A building owner…it wasn't just Osian's dream. It was what everyone wanted to be.
‘Landlord.’
The word didn't mean much to Osian.
It wasn't as if landlords were less important in this world than Earth.
Houses were expensive in Tirna. In the better neighborhoods, the prices were sky-high.
Naturally, being a landlord was a marker of success that the common people here could only dream of.
It was clear that most fixers would buy a house and rent it out once they had enough money to retire.
Still, it didn't appeal to him.
‘I wish it had been like that in my previous life, so I wouldn’t have any wishes.’
Perhaps it was the influence of his environment.In his previous life, he had been blocked by a wall of unchangeable reality, and a landlord who guaranteed him a stable retirement seemed like a good idea but not now.
Osian took up the sword and fought and survived in a place that was more advanced than the Middle Ages, but more barbaric than this world.
There, Osian's possibilities were endless.
He saw, experienced, and learned many things.
His eyes were raised so high that being a building owner was not even on his radar.
Of course, he realized the utility of the building itself. He needed a private residence, not just cheap housing, and he needed a large space to train his knights.
'Now that I'm spending some money, other things are falling through the cracks.’
The ruins reminded him of the clothing Balud wore.
A garment that could mend and clean itself seemed quite essential.
'Even clothing must be quite expensive with that many magical treatments.’
The sword also needs to be repaired periodically, and I also have to pay taxes on the money I earn.
The more money you make, the higher the percentage of taxes you pay, so you can't be satisfied with making a lot of money right away.
‘This is why they say you can make money and never have enough.’
Unless you start a business or something, you'll eventually run out of money from your labor as a fixer.
I thought it was enough, but it turns out that it's not.
Realizing this truth didn't make me uncomfortable or unhappy. If anything, it motivated me to work harder, so it wasn't a bad thing.
‘In order to make big money, you have to be risky or rich enough to get the work.’
The problem was, they weren't there if you looked for them.
Take the Goldiron commission, and the exploration of ancient ruins.
It wasn't because Osian wanted to do it that he was able to do it.
In the case of the Ancient Ruins, he wouldn't have been chosen without half of Illua's curiosity.
‘It's not for nothing that fixers chase fame.’
As your reputation grows, so do your clients.
At that point, I didn't have to hunt for work, I could just pick and choose from a pile of applications.
I realized that some things in real life are like games. You have to do certain side quests to do the main quest.
I decided to ask Ronan if he had any suitable requests first, but then there was a commotion outside.
‘What is it?’
I stare out the window and see people running away from the street in panic.
Something must have happened.
‘What do you think you're doing on this side of the street? You're not even afraid of the guards.’
Osian sheathed his sword at his waist and stepped outside the Violet Fox.
As he turned his attention to the source of the incident, there was a loud bang.
Several broken steam vehicles lay smoldering in the middle of the street and aether water dripped from their shattered bodies.
It was the center of the mayhem that caught Osian's attention.
A wizard was rampaging through the streets, his entire body covered in magic.
‘A mage terrorizing in broad daylight?’
The people fled in a panic, and the guards arrived on the scene, having heard the news late.
Clad in brass armor over their uniforms, they surrounded the wizard.
“Wizard, stop your terrorist acts now!”
The leader shouted, but the wizard didn't listen.
‘Well, that's a little off.’
I assumed it was intentional terrorism, but the wizard's glassy pupils suggested otherwise.
He had lost his mind. With little more than instinct left, the wizard unleashed more magic than he'd been given, and wreaked havoc once more.
-Boom!
A large vehicle spun around and crashed into the men, bounced off by the mage's power.
Osian tried to help, but there was no need.
Tirna's guards had been trained for such superhuman rampages.
“Deploy defenses!”
One of the larger guards stepped forward and threw a capsule.
The capsule exploded, triggering the magic, and a large wall of rock rose up to block the car.
To the left and right of the wall, the troopers moved in unison, muzzles pointed at the mage.
With a loud thud, the mage's body buckled.
I thought he was dead, but he wasn't.
It was a tranquilizer bullet that had fallen to the floor beneath him.
But unlike the word subdue, that one was meant to incapacitate the opponent with pain.
The pain felt upon impact would be unimaginable.
“Ouch!”
The wizard flinched at the pain, but he didn't fall.
“More!”
“His magic is too strong, it won't work!”
The wizard screamed, unleashing a blast of magic.
Some of it turned into stone-like crystals, scattering around like a shotgun blast.
‘That's [Pure Magic].’
There are four main types of magic that wizards deal with.
Elemental, which utilizes elements from nature.
Pure magic that doesn't involve any processing.
Mechanic magic, which interferes with the laws of the world.
Enhancement, which interferes with existing matter.
In the case of [Pure Magic], it was a school of magic that used blue-colored mana as it was.
Just look at that crystallized mana right now. The mana that had turned into a stone had great physical power in itself.
Although it looked like a shiny stone, its strength and power was actually greater than that of metal.
Boom, boom, boom!
The soldiers using the wrecked vehicle as cover screamed and fell.
The energy crystals had penetrated the vehicle, damaging them.
The protective suits they wore saved their lives, but most of them were seriously injured.
'The mage is more skilled than I thought.’
Osian stared at the runaway mage.
The creature, whose entire body was covered in blue flame-like magic, had been stunned by the attack earlier.
Osian's eyebrows waggled as he recognized the mage inside.
He recognized the logo on the wizard's clothing.
‘That's the logo of the [Grand Cloister].’
That meant that the mage who was currently rampaging was a cadet from that academy.
‘But a cadet is using that much magic?’
It wasn't impossible if he was exceptionally talented, but the sight of him running amok on the side of the road in broad daylight was unorthodox to say the least.
