Table of Contents
Copyrights and Credits
Table of Contents Page
Chapter 1: There Is No Magic in This World
Chapter 3: The Attack of the Goblins
Chapter 6: Compound Magic, Spark Gauntlet, and Bolt
Newsletter
Color Gallery
Prologue
Prologue
I SAT AT A SMALL TABLE AND WATCHED THE clock. It was 11:55 p.m., and the day would soon turn over. Then it would be my long-awaited birthday.
To be clear: I had no friends, family, or partner there to celebrate with me. I was all alone, making a surprise party unlikely at this point. I didn’t know anyone who’d throw one for me. Even so, I was excited for the simple reason that I would be turning thirty.
Tick-tock. The clock was the only sound echoing through the room.
I was getting restless. I swallowed back drool. Midnight was just a few seconds away, at long last. How long had I been waiting and wishing for this day? I waited for time to pass with anticipation and fear.
Both my phone and clock alarm went off. It was midnight! I sprang up with the cheery ringtone, pumping both my arms up, shouting, “I did it! I made it! Happy thirtieth birthday to me!”
I was alone, but this strange behavior didn’t stem from loneliness. I was now a proper, thirty-year-old adult. As I looked up at the ceiling, I trembled from the strong feelings surging within me.
“When a virgin male turns thirty, he can become a magician,” I whispered. “Finally! Finally, it’s time to test it out!”
I lived in a cramped and scantily furnished studio apartment. All I had was a bookshelf lined with instruction manuals and fantasy novels. It’s true—I’ve always dreamt of fantasy worlds, from my youth to now. I especially fantasized about magic. My passion had no limits when it came to magic.
I knew that there was likely no such thing. But I never found any evidence that disproved it, either. Part of me just figured that all of this would be more interesting if magic really existed.
I’m sure you’ve imagined it, too, once or twice in your life: your fingertips shooting fireballs, unleashing lightning bolts, spouting fountains of water. Imagine soaring through the sky, learning incantations, and drawing hexagrams. I always carried my hopes of those things, all the way up through to today.
It was the rumor that kept my hope alive. I knew that it was fictional. I knew that. I couldn’t shake it off, though. I always carried a thin thread of hope tied to the myth: “When a virgin male turns thirty, he can become a magician.” Today, I’d learn the truth.
Doubt lingered in the corners of my mind. No, there’s simply no way. I’m sure everyone would laugh at me at first. They’d tell me of course it was impossible. But I couldn’t know until I tried.
The time had come. I lowered my arms and stretched them out in front of me. I opened my mouth.
“Fireball!” I screamed.
My shout echoed around me. The room didn’t stir.
“Thunderbolt!” I tried. “Tempest! Blizzard!”
Nothing happened. Maybe I needed to try a full incantation.
“I summon thee, deepest mysteries of the universe! Emerge, fusion of the light and darkness, born from your void!”
Nothing emerged. Of course, demons or summoned beasts weren’t showing up in my room. That’d be ridiculous.
I kept trying for a while. I attempted every magical technique and incantation I could, all to no avail. I tried spells from games, comics, even from my dorky notebooks. None of it did a thing.
I crashed against the wall in exhaustion.
“It’s only a myth, I guess.” Of course it was. The chances of anything happening were slim to none. It turned out that turning thirty as a virgin did not, in fact, allow one to use magic. I thought perhaps something like a fairy might appear to teach me, but a look around the room revealed no such presence.
The truth was obvious. Magic wasn’t real. Its spells and powers weren’t real.
“How lame,” I muttered.
The world was full of information. All you had to do was experiment, and you learned something new. I wanted to know the truth and found that it wasn’t anything exciting after all. What this confirmed was that all there was to life was to live normally, work normally, and die normally. It turned out that really was all I had.
What a disappointment. What a big, fat disappointment.
It was time for bed. My birthday was on a weekday, and I had to get up for work in a few hours.
At that very moment, something inside me twisted. I felt a vacant dejection, or a vast futility, fill my chest. It hurt. My chest hurt. I screamed in pain. My heart was on fire.
My muscles spasmed. My knees buckled. Pain shot through me, bringing me smack against the ground. I didn’t understand what was happening. This had never occurred before. I had never suffered a major illness or injury in my entire life.
Still totally clueless, the pain spread everywhere. As the pain grew bigger, so did my terror. I was scared—terrified. Was I dying?
The pain wouldn’t leave. My heart thumped into my ears and sounded like the earth rumbling. My vision began warping until everything went black.
***
I opened my eyes. Everything looked hazy. This must be what the world looks like when you need glasses, I thought to myself.
The world moved, but my body wasn’t moving. I was being carried. Was that a ceiling above me?
I felt swaddled within something warm. I finally realized that I must have been alive. What a huge relief.
I must be in the hospital, I thought. Maybe someone called the ambulance? Thank goodness. Although, I have no clue who would’ve done that.
Perhaps it was my neighbor. I had been screaming and smacking the wall just moments before. The memory brought a jolt of pain and sorrow. I never wanted to experience something like that ever again.
I started to see someone. They must’ve been who saved me. I opened my mouth to speak.
“Gah,” I said.
Gah?Hang on, that wasn’t my voice, but it definitely came out of my mouth.What the heck?
“Gah?” Again, that was what came out. No doubt, my mouth made the sound. I could tell that much. I felt my throat quiver and everything, but my voice was strangely high. It didn’t sound like me.
“Oh, what is it, my darling Shion?” The voice came down from overhead. My vision was obscured, but when I strained my eyes, I started to see a person. It was a woman. She was gigantic and was carrying me. How could a woman possibly swaddle a full-grown man in her arms like this?
Something was off. What was happening to me? A panic set in, and I tried to look down at my body. My neck wouldn’t move. I tried glancing down instead. All I could see was a tiny hand. It was so small…way too small.
Don’t tell me… I began to realize what was happening. I couldn’t believe it—I had turned into a baby.
“Goo, goo, gah!”
“Hm? Oh, are you hungry? Or did you go potty?”
The same kindly voice floated down from above. I couldn’t hear her well. It sounded like she spoke to me from underwater. It was hard to focus and pick out the sounds.
Yep. I was a baby, all right, and the person holding me was either my mother or a nursemaid.
Are you kidding me? I had read about this kind of thing before. Like, a bunch of times. In all likelihood, I had been transported to another world, or reborn into one, anyway. Seriously?! This can’t—shouldn’t—be possible!
This thought led to another: if I was really reborn, then what was coming next?
All was blurry, but judging by the shape of the woman’s face and the furnishings around me, it appeared we weren’t in Japan. The woman’s clothes and the room interior looked pretty old, even for another country. Shion—the name that she called me—wasn’t a Japanese name. Yet, she was speaking my language.
That settled it. The chances were high that I was in another world.
Could that mean there was something else here? Something incredibly important and only possible because I was in a different world now. Could there be monsters, fairies, spirits, heroes, or demon kings?
No! It was magic! Just plain magic! Everyone knows that when you get sent to another world like this, there’s always magic! Guaranteed, 100 percent of the time!
Yes! Heck yes! I realized this was the blessings of the gods. They recognized my deep interest in and love for magic, and granted me this new life. Thank you, gods! You might not be real, but thank you!
Ugh, there was one problem, though. My body wouldn’t move. I was a baby now, and couldn’t do much. I couldn’t even speak. I was also getting very, very sleepy. Maybe I was thinking too much and my baby-body couldn’t handle my adult thoughts. I was probably just tired.
What if this is just a dream? Oof, that was a scary thought. Now I wanted to stay awake. I didn’t want to go back to boring reality. I wanted to stay here where the magic was.
The strangely warm sensation wrapped around my body, readying me for slumber. I fell asleep draped in perfect happiness.
Chapter 1: There Is No Magic in This World
Chapter 1:
There Is No Magic in This World
THE FIRST SIX MONTHS WERE ROUGH. I COULDN’T really move or speak. Someone else had to take care of everything for me. There were some pretty…uncomfortable things that transpired, so I’ll spare you those details.
I mostly slept. My life’s work was to stare vacantly at the ceiling. It was pretty boring.
I got by with hopes for the future. I knew that the older I got, the more I’d be able to do. Eventually, I’d learn about magic. I couldn’t wait.
Seriously, I can’t wait! Argh, I’d gotten so excited that I’d peed myself. Sorry, Mom.
“My goodness, little Shion,” Emma said. “I’ve got to change your diaper!”
Emma was my mother. She was a beautiful woman. As she cared for me, a gentle smile grew on her lips, and her brown hair swayed with her movements.
I wasn’t sure what to call her for a while. I recognized that she was my mother in this world. I settled on calling her Mom, or Emma to myself. Although by the time I can call her anything, I’ll probably just say “Mom.”
Emma changed my diaper with a plucky smile. I’m not sure you could call it a diaper, though. It was basically like normal underwear. It lacked any extra layers or padding, which would have limited the breathability too much.
When Emma finished, she picked me back up. “Shion, you’re the quietest little boy,” she said. “Nothing like Marie.”
Her eyes looked down on me with a hint of worry. It was true—I barely cried or smiled. I mean, I could barely say “goo goo,” much less change my facial expressions. It felt weird for a thirty-year-old geezer like me, who loved a good laugh and joking around.
Sometimes I would smile out of appreciation, but everyone always seemed shocked when I did. So, I decided to not force it from then on.
Emma hushed and cooed while swaying me back and forth in her arms.
“Mom!” A small girl burst through the door. It was my sister. Her name was Marianne, Marie for short. At three years old, she was my senior in this world. She was nothing but mischief. Her springy orange shoulder-length hair shot off her head as if expressing her strong personality. Mom tried to tame and fix her hair every day, but it was always in vain.
“What is it now, Marie?”
“It’s my turn! I wanna carry him!”
Please tell her no, Mom, because if Marie holds me, she’s going to drop me. Last I heard, falling from any height is bad news for a baby. So yeah, say no. Please.
Dear, kind Emma looked troubled.
Uh, Mom? Don’t think about it! Just say no? Say no already!
A chill tingled down my tiny body as Marie tugged on Emma’s skirt. “Please! Please!” she said.
“I’m sorry, Marie,” Emma said. “I don’t think you’re ready for it.”
“Nuh-uh! I can do it!”
You think you can! But you literally can’t!
“Are you sure?” Emma asked.
“Super-duper sure!”
Don’t do it! Don’t listen to her! I can’t die before I’ve used magic! To be reborn into this fantasy world only to die by being dropped on my head would be the worst ending ever!
“I don’t know, Marie. Let’s wait a little longer.”
“B-but I wanna! I wanna hold him!” Marie started to sob.
The sound of crying filled the room. Children are such selfish creatures. It takes them forever to stop crying once they get started.
Flustered, Emma set me down in the bed and turned to my sister. “Marie, you’re the older sister. You have to be a good girl.”
“It’s not fair! Not fair!”
Emma continued to calmly talk to my sister. Her patience was quite impressive. I definitely wouldn’t have been able to stay calm. It took almost half an hour, but Marie finally settled down. Emma stood in front of her with a broad smile.
“You just wanted to play with baby Shion, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“It won’t be long before Shion will start to talk and move around. Can you wait a little longer for him? Right now, we need to protect our baby—all of us.”
“All of us?” Marie asked.
“That’s right. I need your help. You’re the big sister, and I need to count on you.”
“Because I’m the big sister?”
“That’s right.”
Marie grumbled as she rubbed her eyes of its tears. Then she grinned. “Okay,” she said. “I can wait. I’m the big sister!”
“Thank you.” Emma chuckled. “And what a great sister you are!” She patted Marie on the head.
Look at that. I just witnessed my first, beautiful heartwarming scene.
Marie toddled up to my bed. She put her face right up next to mine, then started poking my cheeks.“Get big, Shion!” she chirped.
I get it. I feel the same way, I thought. But for the time being, sister, please cool your jets.
It made my nerves flutter, but I reached my hands out towards Marie. Marie lit up, smiled, and gently squeezed a hand. From behind Marie, Emma warmly watched us.
***
I finally became active when I turned two. First, I started to talk a little. I already knew the language pretty well, but my body couldn’t articulate while my brain seemed unable to relay commands well. It was—how to put it?—difficult to behave rationally. This was strange, as my body had no problem responding to its physical desires.
By the way, my first word was “rice.” Look, I really wanted rice, okay? They only had bread here. I also could say “yes” and “no.” I could even walk a few steps until, at three years old, I could finally wander around the house by myself.
It was a large house. There were two floors and eight rooms, some of which were unused. The kitchen was also well-stocked. It was simple compared to twenty-first century homes, but I sensed that our abode was upper class in this world. Just how high up the ranks we were, I didn’t know.
There was a garden. No other houses were nearby, so we seemed to be deep in the country. I had yet to meet anyone from the village, but I knew that it was nearby.
The house was a wood construction with glass windows, but it was not very well made. The dishware was either made from clay or wood. We did have a bit of silverware, but not much. The clothes resembled old-fashioned European garb.
My hair, it turned out, was flaming red. It was a bit different from Marie’s orange and Mom’s brown locks. I lacked a single Japanese feature on my face. Now, while well-proportioned, I had a stink face—I didn’t change my expressions much, and so I gave off an impertinent vibe.
I thought about all this while I sat on the stairwell up to the door. I watched Marie race around the garden, and thought, Why do kids run around so much? What a mystery!
Before long, Marie raced up towards me. “Shion! Come play with me!”
I wanted further details. “Running?”
“Yeah! Let’s race!” She said this with a perfect grin on her face. She was apparently in the midst of your typical five-year-old’s running mania.
I considered it. I was never into physical activities. I hated sports and was definitely acting above my age. While I wanted to refuse, I knew that once Marie had that glimmer in her eye, she wouldn’t take no for an answer. So, I stood and moved over next to Marie.
“Get ready!” she called. “Get set! Go!”
We took off—just five-year-old Marie and three-year-old me. Her size and muscle strength placed the advantage in her favor. I couldn’t keep up, and the distance between us grew and grew as she outpaced me.
Marie finished circling around the garden and came to a halt. “I win! You’re slow, Shion!”
“You’re so fast,” I said.
“I am?” She giggled. “Yeah, ’cuz I’m your big sister!”
Marie’s self-satisfied smirk must’ve made me seem the cutie-pie by comparison. She loved flattery and couldn’t hide even a smidge of self-satisfaction. Her personality was pretty simple. Sure, she was a child, but she was always over-the-top.
Marie suddenly jerked her head toward the front gate. “Dad’s here!”
I don’t know how she knew, but she high tailed it towards the gate. She’s seriously still running? I was vexed, but I followed her anyway.
Hoofs clopped, followed by a metallic creak as the gates opened. A horse-drawn carriage came into view. It had a canopy and everything, although nothing was loaded on the back. It proceeded into the garden and stopped at the front entrance of the house.
A man stepped down and out of the carriage. He was my dad, Gawain. He sported a fashionable beard and mustache, and had orange hair just like Marie. With a tightly trimmed haircut, he looked the part of a gentleman.
Marie leapt into the air as he stepped into the courtyard. “You’re home!”
“I’m home, Marie.” Gawain laughed loudly. “You’re as energetic as ever.”
“Yeah! I’m energetic like the sun in the sky because my hair’s the same color!”
“Is that what they told you? I believe it!” He laughed again while patting her head. She closed her eyes like a purring cat.
I stood nearby and watched. I wasn’t charging in for a hug. No way. I was still over thirty in my mind.
“Welcome back, Dad,” I said.
“Thank you, Shion. Why, you’re as well-mannered as ever.” He lifted me up in salutation for a moment.
“No, I’m not,” I said. “Marie is better.”
Marie looked like she was going to overheat with joy.
“Now, then, Daddy’s going to fix up the carriage, okay?” He went back inside the carriage and drove it to the stable in the corner of the garden.
I didn’t know the details about his work. There were still so many things I didn’t know about this world and its magic, but I would learn soon. I now talked and could move around by myself. People were impressed with me, and they often commented that I was “mature for his age.” That meant that I wouldn’t get questioned much for acting like an adult.
Of course, at the age of three, I still had limits. It’d be really strange if I started spouting off about magic as an infant, so I held my tongue. For now, anyway.
While it was still too soon for me to start investigating this world and its magic, I couldn’t wait any longer. At that moment, I vowed to learn.
***
The four of us sat at the dining table, ready to eat. Food was simple here. Each meal included soup and hard bread, then a bit of meat or fish. Despite slight variations, the overall lineup never changed. I became sick of it a long time ago, but I really couldn’t complain.
When dinner was finished, it was time to ask some questions. “Dad, what do you do for work?” I asked.
“I’ve never told you, I suppose,” he replied. “It’s as good a time as any. Marie, you should know this, as well.”
Marie didn’t know either? I glanced at her. The satisfied expression on her face said Boy, I’m full. She was five years old, after all. Could I really expect her to think to ask that type of question?
“Oh, I want to know!” Marie said. “I have no clue!”
“Yeah, me too,” I said.
Dad gave a magnanimous nod.
“Marie, Shion,” he began. “Our family is called a low-ranking noble family. We’re the lords who rule this area.”
Now we’re talking—he jumped right to the juicy bits. Marie sat next to me blinking, clueless by what my father meant.
“Darling,” Mom said. “They’re not going to understand that.”
“It means that your job is to take care of the people that live around us, right?” I said.
Mom and Dad looked at me in surprise. “That’s it, Shion!” Mom said. “You’re so clever.”
Dad chuckled. “I’ve got high hopes for you, son.”
I didn’t respond because I wasn’t fishing for praise.
“I—I understood too!” Marie added fiercely.
“Of course,” Mom said. “You’re clever too, Marie. But now let’s listen to your father.”
“Ngh! Yeah, I’m listening!” Marie didn’t sound happy, but she grew quiet.
“As you say, Shion, my work is to care for the people living in this area. They are the peasants of this fief, and they call me its lord. To be exact, I help out the peasants when they’re in trouble, collect money from them, and give that to the kingdom. Nobles, you see…how to explain it? They’re…special. While the low-ranking nobles are at the bottom of all the nobles, we’re still special.”
I watched Marie nod. She tried to understand, but I could tell she was lost.
“Where do you always go in your carriage, then?” I asked.
“I go see how the peasants are doing. I also transport goods, and sometimes help people move. Oh, and I do a bit of shopping. Not many people have carriages, you see. There are a lot of things that I don’t know until I go to the village and see for myself, especially without my own militia. So, I go and check on everything myself.
“I don’t have any subordinates. I’m trying to put an end to compulsory service, so there will no longer be slaves in this fief. That means we’re running short on labor, though, and while I do have to handle business myself—”
Dad realized that Marie was stared at him with her jaw open while Mom glared at him. He coughed, adjusting his position. “I’m working hard at a lot of things,” he concluded.
Talk about glossing over things. However, that did the trick—he had apparently put things in a way that Marie could understand.
“I get it!” she spoke up. “You’re so amazing, Dad!”
“Ahem, you really think so? Thanks, Marie.” He chuckled, and the table became the picture of a happy family. I smiled, giving up for the day. It didn’t seem like I was going to get much more.
We were a wealthy but low-ranking noble family. I got that much. When he said compulsory service, did he mean slave labor? As in making people work for no pay? It was a pretty warped world that allowed for something like that. Dad said he was trying to put a stop to that system, though, and the fact that he could give us a life like this, without relying on slave labor, implied Dad excelled at his job. It also meant that the peasants were doing their own jobs well.
Okay, now it’s time, I thought. I can’t wait any longer. I just can’t.
Unable to restrain myself, I opened my mouth. “Um, Dad? There’s something else I want to ask you. A-are there m-monsters here?”
“There are,” he said. “That’s why you need to stay inside for now. I know your mother has told you to stay here, and that’s because of the dangerous monsters. You can’t go near them because they attack and kill people. If you ever see one, run as fast as you can and find a grown-up for help.”
Holy smokes! There are monsters here! So that was why we hadn’t been allowed to go outside of the house! No one ever mentioned it. You’d think somebody around here would have said something?
I felt on cloud nine. My whole body quivered with excitement so much that I became nervous. I started to sweat. I heard my own heart beating. I had come this far, and now there was no turning back. I didn’t want to.
“Are there fairies and spirits?” I asked.
“Yes. I don’t know about spirits, but there are fairies. They’re rare creatures that are hard to find. There are specialists out there who procure them. They’re small, humanoid life forms. Although, I don’t know if ‘life form’ is the right word. I’ve heard they have all sorts of strange powers, and that they can suddenly appear and disappear.”
There are fairies! I thought. That pretty much decides it, doesn’t it?
Mom and Dad looked bewildered for some reason. Marie exchanged glances with my parents. I had lost all track of the situation.
No matter. It was time to know. It was time for the big question.
“Th-then is there—is there—m-m-m-magic?! Is there magic?”
I stood up in my chair. I was leaning forward with both of my hands on the table, my face thrusted up so I could look at my father directly.
“Ma…magic?” He seemed flustered.
“Yeah, magic! Like making fire, water, wind, and light. Like making all sorts of things!”
Dad looked Mom in the eyes. They were troubled. I had said something wrong, but I couldn’t stop myself. I’d waited for this moment for three long years. No—thirty-plus long years.
“No, there’s no such thing,” he said.
“There’s not?” Man, reality was ruthless.
Dad shook his head. Everything slowed down.
There’s no…? There’s no magic?
“I’ve never even heard of that word before,” he said.
“You…you mean you don’t know what it means?” I asked.
“I do have an education, but there are still plenty of things I don’t know. I’d dare say no one knows about whatever this ‘magic’ is, because I’ve never heard of it.”
Dad was a noble, and civilized—meaning he had some degree of schooling. While peasants didn’t have educational access, nobles had the ability to study, and so they would be among the more knowledgeable people in this world. Sure, it might just be general knowledge. If magic existed, however, he would’ve known about it, or at least been aware of it. Yet, he did not.
So, did that mean magic wasn’t real? No, it couldn’t be. It couldn’t be true. If it was, why was I even there?
Was my rebirth in this world just a big coincidence? I spent all this time thinking that it was my reward for a lifetime of believing in magic. Boy, was I wrong. It was all for nothing. I was simply reborn into another world that was also without magic. The end.
I collapsed into my chair.
“Shion,” Dad said. “How did you hear about these things? Monsters, fairies, and this ‘magic’? I know your mother hasn’t told you.”
“I don’t think I have,” Mom said.
