WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: LilGuyBlastoise
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Made Magic Easier by Changing the Formula ◈
Chapter 33: I Found It on the Way
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Braen laughed heartily, still gripping my shoulder.
His booming laughter shook the hastily built wooden wall.
‘Could it be a coincidence?’
A bear-like build.
Hands as large as pot lids.
A lightning-shaped scar on his cheek.
And his name was Braen.
Even if a god rolled the dice, there was no way this many details could overlap by chance.
The legendary mercenary who had made Marquis Hargen, the Empire’s Sword Master and Bellat’s governor, drain a glass in nostalgia just days ago.
This old man was the Red Bear of the North.
“Brat, you came! You really came!”
Braen patted my back twice with his rough hand.
Thump. Thump.
The heavy impact felt like beating a drum.
‘Ugh... What kind of strength is that?’
He had enough strength to knock out a bear.
But then...
‘......?’
That one touch on my back.
In that brief instant, I reflexively changed my vision.
[Third-Tier Composite Formula: High-Precision Vision]
The formula I would normally have to activate deliberately triggered unconsciously.
It was a warning sent by my body on instinct.
‘What is this?’
Braen’s body looked as solid as rock.
But the energy flowing within it...
‘Grandpa’s mana core is strange.’
The paths of his mana were terribly irregular.
A Mutant Core like Nen’s?
No.
It was a normal core, but it had been brutally damaged.
It felt like a piece of cloth shredded by sharp blades, then forcibly stitched back together.
‘The mana channels can’t connect properly. They break off in places and twist into spirals.’
For him to display such monstrous strength in that state meant he was suppressing the pain of his entire body twisting apart through sheer willpower every moment.
‘Since when?’
For the texture of his mana to be this badly disrupted, it had to have been at least ten years.
‘He swallowed this pain alone for all those years?’
Marquis Hargen’s voice clicked into place in my mind like gears.
‘Then one day, he disappeared. At the height of his career, without a word. No one knows whether he lived or died.’
Now I knew why.
Those terrible internal injuries had forced him to abandon his life as a legendary mercenary and disappear.
Had he hidden it all this time because he did not want to burden his family?
My chest ached.
‘If I leave that mana core as it is, something will happen before long.’
Like cloth whose threads all came loose because it was not properly tied off.
The moment his mana scattered completely, he could be crippled.
Or die.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
I flinched and withdrew High-Precision Vision.
“Um... Grandpa, are you really all right? I heard you were sick...”
“Hohoho! Do I look like a sick old man?”
Braen laughed heartily, but I did not miss it.
The faint tremor in his shoulder muscles at the end of that laugh.
“Don’t worry. No one in this village has ever beaten me at arm wrestling. Of course, that’s because they’re all weaklings.”
He was trying to show how healthy he was, but he looked terribly unstable to me.
Like a machine still running despite being broken.
‘Can I fix him?’
All sorts of formulas came to mind.
Every kind of Orthodox Magic theory from the first through third tiers.
And my own new formulas, altered and remade from existing ones.
They circled over my grandfather’s torn mana in my thoughts.
Cloth and mana.
Fabric and the body.
At their core, were they not the same, in that both involved restoring a disrupted weave?
But I could not touch it recklessly.
One wrong move, and even the knots forcibly holding it together might come undone.
‘I need to examine it more first.’
Then Braen grabbed my shoulder again.
“What are you standing there thinking about? Come on! Roni and Carter will be shocked when they see you. Those two have been waiting desperately for you to come.”
“Yes, Grandpa.”
The village was small and peaceful.
Log houses stood clustered together.
Several plump chickens clucked as they crossed the road.
A little later, we reached a small two-story wooden house beside the village square.
A modest shop converted from the first floor had a sign hanging over it.
[Carter’s Fabric Shop]
‘They run a fabric shop here too.’
Jingle.
When I opened the door and stepped inside, the familiar smell of fabric brushed my nose.
“Welcome.”
Roni’s voice came from the back.
She was a little thinner, but her gentle tone was unchanged.
“Mom, I’m home.”
The movement inside stopped abruptly.
The curtain was pulled back, revealing Roni and Carter.
Their eyes widened as if they could not believe it.
“...Hans? Is that you?”
“Yes, Father. I’m home.”
“Hans? Is it really our Hans?”
“Yes, Mom. It’s me.”
“My son is home!”
Roni rushed over and pulled me into a tight embrace.
She seemed a handspan shorter and thinner than when she was in Rowen.
Yet the moment I was in her arms...
A hot surge rose in me.
The tears I had held back stung my eyes.
“Mom...”
“Do you know how worried I was when I heard there was a war? Thank you for coming home safely. Thank you so much.”
“I’m sorry for making you worry. I should have come sooner.”
“No. You came home. That is enough.”
Carter came over and gripped my shoulder tightly.
The corners of his eyes were already red behind his glasses.
