Chapter 193 - Great Sage

The great sage was connected to another transmission mirror that was brought into the throne room. This way, they could talk easily.

"Ah?!" The great sage widened his eyes and recognized both of them. The first would be the succubus queen while the other one was his soon-to-be teacher.

Albert hesitated for a moment and said, "I have decided to take you as my student for one condition."

The great sage remained silent, never expecting this to happen.

Albert didn't wait for him to react. He stated, "What kind of information do you have regarding the five human kingdoms?"

The great sage narrowed his eyes, realizing Albert's true aim. Since he wanted to get Albert's power, he decided to give a few hints. "Information about the braves, the movements of the five kingdoms, and the plans of the Risourin Kingdom, Sunar Kingdom, and Terrai Kingdom."

Albert thought for a moment and asked, "How about the Holy Kingdom and the Merling Kingdom?"

"Not too much because they rarely appeared in the discussion."

"…" Albert still wondered if this was wrong or not. "Where do you come from?"

"Me? Japan. The hero is from… What's the country name again? Canada? Something like that." He answered while adding the hero information to tell him he knew something about Albert's identity.

Ultimately, Albert turned to Lilith and nodded his head, telling her they came from the same world.

"Then, what are you planning to do?" Lilith asked with a serious expression. "This is your decision. I'm not going to force you to do this."

"It's fine." Albert looked at the great sage for a few seconds before asking, "Why do you want my power?"

"I have the power of animes, mangas, and novels on my back. If I gain the power of bonk, no one can stop me. For example… I am the bonk of my sword. Abstinence is my body, and castity is my blood. I have—!" The great sage began to chant something that was out of this world.

As someone who never watched anime, Albert didn't know what he was talking about. However, the great sage showed such a belief that he could do something like that.

If he let him continue, there might be some trouble for the guards watching over him. Hence, he stopped him. "Enough. I heard enough."

"…" The great sage immediately shut his mouth. He didn't want to ruin his chance after all.

"If I grant you this power, what will you do?"

"I'm going to follow you!" The great sage's expression brightened. "It's true that imitating anime is cool for me, but if I can add meme to my repertoire, it will be perfect. After all, I use bonk meme at least ten times a day!"

"…" Albert thought for a moment and asked, "So, if I want you to give me all the information you know…"

"I don't mind giving it to you."

"How do I know the information is true?"

"Hmm?" The great sage tilted his head and glanced at Lilith. "Don't the succubus have the way? They have been trying to do something to me…"

Albert turned to Lilith and asked, "Is that true?"

"Yeah. We use our charm to hypnotize the prisoner to extract information. But his seal prevented us from doing so."

"If I tell you—"

Before Albert even finished, the great sage had already answered. "I'll remove the seal."

"…" Albert squinted his eyes, wondering if the great sage had an ulterior motive. It was too easy after all.

"But how do I know you will grant me that power?" The great sage finally asked the question.

"Even if I don't agree to it, they will use torture. You shouldn't be able to endure it."

"My seal can fry my brain, so I won't be experiencing that torture. Nevertheless, I will simply die from that… Not much of a problem since I have tried to commit suicide a few times back on Earth."

"…" Albert pinched the bridge of his nose and contemplated his choice. But the great sage's emotionless face kept telling him it was the truth. After a while, Albert asked inwardly, 'Bonkey? Can you do that for me?'

[Understood.]

[Processing.]

[Done.]

[Sarutame Gin now has become your student.]

After seeing the notification, Albert said, "Try to imagine a wooden bat appearing in your hand."

"…" The great sage frowned and followed his instruction. Surprisingly, he found the bat that he always wanted appearing out of thin air. "This… This is…"

"This is just a trial. Proceed with the investigation first and I'll let you follow me later. Sarutame Gin."

When the ministers saw the great sage acquiring that power remotely, they were dumbstruck.

'He can grant someone power from afar?'

'Does that mean he can even give the human kings this power even from here?'

