scent of roses.
I could smell roses. Kim Chaemin smiled brightly.