“You have done well. To come back safely in the middle of all this... You have done very well.”
“Ahem! Ahem!”
Braen cleared his throat repeatedly behind us.
“Take your emotional reunion inside. Why are you blocking the entrance to a shop where customers come and go?”
He said that, but his own eyes were red.
We soon moved into the cozy living space behind the shop.
The four of us sat around a narrow but warm wooden table.
“So, is everything all right in Bellat?”
Braen asked in a deep voice.
“Bellat is solid as iron. The Kran army tried something, but Marquis Hargen, the governor, is still there, so they’re defending it well.”
“Hargen...”
Braen drained the glass of water in front of him in one gulp.
“That bastard... Ahem! No, that man. If he’s there, Bellat won’t fall easily.”
He acted as if he had misspoken.
‘He certainly sounds as though he knows Marquis Hargen very well.’
Then again, they were both human monsters who had stained the northern front with blood in the same era. It would have been stranger if they did not know each other.
If he had been close enough with Marquis Hargen to call him that bastard...
‘There is no doubt. Grandpa is Braen, the Red Bear of the North.’
My suspicion became certainty once more.
“How did you make it all the way to dangerous Bellat Fortress alone?”
Roni wiped her eyes again.
Braen waved a hand.
“All right, Roni. Stop crying and bring something out. Looking at him, this brat has probably gone days without a proper meal after traveling so far.”
“Oh my, look at me! Hans, wait just a little. Mom will make you warm soup and a meat dish right away.”
“Wait. Please hold off on dinner for a moment.”
“Why? Aren’t you hungry?”
“I’m starving, but there’s something I need to put out first.”
I took a leather bag from subspace and set it on the table.
Thud!
The old wooden table shook heavily.
“What is all this? It weighs a ton.”
“You’ll see if you open it.”
Carter carefully untied the leather cord and tipped the bag over.
Clatterrr!
A waterfall of blinding gold spilled over the humble table.
“Gasp!”
“G-Gold coins? What is all this?”
“You mean all of this is gold?”
All three of their mouths fell open at once.
Exactly one hundred gold coins covered the table.
It was a fortune that commoners would struggle to see, let alone hold, in their entire lives.
“Hans, you... You didn’t do anything bad or steal during the evacuation, did you?”
Carter gripped my shoulder, his face pale.
He was plainly terrified that his son had lost his head in the chaos of war and resorted to looting.
I laughed and shook my head.
“Absolutely not. I worked diligently at the Rowen library and invested some of the money in stocks. They paid off, and the money grew a lot.”
“Stock investment? The sort of thing only rich high nobles and merchants do?”
“There were promising stocks on the exchange that even commoners could buy in small amounts. I bought a few early, and their price happened to rise.”
Braen burst into hearty laughter.
“Wahahaha! I knew my grandson was no ordinary fellow, but he is exceptional even among exceptional men!”
“Goodness! What are we supposed to do with all this money...?”
Roni could not even bring herself to touch the pile of gold.
She only stared blankly at the table, as though it would vanish like a bubble if she touched it.
“This won’t do. I’ll take only ten gold. Keep the rest safely as your capital.”
“I have more than enough set aside for myself, so don’t worry. Please use this as living expenses.”
Of course, these gold coins were only a tiny portion of what I had stored in subspace.
They were already this shocked over a hundred gold.
If I took out more than that, they might faint.
The right answer was to bring it out bit by bit like an inexhaustible spring whenever they needed it.
“This is only the beginning. Don’t worry about money from now on.”
“A hundred gold is only the beginning? Oh, you... I suppose you took after your maternal grandfather when it comes to boasting.”
Roni smiled happily through her tears.
Her eyes were full of pride, as though wondering when her son had grown into someone so dependable.
There was much I wanted to say.
That I had lifted a curse in Bellat and saved an entire city.
That Marquis Hargen, the Empire’s Sword Master, had patted my shoulder and called me Baron Hans.
And that a petition for my official appointment as a noble had been sent to the Imperial Capital.
‘It’s not time to say it yet.’
It would take at least two months for a reply from the Imperial Capital.
If I made them hopeful in advance and it fell through for political reasons, their disappointment would be immense.
It would not be too late to tell them when I had the official baronial appointment in hand.
“And these are gifts I made myself.”
I took out another bundle.
Three pairs of cotton underwear that looked plain but held a soft sheen.
They were Magic Armor Fabric Underwear, made with care over several sleepless nights.
“Underwear? Why underwear?”
“It’s made from a special fabric popular among Rowen’s nobles. It should be warm in winter and cool in summer.”
“Hoho, you truly are the son of a fabric shop owner.”
Braen felt the underwear and exclaimed in admiration.
“The texture is extraordinary. It feels like silk, but it has a strange elasticity. You are quite skilled.”
Braen seemed to instinctively sense that the item was no ordinary thing.
