Magic User – Reborn in Another World as a Max Level Wizard

A 42 year-old gets isekaied.

Its very, very, rare that a middle-age man gets isekaied and keeps his age. In fact, I know of only one other isekai story that deals with a middle-age man as MC which is [Middle-Aged Businessman, Arise in Another World!].

There is a good reason why we don’t see many middle-age protagonists from Japanese light novels. It’s due to romance. As a 42 year old MC, pairing him with a teen girl is outright immoral. Even a young woman in 20s is pushing the limit.
Personally, I feel 10 year age gap is maximum that should be tolerated. Anything beyond that is immoral in my book.

Anyway, romance is a rather big card which authors can play. Without the romance card, it gets harder for authors to come up with stuff.

We do not know the original name of our MC. What we do know is that he is a 42 year-old Japanese salaryman and that, in his youth, he used to be a big fan of TTRPG (Table Top RPG, like D&D and Pathfinder). He tells us fond memories of playing it during his university years and how he hadn’t had time to play it anymore once he got a job. He also tells us what he never had luck with ladies, ending up single even at age of 42.

The story

One day, he gets isekaied to another world, the continent of Sedia. During the progress, he gets to create his own new identity but gets to keep his age. He settles on becoming his own character of TTRPG, Geo Margilus a level 36 “magic user” or a wizard as he calls himself.

Initially, he finds himself a prisoner of some bandit group. Once he gets a hang of what he is capable of, the bandit group is quickly wiped out during which he rescues Mora, a mid-teen girl who is a merchant’s daughter.

( Sedam, Clara, and Geo Margilus )

With Mora as a guide, he makes to a nearby city, Relis at which point he runs into a group of adventurers fending off a horde of daemons. From that encounter, he meets Sedam and Clara. Clara is a sorcerer and cannot believe that Margilus is able to cast magic without any mana.

Sorcerer and wizard, the difference

If you have any experience with D&D or Pathfinder, the difference is something you should know. Even in general fantasy games, the difference between a sorcerer and a wizard is virtually identical. But it is often explained using fancy vocabularies.

Now, I am going to explain the difference with my own knowledge. Let’s use a language, English as the example.

Sorcerers are those who speak English (Magic) as their first language. For them, speaking English takes no effort and their understanding of English comes naturally.

Now, wizards are those who speak English (Magic) as their second language. They had to study English in order to speak it. Therefore, while they may not understand English as naturally as sorcerers but they have better understanding (such as grammar) of it.

This is the fundamental difference between the two classes. Minor details such as how each class would function is down to their own game mechanics.

How the two classes differ in Sedia

Sorcerers use mana as source of its power to cast magic. Therefore, once a sorcerer’s mana pool is depleted, he can no longer cast any spells. As long as one has mana though, he can cast spells as many time as he wants. Additionally, spell activation time is virtually instant.

Wizards draws (or borrows) power from the plane of Chaos. (Remember Lina from Slayers and how she casts? Exactly that.) In order to do so, a wizard has to use a long incantation. Because of that, mana is not required. Basically, mana pool for wizards is unlimited. However, there is a restriction on how many spells a wizard can prepare for each rank (there are 9 ranks of magic). He has to prepare what spells to keep each day. He cannot change it until the next day.

Geo Margilus is a max level wizard, so he can prepare a lot of spells.

The story, continued

In the continent of Sedia, wizards do not exist at all. Therefore, everyone is extremely skeptical of magic Margilus is capable of. Therefore, Margilus does the most natural thing a pro gamer does.

He casts meteor.

That shuts people up. Gotta hand it to him. He sure knows how to please a crowd.

Once his position as “the great wizard” is established, he sets out to form an anti-daemon alliance.

Overpowered but flawed MC

Margilus is seriously overpowered. His meteor spell alone is seriously overpowered. Being a level 36 wizard, he can prepare around 10 rank 9 spells. Ten meteor spells is probably enough to level one third of Sedia continent.

However, he is also clearly flawed. He does not react well to surprise attacks and strength-based fighters exactly because he is a spell caster.
His additional flaws stern from his own character, as a middle-age Japanese. The modern Japanese doctrine hinders him. In other words, he is too polite to everyone and would rather bow instead of standing his ground.

Well, that isn’t exactly a flaw on its own. However, as “the great wizard”, this becomes a flaw. Thankfully, it is Clara who drills him a new set of doctrine. She constantly reminds him that he is powerful so act like one.

I agree with Clara. There is no need to lower your head when you are at the top of the world. We, as citizens, obey laws because we cannot overcome it. If I happen to posses powers to level countries, laws won’t probably matter to me anymore. And that is Clara’s argument.

It does take a while, but Clara successfully brainwashes him the new doctrine. It kind of feels like she is reshaping him to become her ideal type of man.

So….

There are three volumes, and it appears to be on hiatus. Thankfully, volume 3 can kind of act as the final volume. It gives a good closure on the story. I get a feeling that any further volumes is somewhat pointless because volume 3 does feel like a good soft ending.

If you are familiar with either D&D or Pathfinder, you will get a grasp of how Margilus’s magic works pretty much instantly. He is basically a homebrewed wizard with some custom ruleset.

Give this a shot.