It had been around two weeks since Furio left home, just abouting having lef the territory of his family.
He was currently sitting in a field reading his beginner magic tome.
Perfectly constructing the magic circle in his mind, Furio spoke.
"Magic Arrow."
Nothing happened.
He repeated.
"Magic Arrow."
Once more, nothing happened.
This repeated a few times before Furio gave up.
He did not seem particularly annoyed, as if he was used to this result.
The same thing had happened hundreds of times already.
He was halfway through his beginner magic tome, having tried to cast hundreds of spells already but failing each time.
He flipped another page to the next spell.
It was a spell called Magic Bullet.
"Isn't that funny?"
Considering his life had been ended by a bullet, wouldn't it be fitting for him to be able to use it?
Constructing the circle of magic bullet in his mind, he casted the spell with the utmost effort.
"Magic Bullet."
Naturally, nothing happened.
"Haaaah."
Groaning, Furio turned his head to the sky.
The sun was setting, and night would soon fall.
Pulling out some sheets from his pouch, Furio prepared to sleep.
...
"Do we bring back his head?"
"No, no, that's way too big, maybe a finger?"
"Nah, I heard for this kind of thing you're supposed to bring the tongue back."
"Ew, there's no way I'm carrying a tongue, maybe an eye would work?"
"How is an eye in any way less disgusting than a tongue!?"
"It just is."
"Okay, fine, we'll take his eyes."
"Wait, both?"
"Fuck, it doesn't matter, he's waking up."
Furio awoke to find three people surrounding him.
His eyes darted around in confusion.
"Who the fu-"
Before he could begin shouting, one of the men covered his mouth, whilst another restrained his body.
The man covering his mouth brought out a dagger, awkardly holding it to Furio's neck.
Any groginess that Furio may have been feeling upon being awoken instantly disappeared.
"I'm not really used to this kind of thing, kid, in fact, I didn't sign up for this at all."
"Hey, should we let him at least get some last words in?"
The third man, watching over the other two, asked hesistantly.
The man holding the dagger removed his hand, allowing Furio to speak.
Rather than screaming, Furio took a moment to try and understand what was going on.
"...Did the family send you?"
The men turned to each other, as if asking whether it would be okay to answer his question.
Hesitantly, the one furthest from him spoke up.
"Ahem, something like that, I suppose."
Furio took the response as a yes, and proceeded to ask a second question.
"But why, I've already been exiled and I can't even use magic?"
The man restraining his body responded this time.
"Kid, we have no idea, to be honest, I also find it despicable, but my family was threatened."
These men were clearly not trained assassins.
If anything, they were most likely regular guards from around the estate.
'Probably some fucking elder that wanted me dead.'
Based on the man's words, he could guess that all of them had had their families threatened if they did not kill Furio.
They had waited for him to exit the territory of Notoria before doing the deed.
There was no point begging for his life at this point.
He could not say that he was unafraid of death.
People who said things like that were either crazy or ignorant.
As someone who had known the pain of death, he did not want to experience it again.
But at this moment, begging was pointless.
"Make it quick."
All three of the men made ugly expressions.
But the man closest to him, the one holding a blade to his neck, firmed his resolve the quickest.
"Pray in your next life to live as a commoner, being a noble is no good."
Shlick!
---
The body of a boy was thrown into a small ditch in a forest.
His throat was slashed and both his eyes were missing.
By the time anyone would end up finding him, his body would have ended up decomposing beyond recognition.
It was truly a cruel fate for a boy who had barely stepped into his teenage years.
A small worm crawled across his body.
It was not a maggot looking to feast on the corpse, no it was the mystical creature that had lived inside the boy.
Crawling up to Furio's face, it seemed sad.
Could a worm express sadness?
Well, this one could.
It shook his head as if to say that this was all wrong.
The worm wriggled around in sadness.
Several minutes later, a huge wolf had come, attracted by the smell of the corpse.
It was a magical beast, easily twice, maybe even thrice the size of a normal wolf.
A black direwolf.
