Genius Warlock - Chapter 602

“Long time no see, Celine. Have you been well?”
“I know Celine is brave, but this isn’t exactly a great place to be. Are you okay?”

Oliver speaks frankly, revealing that he is not a god. The fighter crew respect Oliver as their leader. Oliver talks to Cant sent by Forrest, who praises Oliver’s work helping people. However, Oliver reveals he does it for selfish reasons, and Cant says that’s fine. Cant asks about Oliver’s plans for his business, and Oliver says he’s thinking of founding a magic school, surprising even the government minister.

Genius Black Magician – 602

602. Changing Randa (3)

“Oh, hello! Olly, no, Sir Dave!!”

At the X-Zone redevelopment union office, when Oliver greeted Celine, she bent over 120 degrees and replied. Thanks to this, her hair fluttered.

This was the first time they had met since Wyham. Maybe because of that, she was very nervous.

Oliver knelt on one knee to relax her tension and met her eye level.

“Yes, nice to see you. How have you been, Celine?”

“Oh, yes, yes! Thanks to Sir Dave’s grace, I’ve been well! Thank you for your concern.”

Contrary to his intention, Celine’s tension became even more serious. However, Oliver did not give up and continued the conversation. He mobilized all the rhetoric he had learned at the House of Angels.

“Actually, I wasn’t that worried.”

Celine’s pupils shook. And her sense of loss and mental wounds shone. It was a bigger reaction than he thought. Oliver immediately said the following.

“Celine is braver than I am. So I thought you’d be fine.”

“Ah.”

The words Oliver had said to her in the past in Wyham. Hearing those words again, Celine showed the opposite emotion, joy. She was genuinely glad that Oliver remembered the conversation he had shared with her.

As proof of this, Celine’s face turned as red as a beet, and the corners of her mouth went up as if melting with embarrassment and happiness.

The awkwardness in the air disappeared, and the tension in Celine’s small body also disappeared.

Oliver took advantage of this and asked Celine to sit down.

Tak.

“Do you like cake? Or cookies?”

Oliver asked, pointing to the sweet snacks piled on the table, and Celine pointed to the cake. Oliver cut a large piece of cake and placed it in front of her, and Celine ate the cake like a baby bird.

“Is it tasty?”

“Yup! It’s delicious. Thank you, Sir Dave.”

Celine continued to speak, not leaving out the word ‘Sir’ and the word ‘thank you’.

Personally, it was regrettable.

Oliver was not such a great person to be called ‘Sir’. But he couldn’t tell her to stop. They had already talked about it in Wyham. Celine said she was comfortable with the word Sir, and Oliver had no choice but to accept it. So he couldn’t mention the issue.

Well, there were many other things he wanted to say. For example, if she still thought of him as a god. However, there is an order to conversation. Oliver asked a more mundane and common-sense question instead. For example-

“Is Randa okay?”

Like if she was doing well. Celine, who had eaten half of the cake, stared at Oliver.

“I know Celine is brave, but that doesn’t necessarily mean this is a good place to stay. Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m doing well.”

Celine nodded, finishing her cake. She had regained her composure, perhaps thanks to the strength of her party. As proof of this, she showed the intelligence she had displayed in Winham.

“It was strange at first, but now I like it here. There are a lot of people and I’ve made some friends.”

“That’s good.”

“Excuse me, Dave. Can I ask you a question?”

Celine’s eyes sparkled with interest, curiosity, and enthusiasm. Oliver allowed her to ask her question. It was a way to have a healthy conversation.

“May I ask why you called us here? Did we do something wrong?”

“No, not at all. I just wanted to talk to you.”

“Ah… Th-thank you, Dave.”

Celine expressed her gratitude. It was as if she were honored that he was taking such an interest in them. Oliver’s chest tightened slightly at the sight.

That was because Oliver was having this conversation not for Celine or the others, but for himself.

Oliver wanted to talk to people in order to use them as a compass to become a good person.

And yet, he was being thanked for it. The pain in his side, where Jane had stabbed him, began to ache. However, he couldn’t just stop now, so Oliver pulled himself together.

Even if his intentions were somewhat impure, it didn’t matter as long as he was doing good for people. It was a similar concept to business. Oliver would get what he wanted, and the people would get jobs. That was it. There wouldn’t be any problems.

With that in mind, Oliver asked Celine trivial questions about what she had been doing since coming to Randar, how she was doing, and what her life was like. Celine, as if trying to repay Oliver’s kindness, answered each question in great detail and with enthusiasm.

At first, she had lived in an old apartment building that Oliver had provided, but now that development was in full swing, she was living in a decent house. She said that she studied dark magic in the mornings, helped the adults with their work in the afternoons, and worked on the fields with the fighter crew children in the late afternoons or evenings. She also mentioned that she taught the children who couldn’t read or do math.

“Celine teaches them?”

“Usually, the teachers who are in charge of our education. Director Marie told us to teach those who want to learn.”

“Oh… That’s great.”

