I Became a Magical Genius After Regression

Chapter 18

“Hahaha!”

“Drink! Let’s drown in alcohol today!”

The festival began in Randel’s village.

There wasn’t much to the festival.

They just lit a big fire in the square and drank, laughed, and chatted around it.

It was to commemorate the defeat of the goblins that had threatened the village.

And they had even defeated a group that included hobgoblins without any damage, so it was worth celebrating.

Of course, the villagers hadn’t really done anything.

‘Everyone’s having fun.’

Randel watched from a distance.

Randel had done the most, or rather, he had done everything by himself in the goblin subjugation.

But for some reason, hardly anyone approached Randel.

It was only natural.

‘That’s what wizards are like.’

To commoners, wizards were just eccentric and ill-tempered beings.

Moreover, he was destined to become a noble, so if they did something wrong now, they might face retribution later.

Even though Randel had spent over a decade with them in the village, that was how people perceived him.

‘Well, I understand, but…’

There weren’t many normal people among knights, but even fewer among wizards.

Especially those wizards who were once commoners behaved more viciously.

It seemed they felt inferior because they were chosen by mana despite being mere commoners.

‘Well, I did something too.’

No matter how excited he was, bringing the head of a hobgoblin and stuffing it in the village square was too much.

Even now, he felt embarrassed about why he did such a thing.

‘Still, today isn’t bad.’

Normally, he would have felt disappointed, but today, Randel wanted to be alone.

Step, step.

Randel, holding a mug of beer, disappeared into the darkness of the remote forest.

How long had he walked?

Randel sat on a rock where the noisy sounds of the villagers couldn’t reach.

It was so quiet that only the sounds of insects could be heard.

But the beer in Randel’s mug was slowly overflowing.

Because Randel’s hand was trembling slightly.

It was because of the thrill rising from his nerve endings.

‘Finally…’

Randel closed his eyes and recalled the hobgoblin’s last moments.

At first, he thought about torturing it to the point of regretting its birth.

In fact, he had quite a bit of experience with torture.

Being a mercenary was tough unless you were pretty ruthless.

‘If you look even a little weak, there are always a few who will try to hit you from behind or scam you.’

If you just let it slide after being treated like that, you’d be looked down upon and eventually devoured.

So you had to come out strong from the start. Enough to make the onlookers think, ‘Ah, if I mess with that guy, I’m dead.’

Of course, if they begged for forgiveness right away, you could let them off with a reasonable settlement.

But those who usually did trashy things wouldn’t be so compliant.

‘At times like that, you have to ask their body, not their mouth.’

It wasn’t difficult.

Using mana, there was no need to cut with a knife or poke with an awl, or do such senseless things.

Just injecting mana into their body and forcing them to move could give them hellish pain.

But yesterday.

Seeing the hobgoblin with its tendons cut in both ankles, unable to escape, a thought suddenly occurred to me.

―Did my whole family die and my life get ruined because of such a creature?

Then, the sight of the hobgoblin crawling on the ground to survive seemed more insignificant than a bug on the roadside.

So I just beheaded it with a single stroke.

After all, it’s just a mere hobgoblin.

This is a life regained.

In his new life, he wanted to leave the hobgoblin as nothing more than a stone in the deep mountains.

Is it worth wasting strength on such a stone?

“…….”

Randell opened his eyes and looked down at his hands.

His hands were no longer trembling.

Clenching those hands tightly, Randell muttered.

“Now it feels a bit real.”

He had returned to the past.

It was undoubtedly an unparalleled, extraordinary event.

But even though he was happy, it strangely didn’t feel real.

It felt like he was dreaming or watching someone else’s life.

But now it was a bit different.

To be precise, it seemed like a kind of turning point had occurred the moment he killed the hobgoblin.

[The self before the regression, whose family died]

[The self after the regression, who prevented that death]

And the self before the regression had just died.

Finally, he could face this life as his own, not someone else’s.

The sense of life.

“It’s not a bad feeling.”

Thud.

Randell lay down in the grass and looked up at the night sky.

* * *

Step, step.

Footsteps echoed in the cave of the remote forest.

The owner of those footsteps was a man in a black robe.

