Like most dragonkin, the Red Mirror Dragon had a habit of hoarding treasures.

Though perhaps because it had only recently migrated from the Central Continent, its lair didn't hold much. Under Banxia and Roxy's thorough ransacking, they walked away with just three books on magic, a sword that looked expensive even at a glance, and a handful of antique-looking art pieces.

"Clack-clack."

The carriage bumped slowly along the dirt road back to the city, several bulging sacks piled beside them.

All things considered, this quest had been wildly profitable, far beyond what adventurers at their level had any right to expect. Banxia had even picked up the title of Dragon Slayer, though the magic dragon's corpse had already vanished, and aside from Roxy and the little boy, nobody else knew it had ever happened.

Not that he cared about that kind of empty fame. What actually made him happy was simpler:

One dragon. Over six hundred years of lifespan, just like that.

How many goblins would you have to grind through to get that much?

He flicked a glance at the number quietly floating on his panel.

[Held Monster Time: Six Hundred and Twenty-Four Years.]

Satisfied, he looked away and turned toward the blue-haired girl beside him, who had her nose buried in one of the books. "Miss Roxy — figured out anything from those magic books?"

She'd mentioned earlier that all three were old, their script different enough from the modern writing used in the Kingdom of Arabagia that deciphering them was slow going.

"I managed to understand part of it." Roxy lifted her head from between the pages. The blue eyes beneath her hat brim were bright, her voice kept deliberately low, though it couldn't quite contain the excitement underneath.

"One is an advanced meditation manual gifted to the kingdom's nobility during the era of the Unified Empire. Of the other two, one covers an auxiliary spell for Hypnosis Resistance, and the other is military-grade fire magic."

"Now those are something." Banxia's eyes lit up.

"They really are. All three are rare magics you simply can't buy." Roxy nodded, then pursed her lips as though something had just occurred to her and leaned slightly closer.

Her soft shoulder nearly brushed his arm. The faint, clean scent that was distinctly hers drifted together with the smell of dry grass from the window, threading quietly into Banxia's nose.

"It's just... all of these appear to be contraband. If the nobility found out we had them, we'd probably be wanted criminals by nightfall."

"Contraband?" Banxia raised a hand and rubbed his ear. Her warm breath had grazed the edge of it, and he found himself a touch more aware of that than he'd like.

Realizing she'd gotten a little too close, Roxy flushed, gave a soft cough, and quickly pulled back. She straightened in her seat, smoothed her expression, and slipped into what could only be called teacher mode.

"Meditation arts at this level are said to circulate only within the high nobility — even lower nobles aren't permitted access. As for resistance enhancement and military attack magic, the kingdom has always strictly forbidden commoners from possessing or learning either."

"Sounds like a headache," Banxia said, nodding slowly.

"..." The restless little thought stirring at the back of Roxy's mind quietly settled. If even Mr. Banxia thought it was troublesome, then it really was too dangerous. If the nobility found out, that was a kingdom-wide manhunt.

"So," Banxia said, sitting up straight, "can you teach me how to learn this Advanced Meditation Method?"

"Huh?" Roxy blinked at him, certain she'd misheard.

Having no choice, Banxia repeated himself.

"So can you teach me how to learn this Advanced Meditation Method?"

"Mr. Banxia, this is something the kingdom explicitly bans... and aren't you a warrior...?"

"Actually, I've had the dream of becoming a mage ever since I was small." His expression didn't flicker.

"..."

Roxy stared at that perfectly serious face for half a second. Then she couldn't help it, she laughed.

She understood now. Not only did Mr. Banxia have no objection to her studying these forbidden books, he was going out of his way to tell her to go ahead without hesitation. Clearly a warrior, and yet he'd manufactured this whole story about a "mage's dream", who would have guessed Mr. Banxia had such an awkward, roundabout side to him?

"Then you may be disappointed." She reined in her smile and arranged her face back into something a proper teacher ought to wear, though the corners of her mouth still wouldn't quite flatten out.

"Nearly all mages in this world begin accumulating mana from childhood. Even with an Advanced Meditation Method in hand, the gap of a dozen-odd years in between is something even a genius among ordinary people can't bridge."

This was one of the ways this world differed from Roxy's own. Back there, mana was more or less fixed at birth. Here, it could grow continuously through training.

In her original world, her mana had been nothing remarkable, only a notch above average. But that turned out to be an advantage. When she arrived here, the reserves she converted already surpassed what an ordinary person could accumulate through decades of hard practice, and they kept growing.

Something completely unimaginable back home was simply common sense here.

"That's fine. I'm just doing it for fun." The young man waved a hand.

Braving a kingdom-wide wanted order — for fun.

That phrasing only confirmed what Roxy had already suspected. Mr. Banxia was telling her, in his own way:

Study it without worry. Don't fret over any of that.

