Tyr held his sword low in a Lower Guard.
Was he planning to stay on the defensive and see what I would do first?
I could not find a single opening in his stance.
With his sword pointed low, Tyr did not move easily and simply watched me with deliberate patience.
This was bad.
The more time I gave him to analyze me, the greater the chance that he would discover my ‘variable.’
Moreover, given how severely lacking my basic stamina was, there was almost no chance I could win if this turned into a prolonged battle.
I had to end this fight quickly.
“Haaap!”
With a shout, I dashed forward and thrust toward his leg.
It could be called the only opening in the Lower Guard, but Tyr blocked it easily, as though he had expected it.
However, I had also expected him to predict and block my attack.
Using the force that rebounded from Tyr’s sword, I turned it into a circular slash aimed at his upper body.
“Urgh!”
That attack was blocked just as easily.
Our wooden swords were pressed against each other, with Tyr’s face directly in front of mine.
His eyes burned with fighting spirit.
And yet, at the same time, he looked sad.
Hey, Tyr.
There is no room for sentiment in the middle of a fight!
I immediately moved into my third attack.
I shoved away our locked swords and prepared to bring mine down from overhead.
At that moment—
* THUD!
“Ugh!”
Tyr’s wooden sword struck me in the abdomen.
As expected, he was fast.
Even through the searing pain spreading from my stomach throughout my entire body, I could not help but admire him.
Tyr was strong.
“Urgh….”
I nearly collapsed, but managed to stay upright by planting my wooden sword against the ground.
Tyr, on the other hand, looked down at me from a relaxed stance.
His breathing had not even become uneven.
All three of my attacks had been blocked.
Three attacks.
Exactly according to plan.
By now, Tyr should have gained a rough understanding of my speed and strength.
My trump card began now.
Lucian Seirin smiled victoriously as he watched his son gasp for breath after taking the blow to his abdomen.
‘As expected. There are some things that cannot be accomplished through childish stubbornness, my son.’
The surrounding retainers were also watching with pity, but their expressions suggested that everyone had expected this outcome.
Ruben, however, did not seem ready to give up so easily.
He supported himself with his sword as though it were a cane, then corrected his stance once more.
Lucian was just beginning to feel pleased by the boy’s tenacity when something astonishing happened.
“Tyyyyyr!”
Ruben shouted at the top of his lungs and charged toward Tyr again.
But his speed was on a completely different level from before.
For an instant, Ruben seemed to vanish.
Then he was suddenly in front of Tyr, striking his leg.
The abrupt change in speed was so great that Tyr could not even react properly.
“Aagh!”
Before Tyr’s cry of pain had even ended, Ruben’s next attack—a rotating overhead slash—struck his wrist cleanly.
The powerful blow knocked the wooden sword from Tyr’s hand.
It spun through the air two or three times before falling onto the sparring arena.
Then came silence.
Tyr stood there empty-handed, clutching his wrist, while Ruben’s wooden sword pointed straight at him.
Tyr stared blankly at the tip of the sword for a moment before squeezing his eyes shut and speaking.
“…I lost.”
Tyr’s weak admission of defeat fell onto the sparring arena along with a sigh.
As though it were a signal, cheers and applause erupted from the crowd.
“Haa… haa….”
It actually worked.
My heart was pounding as though it might burst from that sudden movement, but I felt refreshed.
Even I had not expected it to be quite this effective.
What I had just used was a combat technique that would not be developed until nearly fifteen years from now.
It was a minimal form of self-defense designed so that physically frail mages could protect themselves.
By temporarily injecting mana directly into the body, it drastically strengthened the muscles for an instant.
Naturally, I was the one who had invented it.
Its name was ‘Physical Enhancement.’
Unlike enhancement magic that increased strength or agility, this technique directly reinforced the user’s own muscles, giving it the advantage of an extremely short activation time.
However, despite being its creator, I had barely ever used it myself.
Using it even once placed far too much strain on the body.
The entire reason I had trained like a madman for the past two months was so that I would be capable of using this technique.
As long as I could use it at all, there was no better way to create a variable, even if only for an instant.
Furthermore, it was a method that even my father, Lucian Seirin, could never have anticipated.
That meant no one could accuse me of simply relying on magic to win.
* MURMUR, MURMUR
The expressions of the stunned retainers and Father were quite a sight.
The obedient magical genius Ruben no longer existed.
They would all have to accept that sooner or later.
“Young Master…. You have truly become strong.”
Tyr knelt before me with tears welling in his eyes.
I knew better than anyone that those tears were not simply from the frustration of defeat.
Across both of my lives, he had been one of the very few people around whom I could open my heart and behave without reservation.
There was only one reason that had been possible.
His boundless loyalty.
He was someone who seemed willing to do anything for me.
Someone who seemed as though he had been born simply to follow me.
This match must have been every bit as important to him as it was to me.
After all, being expelled from the Seirin family would mean never being able to see me again.
“Tyr. You did well.”
But I had no intention of letting him go so easily.
I had lived for a long time in a world turned into hell by war.
Because of that, I knew just how precious—and how difficult—it was to find a good friend.
If I left Tyr behind here, I would be throwing away something invaluable.
