I think he needed to erase everything from the point Oru noticed the spell in K-dog’s glasses. That’s what triggered the rest.
The rest of his confession only happened because he already knew that he was going to wipe him. After all he had the spell ready in his hat.
Meanwhile Tata barging in like
We already mused about how he might have wiped Norunoa’s memory in volume 3, so seeing It done here one could assume he always walks around with the spell on the ready or he has practiced it so much he can draw it at the drop of a hat (ahem). Both options cast him in a pretty shady/paranoid light.
Anyway the guy walks around with a loaded memory wipe spell pointed at his own head, hardcore…
Wow, the beginning of this scene seemed so cozy, I didn’t see this coming…
I think the latter is looking increasingly likely. After wiping his memory, K-dog muses that he only wiped memories related to his secret, and that no matter how good a liar he is, Oru is just too good at looking through lies. He also looks like he expects that he’ll have to give up his life as a teacher at some point. Imo what this all adds up to is that K-dog intends to use forbidden magic (in a way he expects to be so hard to conceal that he’ll have to give up his cozy place in wizarding society) to counter the damage to his eye and get his memories back, and no matter how much he tries to keep this from Oru, the latter will put two and two together and figure it out from the facts he already has (especially K-dog going blind, as this seems to be why he came pre-equipped with a memory wipe, like others have already said).
On page 163, we see that the spell comes from his spell booklet, but I couldn’t make out if K-dog detaches the old spell and puts the page it was drawn on back into the booklet, or if he adds a new spell to his hat.
I don’t have the manga with me at the moment but I think he wiped the seal completely from the hat once he was done to remove all proof, which leads me to believe it’s not something he caries with him at all times. I think it would be pretty risky to have a 禁止魔法 spell drawn literally on your forehead at every moment, you don’t want to be caught with that… (and not just because of the risk of it firing by mistake, although that too).
You may be right but I get the feeling that the objection is deeper than this. I don’t feel like either Oru or K-dog care super deeply about the rules for the rules’ sake. I wouldn’t be surprised if either of them would consider resorting to such spells if they’re backed into a corner.
I think what worries Oru is more that going down the path of tracking the つばあり帽子 basically means going mercenary and abandoning the atelier and the とんがり帽子 behind because you can’t really do that as a side project, and then, even if you succeed, how do you come back from that?
Remember that the chapter starts with Oru saying something like “I know what you’re doing and I want to help you”, I think he came to terms with the fact that K-dog would go for it no matter what and he had better chances with Oru’s help than alone. I don’t think the use of forbidden magic in and of itself is the main concern.
That’s the thing I was referencing above I think, but I interpreted it as him using some kind of dry cleaning spell to completely wipe the ink from his hat (and presumably leave a subtle lavender aroma).
Same, especially since they just talked about something like this earlier on page 158:
スリスタスでの文書は魔法で破棄されていた…