Gazing upon the corpse of the boy, it drooled in delight.
Yet its sharp instincts felt something dangerous coming from the corpse.
No, it was something on top of the corpse.
A small worm, containing countless stars, stared back at it.
The wolf had no idea what the creature was, but it knew that it was something he could not dare offend.
Thinking for a moment, the wolf bowed its head and turned around.
...
Several more minutes passed, and the worm stopped writhing around.
Once again it stared at Furio's face.
It had become pale, even paler than usual, due to a lack of blood.
The worm had seemed to have made some sort of decision, and resolved itself.
It first entered his left eye socket.
Then his right.
Then, it crawled down to the wound on his neck.
After an hour, although dead, the body had been repaired to a far more acceptable state.
The worm looked down at his handiwork, pleased with itself.
It noted that the boy's eyes seemed different.
The blood red eyes the boy originally had were now far more similar to the deep blue hue of the worm.
Well, the worm didn't care much.
It re-entered the mark on Furio's chest, entering the boy's heart, the worm's home.
...
Heukh!
Immediately, I brought my hand to my throat.
The burning pain I had felt earlier was gone.
I felt not even the slightest scar upon my neck.
'What the fuck?'
I was sure of it.
That was not a dream.
I really had been killed.
Three men had assassinated me in the dead of night.
My throat had surely been slit by them.
Judging from my surroundings, they had thrown me in a ditch and left me for dead.
A headache washed over me.
[Synchronization Rate has met the threshold]
[Initialization Complete]
'…What?'
A screen had appeared in front of me.
Naturally, I tried touching it, yet my hand passed through it, as if it were simply a figment of my imagination.
For a moment, I wondered if I had gone mad.
But the next moment, I came to realise.
It was some form of system or status screen.
Although I did not have much time to myself in my last life, playing videogames was one of my few past times.
Upon being reincarnated, I had tried to summon such a screen countless times with endless variations of words.
'Well, I may as well try.'
The legendary words appeared from my mouth.
"Status"
[Furio Ars Notoria]
Body: Stage 1 – Mid
Reflex: Stage 1 – Mid
Magic: Stage 1 – Lowest
Traits: Dimension Devouring Worm [EX], The Notary Art [F]
I quickly read the panel, but before I had the chance to make sense of it, a second panel appeared with a ding.
[Quest Generated!]
Cast A Spell (0/1)
Reward: Begin walking the path of magic!]
Like a man possessed, I immediately recalled the last spell I had tried to cast.
It was magic bullet.
Due to my urgency, the construction was sloppier than usual, but it happened.
When I constructed the circle of magic bullet in my mind, it appeared in reality.
The spell was successfully cast and the bullet shot forwards at high speeds before dissipating around twenty meters away.
It was a woefully unimpressive display of magic, but to me, it meant everything.
[Quest: Cast Magic Bullet - Cleared!]
I completely ignored the ding and the popup screen, still distracted by the sheer elation of the moment.
After a brief celebration, I tried casting another spell.
My mind quickly chose magic arrow, the spell I had been trying to use a day earlier.
I constructed the circle inside my mind and-
A huge headache immediately assaulted my brain.
It was if my mind had forcefully been shutdown as soon as the circle had been constructed.
[Error – The user is only capable of casting the spell 'Magic Bullet' the casting of any other spell has been deemed impossible]
"Only capable of casting the spell magic bullet?"
Bullshit!
How on earth could I become a mage if I could only cast one spell?
The moment I had escaped despair, I had been met with another wall.
Stubbornly, I tried casting magic arrow again.
Unsurprisingly, I was met with another headache.
I continued forcefully trying to construct magic circles.
Fireball, Light, Zap, Gale.
Thud.
The result?
I passed out.
---
LOG 2 – THE KEY EMPIRE
Founded by Solomon a thousand years ago, the Key Empire is one of the great powers of the human realm. Every noble of the empire is considered to be a descendant of Solomon, although the 'true' descendants are known as the five great families, Notoria, Theurgia, Paulina, Almadel, and the ruling family, Goetia.