Shut-in Magician - Chapter 24

Chapter 024: Running out of MP

Kiahi and the other’s study group bore fruit. Fortunately, they were all advanced magic users and they memorised things faster than ordinary people like Emina and Aquila.

It was fast once they understood the basics and even Gradius, who seemed to think about nothing but food, also understood.

Shiu decided to help them find the person they were looking for once Gradius prostrated himself in front of him. By the way, prostrating also existed in this world. Body language was a universal language.

Kiahi’s mood was light, but in fact, he presented an extraordinary amount of money at their study session for Shiu’s help. Shiu was a trainee adventurer, so he declined it since it wasn’t necessary, but he accepted it when Kiahi threatened to pass it to him through the guild. It couldn’t be helped since his skills could be found out if the guild interfered.

Therefore, he was looking for someone.

According to them, the dwarf’s name was Primus. It wasn’t clear but it might have been a name given to him by the God of Blacksmith.

They asked him to use appraisal magic to look for a person with that name.

Shiu hoped that he could find the dwarf easily, but he couldn’t do anything weird in public. The group accompanied him since it was bad for them to leave a child they were entrusted with alone.

He continued to appraise people while wondering if there was a way to detect the dwarf faster. It was impossible for him to search for the person if he didn’t know him personally even if he overlappedEVERY DIRECTION SEARCH. He couldn’t search for him by smell like he had with the dog. Well, what can I do, Shiu walked through the streets with Kiahi while appraising each person.

Kirch and Gradius headed towards the block with lots of dwarves.

Laetitia was alone. Shiu was told it was fine since she had spirits with her, but she probably enjoyed walking alone. It was the same when they had the study session. She didn’t like being hit on by noble children, but other than that she seemed fine. She could deal with people easily if they weren’t children of nobles. She could probably handle noble children too, Shiu thought.

By the way, Shiu never saw the spirits even once. But apparently Feles could see them; he would occasionally cry out, “Nyumyu,” and jump around to hunt them. To the eyes, it looked comical because he was chasing something that wasn’t there. Still, Shiu was envious that Feles could see them.

Shiu confirmed with Kiahi as he continued to cast appraisal.

“You’ve already looked in the blacksmith at Loire, haven’t you?”

“Yeah, it was totally in vain.”

“Is it true that dwarves are shorter than people?”

“It’s true. You’ve never seen them before, Shiu?”

“I’ve only seen them in the books at the library.”

He secretly hoped that panda beastkin existed in this world, but he didn’t see them in the book called, About the Races in This World. It’s a shame.

“If he’s mimicking as a human, then he’ll make himself look 12 years old because of his height.”

“I don’t care, but mimic is such a nasty word. Can’t you call it disguise?”

” Well, you can call it a disguise. But, isn’t that word a bit too light?” Kiahi said a little frivolously and for some reason, his attitude made Shiu feel impatient.

Shiu had initially given him the nickname ‘Cheerful Man’ but now it was changed to ‘Italian Man’. Because whenever he saw a beautiful woman, he would give them a flirtatious glance. He was probably bored because he had to accompany Shiu. He hadn’t protested, but he looked at Shiu as if saying, “When will this conversation end?”

“My spirit magic levelled up.” Kiahi said pleasantly, but Shiu didn’t talk anymore. He didn’t plan to talk much from the beginning. Anyway, he ignored Kiahi and thought about people detection.

Shiu used EVERY DIRECTION SEARCHunconsciously. Therefore he had an automatic map in his brain and if he used it consciously, then he could even understand the movement of people he’d marked.

That didn’t mean that there wasn’t a negative side. EVERY DIRECTION SEARCH was a super-conservative detection technique that stretched mana like a thin thread, so the range wasn’t wide. The detection radius was about 300 metres. If he was strongly aware of it then he could expand the scope, but then there’d be no meaning to conservation, so he didn’t use it normally.

This time, he only knew the name of the person who he was looking for. Since he only had the name, he used appraisal magic on people. How about I overlap this withEVERY DIRECTION SEARCH?

Shiu tried this with the people at the plaza while Kiahi was calling out to beautiful women again. Then, everyone’s status popped into his head and his head felt like it would burst. That wasn’t good. He lessened the MP usage to only examine basic information and casted SIMPLE PERSON APPRAISAL. Like its name, it was a simple people appraisal and only showed basic information. The name of the people within his visual range flowed into Shiu’s mind. In an effort to expand the scope further, (SEARCH) (THOUSAND).

He chanted inside his mind. The radius was one km. Still, he couldn’t find the dwarf.

He thought that the dwarf wasn’t around here and Feles went into Shiu’s shirt. He got tired from walking around and then just standing in the plaza. He was getting bigger so Shiu didn’t put him into his shirt anymore, but he forced his way in.

