I Became a Magical Genius After Regression

Chapter 17

‘Did a hobgoblin attack as soon as we arrived?’

The knight frowned.

They had just arrived after a long march, and both he and the soldiers were exhausted.

But on second thought, it was also a good thing.

Even if they were tired, how could they not handle goblins?

Rather than searching the forest for hidden goblins, it was much better to just slash them.

The knight looked at the soldiers and said.

“You all heard, right? Goblins have attacked.”

“Yes!”

“It’s more convenient since we don’t have to wait. Let’s deal with them quickly, rest for a day in the village, and then return.”

“Understood!”

The soldiers, who were about to scatter to their lodgings following the villagers, gathered again in the center of the square.

But then it happened.

The people who had been murmuring near the square began to step aside.

Everyone looked surprised or confused.

“It doesn’t seem like an attack, does it?”

Manwellin’s words made the knight nod.

If it had been an attack, the villagers would have already fled by now.

Then what was the shout about a hobgoblin?

‘Could it be that some crazy person was playing a prank?’

If that were the case, he was ready to show them a prank that would separate their head from their body.

But in the end, his thoughts were a misunderstanding.

It was indeed a hobgoblin.

However.

Step. Step.

A man walked out from among the villagers who had stepped aside.

No, it wasn’t even a man. It was a boy who had just barely gone through his coming-of-age ceremony.

Even so, it felt like a heavy rock was walking, not a small boy.

It was because of the murderous aura Randel had built up over the past few days while seeing green blood.

It was also the momentum exuded by the pinnacle of talent that naturally dominated the surrounding mana.

And above all.

“It is… indeed a hobgoblin.”

The boy was holding a wooden stick in one hand and a severed head in the other.

The head, smaller than a human’s but with red skin, was undoubtedly that of a hobgoblin.

Bringing just the severed head was terrifying enough, but what was truly chilling was the hobgoblin’s expression.

Its face was twisted with fear and pain, as if it had experienced something unimaginable before dying.

“Hmm…?”

Randel was puzzled by the gathering of people but continued to walk to the center of the square.

He felt the need to show the people that the hobgoblin that had threatened the village had been dealt with.

However, there were more people than he had expected.

Over a hundred villagers, and even soldiers and knights who had appeared out of nowhere, were watching him.

The strange thing was that the square was so quiet that you could hear a pin drop.

A sense of awkwardness and embarrassment was felt simultaneously.

Randell scratched the back of his head and spoke.

“Uh… Is something going on? Everyone’s gathered here.”

The first to come to his senses was the village chief.

“Oh, no! Randell, isn’t that a hobgoblin’s head?”

“Yes, it kept bothering me while I was picking herbs nearby. So I just, snapped its neck.”

“Huh… Were there any other goblins?”

“Oh, there were. About 80 of them in total. Some ran away, but I caught most of them.”

The village chief was at a loss for words, unable to believe it.

Randell wasn’t a stranger who had just arrived in the village; he was a boy born and raised here.

It was hard to believe that the child they had seen since he was learning to walk suddenly brought back a hobgoblin’s head.

They might have thought he was lying, but look at the knights and soldiers glaring in the village square.

The Randell the village chief knew wasn’t foolish enough to lie in such a situation.

“Well.”

Randell shrugged at the bewildered village chief and the people.

It was natural for them not to believe him.

But at times like this, there was no need for long explanations. Just show the simplest and most convincing thing.

Randell extended his hand forward and muttered.

“Fire.”

Whoosh.

“…!”

A watermelon-sized flame flickered above his palm.

Randell was a wizard?

The villagers’ surprised voices and the sound of swallowing could be heard from all around.

“I’ve been learning magic as a hobby lately. I managed to catch them with this.”

Randell spoke nonchalantly, regardless of the people’s astonishment, and planted the pole he was holding into the ground.

Thud.

Then he impaled the hobgoblin’s head on top of it.

Drip…

Thick green blood trickled down the pole.

Randell spoke as if he felt completely refreshed.

“Ah! Now I feel a bit better.”