Right. Why would a three-year-old who’d never left the house know such things? There were no books in the house. I didn’t even know if this world had any books. Anything I knew about the outside world would have to come from Mom or Dad. Yet, I knew about things they hadn’t discussed. It was bound to raise suspicions.
“Shion, what do you know?” Dad’s voice became stern. I’d never heard him like that before. “Tell me what happened. Did you speak to a grown-up? Did someone come when Mom wasn’t here? Who was it? A man, or a woman?”
Still sunken in my despair, I barely raised my head. I lacked the strength to answer. I just stared blankly forward.
Dad started to panic. He thought something tragic happened that I couldn’t bear to confess. I felt bad for causing a fuss, even as my heart plummeted further and further into darkness.
Then, in the midst of Dad’s questioning, I heard a dry smack. It was Mom, clapping her hands together.
“That’s right,” she said. “I told Shion one time to never go outside because of the dangerous monsters. Maybe that’s when I told him about fairies, too.”
“What about magic?”
“Who knows,” Mom said. “Kids are mysterious, even to grown-ups. Sometimes they say all sorts of weird things. Maybe he dreamt it. Don’t worry, Shion is always with me. There’s no way he’s talked with anyone else.”
What Mom said was half-true, half-fiction. She was covering for me. In all truth, there had been zero chance for me to talk to an outsider, so maybe she really believed everything was fine. Either way, it was a stroke of luck.
“Is that so? Well, all right,” Dad said.
He continued to look at me with concern. I saw it in his eyes. His worry weighed on me, but I understood that it was for my own sake. I still lacked the language that could express the heartbreak I felt.
“Now, then. It’s time to clean up!” Mom began clearing the table.
I drifted away from the dining table with my head hung low. Marie followed me. She was confused by my manner.
“Shion, are you…okay?” Her voice trembled.
We were halfway to my room. I turned to face her.
“Huh?”
“You look so pale. Does your tummy hurt?”
Her voice made me come back to my senses. I had no mirror to look into, but apparently my face was drained of color. It was due to shock, of course, because there was no magic. I had looked forward to diddlysquat all these years.
“I’m okay,” I said. “I’m fine.”
“Oh, okay then.” Marie was quiet as she walked with me to my room. I could tell she was concerned. This five-year-old girl was worried about me. While I understood that much, I couldn’t bring myself to comfort her.
After all, there was no magic in this world.
***
In the three years that passed since that day, I continued to learn more about the world I was in. First, I learned to read. When I heard this world’s language spoken, it sounded like Japanese. However, it had a different alphabet, which I had to learn from scratch. Marie didn’t start reading until she was five, but I began at three. I begged Mom to teach me, and eventually she did.
Mom educated me about everything here. Our noble house, House Ornstein, apparently had a long and respectable history. Dad and Mom both received proper nobles’ educations, so she was qualified to teach in a wide range of subjects. Children’s brains have pretty great retention, so I mastered basic reading skills in half a year. Marie was still working on it, but considering I had the body of a kid and the mind of an adult, I had a huge advantage over her when it came to studying efficiently.
Beyond reading and writing, my studies extended to figuring out how to live my life in this world. I learned about the currency, the basic legal system, geography, and history. House Ornstein was situated in the western Etten Region of the Kingdom of Lystia. The region was relatively undeveloped and featured spacious territories suited for agriculture.
Etten’s population was small, but there was one large city within striking distance, although I hadn’t been yet. I wasn’t allowed. Dad forbade it because he said it was too dangerous or whatever.
Basically, I learned as much as I could about the outside world without leaving the house. And along the way, I confirmed that there really was no such thing as magic here. Not even the word existed.
It was hope against hope that Mom and Dad were just ignorant of it. That was possible, after all. It was a big world; surely there was magic in some faraway place. I soon concluded that was unlikely.
I learned that Dad had traveled to other countries when he was young. He went to all sorts of places, and he had never heard about magic in any of them. In addition to that evidence, I never encountered any possible leads.
The truth became clearer day after day. There was no magic in this world. It didn’t exist.
So, by the time I turned six, I’d lost all purpose in my life. Were I still living in Japan, I could probably go through the motions and find some sort of happiness. I would’ve just moved on. Sure, I waited all those years just to find out there was no magic, but I regretted nothing.
Instead, I’d been reborn into another world. There was the potential to find magic here, and that had given me hope. My dream that I might get to use magic was renewed. And now, that dream was crushed into dust for a second time.
This truth made me become completely apathetic about everything. I lost the will to do anything but space out and look dull. I never spoke unless spoken to. All I did was watch Marie run around the garden.
She’s still at it, even at eight, I thought. Shouldn’t she be out-growing this?
I’d grown a lot bigger in the last three years. I had more strength and stamina, and my body did what I wanted it to do. But who cares? Not me. It made things slightly more convenient, but that was it.
“Whoa! Hiyaaah!” Marie shouted. She was always in such high spirits. Today, she wielded a wooden sword, flourishing it through the air as she jumped and hollered. I guess she was into swords nowadays. Apparently, Dad had thought it would be handy for her to know how to swordfight, so he taught her the basics when he could.
I didn’t know if there was a concept of ladylike grace in this kingdom. If so, maybe Dad felt differently about it.
“Phew,” sighed Marie. “I’m wiped!” She came over next to me. She’d been at it for some time and was breathing heavily.
I was six to her eight. We were kids, but I felt we were a little too old to just be running and jumping around. Not Marie. She’d put the sword down for now, but she was still running in circles.
I never asked her why she liked running so much. I mean, she was a kid. What other answer did I need? Still, I couldn’t stop asking myself the same questions: Why did she always run in circles? Why did she repeat the same loop over and over again? Was it fun? I was starting to wonder about her.
Girls are supposed to grow up faster than boys. Marie had changed a lot in three years. She was only four foot three or so, but I could see how fast she was sprouting. She always ran in her skirts, which often revealed boyish legs. Our parents didn’t seem to mind, or they would’ve certainly yelled at her to be more proper.
Mom and Dad were generous, but they kept a close eye on us. They only got mad when we did something risky that hurt ourselves or others. Then, they would blow up.
“Alrighty!”
Marie plopped down next to me. She quietly stared up at the sky. She never asked me what I thought about, or how I felt. It didn’t offend me, as I’d heard that kids tend to do as they please, sometimes to a dangerous degree. It wasn’t unusual for a self-absorbed older sibling to bully their brothers and sisters. Marie never did anything like that to me, though.
I glanced at Marie’s profile. She had a nice, symmetrical face. When she was feeling victorious, she could look bold and gallant. Marie had so much more spirit than I did.
“Marie,” I said, “why do you run around so much?”
Marie paused and bit her lip. She tilted her head, thinking carefully. “Well, because I’m your big sister,” she finally responded.
“I don’t get it.”
“You know,” she said. “I’m training just in case anything happens.”
I didn’t get the connection. It made sense that running and learning swordcraft could help her prepare for danger. What I didn’t understand was how that related to her being my big sister.
Marie wasn’t bad at conversation, but she tended to over-simplify things. I knew she wasn’t stupid, even if studying wasn’t her thing.
“In case anything happens?” I prompted.
“Right. If monsters show up, or some bad guy, I need to fight them! I’m good at fighting.”
“But you said it’s because you’re my big sister.”
“Duh,” she said. “I need to protect you, obviously!”
“Huh?”
I felt like I’d been struck by a thunderbolt. That wasn’t the answer I expected.
“I’m your big sister. If something happens to you, and I’m not strong enough to protect you, it’ll be a disaster!”
“Happens to me?”
“Yeah. I get tired sometimes, but I kinda like it.” Marie said all this while gazing at the sky, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Maybe I’m not the brightest, but I’m athletic. This is what I’m good at.”
“So, that’s why you’re always running and training so much?”
“Of course.”
I was at a loss for words. I knew she wasn’t showing off or trying to earn favors. Although she was completely nonchalant about it. Her feelings for me were so pure. She was working this hard for me. I was speechless.
I felt happy, but also guilty. I had been so self-absorbed all this time while she had been striving so hard for my sake. I felt the same about my parents. They always looked after and worried over me. Marie, though, was just a little girl, and yet she worked her butt off for me. These were huge actions from someone so small.
Marie glimpsed over at me. She seemed to be thinking. She stood up, extending a hand toward me.
“There’s a place I wanna go,” she said. “Follow me.”
“Mom said to stay here,” I said.
“It’s okay. It’s close, and there are no monsters.”
Feeling uncertain, I took Marie’s hand. This sister of mine toyed with me a lot, but it was never ill-intentioned.
We passed through the garden and out of the gate. Beyond, fields and forests extended as far as the eye could see. I followed Marie down the road. Then, without hesitation, she took me into the woods.
I had never been here before. Trees covered every square inch of my vision. One was supposed to stay on the road and never enter the woods. Regardless, Marie kept moving forward, fearless. She knew where we were going. Even though she was only eight years old, her figure looked strong and reliable.
We walked for a while. The forest started to thin out, revealing a lake.
“We need to wait a little,” Marie said. “You can see it at sunset.”
I didn’t ask what. I was a little afraid to.
From here, we could get back home in less than fifteen minutes. Even if we left at sunset, we’d be home before nightfall, before Mom would notice.
“Is Mom gonna get mad?” I asked.
“Maybe. But it’s worth it,” Marie said. “Probably.”
That made me nervous. I didn’t mind if Mom got mad, but I didn’t like worrying her. When I saw how serious Marie looked, I decided to drop it.
Her eyes stared forward straight at the lake. I had no clue what was happening, so I sat next to her, waiting for the sun to set. Time crawled on, and the lakeshore afternoon crossed into evening. When I noticed the sky starting to blush, I had decided it was time to ask Marie to go home, but then she sprang up.
“Look! There!”
I followed her pointing finger toward the lake. I didn’t think anything had changed, but there was something unusual about the water’s surface. There was something moving below it. That something became two things, then three, and, at last, they rose above the surface and into the air. They were glowing orbs of light rising up towards the sky.
Born from the lake, cast to the sky.
It was like an optical illusion. Orbs of light rose out of the lake and shined on the woods around us. As soon as they began to fade, others ascended to replace them. How was this real? Whatever I was witnessing should have been impossible. Yet, there they were. Beautiful was the only way I could describe it.
“They always appear at sunset. I don’t know why, though.” Marie said. She brought me back to my senses.
“D-do Mom and Dad know about this?” I asked.
“Yeah, I told them. I even brought them here, but they couldn’t see them. That made me kinda scared. I was worried you wouldn’t see them, either.”
“Grown-ups can’t see them?”
“No, there are also some kids who can’t. I only know one kid who can. But everyone sees them differently. The orbs look like they’re twinkling to me, but the other kid just saw them shining.”
I should mention that I didn’t have any friends. I almost never left home and never needed to. Marie often went to the village and had made friends there. She must’ve been talking about one of them.
I could see the light. It shined deep and strong. What in the world is this?
“It’s so strange,” I said.
“It is. Do you think it’s like magic?”
“Magic?”
“Yeah, like what you talked about? You said it made light and stuff. Isn’t this pretty much that?”
It kind of was, now that she mentioned it. Whatever was floating out of the lake was a strange phenomenon. If she wanted to call it magic, I wouldn’t argue with her. It did surprise me that she remembered my conversation with Dad. I asked him about magic three years ago.
“You remember that?”
“Yeah. I mean, I’m bad at remembering some things, but you’re my baby brother. I remember. You were so sad after that I thought maybe it was because of magic. When I found this place, I knew I had to bring you here, even if it’s a little dangerous. I’m sorry it took me so long to find it.”
This whole time, Marie had not only been watching me, but seeing me.
I felt awful and dumb. Dread struck my heart with an inescapable pain. I started to cry. “M-Marie…I’m sorry.”
“Wh-why are you apologizing?” Marie gasped. “Why are you crying? Oh, boy.” She patted my head, but her sympathy only made me cry more.
I was so happy that there was someone looking after me like this.
Marie put her arms around me. Kids have high body temperatures, and she felt so warm. I was probably warm too. Her comforting gesture made the difference between us all the clearer. This was pathetic. While I was supposed to be the adult, I was really just a child. This realization only brought more tears to my eyes.
Eventually, I stopped crying, but shame kept my head down low. Marie didn’t tease me at all. She silently hugged me and patted my back. What a sweet older sister.
“It’s time to go home,” she said.
I paused. “Thank you, Marie.”
“N-no need to thank me! But, do you feel a little better?”
“Yeah! Much better.”
“Good!”
We held hands and walked back home. When I glanced back over my shoulder, the lake still shone with light. As I felt the depth of my sister’s love, a new thought came to mind:
Maybe it’s too soon to give up.
Chapter 2: Magic Research
Chapter 2:
Magic Research
CLACKETY-CLACK, RATTLE-DATTLE. THE SOUND of silverware against dishes echoed throughout the dining room. Followed by the nom-nom-nom sounds Marie and I made as we wolfed down our meals.
“My goodness, dearies,” said Mom.
After gobbling up my bread, I drained my glass of water. We slammed our cups on the table. “Thanks for the food, Mom!” we said as we raced out of our seats and left her in a tizzy.
“C’mon, Marie!” I said. “Hurry!”
We almost made it out of the room, but remembered our manners. We wheeled around to take our dishes into the washing area.
“What good kids,” Mom chuckled.
“Okay, now we’re going!”
“Be safe.”
We sprinted out of the room and then bounded down the hallway and into the garden, toward the stables. We grabbed three buckets, fishing rods, and a bag packed with hand towels and fishing bait. We scrambled to the front gate.
We couldn’t stop ourselves. We raced toward the lake. Once we arrived, we dropped the supplies off by the shore.
After our mad dash, I was gasping for air. “Ouch, that hurts.”
Marie clicked her tongue. “You’re weak because you never exercise, Shion!”
“I have no comeback for that.” My invoice for being so sedentary was about to be paid in full. I decided to start exercising from then on.
“Now what?” Marie asked. “We still have a while before sunset.”
“Let’s investigate the lake,” I replied. “I want to figure out where the orbs come from.”
“Where they come from? Isn’t that the lake?”
“Maybe,” I said, “but maybe it’s some animal that lives in the lake. We won’t be able to figure out the orbs’ true nature unless we check things out.”
“Beats me,” Marie scratched her head. “But I’m sure that’s true if you say so, Shion! So, what do we do?”
“First, we fill the buckets with lake water. Then, we add different things to them: sand and rocks in one, lake weeds in another, and fish in the last.”
“Okay! Let’s do it. I don’t know why, but I’m in! I’ll go pick the lake weeds.” She immediately started to fling her clothes off, baring her belly.
I stopped her, flustered. “Sis, what are you doing?!”
“I don’t want my clothes to get wet. The weeds are down at the bottom of the lake.”
“I—I’ll get them! You don’t need to!”
Marie raised an eyebrow. “You can swim?”
I was an average swimmer back in Japan, but I didn’t have any experience swimming in a lake since I rarely was out and about. I wasn’t worried about it, though.
“Don’t fret,” I said. “You’re a girl, Marie, you can’t just get naked around other people.”
“R-really? But it’s just you, Shion!”
“Doesn’t matter! I’ll get the weeds, while you find the sand and rocks, then the fish. Okay?”
Marie huffed and puffed as she pulled her clothes back on. “Fine,” she said. “But don’t look so terrified.”
She didn’t seem to understand, but at least she listened. Her dress was made of thick cloth, which allowed her to tumble around freely. She was my sister, and still a kid, but a girl seemingly not caring about anyone seeing her underwear still struck me as weird.
I stripped down to my skivvies. Underwear here basically resembled the modern stuff, but with far worse materials and craftsmanship.
I sensed Marie trying to keep an eye on me, but I ignored her and went into the lake. I went in up to my waist, and then plunged under the water. It was hard to see clearly, but I quickly found some plants waving within the currents. I grabbed a few and pulled them up by their roots. I resurfaced, put them in the bucket, then dried myself and got dressed.
I took inventory. There was one bucket filled with sand, pebbles, and water; one bucket filled with lake weeds and water, and one bucket that held nothing but lake water.
“I’m not catching anything,” Marie said. The fishing rod was a thick wooden stick with a curved hook dangling at the end of some string. Given the rod’s simplicity, plus the fact that we only had worms for bait, I wasn’t sure how long it would take to get a bite. This was a freshwater lake, so I assumed our kit would work eventually.
I sat down next to Marie and watched the water’s surface. It wasn’t time for the orbs yet. I was dying to know more about this phenomenon. I knew nothing so far, and yet I didn’t feel powerless.
It was all thanks to Marie. She showed me this place. She helped me be me because she cared for me. I didn’t even care if the orbs of light were something completely unrelated to magic. That would be boring, but it wouldn’t upset me—because now I knew how incredible it was to just have other people there for you.
“What’re you smiling about?” Marie asked.
“How glad I am that you’re here, Marie.”
“Wh-what are you saying? Of course, I’m here! I’m your sister, where else would I be!” She blushed, her face dyed scarlet. She was so easy to read and adorable for it.
As small as she was, she was my big sister. It was a warming and comforting fact.
“Thanks, Sis. Thanks for doing this with me.”
“Of course, you’re my little brother. Why wouldn’t I do this with you? And if this thing called ‘magic’ is actually real, I wanna see it. Isn’t it exciting?”
“Yeah, it is.” I chuckled. “That’s why I’m here.”
I didn’t mean just here on this lakeshore. I meant here in this world. Marie didn’t know that, of course. She had no clue that I came from another place. There was no point in overthinking it. Nothing good would come from telling her. First, she probably wouldn’t believe such a ridiculous story. Who would? Second, telling her would probably ruin our relationship. I saw no benefit, so I wrote off the option of ever telling her the truth.
“I hope there’s magic,” Marie said.
“If there is, I want to show you first.”
She giggled. “That’s a promise!”
I smiled. What a happy moment this was—I had family, and it felt so precious.
It was at that moment the rod twitched.
“Ooh! Something there!” Marie leapt up and pulled on the rod. She kept pulling it back until, with careful timing, she brought the line fully up to the surface. Something had appeared at the end of her line.
“It’s an Etten trout! I did it!”
All sunshine and roses, Marie celebrated with her typical enthusiasm. We unhooked the trout and dropped it in the bucket.
“Is that a common fish?” I asked.
“Yeah, it’s a freshwater fish you can find anywhere.”
“Anywhere, huh?”
In that case, the orbs of light probably didn’t come from that. I doubted that this phenomenon was happening everywhere. If that was the case, Mom and Dad would’ve known about it, whether they’d seen it or not.
And yet, they couldn’t see it. Marie said that they didn’t understand what she was talking about when she explained the light to them. That meant the orbs of light were probably specific to this lake. If so, then it was unlikely that the Etten trout were their source.
Unfortunately, we didn’t catch any other fish before sundown. At that point, we packed away the fishing rod to avoid disturbing the lake and waited. Around sunset, the orbs of light once again began to rise out of the lake and into the sky. Apparently, this happened every day. Or it happened multiple days, at least. There might be conditions like the weather, or the seasons, that prevented it from occurring every day.
I looked at the buckets. Nothing was happening.
“They’re not glowing,” Marie said.
“We even tried to make the same conditions as the lake.” I sighed.
In conclusion, the source was a different fish besides Etten trout. That, or either some other substance or life form inside the lake. I mulled this over.
“Do you know if there are other fish or animals living in the lake?” I asked Marie.
“There’s a bunch, but they’re hard to catch. I have no idea how many different ones there are.”
That made sense. It would’ve been nearly impossible to identify every species in a lake.
Well, that left only one thing to do. I stripped back down to my underwear again and approached the lake.
“Shion! That’s dangerous!”
“It’s fine,” I said. “Probably.”
“But what if it’s not fine? Ugh! I’m going with you!” Marie disrobed again before I could protest, down to her camisole and drawers. I guess it could’ve been worse.
“You shouldn’t take off your cl—”
“Shion, that’s enough. I’m going with you!” Her eyes glinted with force. I knew I couldn’t dissuade her. She was determined. All I could do was sigh and accept.
“Fine. We go together.”
“Why didn’t you just say so from the start?” Marie pouted.
We grasped each other’s hands tightly. The handholding had taken some getting used to, but it felt normal now. We slowly entered the lake, a little bit at a time. It was strange walking through the orbs of light. I began doubting I was living in reality. At the same time, I started to feel happier and happier. I didn’t know what exactly these orbs of light meant, but never had I been so close to my long-held dream.
“Don’t!” Marie yelled.
I had already touched one of the glowing orbs before she could stop me. “It’s warm,” I said. “And a little ticklish.”
“It—it’s not hot? Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. It kinda felt nice.”
Reassured, Marie oh-so-tentatively touched one of the orbs. Her face relaxed. “You’re right,” she said. “It’s so warm. Like a bath.”
Once we touched the orbs, they faded away. What exactly were they?
When we reached their main light source, I plunged my face underwater. I still couldn’t tell where they were coming from. The water was pretty clean, but I couldn’t see through it. On the surface, you could see ripples and bubbles on the surface, but nothing underneath. I kept gazing in the direction of where the light came from, but the source kept changing.
Oh, I thought. That’s it.
Marie and I thrust our heads above the water at the same time. I spat out water.
“It’s no good, huh?”
“I can’t see anything at all!”
“Yeah,” I said. “But I did realize one thing. I’m pretty sure it’s some creature swimming down there. It is giving off the orbs of light. It’s not a plant, but something that moves around.”
“Really? How do you know?”
“The light source keeps changing,” I said. “Still, I don’t know what kind of life form it is.”
“If only we could see more clearly.”
“Yeah, but I don’t know how to do that. I think we’ve done our best for today. It’s a good start.”
We went back to the shore and dried off.
“Thanks, Marie,” I said. “You were a big help.”
“Don’t thank me. Seriously, stop doing that! We’re family, so you shouldn’t have to thank me in the first place.”
“Really? But I want to. I’m grateful for you. We’re family, so shouldn’t that mean I can say how I really feel?”
I looked at Marie. She broke our eye contact, but I knew she was glad. I mean, from her profile I could see that she was grinning.
“Yeah, fair enough. If you really say so. But we should get going home now,” she said. “What should we do about the buckets?”
“Let’s bring the fish home,” I said. “That way we can keep an eye on it.” At this point, I assumed the plants were unrelated.
“Okay. Let’s put everything else back and go home.”
