Overpowered Archmage Doesn’t Hide His Talent

Chapter 32: What Do You Want Me to Do?

Chapter 32: What Do You Want Me to Do?

Chapter 32 – What Do You Want Me to Do?

Fairies don’t need much sleep. That’s why the magic department’s store is open late at night.

The store sells a variety of items, and perfume is one of them.

Becky carefully handed me a scent strip.

“Hey, Flan. How about this?”

It smelled moderately sweet. A pleasant sandalwood scent. I nodded vaguely in approval.

Becky was more careful than ever in choosing a perfume. This time, she brought another scent strip to my nose.

“This is… rose scent? I don’t want to look old. Pass.”

Becky sniffed for a while and then asked me.

“Flan. Say something. Which one is better?”

“Rose.”

Did my taste not change even after my body changed? If I had to compare, I liked the rose one a bit more.

“Oh… really?”

Becky scratched her cheek with an awkward expression and put down the scent strips.

“Hmm, rose… this is the cheapest one. I didn’t look at the price when I was sniffing. Well, I can’t buy something cheap. I have to consider the price…”

Then she paid for three rose perfumes.

I didn’t know what changed her mind, but I was glad that the purchase was faster than expected.

On the way to the dormitory, Becky gave me her trivia.

“Code. We agreed to exchange.”

“That’s right.”

I put it in my pocket first. I couldn’t stand walking with my eyes glued to the trivia.

When we arrived at the dormitory, Becky asked me.

“By the way, hey, Flan. Have you thought about the club?”

That’s right. The ‘club’ was also one of the problems I had to worry about.

Violet didn’t give me a week of free time without any conditions.

The professor said that club activities were a privilege, and he urged me to join a club within a week.

For freshmen, only A-grade students can join clubs, so it wasn’t wrong to say that it was a privilege. And it was also legal.

“Not yet.”

“Club attendance and activity reports are all reflected in your grades. Don’t you have to decide soon?”

That’s right. It was a problem that was directly related to my grades, so I couldn’t ignore it.

And I couldn’t even create my own club. I found out that club creation was only possible for third-year students.

“No… well, I’m not suggesting anything. But the club I’m joining has a good reputation. The ice is prettier than you think…”

Becky tapped the ground with her toes.

I still wondered why Violet forced me to do club activities.

I wasn’t interested in any club. Especially if I couldn’t create and run my own club.

…Rather, it would be best to join the same club as someone who was easy to manipulate.

“Becky.”

I called her name softly. Becky looked up at me with wide eyes.

“The club you’re joining. Put my name on the list too.”

“What, really?! Flan, you’re joining too?”

Becky’s face lit up. She looked happy for some reason. I left her behind.

The 30 minutes I decided to spend with her were over.

“Hey, Flan! It’s tomorrow! You have to attend the club! Got it!”

I heard Becky shouting from behind.

?

The next day.

I visited the cafe on the first floor of the academy tower early in the morning.

I wasn’t interested in coffee. But I had something to do with the trivia on the table.

My original idea was to modify it for ‘location tracking’, but it would be better to do something that suited my situation.

This world has many variables. For example, the exploration evaluation that happened this time.

It’s right to create a condition that can eliminate variables. I have to be able to expect tomorrow to prove more things.

Then, what can I use to face the unexpected variables that come to me? The answer was obvious.

‘Artifact.’

Artifact. A mysterious substance that is naturally generated by the mana tangled in the continent.

At this moment, new artifacts are being constantly regenerated in the continent.

And depending on its performance, the value of the artifact is rated from trash to holy (??).

The artifact will protect me from all kinds of variables.

The most common way to get an artifact is to go to an auction. But I don’t have enough money right now.

It would be nice to see it sometime.

I’ll visit the auction house once in a while, but not this time. I can modify the trivia and find it myself.

Woo-woo-woo-

I confidently put my palm on the trivia. The mana responded immediately.

I felt the mana line connecting the tower and the trivia. I twisted the branches of the power and then followed them exactly in reverse.

The mana that surged like a wave reversed and shot up.

This was the crucial moment.

I drew the formula of interference in my mind and focused all my attention on the ‘characters’. I was modifying the Trivia to extract only specific characters from it.

It was possible because the Trivia used mana to imprint the characters.

As long as there was mana with a certain circuit, it was the role and duty of a mage to read it.

I concentrated and fused the mana that rose up my spine with the consciousness in my head.

