LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 1
After working for 30 years as a game developer in my past life, I died from overwork and was reincarnated in another world.
My childhood was pure chaos due to memories from my previous life.
The boundary between reality and fantasy was blurry, and it was hard to distinguish dreams from reality.
And even more so, the world was more confusing.
After realizing who I was post the war I couldn’t remember and the death of parents I couldn’t recall, the first thing I saw was…
Children in an orphanage, waiting for death with eyes that reflected despair.
Here I am, failed yet again in this life. Should I just give up and die?
While I was contemplating this grim thought…
“Hey, you have talent! Become my disciple!”
I met my Master.
A beautiful girl with slightly older looks and white hair, but the light of magic and her pointy ears told me that she was an elf and not an ordinary person.
Actually, even in my past life and this one… she was the first to extend a hand to me.
That was the start of my journey with my Master.
That day, I became ‘Yuren’, the disciple of the High Elf Archmage ‘Irene’.
*
15 years have passed since then.
As my Master said, I did have talent.
Magic was a skill to reconstruct the world using magical power.
Thanks to my experience creating worlds through programming in various languages like C, C++, C#, I could quickly understand and learn magic.
Because of that, I became a 1st-tier wizard at the age of 20 after 15 years.
I was a 1st-tier wizard, the disciple of the Archmage ‘Irene’, and the practical manager of the Irene School—Yuren, the silver-haired young wizard—that’s who I was now.
Written like this, it may look like I’ve succeeded in life.
Yeah, just by the title, it seems like I’ve succeeded.
Just by the title, though.
“Yuren, won’t this time be uneventful?”
In the office of the Irene School, Jiren, the next disciple, was pacing nervously, scratching his orange hair.
I calmly spoke to him as a senior disciple.
“You still have a long way to go, Jiren. Do you not trust Master?”
“Th-that’s right! This time, it can’t be anything serious, right!?”
Jiren and I had handled many tasks together under Master Irene.
So, it wasn’t surprising that Jiren was this anxious.
I took a sip of coffee and said smoothly.
“Slurp… Something will definitely happen. Pray that it’s something we can handle today…”
“AAAAAAH!!!”
At my words, Jiren collapsed to the floor.
It’s easier to just give up, Jiren…
As I steeled myself for an all-nighter, enjoying the sunny weather outside, the door suddenly swung open.
Bang!
“Yuren! Jiren! Master is here!”
Karen, the priestess with red hair, burst through the door.
Finally, the moment had come.
I calmly finished my coffee and stood up.
“Alright, let’s go see Master, Jiren.”
“Y-Yes…”
I, along with Jiren and Karen, went to greet our Master.
At the entrance of the school building, Master waved at us with three carts beside her.
“I’m back! My disciples!”
“Welcome back, Master! Thank you for your hard work at the Magic Association meeting.”
“Not at all. It was a fun meeting again!”
The loli Master Irene, unchanged from 15 years ago, waved at us with a smile.
I responded with a smile… and initiated the inspection.
“Okay, everyone, let’s start the inspection. Go!”
“Initiate!!!”
“Eh!? D-Disciples!”
At my command, Jiren and Karen, along with our school’s disciples, rushed at Master’s carts.
As we checked all the documents, magical tools, and remaining travel expenses, Jiren said:
“Yuren-senpai! We’re short by 3 million gold compared to the plan.”
3 million gold was a significant amount.
The current house price was roughly 200 million gold.
Did we exceed the budget by that much?
I quietly glanced at my Master.
“Master?”
“U-Um, it’s because I felt so sorry for the children…”
Master couldn’t meet my gaze, stammering.
I could imagine without her saying anything.
Our too-kind Master always brought something for the kids whenever she visited.
Last time, she bought all the bread from a bakery and handed it out, costing 2.8 million gold.
I guessed she must have done something similar again…
“But still, Master, 3 million gold is too much. Next time, please only spend 500,000 gold.”
“Okay! Got it, my disciple.”
But this was manageable.
I could cover it with my emergency funds.
Alright, passed one!
In the meantime, Karen found something in the documents.
“Yuren! There are two business contracts mixed in with the other tasks.”
“What? Hand them over!”
The contracts Karen handed me included two jobs unrelated to our prior discussions.
[Production of One-time High-Capacity Dust Cleaning Magical Crystals]
[Creation of 20 Healing Potions]
I calmly turned to look at my Master again.
“Master, what’s this about?”
“Well… Juel said he might be on his deathbed and has leftover contracts…”
I didn’t need to see it to know.
That Juel from the Ore Magic School was a familiar figure to me.
I heard he was 97 years old and might be nearing his end… so maybe he asked my Master for help with his unfinished contracts.
“Please tell me this is for free?”
“Not for free! We agreed on receiving the remaining payment!”
Master showed me the contract.
It explicitly stated that we would receive the payment for the contract.