We emptied two of the three buckets and walked back home with the fish. It was a small haul for an afternoon, but I wasn’t disappointed in the slightest. In fact, I could hardly contain my excited jitters.
That was fun. It was the most fun I’ve had since coming to this world. It wasn’t only because magic was now possible. It was also because Marie had been walking by my side. I swore to myself to make the most of this life and my time.
***
I woke up in the morning. I studied until lunch, ate, then went back to studying. Around 3:00 p.m., Marie and I went back to the lake. We caught fish and put them in the bucket. We waited for sundown, then checked if the bucket emitted any light. Our results were meager. We investigated all sorts of fish, and none of them caused the light.
The orbs of light were real. If I could figure out their source, then it might have some connection to magic. That was the hypothesis leading me through these investigations, but I had made little progress. Maybe I needed a new approach.
There was glass in this world. It was really fragile and expensive, but it existed. If I could somehow make glass strong enough to withstand water pressure, then maybe I could create some glasses I could use underwater.
Maybe, but I wasn’t sure that it mattered much. I was just a kid. Pleading with my parents would only get me so far. They weren’t going to fork over money for a pursuit they didn’t believe in. Besides, I had no idea how much money I would actually need. I was in a bit of a bind.
I sat beside Marie and watched the water while she fished. This had become our routine. Even though I could tell Marie was growing bored with it, she still accompanied me without complaint.
She was such an awesome sister. I couldn’t have been more grateful for her. I knew that no matter what happened—heck, even if nothing happened—Marie would always be my ally.
She’s just not a very good fisherman. Today was an especially bad day, but just as I was about to give up, we heard something rustle in the grass. Marie and I spun around right away. Someone, or something, was lurking in there. Our bodies stiffened with fear. We glanced at each another, likely thinking the same question: Is it a monster?
Marie looked scared. I probably did too, for that matter. We were close to home and the village, but that didn’t mean there were zero monsters. Even in the range that Mom and Dad thought was safe, it wasn’t impossible.
The grass rustled again, and a black shadow appeared. I started, but then took a closer look. Was it a monster?
“Oh, come on,” Marie sighed. “It’s just Rose.”
The tension was released from my body. A little girl stood before us. She had blonde hair down to her waist, where it swayed gently. She looked like an average village girl, but she had a refined air about her. Even her mannerisms didn’t betray even a crude hint of her station.
Rose approached us and spoke in a clear voice. “Marie and…is that Lord Gawain’s son?”
“Yeah, this is Shion. He’s my little brother.” Marie nudged me. “Shion, introduce yourself.”
I lost my nerve for a moment. How did this girl know about me? She was just a kid, but it made me nervous to meet someone for the first time.
“H-hello.”
My voice was a bit shrill, but I did my best. I had always felt intimidated when meeting new people. Rose didn’t seem to notice, though. She adjusted her hair before declaring, “I’m Rose. I’m the lone flower growing in this desolate village.”
How shocking! Out of all the possible things she could’ve said, I would have literally never predicted that. She wasn’t horsing around, either. Everything about her appearance and manner of speaking was deliberate. Unlike Marie, she had an air of refinement about her. I was almost moved.
“Just to be clear,” Marie said. “Rose is just an ordinary villager. She’s just acting fancy.”
“Goodness gracious. There’s no need to say such a thing.” Rose scowled at Marie.
Maybe Rose would be easy to get along with. She and Marie seemed close, and their banter was playful.
“Now, might I inquire into what you are doing in such a place?” Rose asked.
“Can’t you tell? We’re fishing.” Marie said.
“I can see that, but why at this particular lake?”
Rose glanced between me and Marie. There seemed to be something beneath the surface of her words.
“Shion knows about it,” Marie said.
“Oh! He does? Shion, is it?” Rose asked brightly. “So, you can see the orbs of light, also?”
It finally dawned on me: Oh, this is the friend Marie was talking about before.
“Uh…yeah, I can.”
“A mysterious occurrence, is it not? Quite intriguing.”
“Is that why you came here?” I asked. “You’re also interested in the orbs?”
“Well, I certainly enjoy their beauty. I often come here to behold them.”
I started to get excited. “Oh! Well then, what do you know about them?! Do you know where they come from, or what they are?!”
Rose didn’t delay her answer. “I don’t know. I simply watch them.”
“Oh. I see.”
As I looked down, Rose poked me in the cheek. “Could you kindly step back, please.”
I flinched. Lost in my enthusiasm, I had ended up right in Rose’s face. “Sorry,” I said as I moved away.
This made Marie fuss, and she puffed up her cheeks.
“Don’t tell me…are you investigating the source of the light?” Rose asked.
“Um, yeah. The first time I saw them I decided I wanted to know more about them.”
“Yes, there is something special about them. They’ve captured my interest, as well.” Rose nodded and did a flawless noble lady imitation by pressing her hand to her chest. “If I may dare ask, why don’t we investigate it together?”
Was this just an act? Marie did say she was just an ordinary villager, and her skirt and blouse were crude.
Hey, if it’ll help me figure out anything faster, the more the merrier. Rose saw the orbs, so maybe she could be of use. She seemed to be cool, collected, and intelligent for someone her age. Maybe she’d have a perspective different from Marie’s and mine.
I glanced at Marie to see how she felt. She did not look pleased. Oh, crap. Was she feeling left out? She hadn’t really been involved in the conversation. Sorry, Rose, but I had to prioritize my sister in this situation.
“Marie, what do you think? It’s your call. I’m fine either way.”
My phrasing may have been a bit blunt to Rose, but this way I had both respected my sister’s opinion while making it clear that I was happy to have Rose join us, too. Besides, this was my first meeting with Rose. It’s not like I had a reputation to uphold with her. The best option was to let Marie decide.
As I had hoped, my suggestion reset my sister’s expression back to normal. “Hm, well, I think that would be fine,” she said. “There are some things that she could help us with, right?”
“It would be my honor and privilege!” Rose said.
“Cool,” I said. “We’ll all investigate together. Whenever we have time.”
Marie and Rose nodded, then Rose asked, “What sort of investigations have you been doing? Catching animals from the lake?”
I quickly explained our research’s progress so far.
“Got it,” Rose said. “And that’s why you’re fishing? Because it seems likely that a fish is the lights’ source.”
She was a bright girl—quicker than Marie. I began to feel that she would be invaluable to our investigation.
Still concerned about Marie, I glanced in her direction, but her attention was focused on her fishing pole.
“Got something!” she called. We had stuck the rod into the dirt. It jerked as the line yanked tight, and Marie sprung like a cat to snatch it. She tugged back while moving away from the lake. Her reaction time was a lot faster than mine. She really did have great athletic skills.
Marie tugged the rod once more. A fish heaved out of the water, drawing a clean arc through the air. The fish seemed different from what we’d caught before, yet also familiar.
“It’s a female Etten trout,” Marie said.
“Female?”
“Yeah. I guess it’s our first time catching one. You get males all the time, but the females are hard to catch because they usually stay near the bottom of the lake. This time of year, though, they come to the surface to lay their eggs. So, now’s the time for catching them. Dad told me all that.”
Fascinating, I thought. Something was piquing my interest. I hadn’t figured it out yet, but I felt my intuition flicker.
“Let’s catch a male trout too,” I said. We’d eaten the trout from before a while ago, as it hadn’t seemed special.
“Male trout?” Marie asked. “Well, I don’t know if we’ll be able to catch one, but why not?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Just release any other fish you catch.”
“Alrighty.” Marie kept on fishing without questioning me.
“I guess we just have to wait,” I said to Rose. “We only have one rod.”
“It’s all we can do,” Rose said. “Although, I’m not the biggest fan of waiting around.” Letting out a small sigh, Rose sat down next to me. Marie sat on my other side.
I realized that as a kid in my past life, I hadn’t played around with girls like this. Maybe if I had, I would’ve been more comfortable around them and not been a virgin at thirty.
Marie eventually caught a male Etten trout. We put it in the bucket with the female.
“It’s just an idea,” I said. “But now let’s wait till sunset.” We whiled away the rest of the afternoon chatting and waiting.
I learned a lot from our idle small talk. Rose’s caretaker was a commoner in the local village, not far from our house. It sounded like she was only a ten minute walk away. I wouldn’t know, since I’d never been. I hadn’t had a reason to go there, not to mention that other people frightened me.
Time passed, and at last the world around us became vermilion hued. Then, the twinkling lights appeared and rose from the lake.
“Same as ever,” said Marie.
“Yeah, I guess so. But wait…”
I’d been staring at the unchanged bucket, when suddenly tiny orbs of light started to rise. They blipped up like bubbles, slowly, but steadily, increasing in number. Sometimes only one bubble of light appeared, other times two at once.
“There they are!”
“They come from the trout!”
“We did it! That’s it. So, the orbs of light appear from trout courtship!”
“What’s courtship?” Marie tilted her head.
I grimaced to myself. How did she know about eggs, but not about mating? Rose stepped in to explain.
“Courtship is when a male tells a female he wants to get married and have a family together,” she said. “Unlike humans, fish can’t speak, so they have to show it with actions. In fact, I’ve heard that Etten trout tend to breed at nightfall. In other words, when it gets dark, the trout are emitting the orbs of light as a courtship ritual!”
I nodded decisively at Rose. Up until this point, we had just been fishing up different species. Sure, we had gotten Etten trout before, but only the males. It never occurred to me to think about their sex. We had been searching up the wrong alleyway this whole time. I’d assumed that something natural released the orbs around dusk. If I’d known that Etten trout bred at nightfall, then maybe I could’ve arrived at this conclusion sooner. I was frustrated with myself.
Going forward, I thought, promise yourselfto consider all possibilities.
While I mused, Marie said something unexpected.“Huh. So, that means that Shion and I don’t need courtship. We’re already family.”
What was she talking about? Technically, she wasn’t wrong, but she still caught me off guard. I didn’t know how to respond. Rose looked a bit troubled as well. From her expression, it seemed kinship marriage wasn’t so common here.
Failing to read the room, Marie continued. “If I’m a girl, and Shion’s a boy, does that mean I’m the one who lays the eggs?”
“No!” I said. “Humans don’t lay eggs! Also, we’re siblings. Siblings don’t marry each other!”
What was wrong with her? Had she no common sense? To be fair, we didn’t go to school, so maybe she just hadn’t learned these things yet.
“Huh?” Marie said. “Why? Don’t you love me, Shion?”
Did she have to say that in front of Rose? Maybe I was overthinking things. I’d often heard about a phase little girls went through, saying they wanted to marry their fathers and the like. From that perspective, maybe what Marie was saying wasn’t entirely unusual. Although, the eggs comment was super weird.
Now Marie’s face was downcast and sad. She was thinking about this more seriously than expected. While I struggled to speak, Rose seemed to realize the dilemma and quickly shuffled off to give us some space.
That’s very intuitive, I thought. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to do such a thing at her age. Now, how to respond to Marie? Feeling a lingering gratitude toward Rose, I turned to Marie and hurriedly shook my head.
“I—I do love you, Marie. Of course I do.”
“Then why can’t we get married?” Marie pouted. “I love you too!”
“B-because, brothers and sister can’t get married.”
“But males and females court each other, right? We don’t need to do that because we’re family, so we can just get married! Right?”
What was it about the concept of marriage she wasn’t getting? Was I wrong about this? No, absolutely not. She should know that brothers and sisters don’t marry. What was her confusion about?
“Blood relatives can’t get married,” I said, exasperated.
“Why not?”
“Wh-why not? I mean, logic and genes and all sorts of problems.”
“I don’t get it…”
Well, she was a little kid. There was a lot beyond her ability to understand right now. She’d start to get it, bit by bit, as she grew up. I mean, there was still plenty I didn’t understand even after I became an adult.
“Can we just go back to the orbs? We finally figured out where they come from! Thanks for the help, Marie.”
“…Okay.”
Can you please not make that face at me, Marie? Now I was sad, too. I didn’t know how to get her to understand. There was nothing I could do but assume that it’d dawn on her over time.
Once the conversation ended, Rose came back to tell us that she had to get back to the village. We packed up our gear and headed home with a gloomy atmosphere clouding over us. Marie didn’t speak a single word.
***
I began my observations the next day. We weren’t going to the lake, so I watched the male and female Etten trout in the bucket. Ever since yesterday’s events, Marie had avoided me. In fairness, I did reject her, but for reasons she’d surely understand with time.
Marie was a good girl. She was a bit unruly and self-centered, but she’d grow into a beautiful woman one day, no doubt about it. I would never see her as that, of course. For one, she was my blood sister. Plus, even though I was within this child’s body, my brain was that of an adult. I could never envision her as anything other than my sister. And I didn’t intend to. I just had to keep the long view that she’d catch up.
Still, it was lonely being by myself. I’d been spending all my time with Marie recently, without basically even a second alone. I hoped we would reconcile soon.
Rose told us she would come back after doing some stuff with her family. Children were an important source of labor in this world, so it was typical for most kids to help their family with the farm or household chores.
I was on my own, then, until Rose came back. Thinking about it gave me a fresh wave of loneliness. I tried to shake off the feeling, focusing on our Etten trout couple.
I was sitting in the garden. I could’ve carried the bucket up to my room, but the wriggling trout splashed a lot of water out. Mom would probably get mad at me about that.
I pondered the big question: why didn’t anyone know about the Etten trout mating phenomenon? Even if some people could see the orbs while others could not, it didn’t make sense for no one to have heard of it. Did only the Etten trout that lived in this lake cause this event? Or was the number of people who could see the orbs so small that the occurrence wasn’t widely known? If the orbs were rare to see, then most people wouldn’t believe it to begin with. Maybe this was like the people who saw ghosts. No, it wasn’t quite like that—plenty of people feared ghosts without having seen them firsthand.
By day three of my observations, nothing had changed at all. At night, the courtship ritual began and the orbs of light appeared. That lasted for about ten minutes. Then the next day, the same thing happened. That was it.
I continued to spend my days watching the bucket with no progress. I was just staring at water.
“What to make of this?” I muttered.
Deep down, I did believe that the orbs were magic. I specifically thought that they had something to do with the form of magical power known as mana. Mana is the energy that is consumed to let off magic. In order to use magic, something or someone must use mana. If fish could generate mana, that implied that humans could too.
I was filled with hope by the possibility that this was the phenomenon occurring before my eyes. Oh, I wasn’t literally just sitting there staring at the bucket, by the way. First, I attempted to show the orbs to my parents to confirm they couldn’t see them, as Marie said. As expected, they didn’t. I even asked them to stretch their hands out and touch the light. They said they felt nothing. This meant that they could neither see the orbs nor feel their warmth. So, the gap in who has the ability to sense them was consistent. I had no idea what the reasoning behind this was, but I had some guesses.
I put that aside, as it was clear that I needed to do something different. But what? I let my thoughts wander. By having focused only on observable phenomenon, I was left with no concrete answers. In that case, I could try to make some assumptions. I decided to further explore my hypothesis that the orbs of light were some kind of magic or mana.
I had the impression that magic was a sophisticated technique. After all, magic channels mana to manifest a real-world occurrence. Magic could even involve using incantations or tools, like hexagrams or wands. Could fish really do something like that, even if it was just to make these orbs of light?
That line of thought brought me to my second assumption: these fish could not use magic. In that case, the orbs of light had to be mana. This meant that there were some people who could see mana and others who could not. I presumed the ability to see it was somehow inherent. Marie and I could see it, which meant that we possessed this inherent ability. If Etten trout had mana, and Marie and I could see it, then that must mean we also possessed magic power.
While we didn’t know how to use it, or how to feel it, we had it. Therefore, I could observe what happens when the trout emit the mana and imitate that.
“Maybe I really can use mana!”
I resolved to give it an honest try. Given how stuck in the mud I was, this was the best I could do.
First, I waited for dusk. When the sun set, the usual light rose off from the trout in the bucket. I observed the two fish carefully as they circled around each other. The orbs rose up to the surface at unexpected times, drifting and vanishing into the air.
I tried grabbing the male fish. It wriggled against my grip. Ignoring the splashing, I stared at it intently.
“It feels pretty warm for a fish,” I said. “Maybe the warmth is the orbs of light.”
The fish was warm despite the cold water, but not as warm as the orbs of light themselves. I remembered that at other times, the fish was cold. What this meant was that using mana also let off heat.
I stared closer at the fish. I almost felt like its cloudy eyes were watching me, and I gazed right back. After some time, I felt as if there was something floating off of its body. At that instant, the fish suddenly writhed and plopped back into the bucket.
Taken aback, I stared vacantly ahead. “The fish…just let off light?”
I was pretty sure I just saw an aura. It had been faint, sure, but it had been there. A new supposition dawned on me.
“Maybe I can let off mana too?”
Surely, I wouldn’t just start emitting orbs of light. But maybe, just maybe, I could sense that mana running through my own body. Thanks to the trout, I knew that it was possible to overflow with mana. Of course, assuming that it was mana, of course.
“How do I do it?”
I thought about mana as a concept. I’d heard the word so many times, but never a concrete explanation. So, how does one release a mysterious, invisible energy? How does one then convert it into something like fire or wind? In fantasy, it always seemed like people did this instinctually.
Hang on, back up. If I was just strictly asking myself if such things were possible, then obviously the answer was no. I couldn’t go down that line of thought. I wanted to suppose that all of this was possible. I took a step back, thinking about what I could say about mana with certainty.
It is heat and light.
When mana is let off, it’s accompanied by heat and light. It’s something different from body heat. Were it just body heat, then Mom and Dad would’ve felt it. It’s not a regular heat.
If I followed the model of the trout, then I could assume that courtship rituals let off mana. I’m sure it wasn’t just about the action—even if I tried to follow the trout’s example exactly, it didn’t mean I would get results. It was worth a try, though.
My thoughts were interrupted by a figure at the front gate. It was Rose. She waved at me and proceeded toward me with a regal air. It was so like her to take her time. I felt like I knew her well enough, although we had just met.
“Good day, Shion.”
“Hi, Rose.”
She gave me a slight bow, then sat down next to me. I was unsure if it was because we were kids, but she already seemed so familiar to me. We’d only met once, but thanks to her personality it felt like we’d become fast friends. I was a shy person myself, and yet I felt at ease around Rose. Perhaps because she seemed more mature, and I didn’t know how to boil things down for a kid, but I thought she would understand me, for the most part, if I spoke to her as a grown-up.
“Marie’s not here,” Rose said. “What’s she doing?”
“I don’t know. I think she’s shut up in her room.”
“Marie? That Marie?”
Marie wasn’t the type to sit still. She would play outside even when she was sick, fretting over not practicing her swordplay enough. Now she wouldn’t leave her room. She wasn’t sick, either. I could only assume it was because of our tiff from a few days ago. Rose was aware of that, since she was involved in the awkward scene.
“I’m sure Marie will be back to her usual self in no time,” Rose said. “We always make up by the next day after we fight. It’s always like nothing happened. So, don’t worry.”
“You’re probably right.” That’s what I wanted to think, anyway, but this time felt different. I just wanted us to go back to researching magic together like usual.
“How are the trout?” Rose asked.
“The same, but I did have an idea.” I explained my theory to Rose.
“So, we can figure it out by imitating the trout?”
“It’s a simplistic conclusion, but it’s my only guess. I think it’s worth a try…what is it?”
Rose had been staring me right in my eyes the whole time I spoke. I paused to find out why.
“You seem different,” Rose said.
Oops. I forgot to try to act my age. My explanation probably sounded a bit smarter beyond my years. Because Rose seemed so wise, I accidentally let my guard down. It made sense that she was confused.
I tried to act cool even though I felt nervous. “Huh? You sure? I think I’m being normal.”
“For starters, a normal kid wouldn’t be conducting research in the first place. Even if a kid was interested, they wouldn’t go this far with it. Shion, you’re really…just like a grown-up. You’re very intelligent.”
Bullseye. For people in this world, our way of thinking on Earth might have been considered sophisticated. Back there, anyone could access all sorts of information. I couldn’t tell Rose that, of course.
“D—don’t be silly. Look at me—I’m just a kid.”
“Of course you are. That’s just how you strike me. I’m sorry if it was strange to say so.”
Rose smiled politely. I couldn’t help but to feel charmed. This was not in a romantic sense, but she was a very endearing child. For now, it didn’t seem like she was being serious. Of course, no one here could possibly guess I was from another world.
“Back to the trout courtship,” she said. “How will you replicate that?”
“That’s what I’m trying to sort out. I don’t have any ideas yet.”
Courtship rituals were supposed to be how people expressed romantic love toward another. I had no such feelings, much less someone to share them with. Sure, I loved my family here, but that was completely different from this, to say the least.
As I pondered how to overcome this hurdle, Rose spoke up in a nonchalant tone. “I could help you, if need be.”
“Huh?”
“With the courtship,” she said. “Marie obviously can’t help you with them, but I can.”
As stated, attempting to court Marie was out of bounds for multiple reasons. Not to mention that Marie and I already exchanged words about our feelings toward each other yesterday, and nothing happened. That seemed to prove that familial love didn’t work in generating mana. The only other person I knew who wasn’t family was Rose.
I had no other options if I wanted to press on with the research.
“Ah, right,” I said. “In that case, would you mind?”
“Yes, very well.”
Rose adjusted her posture and faced me. She didn’t seem like her usual collected self. Her eyes looked a little moist, and I felt heat radiating from her gaze. Just as I started wondering if I was imagining things, I felt my heartbeat quicken.
Am I nervous? What’s going on? Plus, she’s just a little girl.
I needed to calm down. My complete lack of experience with women in my former life was holding me back. We may have just been little kids, but she was still a girl. All of the sudden, the fact that I had never confessed romantic interest in the opposite sex before became a tall hurdle to overcome.
But I had to try. For the sake of magic, I pressed on. I took two deep breaths, then a third. I couldn’t believe how loudly my heart was thumping.
Say it!
Just as I seized the courage and was about to open my mouth and say the words, Rose looked away from me.
“We’ve run out of time,” she said.
I followed Rose’s gaze to an old man standing in front of the front gate. He had white hair and had to be at least seventy. He had good posture; his back was not bent in the slightest. He stared at us with a sharp gleam to his eyes. I assumed he was a villager from his simple clothing. Was it Rose’s grandfather?
Rose leapt up, the twirl of her skirt whisking dirt away. She stood without so much as a glance back at me.
“Let’s continue the research another time,” she said. She spoke hurriedly, and avoided looking at me. Something felt off about this manner.
