The Regressor is too Powerful in Martial Arts – Chapter 34

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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: JayM
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Familiar.

A being summoned through a magic circle, commonly called a familiar contract magic circle.

Although it was generally known as such, in fact, even though it was called a summon, it didn’t actually call forth an existing living creature or a being from another world.

The real effect of a familiar contract magic circle wasn’t to summon a familiar, but to give birth to a being that suited the contractor through their mental image and mana.

‘However, just because it gives birth to a suitable being influenced by the contractor’s mental image and mana, that doesn’t mean that a familiar in the form the contractor wants will come out.’

Thanks to that, it was common knowledge that what kind of familiar one would contract depended on one’s luck.

But that was only the case for the familiar contract magic circles commonly known in the present.

In the future before my regression, a certain mage who had thoroughly analyzed the familiar contract magic circle had made an improved version of it.

‘That mage… had tinkered with the familiar contract magic circle because he wanted to have the dragon, a being from fantasy, as his familiar, right…?’

He even became famous as a mage who had contracted a dragon thanks to him finally succeeding in the familiar contract.

However, since he struggled to maintain the dragon with his own mana, he had uploaded all the knowledge about the familiar contract magic circle he had developed to the Awakener System’s database, received a usage fee, and forcibly maintained the dragon by converting that usage fee into his mana.

Thanks to that, I also knew about that improved magic circle.

Anyway…

‘The knowledge about the familiar contract magic circle that the mage uploaded contained not only a method to fix the summoned familiar as a dragon, but also a method to adjust the appearance and abilities of the summoned familiar to one’s liking as well as a method to maintain the familiar with an energy other than mana.’

It meant that it contained all the knowledge I needed right now.

[Yeon Mi-rae. Draw the magic circle exactly like the image I’m sending to you right now. You have the magic stones for the magic circle, right?]

As I sent her a telepathic message, Yeon Mi-rae slightly nodded her head so that only I could see it.

And she showed a slightly puzzled expression upon seeing the image of the magic circle I had sent, but she trusted me and began to draw it as it was.

[Wait, sprinkle a little more magic stone on that part. Yes, like that.]

However, since Yeon Mi-rae’s talent was in the overall use of her body, including martial arts, and not in magic, she frequently made mistakes while drawing the magic circle.

But it was fine.

I could just directly instruct her to correct that much.

While Yeon Mi-rae was drawing the magic circle, I played with Lee Ha-eun.

Because she had been whining that she wanted to contract with a dog quickly.

Since I couldn’t let her disturb Yeon Mi-rae, I decided to play with her myself.

“Hoo….”

[Good work.]

After some time had passed, a giant magic circle that filled about half of the clearing was completed.

Yeon Mi-rae carefully stepped out of the magic circle so as not to damage it and let out a sigh as I told her that she had done a good job.

“Unni, are you done?”

“Yeah, I’m done. Now we just have to summon the familiar.”

While Yeon Mi-rae was saying that to Lee Ha-eun, I checked the magic circle one last time.

In the center of the magic circle, the words meaning deceit, guile, and mischief were written in Runes, and around that, the words meaning swamp and wolf, sea and serpent, and girl and old woman were also written in three directions.

As anyone who knew Norse mythology well would have noticed, the deceit, guile, and mischief in the center meant the god of mischief, Loki, and the words in the three directions meant Loki’s children, Fenrir, Jörmungandr, and Hel respectively.

‘What Lee Ha-eun wants is a cute, small puppy.’

And what I wanted was a powerful familiar to protect Lee Ha-eun, who was specialized only in support magic and had low combat power.

There was also the method of cramming various abilities into the small puppy that Lee Ha-eun wanted, but it was much more efficient to limit the power of the wolf famous enough to appear in mythology and transform its appearance into the puppy form that Lee Ha-eun wanted.

…Yeah.

By this point, you would have noticed.

The familiar I was going to have Lee Ha-eun contract with was none other than Fenrir.

‘The abilities given by the Awakener System, that is, the powers of magic, aura, psionics, and so on, are, in the end, powers that come from fantasy stories that people commonly know of.’

From this, one could conclude that stories could become one’s power.

The principle of this magic circle was to match the story of Fenrir from mythology to Lee Ha-eun’s familiar, and have that story give power to the familiar.

Of course, we weren’t summoning the real Fenrir, but just a familiar with similar characteristics to it.

“…So that’s how it is. That there’s such power in stories…”

[Hm? You didn’t know?]

“I didn’t know.”

When I explained the principle of the magic circle to her via telepathy, Yeon Mi-rae answered quietly so that only I could hear.

Hmm… Come to think of it, wasn’t the fact that there was power in stories not an officially known fact?

But those who knew..

[You know those people who call themselves the reincarnations of famous generals, great people, or gods from the past? At least those people have roughly noticed the power of stories.]

“…I just thought that they were crazy… If that wasn’t the case, I hadn’t ruled out the possibility that they really had reincarnated as they claimed, but….”

Yeon Mi-rae said that while looking truly surprised.

[How about you also try calling yourself the reincarnation of a famous swordsman? Who knows? You might get stronger with the power of a story.]

“…Even if I’ve learned about the power of stories, I’ll pass on being treated the same as those people.”

That would be right.

Even my pre-regression self had thought about borrowing the power of a story and calling myself something like the Heavenly Demon, but had given up because I thought I’d be treated like a madman.

There was also the fact that I had given up because there was a guy who actually called himself the Heavenly Demon before that.

In a sense, they were truly respectable humans.

Ah, the story has strayed to a strange place.

[Send Ha-eun to the middle of the magic circle. And have her look in the direction where the words representing Fenrir are.]

