Genius Prismatic Mage

Chapter 1: The Boy on the Scrap Heap - 1

An evening bathed in the soft glow of twilight.

Ray sat atop a pile of scrap.

Broken furniture. Malfunctioning electronics. Rusted metal. All useless junk. It was a small hill where all sorts of discarded things clung together.

Thanks to its considerable height, climbing up here allowed a full view of the surrounding scenery. Mounds of scrap towered in every direction.

Ray was currently seated at a dump on the outskirts of Sector 50. Ahead stretched a boundless expanse of desolate wasteland. Behind lay a city filled with decrepit concrete buildings. It was the place where Ray had been born and lived all his life.

The entirety of Sector 50 had turned into a slum.

He lowered his gaze. Below, boys in shabby clothing carrying grabbers and bags wandered between the scrap piles.

They, like Ray, survived by scavenging discarded items—street orphans eking out a living. The difference was that the other boys moved in groups of two or three with each belonging to a gang of some sort. Almost without exception.

Take or be taken. Kill or be killed. A ruthless law of the jungle.

In Sector 50, banding together was the only way to survive.

Thud—

A flashlight perched on the heap rolled down the slope.

Thock!

It tumbled across the ground before coming to a stop at the feet of some boys.

The boys looked up at Ray.

For a moment, their eyes met.

"……."

"……."

The boys, watching Ray cautiously, snatched up the flashlight and started running.

Ray remained calm.

He merely thought to himself that picking it up wouldn’t do them any good.

Ray’s gaze followed the boys’ movements. At the center of the dump lay an open space.

The boys reached the clearing, caught their breath, and held out the flashlight to someone - to be precise, it wasn’t a person. Its face and limbs were entirely made of rough stone. It stood about two meters tall. The stone had a silvery-gray hue, resembling a chunk of metal at a glance.

Creak— Creak—

The adults of Sector 50 called the moving creature a "golem." Who its master was, where it had come from or what purpose it served was unknown. It had simply existed in Sector 50 for as long as anyone could remember.

One thing, however, was certain. The golem gathered specific kinds of scrap from the dump and, in exchange for the right items, it offered food as a reward - in the form of canned goods or biscuits, even luxury items like chocolate.

─Here! Eat it! Hurry up and eat it!

The boys waved the flashlight eagerly in front of the golem. Their excited voices carried all the way to where Ray sat.

─Whirr.

The golem’s two hollow eye sockets glowed with a red light. It stared at the flashlight for a few seconds before turning its body and stomping off in another direction. The boys chased after it, waving the flashlight, but the golem's response remained unchanged.

Other groups brought scraps afterward, but the results were all the same.

─Damn it! Why won’t it take this?

─Should we just smash it to pieces?

─Hold up. They said the golem retaliates if attacked.

─Yeah, remember how they said it once came into the streets and killed people?

The golem was unpredictable. Sometimes, it would reject items it had previously accepted, and other times, it would take items it had never taken before. The success rate for scavengers was incredibly low, but the tempting rewards kept the kids from giving up.

Watching the scene unfold, Ray climbed down from the scrap heap.

Clank. Clank. Tap!

He neither slipped nor stumbled. His movements were steady, as if descending solid stairs. After scanning his surroundings, he headed toward the clearing. He picked up a few pieces of scrap that he scoped out earlier.

When Ray reached the clearing, he offered his bag to the golem.

“Here.”

Red glowing eyes scanned the contents of the bag.

Creak—

It hoisted the bag, dumping the contents into its mouth.

Thud! Clatter!

The trash rolled into its body. The golem clamped its mouth shut, shuddered once, then reopened it to retrieve food from within: three cans, two packs of biscuits, one loaf of bread, one bar of chocolate. It was enough for one person to last about three days if eaten sparingly.

The other boys who had been watching the scene widened their eyes in astonishment.

“Hey, look at that.”

“How does he manage to pull this off every time…?”

Whispers of awe began spreading here and there.

