Rubian seized Delam by the wrist.
Then she pushed mana in through it.
KURRRRR!
Mana of a violent temperament.
But perhaps thanks to Rubian's desperation, it swept every inch of his mana roads without injuring Delam in the slightest.
"Whew......!"
A moment later Rubian let go and let out a breath.
Handle a mana formula wrongly and in the worst case you become a wreck.
And fortunately there was no sign of that.
"It seems it was something I shouldn't have done."
"Is that a thing to be said! Mana roads are full of things that must never be touched. And even the things that may be touched can turn into a bomb depending on the order!"
Rubian trembled, then shouted a beat late.
"You idiot!"
"Haha......"
At the adorable insult Delam smiled awkwardly.
It was probably the worst curse she was capable of.
The reason Rubian didn't know curses was simple.
Why fight with your mouth when you've got a greatsword?
Like her ex-fiancé, reduced to pulp......
"Let me first tell you how I revised it."
"Yes! Tell me in fine detail, leaving nothing out. Only then can I put your mana formula back the way it was."
Delam recited the Vistache-Delam mana formula for her.
At first Rubian listened with the face of a woman ruined.
But as Delam's words went on she grew steadily more vacant.
And then, presently, an expression of disbelief.
And by the end it led intact into shock.
"W-wait a moment. Let us test it and speak again."
"Shall I recite it again, just in case?"
"I have memorized all of it. One moment......"
Rubian hurriedly circulated the formula.
Watching her, the flow of mana whirling around her was subtly more stable than before.
And with the quantity of mana being drawn in increased as well, it was certain she was testing the new formula Delam had told her.
'This one's a real lunatic too.'
Delam watched and let out another dry laugh.
He himself had been certain it was safe.
Since he'd made it himself.
And even if it had gone wrong along the way it would have been fine.
His body had mastered Flurex, the formula of stability, so even a broken part somewhere would be minor, and fixing it would be easy.
But Rubian was another matter.
As she'd just said, master a faulty mana formula and your mana roads can tangle and you'll vomit blood from your whole body.
And she tries it herself without hesitation?
'This is probably what talent is.'
She must have sensed it the instant she heard it.
That the revised formula was perfect.
That the part which had nagged at her all through her training, the part that had grown larger the higher her attainment climbed, had been cleanly resolved.
Intuition beyond common sense!
For an ordinary person it was behavior they could not understand if they died and came back.
But that is what talent, what genius, originally is.
And that was why Delam had had to remain a senior knight to the end.
Flash—
It was a long while before Rubian opened her eyes.
As her eyelids opened slowly, unlike before.
A golden mana-glow lingered in her pupils and vanished.
She had plainly attained a realization.
Becoming a senior knight was still far off, but there was no doubt she had come one step closer to it.
"Boy!"
Rubian shot to her feet and embraced Delam.
It was the second embrace, but it was very different from the first.
Rubian being far taller, he was held in an awkward posture — and the cloth around his stomach was getting damp.
That's right.
Rubian was crying.
Having gone on like that a good while, Rubian let him go and said,
"Thank you. You are our house's benefactor......"
"I'm not sure what it's about, but it seems I fixed the formula well. And that it helped your house."
"You did! And a help so great it cannot even be imagined. Is there something you want? If there is, say anything!"
Rubian's eyes shone with a different meaning than a moment ago.
What lay in them was blind faith, and past a willingness to grant anything, an earnest plea for him to please just ask.
'She's awfully pleased. Has the house itself actually been on the road to decline, only it hasn't shown on the surface? Well, with the mana formula in that state, it could hardly be otherwise......'
The formula had gotten into this state about three generations back.
Which was to say, sometime before Rubian's great-grandfather, he suspected.
'Maybe that's why this girl was going to make a political marriage, too?'
Vistache had belonged to the kingdom's five great houses by force of arms.
And that foundation, its martial strength, had weakened?
Naturally they'd have had no choice but to fill the shortfall on the political side rather than the martial one, and for that the best thing is blood.
Which is to say, a political marriage.
-Hahaha! Master, what would a disciple ask for? I am simply honored to have been of help.
He'd have liked to make a warm show of modesty like that.
But this was not the time for Delam to be doing that.
The weighty mission laid on his shoulders!
To succeed at so-called saving humanity, he was in a position where he had to use anything he could.
Which was why he asked.
"The truth is, I have a plan. I think there'll come a time when I need to ask for help from you and from the people of your house — could you help me then?"
"Of course! Your affairs, boy, shall be our house's affairs. I promise it clearly, here and now. As the heir of Vistache!"
"Hm? Isn't the heir your younger brother?"
"That fellow I intend to wre— no, to persuade. Have you heard anything about me by any chance......?"
Rubian asked cautiously.
Word had already spread through the whole kingdom, so claiming ignorance seemed off; Delam nodded as though he'd heard something of it.
"If you mean the political-marriage business."
"It was my younger brother who arranged it. He put ideas in Father's ear, and so it came about. So just as I was about to wre— no, to hold a serious conversation with him, Father had me enlisted."
"Ahh......"
"As soon as the war here ends I shall return and wreck him! So my oath is the house's oath."
Rubian, giving off killing intent in wafts.
Delam kept letting out his bait, little by little.
"So you're saying you'll help me?"
"I swear it."
"Anything?"
