RPEUC 01

Chapter 01 …

“Yenen, listen. It’s your master. By the time you read this, I will already be gone.
Forgive this incompetent teacher who cannot even say goodbye properly.
Yenen. I no longer want to work. Try doing the same job every day for three hundred years and then you’ll understand how I feel.
There is nothing more unpleasant than dying at work. I refuse to do it.
From now on, I intend to waste my life to the fullest.
I will soak my brain until it’s swollen and lie around doing nothing, thinking of nothing.
I will eat only greasy, unhealthy food, stay up late at night, drink tons of coffee, and go to sleep without even brushing my teeth. Since you always nagged me to rest like a broken record, I trust you won’t complain. I am leaving for a place where your nagging voice cannot reach me.
And Yenen. The Magic Tower is yours. I have nowhere else to go anyway, so you might as well keep living there.
If you get married and start a new household, then close down the Magic Tower.
Do not even think about going into the labyrinth in the basement. This time, there will be no master to pull you out.
For your information, I have no intention of coming back to rescue you, so don’t entertain foolish hopes. The only thing that will happen is that you die earlier than fate intended.
The gold and treasure stored on the 68th floor can be used when you get married. Your in-laws will adore you. Make sure to emphasize how competent you are at household matters.
Tell the Imperial Court that I am dead. Those bastards used me for three hundred years, that should be enough. They always come whining and begging for help, and I could never refuse out of respect for my master—that is my greatest regret.
I can already see the Emperor’s face turning pale, asking, ‘Then what are we supposed to do?’ But it’s time for them to learn how to live without me.
They need a proper wake-up call.
And I won’t have to see that brat Michael Cloven coming to bother me anymore, pestering me to marry him. It feels like a tooth being pulled.
Make sure he clearly understands that I am dead.
For some reason, that guy feels like a complete psycho even I can’t handle, and I suspect he might try to follow me.
Well, he won’t be able to find me anyway.
I don’t want to feel a chill down my spine while living peacefully somewhere, so I’m counting on you, Yenen.
Anyway, I am leaving now. Yenen, lock up the Magic Tower properly.
Thank you for everything.

From your great master, Kanis Riventi.”

“……Ha.”
The curtains fluttered in the wind through the wide-open window.
When he first arrived, the room was in complete disarray, as if someone had ransacked it.
The bedding was unmade, and clothes were strewn all over the floor.
Spilled tea soaked the desk.
And finally, a crumpled sheet of parchment lay by the window, covered in Kanis’s distinctive handwriting.
Yenen was already gone.
He had likely left the moment he read the letter, chasing after his “master.”
Because Yenen had failed to properly carry out his master’s final order to “lock up,” the Magic Tower’s doors were wide open,
allowing “that brat” Michael Cloven to reach the top floor safely.
And now, the letter was crumpled once again in his grip.

“……So he left.”

The aide beside him asked anxiously.
“Monster Wave will begin next year. Can we manage without the Tower Master?”
“We’ll have to. We’ll need to go and request help from the various sects.”
“…Where do you think the Tower Master disappeared to?”
“One thing is certain. If he does not wish to be found, no one will ever find him.”

Even as he said that, Michael Cloven could not take his eyes off the letter.

“Somehow, that guy feels like a psycho even I can’t handle, and I feel like he’ll come chasing after me anyway.”

“…It can’t be helped. I’ll just have to live up to the Tower Master’s expectations.”
“Your Highness, what do you mean by that?”
“I’m not returning to the palace until I find him.”
“Pardon? Your Highness? I’m newly married! My little bunny of a husband is waiting for me in the capital!”
“Are you bragging in front of me? About succeeding in a proposal?”
“No, that’s not—wait, Your Highness? Are you serious? Really?”

Michael’s eyes were cold and sharp, yet he was faintly smiling.
The aide’s face turned ghostly pale.
It was a completely different kind of chilling smile from when he had been rejected after proposing to the Tower Master.

As for Kanis, things were not exactly calm either.
He had managed to write the letter somehow and leave, but in truth…

As Kanis approached the front desk, the innkeeper lowered his glasses and looked at him.
“A little boy? Where are your parents?”
“Oh, my mom went ahead to buy food and told me to wait here and get a room.”
“Is that so…? Do you have money?”
“Yes. Here… it is.”

With the most harmless smile he could manage, Kanis placed a gold coin on the counter.

“That’s too much. How many nights are you staying?”
“One night.”
“Wait, then the change—”

Kanis had never carried small denominations of money. Money was something he had in excess—overflowing, in fact.

He handed over one gold coin and received a heavy money pouch in return.

“…Go up through the back door so you don’t attract attention from the tavern people.”
The innkeeper seemed worried that a child might get robbed carrying so much money.

That wasn’t the issue right now, but Kanis didn’t feel like arguing, so he did as told and went upstairs through the back door.

