A Mage's Title

While they were walking toward the dawning sun and their sleeping place Jack remembered something from his time. Waiting for a carriage to pass by, he smiled to his students and asked :

"Do you have mage's name in this era ?"

"I don't think so, what is it?" The elf replied with a hint of doubt in her voice. Since she had never been to a magic school and never took part in this system she couldn't be sure.

"When you become an apprentice mage you received a title from the community. It was a form of baptism and this title became your public name used by everyone who didn't know you closely. After you got recognized as a fully fledged mage you got another one usually more impressive and precisely describing your personality or abilities."

"Ooh, what was yours then teacher?" Evelyn suddenly asked, curiosity dancing in her eyes.

"Ha, it is something that I'm not really proud of." He grunted while laughing dryly. "Let's just say that my title is The Lifomancer for now."

His tone implied that he would not answer any question about that and thus disappointed a little the two girls. They wanted to know more about him and yet he remained as elusive as ever. Seeing them looking at the ground, Jack tried to rise their mood :

"Hey, I brought this topic for you two at first. Usually, you get your names from your mentor. As such, I hereby declare that I recognize you two as fellow magicians and my apprentices. Are you fine with this?"

Laena raised her head, her ears wriggling a little while stars danced in her eyes. Evelyn also looked happy and they both nodded at the same time, saying a "Yes !" together.

"I shall name you then. Young elf, you impressed me with your mastery over your blade and your will. Thus, your apprentice title shall be The Fiery Blade. May you never disappoint me nor tarnish your name."

A huge grin appeared on her face and she lowered her head respectfully.

"Young one, you discovered by yourself your talent with magic and your voice. As such, I shall name you The Breeze Singer. May you never disappoint me nor tarnish your name."

"Yes master !" Evelyn replied while looking up toward her teacher.

"Usually, there would be an elder to welcome you in the magic community. Unfortunately I do not know if such a society still exist so I shall say it instead. Welcome in the grand magician family Evelyn, Laena."

The nostalgic and respectful tone that Jack used gave the two girls the feeling that they had managed to go back in time. They felt like they had been witnesses of an ancestral event and were deeply honored. Glancing at their teacher from time to time they had noticed that he seemed quite happy to have done such tradition with his students but he also looked quite melancholic.

After having tried to launch conversations a few time without success the girls sighed and the party reached their inn after a silent walk. Taking a bath brought the girls a comfort they craved for after such an eventful day. Remembering themselves of what they were going to do starting from tomorrow brought them to darkest dreams and Laena saw the visages of all the women she had sent to the Netherworld.

When the first rays of sunlight appeared at the horizon, Jack woke them up and was surprised by their awful faces.

"Slept well?" He jokingly asked after they got dressed.

"Mn... I can't really call it a sleep night honestly." Laena replied, despondent.

"I've been anxious the whole night too..." Evelyn sighed.

"Well, at least you are tensed up and ready to get going don't you?" Their teacher said with an evil grin.

"Yeaaaah." The two girls grunted in low spirit.

Jack nearly had to drag them toward the guild after having eaten and paid for another week in the inn. Walking by a smith, he bought a low quality longsword in front of the curious eyes of his students. Simply smiling at them when they asked why he suddenly did this, he said nothing and continued toward their objective.

Entering the huge building, they were welcomed by an energetic and active mass of adventurers looking through the new quests. Making their way through all those people, they bumped in a few and angered them but they were rendered speechless by the unspoken death promise brought by Jack's glare.

After some struggle they reached the C classed quest board and looked through to find something about bandits. With some research and thinking they found a few interesting ones that required to investigate some merchant carriage's disappearance. Taking the two most promising that looked linked to a human's action they brought the papers to the counter and stepped in the queue. After a few seconds, a heavy hand ended on Jack's shoulder and a menacing voice said :

"Hey, we saw that quest first. Hand it back will you? "

"And why should I kid?" The immortal laughed, turning toward his interlocutor while swatting away his hand. It was a man in his twenties wearing a plate armor and a sword at his side.

"Because we saw it first !" The man grunted, visibly angry. Behind him were his teammates and they tried to calm him down :

"Calm down Kevin, we will get thrown out at this rate."

"We don't need this quest's money, there are many others..."

"See?" Jack sneered. Laena and Evelyn simply watched the situation with a curious eye, wondering why this man was this hellbent on this quest.

"God dammit ! My brother was a guard of this caravan and I know that he couldn't die with mere bandits ! This quest is the first news I got since he was gone and you stole it away, now give it back !" The presumably Kevin explained while turning redder and redder.

"Well then, I will investigate in your stead and see if your dear brother indeed fell against bandits or not." Jack replied with a terrifying smile. He couldn't care less about this man and all he knew was that he was an annoying fly. If his story was true then his brother was dead anyway and going to a fight with such an unstable mind would only lead him to death.