“……”

Anyone could see it was the behavior of a madman.

A different kind of silence descended on the square.

* * *

“Snore……”

Randell, lying on the bed, was wandering in dreamland.

Early in the evening, as soon as he returned home, he fell asleep as if collapsing, and even though the sun was already high in the sky, there was no sign of him waking up.

In fact, it was understandable.

He had been running around the forest all day for the past few days.

And it wasn’t just running.

He had been monitoring the goblin village, finding and hunting down the ones scattered throughout the forest.

In the process, he had been recklessly using magic and seeing blood every day, which was unknowingly stressful.

“Brother, brother!”

But there was someone who woke Randell from his sweet sleep.

It was his younger sister, who came up from downstairs with a clatter and shook him frantically.

“Ugh… What is it, why?”

“A knight has come to our house!”

“Okay, I get it, calm down.”

“But the knight……!”

“Alright, alright. I’m coming now.”

Randell ruffled his sister’s hair and put on his clothes.

Then, he gathered all the mana in his body in one go.

He felt his mind clear up.

From now on, he really had to speak well.

* * *

“You’ve arrived.”

When he went down to the first floor, he saw people.

The knight, Manwellin, his father, mother, and younger brother.

The sight of everyone crammed into the narrow first floor looked incredibly uncomfortable.

Especially Randel’s family, who looked beyond uncomfortable and had turned pale.

Sitting at the same table as a knight, even though they were quasi-nobles, must have felt like dining with an orc.

“Ra, Randel! You’re awake!”

Perhaps that’s why the voice of his usually grumbling younger brother was filled with delight.

“Yeah, I was so tired that I overslept. You should have woken me up.”

“I told them not to wake you.”

The young knight sitting at the table spoke politely.

Randel bowed his head respectfully towards the knight.

“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, Sir Knight.”

“It’s alright.”

“May I ask how I should address you…?”

“Sanchez.”

“Understood, Sir Sanchez.”

Randel had heard of the knight’s name before.

Sanchez. Despite being a quasi-noble, he was known for his modest and generous personality, as Manwellin had told him in the past.

They had met once before.

Although Sanchez wouldn’t remember Randel, as he had been buried under the soil of a grave at that time.

“I came because I was curious about the circumstances.”

“Do you mean how I caught the hobgoblin?”

“Including how you became a wizard.”

At that moment, a voice interrupted from the side.

It was the knight’s squire, who was occupying one side of the table.

“We’ve met before, haven’t we?”

Randel scratched the back of his neck as he looked at the squire for a moment.

“I’m sorry. My memory isn’t very good.”

“Think carefully. We met at the lord’s castle, didn’t we?”

“All I did was sell herbs… I haven’t met anyone other than herb buyers.”

The squire looked at Randel for a moment and then sighed.

Then he took off his wig. Surprisingly, hidden red hair flowed down.

The red hair was in poor condition due to long training, but its bright light still stood out.

“Even like this?”

“Yes, you are a woman?”

“……”

When Randell asked back as if he knew nothing, the squire, Manwellin, was silent for a moment.

In fact, thinking back, Manwellin was wearing armor when chasing Randell.

Moreover, he thought that Randell might not have seen his face as he was running away frantically.

Nevertheless, something kept bothering him, so he tried to probe, but the other party did not react at all.

“Sigh, okay. Then I’ll ask directly. Where is your master?”

“Master?”

“You said you learned magic. You must have a master.”

“Ah~”

Randell nodded and then asked to wait for a moment before heading upstairs.

When he returned, he was holding a book.

“If I have a master, it would be this book.”

“…Are you saying you taught yourself magic?”

“Yes.”

Randell explained the setting he had thought of in advance.

When he was young, he accidentally found a book in the attic of his house, and later, when he learned to read, he realized it was a magic book.

As he read and practiced it, he naturally became able to use magic.

“Let me take a look.”

Manwellin carefully opened the magic book on the table.

The old book was so worn out that it seemed like it would tear with just a little force.

‘I took special care of it.’

