Overpowered Archmage Doesn’t Hide His Talent

Chapter 2 Cleaning

ㅡ “I’m leaving now. I hope you meet someone good, too.”

With those words, the woman left.

For a moment, I stood there dazed, when some guy suddenly grabbed my ear and dragged me along.

Apparently, I was on cleaning duty or something. Judging by his outfit, he seemed like a janitor.

Even though I was dragged all the way to the restroom, I had no time to worry about trivial matters like that. Sorting out the confusion in my mind was the priority.

What had happened to me?

Judging by my normal breathing, I hadn’t died. I didn’t feel any strange sensations, so I wasn’t hallucinating either.

“What are you doing, student? Take this.”

An elderly janitor handed me a bucket and a mop.

The girl from earlier seemed like a student. And this person seemed like a janitor.

“Where am I?”

“The restroom.”

“I know it’s a restroom. I’m asking about the institution.”

“It’s Merhen Academy. But hey… Why are you being so informal?”

Merhen Academy? I don’t recall any academy by that name.

With a thud, a knuckle rapped against my head.

“!”

It wasn’t the sensation of being hit that surprised me. What shocked me was that I couldn’t block it even though I quickly reached out.

‘My arms are short.’

That’s why, despite reaching out properly, I couldn’t block it.

Not only was my voice different, but so was my body.

My voice was thinner than I remembered, and my body was shorter. Even the clothes I was wearing were almost like a uniform.

“A mirror.”

“Are you asking me to clean the mirror first?”

The man pointed his chin at the mirror, so I rushed over to it.

“This is…”

This isn’t me.

He had thought the worst side effect might be ‘getting younger.’ But this was beyond that—it wasn’t Kaplan at all.

My once proud white hair was now black, and my eyes were red.

The contours of the face and body were shapes I’d never experienced in my life.

The sharp face, once full of dignity and confidence, was nowhere to be seen.

No matter how serious an expression I made, I just looked like a young boy pouting. My face was so youthful and pale.

My jawline and nose were sharp, but my thinness made me look a bit sickly.

“Student, put the book down and get to cleaning. The faster you clean, the sooner you can go home.”

“Cleaning?”

When was the last time I did any cleaning?

I hadn’t even grasped the situation yet, but now I was being told to clean. It was hard to accept.

“You take care of this side. I’ll clean the restroom across the hall.”

“Hm.”

That was the end of our conversation. The janitor, committed to his work, went to clean another restroom.

I pieced together the information I had.

This was an academy. The girl who dumped me earlier was a student. The person giving me orders now was a janitor.

And the reason this happened…

‘I must be a student at this academy too, and probably because I couldn’t even manage basic magic?’

My gaze fell on the book tightly gripped in my hand, titled *Basic Magic*.

‘Am I really a student who doesn’t even know this?’

Something felt off.

The mana flowing inside my body was quite pure. It hadn’t been refined yet, but it was untouched by anything else.

With such excellent conditions, why would someone fail to understand something so basic and have to ask for a professor’s help?

I felt intrigued.

Of course, I wasn’t the original owner of this body, but proving something new always excited me.

Especially if it was something no one else had experienced.

“What part was difficult?”

I chuckled as I opened the book.

◈

‘Another burden.’

Craig’s expression soured. He gripped the mop handle with irritation.

In this world, only a blessed few could use magic.

He wasn’t one of the blessed and worked as a janitor at the academy.

At Merhen Academy, they often assigned students to help him clean as a way to humiliate them…

“How well can these pampered kids clean anyway?”

First, they’ve never cleaned properly before.

Second, they don’t want to clean.

In the end, Craig would probably have to clean everything by himself again today.

At least it was a boy, so he wasn’t crying in the restroom.

When he had to console the students who could use magic, Craig sometimes wanted to bite his tongue.

He resented these pampered kids.

That brat, acting all rude just because he had to clean at the academy.

But then, he heard it.

The sound of flowing water. He had just wrung out the mop and turned off the faucet, so he checked to make sure it was off. It was.