“Ah, er, sure,” I said. “Got it.”
With that, Rose went over to the old man and departed with him. She left behind a sweet scent that tickled my nose. Was I mistaken that she had been blushing when she departed?
No, don’t tell me… Does Rose…?
I began to feel embarrassed. I shook my head to try and clear my mind that something was strange.
Just as I set my nerves straight, a shrill bang came from behind me. I wheeled around and saw the front door had been flung open by none other than Marie. She came to sit down next to me with a tense expression.
Clearly, she was not in a good mood. Still straight as a ramrod myself, all I could do was stare down at the bucket of water.
We sat there in silence for a while. What happened? I wondered.
“She got mad at me,” Marie finally said.
“Who? Mom?”
Marie paused. “Yeah.”
Clueless as to why that would’ve happened, I had no choice but to press her. “Why?”
“She got mad when I told her I was going to marry you. She said the same thing you did, Shion.”
“D-did she?” I would’ve assumed our mother wouldn’t mind a bit of childish drivel. I figured her response to Marie saying she’d marry me would be more like, Oh, will you, now? If Mom got upset, it meant that Marie had either been too serious or persistent about it.
“Is it really that bad?” Marie asked. “I just want to be together with you, Shion.”
“I want to be together too,” I said. “But we don’t need to get married to do that. Right?”
“But I thought getting married was special. If I don’t marry you, then I’ll get married with someone else. And then we can’t be together. Because I’ll be with that person, like Mom and Dad.”
She had really thought this through. She did have a point. Marriage implied living your life with someone as your family, so if we married separate people, we wouldn’t be living together or spending time together. It wasn’t the most thorough of thought processes, but it was pretty well-developed as far as Marie was concerned.
I was touched that she cared for me so much. I really was.
For better or worse, this was already my second life. In my first life, there was plenty I experienced, but a lot I hadn’t. I had lived more than thirty years and was a virgin. And given my current circumstances, that status would continue for many more years.
I had to do something. Marie sat next to me on the verge of tears. It wasn’t about romantic love—but I did love her.
“We don’t need to get married at all,” I said. “We’ll still be together.”
Marie looked up at me. “Really? I don’t think Dad would be happy about that…”
Heirs were necessary for a noble family. It was considered disrespectful to one’s ancestors to not have any. For a noble without heirs, the whole fiefdom would be in trouble. I had never heard Dad talk about it myself, but it was obvious this was true for a family like ours. It was typically the role of the first-born son to deliver heirs.
“It’s not uncommon to adopt an heir into the family, so we can just do that,” I said.
“You make it sound so easy.”
“It’s not easy, but I’m serious. I want to stay with you, Marie,” I said. “I’m still just a kid, but I mean it. We can make a promise.”
“Th-that sounds even more serious than getting married.”
“You’ve done so much for me, so I want to do something to give back to you. I don’t think it’s too much at all. You’re important to me, Marie.”
It was at this moment that I realized that this new life of mine contained things that were important to me. There was my family—Dad, Mom, and Marie—and I even had a new friend, Rose. Marie had become a major force to me. I wanted to do everything in my power to make her happy. I meant it.
And who knows, if I made it to forty as a virgin, then I might be able to become some sort of powerful monk-warlock. Might as well go for that at this point, I thought. I was in another world now where fantasies like that were possible. Although, I hadn’t used any magic yet, much less confirmed that it existed here.
“Don’t worry, Marie,” I continued. “I’m with you. I’m by your side.”
Marie lowered her head, shoulders quivering.
We were just kids. But that didn’t mean our fears and our hopes were any less real. From a grown-up’s perspective, all of this might seem like much ado about nothing, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. I realized that much, living in a child’s body myself.
Marie had suffered about this. It couldn’t have been easy for her. I understood how she felt, but only on the surface. So, I had to do everything I could to be with her.
Fortunately, my words were enough. Marie burst into tears and wrapped her arms around me. I gently patted her back. It reminded me of how Marie had comforted me that day at the lake. She must have recalled that memory too, and it stirred her emotions up into a fresh burst of tears. I continued to hold her and pat her back. After a while, only the sound of sniffles could be heard in the garden.
That was when I realized something had changed.
“I’m glowing!”
Could this be it—mana?
I gripped Marie by the shoulders and pulled her away from me. Her nose was bright red, and her eyes swollen, but somehow she seemed more grown up.
“What, what is it?” she asked.
“Look at me!” My body was shining. It was faint, but it was undoubtedly shining. While my body glowed a faint light, no orbs rose from me.
“Y-you are!” Marie stuttered. “Wh-what’s happening?”
“I think it’s mana! Ah, it stopped.”
The light disappeared. It had only lasted a few seconds.
“Mana? What’s that?” Marie looked blankly at me.
I explained it to her as simply as I could.
“So, it’s the same as the orbs of light from the trout,” she said.
“Yeah, probably. It’s just my theory, but it seems to be correct.”
“But why did it happen all of a sudden?”
What had been the cause? I scratched my head and racked my brain.
“Ah!” I exclaimed. “Remember, the trout let off the orbs of light as a part of their courtship. In other words, courtship has something to do with mana. So, over the past few days, I started to wonder if doing some sort of expression of love would produce mana. So that might be what happened just now.”
“Wh-what? Expression? Is th-that what you just did?”
“I guess so. Saying that I wouldn’t get married for your sake was a pretty big expression of love, right?”
Unlike back at the lake, this time I expressed and committed to my familial care for her. Maybe my body recognized that as a genuine expression of love, like a courtship ritual? It wasn’t really anything close to a typical confession of feelings, but had it been close enough to count?
Marie stood there with her mouth open. Her face grew so red that before long, it looked like a roasted tomato on the verge of letting off steam. Then, she spun around and sprinted into the house.
That made me feel awkward. My declarations might have been intense, but they weren’t anything beyond my honest feelings. I didn’t intend to take anything back, and I didn’t regret what I’d done. I sensed that things might be getting a tad complicated emotionally, but like I said, I’d been honest. I decided to not overthink the situation. Really, at this point I wished my heart would just shut up already.
Still, I had generated mana. My own body made mana. That really happened!
I knew now what to do next, without question.
I had been told that magic didn’t exist in this world. I realized that a method to use magic simply hadn’t been discovered yet. Yes, my next step was already decided.
Make magic.
If it didn’t already exist, I would just have to make it myself. I would become the world’s first magic user. That’s what I wanted. That’s what I’d always wanted. This was my dream come true. I tried to restrain from trembling.
“Now, we’re cooking.”
My happy—but boring—days were officially over. Before me now was a life of thrill after thrill. Sure, I might have some other issues to work out besides how to make magic. Even so, I had no fear.
My future life was officially interesting.
***
Later that night, my eyes flickered open. Gotta pee, I thought.
I rolled out of bed, lit an oil lamp, and headed out of my room. It was incredibly dark inside without electricity. While this world was fairly undeveloped, they thankfully did have toilets. They’re not exactly sanitary, though, so I’ll spare you the particulars.
I started to make my way toward the living room when I overheard some voices. I stopped in my tracks.
“That’s what Marie said?” Dad said.
“Yes,” Mom replied. “I couldn’t figure out what was going on, and ended up scolding her harshly.”
My parents were speaking softly, but I soon realized what they were discussing. It was about Marie saying that she wanted to marry me. I turned out the lamp and strained my ears so as not to interrupt them.
“Where do you think it comes from?” Dad asked. “They are close and all.”
“Well, it’s just the words of a child,” Mom replied. “I don’t think it’s worth worrying about.”
“Marie does have a habit of going overboard about everything. Not to mention she’s stubborn. Still, I understand your reaction. I don’t think she would’ve understood unless you told her off like that. Plus, it’s as good a time as any to prevent problems down that line.”
“Yes, you’re right. I didn’t mean to say anything imprudent, but at the same time, I couldn’t just let it stand. I suppose it’s not a real problem, though.”
Not a problem? Uh, how was it not a problem? I do think it’s a real problem. Please don’t tell me that means that sort of thing is accepted in this world? But if that were true, why would Mom have gotten upset?
Sensing something troublesome beneath the surface, I focused intently on their conversation.
“This family is complicated,” Dad continued. “We can’t just encourage her, either. But Marie, oh, Marie. What did Shion say to her?”
“I didn’t hear,” Mom said. “But he was talking with her about something. She seemed to recover after that.”
“I doubt he was going along with it. He’s a wise boy. He probably is both aware of the situation and doing his best to appease her.”
“You can’t have blind faith, dear. He may be smart, but he’s still just a child.”
“Yes, as you say: Can’t be too careful. I just end up feeling like there’s something special about the lad. He’s not our son by blood, after all…”
What? Did he just say I was adopted?
I was shaken to the core. I was technically from another world, so yeah, that meant I wasn’t my father’s true son. However, I had assumed that this body that I inhabited here was related to this family. I never knew the specifics, but I never suspected that I wasn’t their first-born son.
I’d been wrong this whole time. I wasn’t related to any of them—not Mom, not Dad, not Marie.
“That’s not important,” Mom said. “Shion’s still our family.”
Mom’s statement confirmed my thoughts. In this family of four, I was the only non-blood relative. If Marie, for example, was also not related to them, she would’ve brought that up by now.
I took a deep breath and tried to accept reality. It was a lot. But on the other hand, the real me was never literally related to them. I came from another world, after all. I just spent this whole time living with them assuming that my body was their real son’s. That didn’t mean anything had to change. Surely, I could just keep moving forward.
Once I had a moment to cool down, my mind’s wheels started turning. That explained why my parents had said that the situation wasn’t a problem, but that the family was complicated. Just because I wasn’t their true son didn’t make us not a family. That would be difficult for them to explain to Marie and me.
In that case, whose child was I? Could I judge by looking at hair color? Dad had orange hair, and Mom had brown hair. Marie’s locks were the same shade as Dad’s, while I was red-headed. I had never suspected we were unrelated, since my red was only a few shades off from their orange. That, plus red was a rare hair color to begin with.
Regardless, I knew I had better keep my mouth shut about what I’d overheard. At the very least, I couldn’t be the one to reveal the situation to Marie. I was sure an explanation would come in time. For now, I decided to keep things as they were. I couldn’t go wrong with that.
As I made up my mind, I quietly slipped down the hall back into my room.
Then I remembered—I still needed to pee. Mom and Dad were still in the living room, so I had to hold it until they went to bed.
A fierce war against my bladder had now begun. Although in the end, I was able to claim victory.
***
Welcome to my bedroom, where I’d lately become a 100 percent genuine shut-in.
I returned the trout to the lake, where the happy couple could live harmoniously together.
Back here, despite my frenzied shouts, nothing was happening.
“Fireball! Thunderbolt! Windblast! Ice Storm!” I sighed. “Yeah, I figured.”
I never managed to cast a single spell. I didn’t really expect to, but still, that didn’t mean it wasn’t worth trying. I knew by now that using magic wouldn’t be easy, especially since I didn’t even know for sure if it existed. I was certain that I had found something close to it. I had to move forward slowly, but surely.
I took some deep, calming breaths. I was trying to enter a meditative state.
What was essential to using magic? So far, I didn’t know. I knew now that mana existed since my whole body had glowed. I just needed to figure out what the activation conditions were. So, from that jump-off point, I tried all sorts of things.
Meditation seemed like a good place to start. It was often the beginning practice for magic-making in manga and fantasy books. For a full hour, I relaxed my mind and focused on my torso and limbs.
Yep, nothing happened. This was also expected, especially considering that the conditions that led to my last activation had nothing to do with meditation. There was only one thing left to do.
My door flew open with a bang.
“Shion! There you are!”
“Marie, please knock.”
“C’mon! What do you have to hide?”
Nothing yet, I thought, but I will soon. I would really prefer she not copy the habits of an insensitive mother. Plus, I knew she wouldn’t listen to me even if I asked her.
I thought back to what Mom and Dad had been talking about last night. Marie and I weren’t related. That fact made me, for better or worse, self-conscious about our relationship.
Of course, thinking about that in front of my clueless sister wasn’t going to do any good whatsoever. The real me wasn’t technically related to them to begin with, given that I was a special kid with the mind of an adult. The fact that we weren’t blood relatives didn’t change our relationship.
Having come to an internal decision, I gave Marie a simple smile.
“Nice timing, sis. Can you sit here?”
“I just came to tell you it was snack time,” Marie said. “But fine.” She came up to sit next to me on the bed.
I gave Marie a careful, serious look, and sat up straight. “Marie. I love you, Marie,” I said. I said the words as I truly felt them. As a sister, of course, and not as a romantic interest.
Marie instantly blushed bright red. “Wh-what, what are…are…so out of the blue!”
My body was glowing. A faint, glimmering light appeared for a few seconds, then disappeared.
“Interesting! So, a confession of love really does emit mana,” I said. “Does that mean I’ll need to do that every single time to get results? There’s no way; that’s so over the top. So maybe—”
“Hey, Shion.”
As I was running through the possibilities, I realized Marie was glaring at me.
Uh-oh. She looked furious.
“Wh-what is it, sister?”
“You just used me like a toy, didn’t you?” Her veins bulged out of her forehead like a monster.
“I didn’t! I swear, I didn’t!”
This was bad. I realized that a little too late. Considering my actions, I didn’t blame Marie for getting upset. Once I’m focused on magic, I lose sight of everything else around me.
“You see, my body let off mana when I confessed my feelings to you before, so I thought that if I did it again—”
“So, you lied to see the mana!”
“No, I wasn’t lying! It was the truth! My true feelings!”
“The truth? Really?” Marie’s raging expression instantly relaxed. How simple could she be?
“Yeah, it is!”
Marie started to stutter again. “W-well, fine. Fine then. I guess, I forgive you.” Then, she giggled.
She was adorable. I wanted to pat her head, but I stopped myself. She was the older sister, and I had to respect her. It’d upset her if I treated her like a kid. I had to play the role of the younger brother here, despite my true age.
“So what did you figure out?”
“That when you confess your feelings for someone, it lets off mana. But I doubt that’s the only condition for mana to appear.”
“What does that mean?” Marie asked.
“Let’s try something.”
“H-hang on! You’re going to tell me those things again? My heart isn’t ready!”
“Oh, not that,” I said. “Something different.”
“Something…different, I see.” Marie’s bright red face slumped in disappointment. While I was charmed by how quickly her expression could change, I had to stay focused.
When you confess your feelings to someone else, you also fully realize those feelings within yourself. In other words, you come to harness powerful emotions. My current theory was that those feelings didn’t always need to be from love.
This time, I decided to try to emulate anger. There was no shortage of things about the human race that could make me angry, after all. It was to no avail. I guess even in my past, I had never had become that mad. I moved away from the negative emotion to try a positive one instead: optimism. Excitement, enjoyment, and happiness—those were my feelings about the possibility of magic itself.
Yeah,let’s try that next, I thought.
I put all of my optimism to the forefront of my mind. I imagined that I really could use magic, and of the sheer joy I would experience in that moment. I imagined heat and light beaming and pouring out of my fingertips. I developed this visualization while Marie quietly looked on.
After a few seconds, I felt something warm spark close to my heart. The feeling gradually transmitted outward toward the edges of my body. It wasn’t the languid sensation of a fever, or the unpleasant heaviness of summer humidity. It was a soft, light feeling that flooded my body. I started to glow.
“I did it!”
“You’re shining!”
We locked eyes in excitement, and the light faded.
Ah, it disappears the moment you lose focus, I realized.
“D-did you just do that on purpose?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah! I did! I mean, it was just light, but I made it!”
“That’s amazing, Shion! It was just light, but it was great!”
My body had emitted light. It was a totally useless and impractical skill, but it was an impossible phenomenon. Its happening was illogical.
Which proves it—magic really does exist!
The words echo somewhere deep within my heart.
My thoughts turned to the electric eel. Its body has electric receptors that can sense the electric field around it. It has certain electrical organs that can generate electricity. Perhaps the human body had equivalent “mana receptors” for sensing mana, and “magic organisms” for generating it.
For now, I decided to call this phenomenon a “Magicoat.” It simply meant that one’s body was covered in mana. Since the body was merely releasing it, it didn’t have any purpose or effect on the world around it. Some people couldn’t even see it, so even its effect of producing light was limited to those people and creatures who were able to sense mana in the first place. What was most important was that, even though this process generated light, that light didn’t interact with the physical world. It didn’t reflect off any surfaces, or anything like that. This made sense given that many couldn’t see it.
The mana particles that created the light didn’t appear to interact with the physical world. This meant that even if you activated Magicoat, you wouldn’t be able to light up a dark space. It was truly impractical. Maybe the most you could do was indicate your presence with mana particles. Even all the mana particles released by the trout at the lake didn’t have much of a physical effect. Maybe it was like a form of communication, like male peacocks showing off their plumes. People with the right ability could let off heat and light via the same process.
And I had done it. I had achieved the result I wanted, using my willpower and belief. Sure, it was just light, but I was so darn happy.
I grinned and laughed. “I just used magic, Marie!”
“The look on your face right now is really something.”
I couldn’t wipe the maniacal grin off my face. I was so stinkin’ happy! I had just used magic—the magic that I had longed for all this time, all my life. To be fair, that wasn’t exactly what had just happened. All I did was emit mana, but still, it was the evidence I needed to convince me that using magic really was possible.
I made something happen beyond the laws of physics, and beyond all logic or possibility. It hadn’t been much, but it was enough to keep my heart soaring.
Happiness. Pure happiness. My dream had finally come true.
“Heh heh heh! Hoo hoo hoo!”
“You’re laughing like a crazy person, Shion! So, you’re that happy, huh? I’ve never seen you like this before. I’m so glad for you.”
“Yeah! I am happy! Hoo hoo, ha ha!”
Marie came closer and patted my head. Marie, with her warm smile, and me, with my crazy grin. It was a strange situation, but here we were. Still, I had no doubt that Marie was also happy from the bottom of her heart.
***
It was another day spent in my bedroom. It was the same as always, both familiar and calming. I sat on my bed, meditating. I wasn’t trying to cleanse my mind of thought. Instead, I was focusing. Emptying my mind never made any mana, but concentrating on powerful emotions did.
It had been a month since I discovered Magicoat. Here’s everything I learned during then.
One: You needed to feel powerful emotions to activate Magicoat. It was very hard to keep that feeling sustained. This was so for all feelings, even those without a big factor at play. Inevitably, all emotions fade over time.
Two: Magicoat can only be activated a limited number of times each day. I didn’t know if my concept of Magicoat made any sense, but my hypothesis was that the phenomenon indicated that mana particles were released from one’s body. If that was true, it made sense that the process required some sort of fuel. Using magic would also consume the same energy—not that I was anywhere close to doing that yet.
It was only logical that mana wasn’t infinite. It ran out after you used a certain amount. When that happened, you’d feel completely wiped out and you couldn’t do anything else. One day, I tried to push through that to release more mana than I should. I felt rough after that. I spent the whole day in bed—not sick, just completely drained.
Three: By using your mana just up to its limit, you can gradually increase the amount you have to work with. At first, I could activate Magicoat five times a day. Now, I could do it ten times. I’d made slow but steady progress over this last month. The practice didn’t affect my day to day much. I still had to be careful, as its energy requirements left me tired at times. So long as I didn’t exhaust my mana altogether, I could avoid becoming drowsy and out of it.
Four: Magicoat was equivalent to the orbs of light released by the trout. People without an affinity for mana couldn’t see it. Some people could, however, and those people would also feel warmth when they touched the light. My experiment with Marie confirmed that.
This was a small revelation, but an important one. Something really was happening here. If this miracle was possible, then maybe there were other phenomena out there, too.
I did make another minor discovery that your own body doesn’t sense the mana. I couldn’t feel its heat at all. When Marie touched the light, however, she not only felt it was warm, but that it had texture to it. Pretty interesting, right?
Five: This was my biggest problem at the moment…
“Agh, darn it!” I shouted. “Why can’t I make any orbs?!”
That’s right. No matter how much I increased the mana amount my Magicoat released, no orbs of light appeared. During Magicoat, my body would simply emit a faint glow, regardless of how much mana I released. No matter what, just a bit of light emitted out of me. More mana didn’t make for a brighter shine.
“Hmm. Maybe there’s a limit on the amount of mana I can release at once. I might be at capacity.”
If the best I could do was glow a little, then there was no chance I’d be able to make orbs of light. Which meant that I had less mana capacity than a fish. No way—that couldn’t be true!
“I’ve boosted my total mana capacity, but my emission rate hasn’t gotten higher at all. What’s the point?”
For the sake of argument, let’s say that I have a hundred points of mana. It takes five points to use magic, but I can only release four points at once. At that rate, I’d never be able to learn any spells! Even if my total mana points increased without raising my emission capacity, I wouldn’t be able to use magic. I couldn’t say any of this for sure, but this is what it seemed like.
That would be just my luck, too. Instead of possessing the ability to use magic, my greatest power would be to glow a little. I’d emit a light that was only perceptible to a few people, at that. This was an utterly worthless ability. Just call me Lightbulb Man.
Wait. Am I actually screwed? Am I totally screwed?
“No, no. Just wait a minute,” I told myself. “It’s way too early for that! I’m sure I’ll figure this out. There has to be something more. It’s not over yet!”
I had come this far. It’d be foolish to give up now. I had to calm down. There surely were other things I could do.
I thought back to the Etten trout, whose bodies shone and released orbs of light. Where did those orbs escape from? Their heads, right? In which case… I got it.
We’d established that the entire body releases a limited amount of mana. If you compressed that energy into a single place, maybe more mana could be released at once.
I focused my mind, heightened my emotions, and activated Magicoat. My whole body started to glow. From there, I concentrated on my hands.
Let the mana flow through my arms, I thought. I maintained my emotions and pictured the mana transmitting through my arms. It didn’t work, and the Magicoat faded.
“That’s tough,” I grunted. You had to maintain focus on your emotions to release mana. It felt impossible to do that and then also concentrate on another part of your body. At least, it was a lot harder than it sounded.
I would have to keep up my emotional thoughts to release the mana, while holding logical thoughts that would push it into my hands. Holding these two contrasting thoughts in my brain was awfully tough.
No…unless I had it all wrong. Maybe I had it backwards! Maybe releasing the mana first, then trying to concentrate it towards my right hand needed to be reversed. Instead, I had to focus on my hands first, then activate my happy emotions. Mana, if you go to my right hand… Happiness. Something like that. I could focus the emotions on the idea of mana going into my hands.
