Rhys and Ryota left the restaurant not long after, leaving Ebi behind to organize his documents and work on in forming his underlings of the good news. The second they were clear of being overheard, Ryota turned to Rhys and let out an exhausted sigh. “How on earth were you able to act so normally around him? I was terrified the whole time! He could’ve killed us both with his little finger!”
“Yeah, but he didn’t know that,” Rhys said, unbothered. He grinned. “Did you know, Ryota? I come from a place where anyone can kill anyone with their little… with their pointer finger, or socially execute anyone with a few seconds to gossip. If I was afraid to bluff in front of someone who could kill me or otherwise ruin me, I would never have gotten a job or managed to order food at a fast food restaurant.” He paused. “I kinda switched those two around, there. The risk of death was usually the fast food, and the job was usually the risk of social execution.”
“What… seriously? Someone could kill you for getting food? Not stealing it, just… going somewhere and buying it legitimately? They’ll kill you for that?”
“Oh, sure. It’s rare, but I mean, you mouth off enough at the chicken place in the hood, and you’ll find out what the colonel’s packing. It’s not just herbs and spices, if you know what I mean.”
“I most definitely do not.”
Rhys laughed. “The point is, I’m very used to facing someone with the power to kill me without much thinking and giving them the middle finger, metaphorically. It’s not that I wasn’t scared, but I knew I’d done everything I could to survive, and I trusted the process. Always trust the process.”
“I do not trust the process.”
Rhys nodded sagely. “That is the correct answer when someone tells you to trust the process.”
“Why did you accept the job? I thought you were backing out of it, and then…”
“My path triggered. I don’t know why, fully, but I need to find out.”
“You don’t know why?”
“I’ve got ideas, but until I’m there, I won’t know for sure.” Throwing his life away had been a theme his entire growth so far, after all. Throwing it away this frivolously was a new low, but didn’t that mean it also (possibly) represented a new height of growth potential? He had to find out.
Besides, everyone knew gambling was trashy behavior. He hadn’t indulged much yet, but now seemed like a great time to start. With his path already crying out, how could he turn this opportunity down?
Ryota shook his head. “Must be different, having a path.”
“It’s something, anyways. When you figure things out, you’ll understand.”
“But… I don’t know if I’ll ever figure things out.”
Rhys turned and looked at him. He shook his head and sighed. “If you knew what my path was, I don’t think you’d be so jealous. Prince, think. Think of the world around you. What speaks to you? What calls out to your soul? Right now, are you subconsciously denying something that could be something fantastic, because you think it’s too beneath you to qualify as a high and mighty path?”
“What?” Ryota asked, confused. “But paths are…”
“Paths are what you walk on. If you want to find one, look down. If you keep looking up, you’re just going to run into a tree. Or a passerby. Or a building.” He paused. “It doesn’t matter what you run into. The point is, if you look up all the time, you might overlook what’s right in front of you.”
“But… but… aren’t paths grand and broad things? Like the sword, or art, or cooking, or…”
Rhys shrugged. “They can be. But is yours grand and broad? I know I’m tr… no one important, so I’m not afraid to walk this strange, winding path.”
Ryota frowned. “You might have your path, but isn’t a path a means to seek the path? The true means of magehood? If you walk a strange unorthodox path, aren’t you excluding yourself from finding the path from the beginning?”
“Let me return that question to you. If there is such a thing as the path, then if it’s at the end of one of those broad, straight paths that everyone’s walking… why hasn’t everyone found it already? If no one’s found it yet at the end of those orthodox paths that so many people have walked, then what makes you think you’ll be the one to find it at the end of that broad path? Isn’t it more likely that it’s at the end of a path no one’s dared walk before?”
Ryota opened his mouth, then shut it. He furrowed his brows thoughtfully.
Rhys smiled mysteriously and walked on. He knew the flaw in his argument; it was obvious enough. The hundreds walking the broad path had walked a hundred possibilities of that broad path. They’d flattened the earth and widened the path discovering a little bit more about the correct way to finalize that path with their efforts, so that those who followed after could walk just a little bit farther. In comparison, Rhys striking out on his own into the wild could only explore one way to walk his path. Even if he did everything he could along the way, he wouldn’t get close to the hundreds or thousands of people who’d explored the path of the sword, furthering, perfecting, and experimenting as they went. Sure, he might nail the true path, if there was such a thing, in one try, but it was more likely that it would be his inheritor, or his inheritor’s inheritor, or his inheritor’s inheritor’s inheritor, and so on and so forth, who would walk the path of trash far enough to see its ultimate end. By then, it would be a broad path, like all the other established paths.