Even though the man was wearing a robe, it was clear that he was small in stature. However, his heavy footsteps created a deep resonance in the cave, contrasting with his appearance.

More than anything, an aura that would make any living creature shudder was emanating from the man.

It was the aura of death.

Because of that.

“Yelp, yelp!”

The wolves, which had been feasting on the goblins’ corpses inside the cave, were struck with terror.

The wolves tucked their tails and huddled in a corner of the cave, trembling.

But the man had no interest in them.

Instead, he began to inspect the goblins’ corpses that the wolves had left behind.

Traces on the corpses, the dug-up ground, the burnt huts.

“A wizard… quite high-level. He cast low-circle spells in rapid succession without casting. He’s not the one I’m looking for.”

Even so, the man seemed dissatisfied as he ran his fingers over the ground.

The man who tasted it after bringing it to his lips frowned.

“But why did he use poison? With this level of skill, he could have just wiped them out with high-circle magic…”

The man, who had been standing idly and pondering, shook his head and headed out of the cave.

Step, step.

Then, with the sound of footsteps, he disappeared into the darkness.

“I definitely felt traces… was it a mistake?”

He murmured to himself.

* * *

Swoosh―

Randell, who had been lying in the grass for a long time, got up.

His mind was refreshed, and the breeze was cool, so he had fallen asleep without realizing it.

Judging by the stars in the sky, it seemed about two hours had passed since he fell asleep.

“Well then… since I’ve worked hard, shall I settle the accounts now?”

Muttering to himself, Randell looked down at his hand.

On his finger was an old copper ring.

But despite its shabby appearance, it contained high-circle spatial magic.

Randel of today couldn’t even imagine such a level.

In fact, this was the first time Randel had ever used a subspace artifact.

Since it was such an expensive artifact, Randel, who was a poor mercenary, couldn’t even dream of it.

Wooong.

Randel infused mana into the ring.

The ring seemed to tremble a little, and then a black hole appeared before his eyes.

It was the entrance to the subspace.

‘I really thought I was going to die the first time.’

When using the subspace for the first time, it must be registered to its owner.

At that time, the ring absorbs the owner’s mana, and usually, people would buy a large amount of magic stones to absorb and then imprint the owner at the end.

On the other hand, Randel trusted his own mana and pushed it in, almost dying from mana exhaustion.

‘Still, it’s a relief that it was completed safely.’

Thanks to that, he had to lie exhausted in a hut for two days, unable to do anything.

Fortunately, once imprinted, from the next time on, it could be recognized with just a little mana like now.

‘Alright, let’s take everything out now.’

Randel tilted the ring so that the entrance of the subspace faced the ground.

Then he thought of the items he wanted to take out from inside.

Rustle, rustle.

Soon, all sorts of items began to pour out from the subspace.

The amount was so large that the items piled up to Randel’s height.

But most of them were useless things.

They were the junk that goblins had gathered.

Weapons they used, herbs in poor condition, various ores like iron and copper, some money, and other miscellaneous items.

‘Those wretched creatures. Couldn’t they have gathered something valuable?’

Originally, goblins had a habit of collecting shiny things like crows.

So, when you raided their lair, you could sometimes find profitable things like gold or silver ores, but this time there was almost none.

It seemed they hadn’t been in this area for long and hadn’t gathered much.

‘Still, this is something. I can melt down the weapons and ores to sell, and if I refine the leather well, it could fetch a good price.’

What he had hoped for the most were magic stones or high-priced herbs, but unfortunately, they were nowhere to be seen.

It seemed the hobgoblin had absorbed them all.

Somehow, he was using two strange abilities.

Randell sorted the pile of junk into things he could sell and things to discard.

How much time had passed like that?

Thud.

There was something noticeable among the miscellaneous items.

It was the staff used by the goblin chief.

‘Oh, right, there was something like this.’

Randell picked up the staff and examined it.

But he didn’t have any particular expectations.

In the first place, the staff used by wizards didn’t particularly help in using magic.

They mostly carried it around because it looked cool, and it was a symbol of a wizard.

Of course, there were staffs that assisted with magic power or enhanced concentration.

But those were mostly artifacts, and such artifacts were incredibly rare.

That’s why Randell carried a hand axe.

Even human wizards did that, let alone goblins?