Time to try it.
I activated Magicoat. My body started to shine, per usual, but this time, I had set the intention and image of mana concentrating in my right hand. I felt the mana go there, seeping in a bit at a time. The glow around my body dulled, but my right hand grew brighter. Soon, it glittered with blinding white, and was almost as pale as a fluorescent bulb.
“Whoa!” I jumped up in my bed and raised my glowing hand up towards the ceiling. “Whoa, my hand! It’s shining! What in the…wha?!”
Would I break the wall if I punched it? It felt that strong. That’s how much power was surging into my hand.
I was overexcited and lost my cool. I faced the wall, giggling to myself. I couldn’t stop. I was like a little boy holding a big rock by a lake. There was no way I wasn’t tossing that sucker in. Although, I was far from a little boy.
“Take that!” Bursting with energy, I thrust my fist into the wooden wall.
Thunk. The next instant, pain shot through my hand.
“Oww!” I yelled. “Argh! It’s just light? It felt like enough power to bring a wall down!”
My childish punch didn’t leave so much as a dent. Being so weak was probably the only reason I didn’t hurt myself more. A blessing in disguise, perhaps, but that didn’t stop my light from going out. It was over.
It turned out that gathering mana in one point didn’t make it any more powerful. Still, that’s what I expected. I mean, that was the most logical outcome. Instead, I discovered that mana had never been anything more than a source of faint light and heat. Naturally, it wasn’t going to take out a wall.
Feeling disappointed, I glanced at the wall. There wasn’t so much of a scratch, much less a hole. What was I thinking? I became carried away in the moment. I got the results I expected—just not anything more.
“Still, that’s not so bad,” I said, grinning to myself. “I concentrated the light. Let’s go! Ha!” My crazed grin was back on my face as I glanced down at my right hand. I needed to practice more. I hadn’t shifted all of my mana to my hand. There was still room for improvement.
I decided to call what I had just done—shifting the mana from Magicoat into one concentrated point—a “Magicluster.” I was coming up with these terms for the sake of future developments. If I did manage to create magic, then I’d need a vocabulary to explain how it functioned to others. I intended to teach Marie, for one. That was way down the road, but once I became better, I planned to teach her.
Marie and Rose had plenty on their own plates. Marie had to practice her swordplay, and Rose had to do a lot of household chores. We had needed manpower back when we were investigating the trout, but nowadays I was mostly thinking on my own. I didn’t think they had given up interest or anything, but they were using their time wisely. They had their own things they wanted to do, after all. I wanted them to keep their own priorities, especially while I didn’t need their help. I had decided to focus on researching magic on my own. I made sure to keep them updated about my advancements.
All right, I thought, let’s keep going. I had more to discover.
“Hee hee… One more step, baby! Ha ha!” I couldn’t stop grinning.
I relaxed my expression. I plopped back into bed and got back to practicing. As you might imagine, I exhausted my mana down to the very last drop.
***
At the moment, I was perplexed. I was in the garden. A familiar sight, but something was different this time. Marie, Rose, and I stood together, side-by-side while my father towered over us.
Oh no, oh no.
“We’ll do our best,” all three of us shouted, bowing. Marie and Rose were riled up and ready to go, but not me. In all honesty, I wanted to run away as fast and far as I could and go back to practicing Magicluster instead.
It still wasn’t easy for me to concentrate the mana, and I hadn’t managed to gather 100 percent of it yet, either. I wondered what would happen if I eventually managed that, but the main thing was that I had at least gotten better at controlling my mana. Magicluster resembled the magic of my imagination far more than anything else to date. Still, at the very least, I wanted to be able to create orbs of light like the trout did.
Instead, I was gripping a wooden sword at this moment. We all were. What was happening? I’m sure you can guess.
“Very good,” Dad said. “We’ll now start today’s training. No messing around, or letting your guard down, all right? Even wooden swords can kill if they hit right. Got it?”
“Got it!”
I tried to shuffle off to the side to be a spectator, but Marie gave me a fearsome glare. This was all her idea. I was no good with a sword. I had used one enough to know that I wasn’t mentally up for it. I just didn’t care. That’s why, when Marie was doing her lessons with Dad, I watched from the sidelines. Marie thought that wasn’t good enough, and she suggested that Dad teach me as well. Unfortunately for me, Dad agreed.
“Boys should know how to wield a blade, in case of any trouble,” he told me.
So, they made me participate. That was what was happening right now: our first lesson.
As for Rose, she asked my dad to let her join the lessons. She was an ambitious girl. I didn’t know why they all wanted to learn sword fighting so badly, but I wish they’d just leave me out of it.
My current body—not to mention the one in my former life—didn’t have particularly adept reflexes. I was pretty good at sticking around in school dodgeball matches, but I could never hit anyone when I was the thrower. I never got much speed on the ball, either. For whatever reason, I was good at dodging, but there was always someone like that in any gym class.
I was especially bad at martial arts that used blades. Those were even worse than just having to run around. In all honesty, I really didn’t want to learn the sword. I couldn’t escape at this point, so I had no choice.
“Let’s spar a bit, Rose, so I can appraise your level,” Dad said. “I’ll go easy on you, so don’t hold back!”
“Thank you!”
I enjoyed watching their match. Rose proved that she had respectable swordsmanship skills for a complete amateur. She had never received formal training before. She neither exhibited any noticeable faults nor any true strengths, but she was reasonably athletic. Dad said that all-around athletes were the best candidates for sword fighting.
I was up for appraisal next, but the results were already clear. In an instant, my wooden sword scattered across the garden, and I was wheezing on the ground. Dad hadn’t landed a single blow, but my body was covered in scratches.
Dad sighed and wiped his brow. “I didn’t think you would need this much help.”
“Me either,” I uttered. Lately, I’d been running with Marie to try and build up some endurance. That was not enough, apparently. Swinging the wooden sword exhausted me within a few seconds. I don’t know what tired me out more—the big swings, or the concentrated jabs.
Neither. The real answer was simple, if not pathetic. I was depleted of energy, and that led me to take a big fall and send my sword clattering off. I picked up a few nasty cuts during the tumble.
While I was generally able to dodge Dad when he attacked, my own moves with the sword were beyond crude. I was wiped. I was worthless.
“You’ve got a good eye,” Dad said. “You managed to dodge my incoming attacks. The problem isn’t how you use the sword. It’s that you don’t have much control over your body movements. Every time you swung the sword, your whole body moved in an uncoordinated way. You are…how to put this…hopelessly uncoordinated.”
I grunted and cracked an empty smile. “I know. I guess I am just helpless.”
“You can run at a decent clip, and you have the reflexes for a good dodge.”
“We run together sometimes,” Marie nodded and chimed in. “He’s not slow at all!”
“He’s not entirely unathletic, then? Some people are bad when it comes to using a tool while they’re moving. Maybe that’s the issue?”
That is the case, Dad. Sorry. I brushed the dirt off my body.
“What to do?” Dad said. “If you put in the effort, I bet you’d get to an average level.”
Not that! “Dad!” I quickly exclaimed. “I’m helpless when it comes to swords, plus I have other interests. Let me quit!”
“Q-quit? But you’re a boy, son. You have to learn some degree—”
“But sword fighting isn’t everything, Dad! There are other things that I can do! You can’t just generalize people’s unique characteristics and abilities. I’m a lot better at studying, so let me focus on that!”
Dad listened to my argument. “You have a point there. I did intend on having you learn more than just the basics in your studies. Fair enough. You don’t need to learn swordplay. However, you still need to train your body. You never know what will happen one day, and you’ll be glad to have strength when you need it.”
“I already know that, Dad!”
He gave me a sharp look that said I have no choice, then. He sighed through a bitter smile.
Marie and Rose stood next to us. They stared at me in shock.
Uh, can you please not look at me like that? I felt super awkward. It’s not like this was my fault. Sometimes people just aren’t good at certain things!
“All right, then. Marie, you’re next. Let’s see how much you’ve improved.”
“O-okay, Dad!”
Marie and Dad faced each other, readying their blades. Marie had joined a local training hall, and so she had more experience than me. She also had a piercing chill in her gaze. To put it simply, she looked cool. Her perfect posture was captivating.
Dirt kicked up from beneath her feet. She was so fast that I almost lost track of her movements. She charged towards Dad so quickly that my eyes could hardly keep up.
Swords slashed. A diagonal slice of the blade swooped towards Dad’s shoulder. Dad anticipated the move and raised his own wooden sword.
Just when I thought their blades would meet, Marie’s blade halted. It was a feint! She swiveled the other way around, and squatted as she threw a horizontal thrust towards Dad’s legs. It looked tough to dodge, but Dad took a quick step back. Her miss left Marie open and undefended. Dad tapped Marie on the head with his blade. She stared up at him, dumbfounded.
“Looks like my win.”
Dad’s movements had been so much smaller than Marie’s. He had only moved the bare minimum amount. That’s how vast the gap between them was.
Upset, Marie stood up and moved away.
She gave a small bow and said, “Thank you, Dad.”
“It wasn’t bad,” he said. “Your movements are still too large, but that was a good feint you tried. Keep practicing. You’ll be quite the fighter in a few more years.”
“I will, Dad,” she said. “I’ll get even stronger.” There was determination behind the frustration in her eyes. She would get stronger.
I knew her motivation was to be able to protect me. It wasn’t the only reason, but it was a big one. She had told me so, after all. While grateful, I felt that I, too, needed to find how I could protect myself. All I knew was that sword fighting was not it.
My training session was over. I could engage in my own pursuits, now. They were still going over the “basics of the blade,” but that was officially none of my business!
“Um, Shion… Where are you going?”
I had tried to sneak back into the house, but Dad’s voice stopped me.
“Who, me? Aren’t I done here?”
“What are you talking about? We’re just getting started. You don’t have to do sword practice, but as we just discussed, you do have to train your body.”
“How?”
“Go run.”
More frigging running? Gosh dang darn it, like, seriously, what the freaking heck?! Is running this world’s foremost activity or what? Do they have no other forms of exercise? I get it, running is important, but gimme a break!
I didn’t dare level such concerns against Dad’s fearsome intensity. Marie got her stubbornness right from that guy. Once he made up his mind, that was it. There was no subduing that bull.
My eyes watered. I had no choice but to obey my father. I’d rather practice magic, but maybe this would come in handy someday. Or maybe not. It probably wouldn’t.
I followed Dad’s orders and ran non-stop until our training session ended.
***
Back in my room, I worked on my mana. I activated Magicoat, then transferred the mana to my right hand. It glowed the bright white of a low-watt fluorescent bulb. It was bright if you looked at it, but not blinding. Still, considering that this light came from a human body, it seemed remarkable.
My transition from Magicoat to Magicluster had grown smoother. I had one main problem: there were still traces of mana coming off the rest of my body, which meant I was unable to perfectly concentrate it. No matter what, there was always some mana leftover.
When I used Magicluster in my hands, other parts of my body faintly glowed. Maybe it was impossible to perfectly cluster everything?
“Hmm,” I thought aloud. “Am I doing it wrong? Maybe I need to rethink my approach.”
Giving birth to something new was no easy feat. I had neither a textbook nor an instructor. I had to think, hypothesize, and come to conclusions myself. It sounded like a simple formula, but the gap between hypothesis and conclusion was a vast chasm.
Let’s review: mana. I still didn’t know what exactly it was. I knew for certain that the body produced it, and that those with mana could feel or see it to some degree. That was about it, leaving aside some small particulars.
Now it was time to rethink things. What could mana be?
If it was some sort of life force, why could only certain people be able to see and feel it? The answer was probably beyond my capabilities to currently research. Maybe I needed to put a pin in that for a while.
In an experiment, the scientific method analyzes the processes at play, then tests them for additional verification. This only worked for physical objects—things that had some sort of real existence. Only then could people use those conclusions for fresh experiments.
For example, a researcher might think that they managed to produce a flame, when actually they hadn’t. In that case, they would have to investigate the true cause of the fire. This method applied to mana. Mana did exist, to the extent I could see it. It was still a mysterious and vague phenomenon. For now, anyway.
In conclusion, I lacked the ability to clearly define what mana was. I had only just discovered it, so I had far more questions than answers. All I could do was ask and try to find one answer at a time, one by one.
Nonetheless, there were things I knew to be true. Take the trout. They used mana as a form of communication. It was a simple form of communication, using magic particles to engage in animal courtship, i.e., the orbs of light. Ultimately, it was no different from saying “I love you.” I had no clue as to whether they were developing a skilled use of mana. It was incredibly unlikely I would learn how to transform mana into actual magic by observing them.
Nonetheless, I was quite intrigued by the trouts’ use of mana. Magicluster involved concentrating mana at one point in the body. From that, I couldn’t say for certain whether it was actually touching the body. This left me clueless as how to actually release mana off into the outside world.
I did know their methods. Magicoat was the state one enters through expressing powerful emotions. This allowed you to use Magicluster, which was created by transferring mana to a concentrated point. Both techniques required one to maintain strong feelings with conscious intent. It could be joy, anger, or even sadness, but I chose to use joy.
You needed a large volume of mana in order to release it into the outside world. I knew this from my Magicoat experiments, where the mana was spread too thin around the body, and thus dispersed into the air as faint glow. That’s how I decided to create the Magicluster.
But beyond this, the path ahead was difficult. My current thought was to attempt a command like: Mana in my right hand, let happiness shoot from without. It didn’t work. I did see the mana start to separate from my body, not fully though as with the trout. It did continue to exist for a significant distance.
Was I attempting some sort of advanced technique? Or did I just need to improve my method? Even if I did manage to shoot out the light, it wouldn’t be anything useful. That wasn’t the point, though. My attempts were failing, and that was frustrating. If anyone had seen me at work, they probably would’ve said, “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” But I wanted to achieve at this. I didn’t care what others said. I just wanted it.
It’d been half a year since discovering mana. All I had accomplished so far was generating light, then how to move it around my body. I was proud of all this, but I still knew very little about mana. I was no real scientist. Sure, new discoveries gave me a thrill, but that was just because I wanted to use magic so badly. That was the point of all of this. At present, my research had stalled. I needed to shake things up. I had no idea how to do that, so I just kept practicing my Magicluster.
By this point, I was able to use Magicoat up to twenty times in a day. But my rate of improvement was slower than it had been at first.
To maintain Magicoat, you needed to practice what I called Magic Eject. This was a certain volume of mana that you release from your body. This meant that I basically knew how much mana I have—what videogames would call “MP” or “magic points.” My MP growth was slowing down, although still growing a bit at a time. Could there be a limit on total mana growth?
I just wanted something to happen. I was starting to lose my drive.
Just as I was feeling lost, there was a knock on my door. That doesn’t sound like Marie, I thought. I opened the door, and the person who entered was a rare visitor.
It was Dad. “Am I interrupting your studies, Shion?”
“No, it’s okay. What is it?”
Dad nodded and said, “I’m going to Istria, now. Do you want to come?”
Istria was a mid-sized city in the Etten Region, and it was the closest to our home. I’d always heard that Lystia, the country where we lived, was a small nation, so I didn’t expect much from Istria. I didn’t have actual figures, but I guessed that it only had around one hundred thousand people. The Etten Region was by no means vast, with scattered villages and only two major cities: Istria and the capital, Sanostria.
“Am I allowed to? Mom always forbids it.”
Honestly, I didn’t want to go. I wanted to continue my investigations. Up until now, every time I had asked to go into town, my parents denied the request. Even Marie had never been allowed to go.
“Today’s a special occasion,” Dad said. “I won’t be the only one with a horse and carriage shopping in Istria today. I have some errands to run, so I thought it’d be the perfect opportunity. How about it? Want to come?”
A horse-and-carriage was a real luxury. Most of the villagers used ox-driven carts, which were far slower. Horses were far better for trips. They were also expensive and came with hefty maintenance costs. I heard that you could rent them, but there weren’t any such operations in our village.
Horses were the one and only way to make it all the way to Istria and back in a day. They were also the best way if one intended to do some buying. It would’ve been difficult to meet all of the house’s needs shopping only within the village, so apparently villagers chipped in together for one horse-drawn carriage. Someone who was relatively well off would be the purchaser and maintainer. He would receive fees from the villagers in exchange for buying things that they needed.
In our case, Dad had bought a carriage for the villagers and was getting paid back by them a bit at a time. He didn’t rent it out for a fee, as he didn’t want the villagers to rely too much on their lord. This way, once they paid him back in full, those horses and the carriage would become the property of the village. Even if something happened to him, the villagers could keep using their carriage. It was an approach that worked for Dad while helping the villagers become more self-sufficient.
All that aside, I was grateful for the suggestion. I didn’t expect there to be anything like a library that would help me with my magic research, but I did want to see the city.
“Okay, I’ll go.”
“You will? Okay, then get ready. We’ll be out all day. Marie and Emma are also coming.”
“Got it. I’ll be ready soon.”
Dad left my room. I’d heard that Istria was a three or four hour walk. By horse-drawn carriage, maybe it would only take one hour. If you didn’t make it home before sundown, you’d have no choice but to camp out. That could be extremely dangerous, since monsters appeared at night. That risk was intimately tied to the great outdoors in this world. If you moved in a large group like a military force, you could just set up a night watch to handle things. Even still, such groups would generally avoid traveling at night or camping out. For ordinary people like us, that would be risking death itself. It was necessary to return to home or a village by nightfall at all costs.
Monsters, huh. I mused. What kind of monsters were out there? I had been so focused on magic that I’d neglected to learn more about monsters and fairies.
It wasn’t like anyone tried to educate me around here. I guess my parents thought it was too scary for a kid. They would just repeat that monsters were dangerous, and that I was to stay away from them. I needed permission just to go outside. Maybe this world was that dangerous of a place.
I’d be fine so long as I didn’t run into anything. Plus, I have Dad, I thought as I hoisted my bag and walked out the door.
***
Mom and Dad rode in front, while Marie and I sat on the rack under the tarp. We sat alongside some other villagers, and it was a bit awkward having never spoken to them before. The ride was unpleasant, but I shouldn’t complain about the lack of luxury. I was happy that I was able to go into the city. That felt good.
Marie and I chatted excitedly as we clattered down the road. We passed by fields and forests, and saw other travelers and merchants coming from the other way. We gave them little bows and continued on.
“You can see it!” Dad shouted.
Marie and I looked ahead. It was Istria! It was more of a proper city than I expected. It had stone walls that were guarded, and there was a watchman at the gate. It must’ve been quite large, but this was considered a mid-sized city in this world. We lined up for the inspection, then passed through the main gate and into Istria.
The city had a chaotic impression about it. It felt like an unplanned, developing city. I couldn’t see very far ahead, because the narrow main road bended sharply to the right. I couldn’t get a good look at the buildings around us, but I gathered the streets weren’t arranged in a grid.
Regardless, it was my first time in this world where I was surrounded by so many people. That did not disappoint. I was thrilled, to be honest. It made me feel a hint of possibility—maybe I could learn something about magic here.
The villagers disembarked from the carriage. We planned to rendezvous with them later.
As the carriage carefully advanced forward, Dad looked back over his shoulder at us. “We’ll do our shopping, first,” he said. “After that, we’ll stop by the smith, then we’ll head home. Stay close to us no matter what—you’ll easily get lost here.”
Right. I had forgotten for a moment that we were kids. I wouldn’t be free to roam and investigate magic. Not that I’d even know where to start. All I could do was look around, in hopes of spotting something interesting.
No problem. While I couldn’t leave my parents’ side right now, eventually I’d be able to come back here at some point when I was older. I could try to have my way and if I got caught, it would be written off as kid antics. I played the good son so far, and I didn’t want that to go to waste. That’s fine—I can hold back today.
I tried to take a better look at the streets. Most of the buildings were made of both wood and stone. They looked pretty crude, but I’d come to expect that for this world. Even our noble family wore simple, plain clothes. The men wore shirts and trousers, while the women wore dresses or blouses with long skirts. Clothes among the different genders only had small differences. Things looked the same in Istria except I saw soldiers or mercenaries wearing armor. You wouldn’t see people like that in the local village. It really hit me that I had been transported to another world.
Where there are swords and shields, there should be magic too, I thought. Right?
We slowly proceeded down the main street and stopped at a few different stores. Marie and I waited in the carriage. Most of the stores were narrow and packed with people, so Mom and Dad didn’t want us to get in the way. There were no large-scale or chain shops here, only one-person businesses. I wasn’t too disappointed about not going in. It seemed boring.
There was something off about Marie today. She was more giggly and fidgety than usual. While we waited for our folks to get back, she looked preoccupied with something and looked around every which way. What was her problem?
After a few more stops, we had loaded the carriage up with a few crates and buckets. The carriage was getting more crowded, but I didn’t mind. For some reason, it felt more exciting to be in a cramped carriage than an empty one.
“We are done with the shopping,” Dad announced. “Now, we’re off to the smith.”
The blacksmith. That was a word tinged with fantastical associations. Unfortunately, it had absolutely nothing to do with me. I couldn’t use a sword, as I had already committed myself to the mage’s path.
As we approached the smith, Marie’s restlessness reached new heights. Her feet relentlessly rap-tap-tapped. It was classic leg fidgeting, but I’d never seen Marie like this before. Was it something about the blacksmith? Amused, I kept a close eye on her.
We went a considerable distance across the town before we arrived on a narrow road. For the first time, Marie and I were allowed off the carriage. We looked at the enormous building. I’m sure it was a normal-sized store, but it seemed considerable to a kid. Four people could easily fit inside. A sign outside had an emblem of a sword and a shield, with the letters “Graste Smithy.”
We followed Dad in. The walls were covered in all sorts of weapons: swords, spears, axes, hammers, shields, armor, and countless other things. I looked all over for something magical, but, as expected, found nothing.
“Greetings! Welcome to—oh, it’s you, Gawain.” A man about the same age as my dad came out. He had a lazy air about him. He looked at us and let out a sigh. He wasn’t tall, but he was well-built.
“That’s quite the introduction, Graste. Aren’t I a valuable customer?”
“Oh, right. My bad. I suppose you’ve come to pick your order up?”
“That’s right. Is it ready?” Dad asked.
“I made ya the best of the best. It’s for the lil’ missus, after all. And lookie there, I plum forgot to introduce meself. The name’s Graste, and this chap and I…well, your dad’s me old friend, I’d say.”