“Ah, Milo teaches math.”

Milo. The youngest brother of Randar’s liquor king, Murphy Kimbell. He currently visited the place regularly to study dark magic.

“Milo?”

“Yes, he hits us on the back of the head when we do something wrong, but he teaches us well.”

“Yes, and if I can’t do it, hit me on the back of the head, but please teach me well.”

“The more samples there are, the more accurate the results will be. Like that, Oliver was willing to talk to numerous people one by one in order to get a more appropriate direction and the results of becoming a good person.

“Really?”

“I teach using things like candy.”

“Oh······.”

Oliver was unknowingly impressed. He was surprised to see that person who was dragged by the ear by his aunt Maggie and scolded by his older brother Murphy show such an appearance. Well, people had various appearances.

After that, Oliver continued with a more personal conversation about how he had spent his past and how he had met Marie.

It was a question he hadn’t been able to ask because he had been flustered at the time in Wynham, but as expected, it was far from a bright story.

Slums, dangerous gangs, Marie, who happened to appear and save him, etc. Celine’s meeting with Marie was quite similar to the story of Marie meeting Joseph. Perhaps most of the world’s tragedies took similar forms.

“So, you like Marie.”

“We all like Director Marie. She’s kind and treats us well.”

The mature Celine laughed softly for the first time then. A face like a child’s. She looked good for some reason.

“Of course, I like Sir Dave too!”

Celine’s chest shone brightly with the pure sincerity unique to children, and Oliver felt gratitude and guilt at that sight.

“Thank you for saying that, Celine.”

After saying that, Celine became shy and put the last remaining cake in her mouth again.

The conversation was almost over. Oliver was about to let Celine go like this, but he asked one last question.

“Celine.”

“Yes, Sir Dave.”

“Do you still think I’m a god?”

“······.”

“I’m not asking because I’m angry or trying to blame you, can you answer me honestly? I’m just curious about what you guys think.”

Celine was silent for a moment before opening her mouth, and after hearing the answer, Oliver took Celine’s hand and thanked her for telling him honestly.

Like that, Celine went outside, and Oliver talked to the next person.

***

The office of the X-District Redevelopment Union.

For the past few days, the people selected there and the members of the Fighter Crew had been going in and out one by one.

Their common point was that they had talked to Oliver one-on-one, and from a third-person perspective, this was quite crazy.

That was understandable, as the number of members in the Fighter Crew had increased and currently exceeded five hundred, and there were easily hundreds of people who had been selected, just counting those in Landa.

However, Oliver’s idea to talk to all those people one-on-one could be called madness.

It was something that even a rich and free-spirited gangster wouldn’t do.

However, Oliver didn’t mind. No, rather, he welcomed it.

Sheep have the value of sheep. For Oliver, who was trying to pursue the kind of person he wanted to be through conversations with people, a large number of people were resources, not obstacles.

Just as having more samples can produce more accurate results, Oliver was willing to engage in one-on-one conversations with a great number of people in order to obtain a more accurate direction, a more ideal result of the type of person he wanted to be.

Of course, he understood that there was a physical limitation of time, that he couldn’t do this in a single day, so he engaged in conversations with people over a long period of time.

What’s your name, how old are you, what are you doing and learning now, how is your life, etc. Then, once their tension and vigilance had eased, he engaged in slightly more in-depth conversations.

Why did you happen to choose me, or join the Fighter Crew, what was your past like, who’s in your family, etc. And finally, he asked how they perceived Oliver himself.

Honestly, it wasn’t an easy task.

The Chosen Ones were armed with awe and faith, and the Fighter Crew with admiration and fear of the strong, so it was difficult to have sincere conversations.

It wasn’t anyone’s fault. It was a kind of natural phenomenon.

However, it was difficult to have sincere conversations apart from that, and as time went on, the difficulty was compounded by the fact that those who heard what questions Oliver was asking prepared pretty, packaged answers in advance.

This was an unpleasant situation for Oliver, who wanted sincere conversations (accurate samples). However, instead of complaining, Oliver drew out sincere feelings from people based on his black magic eyes and the increasing number of conversations.

As a result, he was able to draw out results that were not perfect, but increasingly satisfactory.

He was able to meet people who, despite belonging to the Chosen Ones, did not think of Oliver as a god, who respected Marie more, who were becoming increasingly uncomfortable with Oliver being revered as a living god, and who didn’t really care if Oliver was a real god or not. And the reasons for that.

There were various reasons why people who did not believe in Oliver as a god belonged to the Chosen Ones. There were those who followed Marie, those who did it for survival, and those who placed importance on the act of believing itself.

A typical example was a grandmother who had five grandchildren.

“It doesn’t matter to this old woman whether Sir Dave is a real god or not. The important thing is that we were saved by Sir Dave’s will, and that I believe that fact.”

The Fighter Crew was no different. Oliver was able to have relatively serious conversations with the Fighter Crew members, except for Joe, with whom he had not been able to have a proper conversation.

