Before they stepped outside the mansion.
Xymoron's loyal butler, Vilkus, was breathing fire.
“What on earth do you intend to do, Family Head!”
“Vilkus. Calm down.”
“You saw the look on that son of a bitch Frau's face just now. They will not go easy on him. How strong a Mana Brawler's body is…….”
“Of course I know that as well. Muscle infused with magic power is like steel. If the opponent shows no mercy, he may have to lie in bed for a year.”
“Then how could you agree to it?”
“Well. Should I call it…… responsibility?”
Xymoron gave a deflated smile.
“Responsibility? Responsibility, you say? From the Young Master, who has never once kept his word since the day he was born?”
“Then he will learn a lesson, will he not? That if he lets his emotions sway him and spits out words without a plan, great misfortune will befall him.”
“Family Head!”
Vilkus' shoulders heaved without pause.
He could not understand it.
Was this not a father who was foolishly lenient when it came to his son?
His son was sure to be turned into a half-corpse before his very eyes, and there was no way to know why he had accepted this sparring match.
Xymoron smiled faintly.
“A viscount's son becomes a viscount in the end. Even if the territory is only a handful, even if it holds less substance than a mere merchant company's head.”
“How could you say such a…….”
“Kawin stepped forward in place of his father, a viscount. The weight of his words is not so different from a viscount's. So how could I ignore them?”
As he said this, Xymoron drew a sheet of paper from inside his coat.
A document imbued with a magical effect.
A scroll.
“Instead, I can help a little. After Kawin has fulfilled the responsibility for his words, that is.”
“……A healing scroll.”
Magic paper that activated simply by being unfolded.
That was why it was rare and expensive.
It was far too extravagant to use on something like a sparring match.
Especially considering House Anper's finances, it was an absurd item.
Xymoron intended to pay a dear price for his son's sake.
“Did you not feel it as well, Vilkus? That Kawin's behavior has changed quite a bit lately.”
“Yes. His conduct has become proper, and his body has grown stronger. Above all, I saw will in his eyes.”
“It is a parent's heart to spread the wings of imagination at even the faintest possibility. Please understand, just this once.”
Now that Xymoron, the Family Head, had gone this far, Vilkus could no longer stop him.
All he could do was pray.
That Kawin, in whom the winds of change had only just taken hold, would not be beaten within an inch of his life……!
Perhaps he could not bear to watch with his own eyes.
The moment Andne moved, Vilkus squeezed his eyes shut.
WHACK!
“Oh! Dear God!”
At a sound anyone would have taken for shattering bones, Vilkus could not help letting out a gasp.
With his eyes still shut, Vilkus asked Xymoron,
“Family Head! Is he badly hurt?”
“So it seems.”
“Good heavens, please stop the sparring match at once! Even now, the scroll……!”
“Not Kawin. Andne.”
“……Pardon?”
Had he heard wrong?
Vilkus gingerly lifted one of his shut eyelids.
Andne?
“Kraaah!”
An enraged roar woke Vilkus' other eye.
The howl of a wounded beast.
That voice was clearly Andne's.
Vilkus hurriedly turned his head.
A scene that made him doubt his eyes was unfolding.
“Ah!”
This time, an exclamation burst out.
Even at a glance, Andne was moving far faster than an ordinary person.
Kawin, on the other hand, was merely moving limply, like a mollusk.
‘And yet…….’
WHACK!
THUD!
It was always Andne whose chops got knocked upward and whose teeth went flying.
Andne's tall, handsome face had been beaten to a complete pulp.
If not for his trained Mana Brawler's body, he would have long since fainted.
“Why! Whyyyyyy!”
There was no need to hear the rest of Andne's words.
Why can't I hit you?
Someone like you!
With those painfully slow movements!
‘He looks like he has no clue at all.’
Kawin moved his body with an indifferent expression.
There was no need to keep ‘Lightning Flash’ active.
That would be a waste.
He simply had to activate it like this, just before the opponent's attack landed.