“H-hello,” Marie said. “I’m Marianne.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Shion.”
Mom smiled at our self-introductions. Graste gave us each a nod and then looked back to Dad.
“Those kids are so well-mannered. I’d never have guessed them to be yours.”
“You want to fight?” Dad chided.
“Nah, brawls with you hurt a bit too much. Lemme get that sword. Wait here, eh?” Graste flitted into the back of the store. He returned in an instant and was holding a small sword. It was for Marie, apparently.
“I took a kid’s blade and shortened and lightened it up,” Graste said. “I think she’ll have no problems. It’s got some décor on the sheath, so it’s even fancy too.”
Marie stole a glance at Dad. He nodded, and she raised her hands to take the sword from Graste.
Jewels adorned part of the scabbard, which was printed with a gorgeous design on the back side. It was a sword fit for a noble. It certainly didn’t look cheap.
Marie unsheathed it to unveil the blade. It did look on the short side. It was possibly shorter than a samurai wakizashi blade, but it was still a bit too long to be a dagger. It looked like an impressive work of smithing to me. Even a beginner could cut deep with that thing.
Marie re-sheathed the blade and bowed to Graste. “Thank…thank you.”
“No need. I’ve been paid in full. But just so you know, I went all out on this one. It’s sturdy, and it carves like hell. Be careful with it. There aren’t many kiddies your age with a sword of their own. The fact that you’ve got one shows how much your daddy trusts you. So don’t betray his trust, eh?”
Marie’s face was taut and still, listening closely to his unpolished words. Maybe Dad had told her about Graste before. We were probably like nieces and nephews to him.
Marie was such a good girl. I doubted she’d betray that trust.
“Oh, I can’t believe your daddy grew up and now has kids,” Graste joked. “Crazy, ain’t it?”
“Stop there, Graste,” Dad said sharply.
“Why? You were a good-for-nothing rascal, roaming here and there getting me wrapped up in this and that. Then, in the middle of all that, you met Emma, fell in love at first sight, and then went up and offed to Lystia! Sounds unbelievable to me!”
“G-Graste, that’s enough! Or do you need me to shut your mouth for you?” Dad’s veins were bulging out of his forehead.
“Oh my goodness gracious! Not when the kids are watching!” Graste cackled.
I guess the two of them went way back. I’d never seen Dad make a face like that before. He almost looked happy. I felt a bit jealous of their comradery.
Eventually, Dad cooled off. He glanced at the two of us and cleared his throat. His face was still red. Mom chuckled behind him.
“I’ll be back, all right?” Dad said. “And don’t forget, you’re welcome to our house anytime, too! Don’t work too hard.”
“Gawain, I appreciate the offer, but business is booming, y’see. Some hotshots even come to me for repairs and advice.”
“Why don’t you let someone hire you? That’d solve any money problems.”
“I could, I could. But I’ve got big dreams of expanding shop. I’m gonna keep busting my butt till I achieve that. Trust me, I’m doing fine on my own. Just can’t take many days off. Plus, you’ll come and visit me. Won’t cha?”
“Once in a while, yes.” Gawain sighed. “Very well. I’ll be back. I’ll bring the kids, sometimes.”
“Now that sounds fun.” Graste chuckled. “Guess the boy’s up next, huh? Oh, Shion, right? Are you learning some swordplay?”
“A little,” I answered. “I’m not very good at it, so I want to devote myself to something else.”
“That so? Guess sometimes apples do roll down a hill. Just because your daddy’s good at something don’t mean you’ll be the same. In my book, there are four principles you gotta live by—what you can do, what you can’t, what ya wanna do, and what ya don’t. That’s enough to make life a breeze.”
Dad eyed Graste’s childlike grin. “Men loving their jobs sure can talk a talk.”
“Oh, but life ain’t easy,” Graste said. “It’s surely not. But I’m loving it.”
“I’ll send you flowers once you achieve your big dream of expanding shop. Time to go now, though. Thanks for everything, Graste.”
“You got it. Come back soon!”
After exchanging a firm handshake, Graste shook my hand next. We boarded the carriage, and the city scenes flowed by once more.
“Graste is such a good guy,” Mom said.
“He’s a good egg. He just has no manners,” Dad responded.
“You were just like that when I first met you.”
“W-was I really? G-guess I forgot all about those days.”
Mom was grinning at Dad as he averted his eyes. Whatever it was spoke to their long history together. It wasn’t my business to pry, though.
Next to me, Marie excitedly gripped her new sword.
“I see,” I said. “That’s why you were so excited. You knew you were getting a sword.”
“Ah, yeah. I guess so. I couldn’t wait. Dad told me he was going to get me a sword because it’s my birthday soon.”
“But why didn’t you just tell me?” I asked. “You didn’t need to hide it.”
“I wasn’t hiding anything. I mean, I just felt bad that I was going to get something and you weren’t.”
“I thought you just said it was a birthday present. Plus, I don’t want a sword in the first place. You didn’t need to be worried.”
“Shion,” Mom said. “You can be a little more selfish sometimes, you know.”
“I am selfish,” I said. “I make Marie do all sorts of things with me.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
Well, then what was she talking about? Oh, asking for some sort of present? I suppose I had never asked them to get me a present before. Marie was always asking for and getting clothes and sweets, not to mention this sword.
I hadn’t gotten anything. But I didn’t really want anything, either, besides stuff related to magic, of course. But you can’t get presents that don’t exist in the first place.
“Are you sure there’s nothing you want, Shion?” Dad called. “As long as it’s not too expensive, we can get you something.”
“It’s fine,” I shook my head. “I don’t want anything.”
Mom and Dad glanced at each other.
“You’re sure?” Dad asked. “No need to hold back!”
Just like Marie, Dad seemed a little concerned about me. It was probably because I didn’t want anything. I really didn’t, though.
I was about to turn down his offer again, but then I saw something from the street. At first I didn’t know what it was. It was a store.
“What about there?” I pointed.
All three of them followed my finger. Marie looked surprised, Mom looked troubled, and Dad wrinkled his brow.
“You don’t need to know about places like that, boy,” Dad said.
The store had a big sign that read “Fairy Shop.” The moment I saw those words, I felt overcome by a troubling disquiet. It filled the whole carriage. For whatever reason, Mom and Dad averted their eyes from the store.
Was it a shop that sold fairies? I remembered that Dad had mentioned that some people caught fairies. I didn’t know if these were the fairies of my imagination or something similar. I knew nothing about them. I could infer from this situation and try to make an educated guess.
I knew that fairies were humanoid, and that some people caught them. I now knew that some people bought them. Were they kept as pets? I didn’t know if people here raised and cherished animals as pets, but it made sense that some people wouldn’t abide the practice of buying something humanoid as a pet to own.
I had just been trying to diffuse the tension from the prior situation. Instead, I only made it worse. In fact, I had made my parents sad! I guess I’d been acting too obedient up to this point. I didn’t know how else to be.
The awkward mood remained in the carriage as we left town.
I took one last glance back at the fairy shop. I saw a wealthy-looking family exit through the doors. Their young child held what looked like a bird cage. Inside, I saw something small and vaguely human-shaped.
It was a scene I would never forget.
Chapter 3: The Attack of the Goblins
Chapter 3:
The Attack of the Goblins
I TURNED SEVEN SIX MONTHS LATER. I WAS growing up, but my magic research was flat on its face. I had squeezed dry everything I could learn from the trout.
My focus had also changed to fairies and monsters—two beings that had long factored in my ideas about fantastic creatures. In fantasy worlds, they were both deeply intertwined with magic itself. It was certainly worth looking into.
I, of course, never had the chance. I could only spend my days wondering what they were. It was during one such day that something interesting occurred.
I was practicing my mana in my bedroom, gazing at the concentrated particles in my right hand. I now regularly worked on my Magicoat, Magicluster, and Mana Eject—my term for when mana particles emit into the air. At first, I’d hit my limit in seconds. I gradually improved, and now I could hold Mana Eject for at least ten seconds.
Despite these advances, I wasn’t really attached to it. Moving around mana like this was pretty pointless. It was nothing more than channeling a powerful emotion to release mana. You couldn’t create it from false feelings altogether, but it didn’t have to be something entirely from the heart, either.
Emotions were at the root of both willpower and action. Even with vague feelings, I was still taking actions and desiring things. Desire often became the emotion I channeled, as it wasn’t the type of excess that clouded your judgment and made you impulsive. So long as my emotions and willpower were under control, I could produce mana.
Once I realized this, I achieved the feat of emitting mana with no problem at all. Eventually, it became second nature. I’d practiced Mana Eject so many times that I’d developed a grasp on what exactly it took to release it, and I could produce it as I pleased.
It’s still a bit fuzzy, but I think I’ve learned that three things can release mana: emotion, will, and desire. This took forever to realize, and I now I was stuck again. I had no other leads to explore.
I heard voices and loud footsteps stomping about beyond my bedroom door. I went downstairs to investigate. Rain poured outside, and its sound was overwhelming. At the living room, I saw Dad in a drenched overcoat. Behind him stood a few grim and waterlogged villagers. They were talking with Mom.
Something was off. I had never seen a scene like this before. Marie came running from upstairs and joined me. We went closer to Dad and the others until they finally noticed us.
“What’s going on?” Marie asked.
The adults all looked around at each other, as if wondering what to do. Dad eventually opened his mouth.
“It’s goblins,” he said.
“Goblins?” Marie gasped. “You mean—m-m-monsters?!”
“That’s right. We have a report sighting a number of them. It’s dangerous, but we need to take care of them. Kids, no matter what happens, don’t go outside.”
Goblins were one of the more typical monsters in fantasy settings. Most games and manga portrayed them as weak mobs that novice heroes and adventurers took on for easy experience. Was it the same here? Judging by everyone’s pale and serious faces, probably not. Even Mom, whose face always looked gentle, was tense.
My parents turned towards the villagers.
“Bring all of the women, children, and elderly here,” Dad said. “That should be about thirty people in total. The men will hunt down the goblins. Everyone else should stay inside no matter what.”
“Understood,” the villagers replied.
Everyone was panicking. Were goblins really this bad? My adult brain felt useless—I was a clueless kid in this scenario. Marie was freaking out too. She held my hand in a tight grip.
“D-don’t worry, Shion,” Marie said, grasping her sword with her other hand. “Dad and the men will handle them. Plus, I’ll protect you.”
She did have excellent skills, but no real battlefield experience because she was just a kid. I wasn’t sure if she was ready to stand up to a monster.
I felt ungrounded by the uncertainty and panic. The word “goblin” only conjured the fictional creatures I knew from video games. In those games, goblins were weak. The level of fear here implied otherwise. In fact, the general reaction made one point clear: goblins were dangerous creatures. I needed to quickly reset my expectations.
“We’ll go straight for their nest,” Dad said. “There are supposed to be only two goblins, so with all the men together, we should be fine. We’ll also need to do a hunt through the mountains for other specimens. That could take a while.”
It seemed like Dad was just trying to calm us down. He spoke to Mom, but loudly enough so that Marie and I could heard him.
His words made the reality of the situation very clear to me. Every man in the village was drafted into this fight. It would take these fifteen or so men to defeat two goblins. Would it really take those numbers to guarantee a win? No, apparently the battle would be risky even with that army. That’s just how dangerous goblins were here.
Sensing the gravity of the situation, I called out to Dad.
“Hey, Dad.”
“Shion, I’m sorry, but there’s no time to talk. Later.”
“Just one second, I promise,” I said. “Dad, do goblins have the intelligence to get to the second floor of this building from the outside?”
Dad looked skeptical but answered immediately. “No. They’re stupid creatures, and our walls do not have anything for them to grasp for climbing.”
“Then we should all shut ourselves in on the second floor,” I said. “We’ll block the front door with furniture so they can’t break it down. That way we’ll be safe even if the goblins come here.”
Dad thought this over. He raised his finger to his chin. Mom and the other villagers looked at me in surprise. Marie stood by my side, examining the room.
“That’s a good idea. Yes, please do that. We’ll signal you so that you can hear us from up there when we return.”
“Got it. We’ll stay upstairs until you get back.”
Dad gave a composed nod, and then reached over to pat my head. “You’ve got this, Shion.”
With that, he and the other villagers left the house.
Marie’s hand still held mine. Her grip grew slightly stronger than before.
“O-okay then,” Mom said. She sounded flustered. “Let’s board up the windows before the villagers get here. W-we have some nails from Graste, and some planks in case of emergencies like this. Wh-where are they?” It seemed Mom didn’t fare so well in tense situations.
“I think they’re in the shed in the garden,” I said. “Marie, let’s go get them. Mom, you can get the nails.”
My commands bewildered Mom and Marie. Since I was the only calm one here, I thought I’d better divide up the work. With that, I started bringing wooden planks inside from the shed.
Not long after, the elderly, women, and children from the village arrived, including Rose. Mom explained the situation to them, and the adults began boarding up the house.
Rose ran up to them. “Allow me to help, too,” she said.
“Thank you. Please do.”
Her face was stiff and determined. She was calm compared to everyone else. Everyone was on edge because this was quite the situation.
The grown-ups directed us on how to move the wood planks inside and board up the windows. We boarded up the front door, then blocked the doorway with heavy furniture. This created a substantial obstacle for the goblins.
The thirty villagers who were incapable of fighting were gathered on the first floor. After making some final reinforcements, we moved up to the second floor.
There were five rooms upstairs: my room, Marie’s, Mom and Dad’s, a study, and a guest room. Six of us went into Marie’s room: myself, Marie, Mom, Rose, and a mother with a young boy.
I still didn’t know the details, but Rose didn’t have a family. Her caregiver was the village head. That was who picked her up that day, then? He was off fighting with the other men, so that explained his absence.
Marie’s room was simply decorated in a girlish atmosphere. She only had a few dolls, and the curtains and sheets were pale and lacey. We brought in the remaining planks, boarded the door, and sat on Marie’s bed and chair. It still poured outside, so there was no way to know what was happening. This just worsened everyone’s anxiety more.
Monsters, I thought. I did want to investigate them for the sake of my magic research, but certainly not like this. It wasn’t worth dying for.
Mom put her arms around me, Marie, and Rose. The other mother hugged her son close. Time passed like this. I hadn’t experienced anything like this before. I couldn’t even have imagined this would happen. That was life for you—without warning, you’re thrown into danger. I died in that very way in my previous life, and I never wanted to experience that again. I especially didn’t want it to happen to anyone else here.
In truth, I wanted to learn everything I could about goblins. I knew asking questions would just freak everyone out, so I stayed quiet. If they really were nearby, any noise would alert them to our presence. One word could put everyone in danger. The others were probably thinking the same thing. They all kept their mouths shut.
I have no idea how much time passed. Maybe about an hour? At that point, I heard another sound mixed in with the rain. As it grew more distinct, so did my fear. Were they footsteps? Then, out of the blue, there was a high-pitched sound like something clawed at glass.
As those sounds grew closer, Mom and Marie trembled more and more. Mother and child alike were terrified. Everyone in the room noticed the sound. It wasn’t Dad and the villagers. There was no signal they had returned.
The sound reached the front door of the house and stopped.
Something was there. I could guess what it was, but then that’d make it real.
A few minutes passed. Pure emptiness. Just when I started to wonder if it had scampered off…
WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!
There was a loud banging against the front door. I heard something like grunts. Everyone started to quiver and cover their ears. I was the only one who kept listening. The barrage lasted for a few minutes, but the door held. The sounds died down.
The footsteps started to move. They went over to the flank of the house. Then there was a duet of a grotesque groan and a piercing, shrill screech.
SMASH!
It was broken glass. Then, the banging and scraping resumed. Eventually, there were the sounds we most dreaded to hear: the clear crunch of broken wooden planks and a thud on the first floor.
This was real. There was a monster here. The goblins were coming in.
A hideous, bloodcurdling groan screeched throughout the entire house. It sliced through the whole second floor and sent every villager into fits of terror. Tears streamed down their trembling faces, their bodies hunched over and quivering. No one dared to move or make a single sound. All we could do was wait for the horror to pass.
For some time, the sounds of rampaging across the first floor continued. But then a different sound emerged on the stairs.
Thok. Thok. Thok.
A presence was slowly but surely coming closer to us. It climbed all the way up the stairs, then moved down the hallway where it finally stopped.
“Gghhi, gigigi!” It grunted.
It was so close. Fear gripped my entire body. Unable to control my trembling, I stared at the door. Marie clung to my side. Rose held my hand. Mom huddled over us, trying to protect us.
The calm didn’t last. When the thin door rattled, the other boy screamed. We were all terrified. Nobody could blame the boy, but his cry made the goblin start slamming viciously into the door.
The door was bent after a few blows. It would only last a few more seconds before breaking completely down. There was nothing we could do other than pray the door and the planks held. That prayer was shattered to pieces. With a snapping burst, the top of the door broke clean through. A greenish, wriggling arm and a hand with sharp claws reached out into the room.
I knew that it had the intention to kill. I peered through the crack in the door to look at its face. It was fear personified. It’s foul face was grotesque. It’s black eyes ogled me, while its mouth twisted into a leering grin.
It howled and cackled maniacally as it smashed into the door several more times. Almost all of the top half was gone.
The goblin stepped into the room. It was hunchbacked and had a disgusting and swollen gut. It looked more like an ogre than a stereotypical goblin. It wielded no weapon other than its thick, sharp claws and the fangs protruding from its mouth. A single bite from those things would put an end to everything.
There it stood before me. It was the very creature I wanted to research. Was I crazy? Now I’d lost interest. I only felt fear. I cursed my past self for wanting to conduct research on something like this. I had been treating it way too lightly. I didn’t consider them real threats. I knew now I was wrong.
Oh, goblins, they’re easily disposable small fries. They are the weakest of the monsters. That’s what I had thought this whole time, but the small fry facing me now was nothing less than utter despair.
We could do nothing to oppose it. Everyone in the room knew that each and every last one of us would be killed.
“N-not the children! Don’t kill the children!” Mom screamed.
The monster couldn’t understand language, could it? Its mouth only grinned at us more, indicating it did understand. Having cornered us, its miserable prey, it was feasting in its dominance.
It’s over. Time to die.
Just as those thoughts crossed my mind, Marie leapt up to her feet. She unsheathed the sword and took a stance. She stood in front of me to block the goblin’s path. She was the swordswoman facing down the goblin, but I could see her shoulder still shook with fear.
“Y-you’ll have to fight me f-first!” she said.
I was in awe of her courage, but I also felt a cold desolation. She didn’t stand a chance. It’d destroy her. In a split second, the goblin lashed out its claws. Marie’s sword danced through the air to meet them and lashed straight into the wall.
“Huh?” Marie’s gasp bordered on the hysterical.
The monster had knocked the sword out of her hands with a simple swipe. The goblin may have been stupid, but it was overwhelmingly powerful. Only a bit taller than Marie, its body was jam-packed with brute force.
The goblin raised its hand.
“Ahh!” Marie screamed and froze in fear.
I instinctively sprinted towards her. Before I could reach her, something flashed in front of me.
There was some clashing, then a body crumpled over. I saw Marie, and in front of her, Mom. There was blood everywhere. Mom had sacrificed herself for Marie. There were deep rends in her back oozing blood.
Marie had been buried underneath Mom’s body and was safe. Her eyes brimmed with tears as she stared at Mom.
Mom raised herself to her knees.
“Marie…are you…injured?” she asked.
“N-no, I’m f-fine! But, Mom—.”
“I’m okay, dear. All that matters is that…you’re safe.”
She was grievously wounded. There was no doubt about it. She was spurting blood. I could see the heat leaving her face. Mom was going to die. The thought brought fear, and the fear overcame me more and more.
The goblin lurched towards Mom. It acted as if it was enjoying the moment. Mom hugged Marie tightly, putting her body in between my sister and the monster.
No, this wouldn’t work! It wouldn’t! Now the two of them were going to die! My family—the most precious people in this world to me—would be killed before my eyes. No, anything but that! I won’t accept it!
I impulsively kicked against the ground. I didn’t know what I was doing. I just wanted to save them.
I supposed the goblin couldn’t have predicted my movements. I was just a kid. So, it certainly wasn’t expecting me to suddenly charge straight at it. Before I knew it, I was touching the monster.
Our eyes met. I looked into its red pupils. It was repulsive beyond belief.
Its mouth curled into a smile. Naturally, it was facing down an unarmed and hapless kid. What could I do to it besides tug on its arm a bit?
I was aware that there wasn’t much I could do. I just couldn’t stand there and do nothing!
I had no strategy and no weapon. I had nothing until I noticed that its whole body emitted a faint glow.
I couldn’t see it until I was up close. It was mana coming off of the goblin.
Instantly, I felt composed. I remembered everything I had learned to this point. I didn’t know exactly how, but it was clear as day, that everything was connected. Everything I had achieved—it all came together in this instant. I realized the answer to the essence and workings of mana. And then, I had the truth to which that answer led me.
I activated Magicoat, then used Magicluster. I packed the mana into my right hand that touched the goblin. The goblin flung its claws out toward me. They were cutting through my eyelashes. I felt the mana burst through my body.
“GAAAAAAHHHH!”The goblin let out a shriek, and a pungent, foul stench immediately filled the room.
There was no fire, but the goblin’s arm was burnt horribly and let off plumes of steam. The burn increased and shriveled the arm away until it dropped to the ground. It looked as if a virus had spread from the place where my hand had touched its arm. The goblin’s entire body had blackened.
It writhed in agony on the floor. I had to do something. I had to finish it off before it killed all of us.
I immediately pressed my hand to the goblin’s head and released mana once more. Steam rose from its forehead accompanied by a foul stench and its shrieking cries. After about ten seconds, its life drained away and the goblin stopped moving.
I was frantic and gasped for air. I didn’t even understand what I’d done. I had known that people with mana responded to the mana of others. You could feel its heat and its texture when you touched it. With weak mana, there was only a faint warmth, but I guessed that well-honed, practiced mana would be more powerful. That’s what I had bet our lives on, and it worked!
With a year of training under my belt, my mana had become seriously hot. It had been a big wager. It was practically an experiment. It worked, though. My mana killed the goblin. Of course, if the goblin didn’t have mana of its own, it wouldn’t have worked. Its body wouldn’t even have noticed my heat.
I backed away from the corpse and tried to catch my breath. It was vile. The combo of both the stench and emotions from what I’d managed to pull off made me puke. I knew that I had to do this. Nevertheless, the feeling that I had killed something humanoid was a dark and vicious one.
