Magic

「Alright, I guess with this I’m done with today’s quota.」

Tanaka was in the forest, holding a horned rabbit he had just killed. He then stored his prey into the item box with a satisfied smile on his face.

It had already been almost a month since Tanaka decided to live in Hazama town. During that time, the request he had accepted every day without fail was the subjugation of the horned rabbits. To Tanaka, who was suffering from chuunibyou, this was one of his long cherished otherworld dreams. It was inevitable that he would wish to seek his livelihood in the other world by subjugating monsters. However, Tanaka was a genuine coward. Furthermore, when it came to confronting monsters with his battle prowess which was on the same level as a baby, he had no choice but to be very cautious. Thus, the request Tanaka had chosen was the subjugation of the horned rabbit. Tanaka had obtained absolute self-confidence against black horned rabbits. Then, there existed monsters which were of the same races as them, but were inferior in rank, the horned rabbits. Thus, there was only one conclusion to be derived from these premises.

That was why, for a whole month, Tanaka had always been accepting requests to subjugate the horned rabbits. Absolute safety, it could be said to be the perfect job for the cowardly person that was Tanaka.

「Well then, now that I’ve secured enough prey for the day….」 Tanaka began to move while looking through a memo. He wasn’t going to hunt another horned rabbit. Aside from subjugating horned rabbits, he had engraved another agenda into his daily routine for this whole month. It was to investigate the monsters in which the subjugation requests could be accepted by E-ranked guild members.

Tanaka, a man so cautious that he would knock on a stone bridge and let others cross it before him to make sure of its safety. Sometimes he watched other guild members carrying out their subjugation request from afar, and the other times he watched monsters duking it out with each other, all in all he had continued to investigate the power of E-ranked monsters with his own two eyes. And today, he was about to mark the completion of his investigation on all of those monsters.「Fufufu, it seems that monsters with E-ranked subjugation requests all possess battle power at the same level as those of babies. With this I can almost guarantee my triumph over them all!」

Tanaka was pleased with the results of his investigation. It was no small wonder that he felt that way as he could already see a bright prospect of his future otherworld life. However, Tanaka wasn’t a man who would be satisfied with something of this level only. He was already in motion to head toward his next ambition.

「With this I can check making a living by subjugating monsters off my ambitions checklist. Which means the next step is to increase the number of my repertoire…. kukuku.」

Tanaka had a chuunibyou seizure as he let out such an eerie laugh. No one was there to be bothered by his antics since he was inside the forest. Well, at any rate, it could be said that it was inevitable that he was very excited about it. It was because Tanaka’s next goal was magic. It was without a doubt the biggest otherworld dream for a chuunibyou such as himself. He continued his strides as anticipations began to swell up inside of him. Tanaka involuntarily became light-footed as he made a stride back to the town. ◇ ◇ ◇

「Huh? You wish to learn using magic?」

Returning to the town, Tanaka immediately paid the guild a visit. While reporting on the completion of the request, he consulted his wish with the receptionist Jody. By the way, Jody was the same receptionist who helped him with handling his registration procedures.

「So you can’t use magic, huh. Your item box has an above standard capacity, so I thought for sure you were capable of using magic already.」 「Does item box have anything to do with magic?」

Tanaka was intrigued by the information which he had never heard before. Jody explained briefly as she continued handling her works.「I’m not quite sure of the details myself, but from what I heard, that the more magical energy you possess the larger your load tends to be… But still, I suppose that means yours is simply abnormal, huh.」

Jody paused with her works and looked at Tanaka as though she was looking at something curious.

「I’m afraid that people would get the wrong idea, so please stop phrasing it like that. Pretty please.」

Tanaka felt somewhat uncomfortable with the way she phrased it, so he pleaded with Jody. He also took to heart the mysterious contradiction of his ‘low magical energy but large item box capacity’. 「Just kidding. But well, if you wish to learn using magic, I suppose visiting the magic tool shop might be a good idea. You could buy magic books and contract papers for the number of magic you wish to learn there. It’s just, the magic tool shop in this town should only have magic books for tenth-order magic in their possession, though.」

「What’s that tenth-order thing?」

Encountering another curious word, Tanaka inquired. However, this time he failed to receive the answer for his question.

「I’m not too well-versed about this matter either. For that sort of question, please ask the shopkeeper of the magic tool shop or read a magic book directly… Alright! Here’s your reward for today.」

Handing over his reward, Jody then waved at Tanaka with a business smile on her face. Apparently, she was unwilling to accompany him any further. In the end, Tanaka asked about the direction to the magic tool shop before immediately departing there. However, as it was located wasn’t too far away from the guild, he soon arrived at the shop. There were numerous curious items in the magic tool shop which tickled Tanaka’s chuunibyou soul. However, he focused himself to first obtain the magic book and contract papers which were his main goals for visiting the place. Tanaka had thought about asking various things related to magic. However, the shopkeeper old lady’s appearance was unexpectedly scary. She was simply so scary. The cool person wished nothing but to escape the store as fast as possible. As he was about to leave the store, the old lady warned him not to practice magic in a closed room, so she might actually be quite a nice person, however, the one standing there was Tanaka the coward. His mind was swirling with nothing but the thought of running away. Truly a deplorable man he was.

Tanaka swiftly returned to the inn and immediately read the magic book in his room. It was a magic book for tenth-order magic, so it contained mostly about various fundamental information. The knowledge of the unknown was fresh to Tanaka, so he steadily absorbed them all.

Magic was divided from the most advanced of first-order to the most basic of tenth-order. He had also learned that he couldn’t learn higher order magic unless he improved his magic skills first. Furthermore, the ones inscribed on this magic book were contracts for tenth-order magic as well as the way to utilize them. Tanaka continued to peruse the book.

「It’s somewhat different from what I imagined. Well, I guess that’s inevitable since they’re just tenth-order magic, huh. But still, there’s nothing but the most common ones here…」