The fluctuating mana began to circulate at a fast speed from the top of my head to the tips of my fingers.

I synchronized the mana wave of the Trivia with my own mana wave. At the same time, my vision flickered and I entered a pure white world.

Swoosh!

The characters were clustered together like a black tidal wave.

I was going to pick out only the words I wanted from them.

I engraved a spirit on the origin of the Trivia system. I crushed the tidal wave and picked out only the characters related to ‘hiding’, ‘concealing’, ‘stealth’… anything that had to do with hiding something.

The reason was simple.

Those who knew the existence of a high-level artifact would never mention it directly. Nor would they store it in an ordinary way.

They would hide it, hide it, and hide it again. It was the same in any world.

There would be no error in the modification of the Trivia. I calculated it myself, so I guarantee it.

I had no hesitation. I pushed in all the mana at once.

***

For a moment, the weight inside the cafe changed.

I unknowingly gripped the cover of the Trivia. I squeezed it so hard that the blood drained from my palm.

“Hoo.”

I took a deep breath and opened my eyes.

The Trivia I opened again had a different world spread out.

[?I hid my report card. I’ll die if my parents find out.]

[?What’s the point of blindly memorizing the formulas? You have to figure out the hidden meaning.]

[?Don’t hide it and tell me. Did you sleep with him? ] . . .

I smiled with satisfaction.

I didn’t care about failure, and I succeeded as if it was natural.

From now on, I could check all the conversations related to hiding something inside the Trivia.

The only thing left was to find the pearl in the flood of information. I moved my eyes quickly.

[?Oppa, do you have anything to hide from me?]

I racked my brain, but all I saw were trivial stories.

I looked through the list diligently, but there was no result.

In the previous world, it came out in piles when I did this, but this one was different.

As I was about to close the Trivia, there was a moment.

[?What did you do with the stolen item? Did you hide it properly?]

There was a conversation that caught my eye. A stolen item, I looked into it in detail.

[?I hid it at the bottom of the Tir lake. This is something you can’t get out even if you find it.]

I could only peek at the conversations that used the word ‘hide’.

[?Just in case, check again if you hid it properly. That’s not a toy for kids. If you’re careless, we’ll all die.]

But just a glimpse was enough to trigger my interest.

Something that could kill us all. That sounds fun.

If it was an artifact that already had an owner, I wouldn’t have touched it. But judging from the conversation, they clearly stole it.

I’ll find out what it is when I see it for myself. I decided to make the Tir lake my next destination.

I had decided on my destination, so I was about to close the Trivia, when I noticed the piled up contacts.

[ ? I’m sorry ] [ ? Are you angry…? ] [ ? I did something wrong ??? ] [ ? Please reply… ] [ ? I can’t do anything… ] [ ? I’ll give you 10 gold coins for each reply ! ] [ ? 20! ] . . .

Tsk, I clicked my tongue and closed the Trivia.

I’m not a window, and I don’t want to get gold coins for joining in on the nonsense.

In an hour, I had to attend the ice element research club ‘Frozen’. I was going to read some books in the library while I was floating around.

I had already marked a book. ?Softening, Harmony, Explosion?.

I made a plan and got up from my seat.

“Ah~ I met you all here! You’re Flan, right?”

A stranger sat down across from me.

Her orange hair fluttered down to her waist and freckles. She looked oddly like Violet.

The sure thing was that she and I were strangers. Before I could ask who she was, she put a card on the table.

[ Sephia Whisper. Merhen Daily Magic Department Chief. ]

I looked back and forth between the card and Sephia.

It wasn’t surprising that she was a reporter, but it was surprising that she was a chief. She looked like a youngest reporter by appearance.

“It’s about the exploration evaluation that happened this time. You stayed until the end in the magic labyrinth, right? I’d like to talk to you for a moment~”

She didn’t need to ask me.

“I think you should go to another student.”

“I’ve been through them all! Hailey said she didn’t remember, and Becky told me to go to Flan!”

“I don’t remember well either.”

I tried to get up, but she grabbed me in a hurry. I avoided her hand when she tried to hold it.

“Oh… You’re very quick to react? No, no, not that! It’s a huge benefit for you to talk to me!”

She glanced around and whispered in my ear.

“…And I know that you’re a person from Udit, too?”

I nodded.

I see, she knew that I was a person from Udit.

I asked Sephia calmly.

“What do you want?”