That was exactly why he could produce overwhelming results while appearing to flop about.
Giving off a gaze as cold as the color of his eyes, Kawin slipped into Andne's openings.
His expression was as serious as it had been when he first learned Braille.
‘It's certain. The more we trade blows…….’
Though only by a minute amount, the energy of the Orbis within his body was growing stronger.
That meant his magic power was growing.
The third unique ability granted to the ‘Stormlord.’
‘Current Devour’ had activated.
‘That guy's magic power is noticeably weakening. On the other hand, my energy's gotten stronger than it was at the start.’
It was like stealing water from a meager bucket and pouring it into a dam.
For Andne, who had only just completed his 1st Circle, it was a situation that could not help but be especially fatal.
“It hurts.”
An unexpected remark slipped from Kawin's mouth after he had hit to his heart's content.
Facing Andne, whose face had swollen up badly, Kawin expressed his honest feelings.
“Hitting a Mana Brawler's body with bare hands makes my fists hurt.”
“!”
He knew it was a remark that would make Andne, bruised all over, cough up blood to hear.
But pain was pain.
Kawin decided to use a little trick.
‘If magic power can take root in my nerves, there's no reason it can't be held in my skin.’
ZAP!
A fist charged with the power of thunder flew into Andne's shoulder and lodged there.
BOOM!
Unlike before, when he had kept flying into the air,
Andne's body froze in place like a stone statue.
There were no more roars, no more screams.
Only a sharp crushing sound, like a boulder splitting, could be heard.
CRACK!
A fissure.
It was forming inside Andne's body.
His pride, and the pride of his father, Frau.
His Circle had shattered.
THUD!
Andne's body, which had lost consciousness while still standing, collapsed to the ground.
Already battered all over, Andne had also had his magic power absorbed by Current Devour.
He looked as though a giant had pounded his body with an enormous hammer.
“Oh dear. With his Circle gone, entering the Academy will be impossible.”
As though it were truly a pity, Kawin smacked his lips.
Then he curled the corners of his mouth toward the dazed Frau.
“That empty seat. Someone will have to fill it.”
***
They said the photo taken while signing a surrender document after losing a war was terribly humiliating.
Kawin felt he finally understood what that felt like.
“Ngh……!”
The Company Head of the Prios Merchant Company.
Frau Prios was signing with trembling hands.
“I feel this is rather shameless of us. Are you truly all right with it?”
“It is fine. It is not as if it can…… ngh! be used anymore, anyway.”
The Academy located in the northeast of the Empire.
Tesca.
Its admission cost amounted to a hundred years' worth of living expenses for an ordinary household.
Of course, if someone from the noble House Anper enrolled, the price would be lower than that.
If they toiled away on the newly created fertile land for ten years or so, perhaps they could get in?
‘No way I'm doing that.’
Money aside, once the admission quota was filled, there was no getting in that year no matter what one did.
The only way was ‘transfer.’
When a student whose admission had been confirmed ran into circumstances, they could pass their qualification to someone else.
Of course, the one receiving the qualification also had to be a 1st Circle mage.
“What a remarkable coincidence.”
Vilkus, standing beside Xymoron, lifted his cheekbones in a smile.
“One loses his Circle, and the other awakens a Circle in the middle of the match. Perhaps this is the will of God.”
“The will of God……!”
He gripped the pen so hard it seemed he could snap it with the strength of his fingers alone.
Still, Frau somehow kept his composure and wrote his intent on the admission application.
[The admission application qualification of Andne Prios is hereby transferred to Kawin Anper.]
It was something that required the Prios family seal, but that was no problem.
They were a family that led a merchant company around and signed contracts large and small as routinely as eating meals.
After stamping it with the seal he always carried, Frau politely held the certificate out to Xymoron.
“With this, I would like to settle today's matter.”
“Very well.”
Xymoron nodded with a serious face.
It meant he would keep quiet about the humiliation of the Prios father and son.
