About two weeks had passed since Yun died and he became aware of his memories.
"Is magic power influenced by the soul, why can only those of divine blood work sorcery, where does divinity actually reside......."
Odysseus had poured every effort in that time into building up his own strength. The obstacle of having little available time collapsed before his yearning to head for Elysion even a day sooner.
He carried a book with him even while eating or making alchemical products, and allotted the whole of Yun's inheritance and the money Yul had saved to the purchase of knowledge. It was a concentration, and a set of choices, tight enough to leave those around him shaking their heads in amazement.
"...Can you actually get food down while staring at letters?"
"What's there to stop me?"
"I couldn't do it."
"Hmm. You probably just don't want to."
Lazy to the bone. Odysseus inwardly rebuked Yujin's weakness as he swept through the holographic screen of his device. The paper he had obtained with difficulty thanks to the captain's help flicked past along with its densely packed letters. It was a speed-reading ability built by the days he had spent one after another as a king.
"But why are you looking into sorcery? You're not of divine blood."
"You never know. Whether there's a god among my ancestors or not."
"Even so, it's meaningless unless it's within the great-great-grandparent generation......."
"That's true."
Sorcery was 'the technique of realizing what one desires in reality by means of divinity and magic power.'
The divinity in question literally meant the power the gods possessed. Which meant a power that could not be obtained unless one inherited divine blood or ascended from human to god.
"...Where would the source of divinity be? The flesh? The soul?"
Unlike magic, sorcery demanded no special calculation formula or equation in the course of its use. Conversely, if even one of the three, 'divinity,' 'magic power,' and 'wish', went unsatisfied, sorcery could never be used.
If magic was completed through innate capacity and acquired effort, then for sorcery whether one could use it was determined solely by inborn talent, by bloodline.
"Uh... you don't know?"
"Put that skull to work. Are you going to spend your whole life saying you don't know? Are you a parrot, Yujin?"
"Do you know how vicious your mouth has gotten lately?"
"Isn't it Yujin's skull that's in a vicious state?"
"Hey."
And here was the problem.
'Odysseus' had been the grandson of Aiolos, god of the wind, and the great-grandson of Hermes, god of messengers, while 'Yul' was a (probably) pure Teeming Folk without even a genealogy. And even if there had been a god among his ancestors, judging by his present state it had thinned so far that it was hardly different from none at all.
In any case, in a situation like this, could he actually use sorcery? To begin with, was divinity passed down through the flesh, or did it cling to the soul and carry on that way?
"What do you think, Bro Flag?"
"Uh, me?"
"Yes."
"Uh... isn't it down to the soul?"
"Hmm."
"What's with that reaction."
"No, it's the same view as the paper I bought just now, so I wondered whether that's the mainstream opinion."
No conclusion had been reached on the matter thus far. The first reason was that not many sorcerers remained in the present age, and the second was that divinity was not an observable concept the way magic power was.
"Well, honestly, isn't that how it is? If divinity were held in the flesh, something would have been discovered long ago."
"Oh... quite a plausible view."
"The parrot has finally presented decent grounds."
"Ah, Bro Flag, not you too!"
Perhaps for that reason, most scholars predicted that divinity was something engraved upon the soul. Since research on the soul had made no progress at all either, this hypothesis could gather all the more force.
It was no different at all from the seafarers of the days when the ocean was an unknown space, who treated the whale and the mackerel alike as fish because they swam the same water.
"Well, fine. It served as a reference."
"From that?"
"This?"
"Yes."
But Odysseus was different. He had handled divinity in the past, and now his spirit had come to dwell in and move a body that had received no divine blood.
Which meant that merely by attempting to use sorcery, he could be certain of where divinity existed.
"I'll head off first."
"Uh, sure."
And by what he had found in a week of clinging to the investigation, divinity was something that dwelled in the flesh. He had read some three papers arguing a connection between the soul and divinity, but the more he read, the firmer his own opinion grew.
Divinity flowed in the flesh, and it flowed together with magic power. Perhaps magic power itself was one facet of divinity.