It would not hurt to take one gamble.
I winked at the crying Tyr, then walked over to Father on the dais and lowered myself onto one knee.
“I have completed the first task, Father.”
Father still looked somewhat dazed.
Hmph.
What a nasty old man.
Unfortunately for you, I have decided to live a little differently in this life.
I would appreciate your cooperation.
“Ahem. Ruben Seirin has completed the first task, exactly as he claimed he would. One task still remains. If he can solve the mana counter-formula that I personally prepared, I will accept his request.”
Confidence radiated from Father’s expression as he mentioned the ‘mana counter-formula.’
I knew it.
Just how difficult had he made the problem to be wearing such a devious smile?
But this was actually exactly what I wanted.
The more difficult he believed the problem to be, the more likely he would be to accept my proposal.
“Father. I would like to make one proposal.”
“Speak.”
“If I solve the mana counter-formula within thirty minutes, I would like Tyr to be reinstated as my attendant.”
“…Hah.”
His expression went beyond surprise and looked almost offended.
His entire body seemed to be saying, ‘Are you looking down on me?’
Well, what could I do?
When it came to magic, Father was far beneath me.
“I accept your proposal. However, if you fail to solve it within thirty minutes, I will consider the task failed.”
“Thank you.”
I bowed my head in gratitude, then looked toward Tyr.
He was shedding hot tears of emotion, apparently having forgotten all about the pain in his leg and hand.
Knowing the gentle and kindhearted Tyr, he was probably blaming himself terribly because I was supposedly taking such a tremendous risk for his sake.
But really, this was hardly a risk at all.
If the problem had been devised by an 8th-Circle mage like Father, I could already guess roughly what level it would be.
Because I was a genius.
“Then I shall present the mana counter-formula for the second task.”
At the head of the family’s declaration, servants began carrying in enormous sheets of paper.
It was time for me to step forward not as a warrior, but as a mage.
“…Good heavens.”
Lucian Seirin was utterly dumbfounded.
He was so shocked that he probably would not have noticed if a fly had flown straight into his open mouth.
Ruben had arrogantly declared that he would solve the mana counter-formula Lucian had painstakingly created within thirty minutes.
Except it turned out that his declaration had not been arrogant at all.
If anything, it had been modest.
“How many minutes…. did it take?”
He asked Freda, the most accomplished mage among the retainers standing beside him.
However, Freda was wearing the same stunned expression with his mouth hanging open, so it took him a moment to answer.
“Five minutes….”
Five minutes.
How long would Freda, an experienced 7th-Circle mage, have needed to solve it?
If he had begun in the morning, he might have barely managed to finish by dinnertime.
A mana counter-formula was a problem that required stabilizing an unstable combination of elements through mana supplementation and the injection of additional elements.
Its difficulty varied according to the number of elements involved, but solving a problem of this level within five minutes meant either that Ruben had been unimaginably lucky, or—
‘Could he truly be such a genius that there is nothing left for him to learn at the Academy?’
Perhaps Ruben really was a genius who had already reached a level where the Academy had nothing more to teach him, just as he had claimed.
And if someone with this level of magical analytical ability also possessed exceptional sensitivity to mana?
‘A monster…. He is a monster.’
He would become a monster capable of commanding the very forces of nature.
A chill ran across Lucian’s entire body as he carefully studied Ruben once more.
Until only recently, the boy had been timid and frail, spending most of his time confined to his room while researching magic because of his weak body.
Yet now, after producing a flawless answer sheet in five minutes, he knelt on one knee before Lucian with the bearing of a prodigy among prodigies.
He looked nothing short of dignified.
‘What in the world happened to him over these past two months?’
Lucian felt admiration and pride.
At the same time, the thought of sending such an unprecedented magical genius to the Warrior Academy was enough to make his blood boil.
“Ahem…! Father?”
But whether the brat understood his feelings or not, he was even giving Lucian a pointed look, clearly urging him to hurry up and publicly acknowledge their agreement.
Did this really feel like the behavior of a sixteen-year-old?
He had the shrewdness of a man in his fifties.
“Mm…. Yes. Ruben Seirin has…. Ahem. Well, he…. has completed the second task…. Haa…. He did it. He did. Fine. Live however you want. Do whatever you want with Tyr too. Whatever you want!”
By the time Lucian spat out the final words, his blood pressure had risen so much that he felt dizzy.
Completely sulking, he stomped off toward his room as soon as he finished speaking.
‘He’s sulking. He really is.’
Everyone left behind clicked their tongues inwardly.
Regardless, Ruben Seirin had accomplished his goal through an impressive and entirely legitimate method.
Even Lucian Seirin, proud and aloof noble that he was, could not deny that.
“Young Master!”
At that moment, Tyr came rushing over and threw himself at Ruben.
The butler glared daggers at him, but Tyr was far too overwhelmed with emotion to care about anything like that.
“Sob…. Thank you! I thought I would never be able to serve you again….”
“Yes, yes. But could you let go of me? You’re incredibly heavy.”
Ruben laughed as he pulled Tyr away.
With that, the first step of his plan had been completed safely.
‘Now I just have to choose the right Warrior Academy!’