Land parched bone-dry and split with cracks.
Withered grass that had barely managed to grow by squeezing through those cracks, and rocks carved by the wind.
The frontier of House Anper was little different from a barren wasteland where no one could live.
Zzt.
The grass that had been swaying this way and that in the currents of the air suddenly shuddered.
Because the energy of thunder, which ought to have been in the sky, was ‘running’ toward it.
ZAP!
The being that appeared, sparks flaring from the soles of its feet, burned the withered grass away without a trace.
Swiftness, in the most literal sense.
It was a speed one might believe even if told the god of wind had pushed from behind, but the source of that power was not wind but lightning.
“Phew…….”
A handsome, platinum-blond man wiped the sweat from beneath his chin with the back of his hand and steadied his breathing.
His clear blue eyes turned toward the path he had come by.
“I've improved a lot.”
Somewhere between a boy and a young man.
Lips both cool and sharp drew a proud arc.
It had been a month since he awakened the power of the grimoire.
Kawin was filling in what he lacked most.
“Unless it's a seasoned knight, nobody's going to catch me.”
Lightning Flash.
The gift the Orbis had given Kawin upon completing a single ring.
For the past month, Kawin had run and run until the soles of his feet were drenched in sweat.
When his breathing grew ragged, he did strength training.
When his muscles began to scream, he ran again.
His body screamed, but Kawin's spirit, if anything, felt as though it could fly.
Being able to run.
How happy a thing that was, all on its own!
To Kawin, who had been unable to see, even his pounding heartbeat sounded like the drums of a festival.
Kawin lowered his head and examined his body here and there.
‘My lung capacity and muscles have both grown enormously.’
What if someone posted Kawin's body on a fitness community and said, ‘I built this in a month’?
Kawin would get torn to powder all night long.
Saying he was bragging way too much, or that he was a compulsive liar.
That was how solid a body he had built in so short a time.
His dense muscles were full of spring, and he was confident his keen reflexes would not fall behind even a knight who had trained for decades.
It was a balanced body closer to that of a knight aspirant than a mage.
‘This must be an effect of the awakening, too.’
He had heard that mages who completed a Circle also became physically sturdier.
Their muscles recovered faster, and their wounds healed quickly.
But Kawin's growth was in a realm that far surpassed those mages.
The training was a success.
For mages, who mostly attacked from range, the greatest danger was the opponent ‘closing in.’
Now that he had grown somewhat used to ‘Lightning Flash,’ he would not easily let anyone close in.
It was an ability that would help Kawin for a long time to come.
“Shall I head back now?”
Kawin wrapped up his training a little earlier than usual.
Once a month.
It was the day cheap, tasty meat appeared in the impoverished Anper Viscounty.
***
The decline of the Lightning line was not a matter of yesterday or today.
That meant it was not the fault of the current Family Head, Xymoron.
Even so, Xymoron collected only the bare minimum of taxes from the residents of the territory.
As if apologizing for making them live in such poor conditions.
Should it be called hearts speaking to hearts?
The residents' loyalty to House Anper was quite high, and it carried over to Kawin intact.
“Young Master! Where have you been off to again?”
“We haven't seen much of you around the territory lately. Is something the matter?”
“Just please don't go as far as the frontier. Monsters might appear out there.”
“Well, it's not like you'd have the stamina to make it all the way to the frontier! Haha!”
Residents so overflowing with interest and affection that they even cracked jokes.
Didn't they say there are no dog sons under a tiger father?
Some affectionate scolding could be heard, aimed at a son who fell rather short compared to his father.
Kawin took their attention in stride and headed for the mansion.
The residents would never dream of it.
That the place Kawin had just come back from training was the very spot where monsters appeared, the one they had warned him was dangerous.
That the fertile land newly created in the Viscounty of late was thanks to Kawin's magic.
‘Today's the day the Prios Merchant Company comes, right?’
A merchant company that toured the northeast of the Empire, hauling dozens of wagons.
The Prios Merchant Company visited the Anper Viscounty once a month.
It was thanks to them that the residents could, for once, eat meat cheaply.
Was that why?
The residents' faces as they looked at Kawin were very bright, and their voices were full of energy.
He thought his father's and Vilkus' expressions at the mansion would be no different.
“Young Master.”
When he arrived in front of the mansion, Vilkus, unusually, was waiting at the main gate.
“Why are you out here? I heard the Company Head hasn't left yet.”
“My stomach is unsettled.”
As Vilkus said that, he scratched his eyebrow with a finger.
Judging by his behavior so far, that was a sign that it was not his stomach but his mood that was unsettled.
“What's going on? Everyone looked cheerful, probably because they got a taste of meat.”
“You will likely understand once you go inside.”
With that, Vilkus turned his back first.
At the sight of him with a cold wind whistling around him, Kawin hurried his steps.
***
“Hahahaha!”
Hearty laughter kept bursting out of House Anper's banquet hall.
Though the banquet hall was, at best, just a dining room a little bigger than an ordinary room.
The owner of the voice was Frau Prios.
