Chapter 24

"I think it's fine. Your eyes are pretty."

Ash looked up with slightly surprised eyes, then returned to his original expression and muttered.

"Honestly, it's not the first time I've heard that."

"I suppose so..."

"But, Nain."

"Yes?"

"Do you often say such flirtatious things to other people too?"

He asked in a playful voice. Nain hesitated for a moment.

"...I wasn't flirting."

"It could sound like that."

"..."

Nain thought about what he had just said. When he reconsidered it, it did seem like it could sound that way. If only it weren't a situation where both he and the other person were men.

When Ash lifted the fountain pen from the paper, the engraved magic activated and began rapidly repeating the same characters following Ash's handwriting.

"This is really fascinating. It's like magic."

Well, it is real magic... The automatic fountain pen also had a function to record what was spoken, but Nain saved his words. Even if he explained it, this person wouldn't properly understand, and it wasn't a function he used well anyway. It sometimes caused situations where he'd have to do twice the work because it recorded even stuttering and mistaken words. And actually... these kinds of magical tools are cumbersome so they're not used much these days. Nain just had it as a keepsake.

Ash tried writing various words as they came to mind and also clumsily tried to copy Nain's name that he had written. However, the name Nain that he actually wrote had wrong strokes and looked like 'Nyang Yelyeowin.' Nain didn't point out that he had gotten it wrong.

Meanwhile, Ash asked.

"There's something unusual in the end part of this. Like a small pebble... This must be the power source."

At those words, Nain snapped to attention.

"...How did you..."

"You can tell just by looking."

He shrugged. With just a brief careful look and some fiddling, Ash had instantly grasped the operating principle of the magical tool. Despite knowing absolutely nothing about magic. It looked no different from other pens on the outside.

Nain was frozen in surprise for a moment before his thoughts shifted to thinking it could be possible. After all, everyone had different talents. Take himself, for example. People wouldn't believe that Nain had the ability to know which parts needed immediate treatment just by looking at them briefly.

Maybe Ash's case was similar. An ability to know structures just by looking, even if he couldn't explain it properly.

"That's an artificial magic stone... ah, that is, a gem with magic engraved on it. It's the work of craftsman mages."

"Tax mages?"

"Craftsman..."

"Are mages divided into types too?"

At Ash's thoughtless comment, Nain looked up sharply and launched into a passionate speech.

"Other professions have specialized fields within them, so why wouldn't mages be divided too?"

"Ah, yes... Sorry..."

Surprised by Nain's outburst, Ash muttered an apology in bewilderment. Nain decided to graciously accept his apology.

"General mages find delicate work like craftsmanship difficult. Craftsman mages' work is closer to the artistic realm than magic."

"So they're artisans?"

"They're artisans but also mages. Gem craftsmen who can handle magical power are simply called craftsman mages."

"Mm..."

"Even among craftsmen, they're extremely few, and masters don't tend to have many disciples, so there aren't that many of them. Due to the nature of engraving magical formulas on gems, they form art villages and live together in areas where gems are easy to obtain."

"Aha..."

"By the way, I once went there for a field trip while attending the Academy, and it happened to be when apprentice craftsmen were being educated, so there was a lot to see. This fountain pen is also a souvenir I bought there."

"...I see."

"Gems just need to be hard enough to withstand magical power."

"Hard..."

"Gems with magical power engraved in them take on properties related to the engraved magic from that point on, and that's called an artificial magic stone. High-level magic can't be sustained by gems of this level. The magic that goes into automatic fountain pens consists of relatively short formulas, so usually apprentice craftsmen... ah."

"..."

As he spoke, perhaps because he was absorbed in it, Nain had ended up bringing up really trivial and useless details. He had overlooked the fact that the listener might be bored. When Nain belatedly realized he had talked too much and shut his mouth, Ash swallowed a yawn and offered a comment.

"It was quite interesting."

"..."

"Just kidding. Could you tell?"

He joked with a playful smile. Nain also laughed along and shut his mouth.

Anyway, when dealing with people who don't know what magic is and have no interest in it, you really feel that you live in different worlds. He had a bitter taste in his mouth.

"Do you want to go home?"

Ash asked. He didn't know in what context he was saying this again, but from a castaway's perspective, it was a question with a predetermined answer. When Nain nodded without hesitation, the corners of Ash's mouth slowly curved up.

"Then you'll have to stay on my good side."

Nain's eyes narrowed. So, why again? Of course, there would be nothing good about being disliked by others. But what was this man's words that seemed to be trying to grab his weakness and that mysterious expression supposed to mean?

"Why?"

"Because I'm the only one who can send you home."

It was something that could sound like a threat if you listened casually. Nain asked back with narrowed eyes as if to prove the credibility of those words.

"What do you mean by that?"

"I'm the only Esper who has survived coming out of corridor-type gates without getting lost."

"...This is the first time I'm hearing this."

"I was also the one who picked up Nain from that gate. I went into that gate alone."

"..."

"If you can't believe it, go ask those useless Esper friends of yours."

But if possible, you should cut ties with people who are of no help to your life whatsoever. What's the point of staying close with people who don't even tell you things like this?

Ash advised in a tone as if soothing a child. By now, the smile had disappeared from his face.

Nain roughly let the latter part go in one ear and out the other as he fell into thought.

'If what Ash is saying is true...'

A way to return home.

Click. It was the moment when the light turned on for Nain's first goal. At least these words were more valuable than the center executives who just repeated like parrots to wait for the gate to open again. At least he could get a sense of what to do going forward.

Ash was talking about something that even other Espers found difficult to discuss as if it were a very easy problem. His persistent yet observational eyes were also mysteriously affectionate. He seemed to see right through Nain with just his gaze.

"But why are you telling me this?"

"To help Nain."

"...You're just helping me? Without any compensation?"

Ash shook his head briefly.

"No. I can guide you, but there needs to be appropriate compensation for that."

Nain agreed. If you receive something, naturally there should be compensation too. There was no such thing as free in the world...

"About three things?"

"Three whole things?"

No matter what, to demand three whole things as compensation. When surprised Nain gasped, Ash held up one finger.

"First of all, you never know when corridor-type gates will appear and when they'll disappear... So once a gate is created, the important thing is to reach that place as quickly as possible."

He stopped talking mid-sentence, moved along with his chair behind Nain, and poked the back of his neck with his finger. Huh? When startled Nain turned around, Ash had moved back to his original spot and sat down.

"..."

"..."

The three candies he had been holding in his hand were floating in mid-air. Nain watched the scene in a daze.

"Do you know what a wormhole is?"

"No."

At those words, Ash dropped the candies he had been floating in the air, caught them again with his hand, and said.

"Actually, I don't know much about it either. Others say it's roughly similar to that, but how should I explain it... To put it simply, my ability is spatial transfer. If there are starting and ending points in a straight line, I distort space so that those two points overlap each other."

It didn't sound entirely unfamiliar. He could think of it roughly as an ability to move through space. Nain had high-grade teleportation scrolls and had actually used them.

Of course, the ability Ash was describing seemed to have a slightly different principle from magic scrolls. Rather than distorting space, scrolls rode on magical power in the air to quickly move to locations where coordinates were engraved. So if it was a place where mana was sparse or a path where its flow was cut off, they couldn't be used at all. Time-wise, it could take as little as one minute or over ten minutes depending on distance.