Rose and Marie looked at me in surprise, while the mother and son gaped at me. The moment we met eyes, the two of them let out little yelps and backed away. Do they think I’m some kind of monster now? All I did was save everyone in this room from getting killed.
All at once, I felt like my soul had been tarnished. I’d never killed something like this before. I felt sick to my stomach. It was a wrenching and unfamiliar feeling of guilt and sin. The worst of it was the unmistakable pang of regret that I’d entered a new and darker world. It wracked me in waves.
I looked down at my own hands.
These can kill, I thought.
Suddenly, I couldn’t move at all. Then, I felt the warmth of someone else’s hands on mine.
“You saved us, Shion. Thank you.”
I looked up to see Rose. Her face was neither cool, composed, nor relieved. Her hands shook. That was understandable given what had happened.
At first, I thought she was afraid of me. I quickly dismissed that. I knew Rose always took great pains to look after me. All I could do was accept her gratitude as it was. It made me feel just a bit calmer. The mother and son certainly gazed at me with caution and fear, but now there was a hint of awkwardness.
The strange mental realm I’d been inhabiting faded away. I became myself again. All thanks to Rose.
Thump.
“M-Mom!” shrieked Marie. My mother, who had been hugging my sister to protect her, suddenly slumped to the ground.
I came to my senses. I didn’t need to be worried about myself right now. We needed to save Mom. But Marie had lost it and was shaking Mom’s body in terror.
“M-Marie, stop! You might hurt her!”
I ran over to Marie. She was in an understandable state of panic. How was she supposed to remain calm as her mother died in front of her? And why was I so calm? My adult self knew that it wasn’t that I was calm. It was just that I had to be calm or risk losing someone precious to me. That’s why I’d killed the goblin. That’s why I could be—no, I had to be—calm now. Someone might die otherwise.
I pulled back Marie’s arms. Rose came over to help me.
“I’ll take Marie,” Rose said, breathless.
“P-please,” I stuttered, and as Rose pulled Marie away from Mom, Marie continued to kick and howl and scream. Thank goodness Rose can stay calm, I thought.
I examined Mom’s face. She was icy pale from losing too much blood. She still had a pulse, but that didn’t mean she was safe. I looked at the gash running up her back. It was still oozing, and the bleeding had to be stopped.
I knew that I shouldn’t move her body too much, but I wasn’t going to be able to treat her here on the ground. Somehow, I needed to get her up on to the bed. There was no way I could lift Mom alone with my seven-year-old body. It would be difficult even for one adult. Marie had lost her mind, and Rose was doing everything she could just to hold my sister back.
The mother and child across the room feared me. I doubted they were calm enough to assist. I doubted they would even answer me if I asked them for help.
We had learned that there wasn’t a second goblin. I hadn’t heard any other sounds in the house.
“Someone! Anyone! Help!” I screamed.
Immediately, people came from the other rooms. When people realized that the goblin had been killed, they rushed in.
“What—what in the world?!” they exclaimed.
“We need to save my mom!” I shouted. “Move her up to the bed!”
Two women lifted Mom up and laid her in the bed. Mom, who had always been so lively and cheerful, didn’t so much as twitch. At least she was breathing.
It’s not over. We can save her!
Rose continued to gently hold on to Marie, who had stopped resisting as she sobbed. Maybe she had come to her senses.
“Is there a doctor here? Or anyone who knows about medicine?!” I shouted.
Everyone looked around at each other. The village was small. The presence of a medical expert was unlikely. Now what? She was in horrible danger. I knew that if no one would act, I’d have to do so myself.
First, I had to stay calm. If I couldn’t make rational decisions, Mom would die. I needed to think. What could I do?
“What about stitching? Is anyone skilled at needlework?!”
A few people raised their hands, and I chose the person who the others said was the most skilled. She was a young woman of about fifteen or sixteen. Besides some freckles, she looked ordinary with her hair pulled back in a braid.
“But what do you want me to do?”
“Wait a moment,” I said. “You, there. My mom has a sewing kit in her room. Please, go get it. Then, go to the kitchen. Grab the strongest alcohol you can find. Someone else, bring me some lit candles. I also need clean rags. Split all that up and bring them here!”
Everyone immediately set to work.
“The rest of you,” I said, looking around. “Would you be able to…move the goblin corpse out into the hallway? I know it’s not pleasant, but it needs to be done. Then, please wait outside. I’ll call you if I need you.”
They did exactly as I said. No one else was taking initiative, so it was easy for me to get things under control.
They moved the goblin corpse out with no issue.
Maybe they’re used to this…
Now, there was nothing to do until I had all the materials. I called out to Mom and held her hand while we waited. Right now, Marie, Rose, and the braids girl were the only ones left with us. The mother and child who had been in the room with us quickly made their way to the door. The boy stopped in his tracks and returned to me.
“Um…thank you,” he said. He tentatively shook my hand, and then quickly flitted away. His mother seemed to hesitate. Then she nodded her head and went out into hallway and downstairs.
That small action made me feel just a little saved. I closed my eyes, trying to regain my composure. This was far from over.
I walked over to Marie. “Sister,” I said to her, “we’re going to save Mom now. So, try to stay calm. Otherwise, we might lose her.”
“There’s no way we’re losing her!” Marie clenched her teeth. “No! Sh-she’s not going to die!”
“Then stay calm, Marie. Her life is in danger if you lose control. Got it?” I stared into her eyes while tightly holding her hand. That seemed to calm her down a bit.
“F-fine. Got it.” She nodded a few times.
“Good. Now you two, stay over there.”
Rose was still hugging Marie from behind. So long as Rose was there, we’d be fine. I glanced at Rose, who nodded at me. I knew I could trust her to keep things under control.
“Oh, and Marie, do you have a dagger or something?”
“Ah, yeah, over there.”
A knife the size of an adult hand lay on a mounted shelf. We didn’t have anything so useful as scissors. I took it over to the bed and started instructing the braids girl while checking in on Mom.
“Can I ask your name?”
“Yes, my lord! M-my name is Rhia.”
“You don’t have to be so formal. Just call me Shion.”
“Er, ah, uh, okay…Shion.”
She was nervous. Maybe this wouldn’t work after all. She had a huge role here. If she messed up, we’d be doomed. It wouldn’t help for me to put that pressure on her, though.
I cut Mom’s clothes away with the knife. The gash on her back was exposed and it gushed blood.
Rhia gaped. “That, that’s a bad wound.”
I examined it. “It’s not as deep as I thought it might be.” I said. “It’s running from her shoulder to the center of her back. Do goblin claws have poison?”
“N-no, not as far as I know.”
“Good. We don’t have to worry about that.”
We did have to worry about normal infections, though. Hopefully, cleaning the wound would solve that. Regardless, we couldn’t leave Mom like this any longer.
There were no hospitals in this world. Any injury could be life-threatening. Even without poison, wounds could still get infected. I’d heard that even regular colds could kill people before there was modern medicine.
“Young master Shion! Here!” The villagers called out to me as they brought the various supplies. Once they dropped them off, I asked them to repair the barricades on the first floor. This was just in case any more goblins appeared. I told them to return here when they were finished.
“Let’s get started,” I said.
“Er, um,” Rhia stuttered. “Start what?”
“Stitches,” I said. “I need you to stitch up the wound.”
“D-do what?! Why would we do such a thing?!”
Oh, great. Did they not know about stitching? Maybe the technique just hadn’t spread to the countryside? I remember learning that in the early days of western medicine, surgeons received harsh treatment and were even persecuted. I didn’t think stitching would be particularly taboo. Maybe if a scalpel got involved, things would be different.
“We need to stitch up the wound to stop the bleeding. It will stop the blood loss, and help her healing much faster. It will also prevent infection, too. So, please…”
Everyone was looking at me like I was nuts.
“Just, just trust me on this. Okay?”
I realized that stitches night be revolutionary here, but it wasn’t the time or the place to consider that. My focus was to save Mom.
“I d-don’t understand…But won’t we hurt her?”
“We can hurt her and save her or not hurt her and let her die. Your choice.” I didn’t like these words, but I was desperate. Mom was losing precious time to Rhia’s questioning. I needed Rhia. I didn’t know if I could do the stitches myself.
At that moment, Rose came over. “Please, Rhia,” she said, and patted Rhia on the back. That settled things.
“I’ll do it,” Rhia said, giving a big nod.
Do Rose and Rhia know each other?
“If anything happens, I take full responsibility,” I said. “So first…”
I instructed her in the emergency care basics that I knew. First, we thoroughly washed our hands, wiped away the blood with clean rags, and washed the wound out with alcohol. Then Rhia took the needle, heated it in the fire, and began to sew up the wound.
Poor Rhia. This must have been terrifying for her. It was her first time doing this, and she had to perform it on the noble lady of her homeland. I was grateful she hadn’t resisted any more than she did.
Stitches aren’t especially difficult, and Rhia finished up in about fifteen minutes. As she sewed up the wound, the bleeding stopped. Her stitchwork was excellent, too. As the rest of the villagers testified, she was skilled with a needle. She also had nerves of steel.
Lastly, we bandaged the wound with cloth, then turned Mom over face-up.
“Thank you, Rhia. That was amazing.” I said.
“Y-you’re welcome. Will this save your mother?”
“I think so, with some proper rest. She lost a lot of blood, but not enough to kill her.”
Ideally, we’d give her a blood transfusion, but that was obviously impossible. We didn’t have the technology to make syringes, or an expert that could perform the procedure, not to mention we lacked the time and resources. No, I wouldn’t be able to pull something like that off. Luckily, there was no need. After re-checking Mom’s pulse and her face color, I felt slightly relieved.
“Sh-Shion.” It was Marie. “What’s happening to Mom?”
“She’s going to be okay. We’re going to have to look after her for a while, but she’ll get better.”
At that, Marie burst into tears and clung to me. “Shion! Mom! Mom—she—she—”
I patted her back for a while. I understood how she felt because I felt the exact same way. The feelings that I’d bottled up all this time were pouring out of me. I started to cry.
That had been terrifying. So terrifying! I had been so calm, but now that it was over, I felt all my strength leave me.
About half an hour later, Dad and the other men returned. That was when I knew the awful ordeal was finally over.
***
Morning came. Mom slept in her bedroom with a doctor by her side. I call him a doctor, but the only medicine in this world was herbal, so nothing like modern medicine existed here. He still knew much more than I did.
Mom regained consciousness. While she looked pale and tired, she could at least talk.
“Yes, all is well,” the doctor grunted. “It’s quite a wound, but fortunately the claws didn’t reach her bones or internal organs. And it’s been stitched up perfectly. I suppose someone here is well-versed in medicine.”
I decided to let the comment slip by. The only ones present at the scene yesterday were me, Marie, Mom, Rose, and Rhia. Mom had been passed out, and Rose and Rhia weren’t here anymore. Only Marie and I knew what happened. When no one chimed in, the doctor continued.
“I have to say, I am curious who here knew how to stitch a wound. It’s not uncommon within the world of medicine, but there aren’t many doctors with the knowledge because any books on the subject are expensive. Ah, well, it’s for the best. Let her rest and give her plenty of food. I’ll be off now.”
“Thank you,” Dad said, bowing his head to the elderly doctor. Marie and I imitated the bow. After seeing him off downstairs, we came back up to the bedroom.
Mom laid in bed. She looked exhausted, but she smiled softly. I’m sure it was difficult for her to even stay awake.
Next to her, Marie stared down at her feet sadly. She lifted her head and turned to Mom.
“Um…Mom!” She took a breath. “I’m sorry. It’s my fault you…it’s my fault—”
She was on the verge of tears. I understood how she felt. Mom had suffered the injury while protecting her. Of course, it wasn’t really Marie’s fault in the slightest. Marie still felt guilty, though, because that’s the kind of person she was.
Mom, still with a kind smile, reached out to stroke Marie’s hair. “It’s okay, Marie. It’s not your fault. Thanks to you standing up and fighting for us, we were able to buy a little time. So, don’t blame yourself, Marie. You didn’t do anything wrong. You were courageous and tried to protect us. You should be proud of that.”
Her gentle words brought tears to my eyes. I saw Marie quickly wipe her own tears away, then she bit her lip and straightened her face. I could tell that she didn’t want to show any more weakness. Mom was already injured and suffering, and Marie wasn’t going to add any more worry. Though young, she always cared about others’ feelings.
Sensing that the conversation had ended, Dad broke the silence.
“Why don’t you rest now, Emma? We’ll be here watching over you.”
“I’m sorry…for causing you such trouble,” Mom said.
“It’s no trouble at all. I’m just glad you and the kids are safe. So glad.”
“You’re right. Though, I don’t remember much. Is everyone safe now?”
“Don’t worry. There are no goblins left around here.”
“Ah, thank goodness…” Mom trailed off. “I’m sorry…sleepy…”
Her eyes shut and her breathing grew soft. Dad pulled the blanket up over her. With that, we left her bedroom and went down to the first floor living room.
“I want to ask you two something,” Dad said. “Sit down.”
Here we go. I wasn’t surprised. I knew this was coming. I still needed to brace myself.
The nightmare was all over when Dad and the others returned. They had found the goblin den in the nearby forest and killed two goblins there. Then they noticed that the number of tracks on the ground were too numerous to have come from only two goblins. They immediately made way for the village where they found a few injured villagers, but no dead. After that, they searched the surrounding area, tracking goblin footprints while stopping to repair damaged houses. They made their way back here and found mom injured. She became the priority and a doctor was summoned. It was only now that Dad found a chance to talk to us.
I’m sure he had plenty of questions. I’d have no shortage of them if I were him.
We sat around the coffee table. Dad was across from Marie and me. “Tell me, what happened?” he said.
I wasn’t sure what to say. There were other witnesses, so I couldn’t lie. All I could do was speak the truth as unbelievable as it was.
I recounted the goblin attack. I relayed how Marie tried to stop it, and how Mom covered for her. I described how I defeated the goblin using the mana I’d been researching. Lastly, I explained how I handled the clean-up and saving Mom.
Dad closed his eyes. He was absorbing everything I said. When I finished, a pristine silence took hold.
He slowly opened his eyes. “You really expect me to believe all that?”
“I’m not lying,” I said. “It’s all true. I explained everything…everything I can.”
It was the best I could do. I knew it sounded crazy, but it was the truth. I had worried all night about what to say, but in the end, I concluded that there was no point in trying to fool him. With so many witnesses, this was my only option. I knew all of this would happen from the moment I did it. I saved Mom and Marie, so it had been worth it.
The silence deepened. Dad wrinkled his brow and then sighed.
“The villagers told me the same thing. It matches what you told me just now, Shion. I also heard about how you directed everyone to take care of Mom. But what I don’t understand…is how you were able to do these things. How do you have knowledge of medicine?”
Ah, I thought, you see Dad, in my former life, I lived to the age of thirty in a country called Japan. It’s a developed country with technology and ample knowledge I could pick up just in my daily life.
Yeah, right. That angle would only trouble Dad further. The best I could do was a vague response.
“I don’t know, Dad. I just knew what to do.”
Dad sighed again and held his head in both hands. Marie and I didn’t dare look away.
“I remember Marie telling us that she could see orbs of light floating off the pond,” he said. “You touched them when you made them come off the bucket. I didn’t understand what you were getting at then, but you’re telling me that all that has to do with this ‘mana’ thing?”
“Yes, but how did you realize that?”
“You’d never said anything strange before then, or behaved irrationally in any way,” Dad said. “It was almost to the point of being un-childlike. So, I’ve been asking myself: why was there just this one strange thing you were doing and were saying that didn’t make sense? That’s how. I’ve long been questioning that.”
“So, you believe me?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I want to believe you. You’re my son. Everything happened as you explained it to me. It’s a lot to swallow, though. As for how you saved Mom, let’s leave that aside for now. The bigger issue is how you defeated the goblin. A seven-year-old boy slayed a monster that usually takes a full team of adults to narrowly take down. I also want to know about your research on this ‘mana’ thing. You always seemed mature for your age, but I could’ve never guessed it was all leading to something like this.”
I saw the confusion on Dad’s face. It must’ve been difficult to believe I’d really done all these things. Especially about using mana, a power he couldn’t begin to understand. One impossible thing after another had happened, and he was left at a total loss.
He said nothing for a while. Then, turning his head down, he said, “Listen, Shion and Marie. You are not to speak of this to anyone else. I’ve said the same to the villagers. What Shion has done is beyond the capabilities of a child. If word were to get out…something bad could happen.”
I didn’t understand why he said that at first. Then I started to catch his drift. In relatively undeveloped worlds like this, someone who did the impossible would often be labeled as a malicious force. They’d be labeled a heathen or a witch—beings that were capable of extraordinary powers were weeded out and persecuted. In earth’s history, countless persons had fallen victim to such acts.
If word were to spread about a child who had the knowledge and intelligence of an adult who also possessed mysterious powers, it would endanger me and everyone around me.
“No matter what happens, I am your father,” Dad continued. “I will do everything I can to protect you. I’m here for you. But there are some things that you must not do, or that will not be received kindly. Others in this world will be too happy to turn on you. Do you understand me, Shion?”
“As in, those who are special in some way could be persecuted?”
“Just so. I don’t want that to happen to you. That is why you must remain silent about what happened yesterday. It is a dangerous power you have. You must stop your research at once.”
Marie immediately shot up. “Dad, no! Don’t you know how hard Shion has been working? Without him, Mom and I would’ve both died! You can’t have him stop researching magic—”
“It’s dangerous, Marie. I cannot permit it!”
“You don’t know whether or not it’s dangerous!”
“If it is, it’ll be too late once we know! Any power strong enough to slaughter a monster is dangerous. There’s no doubt about that!”
Everything Dad said made sense. As a child, I had killed a monster. It was only natural to view such a power as hazardous. Having used it to save Mom and Marie wouldn’t change his outlook as a parent.
I appreciated Marie’s attempts to defend me. Dad was on a different wavelength here, though, and not having it.
Emotionally, I wanted to disobey his command. I knew that if I did keep researching magic, that it would only cause him endless worry. It also risked that an actual incident happened. The power of magic had already been shown to the world. There would be a limit to how much longer I could guard its secrecy.
My family mattered so much to me, but researching magic was my greatest passion. It was my purpose in life. I couldn’t just stop pursuing it.
I’d live, of course, but giving up magic would be tantamount to giving up on life. I’d just be going through the motions. Everything would be boring. I’d be dead inside.
It’d be easier to accept if I thought magic didn’t exist at all. Having discovered the possibility was there right in front of me, I couldn’t just let go of it.
“I won’t be stopping my research,” I told Dad.
“Shion! Are you saying you will disobey my order? Why don’t you understand?!” His face flushed with anger. I understood his anger. I was his child standing up to him.
I would not back down. This was the one thing I couldn’t give up. I needed it. I needed it to live.
“I do understand, Dad. I understand why you’re telling me to stop, and I think you’re right. But if I stop my research, I won’t be able to be happy. I’ll just be going through the motions in life. Even if it seems like a dangerous power to you, it’s everything I’ve wished for. I’ve worked so hard all this time to make it a reality, and I want to keep doing that.”
Dad appraised me. “You’re still a child. There’s more to this world, Shion. You’re set on it now, but you’ll change your mind when you grow up.”
“I won’t change my mind,” I looked Dad in the eyes. “I know I won’t.”
I had already learned during my first life that I couldn’t just go aimlessly through life. Dad recoiled from the intensity of my gaze.
“It’ll be okay so long as no one else gets involved, right? Then send me somewhere far away!”
“Sh-Shion!” Marie gasped. “What are you saying?”
“I’m serious,” I replied.
I knew that what my father said made sense, but he would not change my mind. I wasn’t a normal kid. I could wait until I was an adult, but if I gave in now, I doubted Dad would ever encourage my magical interests later. I decided the time to take a stand was now.
Dad looked dumbfounded. He didn’t seem mad, rather a little sad and lonesome.
“That’s how badly you want this?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“It could be very dangerous. You showed that it has the power to kill monsters. I have no idea what it is. We don’t even know if it really exists. It might end up taking your own life, Shion.”
“I know all that.”
“Others might not accept what you do. They might ostracize you. You still want to pursue it?”
“I do. I’m determined to. You can disinherit me if I cause our family problems. As a parent, that’s your responsibility.”
Marie was about to say something, but she fell silent again when I looked at her.
I was 100 percent determined. Yes, my family mattered to me. I cared so much about them. However, I could not deny that my whole life—my essence of being—was based on magic. I’d lose myself if I threw that away. So, I was willing to exile myself to spare my family if my research somehow impaired them. I was prepared to do that.
Yes, I loved them, but I couldn’t throw magic away. This is selfish of me, I thought. It was, but I couldn’t change the person I was. I stood firm.
Dad took a slow breath.
“I see. You’re that determined, are you?” He carefully laid his eyes on me.
“Fine. Continue your research.” He nodded generously. “But you will report all of your discoveries to me. If you discover anything dangerous, I will put an end to it, and that’s final.”
“That’s all? I can keep going?!”
“You’ve given me no choice, boy. You’ve shown impressive determination and I can’t overlook that. I never expected to hear such words from a seven-year-old. When I look into your eyes, I can see as a father and as a man that there’s nothing I can say to stop you.”
Dad sighed deeply and all the tension left his body. He smiled at me bitterly. When I looked at him, I felt a sharp pain at the bridge of my forehead. I never expected he would actually understand me. I thought that I was about to face a future where our relationship degraded until he finally disowned me. I was aware of those risks and what a hard life it would be. For magic, though, I would’ve risked death.
Fortunately, my ironclad will had convinced my father. I bowed my head in gratitude.
“Sit up, son,” Dad said. “You have found your path in life and you must follow it all the way through. I’ll do what I can to help you. That is, after all, my responsibility as a parent.”
I looked up. I felt the tears flowing down my cheeks, and yet I couldn’t look away.
Someone held my hand—it was Marie. She still sat next to me, and she layered her hand on top of mine.
“That’s great, Shion.” Marie didn’t look thrilled, but at least she said she was happy for me.
Thank goodness, I thought.
Now, I could freely continue my research. I felt a huge pool of relief well up within me. It had been a brutal few days, but something good came of it. There were now plenty of experiments to explore. I wiped away my tears as hope sparked in my heart.
