The Mysterious Black Magician

The words of Miss Pai last night remained in his mind.

|What I originally wanted to do, ha...|

While thinking this. Yman's face was twitching. Behind his bangs, a glint was visible in his eyes.

And a scene was about to replay inside his mind when...

"Y-Yman welcome back."

A scene that was supposed to appear in his mind was interrupted by a sudden greeting from the shy girl in front of him.

Yman likes waking up from a nightmare blankly glanced at Chloe. He saw her staring at him with a puzzled look.

He blinked his eyes.

"Y-Yman, are you okay?" She asked.

He also noticed the other trainees glances at him. The two girls and the other boys besides them were whispering to each other while stealing glances at him. He doesn't know what they were talking about, and Yman doesn't care.

Though he felt that their topic was unkind to him. Maybe he developed a new skill that enables him to sense other people that are talking ill at his back. Yman sighed. Certainly, it was only his imagination playing tricks on him.

He turned his eyes again to Chloe and smiled at her.

Same as usual her deity was sitting on her lap connected by a cord of an earphone.

Yman wanted to laugh. |This Chloe really made her deity as an mp3 player!|

This was one of the uses of the deity. They could be used with mundane things such as this.

|Good for her having a docile deity. Unlike my Sistela.| For some reason, he envied her a little.

He doesn't have mana and he had a sulking deity, what an unlucky life.

He smiled and nodded then said, "Uhm, yeah sorry, I happened to remember something that I shouldn't have. Ah, by the way, thank you for the greeting, Chloe," he replied. He remembered that Chloe's deity was also a female type like Sistela.

<Goodmorning, bad villain man.>

A small and cute voice from a deity also greeted him. But for some reason, it somewhat sounded rude.

"B-Bad v-villain man?" Yman was dumbfounded.

"Did you hear that? Even that deity called him a bad villain." The girl with green hair beside Chloe whispered to the other girl beside her, which reached to Yman's ears.

He suspiciously looked to Chloe.

Chloe's deity suddenly greeted him 'good morning' but his name had been replaced by a bad sounding name. Chloe was startled from Yman's gaze to her, she hastily explained to him that she was innocent, and she didn't teach her deity about it.

She also said sorry from her deity's mean words. And hastily asked her deity with worried eyes, "J-Jazz, why did you call him like that?"

<Because he did bad things. And everyone called him a bad person.>

And that her reply. "N-No-no, Jazz, that's not what he... ah, ehm, he did that because he had a reason to do it."

Chloe who was flustered tried to reason to her deity.

<Is that so?>

"Mhm!"

She nodded.

<But it won't change the fact that he's a bad person, right?>

Chloe gaped with blank eyes. It looks like it's not easy to convince her deity to change her way of thinking about Yman.

Yman scratches his head. For some reason, he became the enemy of all-female deity!

Yman forces a laugh to Chloe and says that it's fine. And there was nothing they could do, looks like, female deities were programmed as kind and just.

A second later, he felt a slight tug on his left arm. He glanced and saw Bob opening his mouth.

"How are you, bro?"

Bob sitting beside him, asked him after a laugh from the words of Chloe's deity. Bob's deity was sitting on his shoulder like a boss. Yman, even noticed that Bob's deity already had arms. Looks like Bob's deity was at level 2 already, same with Chloe's deity. Whereas his Sistela was level 1 only.

Chloe was secretly thanking Bob for intervening before the situation became more difficult for her.

Although, Bob doesn't know about it.

"I'm fine, Bob. Thanks for asking. I think my stamina is now at 80%."

Yman replied while clenching his hand close and open to show that his stamina almost fully recovered.

"Haha, that's good. Really, what you did yesterday surprised us. We didn't expect that you're a channeler. It was unbelievable that you joined that fight, even though you don't have mana. Haha,"

Bob said with a grin on his face. In front of them, Chloe was having a scared look, because of Bob's unrestrained words. This Bob was as worst as her deity in way of talking! She thought.

"Hm... But, unfortunately, I failed, huh." Yman was looking down while saying this, and it was clear that he was having an unhappy face.

He certainly thought that he would succeed in killing at least one monster if he succeeded to drop the boulder in that battle.

But in the end, the resonance of him with his deity had been canceled, unexpectedly.

Looking at him having an unhappy expression, Bob felt that he made a big mistake in his words. "Ahhh, I - I don't mean bad with what I said, Yman, Bro." Bob hastily added.

"Ah, no, Bob, don't worry I'm not thinking about that. It just...my bad luck that I'm not strong enough and I'm not gifted by mana. And yeah, I'm a channeler, I learned it when I was a kid, haha."