In this world, magical knowledge was extremely rare.

Even if one had talent in mana, most commoners would die without knowing a single letter of magic.

That was all because of the Mage Guild.

The Mage Guild monopolized knowledge for their own exclusivity and did not release it to the world.

So there were mainly two ways to learn magic.

[Join the Mage Guild and learn]

[Enrolling in the academy run by the kingdom]

‘So, I made this.’

It wasn’t much.

I bought an empty book from the lord’s castle, wrote down the basics of magic, sprinkled it with water boiled with acorns, and dried it well.

Then, I added a bit of mana to increase its preservation and left it in humus for a few days, and this is what happened.

Of course, it wasn’t a proper book.

It was made to the level of having a few introductory magic theories and a few 1-circle spells, so it was only about a dozen pages.

“It’s a real magic book.”

Manwellin, who had briefly looked through the book, muttered.

Sanchez, who was next to him, also nodded.

“I can faintly feel the power of mana.”

“The book says that one of my ancestors… anyway, one of my ancestors was a magician.”

“For some reason, they seem to have settled here?”

“From the circumstances, it seems so.”

“And you learned magic on your own by looking at this?”

“That’s right.”

“Goodness, should I believe this or not…”

Sanchez muttered as if he was dumbfounded.

Although rare, there were cases like this among knights.

If one trains ignorantly, sometimes mana can dwell in the body if they have talent.

Magic, on the other hand, is different.

A magician’s mana is not something that can be accumulated by moving the body.

One must accurately perceive the existence of mana and accept it into their body.

However, mana is something that all humans are born with and is commonly distributed everywhere around them.

Just as people cannot sense the existence of air, mana is too familiar to be easily felt.

‘That’s why the help of another magician is usually essential for magic initiation…’

A magician changes the nature of mana to be hot or cold to make its existence perceptible.

Of course, the other person’s mana sensitivity, that is, their talent, must be high.

Sanchez asked about that very part.

“Then how did you feel the mana? To become a magician, you must first be able to perceive mana.”

“Ah, that was easy.”

“Easy?”

“At some point, strange particles started floating in front of my eyes.”

“Particles?”

“Yes, at first I thought my eyes were bad, but when I looked at the book, it seemed like it was mana, so I tried learning magic.”

At those words, Manwellin asked in disbelief.

“No way, you could see that with your eyes?”

“Yes, isn’t it normal for wizards to see it?”

“No…”

Manwellin and Sanchez let out a sigh for what seemed like the umpteenth time.

However, the meaning contained within was different each time.

At first, it was confusion, then disbelief, and now it was mixed with admiration.

At the same time, Manwellin’s eyes burned hotly.

Self-taught? And what? You can see mana with your eyes?

Of course, it could have been a lie.

But at the same time, it was also a trustworthy statement.

Hadn’t he seen it himself? That insane casting speed.

Moreover, he was still young. It was unimaginable what kind of wizard he would become in the future.

If someone like this became a wizard belonging to the territory… there would be no need to worry about his younger brother anymore.

Suddenly.

Manwellin, who had jumped up from his seat, grabbed Randell’s hand tightly.

“Uh… Sir?”

Randell thought while pretending to be clumsy.

‘He’s desperate.’

It was only natural.

What Randell had shown was not in the realm of talent.

For those who handle mana, especially wizards, his very existence was unreasonable, it was truly violence.

So how could Manwellin, who desperately wanted talent for his younger brother, not be moved?

“Call me Manwellin. Your name is Randell, right?”

“Ah, yes. Manwellin.”

“Randel, what do you want to become?”

“Become? What do you mean?”

“You must have something in mind. Like a great wizard, a noble, or maybe a rich man.”

“Um… Not really. But I did think about learning more magic.”

“Then let’s go to the lord’s castle. Randel, whatever you want, I’ll make it happen for you.”

And then he added one more thing.

“You deserve it.”

Randel gazed into those passionate eyes for a moment.

After a long silence, he finally spoke.

Everyone’s eyes were on his lips.

“I…”