#1189 A Wise Man Changes His Mind, A Fool Never 

“No way… My original chantless magic actually lost…?!” 

Kaito stands there in shock, like he’s just taken a direct hit to the brain and his soul has flown off somewhere else. 

“But it’s not over yet! If I use this defeat as motivation, shorten the process even more, and get the activation time under a single second…!” 
“Stop wasting your energy.” 

The Demon King tries to calm down Kaito, who’s still fired up. 

“No matter how much you try to optimize and speed things up, magic won’t surpass simple physical movements. If you want to shoot an arrow, you first have to pull back the bow. Likewise, there are essential steps you can’t skip if you want the effect you’re aiming for.” 
“If your goal is purely max speed, you’d probably be better off using something other than magic. That’s not to say magic is inferior. It can produce a wide and powerful effect, precisely because it takes multiple steps. It’s all about how you use it,” Sensei chimes in. 

Kaito frowns, still not convinced. 

“Even so, I… I just thought that chantless magic would be helpful for everyone…!” 
“That desire to help people is admirable. But if it’s actually harming them, then it’s meaningless.” 
“Huh?” 

Kaito looks confused, caught off guard by Sense’s point. 

“You said something like that earlier…! What do you mean?! I’ve never gone out of my way to make anyone miserable!” 
“You do understand the mechanism behind alchemy, right? You must, otherwise you couldn’t have created such a remarkable chantless system in the first place.” 
“?!” 

It seems Kaito still can’t wrap his head around the main point. 

“Alchemy magic works because it’s powered by the help of gods and spirits. Chanting is a request to them, a prayer, a way of expressing gratitude to these beings.” 
“I… I know that. I’m a magic researcher.” 
“And yet you deliberately cast chanting aside?” 

For once, Sensei’s voice carries a sharp edge. 

“That’s basically saying you deny the spirits’ existence even while you beg for their help. Don’t you realize how shameless, disrespectful, and selfish that is?” 
“Ugh… Guh… gah…” 
“Can’t you imagine how frustrated the spirits must feel being rejected like that? Today, your supposedly unbeatable chantless spell got shut down. Your hard work and accomplishments were totally denied. That humiliation, that sting...it’s now branded into your heart, isn’t it? Can’t you empathize with how your own pain mirrors theirs?” 

Kaito’s face twists in agony. 

Before Sensei crushed him moments ago, none of this got through to him at all.  
But after tasting the bitterness of total defeat, these words finally started to sink in. 
In a way, losing was another crucial step Kaito couldn’t skip. 

“I… was I really doing something wrong?” 

He speaks in a strained voice. 

“Still, please believe me! I did this for everyone’s sake! I just wanted to make magic more convenient and efficient for everybody…!” 
“There’s no denying that your chantless magic is quite the feat,” Sensei replies, switching tactics. “Chantless magic has existed in partial forms before. People have tried trimming down the chants or chanting at high speed. But a completely chantless form is something that has never been achieved until now. Kaito, what you did was basically overturn established wisdom.” 

So, why has that level of fully chantless magic never been done before? 

“It’s easy if you think about it. Let’s say someone asked you for a favor…” 

—And they say, “You belong to me, so just shut up and do what I say!” 
How would that make you feel? 

You’d be pissed.  
You’d lose any motivation to help them real fast. 

“It’s the same from the spirits’ perspective. They have every right to refuse a rude request. If you cut corners too aggressively, the spirits get mad and your magic fizzles out.” 

But somehow, Kaito’s chantless magic still drew power from the spirits, even though they really should have rejected it.  
Which meant… the spirits’ own wishes were being ignored...! 

“Yes. You could call it a disregard of the spirits’ will, or even forcibly seizing their power.” 
“No way…!” 
“That’s how extreme your wrongdoing is.” 

After hearing this much, it makes perfect sense why the Spirit King has been so furious. 

It’s not just a matter of being rude. 
Kaito basically hijacked the spirits’ powers without their consent. That strikes at the core of their rights as living beings. 