The armored man roared and tried to punch the guy who refused to leave him the quest. Blinded by his grief and anger, he threw his fist with all his strength and hoped to crush his opponent under his iron gauntlet. Then, he felt like the room had turned into an ice field and froze under the two gold-like eyes glaring at him.

"You saw it, he attacked first. It means I can retaliate right?" Jack darkly laughed. He had easily dodged the telegraphed attack and was gazing at his prey like a wolf looking at a lamb.

Painfully moving his body, Kevin threw another punch but not out of anger. this time, it was fear guiding him. Fear for his life. An instant later, the man wearing a black suit disappeared from his sight and his eyes met his friends horrified's ones.

'B-but they were standing behind me...' He thought before feeling a burning pain in his neck and noticing that he couldn't move his body anymore.

The nearly perfect silence in the adventurer's guild had been interrupted by the metallic sound of a heavy man falling of the ground. All the curious ones who had formed a circle around the altercation showed terrified faces as they looked at the man standing next to a corpse with a twisted neck.

"Kevin !" A pained cries came from the fallen man's companion as they rushed around his body to check his condition. Unfortunately for them, the fighter had joined his brother in the afterlife.

"You monster ! Why did you kill him !" A man with a bow on his back asked, shocked.

"Because he pis-" Remembering himself of his role and that he had caused a big commotion because of his temper, he corrected his tone and cancelled his spell. "Because he represented a menace for my young miss. If such a punch had hit her she would have been wounded and may even have had broken bones."

"You could have stopped him, you had no need to go this far..." Another man sobbed while crouching near the corpse.

"If you have a raging dog barking and trying to bite you, will you leave him live because he didn't know what he was doing ? I don't think so. He attacked first and even a second time before I acted. I simply brought down a man who had become a danger for himself and his entourage." Jack coldly stated before turning back toward the counter.

Evelyn and Laena followed him, still shocked and surprised by the events. Everything had happened so fast... Their teacher's ruthlessness and indifference toward the others also surprised them as it was a completely different temperament from what they knew.

Standing in front of the counter easily as all the other adventurers made them way, they arrived in front of a dumbfounded Linda and got her validate their quests. The receptionist couldn't help but see them under a different eye as Jack murdered a man in cold blood even if he was right according to the guild's law.

Quickly getting out there as the girls felt really uncomfortable in this atmosphere, they asked Jack why the hell had he done that a bit further away. Shrugging, he simply replied in a natural tone :

"If a fly bother you, will you not kill it? It was the same here. This idiot wanted to find his dead brother, at least now he's with him."

His answer left the girls flabbergasted and they simply followed him out of town as they got on the way to get to the first quest's location. Apparently, a bunch of bandits attacked a carriage around one day and a half from the city and a man managed to survive the assault, bringing back those important information. Thus, they walked on the dirt roads and slept in their tents like before. The only thing different from before was the silence of the girls as they were still surprised by their teacher's temperament.

He had already killed in front of them earlier but it wasn't the same feeling. Here, he had dispatched of an angry man just because the guy had bothered him. They understood parts of his point of view but still felt uncomfortable with his disregard for human lives.

Standing in the middle of the road where the carriage had been supposedly attacked, Jack suddenly stopped them and told them while smiling :

"Tell me, what do you know about ghosts?"

"Uuuh... Oh, I remember that you told me that they were made of mana." Evelyn said.

"And I heard that they are invisible and haunt places where they died." Laena replied, shuddering.

"You both are right. Ghosts are souls and thus have soul mana in them. The difference between a ghost and a soul is that the soul is more than mere mana as it has inside of our "self" that go either in heaven or hell when we die, but I digress. Ghosts are stranded bunch of soul mana staying in this world because they have something binding them : grief, rage, regret... In the end a part of their self is still remaining down there and animate the whole mana structure, keeping it safe from time. This is where the Spiritualists come as their magic allow them to talk to such ghosts and other spirits."

Seeing their surprised expression, he guessed that the Spiritualists had disappeared too. Grinning he started his incantation :

"Spirits remaining in this world because of your rage, hear my call as I am willing to make myself the arm of your anger. I shall bring down the targets of your revenge if you give me the help I need. Avenging Call."

Then, the atmosphere around them turned eerie and mist started to form around them even if the sun was still high in the sky. Scared, the girls looked at Jack and saw him smiling and nodding. He was gazing at something they couldn't see but this allowed them to notice that he had wounded his mana circuits once again. This time they were light blue and gave you the feeling that they were merely illusions drawn on his body.

Coughing a bit of blood while the mist receded, the teacher looked at his students and said in a ferocious tone :

"I found them and they are mine. Allow me to show you what a slaughter looks like."