"Can that thing even get hard at your age?"
"Do you want to see it yourself?" The old man's hand went towards his pelvic region.
"I'm good." Akeru looked at him like human garbage.
"Hehe, I was just kidding. Don't get angry." The old man giggled.
He repeated the words Akeru had told him moments ago.
The tables have turned.
'Did he act like that from the beginning to get this reaction from me? Incredible.' Akeru was amazed at the old man's wisdom.
"What's your name, kid?"
Akeru looked at him, considering whether he should reveal or not.
"Akeru."
"No last name?"
"Nope. Born a Commoner."
"Same. Name's Jiraiya."
"Jiraiya?" Akeru frowned, confused. "I think I have heard that name before somewhere."
"What a coincidence! I think I have heard yours too."
"Anyway, I am at work." Akeru's smile vanished. His voice turned serious, like the cheer was just an act.
"How can this humble Tower Master help you?"
"Why are you calling yourself Tower Master? Never mind. Has this place been robbed around 5 years ago?"
"Robbed? Do you mean grimoires being stolen? That's impossible." The old man pointed towards the ground.
"There are a lot of magic circles here keeping the grimoires from getting stolen. Even the Kingdom's best experts would take at least a week to break it, if they somehow cooperate."
Jiraiya trusted the tower completely.
Akeru agreed. One glance told him the rune arrays worked together to form a powerful system.
"No, I mean someone came at night, got chosen by a grimoire, and left."
Jiraiya paused.
"Now, that's quite a rare case. I live in the tower only. So for that to happen, first it needs to be night, and I have to be not present here, which may as well be once in a blue moon. Even that being the case, they would have to bypass the strict guard patrols occurring in the city throughout the night, especially while being 15 years old. Nearly impossible." Jiraiya shook his head.
Akeru frowned.
"So, do you not check the number of grimoires present every once in a while?" It was quite different from the previous grimoire towers Akeru had visited.
"No, as you could guess, there's no need."
Akeru agreed with his logic and would have done the same if he were in the man's shoes, as a person would require humongous luck for such a case to happen.
"Did an individual with a grimoire, unregistered, pop up? Is that why a magic knight is visiting?"
"Yeah. From my calculations, this tower is likely to be the one from which the grimoire was stolen. You must have a method to check this fact with the array mechanism you have control over. Can you please check it?"
Jiraiya's eyebrows furrowed, not in annoyance, but rather in curiosity, "Are you doing this for the sake of your mission, or do you still think that there's a chance for a person to steal the grimoire despite the less likely chance of it?"
"The latter. Your logic is quite clear, and I wouldn't have thought that getting a grimoire without anybody knowing, possible, that is, if it is a normal grimoire. But what if the grimoire was a four-leaf?"
"What?" Jiraiya got up from the seat, his eyes widening to the size of saucers.
Akeru only smirked before taking out a picture from the bag and giving it to Jiraiya.
It was a coloured illustration of Noel's grimoire.
At least, what Akeru remembered of it.
"This-This is a 5-leaf, not 4-leaf." Jiraiya was even more shocked at the existence of the 5-leaf clover discovered.
"It got recently converted as there isn't a devil dwelling inside it."
"This... Though unlikely, there is a solid chance for such a scenario to happen if a four-leaf is involved." Jiraiya said before moving to his table and opening the drawer.
His mana flew inside it while his eyes seemed lost.
'Is he getting the information directly inside his head? It seems I underestimated the extent of how advanced the rune arrays here are.' Akeru watched him silently.
"Your assumptions were correct. A book is missing, in the same period you said." Even Jiraiya struggled to believe it, despite saying it himself.
"Do you have any more information about that individual?"
"There's a video recording of the incident, here." Jiraiya touched the surface of his desk, and a hologram appeared.
A brown-haired individual could be seen entering the tower.
The individual's clothes were torn at various places, his appearance was haggard.
Despite being 5 years younger, Akeru could instantly recognize him.
After all, that guy had left a mental trauma on him.
"Is this for real?"
"Real." Even Jiraiya didn't believe what he was seeing.
Noel stepped inside, and a grimoire flew at him. He then inspected the grimoire there itself... for 20 whole minutes.
In the entire 20 Minutes, he looked through his grimoire without getting interrupted.
That also with one of the doors being open and Noel standing at the entrance, just a few metres in.
"How the fuck did nobody noticed him?" Akeru was expecting many things, but never in his wildest dreams did he expect this.
He thought Noel might've gotten lucky—barely dodging detection.
He didn't expect it to be this simple.
"It seems the 4th leaf in Grimoire is not for the show after all." Jiraiya was also amazed at the face.
Akeru's expression twisted with mixed emotions.
'It's a matter of time before Yuno will surpass me.' Akeru didn't really like this fact.
He had trained since he was 9, trained intensely to reach his level of power.
And just a startup, out of nowhere, came out and reached his level of power so quickly.
'Is this how everyone else felt when seeing my existence? Oh well, I might be getting a bit too biased. From what I heard, Yuno and Asta had been training from a very young age, too. And their work routine, though not on my level, isn't that far from it.'
Akeru had prided himself on the fact that his work ethic not only screamed "YOUTH" but also screamed "PRODUCTIVITY".
"It's fine, kid. Everyone has their own journey. You need to focus on yourself."
"Huh? How do you know what I am thinking?" Akeru asked with a baffled look on his face.
'Does this old man have magic related to telepathy or something?'
"Hehe, call it experience. When you have lived as long as I have, you see these things instantly."
"How old are you?" Akeru suspiciously asked.
Jiraiya, as if waiting for this exact moment, replied giddily.
"69!"
Akeru just gave him a deadpan.
"Very funny old man."
"No, real. This year is specially made for me as after all, I am 69 years old."
"Tch, sure, whatever. I would be going then." Akeru got up from the chair.
"Hey now, it's quite rare to get guests here. Why don't you stay a bit longer?"
"I wonder why it's quite rare to get guests." Akeru gave him a look.
Jiraiya ignored his look. "Also, it's even rarer to see the youngest Grand Magic Knight of our kingdom feel insecure about his abilities. Like, what are the odds of that?"
Seeing Jiraiya's smirk, Akeru's lips twitched.
"Though I don't know how you got that information, I would rather stay grounded rather than let my ego guide me."
"Hehe, it's quite rare to see down-to-earth people like you. You remind me of someone."
"Who?" Akeru tilted his head.
"Me!"
"I feel insulted." Being compared to a pervert wasn't what Akeru thought would happen before he started his day.
"Hey now, I am not that bad. Also, your mana control is quite exceptional. I have only seen one person who has mana control comparable to yours in some aspect."
"Oh, who?" 'Mana control better than me? The only person I could think of is Noel. But that guy can't match my control when I use 'Bystander's Indifference'.'
"Me."
Akeru opened his mouth, then closed it.
He decided that words, or more like his vocabulary, are not enough to give this senile old man the peace of mind.
Without saying anything, he started walking towards the door.
WHOOSH
A sharp sound of air being dragged came from behind.
Akeru's eyes widened as he felt a large amount of mana gathering behind him.
He turned around and saw the mana converging just above Jiraiya's right palm.
The mana took the form of a sphere and was rotating quite quickly.
"Rasengan." Words left Akeru's on instinct.
***
Join my Patreon to support me and get up to 20 advanced chapters:
- DESIRE96
(search it up)
Check out my other works.
Join my Discord to talk to our community. The link is in the synopsis.