Yman scratched his head and forced a laugh to assure Bob that his words were not the reason that he felt down.

Chloe and Bob sighed in relief.

"Yman, wasn't channeling mana was a difficult task and hard to learn?" Chloe asked.

"Yeah, it is. I'm just lucky that someone taught me when I was a kid. And that person said that I have a natural talent in this aspect."

Yman said while glancing at his palm. Right now, he could only rely on this channeling that he had.

"W-Wow, a master? I bet he was an old man with long white whiskers and hair."

Bob exclaimed and laughed. In his mind appeared an image of a benevolence master elder, stood while his broad back facing at his student and looking at the far horizon while speaking profound lines of wisdom.

"Haha, no, Bob. I think he's a young man — if I made a guess of his age based on his voice, and the way he brings himself — he was at least 20-30 years old at that time."

"Eehhhhh, So young! But then again, it's only natural since you were only a kid at that time. Haha, looks I overreact a little. Please say sorry to your master, Yman bro, for my mistake."

Bob and Chloe were both surprised after hearing Yman's words. Yman thought that these two might be thinking of an immortal master. But Bob noticed something in Yman's words.

"But how come that you based him from his voice and the way he brings himself or is it demeanor?"

"Why not by his looks?"

Bob asked curiously and Chloe added.

"Ah, that? It's because — he was wearing a mask and his body was covered by a long gown from head to feet whenever he appeared before me."

Yman glanced at the two. He noticed that Bob and Chloe furrowed their brows slightly. It was easy for him to guess what they were thinking at the moment.

He chuckled. "Haha, I know that you are thinking that my teacher sounds suspicious by the way he dresses. You bet, I also felt that way when I first saw him. But weirdly, when he started talking to me, that suspicion I had at first, magically gone..."

"Oh, You mean...?"

Chloe intervened with an indirect question.

"I mean, he seemed so mysterious, and sometimes he knew what I was thinking. He could also guess what decision I would make at a specific moment."

Yman added.

"Hmmm..."

Chloe and Bob were having long thoughts.

"Hm... sounds like a Fate Master."

Mai who was silent for a while suddenly intervened.

"Fate Master?" Yman repeated. The three of them looked to Mai while wearing curious faces.

Seeing their faces. Mai sighed saying 'can't be helped.'

"Right. There was a tale about a person with a weird habit of foretelling someone's fate. Some said it was a false and hoax tale. And some rebutted that he was real and that what he was telling was 80-100% accurate. But I won't say that he was the same person as your master."

"Yeah. Me too." Yman agreed to her.

But Yman narrowed his eyes. |Fate Master ha.| This name was familiar to him.

Suddenly, in Yman's memory, the last scene with his teacher before he left, was replaying.

<><><>

"Teacher, why did I need to practice even though I don't have mana? I don't even need to learn how to fight. Since what I want is to become a rich man in the future. And live a normal life. My parents told me that I don't need to learn how to fight. Only magicians have the right to it. Because even if I learn how to fight, it is impossible for me to kill even a monster of rank -D." An innocent statement of a kid.

He could not read his teacher's emotion behind the black mask with a carve of one big eye in a gray color and inside that big eye was another 3 eyes in a triangular formation; whereas, the third eyes were in a close state. And another eye at the mouth area in an open state.

"Yman come here."

A person wearing a gown embroidered by — gray and gold — and a mask on his face beckoned on a 5 years old kid Yman.

Gripping the wooden sword that's taller than him, he tottered towards the person that he called the teacher.

"Teacher, why?" He asked.

The person gently placed his hand on top of his head. Then he looked at the sky.

"Do you know that — the person who was born with heroic desires will be blessed with an abundance of mana. The stronger the desire the more mana the person gets, and when his/her desire continues to grow stronger, the stronger the person will get as he/she grows. On the contrary, the person who doesn't have this heroic desire will eventually have a lower chance to grow with mana."

"Is that mean, the reason I don't have mana was that I don't have that desire?"

His teacher nodded. "Although you don't have mana, it is also true that the person who has the strongest desire can eventually kill a godly dragon even without mana. What a person needs is a boundless desire and limitless wisdom to step on the peak of the tallest mountain. You could even have a chance of killing the unkillable enemy — that was gazing at you from above."

Kid Yman asked while looking up at his teacher's mask, who's staring at the sky.

"Master, what kind of enemy is unkillable that you just mentioned?"

"#%¥£$%#$¥€£¥"

He couldn't understand his reply at that moment.

But after saying it, his teacher left. Yman returned to his home and witnessed a scene. It was a scene that he doesn't want to see, he wanted to forget but he couldn't.