But I only smiled and changed the subject.
“Finally, I prepared tonight’s ingredients myself.”
I went outside.
Then I took out the wild boar I had caught earlier from subspace.
Thud! Crack!
A tremendous roar, as if a giant slab of rock had fallen into the middle of the yard, sent thick clouds of dust in every direction.
“Oh my goodness! What is that?”
“No, goodness...!”
It was a huge wild boar.
An enormous mass of meat.
“D-Don’t tell me you caught a wild boar? That was dangerous!”
My parents believed I was a household mage who only patched cloth and used Mana Stitching.
If I said I had caught a wild boar, they would clearly spend the entire night worrying.
“Caught it? I found it on the way.”
“What? You found this?”
“It was lying dead in the bushes. I was lucky.”
Braen stomped over to the wild boar, then slapped its rump with his huge hand.
Smack!
“Wahahaha! It is full of meat and fat! The mountain spirit must have sent a welcome gift because my precious grandson came home!”
“That must be it. I was lucky.”
“By the way, Hans, was that subspace you used to take out the wild boar?”
“That’s right. It’s nothing special. Just something basic.”
I brushed it off.
“Ahem... I thought I could sense a little mana from you. To think my grandson learned magic. What a surprise.”
My mana core was covered by the Seal Concealment formula.
Unless I deliberately let out my presence, I always appeared to be at the beginner level of the first tier.
That was why even Braen, the legendary mercenary with thick, sturdy bones, could not sense my true level.
“Roni! Carter! Did you hear that? The child you two had is a mage, a mage! At last, our family has produced a mage! Wahahaha!”
Roni wiped away tears.
“Hans did manage to learn magic on his own. He can even mend torn cloth.”
“We couldn’t afford to send him to the Academy.”
“That’s right. With that hundred gold, there would be more than enough to send Hans to the Academy.”
“Yes. That would be best.”
Roni and Carter looked at me with bright faces.
They seemed ready to hand the hundred gold I had given them straight back to me.
“Haha, don’t worry. I really have plenty of money. Enough to study at the finest Magic Tower.”
“Is that really true?”
“Yes. So please use that money for living expenses. And make sure to give Grandpa plenty of spending money too.”
“All right. We’ll accept it, for the sake of your sincerity.”
Roni and Carter nodded, clearly moved.
“Still, how are the four of us supposed to eat a mountain boar this large?”
Roni looked at the boar’s massive body and sank into a happy dilemma.
Braen glared as though she had said something absurd and roared loudly.
“Where on this continent does a family hide away and chew on meat by themselves on such a precious, joyous day? On a happy day like this, the whole village must share the meat!”
Braen raised his voice from the yard toward the watchtower on the wall.
His booming voice immediately shook all of Ruber Village.
“Listen up, everyone in Ruber Village! Tonight, we will hold a grand village feast to celebrate my grandson Hans returning safely! Bring every drop of liquor you have and gather in the square at once! We will roast the mountain boar my grandson hunted whole!”
“Grandpa, I didn’t hunt it. I found it by the road.”
“What is found is hunted. Whoever eats it owns it.”
At that one hearty command, the peaceful country village sprang to life, buzzing with the lively mood of a feast.
* * *
Midnight.
The heat of the feast that had warmed the square had faded, and the entire village was asleep in deep silence.
Creeeak.
Faint footsteps softly treading on the dirt came from near the yard fence.
In the moonlit yard, a massive shadow was walking toward the small gate in the wall.
White hair.
A worn logging axe with chipped edges slung casually over one shoulder.
‘Grandpa?’
Carrying an axe at this hour?
There was no need to think about it.
I immediately got dressed and silently slipped through the window.
Braen passed through the loose gate in the wall and strode into the dense forest path without hesitation.
Only when he reached a steep slope halfway up the mountain, where moonlight fell in scattered patches, did he stop.
That was when I saw them too.
Grrrrr...
Between the trees and bushes.
Sharp eyes gleamed in the darkness.
[Black Wolf]
They were a pack of low-grade demon beasts.
More than thirty of them, by a rough count.
‘Don’t tell me he fought creatures like those alone every night?’
All the questions I had found strange during the day were answered at once.
Why there had not been a single demon beast on the forest road leading to Ruber Village.
Why the villagers could laugh and chat peacefully in the square without worrying about demon beasts.
The legendary mercenary, the Red Bear of the North, had been driving away the demon beasts that came down to the village every night.
“Hans!”
Braen shouted without even looking back.
“Are you planning to hide there and watch an old man fight?”
There was no need to ask how long he had known.
Even with such terrible internal injuries, the Red Bear of the North’s senses had not dulled.
I immediately stepped out from between the trees.
“No. I wasn’t planning to only watch.”
Mana gathered at my fingertips, condensing into an intricate Spell Formula.
“Leave them to me, Grandpa.”
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