"Anything!"
"You won't regret it?"
"There shall never be such a thing!"
Rubian spoke more and more forcefully.
A knight's word is heavier than a thousand sacks of gold coin, so with Delam asking again and again, her pride seemed wounded.
But Delam thought inwardly.
Would she really not regret it?
'That thing I'm going to ask for might be a rebellion......'
Getting a firm answer without saying so pricked his conscience.
In the end Delam shook his head and said,
"Then a certificate of attestation with your house's seal on it, please."
***
[Low-grade knight]
The beginning of knighthood, and the stage at which one is treated as a noble.
Take this battlefield alone.
There were tens of thousands of common soldiers, but all told the knights numbered 500.
So the qualification for it was ample, you would have to say.
-Let us keep it secret for the time being.
After considering, Rubian proposed it cautiously.
How many years of hardship had he lived as a commoner!
He'd finally become a knight and his life could open up, and here she was throwing cold water and saying hide it.
She seemed to expect Delam would object — but—
Naturally he did not.
-I intended to do the same.
Revealing his attainment would improve his treatment, of course.
He'd be given a private tent, and his rank would rise.
But that was precisely the problem.
If Delam operated in the Special Duty Corps as things were?
He could make his name with a 100 percent mission success rate.
But if he went in among the knights?
'I'd be the youngest.'
For knights, rank was rank, but attainment was king.
And he'd be dropping into their midst at the very lowest level.
There was nothing to look at: it was the start of a hard road.
As the youngest he'd have to do every kind of drudgery, his training time would naturally shrink, and he couldn't distinguish himself on the missions he was sent into.
And that wasn't all.
Knights from prominent noble houses were packed in there thick.
And commoner Delam would drop into their midst alone.
Earn merit and it wouldn't be recognized; other knights might snap it up.
'Better to be a chicken's head than a dragon's tail.'
So the goal he set was [a unit of his own].
Even before regressing, Delam's attainment had been lower than other knights', and he had made his living on strategy and tactics and won the seat of Supreme Commander.
Which meant that with a unit he could operate like his own hands and feet, manufacturing war merit would be no work at all.
"Delam, your first mission."
"I've been waiting, sir."
Delam grinned and took the orders from the vice-commander.
Halt the barbarians' troop reinforcements!
And so, five days later.
Delam carried out his first mission perfectly.
With no casualties whatsoever, and grinding one tribe into the ground.
***
Eleven months had passed since the war opened.
Which is to say, seven months since Delam enlisted.
"......"
"......"
An enormous tent made of beast hides lashed together.
Around the hearth at the tent's center, thirteen chairs were set.
And the owners of each chair as well.
They differed in age, in sex, in build.
And yet one thing was common to them.
Namely their presence!
An energy rough and savage, like looking at a wild animal.
It hung about all thirteen of them.
Which was natural enough.
Because they were all chieftains of the Sambala tribal confederation.
An atmosphere as dark as the situation on the battlefield.
The first to speak was a gaunt, elderly man.
"Heh heh, Chieftain Rabata has come as well? It is an honor to meet the chieftain whose name stands so high among the warriors these days."
"...What was that?"
"Your tribe's eldest warrior defied orders and slaughtered a flock of sheep, I hear? And I heard the news well — that in the doing his throat was run through by a lamb's spear and he went up to be beside the ancestors."
"......!"
"Ah, do not glare at me so. I know it is a false rumor. Surely a warrior, really, to a greenhorn? Heh heh."
"You whelp!"
Rabata couldn't bear it and drew his axe.
What could be seen vividly on the axe was aura.
And then he kicked off his chair and leapt!
SHWEEEK!
The axe came down on the elderly man's head.
But there was a reason the elderly man had been at ease throughout.
The axe did not split his head.
DONG!
Instead it rebounded with a sound like a struck bell.
Rabata rotated his body in midair and returned to his chair.
A smooth motion, ill-suited to that enormous frame.
"[Rune Master] Tamuka......"
Rabata said it with a low groan.
And before him an old man now stood.
The old man, of sturdy build, was leaning on the staff that had just unfolded the barrier, gaudily decorated with feathers of every kind.
The old man spoke.
"The situation is not good, Rabata."
"Then you would have me endure the insult!"
"I would. Before the crisis of every tribesman of thirteen tribes being wiped out to the last, even that is a trifle."
"Nnngh......!"
Rabata ground his teeth and put the axe away.
But the expression of the elderly man who had mocked him wasn't good either.
Because the Rune Master's words were entirely correct.
The tribal confederation of Sambala.
Its identity as a nation was faint — an alliance system made of thirteen tribes and those tribes' clumsy cooperation.
Fundamentally, the basis of diplomacy is befriend the distant, attack the near.
Fight tooth and nail with the ones close by, and be friendly with the ones far off.
So what of thirteen tribes adjoining one another?
Naturally they had fought, killing one another and threatening to.
And for a full several hundred years, at that.
That even tribes who were such enemies had to gather in one place and discuss the future was how extremely unfavorable the present war situation was to Sambala.
The one saving grace was the Rune Master, Tamuka.
The existence of Sambala's greatest shaman.
A true sage who had foreseen the war with flashing insight and gathered opposing tribes into a confederation besides.
Only, if he had a single weakness.
It was merely that he had never yet experienced Delam!