“So this is the flower.”
“Mm. It’s my first time seeing it too. I suppose this is the one?”
Behind Tyr and me, Britz was barely breathing as blood spilled from his mouth.
After such prolonged torture, his internal organs were probably in terrible condition. Still, it was nothing that several Healing Potions could not eventually repair, given enough time.
He should have told me from the beginning.
What was the point of being so stubborn?
In any case, Britz eventually confessed where he had hidden the flowers, and I finally obtained what I wanted.
Even at a glance, there was nothing ordinary about the flower.
Its petals were so thin and transparent that I could see the hand holding it through them.
More than anything, however, its fragrance was distinctive.
It carried an extraordinarily cool and refreshing scent, one that brought to mind the snowy fields of the north.
“Are you sure it’s safe to eat this?”
“Well… probably?”
I had come here because I knew that such a flower existed, but now that I was about to actually eat something I had effectively picked up off the ground, I could not help feeling uneasy.
If the Britz from my previous life had not been telling the truth and had simply been spouting nonsense, there might be side effects.
“Ah, to hell with it. I’ve already died once. It’s not as if I can die twice, right?”
I had already died once anyway.
After staring at the flower with some concern, I simply shoved it into my mouth along with ice created using Frozen.
“Young Master! How can you just eat it like that?!”
“Ugh…. It tastes awful….”
Despite its refreshing fragrance, the flower tasted unimaginably terrible.
Every single taste bud in my mouth seemed to be screaming that this was a dangerous substance and that I needed to spit it out immediately.
But things that are good for the body always taste terrible!
Endure it through sheer willpower, my taste buds!
“GULP.”
Summoning the last of my strength, I somehow managed to swallow the mixture of flower and ice.
My face had crumpled like a torn sheet of paper, but I had done it.
At that moment, the faint amount of mana remaining in my Mana Core began to stir.
The mana that had been rotating slowly gradually accelerated until it began drawing in the mana of nature from outside my body.
Like a whirlpool pulling in everything around it, the external energy slowly began flowing into me.
But the mana that existed naturally in the world and the mana within a Mana Core must never mix.
Sensing the danger, I immediately sat down cross-legged.
“Tyr! Guard me!”
“Y-Yes!”
At my urgent shout, Tyr drew both the Scroll and his sword and began watching our surroundings.
We were inside Britz’s tent, and the bandits outside had no idea what was happening, so there probably would not be any trouble.
However, in my current state, even someone casually touching me could kill me.
Tyr needed to make certain no one interfered.
“Urgh!”
I closed my eyes and even stopped breathing to block out as much of the outside world as possible.
Even then, the mana inside my Mana Core continued spinning madly, endlessly trying to drag the mana of nature directly into my body.
I needed to calm it down and separate the two gradually.
If the mana of nature mixed with the mana inside my Mana Core like this, my entire body would vaporize and disappear.
This was exactly why I had never gone around eating random things in my previous life.
My greed had brought disaster upon me.
It seemed I still had much to learn.
WHIRRR….
Now even the air around me had begun to rotate slowly.
This was genuinely dangerous.
If it accelerated any further, I might no longer be able to restrain it.
But I was running out of time.
My chest tightened.
If I went without oxygen much longer, I would lose consciousness before I could bring the mana under control.
“Haa!”
In the end, my survival instincts won.
My airway opened, and I drew in a breath through my mouth and nose.
Fresh air instantly flooded my empty lungs, and the overwhelming relief shattered my control over the mana.
“Aaaaaaaaagh!”
The energy outside my body began pouring madly into my Mana Core.
The five elements rushed in at once, each struggling to claim space for itself.
Every sensation throughout my body was stimulated simultaneously.
Hot yet cold.
Warm yet cool.
Painful yet soothing.
The indescribably horrific sensation violently shook even the smallest nerves at my fingertips.
And yet, strangely enough, I felt a sense of stability.
Normally, when the mana of nature mixed with the mana inside a Mana Core, the human body became one with nature itself and dispersed.
But my body was not dispersing.
Instead, it was being strengthened.
Wherever my body was weak, the mana of the element best suited to that area attached itself and reinforced it.
Wherever it was already strong, the mana made it stronger still.
“Young Master! Are you all right?!”