“…What if we did it like that? Think it’d work?”

“Don’t be stupid. That’s Ray, the Ghost of Street 17.”

Ray was used to such reactions and paid them no mind. He silently packed the food into his bag and started walking toward the exit of the dump.

“…….”

Before long, he sensed the presence of people following behind him. Two from the left heap, two more from the right heap and three trailing behind in secret. Seven in total. It wasn’t a small number. Their intent was obvious. Ray glanced at the bag slung over one shoulder.

Deciding on a location that seemed suitable for a fight, he came to a stop and turned around.

“Come out. How long are you planning to follow me?”

There was no response.

Ray took out a loaf of bread and made a gesture as if he was about to stomp on it, and only then did he hear movement.

“You’ve got sharp instincts. We were being careful to stay hidden, too.”

As expected, seven figures appeared. They were holding clubs and knuckles in their hands.

He addressed the largest boy in the group.

“Ron. I’m sure I warned you last time. If I ever saw you again, I’d make sure you’d never walk on two legs for the rest of your life.”

The orange-haired Ron flinched when his eyes met Ray's. But he quickly reminded himself of their superior numbers and growled.

"You're talking about something so long ago. It's ancient history, so far back I can't even remember. Right?"

His speech was slightly slurred because he was missing a front tooth. It had been knocked out by Ray during a fight.

"That would be exactly 23 days ago, if you're asking about time, it's not that long ago."

"That's not the point right now!"

Ron was boiling inside. He had never liked Ray, not even once. That emotionless face, unmoved by anything. Those eyes, devoid of emotion, that seemed to pierce right through people. Even the sound of his breathing and the smallest of his movements. Everything about him grated on Ron's nerves.

But it didn't matter. Soon, that guy would be sprawled on the ground, crying and begging for mercy.

‘Back then, it was just three of us. But now, including me, there are seven.’

They had lost last time, but this time was different, he brought six of the best fighters from their group.

Ray, the Ghost of Street 17. He had earned that nickname because he moved so silently, and his face betrayed no expression. He was also infamous for being a skilled fighter.

But no matter how strong Ray was, there was no way he could handle seven opponents at once. On top of that, Ray's physique was no more than average for someone his age. Meanwhile, all seven of them were built as big as adults.

‘I’ll win, no matter what.’

A smile crept up on Ron's lips without him realizing it.

He was determined to avenge his past defeat and take control of Street 17 which Ray currently dominated.

In a confident voice, Ron spoke.

"Enough talk. Put the bag down and leave. If you do, we'll let you walk away in one piece."

It was a lie. Whether Ray handed over his supplies or not, Ron intended to beat him to a pulp and leave him half-crippled.

"Lies."

Ron's pupils trembled slightly.

The reason street kids feared Ray wasn’t just because of his fighting skills.

"It's a lie, isn’t it?"

Lies didn’t work on Ray.

“Don’t make eye contact with the Ghost. If you do, he’ll catch your lies.”

Ray could discern truth from lies just by looking into someone’s eyes.

At first, the kids had been skeptical. But after witnessing several incidents that confirmed it, it became accepted as fact. Lies didn’t work on the Ghost.

‘That arrogant little…!’

Ron ground his teeth.

Anyone could tell the promise to let Ray go unscathed was a lie, but Ray had used some unknown trick to figure it out.

"Kill him─! Kill him!"

Ron shouted at the top of his lungs, as if to shake off his fear.

At his command, the boys charged at Ray.

Thud!

Ray dropped his bag to the ground and assumed a stance.

In his pure white eyes, the figures of his approaching enemies were reflected one by one.

Boooom──!

Ray lowered his stance deeply.

He could feel a club barely graze past his back.

Tap!

He pushed off the ground with his foot. Propelling his body forward, he pulled his elbow back.

And then...

Thud!

“Ugh!”

He drove his fist deep into the enemy’s stomach.

As one boy collapsed to the ground, a knuckle-duster came straight toward him.

“Die!”