“But Master, you already have so much on your plate, isn’t it too much?”
“But you see, Juel is really sinking low… My disciple, I can handle this much.”
The actual request was likely from his assistant, Julia.
She probably dumped the workload on my Master because she didn’t want to do it herself.
I’ll spank her next time I see her.
Yet, we could manage this task in a day with a bit of effort… no, it wasn’t exactly easy, but it was within the expected range.
“Alright. I’ll handle it.”
“Hehe! Thanks, my disciple!”
Master smiled like an angel as she said that.
Unable to bear looking at such an angel-like Master, I turned my gaze away.
She truly was just too angelic.
In the meantime, the inspection seemed to be concluded, and reporting began.
“Is there anything more?”
“Nothing more!”
“Nothing here either.”
“Nothing weird here either!”
We checked every cart, and only two issues were found!?
Is this even reasonable?
I asked again.
“Nothing more! Are you sure?!”
“Yes! None at all, Yuren!”
“Really? We checked three times!”
In our Irene School, there’s a day called “Master’s Day”.
It’s not a day to give gifts to Master, but rather a day to deal with the incidents that arise after she returns from the Magic Association meeting.
When Master returns from such meetings, an average of five incidents happens.
[A Plague Potion Distribution in Gilbert Region] or [Royal Garden Maintenance] are some examples that routinely average a month of work for us.
Two years ago, during the [Food Supply for Border Troops], I felt like I was going to die.
That was when I realized there were harder things in life than game development.
But…
This blissful reality where I just had to expend a bit of my emergency fund and handle something alone for a day was just too exciting.
“Hey, everyone! After today’s work, we’re having samgyeopsal feast!!”
“Wooahhh!”
“We get to eat meat grilled by our disciple today!!”
This world had pigs and samgyeopsal too.
But instead of eating it, they mostly used it for making lard, and it wasn’t often cooked for consumption.
I couldn’t let them waste such a precious thing.
That day, I bought a large quantity of samgyeopsal and introduced it to my Master and disciples.
Along with pickled napa cabbage and chili sauce made using the local ingredients from this world, of course.
Since then, samgyeopsal became the regular menu for our school’s gatherings.
We seldom had pickles and sauces due to their limited availability, but it was fine on such joyous occasions.
I should bring out the wine I’ve been saving too!
While thinking about the joyful dinner gathering, my disciples and Master were delighted when…
A large cart loaded with something appeared in the distance.
What’s that cart?
A sudden feeling of dread washed over me.
“Excuse me, is this the Irene School?”
“Yes… but what about it?”
After a moment, the worker arriving with the cart said:
From my experience, every time someone said that at Irene School, an incident would follow.
Because of that, everyone, including me, glared at the worker.
The worker, flustered but diligently fulfilling their duty, continued.
“We’ve brought the contracted small magical crystals. A total of… 10,000 of them.”
“10,000 small magical crystals!?”
“We never ordered those!”
Small magical crystals were magical tools the size of small glass beads, helping ordinary people use simple stored spells cast by wizards.
In my past life, they were one of the magical tools that revolutionized the world, mainly used for communication or laundry spells in households.
As we were flustered by the mystery of this pile of crystals, we heard our Master’s voice.
“Ah! Finally arrived! My disciples, I got these this time!”
“What, these!?”
Our Master was well-regarded among wizards.
So it was common for her to bring back free items, like magical tools and food, from association meetings.
However, carting back 10,000 magical crystals was unprecedented.
“Indeed, the Grey School said they no longer needed these small magical crystals and told us we could take them. Look at this contract!”
The Grey School!
That’s a place I had some unfortunate connections with.
Something felt off… though my anxiety wasn’t unfounded since the Master assured me this time she had thoroughly ensured the contract was reliable.
Indeed, it stated they would give them for free, provided we pay only for shipping.
“What do you think? It is free, right!”
“Wow, Master, you’re amazing!”
“Ahem! This is thanks to my usual charm!”
Other disciples looked at Master with respect.
Transporting from the royal capital to here would generally cost about 1 million gold, but if we stored spells in these magical crystals and sold them, they could net at least 300 million gold.
Other wizards wouldn’t dream of making such a loss, yet…
As I pondered this perplexing situation, the worker neatly wrapped things up.
“Then, I’ll come for the shipping fee of 500 million gold in four months. Take care!”
“Wait! 500 million gold for shipping!?”
“Yes… it’s mentioned in the contract?”
The contract handed to me by the worker said so.
[Shipping fee: 500 million gold – Gray Trading Company -]
Got tricked.
This was a double-dealing scam.
These bastards played tricks on shipping costs!
Aaaahhhhhh!!!
Ah… my… blood pressure… my sanity…
“Yuren, snap out of it! Yuren!!”
“Disciple! Stay focused! You can’t die! My disciple!!”
That day, it was my first time fainting on Master’s Day.