“What the hell is going on?”
Ronan came out with Diolan just in time to hear the commotion outside.
Just as Osian was about to speak, a shower of crystals from the rampaging wizard flew this way.
Several of them flew toward Ronan, so Osian and Diolan stepped forward.
Osian's sword sliced through the air, and Diolan smashed the incoming crystals with his fists.
Ronan watched as the crystal shattered before his eyes.
Ronan's gaze fell to the shattered crystals scattered across the floor.
The shattered crystals soon disappeared in a puff of smoke, transforming into mana.
“Wow, that was quite a surprise. Such a dangerous thing flying at me out of nowhere.”
“Surprised? You didn't even bat an eye.”
Diolan smirked.
“Does it look like it, even though I'm so freaked out that I'm almost weak in the knees?”
“Yeah, yeah. I like my jokes in moderation, but what about you?”
“Whoo-hoo-hoo. You don't believe me.”
Diolan turned his attention away from Ronan and back to Osian.
“Apparently, the guards didn't step up either.”
“They did, and then he beat the shit out of them.”
“He's going to do some damage to the neighborhood if we let him.”
“I suppose so.”
“Well, maybe I should volunteer.”
Osian looked back at Diolan.
“You sure you can handle this on your own?”
“I am enough.”
Diolan rolled his shoulders and stretched.
“I haven't moved in a while, and I could use a place to warm up. You keep Ronan out of harm's way. Well, Ronan wouldn't be too surprised.”
No, he's already so freaked out he's about to faint.
Osian didn't bother to point it out; he was more curious about Diolan's skills than that.
‘Lorraine was very good with firearms.’
Not just sniper rifles, not just handguns, but all kinds of firearms.
Not just guns, but other weapons and tools as well, and her binocular vision was beyond most people.
'Diolan, on the other hand, is, as he himself once said, a melee fighter.’
Diolan pulled a knuckle from his pocket and slipped it on his finger.
He wondered if a modest knuckle, not his primary weapon, would suffice against a mage of that caliber.
With a clang of his fists, Diolan lunged at the runaway mage.
‘Quick.’
Diolan bounced with a light step, and each time he did, his body shot forward.
The speed was so great that the shadows seemed to move.
Diolan's body was incredibly elastic, as if he were a rubber ball.
In a matter of seconds, he was close enough to the wizard that he threw a punch at the wizard's head.
-Pow!
The great magic power that had blocked even the suppression bullets fired by the guardsmen was pushed back by the fist, allowing it to strike.
The wizard's back snapped, and the blazing magic around him shook violently but the mage did not fall.
“Oh?”
-Aaah!
The wizard screamed as he glared at Diolan with bloodshot eyes.
The flames of magic burned harder than ever as the magical power turned into a crystal bullet and attacked Diolan.
Diolan stepped back, his knuckled fists parrying and deflecting every single one of them, looking like a seasoned boxer.
Diolan bounced lightly, then stomped again.
“Huh?”
The wizard looked around, for out of his peripheral vision, Diolan had vanished like a mirage.
When he reached the wizard's back, Diolan curled his fist again.
He drove his fist into the back of the wizard's head.
The wizard's head snapped forward. Without looking back, he swung his hand, sending a sharp bolt of magic along its trajectory.
“Hmm. I've been feeling it since you went on a rampage, but the pain is dulling, isn't it?”
When he was hit by the suppressing fire or when he first allowed his side to be hit, he still felt pain but now it seemed like he wasn't even feeling it.
In other words, he was breaking his body more as he was rampaging.
“I'll make it quick.”
Diolan weaved, dodging every shot, until he was within striking distance of the mage again.
Diolan's fists pounded like drums against the mage's body as he dodged the blows.
Even though he had developed an immunity to pain, he was helpless against such a barrage of blows.
The magical fire in the mage's body was extinguished as the wizard slumped to the floor with his face swollen and bruised.
Osian watched the fight from start to finish.
'He's strong.’
Diolan had easily subdued the rampaging mage in less than a minute, a mage that even the guards had been unable to subdue.
He's not only skilled in combat, but he's also very agile, using his fists to push back magical flames.
‘He uses boxing, but at the core of it is his physical prowess and unorthodox fighting style.’
And that's not even his full power.
His true strength lies elsewhere, in his hidden past.
With that, the road was cleared by the reinforcements, and the situation was appropriately calmed.
The leader of the guards bowed to Diolan, thanking him for his help.
“Thank you, sir. You kept the damage from spreading.”
“Come on. We're near the office here, too, and we'd get tired if we left it alone.”
“Speaking of offices, do you work for Violet Fox?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“I see.”
The guard nodded in understanding.
The words alone gave him a vague sense of Violet Fox's stature.
“But what happened to that mage?”
Osian gestured to the mage being carried away on a stretcher.
His condition suggested a hospital rather than a detention center.
“We'll let him heal for now, but I don't think we're going to be able to take it easy on him.”
“He's a mage with Grand Cloister, so why did this happen during the day?”
“Well, I don't know.......”
The soldier said that, but Osian realized he was hiding something.
‘Something's going on.’
He smelled an incident, a very big one.
Osian, Ronan, and Diolan returned to the office.
It's a good thing it happened before more people gathered, though, that there were no casualties.
As they were thinking about it, someone opened the office door and walked in.
“Excuse me, is this by any chance Violet Fox?”
The woman's lemon-colored hair stood out against her cautious voice.
“Are you.......?”
“Oh!”
Osian recognized the woman, and when she saw him, she exclaimed in delight.
“Big brother Osian, there you are!”
It was Thalia Progenen, Terence Progenen's sister, who had come to the Violet Fox.