Chapter 6

Having spent so long holed up in my atelier, fed up with humanity and dealing only with tree spirits, I had absolutely no idea how to handle the twelve-year-old human now sitting stiffly and uncomfortably on my sofa.
It would’ve been easier if he at least cried or whined like a real child.
But Irkus, perhaps because he was the protagonist, carried himself with an almost absurd maturity.

“What brought you all the way into the Southern Forest? Even a five-year-old knows walking in by mistake means death.”

“I only came in to evade pursuit.”

“Pursuit?”

It must’ve been that Radan… whatever-his-name-was. The Crown Prince? First Prince? Or both?
A villain in a rival dynamic—those guys never fail to appear in fantasy novels.

I naturally knew all of this, but pretended ignorance.

“There are people who want to kill me because of… family matters. Even when I ran, they kept coming after me, so the forest was my only option.”

“How funny. You ran from a fox straight into a tiger’s den. Tree spirits truly despise humans.”

“But you live here.”

“I’m a bit ambiguous to call human.”

In this world, ordinary humans typically didn’t live past sixty.
Witches who lived among humans died even earlier.
Meanwhile, long-lived species rarely gathered in communities the way humans did.

So calling myself a “normal human” when I’d lived four hundred years in solitude was… truly ambiguous.

“I’ll repeat myself—I don’t do charity. Even if a child begs and whines, I won’t help without something in return.”

“I never asked for help.”

“And what exactly would you do without my help?”

“I can manage on my own.”

“Even if I throw you out of this forest right now? You’re the Robein Empire’s Third Prince. There must be swarms of people who want you dead.”

Irkus widened his eyes as if shocked I knew.
Knew?
Back when I was still a high school senior, I read the first volume of the novel he appears in.

“You… know me?”

“Looks like you completely forgot I called your name the moment we met.”

I simply let a serene “Great Sage” smile spread across my face.

The title really came in handy in moments like this—anything ambiguous could be glossed over with mystical authority.

“I’ll win the throne on my own.”

“How will you do that when you can’t even use magic? Do you have a teacher? No matter your talent, without a master you’ll never become a mage.”

“I’ll learn from someone… and it doesn’t have to be magic. There are swords.”

“Casting an attack spell is faster than drawing a sword.”

“If I stab a mage before he casts anything, he dies all the same.”

“Are you stupid? Any competent mage has already cast anti-blade magic beforehand.”

A childish argument ensued.

I hated swordsmen the most.
I might not age or die, but I still felt pain. And getting stabbed hurt like hell—and healed slowly. Worse, the pullout hurt twice as much as the stab.

So after rolling around enough battlefields, I invented anti-blade magic.
It wasn’t something an average mage could use, but if cast, it instantly rendered swords useless—a truly broken spell.

I’d gotten the idea from my world’s bulletproof vests and stab-resistant armor. Here, however, it was considered revolutionary magic.
Truly, patents favor the bold.

Perhaps reminded again that I was the Great Sage, Irkus’s face twisted with irritation.
Whether it was because he was pretty or because he still had baby fat, his sulky expression looked rather cute.
A twelve-year-old human was definitely cuter than a hundred-year-old oak spirit.

“…Don’t treat me like a kid.”

“You’re twelve. I’m four hundred. Use honorifics. Ever heard of respecting your elders?”

“……”

“There’s a 388-year age gap between us. Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

The way he clamped his lips shut and snapped his head away was adorable.
When the packaging is pretty, even arrogance feels tolerable.

The sharpness in Irkus’s demeanor from our first meeting vanished quickly, replaced by the restless energy of a proper twelve-year-old as he sprang off the sofa and began pacing around my atelier.

“I’m not teaching you magic for free.”

“What do you want? Wealth? Status? Power?”

“No. I want death.”

His little feet stopped abruptly.

Saying I wanted to die in front of a boy who’d come here to avoid dying felt awkward, but honestly—whatever.
Considering the feelings of a mortal who’d soon disappear didn’t matter much to someone like me, already worn down by centuries.

“The Great Sage of the Southern Forest neither ages nor dies. Since you already knew me, you must know that too.”

“Yes. I heard it’s because you reached some transcendental realm. That a mage of such rank receives a blessing that grants agelessness and immortality…”

“Which bastard spread that nonsense again? Someone from the Tower? Forget it. They keep trying to deify me. Thanks to them, even the temples sometimes come harass me.”