“Urghhh….”
I tried to answer, but only a strange groan escaped my mouth.
Every bone and muscle in my body was being reformed, leaving me unable to move anything as I wished.
Even my skin was cracking apart and peeling away.
There was no way to stop it now.
All I could do was accept the transformation as steadily as possible.
I began carefully organizing the chaotic energies accumulating inside my Mana Core, starting from the outermost layers.
The proper went with the proper, and the impure with the impure.
I separated the chaotic from the turbid, and also sorted the pure from the clear.
Proper and impure.
Chaotic and turbid.
Pure and clear.
Even those distinctions were nothing more than standards created by humans.
In the end, all of them existed together to form and sustain the world.
“Whew….”
How much time had passed?
The rapidly rotating mana gradually began to slow, and I could feel a mass of elemental energy filling my Mana Core.
The power of nature that had been circulating through every corner of my body vanished completely, as though it had never been there.
“Young Master…!”
Only then did Tyr’s voice reach me clearly.
I cautiously moved my body.
It felt completely different from before.
My senses had sharpened, and my body felt light enough to take flight.
I could not even remember the last time I had felt this refreshed.
“Tyr.”
“Yes!”
“Do I look any different?”
“Uh…. There is something different.”
Hmm?
What was it?
Come to think of it, Tyr was refusing to look at me.
He kept his eyes fixed firmly on the ground.
Something was strange.
“Hmm. There aren’t any obvious changes? My body feels incredibly light right now!”
“Yes, I imagine it would….”
Watching him deliberately avoid looking at me and stare off into the distance gave me a bad feeling.
But why did my body feel so light?
Almost as though I were completely naked….
Huh?
“Ah.”
It was not my imagination.
Perhaps because of the storm of mana that had swept over me, my clothes had completely disintegrated into powder.
The charred scraps of fabric scattered around me proved it.
Damn it.
I had proudly stood there with my elephant dangling in the open and asked Tyr whether he noticed anything different about me.
Could I possibly have embarrassed myself any more than this?!
“Hey! Tyr! Keep looking at the floor!”
I hurriedly began rummaging through the tent.
Fortunately, I found several sets of Britz’s clothes that were still intact.
There was absolutely no chance I was wearing his underwear, so I left that alone and simply threw on a pair of trousers and a shirt.
“Ugh, how embarrassing.”
Perhaps it was because they were clothes worn by bandits.
The moment I put them on, my body felt heavy again.
Thinking about it, it would have been absurd for my physique to undergo some miraculous transformation simply because I had eaten a few flowers.
Still, I had nearly died.
Had I truly gained nothing from it?
My heart grew heavy along with my body.
I looked at Tyr again.
“Hmm, that was rather embarrassing. Anyway, how was it?”
Tyr had seen my entire body.
Perhaps he could identify something that had changed.
I looked at him with a faint sense of expectation.
“Ah, yes, Young Master. Well…. You were larger than I expected.”
“Huh? What was?”
“…”
…What in the world was this brat talking about?!
Only when Tyr cautiously raised both thumbs did I realize what he meant.
Well, being told I was large did feel somewhat gratifying!
But still!
That was not what we were talking about!
“No! Stop saying strange things! I mean, doesn’t my body look healthier or stronger or something?!”
“Oh, that’s what you meant! Yes, Young Master. To my eyes, there doesn’t seem to be anything particularly….”
Damn it.
It really seemed as though I had gained nothing.
Annoyed, I gave the collapsed Britz another kick.
He twitched, so apparently he was still alive.
“Sigh. Let’s just cast Memory Manipulation Magic on these people and leave.”
With their boss critically injured, the Steel Axe Band would not be capable of doing much for a while.
Perhaps there would come a day when Britz and I faced each other as enemies again, but I could not eliminate him now.
I could not leave behind any trace suggesting the presence of an Archmage.
I cast Memory Manipulation Magic on Britz and the other bandits so that they would forget Tyr’s face and mine.
Then we retraced our steps.
After returning to the carriage, we continued toward the northern frontier where Lion Heart Academy was located without further incident.
I felt somewhat dejected because it seemed I had come away empty-handed.
Still, considering that I had survived even after the mana of nature invaded my Mana Core, something must have changed.