'This power is so omnipotent…'

'Did Her Majesty know about this beforehand and marry him for this reason?'

'No. With this kind of power, he is truly the Demon Lord.'

'He's the person we should follow.'

'That's right. He's the person who will unite the demons.'

The ministers had various thoughts in their mind, but it was clear they truly acknowledged Albert this time.

While they were having their own fantasy, Gin looked around his bat. His smile became bigger as time passed. However, he soon found something absurd earlier.

"Eh? How do you know my name?" Gin widened his eyes before kneeling in front of the mirror. "No. That's not important. Does this mean I have become your student? Wait a minute… How should I do this?

"Should I brew a tea for you and kowtow three times? No, no. That's the wrong genre. How about kowtowing twelve times? Not that too… This is a Sword and Magic genre, so what should one do after beco—"

"Just f*cking do it!" Albert raised his voice, annoyed. "I don't freaking understand what you're talking about!"

"Ah…" Gin opened his mouth in surprise before making a wry smile, realizing that his master didn't seem to know anything about novels, animes, and mangas. "I understand. Do whatever you want to me."

Gin suddenly clapped his hands a few times as a few chains suddenly appeared, circling his head. The chain soon fell down one after another until it was completely removed. "I'm done."

Albert glanced at Lilith, telling her to do it.

Since that was the case, Lilith ordered the succubus in there to hypnotize the great sage.

The latter followed every instruction the succubus gave and his eyes soon looked empty.

"Please, Your Majesty."

Lilith thought for a moment and asked, "What are the identities of the five braves? Your name and birthplace."

After getting hypnotized, Gin answered with a monotone voice. "The Hero's name is Jack Dredmond. He's from Canada. Meanwhile, I'm Sarutame Gin, my given name is Gin. I'm from Japan.

"The Magic Empress is Natasha Fredmund from the UK. As for the saintess, she's called Hua Mingyue from China. Last but not least, the hunter… he's Yesaulov Aleksei Georgiy from Russia."

"Well, diversity…" Albert shrugged while stating, "Yes. We're from the same world."

Lilith thought for a moment and asked, "Why did you come to the battlefield?"

"The three kingdoms had a discussion about sending the braves to the battlefield for the first time so that we get used to fighting demons. Unfortunately, the Terrai Kingdom refused to send the Magic Empress. Even my Risourin Kingdom didn't want to send me originally. Only because of the brave that the king reluctantly agreed."

"Who are you? What is your job? What is your power? How strong are you?"

"I'm Sarutame Gin. My job is Sage. My core power comprises of three unique spells, Analyze, Reconstruction, and Magic Engineering. My current strength is supposed to be equal to a 5-Star Magician as long as it's a one on one battle… but because my power is more related to research, my current strength is only equal to a 4-Star Magician."

Lilith thought for a moment and asked, "Was the information about your past true? What did you do in your previous world?"

"I was a nerd, who loved books. In school, I always tried to learn anything. After going home, I would read some more books to immerse myself in it. Because of this behavior, I was ridiculed and bullied.

"If not because of my good grade, the treatment would have been worse. Everything changed after Jack came to my school as an exchange student. The treatment started to become worse that I gradually became traumatized and turned into a NEET.

"That was where I truly began to read novels, comics, and animes. I just wanted to get some emotional support from them that I even laughed at bad jokes. Not long after, I started my career as a light novelist, but the haters kept insulting me, treating me like sh*t, and asking me to kill myself even though I did my best to keep writing every single day for a year without a stop just to give them chapters to read.

"Just like the school, I received them every single day and eventually I became depressed enough to try killing myself. The first attempt failed because the ceiling broke when I tried to hang myself. The second attempt failed because the height was enough just to break my bones.

"So, I continued my life and got hit by a truck when I returned from the hospital." The great sage shared his story with an emotionless face. Even though it was such a tragic story, Gin's expression simply told them that it was the past that he had left behind.

"…" Even Albert couldn't help but pinch the bridge of his nose.. Although their story was different, Albert could understand his feeling.