The realization hit Brennan harder the longer he stood there, trying to find a solution to an impossible problem he had no hope of solving.
What few people had yet to be tested were quickly bid to touch the orb, then filed out of the tent until they were the only ones left. No other miracles arrived to steal the mage’s attention for even a moment.
Agnes reached out with a hand, mouth open in a silent plea. Brennan extended his own to take it, but Oswald saw it. Suddenly, an invisible wall stood between them, impenetrable as diamond.
The entire thing consisted of that same mana type he had failed to recognize earlier. Sense Magic provided no hints about it other than what it felt like metaphysically. Aside from the knowledge that magic stopped him from reaching his friend, he knew nothing. Not the depths of this man's power, or the extent of his own ignorance.
How had he not seen this coming? Of course he wouldn't receive the heaven-sent affinities to make a difference in this world. That honor went to someone else, someone he had come to know during his time in this world. So much so that he knew she didn't consider it an honor in any sense of the word.
He pushed fruitlessly against the wall as he watched Agnes struggle against the senior mage’s unyielding grip, her face set in defiance. Oswald wrenched her along easily, making the girl flinch in pain while he dragged her out of there.
Without warning, the flat, invisible surface dissipated, causing Brennan to stumble from a sudden lack of resistance. Looking up, he saw them near the front of the tent.
One thing became clear, at least: Oswald had no intention of entertaining him anymore. If something was going to happen, it would happen because of him. He held onto that small bit of control in a place where he had none.
To rub salt in the wound, Oswald infused a ring on his finger, and in response the tent folded itself up, slowly letting the light from outside back in. Huge swathes of fabric rolled and bunched together before it popped out of existence, exposing the baffled faces of the villagers staring in bewilderment.
Behind Brennan, the podium and magical focus were also gone. Like they hadn’t existed in the first place. The village square returned to how it’d looked yesterday around this time. Barren and ready for public events akin to these.
Making a snap decision, he ran after the mage. Reasoning might help. “Sir,” he said, “would you maybe reconsider your decision if provided with sufficient reason not to take her away? Like if the person who passed your test doesn’t want to leave.”
After a moment’s pause, Oswald finally looked back at Brennan over his shoulder the way someone would look at a smear of bird shit. “Desire has no bearing on my duty. Talent must be cultivated. It must be propagated. And this child would see that best realized in the capital by the royal family’s grace.”
“Propa- But what good is it if she won’t work for you,” he argued, the words feeling useless even as they fell from his lips. It made no difference; Oswald was ignoring him now, unconcerned with the protests of a seven-year-old with no so-called talent.
People in the crowd watched, some daring to approach, but he barely paid attention to them. His eyes were on Agnes, who would be taken away if he did nothing. While he tried to think, come up with a genius plan to save the day, he knew any action he took would end in failure. The circumstances didn’t provide an easy solution or a hard one. He could only stare as she got yanked along, any of her attempts to get free no more effective than a fly trying to move a boulder.
Rage filled his body, every breath scorched his lungs in pure fire. The one real friend he’d made in this life, gone due to the whims of the powers that be, all over something she never asked for. And what could he do about it? Nothing.
She had a supreme affinity. That was the stuff of legends, the power held by the greatest mages throughout history. He couldn’t just assume they’d take her to school for a few years and let her go without cost—he wasn’t that naive. He saw it in how Oswald looked, in that mad obsession in his eyes shining through his stern demeanor, in how he walked, in the rarity of what had occurred. If she left now, there was a good chance he might never see her again.
At that moment, Agnes met his eyes, mouthing words he wouldn’t forget for the rest of his life:
‘I’m scared.’
Casting aside any doubts and attempts at negotiation, Brennan activated Surging Dash, sprinting much faster than anyone his age should be capable of. He pushed the skill to maximum intensity. Wind blew around him, each step breaking a personal record.
As he drew closer, he bent his knees and jumped, one foot stretched out to deliver a devastating kick to Oswald’s arm. If he could just make the man loosen his hold, however briefly, Agnes would have a chance to escape.
He didn’t make contact—a pane of mana snapped into place again.
The impenetrable wall rebuffed him, reflecting back at him all the strength he had put into that kick. His leg bent the wrong way, punctuated with an awful cracking noise as he was sent flying back. He tumbled end over end into the grassy dirt.
In all the time they had known each other, Brennan had thought of Agnes as a quiet girl by nature, not prone to voicing her thoughts unless she really felt it was necessary. She simply never made it a habit to talk if the situation didn’t demand it. Ever since they first met, he had never heard her scream.
“BRENNAN!” The visceral cry rang out over the square, so piercing it strangled the gasps and mutters of the wary crowd.
Then the pain hit him all at once.
“AAAAAGH, FUCK!” he screeched in English, the curse forcing its way out of his throat involuntarily.
Sheer agony swallowed him whole, all thoughts of the outside world gone for a few heartbeats of indescribable torment. Burning hot stakes of iron stabbed his knee. Relentless, only hurting him harder as he waited for the worst to pass.
He breathed. An action taken out of pure instinct that he couldn’t have managed on his own. The pain settled into a deep, aching throb.
When his mind came back to reality, he wasn’t alone. Blurred figures ran towards him, familiar silhouettes he would have recognized anywhere. His family.
Tears and snot streamed down his face; he realized, belatedly, that he’d started crying at some point. The pain was still more than he could handle, but no longer all-consuming. His hands clutched his broken leg as if that would help him put it back together.