Because a scene, in front of him, was a scene where his mother and father were brutally murdered.

A long sword embedded in his father's chest. Whereas, his mother was lying in a pool of blood, underneath his father.

And a person with long spiky hair dyed in red and has eyes that look like the eyes of a predator. He was standing beside his father while his hand on the sword handle. On the sword that pierced his father's chest.

"Y-Yman... run..." his father's grieving voice pleaded with him to run. But he was shocked and could not move. He was standing still with blank eyes.

The killer twisted his neck to look behind him. He then saw him.

Yman was staring with a crying face and was gravely afraid.

Blood was splattering around when that person pulled the sword from his father's chest. The killer was walking towards him. But Yman's body froze in fear. He could only stare at that person's menacing gaze as he deliberately walked closer and closer to him.

"Hehehehe...a kid, huh," the killer said while licking the blood of Yman's father that was staining on the killer's sword.

"This is, great! More soul...more soul...more soul for this greedy sword of mine. Hahahaha!" He was spreading his hands as he said it, and the sword was oozing with black energy.

On the hilt of the sword, the monster's mouth was carved at the tip of it. And fangs were visible at the boundary of blade and hilt.

Yman felt the chill coming from the sword. And a sinister feeling was pressuring him that made him unable to run and rooted his feet to where he was standing.

He wanted to shout for help! But how? They were living on the mountainside. Their nearest neighbor was at a 1-kilometer distance from them. And his teacher already left.

No one could help him.

The killer was walking towards him in a not hurry and at a not slow pace. Any moment his death would be certain. His small hands were trembling as he summoned his strength and successfully lifted the wooden sword in his hand.

But the killer was already in front of him. He was looking down at the kid. While gazing at Yman with his eyes that look like the eyes of a fierce beast. That ready to devour his prey.

Yman gritted his teeth, and tears were forming at the corner of his eyes.

"Haaaaaa! W-Why?! Why did you kill my father and mother?!!!" he shouted while looking up at his face. Like looking at the most disgusting shit in the whole world.

He stabbed the tip of a wooden sword towards the killer.

But the killer caught the sword. The gap in strength between them was too wide. Like comparing heaven and earth.

"Hehehe, hahahahaha — kid, are you that angry to see your parents died? Hahahaha! Poor thing, poor thing! Soul give me your soul! Fuel this sword with that petty soul of yours! Hahahaha!"

The laughter of the killer was like a curse in his ears.

"Shut uuuuuup!!! M-Murderer, I will ki - kill you! I will avenge my parents, I will kill you!!!" He tried to pull the sword. But it won't budge even a little. The killer was laughing at his struggle. Yman tried to kick the killer, but his legs that were at half-length only than his sword could not reach the target.

"Ohohoho-hahahahaha- you want what? Avenge your dead parents? You can't even save your life. Kufahahahahahahaha!!!

The earrings that were lining on his mouth were dancing as he was laughing tremendously.

"Haaaaaah!"

Yman yelled again. Even though tears fell from the corner of his eyes, he did not give up and released the sword then leaped towards the killer's leg. The fear he felt a while ago already vanished.

What he wanted to do now was to avenge his parents. It doesn't matter for him if he died, as long as he could wound this enemy. No matter what, he won't die without a fight.

"Hehehe, hey, kid, what are you doing?"

Without answering him, Yman's mouth opened wide. Then, he bit the killer's leg.

"Bwahahahahaha! That was useless! Useless! Useless! hahahahaha!"

Yman seemed to notice that what he did nothing to the killer.

His strength was not enough to cause a wound to the killer. It looks like this killer was not an ordinary person!

"Hahaha, kid, are you done with your little game? Hehehehe! Now beg! Beg! Beg! Beg for your petty life! Then resign your soul to my sword! Hehehe!"

His laughter sounds sinister which sends a chill to Yman's spine.

He gritted his teeth and balled his palm.

Yman summoned all his strength and punched the killer's crotch.

"Ugh!"

The killer seemed to be affected by it. Since he stopped laughing and groaned.

"You bastard! That's foul!"

Whoosh! The killer flicked his leg where Yman was sticking like a lizard. He tried to hold on to the killer's trousers. But the second time he kicked his leg, Yman lost his hold and was thrown away then bumped at the house wall. His hand hit the flower vase which caused it to drop on the floor and broke.

"Ughhh!" *cough!* *cough!*

Yman was groaning as he balled his tiny body to endure the pain while coughing blood.

"Waaaaaaaahhhh!!!"

Suddenly, he heard a crying noise. His eyes opened wide and, "n-no way..." Yman muttered in a close eye and endured the pain that he felt.

The cries of a girl kid were heard inside the room.