“The spirits can’t just sit back and let something like that slide. To protect themselves, they have no choice but to stop the unauthorized use of their power. And if they get serious about it, do you realize what’ll happen?” 
“.........” 

Kaito falls silent. 

 
He’s smart enough to figure out the consequences on his own. 
 

An all-out war between humans and spirits. 

Just like the Spirit King actually intended to start. 

“You opened a magic school and were about to spread fully chantless magic. But what if humanity, as a whole, had adopted that same hostile attitude toward the spirits? Thankfully, we managed to handle it now, while it was still in its early stages.” 

Exactly.  
If Kaito had taught chantless magic to a huge number of people, it would’ve taken forever to track them all down and convince them to stop using it.  

Meanwhile, that confrontation with the spirits could’ve erupted into a global war, with the entire world blazing in apocalyptic flames. 

“Uwaaaahhhh! You’re totally right!!!” 

Suddenly, the Spirit King, who’s been quiet this whole time, bursts into tears, grabs hold of me and Sensei, and starts sobbing his heart out. 

“You two said everything I’ve been wanting to say! I’m so happy! You are truly the voices of the spiritssssssss!!!” 

Uh… Actually, that was all Sensei’s doing; I didn’t really say much! 

If anything, I feel a bit useless for not helping more. 

“What are you talking about? You’re the one who summoned me into this world, opening the path to solving this. I appreciate Sensei, but I owe you just as much, Saint! As expected of the human the earth spirits adore!!!” 

As the Spirit King nestles up against me, the onlookers start talking... 

“Wow…he’s so favored by the spirits…?!” 
“That’s the Saint…?!” 
“He really is an amazing person…!” 

There’s a huge crowd because so many prospective students have gathered for Kaito’s magic school. They’re all gawking at me. 

“…But to think fully chantless magic was that dangerous. We need to bring this up ASAP and probably ban it by law…!” the Demon King murmurs. 

“At least it never made its way into the god-contract magic. The gods are very touchy about their dignity. They’d probably have incinerated you with divine punishment the instant you tried to pull something like that.” 
“I never managed to remove the chant from god-contract magic. That was gonna be my next research project, though...!” 
“Fortunately, you haven’t gone that far.” 

The irony is that the spirits, being lower-level existences than gods, let the resentment build up until they practically exploded.  

But that’s often the most dangerous scenario, where someone bottles everything up until they can’t stand it anymore.  
At least we figured it out before everything went off the rails. 

Thank goodness for the earth spirits who warned me about all this.  

I’ll repay them with a big pile of butter before they go back into hibernation. 

Anyway, at long last, the mastermind behind this mess, Kaito, slumps to the ground. 

“I’m abandoning my chantless magic research. …I won’t ever use it again. I never realized my work was causing so much trouble for others.” 
“I’m glad to hear you’ve come to understand. You’re young and clearly talented enough to have pioneered such radical magic in the first place. There are countless ways you can use that talent for good. I hope you’ll ask for advice from people around you and proceed carefully from now on.” 

Sensei gently places a hand on Kaito’s shoulder. 
In the end, he’s always a kind-hearted guy. 

“Yeah… but still…” 
“Hm?” 
“Thinking back on it now, something feels off… The moment I got the idea for complete chantless magic, I thought I’d just come up with a once-in-a-lifetime breakthrough. But at the same time, I could’ve sworn I heard someone whisper in my ear.” 

…Huh?  
That’s weird. 

Are you sure it wasn’t your family calling you for dinner or something? 

“I live alone! And I’m sure someone whispered…!” 

— “With this, you can destroy the world.” 

“I totally forgot about it until now. But once Sensei wiped the floor with me, my head felt all clear, and the memory came rushing back… Like it was sealed away, on purpose, by someone. But whose doing was that…?” 

After that, Kaito just keeps muttering to himself, tuning the rest of us out.  
It leaves a weird, uneasy feeling in the air, but there isn't much more we can do about it. 

At least the spirits got the closure they needed. That’ll have to do for now.