The probability that this guy used it just to look like a chief was 100%.

‘As expected.’

The staff was made of ordinary wood, just blackened on the surface.

But the problem wasn’t the staff.

It was the ornament attached to the staff.

‘What is this?’

Randell examined the ornament for a moment and then tore it off.

The ornament at the end of the ring was made up of four palm-sized iron plates.

When he rubbed it with his hand, a faded yellow inner surface was revealed.

Even when he applied force, the iron plates didn’t budge.

It seemed to be quite a sturdy metal.

‘Is it just a lump of metal? But the patterns are too artistic for that…’

The yellow plates had irregular, wave-like patterns engraved in layers.

Moreover, it was sturdy and, above all, light.

It was so light that he could hardly feel its weight even while holding it.

I tried hitting it with a stone just in case, but it didn’t leave a scratch.

It wasn’t an ordinary object.

‘Is it a material for magical engineering that I don’t know about?’

No matter how much I racked my brain, nothing came to mind.

In the first place, I hadn’t studied magical engineering, or artifact creation, in depth, so I didn’t know much about it.

Still, I knew most things, even if they were decayed, but if it wasn’t in my memory, it might be a top-secret development of the wizard guild.

But Randel soon chuckled.

‘There’s no way a hobgoblin would have something like that.’

As if agreeing with Randel’s thoughts.

Trddub.

A window of letters appeared before his eyes at that moment.

∥ｘＶＤ６ＳＷ…….

“What is this all of a sudden? Is it because of this?”

Randel grabbed the golden plate and moved it around.

Then the letters in front of his eyes moved along with it.

He thought it might be the name of this plate.

But the letters were all broken and unreadable.

“Damn it…”

In the end, Randel couldn’t figure out anything and put the plate back into the subspace.

It was an item recognized by the divine box.

And Randel knew the race that knew these kinds of items best in the world.

‘I should visit the dwarf city later.’

* * *

It was still early dawn before the sun had risen.

Randel’s family was gathered in front of the village.

They were there to see Randel off to the lord’s castle.

“Randel, have a safe trip.”

“Be careful in front of the lord.”

“Yes, don’t worry.”

“Don’t flirt with the lady. She’s a noble, and if you mess up, you’ll be in big trouble.”

At the words of the younger brother, the father glared.

“Why say such things to a brother who is leaving on a long journey?”

“Come on, it’s not a long journey. Don’t you remember he went to Yeongju Castle just a few weeks ago?”

“This boy, always saying something…”

“Honey, don’t be like that on such a good day. He’s just worried about his brother.”

Randell chuckled as he watched his worried family.

Then he hugged each of them tightly and said,

“Well, I’m off then.”

That was it. Without looking back, Randell walked silently out of the village.

Ahead of Randell, Sanchez, Manwellin, and the soldiers were waiting.

“Have you finished your farewells?”

“Yes. Thank you for your consideration, Mr. Sanchez.”

“Don’t mention it. Let’s go then.”

At that moment, Manwellin interjected.

“But you seem more resolute than you look.”

“What do you mean by resolute…?”

“You walked here without looking back. Your mother is still crying, you know.”

“The shorter the farewell, the better.”

Manwellin nodded at those words.

It was nothing special, but somehow, there was a sense of maturity in his words.

He looked younger than himself, but his actions and words were strangely mature.

But Randell was really unfazed.

‘Well, we’ll meet again soon anyway.’

He still didn’t know what would happen when he got to Yeongju Castle.

But no matter how things turned out, his family would come to Yeongju Castle soon enough.

‘Because I’ll call them.’

Of course, the hometown village was a good place to live. The people were simple and knew how to share what they had.

But there were too many dangers.

Not only wild animals but also monsters.

And the winters were so harsh that sometimes people froze to death.

There was also a bad feeling about it.

It was strange for so many goblins, especially blood goblins, to settle near where humans lived.

Although Randel had cleaned them all up, it wasn’t enough.

Isn’t there a saying everyone knows?

‘What happens once can happen twice.’

He couldn’t leave his family in such a dangerous place.

Randel walked at the forefront of the group.

A boy leaves his hometown and heads to the city.

Now, the second act of his long life was about to begin.