It was the cry of his sister!

"Y-Yana? Y-Yana p-please don't cry he will hear you..." Yman tried to crawl towards the killer's feet and muttered the words in difficulty.

The killer smiled and glanced at the room where the voice came from.

"Hehehehehe, soul, soul, more soul..." he stepped towards the room while repeatedly chanting the word.

The tip of the sword was pointing below, where blood from his parents was dripping on it.

"W-Wait! Stooooop! No! Not my sister! Please not my sister..." He cried.

Yman weakly crawled. But the killer did not stop and continued stepping inside the room.

"Waaaaaaaaaahhhh! Mother, father, Big broooo! Where are you? I'm afraid, I'm afraid, please, don't leave me..."

Yman although having no strength to stand, crawled hastily towards the killer.

The killer stopped in front of the cabinet, where the crying voice of Yana came from. He lifted his hand that was holding the sword. But before he could slash it, Yman dove on his feet and bit it.

The killer had a mocking face. And kicked him towards the cabinet. Yman bumped on the cabinet and almost lost consciousness.

"You're a tenacious little soul...hehehehehe!"

Yman was groaning. Brought by the impact when Yman bumped on the cabinet's door, the cabinet opened. And there, a girl was trembling while using her tiny hands to cover her head.

"Big bro?"

She saw her brother in a bloody state while curling on the floor in pain. And a man was holding a sword with menacing eyes, looking at her.

"Hewehehehehe, new soul, new soul..."

"Y-Yana..."

"Hehehe, now goodbye brat...Gwahahahaha!"

Yana saw the scary person lifting his sword high. His target was her brother. The killer swung his sword, but before it landed on Yman, Yana dove to protect his brother.

The sword hit her but a blinding glow suddenly erupted from her body. And pushed everything around her. The killer was thrown away and bumped his head on the wall.

Although, it didn't manage to kill him, he almost passed out. The killer blinked his eyes and seemed surprised by what he witnessed.

Blood was running down from his head.

On the other hand, Yana was standing in front of his brother. She was enveloped by a blinding glow. She was glowing — even her eyes.

Yman was dumbfounded staring at his sister.

"F-F-Fate, one of the chosen...one of the chosen by Fate Master..." the killer muttered repeatedly these words.

After that, the killer seemed scared he ran and fled.

That was the first time he heard the word, Fate Master.

Yman doesn't know why he seemed so afraid and escaped.

He was also surprised that his sister turned into a lamp.

But a moment later she lost her consciousness. She became sick after that incident. And losing their parents, the two of them become an orphan.

<><><>

"Uhm, Yman, it might be presumptuous of me to ask, but I will ask anyway. Uh, don't get me wrong, it's just to make it an example, but that if — if it's fine with you..."

Mai glanced at Yman while crossing her hands across her chest, and crossed one of her ample legs on top of the other one. In front of her, Brai was silently sitting, in a posture that was like a mirror of her.

Yman side-glanced at Mai. He thought that she was a fine girl and looked classy. The best thing about her was that she doesn't look down at other people beneath her.

He was curiously thinking about what she would ask him. Why him, and not Bob or Chloe? In any case, he was the only one who had no mana among them. So, he could guess somehow of what she would be going to ask him. It might be about his goal or ambition in life.

Since they are already talking about mana and Fate Master.

"...Uhm, I don't know what you wanted to ask me, but, you said that...it's just to make an example, so I don't mind. I will answer if I have the answer, just spare me from questions that are beyond my imagination, haha," He tried to joke.

Bob laughed, and Chloe in front of them smiled. While the other trainees besides them — inside the carriage — were having floating question marks on top of their heads.

"Understood." Mai nodded and blinked her eyes before she opened it again, the corner of her eyes glanced at Yman, then she asked, "may I or we know what is — you most wanted to do in the future?"

|Looks like I've hit the mark. My guess was right.| He thought.

"Future, ha, hmm..."

Yman made the thinking gesture. He could really not answer her truthfully.

"I think — to become a strong magician, so I can join the Seekers Association. Then, gain lots of money. And after my retirement, live a normal life."

His answer was simple and direct. Though he also wanted to become the strongest magician, that's because — it's free to dream, after all, ambition is boundless and limitless. But the truth was, he could not tell them his real goal.

"I see, so, that's maybe the reason that you don't have mana," she said.

|Looks like Mai also knew about it.|

Like what his teacher told him, about desire and mana.

Mai explained to them about it. But Yman chose to not listen anymore since he already knew. He was thinking about his sister.

On the other carriage, Sistela was sitting on Yana's lap. Yana was thinking about what her brother was doing at the moment.