She smiled to herself and straightened her back.

"Then I'll start teaching you the basics right now, Mr. Banxia."

"Thanks."

"Mana is the origin of creation, the seed the Goddess scattered across the mortal realm..."

Banxia's brow furrowed as he listened.

The fundamentals of magic were shaping up to be more painful than advanced mathematics had been in his previous life.

What on earth is she even saying?

He couldn't follow a word of it. He kept listening anyway.

Because he knew: Heaven Rewards Diligence, and it would bear fruit in the end.

Sure enough, before long, a new line of text appeared silently on the transparent panel before him,

[Advanced Meditation Method lv.0 (Uninitiated)]

Roxy's explanation continued. Banxia didn't stop her.

It would be a while before they reached the city. No reason not to use the time.

This quest had dropped over six hundred years into his lap all at once, and his physical enhancements were already bumping against the ceiling, he couldn't find a decent martial skill worth spending the windfall on. Maybe magic was the new path forward.

And passive resistance magic, specifically? Not learning it would be an outright waste.

His mind made up, he stopped fighting the restlessness building inside him and began pouring that flickering string of numbers into the meditation method.

Honestly, he just wanted to be a cool mage.

[Year 1: You opened the Advanced Meditation Method and studied the introductory path word by word, turning each line over carefully.]

[Year 3: You discovered, to your surprise, that you had genuine talent. Progress came faster than expected. You could already barely sense the free-floating mana particles drifting between heaven and earth, and the sight felt strangely familiar, like something you'd glimpsed once before in another moment entirely.]

[Year 7: You remembered. Back when you were cultivating Sword Qi Slash, pushed to the very edge where both mind and body teetered on collapse, you had caught a fleeting glimpse of those same invisible forces.]

[Year 10: You found that these mana particles seemed to fear you on instinct, refusing to come near. But after years of patient, gentle coaxing, they were finally moved by your persistence and agreed to enter your body.

You crossed the hardest threshold in the art of meditation.]

[Year 12: Your absorption speed finally matched an ordinary person's baseline. The mana gathered within you had reached a total equivalent to a normal mage's full year of cultivation.]

[Advanced Meditation Method lv.0 (Uninitiated) → Advanced Meditation Method lv.1 (52/1000).]

Banxia opened his eyes.

He looked down at his fingertips. A wisp of black mana coiled silently between his knuckles, like a young serpent that had finally found its master.

He studied that faint black light for a moment, then glanced over at the blue-haired girl beside him, still explaining the fundamentals with patient, unhurried dedication, and gave a quiet nod.

He hadn't expected it to cost so little. A craft he'd long written off as unattainable, and just like that, he'd stepped through the door.

Chapter 28

The carriage arrived at the Alterna post station before long.

By that point, Roxy had more or less finished walking Banxia through the training method for the Advanced Meditation Method as she'd read it in the book.

She was the one doing the explaining, yet somehow the act of going over it gave her a deeper understanding than she'd had before. Concepts that had always sat at the edge of her grasp suddenly came into focus.

"Finally." Entering the barbican, Banxia set his bag down and stretched with unrestrained satisfaction.

His body could handle a full week without sleep at this point, no real strain. But that was beside the point. Going without rest was still like going thirsty when water was right there, or going hungry when food was on the table. The body knew the difference, and so did the mind.

"Mr. Banxia, we should head to the guild first to turn in the quest, and while we're there we can deal with these things..." Roxy heaved her bag up with visible effort.

Both of them were loaded down. Every bit of it was loot pulled from the dragon's nest.

"The deadline's not close. Tomorrow." Banxia swung the sword from the Red Mirror Dragon's nest in one hand, already aware of the eyes tracking him from every direction.

Not hard to understand why. The light moving across that blade announced it wasn't ordinary steel. Even a passing glance told you that.

He'd need to find a decent scabbard for it at some point.

"The antiques are one thing, but three magic books — they're simply too valuable..."

"I'm taking the sword."

"No, no, no, that's still far too much, no matter how you look at it—" Roxy shook her head quickly.

From start to finish, Mr. Banxia had shouldered almost every direct fight on this quest himself. She'd cast a handful of support spells from the sidelines, nothing that had actually mattered. She was hardly in a position to claim a larger cut.

All Banxia wanted right now was to reach a soft bed and sleep.

"Here's what we'll do: the antiques split fifty-fifty at the original sale price, the sword is mine, and the magic books belong to both of us. You teach me everything in them later. Done."

He said it while watching her face go slightly pink from the fluster of it, and then he turned and walked.

"Mr. Banxia..."

Roxy stood there with the heavy bag in her arms and watched his back move away, never once turning around, until the crowd flowing through the post station swallowed him whole. The rest of her sentence never made it out.