Ray quickly pivoted on his left foot, spinning his body to the right.

Whoosh!

The knuckle-duster passed just in front of his face.

With all his strength, he brought his right elbow down on the outstretched arm of his opponent.

Crack!

“Aaagh!”

As the boy staggered back, Ray kicked him hard.

The boy stumbled into another attacker coming from behind, and the two fell to the ground in a heap.

The fight was completely one-sided. The sound of fists striking flesh and bones breaking echoed through the junkyard.

Exactly five minutes later, all the boys except Ron were groaning and rolling on the ground.

"......!"

“Increasing your numbers doesn’t change anything.”

Ron couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Was the skill Ray had shown before not even the full extent of his abilities?

“D-don’t come closer! Stay back!”

“I warned you. If I caught you again, I’d make sure you couldn’t use your legs.”

Ray began closing the distance, step by step.

Ron’s lips quivered as he stumbled backward.

Thud!

His back hit something.

He turned to see a pile of scrap metal.

Ron pulled out a folding knife and snapped it open.

“D-damn it! Don’t come any closer, you monster!”

Ray stopped in his tracks.

He stared at the knife with an indifferent expression.

“A monster, you say.”

Perhaps that wasn’t entirely wrong.

Looking at his hazy, distorted face reflected in the blade, Ray thought to himself that maybe he wasn’t much different from a lifeless golem made of stone.

---

Ray realized he was different from others when he was ten years old.

"Why don’t you cry?"

"You fell and got a nasty wound. Doesn’t it hurt at all?"

He understood what pain was.

He knew blood was gushing out.

But what did that have to do with crying?

"Kael came back after getting beaten up by the kids from Street 7."

"...Doesn’t that make you angry?"

Why should he feel anger?

No, more importantly, what was "anger" supposed to feel like?

“Sniff... Bello is dead... What are we supposed to do now?”

“You don’t shed a single tear, do you.”

That’s when Ray realized.

He didn’t feel what others called emotions.

"You’re a bit strange. Scary, even."

As the people around him drifted away, he naturally ended up alone.

He wondered blankly.

‘Am I broken?’

He wanted to be like everyone else. He tried hard to feel emotions. Sometimes, he felt a faint stirring deep in his chest.

"......"

But he couldn’t even tell if that was what people called emotions. He had no reference point, having never truly felt them in his life. One year passed. Then two years. Then three.

...And six years went by.

All his efforts to feel emotions proved futile. He began to wonder if this was better. In the slums, not feeling emotions often worked to his advantage. For instance, not feeling fear during a fight was a tremendous asset. And there were no issues when it came to reading others’ emotions because Ray had his own method of understanding them.

---

“Stay back, you monster!”

Ray focused his gaze, seeing a world different from others. A vibrant red, like blood. A deep blue, like the ocean. A bright yellow, like forsythias. And countless other colors. The world was painted in radiant hues, like an oil painting of mixed pigments. These were mana, the essence of magic and the foundation of the world.

Of course, Ray didn’t understand such things in detail. He simply used it to identify others’ emotions, simply as a supplemental tool.

Ray looked at Ron’s chest. Dark brown mana flickered in that area. Everyone carried a small vessel in their chest. When they felt a specific emotion, a corresponding color of mana filled that vessel. Rage, hatred, and love brought hues of red. Mockery and indifference brought shades of blue. Joy and excitement brought shades of yellow. There were few exceptions.

"A knife, huh. There’s an unspoken rule against using blades, isn’t there? Did you plan on stabbing me from the start?"

“I-I just picked it up! Found it in the junk! I-I swear!”

A lie. The color of mana filling the vessel revealed the truth.

Tap.

“D-don’t come closer! Stay back! If you don’t want to die!”

Ignoring the knife pointed at him, Ray kept walking toward Ron. His gaze remained fixed on Ron’s chest. The dark, turbulent black mana swirling there. Yes, that’s right, that was intense fear. Ray spoke calmly.

“Liars must be punished.”