Side Story Part 3

In some particular cases, brute force was even used to make it happen. In Aubest’s case, he was exchanged for a set of agricultural tools made in Elam.

However, he has little memory of his biological family. For some reason he was always starting to feel bad and was experiencing pain whenever he tried to recall them in more details, so he simply stopped trying after a while.

Aubest thought about everything that he’d need to buy for Aishela, and he made a mental list in his head. He was used to this type of work, as he was often asked to do chores in the Kraische household’s Magic Division. Although he is not very quick-witted, he does what he is told and never repeats the mistakes he was scolded for making in the past, and after he repeated a certain task over and over again, he’d eventually perfect it.

However, work is always full of exceptions and unexpected matters, and it can still be confusing even to someone who was a seasoned veteran at it, so he developed the habit of anticipating every possible situation and devising ways to deal with those situation if they’d really come to pass. His senior Mages seemed to think he was a little slow because of it, but Aubest knew that he had no intention of changing his way of doing things, and even if he wanted, he was unable to.

Aubest went over and over in his head about how he could best procure the things that Aishela would need. The easiest thing for him to do was to ask the merchants who were traveling in and out of Elam to arrange everything for him. However, that would be expensive, and he decided that the important thing was to share the process of getting the necessary things together with this newly-adopted daughter of his.

「From now on, you’re going shopping with me. If you want something, feel free to tell me. But I’ll be the one to decide whether to buy it or not in the end. Is that okay with you? 」

Aubest called out to her, but Aishela didn’t respond. However, she seemed to understand that they were going out, so she got off the bed and put on her shoes.

(Three pairs of slightly larger shoes and ten pairs of socks.)

Aubest saw that Aishela wasn’t wearing socks and that her shoes were a little small for her feet getting smaller, so he revised the list of things he needed to buy for her with another two items.

Aubest informed the girl’s supervisor, Servia, that he had named the girl Aishela, and that he was going shopping with her, and with her permission, the two of them left the dormitory.

Although it was a bit far to the commercial district, Aubest decided to walk instead of taking a carriage.

He noticed that the girl’s legs were thin and she seemed to have lost her muscle strength. Aubest also doesn’t move his body unless that’s absolutely necessary or his current job requires him to do so, but other than that, he didn’t have any difficulties with prolonged walks. After becoming Matthias’s contracted Mage, Aubest learned that physical strength is also an important tool that a contracted Mage should have at his disposal.

「Let’s hold hands. Apparently, that’s what a parent and child are supposed to do in public. 」

After saying that, Aubest reached out his hand to Aishela. She didn’t hesitate and reached out to him as well, allowing him to hold her small hand in his own big hand. However, the strength of her grip was relatively weak, and he got the impression that she only followed orders because she was ordered to do so.

Children instinctively want to be protected. However, this girl has become accustomed to having no one to protect her, and she may have lost that instinct as a result. Therefore, she closed her heart to others.

Maybe someday she will open her heart again, but when Aubest realized that it was his role to make it happen, he felt hopeless.

(Why me of all people?)

No matter how he looked at it, he was still arriving at a conclusion that he was definitely not a right man for this kind of job.

Aubest himself is the kind of person who is afraid of other people’s emotions and doesn’t care about his own emotions, so to be completely honest, it would be easier for Aubest to handle this girl if she kept her heart closed.

(But if she stays that way, how will Servia, the superintendent at the Magic Academy, judge her? And how will Crisk, the principal of the Magic Academy, judge her for it?)
To become a Mage is to acquire the great power to control Chaos. The Mages’ Association is wary of this power being misused. Therefore, children deemed dangerous are screened out if necessary during their stay at the Magic Academy. And even after being screened out, there are cases where the Mages who were thrown out and discarded held a lasting grudge against the Association that led them to becoming Dark Mages.

According to some of the rumors that were circulating around Elam lately, these Dark Mages have formed an entire secret society, and its power was gradually growing with each passing day. Moreover, it seems that they are forming ties with other forces that view the Mages Association as their enemies.

For this reason, Aubest heard that the scope of selection in Magic Academy and Magic University has been expanded in recent years.

(This girl will probably be selected as well.)

Augest judged that objectively.

Just being obedient and doing what you’re told is not going to be enough here. Unless you pledge allegiance to the Mages Association, you are going to be considered dangerous, and since the Association would decide as such, no one would dare to question their judgement

Since Aubest had no ideals on his own, he had no problems with being faithful to the Association and sticking to the role that he’s been given.

Although he does not believe that the Association is absolutely right about everything, it is true that the Association has worked hard to restore order on the continent since its establishment. In order to end the Era of Chaos, they have given privileges and aid to the Lords who have demonstrated the outstanding ability to quell Chaos.

However, the times when the Lords were fighting against Chaos are long gone, and now Lords have almost exclusively focused on fighting each other for power and new territories. As a result, Chaos was increasing once more, and there was even a danger that the previous era, a time of Extreme Chaos, would return. The Mages Association was barely able to maintain order by regulating the battles between the Lords with various rules and agreements, but more and more members of the Association could clearly feel a strong sense of crisis as to how long this system would last.

On the other hand, the relationship between the Association and the Lords who are being integrated into larger powers was also becoming more delicate with each passing day.
Matthias Kraische, the leader of the Factory Alliance, the Lord whom Aubest was contracted to still recognized the authority of the Mages Association, but behind the scenes he has begun to exert various pressures to expand his power as a Lord even further. He also suspected that the Mages Associastion was somehow involved in the death of his predecessor, Jurgen Kraische, the Iron-Blooded Earl.

Since Aubest is Matthias’s contracted Mage, he has sworn loyalty to Matthias, and believes that the quickest way to end the Era of Chaos is for Mathias Kraische to unify the entire continent under the banner of the Factory Alliance with him as the continent’s Emperor. Restoring the Era of Order is also the philosophy behind the founding of the Mages Association.

However, when the time will come that Chaos will disappear from the world, it’d mean that Mages would lose the very source of their power. Some people feared that forces hostile to the Mages Association would then take that opportunity to retaliate against them. Therefore, there is a group of people who argue that the current system should be strengthened and made permanent.

The Mages Association is by no means a monolithic organization, and each faction has conflicting opinions on this particular matter. The Meletes family took the stance of upholding the ideals of the founder of the Association, and therefore actively send their own talented Mages to aid powerful Lords. However, such orthodox thinking may now be in the minority.

What will happen to the Magician Association in the future is beyond Aubest’s control. However, he had no choice but to take responsibility for this small life that has been entrusted to him.

This includes the decision whether to allow this girl to become a Mage or screen her out.