The Company Head of the Prios Merchant Company, a wealthy man said to strut around the northeast of the Empire with his shoulders thrown back.
He was a man with a large face overall and greasy-looking eyes, but his well-groomed beard seemed to wipe some of the grease away.
“It is truly wonderful to visit the Anper territory after so long. I have been suffering from a runny nose lately, but breathing the clean air here cleared my nose right up, would you believe it?”
“That is good to hear. Thank you for always stopping by this humble place, Company Head.”
“It is I who should thank you. Thanks to how well the Family Head has managed the territory, my long-standing trouble has been solved. If only I could, I would like to stay here a long while!”
At the voices carrying from afar, Kawin smacked his lips.
On the surface, he pretended to praise it, but there was a subtle nuance of looking down on the place as a backwater.
Judging by Vilkus' face, as if he had eaten spoiled raw beef, he seemed to be thinking the same thing.
“Family Head! The Young Master has arrived.”
“Come in.”
The door opened with a creak.
Xymoron was seated at the head of the table, and to his left were two men.
Company Head Frau, and a handsome young man who looked to be about Kawin's age.
“Ohh! If it isn't the shining hope of House Anper! Please, take a seat!”
Frau greeted Kawin with exaggerated gestures.
Kawin lowered his head lightly and sat down.
His gaze turned toward Xymoron.
‘His expression's definitely bad. Did Frau's tone get on his nerves?’
No.
There was something more.
Considering Xymoron's usual personality, he was not someone whose face would harden over something this minor.
‘In that case, it must be…….’
This one, then?
A young man in his late teens was reflected in Kawin's eyes.
The young man seemed to read his gaze as well and flashed a leisurely smile.
“Come to think of it, the two of you must be meeting for the first time. Pay your respects. This is my inadequate boy, Andne.”
“It is a pleasure to meet you. I am Andne Prios, eldest son of the Prios Merchant Company.”
Particular force fell on the word ‘Prios.’
He bowed politely, but it meant he took pride in his family.
A fallen viscount house scraping by on a handful of territory.
A merchant company sweeping up money as it roamed the length and breadth of the Empire.
By status, they were noble and commoner, but the invisible gap ran far wider in the opposite direction.
“Kawin Anper.”
“It would have been nice if you had come a little sooner. We laid out more food upon hearing the Young Master was coming. Free of charge, of course.”
Andne spread both arms as if to show off.
Sure enough, the table was filled with delicacies from the mountains and the sea, the likes of which he had never seen.
Kawin looked down at the table without a word.
Then he suddenly grinned.
“That's very kind of you.”
Then, his fork never resting, he wolfed down everything in front of him.
Behavior without the slightest regard for appearances.
But Kawin was genuinely enjoying the meal.
‘If I don't eat, I'm the only one losing out.’
At his nonchalance, Frau and his son instead went wide-eyed.
Normally, one would be expected to soothe a burning stomach and put on a dignified air.
It got to the point that even Xymoron blinked his large eyes as he watched his son eat.
“Phew. Just what you'd expect of goods traded by the finest merchant company in the northeast. Every dish has a wonderful taste and aroma.”
“Ah…… yes.”
The Company Head, Frau, answered on reflex while studying Kawin.
Having run a merchant company for a long time, he had developed an insight of his own.
To handle an insulting situation so casually?
Usually, such cases were one of two.
Either a naive child who could not read the underlying meaning,
or a person with a vessel of great capacity.
‘Well, anyone can see it's the first case.’
Frau gave a bland laugh and sipped from his glass.
Now that Kawin, whom he had been waiting for, had arrived, it was time to get to the point.
“Family Head. Since my boy has reached his first achievement, I am thinking of sending him to a specialized institution.”
“A specialized institution, you say. The Academy?”
“Yes. Commoners like us need an enormous sum to get in, but when it is an investment for one's child, would one refuse even a thousand or ten thousand gold? Now that he has completed a Circle, which matters more than money, I see no reason to hesitate.”
“Hmm.”
Xymoron slowly nodded.
Xymoron, who had smiled without a single crease even while farming in place of noble duties.
But it seemed that even for him, matters concerning his child made it hard to hide his expression.
Wouldn't Xymoron want to send his son to the Academy, too?
But in his eyes, Kawin could not even read the basic flow of mana, let alone form a Circle.
‘So that's what this is.’
Kawin grasped how things stood.
It seemed Frau's son, Andne, had awakened his ability as a mage.
The 1st Circle, the qualification for entering the Academy.
If one graduated from the Academy and earned merit as a mage, one could even receive a peerage from the Emperor.
Seizing a ‘status’ that money could not buy.
For Frau, who had nothing but money, nothing could be more pleasing.
‘He could just be happy about it on his own, so the reason he's dragging his son along to brag like this is…….’
An inferiority complex over what he did not have.
Even the status of a viscount fallen as far as one could fall was a realm Frau could never reach.
People naturally go mad over what they cannot have.
With his mouth, he blathered on about respecting Xymoron and liking this Viscounty, but…….
‘It's all a lie.’
Through his breathing and the smell of his sweat, Kawin could see straight through to his true intentions.