She gave a small shake of her head. Then, without quite meaning to, she looked down at herself and sighed.

She found herself thinking back to when she'd first met Mr. Banxia. He'd mentioned, offhandedly, that his previous party had just fallen apart, that they'd run into something they simply couldn't fight.

A man who could hunt a Red Mirror Dragon with his bare hands, and he called it something he couldn't resist. She couldn't begin to picture what kind of creature that had been.

The way he kept looking out for her, sharing the spoils, telling her not to be afraid of the contraband, it was probably tied to that. To the people he hadn't been able to bring back.

That was his regret.

Roxy looked down at the three magic books sitting heavy in the bag. Her fingers tightened around it.

She took a slow breath. When she raised her head again, the uncertainty in those aqua-blue eyes was gone.

"I'll have to show what I'm actually capable of. Keep up with him for real this time."

...

"Listen here, don't think that having a body like that gives you a free pass in my shop—"

The cow beastfolk shopkeeper stopped mid-sentence. Her gaze drifted down, then back up, along the lines visible beneath the young man's ruined clothes, and her throat moved on its own.

That black short-sleeved shirt had been stretched tight even before last night. Now it had several tears in it, and through the gaps the definition of the muscle underneath came and went like something half-revealed on purpose.

Put that next to the cold composure on his face, and the man standing in her doorway was nothing short of a walking arsenal of testosterone dragged straight off a battlefield.

Just thinking about what that body might be like in bed made her thighs press together without any conscious instruction.

She swallowed the sound climbing up her throat and held onto her last strip of professional dignity. "What are you staring at? You still have to pay before, "

He didn't bother with a response.

Several silver coins left his fingers in quick flicks, rang across the counter, and came to rest in front of her.

"Best cow girl you have. Send her in."

"Right away, milord! Come in, come in! I'll have everything arranged immediately!"

Both hands swept forward. The coins vanished. The expression that had been all professional resistance a moment ago melted into a smile so sweet it was almost painful to look at.

...

They found a small street-side eatery the next morning and settled in.

The light had only just reached the stone steps outside. The place was nearly empty.

"Sir, would you like some fresh milk?" The shopkeeper's young daughter came over carrying an earthenware jug, rising on her toes to reach the table beside Banxia, her voice bright and polite.

"No thanks, had more than enough last night." Banxia waved her off. The answer came out faster than it probably should have.

"But fresh milk is only available in the mornings."

The girl tilted her head, genuinely puzzled.

"...You're young. You'll understand when you're older."

"Oh. Enjoy your meal, sir." She gave a small, earnest bow the way she'd seen her father do it, then carried her jug away.

She'd barely gone when the blue-haired girl across the table set down her bread and looked over with open confusion.

"Mr. Banxia, did you go back to the village again last night?"

"Obviously not." That round trip would have taken half the night. He had better things to do.

"Then where exactly did you drink... fresh milk?"

"You're young. You'll understand when you're older."

"I'm young..." Roxy repeated the words quietly, and something in them seemed to land somewhere uncomfortable.

Banxia caught it. He explained: "I meant age."

He hadn't been referring to her figure. But the comment had apparently done some collateral damage regardless.

"...I know. It would have been better if you hadn't explained it."

Roxy let out a small sigh and didn't pursue it further. When she looked up again her expression had settled back into its usual slightly earnest, faintly childlike seriousness.

"After breakfast, we go to the guild and submit the quest. That works, Mr. Banxia?"

"Of course."

His silver was running low, so Banxia kept it to a light meal, enough to take the edge off, and called it done.

They crossed through the morning barbican streets, mud still soft underfoot, and reached the Continental Adventurers Guild without much delay.

Same as last time: hand over the proof of completion at the front desk, collect payment on the spot.

One gold coin. Fifty silver each.

For most people that was serious money, enough to live comfortably for several months without worry. Neither of them showed much reaction when the coin pouches landed in their hands.

The real prizes from this trip were the three magic books and the sword of unknown grade, along with a heap of antiques. The sword and the books both needed to stay, neither of them was selling those. The magic books were contraband besides. But a pile of old relics held no appeal to either of them as collectors, so they brought the whole lot to the guild appraiser without ceremony.

The appraiser was a tall, thin old man with a monocle. He went through the bottles and jars one by one, holding each up to the morning light coming through the window and studying it at length before he finally spoke.

"The craftsmanship is decent. Each piece looks like it came from a skilled hand. For the lot together, the guild can offer eighty gold coins." He glanced up at the two of them and added, without any particular change in tone, "That's a fair price by any market standard."

"Fine." Banxia nodded. He had no interest in haggling over any of it.

He was about to agree when the blue-haired girl beside him reached over and caught his hand, giving it a small shake of her head.

➤ Next: Do I Have to Do the Dragon King Smirk Too?