In all my long years as a mage, I had never seen or even heard of such a phenomenon.
A tremendous change had undoubtedly occurred within me.
I simply did not know what that change was yet.
Several days passed.
Just when I was beginning to grow tired of the scenery outside the carriage, our surroundings gradually began to change.
A major road appeared, and young people who were obviously academy freshmen could be seen everywhere.
We arrived precisely on the day of Lion Heart Academy’s entrance ceremony.
“Young Master. I can see Lion Heart.”
At last, the Academy revealed itself in all its grandeur.
True to its name, the Heart of the Lion, enormous statues of lions stood on both sides of its entrance, while the magnificent buildings beyond them possessed a splendor all their own.
Perhaps because the Academy stood amid the harsh terrain of the north, mountains surrounded it on every side, lending the entire place a rugged atmosphere.
The white stone buildings gleamed faintly, perhaps because the stone contained Cold Iron found only in the north.
The subtle shimmer gave the Academy an almost mystical appearance.
“Good grief, we finally made it.”
Looking back on my previous life, my years at the Academy had been the very embodiment of dreams and romance.
Researching magic with my classmates.
Studying for examinations.
Participating in various clubs, Academy events, and festivals….
There was no question that those years had been among the happiest periods of my previous life.
The thought of experiencing something like that again made it impossible to keep the smile from my face.
After crossing an enormous drawbridge, we reached the entrance, where senior cadets who appeared to be Academy students began guiding the freshmen.
Tyr and I climbed down from the carriage, gathered our luggage, and followed behind them.
I could already feel the freshness of a new academic term.
Perhaps because the senior cadets were dressed in the Academy’s formal uniforms, they looked neat and disciplined, giving the impression that Lion Heart was an academy of considerable quality.
The freshmen being guided alongside us also wore bright, lively expressions.
I had a very good feeling about this!
“Young Master. But the expressions on the cadets guiding us are a little….”
“Hmm?”
“They look rather intimidating.”
Did they?
Now that Tyr mentioned it, there was certainly an inexplicable fighting spirit in their expressions.
Some even carried a faint trace of killing intent.
Perhaps this was simply what people at a Warrior Academy were like.
Everyone seemed rather tense.
Their atmosphere was clearly different from that of the freshmen.
While the newcomers had already begun gathering in groups of three or four and chatting among themselves, the senior cadets spoke only when absolutely necessary.
It was completely different from the friendly and sociable upperclassmen at the Magic Academy.
Well, perhaps this sort of atmosphere would be enjoyable too.
Eventually, we arrived at a building resembling an enormous auditorium.
As befitted the site of the entrance ceremony, its interior was elaborately decorated, and countless freshmen stood assembled in orderly rows.
Tyr and I awkwardly took our places among them.
Once all the incoming cadets had lined up, a kindly looking old man appeared on the stage.
He wore the Academy’s neat formal uniform and had a somewhat slender build, along with thick silver hair and a full silver beard.
One look was enough to tell me that he was Lion Heart’s Dean.
“Welcome, new students. You have all endured a long journey to reach this northern frontier. Lion Heart Academy is a prestigious institution of the Empire with a long tradition, and we take great pride in helping every cadet walk the path of a true warrior. And….”
Hmm.
I was already bored.
Hopefully, his welcoming speech would not be too long.
“…Furthermore, we always place action before words. ‘Actions, not words, reveal what lies within.’ And above all, remember Lion Heart’s motto: ‘Pain that does not kill me makes me stronger.’ I expect every one of you to remember those words. Now, we shall begin the entrance event!”
Thank goodness.
The speech was not particularly long.
The moment the Dean declared the beginning of the event—
BANG!
Fireworks exploded in every direction.
At the same time, an enormous door along the side of the auditorium swung open.
Beyond it stood the massive mountain beside the Academy, its full grandeur visible at a glance.
All of the freshmen let out cries of admiration.
Then the Dean’s voice suddenly changed completely.
The kindly tone vanished, replaced by a harsh roar.
“Your entrance event is to reach the monument at the summit of that mountain, touch it, and return. As with every class, only the first one hundred out of two hundred incoming students pass. The remaining one hundred will run it again. Understood?”
…Huh?
What did he just say?
“If you understood me, RUN!”