'It's certain there's no divinity in this body, and yet strangely the feeling that I could use sorcery keeps coming. Even though when I actually try, not the slightest bit of it works.'
Odysseus put into his mouth the slice of pizza he had grabbed last as he rose, and went out into the corridor. Rather than wait for Flag to finish his meal, he meant to go on ahead and at least stretch.
SNAP.
The hand not holding the pizza, though, went on ceaselessly gathering magic power above his palm. The magic power, rotating in a circle, split apart and clumped together again whenever he wished. It was movement invisible to ordinary sight, perceptible only through magic-power sensitivity.
'It's about time I studied the magic formula I bought, as well.'
He had gone beyond memorizing the research journal Horn had handed over and had grasped to some degree the truths held within it. Now the problem was what to do to apply it in real life.
'If there had been even one more formula of the same line.......'
The significance of the calculation formula in magic lay in outputting a consistent result. Just as 1+1 was always 2, the calculation formula was what had been established so that putting in a set amount of magic power made a fixed phenomenon spring out.
But just as 1+1 is 2 and 1×2 is 2 and 4÷2 is 2, the answers being the same did not mean the equations were identical as well. Which meant that even when the same phenomenon was derived, the calculation formula itself could differ from person to person.
No, in practice most of them differed. Magic was not exactly identical to mathematics, and the tendency was worse still because every time these damned bastards of magicians developed a new spell formula, they attached heaps of excess baggage, encryption, dummy data and the like, so that only they themselves could read it.
'Buying magical knowledge has left me unable even to attempt an investigation into Elysion or the directions to the underworld... goddamn it. Money is the problem. Is there no way to earn money fast and in quantity?'
So what was there to be done? For him, without even the basic knowledge, there was nothing for it but to shut up and buy.
Even clearing a field with one's own hands required land to serve as its foundation.
"Oh, has the Magician arrived, sir?"
"I keep telling you, you can address me casually."
In any case, he arrived at the training ground. It was time to stretch himself out until Flag came.
***
Expedition Team: Freedom tended to run its three hunting squads in rotation. Monday morning, Team 1; afternoon, Team 2. Tuesday morning, Team 3; afternoon, Team 1. Wednesday morning, Team 2; afternoon, Team 3... roughly in that fashion.
Hearing it alone, it sounded rather tight, but examined closely it was not entirely so. Two consecutive days out, one day off, two consecutive days out, one day off, repeating.
On top of that, on Sundays operations shut down entirely for maintenance. Which meant every team received three days off per week. And since they kept reserve members, few though they were, if something urgent came up leave could be taken at once.
Considering that this trade took grinding people down for money as a matter of course, it could only be called a fairly reasonable system. It was one of the reasons Odysseus judged staying with Freedom until he had built his strength to be a positive.
"Yul will be taking part in the expedition the day after tomorrow as well."
In any case, of the three squads, the one Captain Songha led was Team 1. It was Tuesday evening now, and Team 1, having finished its expedition, was back and holding its settlement session.
"...Are you serious?"
"Do I seem not to be?"
He had wondered why he was called to Hunting Team 1's settlement session; so it had been for this after all. Odysseus leaned back against his chair as he heard words he had half expected.
"But, Captain. Yul is......."
Just then Ranal, a member of Team 1, raised his hand to speak. He was someone who had often looked after his training along with Flag. Called looking after, though in practice it amounted to a couple of remarks thrown in.
"I'm ready."
But Odysseus raised his own hand and cut the man off. Since whatever he had to say would amount to no more than 'he has only trained for two weeks' or 'it seems a bit early to put him into real combat,' his conscience pricked him little.
He had already made every preparation. Even if to other eyes it appeared otherwise, he truly had.
"Yul says he is."
"...Still, shouldn't he fill out a month at least?"
"Who knows. To my eye he looks sufficient as he is."
"Come on, Captain. He's a magician... if we send him out carelessly and he gets hurt......."
"That's right. I mean, I know Yul is working hard, but... isn't it still early?"