“When is your mother coming?”
“At night.”
“Can you stay alone? My daughter is thirteen, would you like some company?”
“No.”
“…I see.”
“Then I’ll be going.”

Kanis smiled politely and closed the door in front of the innkeeper.

Phew.

It had taken five inns before he finally got a room.
And the reason it took five attempts was entirely due to Kanis’s attitude.

At the first inn in the village, Kanis had said only one word:
“Room.”

When the innkeeper asked again, Kanis replied in a dark voice, “I’ll pay whatever you want. Enough talking. Room.”

In the end, after causing chaos four times and nearly getting the guards called on him, Kanis learned the bloody lesson that his usual behavior was completely useless.

Still, he succeeded this time.

A tiny room was lit by faint moonlight.

Kanis dragged himself to the bed, intending to collapse onto it.

But the bed was higher than his chin.

Instead of collapsing onto it, Kanis had to climb up.

An unbelievable thing—or rather, something he desperately wished wasn’t true—had happened to Kanis the night before.

After finishing monster extermination in the winter and returning to the Magic Tower to rest, he woke up the next morning and found himself reduced to about one-third his original size. His arms were short, his legs short, his cheeks plump.

A complete child!

He had clearly been stuck in a body that never progressed beyond around twenty years old—so what in the world was this?

Kanis quickly checked his body, wondering if he had used some transformation magic or forbidden lifespan spell without realizing it.

But there was nothing. Not a trace of mana in his body.

Panicking completely, Kanis cast scanning magic repeatedly without even breathing properly.

Only later did he realize that the fact he could still cast “scan magic” meant there was at least some mana left.

But it was so minuscule it was practically nonexistent.

If Kanis’s original mana capacity was the size of a dam, what remained now was like the amount of water left on a fingertip after poking the surface.

In other words, it had literally become that insignificant.

How did this happen? Had he been affected by some status ailment during the monster purge? There was no way he wouldn’t have noticed something like that.

He couldn’t think of anything.

His body was small, and his mana was almost gone.

Kanis confirmed that the mana had not vanished or disappeared—it had been “sealed,” lying dormant inside his body.

So he decided to hide elsewhere and investigate the situation.

He had to conserve what little mana he had, since he didn’t know what might happen next.

So Kanis lowered a rope from the top window of the Magic Tower and climbed down in a child’s body.

If he had used the door, he might have run into Yenen—and that would have been disastrous.

With so little mana, he had no idea how long invisibility magic would last.

With so little left, it was unclear what he could even do.

Could he do anything at all?

After reinforcing his weak grip with magic and adding fall-prevention spells, Kanis safely landed outside the tower.

Then he immediately cast dispel magic on the rope, erasing it.

Yenen would probably assume Kanis had escaped using flight magic.

Who would ever imagine that the great Archmage Kanis Riventi had climbed down the tower wall hanging from a rope in a raging wind?

Something unimaginable had just happened.

Feeling a bit depressed, Kanis trudged toward the nearest village.

And now…

Who would ever imagine that the great Archmage Kanis had run away from home and, within a single day, was trying to rent a room at a nearby inn?

Something unimaginable was happening again…

Kanis shook his head and pushed the thoughts away.

Now came the real problem.

First, he needed to establish a safe shelter, then slowly research the “seal” placed on him.

He had enough money… and since a child’s body attracted unwanted attention, he needed to hire a capable proxy.

Someone who was indifferent to their employer, and only interested in the amount of money offered.

But how exactly…

His whole body ached, his eyes felt like they would pop out, and he had a terrible headache.

Anyone would end up like this after climbing down a tower without even washing their face since morning.

But what kind of child already has a headache? Of course, the adult inside was mostly to blame.

Kanis groaned.

“…Sleep… first…”

He collapsed onto the bed he had barely climbed onto.

It was exhaustion that overcame even chronic insomnia.

And it felt like he had barely fallen asleep when someone started pounding violently on the door, forcing him awake.

Startled, he sat up to find bright sunlight pouring into the room because he had forgotten to close the curtains.

Half-awake, he walked to the door with a frown and opened it.

The innkeeper stood there, eyes wide, and shouted:

“Your mother didn’t come in!”

Kanis belatedly remembered that he had told the innkeeper some nonsense about his mother coming later.

“Oh, don’t worry. She’s not coming.”

He tried to close the door, but the innkeeper held it open.

“What do you mean she’s not coming?”

“She’s dead. Now can I close the door?”

Kanis’s mother had already passed away more than three hundred years ago.

And Kanis had been there at the time.

The innkeeper’s face turned pale. He placed his hands on Kanis’s shoulders.

In a careful, worried voice, he said:

“Oh, child… it seems… your father has arrived.”

Kanis looked at him as if he had heard something absurd.

The innkeeper kindly repeated himself.

“A man says he came here looking for your mother, who ran away from home. Would you like to meet your father?”

What… the hell is happening while I’m asleep?

Kanis felt like he was going insane.