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After finishing our meal, I parted ways with Solana for a while. Although she seemed to want to spend more time together, we both had urgent matters to attend to. For instance, I had my inauguration ceremony in just a few hours.
"It's quite lively."
The number of people bustling through the busy streets was increasing.
Clean streets without a speck of trash, buildings and facilities lined up at regular intervals, and faces moving with both busyness and vitality.
Standing in the center of it all, I reflected on my conversation with Solana.
— I need to send a reply. Give me their address.
— What will you write?
— Just one line. I'm only going to write about the location.
— Ah, you plan to summon them directly.
But she showed signs of concern.
— Providing the address itself is easy… but I'm not sure if the department heads will read your reply. It's hard to guarantee.
Solana's subsequent explanation made quite a bit of sense.
From their perspective, there's a high chance they won't read a reply from someone known to be of common birth with no experience. Even if they do read it, they're likely to ignore it until the inauguration ceremony.
I exhaled a puff of sunweed smoke.
"This is why fame is troublesome, and obscurity is frustrating."
— Well, let's send the reply first. I have a plan.
So I had sent the reply, and now I needed to find a way. A way to make those guys read my reply somehow and come running to the specified location.
As I continued pondering while walking for quite some time.
I suddenly stopped in my tracks.
It was in front of a hair salon.
I was about to pass by, but my reflection in the glass window caught my attention.
Like a wolf that had been rolling around in the wild, with white hair flowing down to my waist, chewing on sunweed — a rather unkempt appearance. It would be somewhat inappropriate to attend the inauguration ceremony looking like this.
'I should at least look presentable as an inspector.'
Since I could think about my plan while sitting down, there was no reason to hesitate visiting the salon. I made up my mind and stepped inside.
"Uh…"
The height difference between the hairdresser and me was truly immense. She looked up at me, far above her, and stammered, "Are you… here for a haircut?"
"Yes."
"Um… you'll need to put out your cigarette…"
She mumbled in a timid voice, carefully gauging my reaction.
While I had no intention of causing trouble, I usually need a few conditions met before I can spit out my sunweed.
"How long will it take?"
"We can start right away, so 20 minutes should be enough."
"20 minutes, alright."
I spat out the sunweed into the trash can.
Due to my unique constitution that freezes even my surroundings, I always need sunweed, but I can manage for about 30 minutes. I should be able to endure and prevent the area from freezing over through sheer willpower.
As I sat in the chair, the hairdresser cautiously asked, "How would you like your haircut?"
"Hmm."
I pondered for a moment what kind of hairstyle would suit me.
Truth be told, I was confident I could pull off any hairstyle, but I didn't want to completely chop off the long hair that had accompanied me on my lengthy journey.
"Just trim it moderately."
"Alright. I'll cut it to about shoulder length then."
However, as the hairdresser was about to put her scissors to my hair, she hesitated and couldn't start working. She just kept nervously glancing at my eyes through the mirror.
"What's the problem?"
"…You're too tall. Could you please lower your head a bit?"
Instead of answering, I slightly lowered my head.
Snip— Snip—
And soon, the sound of scissors filled the space.
At the same time, I sank back into the contemplation I had been engaged in earlier. There's always a solution in any situation. It should be the same now.
Snip— Snip—
Snip— Snip—
Continued pondering, continued snipping.
As time flowed like water, suddenly—
Bang!
A loud noise erupted from outside the shop.
It sounded like a sugar lump shattering. The sound was so intense that it pierced through all the noise of the already bustling street, causing the hairdresser to quickly turn her head in that direction.
I too rolled my eyes.
Not because the noise bothered me, but because it was a familiar sound.
If my intuition was correct, it was probably the sound of ice crystals shattering.
'That's right. It's ice.'
Shifting my gaze, I spotted a boy.
He was shabbily dressed, barely covered in rags, and kept trying to create ice crystals the size of his head in mid-air.
Bang!
But it was a failure.
The ice crystal, about the size of a watermelon, simply exploded. The hairdresser sighed deeply after seeing ice fragments scatter everywhere.
"Ah… Why does he have to do this here of all places? Those don't even melt easily, looks like I'll have to clean it up again…"
"Do you know that boy?"
"He's more like a familiar beggar. A magic beggar."
After hearing the word 'beggar', I finally understood that the tin can at the boy's feet was meant for collecting silver coins and the like.