“Feles, the shirt’s going to unbutton.”

Shiu laughed in shock and somehow managed to push Feles into his clothes. He tried to use search again. He was more fired up this time and put more strength into the spell. He tried to extend the radius and (SEARCH ENHANCEMENT).

He had collapsed by the time he thought, ah.

He put his hand to his chest to protect it when he thought he was going to blackout.

It was evening by the time Shiu woke up. The first thing that entered his eyes was a beautiful blue. Dark golden colours brushed over his face. The light from the setting sun shining in through the window was very bright.

“That’s good, you’ve woken up?”

Kiahi was close to him and Shiu was sorry that he’d made him worry.

“I’m sorry. Did I run out of MP?”

” That’s right. Sorry. Come to think of it, you even said you didn’t have much MP.”

Laetitia peeked at his face while holding Feles when he lifted himself from the bed.

“Since I do it normally, I thought you would be fine. I’m sorry, Shiu.”

Shiu quickly got up and his body was pushed down from the other side. It was Kirch.

“You still have to sleep. Sorry. I also thought of you as an adult adventurer.”

“Right? Because Shiu’s smart and he knows a lot about magic.” Gradius’ voice came from where Shiu’s feet were. He heard the sound of chewing so Gradius’ was probably eating while talking.

Gradius panicked when he felt Shiu’s gaze on him.

“N-no, this is meat. You told me not to eat just carbs right? I’m eating a healthy meal of meat.”

” No, I don’t mind.”

Shiu thought that Gradius didn’t have to panic that much, he’d probably thought greatly about the healthy old agetalk from the other day.

Shiu’s head hit the pillow as he fell onto the bed. Kiahi put his hands on Shiu’s forehead. He hadn’t put any power in his hands and it was gentle as if he was stroking a baby.

“Has it been a long time since you’ve run out of MP? Usually, you know your limit from when you’re young.”

” Yup.”

He had lied so much but Kiahi looked really worried about him. He was a kind hearted young man.

“Sorry, take your time and rest. I’ll contact your residence later.”

They knew that he was in the care of Bariado Tool Shop. Shiu decided to leave it to them since they knew the location of the shop. Laetitia was also looking after Feles for him. So he thought that it would be fine and his eyelids grew heavy again. Even so, Shiu didn’t think that running out of MP would be this hard. Shiu lost consciousness as soon as he sighed.

It was the dead of night when Shiu awoke next. He felt strange, well rested and not at the same time. However his giddiness, which was similar to feeling sluggish, disappeared.

He could understand that ordinary people had it tough, if that was the feeling of running out of MP. Like Kiahi had said, people would experience this many times when they are young and they learn their limits. They knew the safely limit to their sense of exhaustion. The first time he ran out of MP was obviously a blunder.

Recently Shiu had been challenging himself to live with minimum MP. Minimum indicated the amount of MP Shiu had personally. In other words, it was 20, the same amount as the average man.

He wanted to see how far he could go without using his inexhaustible supply of MP in his storage. Since long ago, his hobby was to save. Besides, he didn’t use spatial magic, like transfer, because it used up most of his MP. So he happily tried it every day.

Being unconscious was terrible.

Shiu had sealed off his MP storage and used powerful AOE magic, SEARCHas well as PERSON APPRAISALat full power. He had been too foolish and he hated himself for it.

Even so he had been lucky and he had found the dwarf. He wasn’t called Primus, but Shiu knew that it was a man and he even knew his skills.

If he hadn’t gotten such a result then he would feel so embarrassed that he wouldn’t be able to crawl out of his hole.

Either way, it was embarrassing. He sighed a lot to calm down his feelings.

“Are you awake?” A quiet voice said.

Kiahi, who Shiu thought had been sleeping, stood up from a chair near the window and walked to the bed where Shiu was sleeping. Shiu understood what an assassin was. He hadn’t felt Kiahi’s presence. Of course, Shiu only knew that there was someone in the room.

He realised that his magic was still unskilled and that he had room for improvement.

“What are you thinking about now? Your body can’t heal if you don’t rest your head as well.”

“Ok.”

Shiu remembered a distant past when his head was being stroked gently. It was about his previous life.

It was from a time before he became aware of things or maybe he was, when he was really young. He was the mistress’ child. Even when he was taken to the main house, no one talked to him and he didn’t make any contact with his relatives. However, the person in charge of him was nice and she would stroke Shuutarou’s head.

He could tell that he was being put to sleep.

Ah, I see. The Goddess’ appearance resembled her. That kind girl.

Translator: Blushy
Editor: Sam

I can see why the 2nd volume of the LN jumped straight to the 2nd arc now >.<>