Everything that came out of Frau's mouth was deception aimed at his father, Xymoron.
So,
‘I can't just sit still like this.’
It was not simply because of the deception aimed at his father.
Recalling what Frau had said and the contents of the novel, Kawin thought of something he absolutely ‘had to get.’
Even in the moment Kawin made up his mind, Frau went on bragging, spraying spit.
“Somehow, this boy went and completed a Circle of the Mana Brawler line. He takes after his father, so he is hot-tempered, and his body gets ahead of him. Haha!”
“A Mana Brawler, you say. Certainly a rare line. Is that not the type that wraps mana around the whole body and fights hand to hand, rather than using long-range magic?”
“It is. A mage I am acquainted with said that Mana Brawlers have such a unique fighting style that many places seek them out. And so…….”
Curling one side of his lips up as far as it would go, Frau asked Xymoron,
“As a senior mage, would you not give him a lesson? By way of a sparring match, that is.”
“…….”
Xymoron's Adam's apple bobbed once.
A thick vein bulged on Vilkus' barren crown.
Publicly, Xymoron was known to have one Circle.
Senior or not, he was at the same level.
And even that was the Lightning line, classified as the weakest of all; what lesson could he possibly give?
If he accepted, he would be humiliated by a green mage young enough to be his son,
and if he refused, rumors would spread throughout the region that he was a petty viscount.
Unable to advance or retreat, in the most literal sense.
Frau's malice was far more tenacious than expected.
“I…….”
Just as Xymoron, who had hesitated a long while as though a thorn were lodged in his mouth, was about to say something,
a mumbling voice came from across the table from Frau.
“Platypus.”
“……Pardon?”
The one who had cut into the conversation was none other than Kawin.
Still cramming in the remaining food, he went on.
“I hear that in the Iron Empire, they call Mana Brawlers platypuses. Because they fight like knights but have weak bodies, and they handle mana but can't use magic. Neither one thing nor the other, just like a platypus.”
“……!”
Blood truly cannot lie.
Look at those matching fierce expressions side by side.
They were no longer even bothering to control their faces.
Kawin turned his head toward Andne.
“Instead of asking my father for a lesson, why not give one to me? I'd like to know how strong a mage who's just completed his Circle is.”
“The Young Master…… wishes to spar?”
Andne asked back as if dumbfounded, while Frau, on the contrary, wore a smile of satisfaction.
Whether Xymoron or Kawin.
As long as he could shame the viscount's bloodline, either would do.
Besides, Kawin could be beaten with a little less hesitation, could he not?
“Kawin!”
Xymoron's face, on the other hand, hardened another degree.
To an extent that could not even be compared to when Frau had been scraping at his insides.
Instead of answering, Kawin let a fire blaze in his eyes.
Just this once, let me do as I wish.
“……!”
Whether he was overpowered by that force, found it hard to refuse his son's request,
or simply had no other choice,
Xymoron nodded with difficulty.
“Let us go outside.”
***
The Anper mansion did not even have a common sparring ground.
They moved to the field spread out behind the mansion.
Amid the slowly rippling breezes, Kawin and Andne stood facing each other.
Kawin rolled his neck once and recalled [Swordmaster of the Heavenly Slaughter Star].
‘Good thing I read the book thoroughly.’
To think that Company Head Frau, who had spent his whole life controlling his expressions, would throw such a fit over the word platypus.
Platypus was not a nickname Kawin had made up.
He had merely quoted the lines of the knights in [Swordmaster of the Heavenly Slaughter Star] word for word.
This time, he learned for certain that lines from the book could be of use.
“Are you ready?”
Kawin nodded without a word.
There was no need to ask about Andne's state.
He had wrapped mana around his entire body, like armor.
‘So that's the Mana Brawler way.’
Wrap mana around the entire body and fight by using it like armor.
It was no different from the way of knights and Swordmasters.
However,
‘I can tell with just a rough glance.’
The energy of thunder that Kawin had rooted throughout his entire body.
The magic power held in ‘Lightning Flash’ could not be compared to what Andne had wrapped around himself.
The Circle Andne had created was the size of a fist.
The Orbis on this side was as large as a house.
Superior in every way.
It was the difference between a single bucket laboriously hauled up from a well and a massive dam.
Recognizing an opponent's strength was only possible at a similar level.
Andne bared his white teeth at the thought of beating this side to a pulp.
Then he moved with confidence.
BANG!
The sound of him kicking off the ground was just like a bullet.
“Ohh!”
Behind Andne, Frau's cheer, full of anticipation, burst out.
However,
WHACK!
Unexpectedly, Frau found himself meeting his son's eyes.
Because with the sound of bones shattering, Andne's body had flipped a full turn upside down.
CLATTER!
“A-Andne?”
Frau was not the only one surprised.
Xymoron and Vilkus, who had been watching with bated breath, had their mouths hanging open as if their jaws would touch the ground.
Step, step.
“Get up.”
Kawin slowly walked toward Andne.
No one could see it, but tiny sparks were leaping across his clenched fist.