“……”

“I’m under an immortality curse. A so-called ‘blessing’ your distant ancestor cast on me.”

Quietly, where Irkus couldn’t see, I raised my left hand behind me and traced a small magic circle for contracts.

“Let’s make a contract. I’ll make you Emperor. Even if I have to build a new empire entirely.”

“…What do you gain by making me Emperor?”

“Death.”

I could practically see the gears in his tiny head grinding loudly.

He must’ve realized something:
In the original story, a Great Sage like me didn’t live in the Southern Forest.
In volume one of The Book of Irkus, he escaped the forest entirely on his own and returned to the palace.

Meaning:
His magic teacher shouldn’t be me.

Well, I’d only read volume one, but I was sure that somewhere within seventeen volumes, there had to be a magic-mentor episode.
This would simply be “early education.”
Korean-style gifted education is basically Spartan training anyway.

“How can you be sure I can kill you?”

“Because you’re Yekarina’s descendant.”

“…Yekarina?”

“She exists—your distant ancestor. And once you become Emperor, killing one immortal won’t be hard.”

“You’re an immortal, though…”

“Even so, if you become Emperor, you can do it. Show some spirit. Worst case, you fail.”

At last—a descendant of Yekarina who wasn’t a witch and thus wouldn’t die from living among humans.
And Irkus was already the Third Prince.
If he seized succession rights, the path to the throne was practically paved.

Above all—he was the protagonist of this entire fantasy world.
The type who succeeded no matter what.
My instincts screamed: This boy can kill you.

“What if… if I really can’t kill you in the end?”

“What do you mean, what? You’ll die, and I’ll keep living like now—waiting for the next person who might manage it.”

Irkus scowled again.

Children were so hard to understand.
Hearing failure was allowed should bring relief, not irritation.
He knew nothing of the world.
I’d have to raise him into a proper adult who understood how it worked.

Irkus rolled his violet eyes.
This sudden contract proposal from a Great Sage had clearly thrown him off.

But I couldn’t exactly say, You’re the protagonist, so of course you can do it.
Even a Great Sage couldn’t easily walk back a meta comment like that.

“Tell me how you’ll help me become Emperor. You don’t even know what situation I’m in.”

“Well.”

“……”

“Just trust the continent’s one and only Great Sage.”

His face filled with thousands of question marks, but explaining was too bothersome.

Human politics was always the same: power struggles.
Money, schemes, and force—those three solved everything.
And I, having lived far too long, possessed all three.

“Are all Great Sages like you?”

“Hard to say. Since I’m the only official one, I suppose so.”

I brought my left hand forward.
The magic circle was more than halfway complete, glowing in Irkus’s violet hue.

“If you fail to make me Emperor?”

“That won’t happen. If the Robein Empire doesn’t work out, I’ll unify the continent and put you on the throne myself.”

“…Magic contracts have penalties if broken. Are you fine with not knowing what the penalty is?”

“I’m not gonna die anyway. What curse could be worse than immortality?”

“……”

“Finished with the questions? You really are a suspicious, bothersome kid.”

The protagonist of this world would never fall for an insurance scam—that much was certain.
He’d probably read every clause carefully before signing.
Better that than becoming like Yekarina—tricked by some random bastard.

He hesitated for a moment, then approached me.

It occurred to me I should eventually test what the contract penalty actually was.
I’d never broken one before.
I’d only ever used contract magic with the Kaman royals—and had yet to kill or attack them.
I’d lived far too nicely.

One day, when I tried killing one of them and learned the penalty, I should probably inform Irkus as a courtesy.

Irkus placed his hand atop the magic circle.

“So, you’ll be my teacher now.”

“Yes. I’ll train you Spartan-style. I’ll turn you into a mage who can kill absolutely anyone.”

“What’s Spartan?”

“It’s a thing. You don’t need to— anyway, consider it an honor to take the Great Sage as your master. The Tower brats who’ve chased me for decades will weep blood if they hear about this.”

The violently flickering magic circle calmed the moment Irkus’s small hand touched it.
It shrank, settled on the backs of our hands, then faded to invisibility.

And just like that, my contract with the world’s protagonist was sealed—quick and sloppy.