“Dear?” Looking up, he felt Mom rest a palm on his cheek. Her expression transformed from trembling horror into a livid snarl in an instant. She stood, body shaking with anger. She advanced on Oswald with clenched fists.
Dad held her back. Doris struggled in his arms, screaming profanities at the court wizard that Brennan had thought couldn’t possibly come out of her mouth. She’d gone tomato-red down to her neck, veins bulging as she went on a tirade. “It’s never enough! All you people do is take no matter what it costs everyone else! The crown gives you no right to hurt my boy or break up a family who doesn’t want you here! Foul whoreson, look at me when I’m speaking to you! You always…” She just kept going.
George’s face was stone. “Junia,” he said, turning away from his ranting wife. “Go help your brother.”
Junia rushed to Brennan, fussing over him even though she obviously lacked experience in first aid. Meanwhile, Brennan turned his head in Agnes’ direction.
The girl sank to her knees, now floating in a cage of Oswald's magic. She slammed her hands against the barrier of force.
Yeah, force. Has to be pure force mana.
He figured it out after receiving more information about how the mana behaved, the direct and uncomplicated momentum of it evident in every application. Although that bit of knowledge would go to waste if he didn’t do something right here, right now.
Digging into the grass with his fingers, he tried to pull himself forward. He aborted the movement immediately, gritting his teeth and stifling a sob. The injury hurt too much, the smallest jostle aggravated it so hard he could barely think.
“Stop moving,” Junia hissed.
He couldn't, and was about to tell her that, but someone leaped over the crowd up ahead. A devastating crash resounded on the square, kicking up a dust cloud that almost sprayed his eyes with dirt.
It cleared quickly, revealing a huge man standing right in front of Oswald. He hefted an axe on his shoulder. The tightness of his grip, combined with the silent fury behind those eyes, promised a world of violence to any who dared to hurt Agnes.
Graham Whytmere, her father.
“Return my daughter to me,” Graham pronounced with deceptive calm, gaze fixed on the girl.
“Ignorance still plagues this corner of the kingdom, I see. Ever incapable of recognizing greatness when it blesses them,” Oswald commented. The mage cast an annoyed glance at the surrounding village before his eyes fell on Agnes. “Her bloodline will carry the crown upward, as it's meant to.”
No more words were exchanged. The clear refusal caused the brimming tension to boil over, commencing the battle with a swing of the axe.
Oswald deflected it bare-handed, a crack forming in the ground. He countered with the other hand, thrusting out a palm to shoot a wave of force Graham caught on his axe and diverted, but not for free. More cracks spread, dirt breaking free of the earth beneath their feet. The furious clash continued with the white-clad mage not giving an inch of ground for every move he returned in measured, disciplined martial maneuvers. Graham slid back further and further until another wave of force catapulted the larger man backwards, straight through the wall of a nearby house.
The crowd scattered.
Come on, think of something.
Brennan conjured the thought in a fit of desperation, a bid for himself to change the outcome he wanted to avoid at all costs. Graham was doubtless at a disadvantage, being one whole strata below his opponent. He wouldn't last long if this kept up.
Sure enough, a few seconds later, Graham charged in and promptly got hit with an elbow strike. He parried the next two blows on the flat of his blade, only to lose a second clash which earned him a punch in the ribs.
Left without options, Brennan took the knife and whetstone out of his pocket, to the surprise of his sister.
Given he was unable to move, he could at least try this. Still out of breath from the broken knee, he forced Synchronic Precision to do its job and let him spare the cognitive power to sharpen his knife.
One stroke. Wind mana lit up along the blade’s edge, coating it in a varnish of light green he didn’t pay any attention to.
Two strokes. The edge grew brighter, not to his visual organs but to his sensory skill, preparing twin attacks with cutting winds to complement them.
No way was he going to reach Oswald by dragging himself over there. Even disregarding the pain, it would be too slow-going. So he had to rely on another method.
Throwing sat near the top of his list of things he considered himself good at that he didn't have a dedicated skill for. Before this life, he would've called his aim average. He had refined his technique in training exercises with Agnes, making it kind of ironic that he would use it to save her.
To his side, Junia seemed to hesitate about whether she should stop him, looking back and forth between him and their parents. He ignored her, pulling out every ounce of competence he had for this single shot. Magic should be sufficient to break the force field, or at least damage it slightly. It had to be.
He took one last breath to steady his arm, and threw.
Along the open trajectory to his enemy, the knife sailed, air resistance reduced on account of the magic bestowed on it. Within a second, it reached Oswald.
And got reflected.
It flew back the same way, but in the opposite direction. Immobile as he was, Brennan couldn't dodge. A magic-sharpened knife buried itself underneath his collarbone with a shluck sound, motes of wind mana cutting into his body.
He released another wail of agony, helpless and starting to gurgle blood. Paired with the torture, Sense Magic flooded his mind by providing new information about the mana in his body. But it didn't belong there. He could sense he wasn't made to handle it, these foreign particles dissipating in his flesh.
The response came from him, but not through any bodily means—rather, it originated from a layer outside and inside himself, the culmination of his being or maybe just his link to this world. Blue mana flowed from it, like antibodies being made to fight off a disease with no biological form. His magic resisting the knife's.
Distantly, he noticed someone shaking his body and saying something, but he was already too overwhelmed to understand what was going on around him. Darkness crept into vision.
Skill unlocked!
[Mana Generation (Uncommon) Lv. 1]
Brennan passed out before he could read any further.