In exchange for an admission application that had now become useless.
“A lot of time has passed because of the sparring match. Why not stay the night?”
“My heart billows like chimney smoke with the wish to, but the company's schedule is tight. Only feeling at ease when waking beneath the dawn dew is a merchant's habit, is it not?”
“I feel rather bad about this. On your next visit, I will receive you with more care.”
“I am grateful for the words alone.”
Frau kept as polite a demeanor as possible and withdrew.
Standing beside Xymoron, Kawin checked Frau's breathing and the smell of his sweat.
‘He means it.’
No particular falsehood could be felt in Frau's voice.
Now that his son had been completely broken, it felt as though even the inferiority complex lodged in his heart had died down.
All that remained to a merchant stripped of emotion was self-interest.
Even if it was a territory no bigger than a palm, there was no reason to make an enemy of House Anper.
It was a wise choice.
Had he bared his teeth before Kawin, the very survival of the Prios Merchant Company would have been in grave danger.
***
“It is true! It is really true!”
Having checked Kawin's condition, Xymoron bounced about as if he might leap into the air at any moment.
“I can clearly feel it. Your magic power. At this level, you are more than qualified to be judged 1st Circle.”
Heaven helped us.
This is a miracle.
Xymoron and Vilkus traded remarks back and forth, striking prayer poses.
Kawin stood in place, his body trembling faintly.
He was finding it hard to hold back his laughter at the sight.
‘Well, that's because I only showed them exactly 1st Circle's worth.’
The Orbis was a concept above the Circle.
Even his father, Xymoron, could not measure Kawin's exact power.
No, not just Xymoron; every mage who used Circles would be the same.
In terms of information, too, Kawin had climbed onto very advantageous high ground.
“I think so, too. I wanted to go to the Academy once I completed a Circle someday, but I didn't expect everything to fit together so perfectly.”
Kawin said so while hiding his smile.
Shattering Andne's Circle and revealing his awakening as a mage.
Everything had gone according to plan.
“To think that Mana Brawlers are at such a disadvantage against Lightning magic. You said Andne staggered every time he closed in, did you not?”
“Yes. There was definitely something like that in the books in our family, so I decided to try a match.”
“Well done. Perhaps you have already surpassed this father of yours.”
Xymoron had lived his whole life settled in the Anper territory alone.
Where would he, a man with no competitive spirit to be found, ever have had occasion to face another Mana Brawler?
Faced with the story Kawin had made up, all Xymoron and Vilkus could do
was nod in admiration.
***
It was time to leave home.
Carrying a simply packed bag, Kawin bowed to his father.
Xymoron held out his hand to him.
“Take this.”
“This is…….”
Upon checking the item, a faint smile spread across Kawin's lips.
“Scrolls. The one that was in your hand last time, Father.”
“Yes. I was going to use it if you ended up a complete mess.”
The smile on his lips deepened a little more.
Kawin neatly tucked the two scrolls into his bag.
Even considering they were for a son setting off on a long journey, they were very expensive items.
“I don't know if it's all right for me to take two. Even one is expensive.”
“You will surely need them. And do not worry. Did our farmland not double recently by the grace of the Archmage Dharma?!”
That was all my doing, though.
Kawin chuckled and raised his hand toward the space behind Xymoron.
At the entrance to the territory, dozens of people were waving their arms at him.
“Young Master! Stay healthy!”
“If any bastards tease you and call you static electricity, punch them right in the nose!”
“Hey now! Why are you bringing up the forbidden word again! On a fine day like this!”
“Young Master! You'd better come back strong!”
The people he had come across every day since he was able to see.
His father, Vilkus, and the people here were all precious to Kawin.
Come back strong.
Tesca Academy was the perfect place to achieve that goal.
Endless sparring matches that pushed students to their limits.
There was no better stage for using Current Devour.
‘And above all…….’
A treasure of the Empire that toured Academies in various regions for exhibition.
The chance to see another ‘grimoire’ was there.