“Ha-eun. It’s time to contract with the puppy, right? Can you go to the middle there and look in that direction?”

“Yeah!”

At Yeon Mi-rae’s words, Lee Ha-eun did as she was told, stood in the center of the magic circle, and looked in the direction the former had mentioned.

As Lee Ha-eun stood on the words representing Loki while looking at the words representing Fenrir, the minimum conditions were met.

“Summon.”

At that, I activated the magic circle with word-command magic.

“Synchronization.”

Next, I guided the magic circle to operate in the direction I wanted, and….

“Restriction.”

I suppressed the power of the familiar to be born to the maximum.

Because if the familiar was born with the same level of power as the Fenrir from mythology, Lee Ha-eun wouldn’t be able to withstand it.

“Change.”

And I changed the energy that would power the familiar from Lee Ha-eun’s mana to her aura.

Finally….

“Form.”

I changed the appearance of the familiar being born from the form of Fenrir in mythology to the form of an ordinary puppy.

“Wow…!”

“Woof!”

Then, the giant magic circle disappeared, and a small puppy appeared in front of Lee Ha-eun.

At that, Lee Ha-eun couldn’t stay still and ran to hug the puppy, her familiar. The puppy, as Lee Ha-eun’s familiar, didn’t avoid her touch.

“Hehe! It’s my puppy!”

“Pant, pant….”

I wonder if Lee Ha-eun knew…

That among the numerous familiars that existed in the world at present, her familiar was probably close to the strongest.

Of course, with its abilities almost completely restricted now, it would only be able to show the level of an ordinary familiar… no, maybe even below that as an ordinary puppy.

Though it would have its restrictions slowly lifted as Lee Ha-eun grew up.

“…Hoo.”

I let out a sigh while looking at Lee Ha-eun.

Not only had I used a type of word-command magic that I didn’t usually use in succession, but I had also paid for all the mana needed to summon a powerful familiar like Fenrir as well as the mana needed to restrict that Fenrir’s power all by myself.

Although I used internal energy instead of mana.

Thanks to that, my Dantian was now completely empty.

“Good work.”

“…Yeah, thanks.”

I didn’t know how long it had been since I had poured out all of my internal energy in my Dantian like this.

Though it would fill itself up quickly if I went back to my room and did qi circulation.

“But… Mr. Geon-woo….”

“…Hm?”

“Could I perhaps… also contract with a familiar?”

Yeon Mi-rae asked that while looking at the puppy that was in Lee Ha-eun’s arms and licking her cheek.

From the looks of it, she was envious of Lee Ha-eun who got a good familiar.

“It’s possible. Just as Lee Ha-eun maintains her familiar with aura instead of mana, I just have to modify the magic circle so that you pay with internal energy.”

“Then….”

“But it’s not efficient.”

Lee Ha-eun was a multiple-ability user.

But since I planned to have her learn only magic in the future, she was basically an ability user with a surplus of aura.

That was why I had her make a familiar contract. In fact, unless it was a special case like Lee Ha-eun, a familiar wasn’t a very efficient spell.

“You already have so little internal energy, so you have to fight while keeping your internal energy consumption to a minimum, and you’re thinking of pouring that saved internal energy into a familiar?”

And besides, unless it was a special situation, it was difficult to expect that a familiar would play a role worth the internal energy it received.

“…I can’t do that. It’s a waste, but I’ll have to give up on getting a familiar.”

Yeon Mi-rae let out a sigh, said that, and then asked me a question.

“Then why do mages contract with familiars? It’s not like those people have a surplus of mana either….”

“Ah, that? They usually contract with familiars for two main reasons.”

First of all…

“They try to contract with a familiar to have it play the role of a frontliner. Because a mage is defenseless while chanting.”

Magic usually required chanting or had a casting time.

My word-command magic was a special case where both were minimized, but generally, that wasn’t possible.

Of course, a normal assault team included a frontliner that protected such a mage, but there was no guarantee that the frontliner was a trustworthy person, so they contracted a familiar as an insurance.

“…Ha-eun would be horrified if she heard that. It means that she’ll be using her puppy as a shield later on….”

“Though that puppy is no ordinary puppy. As for the second reason… It’s for show.”

“…What?”

“For show. They contract with a familiar to make themselves look like an outstanding mage.”

Mainly, mages who were into showing off would have familiars.

Because for a mage to contract with a familiar meant that they had that much surplus mana.

Of course, there were also many cases where they became defective mages who couldn’t even do one person’s worth of work because they had contracted with a familiar to pretend to have a lot of mana.

“Besides that, there are also people who don’t trust others and only interact with their familiar, or mages like Lee Ha-eun who just want a pet… But usually, it’s often one of the two cases I just mentioned.”

“I feel like the fantasy I had about mages is being shattered.”

Well, mages are humans too.

Having said that, I looked at Lee Ha-eun.

“Sarang! Fetch!”

“Woof!”

Before I knew it, Lee Ha-eun had even given her familiar the name ‘Sarang’ and was playing fetch with it by throwing a stick she picked up from nearby.

…Even though she was playing fetch with it, with Lee Ha-eun’s muscle strength, the stick didn’t fly very far, but the two of them were having fun playing like that.

“Ha-eun should definitely not become a baseball player.”

Agreeing with Yeon Mi-rae’s words, I waited for Lee Ha-eun until she got tired of playing with her familiar.

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T/N – What an interesting power system. To power oneself with the concepts of stories… You could get really creative with that, like what the MC did with the familiar magic circle. As for calling themselves reincarnated people of legends, for the chuunibyou who don’t have any shame, this is a dream come true.

If you find any mistakes, feel free to point them out in the comments.