The All-Powerful Mage

A crimson color dyed the normally white snow.

The sound of sirens echoing through the cold winter night, replacing the normally joyous music on Christmas Eve.

In the middle of the road lied a freshly dead corpse and a car with a smushed front, which was slowly being hooked and towed away.

“Sure has been a lot of accidents happening lately, huh, nii-chan?” Inside a nearby convenient store, a boy with pure white hair, like the early winter snow itself, exclaimed.

“Such is life. Short and fleeting.” His black-haired twin brother let out a sigh, unsure if it was to exclaim about their inconvenience as they were stuck inside the store until the aftermath of said accident was dealt with, or to express a genuine sympathy about a life that had been lost.

“I hope whoever the unfortunate soul was gets to rest in peace.”

*****

“Ugh… Where am I?” A man woke up from his sudden slumber. The shock from the crash that just occurred to him was still so great that his entire body was in great pain just by moving a single muscle.

“God, that hurt…” Cracking his neck, the man exclaimed. He was naught but an average office worker, who just got laid off recently because of a quarrel with his boss. In his anger, the man decided to leave the city he was in altogether, and planned to start a new business elsewhere. However, as he was carelessly crossing the streets during a red light, presumably caused by his then hotheadedness, a car ran over him and robbed him a chance of getting away from it all.

Or so the man thought.

After a careful look around him, the man could only gasp at the scenery present at the moment. He was woken up by a blinding white light, but in his mind, he thought that the source of which was the cold, lifeless hospital walls. Never in his right mind would he imagined waking up in the middle of a king-size bed, complete with a golden frame and embedded gems, and surrounded by a group of beautiful, curvaceous women in pure white robes.

“Ah, so this is heaven…” The man closed his eyes with satisfaction and lied down the bed once more, only to be stopped by one of the hooded figures, who let out a voice as sweet as honey and as soothing as a bird’s song:

“No, Great Hero. This is the Kingdom of Tarddiad.”

“Great Hero? Me?”

“Yes, Great Hero,” the individual answered once more, “you are a soul summoned from another world as our savior against the evil Dragon King.”

“Dragon King? Shouldn’t it be Demon King?” The man asked with a surprised look on his face. Throughout his many years of life, he was no stranger to the stereotypical motive of a ‘loser transported to another world’, but this was the first time he did not hear the word “Demon King” uttered as the main villain of the story.

“No, Great Hero. Demons have long been extinct in this world, as the result of a long, long war between humans and mythics. Now, the two factions are at peace again thanks to the Dragon King and his army, but he has grown too comfortable with his power, and our lives are once again being brought to ruin.”

“I see, I see,” the man nodded repeatedly, even though anyone could tell from his closed eyes and sweaty forehead that he actually didn’t get a single thing, “so you guys have to summon a hero from another world in order to combat this all-powerful being?”

“That is correct, Great Hero. Beings from other worlds tend to have great affinity with our mana, therefore they should always come with great and powerful skills. In fact, let us analyze you for a second…”

As the words left the woman’s mouth, everyone else in the room stood in a circle surrounding the man, each conjuring a large magic circle on their hands, and in turn, the bed in which the man was on lit up as well in a glittering blue light, and the golden frame only made it ever more dazzling, causing the man to once again close his eyes in fear of being blinded.

The process, contrary to his expectations, only lasted for a second at most, as he could tell that the light had disappeared as fast as it emerged. And as he opened his eyes once more, the group of women had already returned to their original positions, with the one standing directly opposite to him holding a long piece of paper.

“Oh my goodness!” Letting out an audible gasp, the woman showed the results to its owner. “This aptitude is unbelievable! Instant Understanding, False Creation, Teleportation, and not to mention mastery over all of the elements! O’ Great Hero, you truly are a miracle that has been bestowed upon this world!”

“Is that so? I see, I see.” The man once again nodded repeatedly, but this time, as soon as the slip of paper caught his eyes, he had already figured out every inch of his capabilities. Mastery over all of the elements was pretty self-explanatory, and it’s the same with Teleportation. The other two skills, however, were the ones that intrigued him the most.

Instant Understanding was the skill that allowed him to freely converse with these strange people in the first place, and it also allowed him to read and fully understood any kind of language that he might run into. It could even help him read the heart of people, to figure out their true intentions no matter how good they might hide it.

False Creation, meanwhile, was the broken skill among all broken skills. It allowed him to create practically anything that’s not alive, sentient or conceptual in nature (hence the ‘False’ in its name, and there’s no ‘True Creation’ skill in this world). But that’s plenty powerful enough, since it meant that the man could create money, food, or any object to his content, without ever breaking a sweat.

Unable to contain his excitement, the man finally let out a lough laugh, the first heartful and genuine laugh he’d been able to produce since how long he could remember.

“We are pleased to see you in good spirits, Great Hero. And now…”

“Hold up, girls. We have to introduce ourselves first, don’t we?”

Upon hearing the question, all of the women present bowed down at once. “We’re terribly sorry, Great Hero!”

“Don’t worry about it. Now… let’s start from you, and then we follow from left, to right, is that good?” The man pointed to the woman far to his left – the one that was standing behind him when he was first summoned, and gestured his hand along the line.

“It is my honor, Great Hero. I am Meliae.” The woman answered, and following her, the rest ensued.

“I am Dryad.”

“Naiad is my name.”

“I’m Nereid.”

“And I’m Oread,” the woman standing in the far right, the one that was previously opposite to him and handed him the result of his skills, continued, “O’ Great Hero, may you bestow us with your name?”

“My name? Ah, yes, it is…” The man was about to answer without a hitch, but at the last moment, a thought came across him. He could just use his real name, but his real name wasn’t anything spectacular. If anything, it kind of sucked. So, why use a new name? A new name to celebrate his new life.

“Jiyuu. I am Jiyuu.” The man let out a smile as he stated the name he came up with. Jiyuu, meaning freedom. In his mind, he thought that with all these broken skills in the world, nothing could chain him down anymore. He could spread his wings and fly freely in the open sky.

“Wait a minute,” all of a sudden, his happy thoughts came to a halt, and within his mind echoed a different set of questions, “now that I think about it, why do I have to fight this battle for them? I have all of these broken skills in the world, so I could just live a happy life without having to do anything? Why risk myself into a fight that could very well kill me on the spot?”

“Yeah? Yeah… yeah!” The thoughts grew stronger and stronger by the second, and its result was that the man’s face seemed strangely happy for some reason as he nodded constantly yet again, like some kind of drunkard minus the reddened face.

“O’ Great Hero, what seemed to be the matter?”

“Yeah, you know what?” Forming a huge grin on his now perverted face, the man answered. “Change of plans. I’m not fighting any fight. Peace!”