But that wasn’t the point he was trying to make. The point was to pick what you loved and walk it with conviction. There was no guarantee they’d find this ‘true’ path, regardless of what they sought after. Such a thing as a true path might not even exist. As long as they were doing what they loved and doing it confidently, they would get as far in magehood as it was possible for them to get. Rather than angling for some mythical ‘perfect’ route, it was better to pick the route suited to them. Ryota was looking at it wrong by standing on the outside and trying to pick the winning horse. He needed to jump in, get his feet wet, try a few things, and figure out what it was he believed in enough to devote his whole life to it.
He hadn’t said it outright because that wasn’t what would help Ryota. Just like any trashy mentor, he was talking around the actual problem and instead being mysterious and forcing Ryota to think it out on his own. In this case, though, it really was the way to convince Ryota. If he just up and said it, Ryota would be stubborn and fight him. But making Ryota think about it and ‘come up with it on his own’ put the thought in Ryota’s hands, not his, and made Ryota less likely to oppose it.
Gosh dang it, am I nuts, or are all those mysterious mentors actually good at human psychology? Am I just actually that trash now, that I see things through those trashy mentors’ eyes and think they’re actually smart?
…It’s good for me if I fall in line with garbage, so I guess I can’t be that mad about it. But I’m still a little embarrassed that I’ve become the mysterious mentor, especially when I raged about Daran doing it not long ago.
Rhys sighed. “You either die the student or live long enough to see yourself become the mysterious mentor.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing.” He stretched, then tossed Ryota a nod. “We have about a week before the time on Ebi’s note. I’ve got some business to attend to, so… shall we meet back here in a week?”
“Certain…ly…” Ryota paused. He narrowed his eyes at Rhys. “You aren’t going to harass my brothers, are you?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. That was a joke,” Rhys said dismissively. “I’ve got much better things to do… as you should well know, Prince.” He tapped Ryota on the chest and raised his brows. Without words, he indicated: That fierce mana in you… I’ve still got to track down the plot around it, right?
“Right… then, in a week, we’ll meet at the south gate.” Ryota offered his hand, and Rhys shook it. Turning, they parted ways.
Rhys reached the end of the road, checked over his shoulder to make sure Ryota wasn’t watching, then immediately turned his feet toward High Street. Sike. As if he was going to overlook such low-hanging trash! He had to at least take a peek. If Ryota’s brothers weren’t trash, then so be it. But if they were, if his instincts were right… then all he had to do was ensure he didn’t make a fuss, right?
Besides, he’d already canvassed most of town and hadn’t sensed a thing. He’d keep looking, but he didn’t have high hopes. These plotters were good enough to know not to leave their prints behind in the mage capital. It’d be suicide, and they knew it. Rhys wasn’t the only mage with ethics and/or the desire to climb up the ranks by pulling others down. No matter where they stood in the hierarchy, so long as they stood in the hierarchy, they could gain something by taking someone else down.
Good thing I’m not in the hierarchy. That means I’m investigating out of the goodness of my heart, which makes me the perfect, morally unambiguous, upright and lofty vigilante!
Wait, hold on. There’s something wrong here…
All that to say, he didn’t have much hope for continuing to search for the fierce mana here, so he might as well entertain himself while he waited for Ebi’s contacts to give him the in he really needed. By which he meant, consume Ryota’s brothers for power.
Naturally, Ryota hadn’t pointed out where his brothers stayed with Rhys’s motives at question, but fundamentally, they were princes. They weren’t going to stay in the poor parts of town. If he loitered around the rich and stylish part of town long enough, he’d run into one or another of those pampered royals.
He only had a week, but a week should be more than long enough. Importantly, he didn’t need to execute the entire plan, just find a prince. With that in mind, he strolled the streets casually. He wanted to put his hands in his pockets, but pockets were annoying to sew and he hadn’t added any to this robe, so he just put his hands on his hips. Ryota hadn’t taken him through the ritzy district too much (possibly because he’d joked a little too much about absorbing his half-brothers), so this was his first time walking down the individual streets. There were lots of expensive shops that probably had robes with pockets somewhere in their stock, along with magic herb stores, potion shops, stores that sold various artifacts, and an entire store devoted to flying tools.
Rhys drew to a halt. He stared in awe, his jaw dropped. “No way… here, too?”
A surprisingly cool-colored, blue-green building stood out against the brightly colored, rainbow-hued buildings around it, all the more striking for its relative darkness against the bright shades. Atop it, a prominent sign declared it as one of his favorite places, whether in this world or the previous, regardless of his region:
LIBRARY.