But even in an era when the whole body could be swapped out for machinery, people were easily swayed by appearance and age. He knew that ordinary people could not help but be so, yet it was regrettable all the same.
"Yul."
"Yes."
"You will have heard just now that most of Team 1 is half in doubt about your participation. Over whether you will be a help... or a hindrance."
In that respect Captain Songha was a very easy counterpart. That she was not someone who merely held her cards, and that she focused first on a person's essence or capacity rather than their outward appearance, were both good.
Apart from her inability to put down her cigarette even in a meeting, it was truly the talent of a born commander.
"So prove it. There will not be a second time."
"I'll take the order."
And a capable superior, on the assumption that they fulfilled their duty, should always receive the loyalty and respect of their subordinates.
In accordance with his own iron rule, Odysseus straightened his back and accepted Captain Songha's words obediently, and in earnest.
"How shall I go about it?"
"Any way you like. Show them that even if you can't pull a full share, you will not be a hindrance."
"Hmm."
A proof with no fixed form.
Odysseus deliberated a moment, then rose from his chair and approached the captain. The boy's hand drew out the dagger hanging at her waist.
"Wait—"
SHIK.
Someone tried to speak, but Songha held him back instead. The dagger in one of Odysseus' hands spun dazzlingly. It was a trick purely for the eyes, of not the least use in real combat.
TAP-TAP.
But the instant that useless trick had drawn everyone's attention, Odysseus leapt up onto the conference table.
What his dagger aimed for first was the neck of Ranal, the member seated closest to the captain.
"You—"
As befit one of the more skilled in the expedition team, Ranal tipped his chair back with his body while rolling to the side to evade.
It was within his expectations. Odysseus stepped on the corner of the toppling chair and kicked the conference table.
In the middle of it the plundering he had carried out at Ismaros briefly filled his head, but he crushed it down roughly with a single sneer.
In those days there had been no guns, yet the Kikones of Ismaros had been more savage and more dangerous than these people. So much so that it felt unkind to dare compare them.
THUNK!
In any case, when the thin edge of the table met a foot enhanced with magic power, the table lurched and fell upon the people on the opposite side.
None of them took a serious injury, but they were caught between chair and desk and struck in the solar plexus. Several cries of 'Kurgh' burst out at once.
CLUNK!
By then Ranal's chair, fully overturned, struck the floor. The backrest hit the carpeted floor with a dull sound.
Even in that instant Odysseus' body adjusted its balance and kept a foot planted somehow on the front corner of the chair.
WHOOSH!
Not satisfied with that, Odysseus bent his ankle to the limit that would not strain it and aimed at the member who had been seated beside Ranal. As an expedition member his reflexes at least were good, and his backside had already put a fair distance between itself and the chair.
"What the—"
But his judgment of the situation was slow. With his back to Ranal, Odysseus fell upon the man. The member reflexively raised a guard, but Odysseus had never intended to swing the dagger to begin with.
Odysseus' hand seized the guarding forearm and lifted his body into the air. The meeting room was not particularly large and the distance between chair and wall was not far, so the boy's feet reached the side wall.
TAP!
From there he pushed off. Odysseus' small body spun half a turn with the member as its axis. THWACK! In the process the person seated two seats down from Ranal took a hit, but that had been aimed at from the start. Odysseus put his weight into it just as he was and toppled the member he held over backward.
In one light it was a form in which he himself ended up pinned underneath, but with his body enhanced and himself already braced, his breath was not knocked out of him.
SWIPE.
"That's one killed."
Immediately after, Odysseus used the dagger he had been saving to draw across the throat of the member he had brought down. Since he used the back of the blade and gave only the sensation of it, no wound was actually carved.
Well, the man in question may have felt a slight chill.
"Yul, you—"
THWACK!
Having finished one, he had to move on to the next. Odysseus shoved off the man lying on top of him and rolled under the desk.
WHUMP!
A body enhanced to roughly the level of an adult male Teeming Folk hooked the leg of a person on the far side. Was it not about time they recognized what he was doing? Such a thought came as a bonus.