To them, Oliver was a big shot who could negotiate with the Crime Firm, and now he was more than that, he was the one who taught them black magic, and he was the ultimate success model.

“When I first met you, I was a bit cheeky, but now I consider myself lucky not to be dead.”

‘When we first met, I acted arrogantly towards you, but now I consider myself lucky to be alive.’ Oliver did not press the issue, unsure whether it was fortunate or not. His opponent was Kant. Rather than dwelling on that, Oliver offered Kant a seat.

‘I think of you as my benefactor, Dave-nim. You helped us when we had no choice but to fight the Crime Firm because of the cannibalistic chef, and you also gave us good jobs. I’ll always be grateful. Please feel free to ask me for anything.’

Sam, the Dual Pistol, a friend of Knuckle Joe, expressed his sincere gratitude.

Joe’s younger brother, Owen, the Iron Cudgel, expressed his innocent gratitude.

Oliver had calm conversations with various other individuals as well. For example, there was Murphy’s youngest brother, Milo Kimbell.

‘I’m grateful that you’re teaching the children. I came here to learn dark magic directly from you, Dave-ssi, so please teach me some dark magic without holding back. I’m aware of my surroundings, so please take care of me.’

In addition, Oliver calmly conversed with each person individually. He learned about the lives they had led, what they desired, and how they felt about Oliver. As the days went by, the number of people he had spoken to gradually increased. However, it was still a small number compared to the number of people he still needed to talk to.

‘I should have a longer conversation with Lawrence-ssi, who likes Marie, and Nora-ssi, Joe’s younger sister.’

One day, while Oliver was having conversations with people, Kant visited him.

***

“Kant-nim?”

Kant suddenly visited towards the end of the day when Oliver had almost finished his conversations.

He was the one who had helped Oliver when he first left the Joseph family, showed him the direction he should go, and was currently the head of the large beggar gang called the Poor Brothers and the director of the Poor Brothers’ welfare center in District W.

Clack. Clack. Clack.

Kant, who had a disability in one leg, entered while tapping the ground with the quarterstaff held in his golem prosthesis.

To someone seeing him for the first time, he might seem similar to Oliver, but strictly speaking, Oliver was similar to Kant.

After all, Kant was the one who had first used a quarterstaff.

The Partiess themselves did not care at all, though.

“What brings you here?”

Oliver stood up to greet Kant, who had made a sudden visit.

“I’m sorry to drop in so suddenly. Did I happen to come at a bad time?”

“No, not at all.”

As Oliver replied, he sent the man he had just finished talking to outside.

The man politely bowed his head and went outside, and Kant watched him go and asked,

“The rumors are true, I see.”

“Yes?”

“I heard that Lumberjack Dave is having conversations with his organization members in District X to inspire loyalty. That he’s planning to True toexpand his power.”

Oliver was speechless at the ridiculous rumor. It was just like Landa. Seeing Oliver’s reaction, Kant said,

“Just kidding. The rumors have spread, but I don’t believe them.”

Oliver didn’t press the issue, although he was torn between being relieved or not. His opponent was Kant. Rather than doing that, Oliver offered Kant a seat.

“Were you sent by Forest-nim?”

Oliver countered sharply after seeing through his emotions. Forest was the one who had sent Kant out of concern for Oliver, who had been talking to people for days. After all, Forest knew that Oliver was still just a boy.

Kant danced around it appropriately.

“I did hear about you before coming here. I heard that you’re trying to help people through your business? That’s wonderful.”

Kant praised Oliver with a genuine smile. However, such praise was more embarrassing and burdensome than the sudden visit. Because, as explained earlier, what Oliver was doing now was driven by selfishness, not altruism.

To become a good person, do good deeds.

Oliver, not wanting to deceive Kant, told him this honestly, but Kant laughed and reacted as if it was a stupid thing to say.

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Excuse me?”

“If it was just my wife and children, I would have taken the houses of the powerless and lived. Even running the welfare center is just a way to wash away some of what I’ve done in the past. Regardless of the intent, isn’t helping others more important?”

Kant spoke lightly and coolly, as if washing away Oliver’s nervousness.

“You’re too considerate and think too much. You seem to be making something simple too difficult. It’s okay to have that much selfishness. Would you be human without it?”

Kant repeatedly said that Oliver’s worries were nothing to worry about. It was very helpful.

“Well, let’s see. It seems like things are going well for you. Can I ask you a question? Actually, Forest told me to ask you while I was here?”

“Please speak.”

“Once the conversation is over, what are your business plans? Honestly, I’m a little curious too.”

It was a natural reaction. Since Oliver himself had said that he was focused on business, anyone who was curious would wonder what his plans were.

“There is one thing I’m thinking about. I want to make the most of my environment.”

“What is it?”

“I’m thinking of starting a school on the Magic Tower to teach dark magic.”

“Huh?”

***

The head of the administration had a similar reaction to Kant when he heard this.

“Huh?”