Well, magic was a field that required astronomical costs.
Food expenses for self-improvement, training fees, tool costs… Except for breathing, you had to pay enormous costs for everything just to barely maintain the title of a mage.
The hairdresser continued with a sullen expression, "Usually, they show off impressive magic and beg for silver coins. But that kid always fails. I've never seen him succeed even once."
"Yet he comes to this place every time?"
"There's no place in the busy district where more people pass by than this street. Sigh, if he's going to show magic, he should at least practice. He's driving away all the customers who were going to come…"
Snip— Snip—
The haircut continued and I kept my gaze fixed on the boy.
Bang—!
This time, the ice scattered even more violently than before.
The crowd stirred greatly. People whose clothes were hit by ice crystals frowned, and even the hairdresser who had been treating me kindly seemed to be gradually losing her composure.
"What on earth is he trying to make?"
People coming to check what was happening, others backing away in shock after seeing the situation… The street was a melting pot of all sorts of human reactions, truly in chaos.
I quietly spoke up, "No."
"Ah."
The hairdresser's hand hesitated, "I'm sorry. You don't want this part cut?"
I shook my head. I wasn't talking about the hair, but about the ice.
"…That boy isn't trying to make anything right now."
"Pardon?"
I quietly observed the boy's actions.
Bang—! Boom—!
Explosions repeating without a single success, people openly glaring and cursing. I tried to focus solely on the boy's magic and ice, ignoring all other scenes for now; rather than understanding the boy's results, I tried to understand his motivation.
As a result, something occurred to me. Perhaps this is…
'An ice rainbow?'
A technique of scattering countless intricate ice crystals to showcase multiple rainbows at once. The boy was probably attempting that; it was a technique that somewhat fit the boy's current situation.
To those not involved in ice magic, it would be an infinitely beautiful sight, so he was likely planning to use it to beg for money.
Bang—!
Ice scattering everywhere due to failure.
Simultaneously, the crowd stirred.
I organized my thoughts while observing this scene.
Bang—!
The fame I need to gain in a short time.
Making the department heads follow the letter.
The problems I need to solve immediately.
Meanwhile, the hairdresser stopped cutting.
"Um… I'm finished. Do you like it?"
At her question, I grinned, "…I like it very much."
A way to solve everything at once.
It came to me.
~~••~~••~~
Bang—!
Another spectacular failure.
The boy was frustrated; he didn't want to go hungry today. So he was determined to somehow create an ice rainbow and receive alms from people.
But the situation wasn't good.
Perhaps due to his many previous failures, there weren't many people near the boy anymore. The once lively street had somehow become as quiet as a dead mouse.
"........"
The boy, about to attempt once more, suddenly stopped.
A huge shadow was gradually enveloping him.
Looking up, he saw a man staring down at him, and their eyes naturally met.
"......"
The boy unconsciously gulped.
An impossibly tall height, blue eyes so cold they sent chills just by looking at them, and neatly trimmed white hair that exuded nobility.
Before his brain could process it, his mouth moved, "I'm sorry. I'll leave."
That was the best he could muster at the moment.
He was on the verge of starvation even without anyone bothering him. He didn't have the strength to endure the pain if he got beaten up here.
The man quietly bent his knee.
As their eyes leveled, the boy tightly shut his eyes. The worst-case scenario he had anticipated was right in front of him.
However.
He had to open his eyes wide soon after.
"Ice rainbow."
Because the man muttered something utterly unexpected.
"It's an ice rainbow, right?"
"...…..!"
With eyes wide open, the boy nodded.
Until now, no one had ever shown interest in his magic. No, more than that, he always failed so no one even recognized what he was trying to do.
"You won't earn a penny making it like that."
"......."
The small head bowed down with a dejected expression.
It was the fact the boy knew best. It was also a frustrating reality. His own ability was far too inadequate to manifest an ice rainbow.
"Have you ever seen an ice rainbow in person?"
The boy shook his head, "…No."
"Then that's good."
The man exhaled smoke and showed a faint smile, "Watch carefully."
That smile held a composure the boy had never possessed.
"I'll show you just once."
Just one sentence, but the boy instinctively sensed it.
A realm of instinct far from logic and reason that could never be understood rationally.
It whispered quietly to the boy.
That this street would soon be filled with people.
To read all 150 episodes, patreon.com/Makima02