One person, who had barely gotten to his feet through the pain in his solar plexus, staggered back a couple of steps. His body tilted as though he would fall after all, but thanks to the wall directly behind him he was spared a clattering sprawl. Not that it mattered.
Odysseus shot out like a swift beast, drew the back of the blade across the fallen man's throat, and jumped. "Two." His next target was a man still choking and unable to collect himself. "Three." Stepping on the top of a chair's backrest, he tapped the throat with the blade passed to his other hand. A captain with a good eye would know that this stood for a stab.
"Why, you kid......!"
By this point there was no one left who had failed to grasp the situation. They still wore bewildered expressions, but the number of those about to offer up their throats defenselessly had dwindled.
But so what?
Odysseus used his small frame to dodge the hands reaching for him while overcoming the difference in height by kicking off the wall. The boy's body turned a somersault as though performing a stunt, landed on the table, and swung the dagger held in a reverse grip.
"Four."
The back of the blade scraped smoothly along the side of the neck of the member who had tried to grab him. Perhaps the point had pricked a little; a single drop of blood could be seen welling up.
"...No mistaking Yun's little brother. Your proof is far too noisy!"
The one who appeared as his next opponent was Ranal. Perhaps meaning to play along, he held a knife of similar size in his hand.
"Haha. But there's no way other than this."
Yet was there any need to take Ranal on? Ranal was contending for the top ranks of skill among the people in this room, wasn't he? Really?
As a warrior long inured to melee, Odysseus made his decision. He would avoid combat with Ranal. There was not one reason to go out of his way to face him.
CLANG!
So the moment their blades met, Odysseus dropped naturally to the floor and rolled under the desk again. It was a maneuver large adults could not easily imitate, one available to him only because he was still a child.
"Wait, hey!"
"There's no waiting in real combat."
He rolled and rolled beneath the table and moved himself to the very back.
"He's out!"
Of course the other members were not fools either, and tried to grab him the moment he emerged. The only problem was that they were less nimble than Odysseus.
"Five."
Odysseus twisted his opponent's arm to the limit short of injury, burrowed inside, and tapped the blade against his jaw. His muscles might have thinned somewhat, but this was the good part of a younger body. With no aching joints and no worry of bones breaking, the movements he wanted came off crisply.
"Ugurk—"
"Six."
"Waagh!"
"Seven!"
Nothing much changed after that. Odysseus fought in earnest within the upper limit he had set himself. The result was that by the time Ranal subdued him, 2/3 of the expedition members in the room had been ruled dead and the rest ruled at most seriously wounded, at least lightly wounded.
Captain Songha, the only one who had stayed out of the free-for-all, put out her cigarette and let out a long sigh.
"I told you to prove it... I did not tell you to make a shambles."
"Mmm, but the vice-captain said knife fighting is a basic."
"That is not wrong, but......."
Given the nature of the union city of Thesenia, surrounded by sea, hunting expeditions took place within the confined space of an Air Boat or an Air Bike. Which meant that in the worst case, an occasion could arise where an enemy had to be faced in close combat.
"The best thing is for no conflict to break out, and the second best is to shoot the enemy's skull off with a gun when a fight does happen, but... that's a bit hard to demonstrate here."
Choosing a dogfight had very much been a choice made with that in mind. A choice to show that in a confined space he could be a fighting force rather than a hindrance.
"...Yes. This much should have convinced those bastards too."
"Right?"
That the meeting room table was half smashed and two chairs crumpled as the price... was an unavoidable sacrifice. Just not wounding the members had taken real effort on his part.
An affable smile, feigning a harmless child, rose at the corner of Odysseus' mouth.
"Still, I will ask just in case. Anyone opposed?"
"...As if there would be?"
"Yes. It seems it is decided."
"Then?"
"Departure is Thursday at 6 in the morning. If you are not out by 5:50, we leave you behind."
"Wow!"
That must be why the captain was letting him off like this. Because she knew that what he had done was his best. Because she knew.
"Last of all, Yul. Hand my dagger back, and know that the broken furnishings will be taken out of your weekly pay."
"What? Why?!"
...Probably.