But he could still hear the sound. Oh, right. It must be coming from the restroom across the hall.

Come to think of it, if water were flowing from a faucet, it wouldn’t make this kind of noise.

The sound was so peculiar that Craig couldn’t suppress his curiosity and moved toward it.

Step by step.

The closer he got, the clearer the sound became. And then he saw—

“What…”

A boy was manipulating water freely.

With one hand, he held a book open, and with the other, he supported his chin.

He didn’t even glance at the space around him, yet the water droplets formed letters as if someone was writing on a blackboard.

Craig didn’t know how to use magic. It was something determined at birth.

So, even if he saw a magic formula, he wouldn’t understand it. That was only natural.

But still.

‘Beautiful.’

It was just so beautiful that Craig could only stare at the scene he couldn’t comprehend.

◈

“Basic, my foot.”

*Basic Magic* was enough to catch my interest. This content was far from basic, yet the title shamelessly labeled it so.

That alone hinted at the academy’s level. I could assume they had gathered quite remarkable prodigies.

“I’m not a fan of defacing books, but…”

Still, a book marked up to the point of falling apart earned some points from me.

Before long, I detected a pattern.

When classifying types of magic, blue triangles were used.

For the necessary ratio of mana, red circles were drawn, and for the ‘circuits’ that mana traveled through, yellow underlines were used.

“This must have been difficult for you.”

I wasn’t sure of my exact age, but my body was young.

The Harmony branch of magic required a great deal of finesse, making it challenging to pursue at a young age.

When did I master this? Old memories started to surface.

Seeing the pages of this book so worn out, it was clear the original owner had wanted to prove himself to the world more than anyone else.

“I’ll help.”

Harmony was, in simple terms, a way of connecting magic, and to connect magic, at least two spells were needed.

The way they were connected varied greatly depending on the two spells being used.

It could almost be considered a different field altogether.

The most common example was fire and water.

I drew the magic formula for fire in the air. Though it was my first time casting a spell in this body, I had no concern about failure.

Why? Because Kaplan is still Kaplan, and a grand mage is still a grand mage.

As expected, flames sparked to life in the air.

The firepower wasn’t to my liking, but it was sufficient for the connection.

Next was water.

Since the remaining mana was already running low, I decided to borrow water from nearby instead of generating it.

Once the two spells were ready, I applied them to the formula in the textbook.

It was the same formula the original owner couldn’t understand even after marking it up with more than ten stars.

Soon, the two elements that could never naturally combine fused together.

A loud hiss marked the beginning of true Harmony.

The mana consumption was enormous.

The textbook even advised against ‘attempting’ this, suggesting only ‘understanding’ it.

But, I was the type who needed to prove things for my own satisfaction.

At this moment, as I moved toward a new proof within this wretched body, I could say I was happier than when I looked down on the mages of the tower.

Hwaah—!

The mist spread thickly, quickly sweeping away everything around it.

What remained before my eyes were the magical formulas written in water droplets.

…No, to be precise, they should have remained, but they didn’t.

Ironically, I had tried to manifest flames on the water droplets, but it failed spectacularly and turned into steam.

Just one drop.

A single drop of water briefly held a flame before it fizzled out into steam with a discordant hiss.

‘I truly failed, perfectly.’

Just as it was.

It was an utterly shameful failure, the kind that made me want to hang my head.

I had understood it but hadn’t mastered it.

My current body was too frail to keep up with the overwhelming theory.

I closed the book with a loud thud.

Indeed, I was still weak.

It was around then that I made eye contact with the janitor, whose eyes were wide with surprise.

“Have you already finished cleaning over there?”

How long had he been watching? In fact, it didn’t matter how long he had been watching.

The mist, heavy with moisture, filled the restroom and then evaporated.

In an act charged with mana, there was no way that dust or grime could resist.

Thus, the restroom was cleaner than it had ever been.

So, I had done my part.

“I just finished up here too.”

I gave him a leisurely smile.