***
Not long after that conversation, I gave Dad a demonstration and showed him my hand charged with mana.
“Nope. I don’t see it at all,” he said.
This was not a surprise to us given the history with the orbs.
“It’s pretty bright,” I said. “If you can’t even see this, I may not be able to show it to you.”
“Hmm. You can see it, Marie?”
“Yeah, I can,” she said. “All of the light is packed into his right hand. Maybe it’s different from how Shion sees it, though. Shion, can I try touching the mana when you’re doing Magicluster?”
I hesitated. This was the same mana that felled a goblin. I couldn’t have that happen to Marie. Although, when I was in Magicoat, all she felt was a faint warmth. She would probably be fine if I didn’t emit too much mana at once.
“Hang on, let me reduce the amount I’m emitting first. Okay, now try it. Take your hand away immediately if it feels hot.”
“Of course.”
The light dimmed as I reduced the amount of mana. Marie reached out and touched it.
“It’s a little hot,” she said, “but not as hot as a flame. So, if you start releasing more mana, then it will be like the time with the goblin?”
“I think so,” I said. “But that interaction was only possible because the goblin also had mana. That’s why Dad can touch it and feel nothing. It’s only dangerous for others who have mana themselves.”
“Would that mean that it is an effective technique to use against monsters?” Dad asked.
“It’s hard to say. I don’t know if all goblins have mana, or if it was just that one. It could be like with humans, some have mana and some don’t, right?”
“So, it won’t affect just anyone,” Dad said, nodding in understanding.
Marie and I met eyes. Apparently, we both had the same question.
“Uh, hey, Dad,” I said. “You seem to have come around pretty quickly after our big talk.”
“I’ve decided to believe you, so there’s no use in doubting everything. I can’t see it or feel it now, but maybe I will at some point. All parents should have some interest in what their kids like.”
Well, that’s not necessarily true, I thought. Dad just really loved us. I was glad that he was becoming interested. I appreciated this mindset of his.
“But this means that releasing mana could be dangerous for other people with mana responses, right?” Dad asked.
“Yes, definitely. I’ll need to be careful. We don’t want anyone getting hurt.”
“Very well,” Dad grunted. “So, is that everything you’ve discovered so far?”
“Yes, unfortunately,” I replied. “There is something I haven’t tried yet. I want to try lighting a fire.”
“Do it close to the well, then,” Dad said. “We can extinguish it quickly there.”
Marie whispered in my ear on our way outside to the well.
“Dad is all about it! I can’t believe it after earlier.”
“Maybe Dad likes it. He might have a romantic imagination.”
“What do you mean?”
I assumed that only other guys would understand what I meant. There were plenty of things about women I didn’t get. While Dad had been decrying how dangerous magic was, its fantastic possibility had nonetheless captured his imagination. It was classic boy brain. I’m not saying that girls couldn’t be interested in the fantastic, but I thought Dad’s new enthusiasm was at least partially due to him being a man.
“Shion! Aren’t you coming?” Dad’s voice carried from the garden. He really was all fired up. My heart was racing too, so I couldn’t blame him.
Marie and I found him outside stacking up firewood. It looked like he was prepping for a bonfire. We gathered by the well in the corner of the garden. “All right,” Dad said. “I’m going to light it up. Ready?” He held up a flint, and the boyish sparkle in Dad’s eyes was endearing.
“Ready!” we said.
He struck the flint and the wood ignited. He bent down and blew on the wood to make the flames grow higher. He clearly knew what he was doing. I couldn’t have done it so easily.
“Thanks, Dad. Okay, now, everyone step back,” I said.
The two of them gave me some space and watched me closely. I bent on my knees in front of the fire and used Magicluster. With the mana concentrated in my hand, I touched the light to the fire. Instantly, the flames spread to my hand.
It all happened so fast. I never touched the fire with my hand, only with the mana. The fire spread so fast you would’ve thought my hand was drenched in gasoline. Everything past my wrist was blazing in bright blue flames.
That’s hot! Seriously, freaking hot! I was panicking from the heat and the unexpected result of the experiment.
“I’m on fire!” I shrieked.
“Shion!” yelled Marie.
“What’s happening?!” Dad shouted. He immediately drenched my hand with water from the bucket he held.
Thankfully, that extinguished the flame, but a burnt smell was left behind. The damage was less than it had felt like. Sweet lord, that was hot.
“Wow, that could’ve been bad. Thanks, Dad.”
“No kidding. That was dangerous, to say the least!” Dad exclaimed. “Thank goodness I filled this bucket just in case. I was worried something like that might happen.”
I blushed. “I don’t know what to say. Thanks, Dad.”
Dad and Marie continued to huff and puff in disbelief. I realized that I should’ve thought things through more. I never imagined the fire would spread straight to my hand.
“What just happened?” Marie asked. “It looked like the fire just jumped to your hand! It was blue, too.”
“Yeah, about that,” I said. “You know how mana only reacts to other people’s mana? Well, there might be something similar going on there. I have two thoughts about it. First, we know what happens when something magical brushes up against a dense source of mana. We saw that with the goblin. But there’s also the question of what mana does to ordinary things. That’s what I was exploring here. Well, we just found out—the fire reacted to the mana. The flames touched the mana and turned blue. I’m sure that’s why it happened.”
“I see,” Dad said. “So, you were investigating what would happen to mana when you made it touch a flame. That might apply to other things as well.”
“Possibly. I’ll need to experiment with several different things. I want to stay focused on fire for now. The result was unexpected, but it demonstrated that mana does interact with fire.”
“I saw it with my own eyes,” Dad said, nodding. “I certainly believe it now. Everything you’ve been saying is true.” He chuckled.
That made me smile.
“What’s going on? I don’t get it,” Marie said, looking between us.
“Oh, don’t worry about it, Marie! There are things that only you understand too!” I exclaimed. “You’ve been so helpful up until now. I would have never found out about mana if it hadn’t been for you!”
“Oh, yeah? Yeah.” Marie giggled. “Yeah! It’s all because of me, right?”
“Right!”
She was back on her feet. As easy to read—and adorable—as ever.
How about that extreme interaction between mana and fire! As soon as I thought about it, a realization flashed into my mind: That was basically magic, wasn’t it?
The flames didn’t materialize out of nowhere, but the mana I had generated had caught flame. It seemed awfully like fire magic. Could I be on the verge of shooting fireballs out of my hand?
“Muah ha ha! Fireballs! Soon, I shall shoot fireballs!” I couldn’t stop chortling.
“Look at that disgusting expression on Shion’s face! What the heck is going on?!”
“He always makes that face when he discovers something about magic,” Marie said. “Just look away.”
“I-is that so? I guess I’ve learned a new side of my son today. I don’t know whether to be happy or sad about it.”
I didn’t have time to think about what they were saying. My thoughts were galloping ahead with dreams of magic! Magic. I possibly just had my first taste of the real deal.
What a happy day! I wanted to skip. I was so glad to have been reborn into this life. It hadn’t always been easy, but it had its rewards. For the first time, I was starting to like it here.
Chapter 4: Flare
Chapter 4:
Flare
THE VERY NEXT DAY, I COMMENCED THE SERIOUS experiments. I recognized that they ran real risks. Dad was reluctant at first, but I ultimately convinced him. He even agreed to join in. He said he couldn’t permit me to experiment with only Rose and Marie around. I was grateful for his presence. With Dad around, I could go all out.
“So, you’re really doing this, Shion?” he asked. He crouched next to me with taut lips.
“Of course, Dad. And you’ll stay with me to the end?” I had taken my shirt off as a precaution.
“When you get all riled up like this, I can’t turn you down,” Dad scoffed. “Very well. I’ll stick with you to the bitter end! Let’s do this!”
Marie was across the garden practicing her swordplay. She wanted to focus on her own stuff today. She’d become more devoted to her training.
She wouldn’t ever admit it, but it was probably due to the goblin attack. I was a little worried about her, but I kept it to myself. Marie didn’t intrude on my stuff when I struggled with my magic. If a time were to come when I could help her, I certainly intended to do so. I swore I would as I watched her determined profile as she practiced.
I stood in front of the fire and concentrated mana into my right hand. The plan today was to test the reaction between it and the element. I would change the variables as I went along. I would experiment with mana amounts, fire strengths, and whether the mana would react to indirect heat. By experimenting with these variables, I hoped to conclude how the interaction between mana and fire functioned. It was simple but essential work.
“Let’s do this, Dad!”
“Ready when you are!”
I touched my mana to the flame. Immediately, it caught fire.
“Hot, hot, hot!”
“Take that!” Dad doused my hand with the water from his bucket. It extinguished the flame.
“Yeesh, that was hot!” I gasped. “Just like before! The smoke was a dark gray; the flame was blue. Let’s try with a hotter fire now.”
“Sounds good,” Dad said. He added more firewood until the blaze grew stronger. “All ready, son!”
I concentrated the mana in my hand, and transferred the fire.
“Hot, hot, hot!”
“All right!” With a splash, Dad once again quenched the flame.
“Hang on. That was just as hot as last time, and there was also no change in the colors. Let’s try with a smaller amount of mana, next.”
“Let’s do it!”
I reduced the amount in my right hand and touched it to the flame. The mana caught fire again—yowch!—but the flame wasn’t as strong as before.
“Hot!”
“Hii-yaah!” Dad was getting used to this. He splashed me with another bucketful of well water. Thanks to him, the fire only lasted for a split second. It was never enough to actually burn me. Even so, this was a reckless experiment. I was surprised Dad allowed it.
“The heat was still there, but the flame was smaller. Maybe less mana does mean less firepower! Okay, let’s do the next one.”
We experimented for a few hours until I ran out of mana. Exhausted, I dropped to the ground.
“Shion, I think it’s time to rest,” Dad said. “I’ll bring you some water and a towel.”
“Oh, thanks, Dad.”
While I was taking a breather, Rose arrived as composed and proper as always. I waved, and she returned it. Without a word, she came and sat down next to me a little ways away. My feelings were almost hurt until I realized the ground around me was sopping wet.
“It’s soaked,” Rose observed. “Were you doing magic experiments?”
I explained my methods to Rose. She listened with interest, then gasped. This was a rare expression for her.
“You’re turning mana into fire?! Is that possible?”
“It is,” I said. “I can show you later when Dad is back. I’m not allowed to practice it without him.”
“So, you told Lord Gawain about it,” Rose said. “And he approved?”
“After a fuss,” I said. “But now, he’s actually helping me.”
“Is that so? Lord Gawain is a very understanding father,” Rose said with a strange squint.
I couldn’t read her mind, but she seemed relieved. Had she been worrying about me? It reminded me how helpful Rose had been during the goblin attack.
“Rose,” I said. “Thanks for the other day.”
“The other day? What do you mean?”
“You know, after the goblin died. You made sure I was okay. I really appreciated that.”
“Shion, there’s no need to be grateful. I should be grateful to you. You saved us all.”
I sensed the tenderness on her face. It brought me a strong sense of comfort and relief. Dad had warned me about what the villagers might think about supernatural powers. The thought of their fear and disgust in me that he had described actually kept me up at night.
Not that any of that would stop me from pursuing my research. My own feelings didn’t depend on other people’s approval. Still, what Rose said now was a subtle sign of acceptance. My heart instantly felt as light as a feather. It wasn’t that I didn’t have support. Dad’s acceptance was a huge help, as well the fact that I could always lean on Marie. She had supported me from the beginning.
But Rose was different. She was a good girl. She was special.
“So, was that magic back there?” she asked.
“I dunno,” I said. “It’s hard to say. For some reason, only other things that have mana react to it. So, you need to be careful around other people with mana. Be careful, Rose.”
“Understood, Shion. I will. It’s kind of terrifying isn’t it—magic? It could have possibilities far beyond anything we can imagine.”
“I agree, but that just makes it more exciting.”
Rose returned my smile. Weirdly, I didn’t feel like there was any sort of awkwardness between us. I hadn’t spent as much time with her as I had with Marie, but it felt like we had become good friends.
Rose watched Marie practice her swordplay.
“Now, that’s interesting, Marie,” she said. “You spend all day with Shion, and yet you can’t stop talking about him to me for one second?”
“Wh-what? We don’t spend all day together!”
“Is that so? That’s not what it looks like to me.”
I thought to chime in on Marie’s behalf, but Rose wasn’t wrong. We did pretty much spend all our time together. I couldn’t think of many days when we were apart. That didn’t mean all day, every day, of course, but we were together for most of them. I could see how Rose thought we were joined at the hip.
“Perhaps it also has to do with the goblins,” Rose mused.
“Could be,” I said.
“Your sister is quite the stubborn girl,” Rose said. “Once she sets her mind on something, no one can sway her. That often means I have to bend to her will most of the time.”
“Er, sorry about that.”
“It’s okay.” Rose chuckled. “I also like that about her. Sure, she can cause you trouble, but she’s always ready to help you too. She has a kind heart.”
“Yeah, I think so too.”
“Always watch out for her, Shion. She’ll do the same for you.”
Rose intended it as an off-hand comment, but I nodded wholeheartedly. Marie really had been my ally since day one. Of course I would do the same for her, especially if she were ever in trouble. She was my one and only sister, after all.
***
One month passed. I couldn’t practice fire magic when Dad wasn’t around, so I worked on my mana instead. Sometimes Marie and Rose joined me, but Marie was becoming more focused on her sword training. I had a few new discoveries by the end of that month.
One: The amount of mana I put into Magicluster corresponded with the resulting volume of flames. The more mana, the more fire. This fit into my existing assumptions about magic. It meant that if I increased my mana output, I would be able to cast stronger spells.
Two: After experimenting around with various fires, it turned out that my mana didn’t actually need to touch a live flame. Strong heat could set fire to mana, too.
Three: Touching fire while in Magicoat didn’t do anything but catch fire normally. In other words, it was no different from how a non-magical object caught fire. The fire also stayed reddish orange, indicating a normal flame.
Four: If I clothed the part of my body that was using Magicluster, like my hand with a glove, the mana would go through the cloth and into the surrounding air. When the mana there touched the fire, it flamed up, but also burned the glove.
In summary, I learned how to control the amount of fire, but I hadn’t discovered how to safely ignite it up around the body.
Mana itself functioned as a kind of combustible fluid. Of course, I knew this only represented one facet of mana’s qualities. It would probably react in different ways to different phenomena. Only further experimenting would confirm that.
By the month’s end, I decided to take a break. That’s why this day found me hanging out in the living room. Dad, Marie, and Rose were gathered around the coffee table. Dad knew that Rose sometimes assisted me with my magic experiments. He was giving her his official permission to keep doing so while cautioning her to its dangers. It was an understandable stance from an adult toward children.
Dad broke the ice first, or should I say, lit the flame.
“Shion, I think it’s been a very productive month of experiments, but I feel like you’ve reached the limit. It’s going to be hard to learn anything else further if we only stay focused on fire. We’ve learned that mana catches on fire, and that you have some amount of control over it. But you need to move on.”
“I think you’re right, Dad,” I said. “I was hoping to find a way to turn the flame into a projectile, but I don’t think it works like that.”
“If only there was a fire-proof glove…” Dad sighed. “Unfortunately, there’s no such thing.”
I figured this world wouldn’t have fireproof gloves. If it had, the material would’ve already been utilized in fire protection.
As Dad and I grumbled about the sticky situation, Marie spoke up.
“What about the orbs of light from the trout? Those are mana, aren’t they? The fish shot them from their bodies. Why can’t you try to do the same thing with fire?”
“Yeah, I thought of that. It’s not possible.”
“Huh? No, it is possible!” Marie said with a decisive nod. She turned her palms face up to reveal small, floating marbles of light. They drifted up into the air, then vanished. My jaw dropped.
“What?” I shrieked. “How did you do that? Since when do you know how to use Magicluster?!”
“You told me how to, Shion,” Marie said. “So, I tried it out and it worked. I don’t think my—is it Mana Eject?—is as much as yours. Rose, you can do it too, right?”
“I certainly can,” Rose said. She did the exact same thing as Marie, except her orbs looked a bit bigger than Marie’s. The same beautiful, shimmering orbs rose from her palms and disappeared into the sky.
I guess you two are a pair of prodigies, I thought.
When had they learned all this? I had dedicated all of my time to magic, whereas Marie spent her time sword training while Rose did housework. Somewhere in between all that, they not only had learned Magicluster but figured out how to release mana from their bodies.
“I only recently figured it out,” Marie said with a shrug.
“I didn’t mention it because I assumed that you could already do it, Shion,” said Rose. “I apologize. I’ll be sure to bring it up next time.”
Well, that answered my follow-up: Why the heck didn’t you guys tell me?! I guess I couldn’t really blame them.
“Y-yes, please do,” I stuttered. “More importantly, tell me how you do it?”
“You just do,” Marie said. “You just try to release it from your palms, and it does. I guess it is kind of hard, though.”
“You have to maintain precise control,” Rose added. “The moment you lose focus, it won’t work.”
As the two of them spoke, little bubbles of light continued bubbling up from their hands. They were idly doing something I had never managed to do myself. I ignored a rising sense of failure to stay optimistic. After all, this meant it was possible for me to do. It should be, anyway, although I hadn’t ever managed to release mana from my body before. How were they doing it so easily?
I looked closer at their light orbs and Magiclusters. The orbs were no bigger than marbles. Their mana light membranes around their bodies were far fainter than mine. This meant that I had a lot more Mana Eject.
Light up! Magicluster activated in my palm. I concentrated on trying to release the mana from my hand. The next moment, a baseball-sized orb of light floated into the air. I watched it soar away and disappear.
“Hey, you just did it!” Marie said.
“That was a lot bigger than ours,” Rose said.
“Did he just do it?” Dad asked. “It’s frustrating to not be able to see. How did you figure it out? Why weren’t you able to do it before?”
I contemplated his questions. “I think it’s about the amount of Mana Eject. If my Mana Eject at is at one hundred, let’s say that my maximum Magicluster in my hand is around eighty. I was trying to release all eighty of that mana at once. But to release mana, you need to leave a reserve in your hand. That’s the energy needed to shoot off the mana, I suppose.”
It made sense if you thought about it. It was like water dripping down from the ceiling. The water doesn’t plunge directly to the floor. There’s always a small amount that stays clung to the ceiling. You couldn’t rip all the water off the ceiling at once.
This explained why I couldn’t concentrate 100 percent of the mana into one point. In the same way, you couldn’t get rid of 100 percent of your mana at once. You needed some mana to push the other mana out. That meant that you could only emit about 60 percent of your total mana potential at any given time. It didn’t seem efficient, but I decided to worry about that later.
“Let’s go outside already!” I said.
“Ooh! I’m there!” Dad said.
“Why do the two of you always look like you’re having so much fun with this?” Marie sighed.
“Now, now, Marie. We’re going, too,” said Rose. This cheered up my exasperated-looking sister.
I led the three of them outside. Dad got to work setting up the bonfire, as always, while Rose and Marie drew some water from the well. I stripped off my shirt and filled a few buckets.
“Everything’s ready, Shion,” Dad called. “Let’s go!”
“All right. I’ll start now.” I faced the fire. I summoned Magicluster into my palms, and mana shot out from my body. When it reached the bonfire, it lit up in bright blue flames. From there, those flames floated up toward the sky and vanished.
“It worked? It worked!”
“Amazing! You did it, Shion!” Dad shouted, beaming.
Marie laughed in shock while Rose merrily applauded.
Wow—that was magic! Lame magic, sure, but who cares?
There was more to come, I was sure of it! Yeah, it was weak compared to the type of magic I expected. The fire literally just floated up and faded into the sky. I had conjured it, though. That was magic that I had thought of, searched for, and invented. What a rush!
Magic didn’t exist in this world, or it hadn’t, until now. I had found it. That thought alone made me so happy. The thought that I could use magic! I was so elated that tears flowed down my face.
“Hee hee, magic! I did magic. Muah ha ha!”
“Ugh! He’s doing the creepy laugh again, Marie!”
“Good job, Shion. Congrats,” Marie giggled.
“That was wonderful,” Rose agreed.
I appreciated the praise, but I wasn’t done yet. I wiped away my tears, then took something out of my pocket.
“Is that a flint?” Dad asked.
He nailed it. It was a tool shaped like a small pair of tweezers with a stone affixed on the end. It only released small sparks appropriate for indoor use.
“Watch this.” I lifted my hand out in front of me. It gripped the portable flint. I activated Magicluster, then struck the flint the moment mana released from out of the same hand. Instantly, the spark shot into the mana and burst into flame. The newly-born fire gently burned up into the sky and faded.
“Wh-what was that, Shion? That sure looked like magic to me!”
“Wow! Wow—I would’ve never thought of that!”
“Those flames…incredible. So, this is magic!”
All three of them were thrilled.
I had been mulling over this for a while. Up until now, we had lit a fire, then touched it with mana. That wasn’t magic, so I’d been thinking one step ahead. What could I do if I did figure out how to eject mana out of my body? I just never expected to be able to put the pieces together all at once. But I did now!
My magic experiments had advanced to the stage of practical application. Of course, there was room for improvement, especially considering that my so-called fireballs only floated up and away. I needed them to shoot straight forward like bullets. I felt eons away from learning how to make that happen.
Still, this was magic. There was no question what I’d been working toward for the last three years. The success lifted me up so I high that I started to worry what might happen were I to fall down.
“Heh, hoo! I made magic! I did it. I seriously did. I literally did it.”
“Wow, he’s so happy that his face is even creepier than usual,” Marie said. “And he can’t talk properly, either.”
“It’s quite a difference from his usual stern persona,” Rose said. “Although…I get the feeling that if he were to relax more, he’d always look like this?”
“He’s on top of the world now,” Dad said. “Just let him be, girls.”
The three of them ever so slightly inched away from me. I didn’t care. The happiness bursting inside me wouldn’t abate.
Thank you, universe!Thank you for granting me magic!
I swore to keep developing magic and to give it my best. I swore to work even harder to use more magic. I swore all of this to myself.
It was a week after our experiment and now a month since the goblin incident occurred. Since then, the villagers had been both thanking and showing their concern for me. A few kept their distance, but I understood, considering what happened.
It was unlikely that Dad had explained the details to the villagers. That would only cause confusion. He had told them not to speak about what happened outside of the village. The people here were kind, but some of them tended to gossip. They seemed to have heeded Dad so far.
As for Mom, she fully recovered without issue. Today was her first day back to her usual routine around the house. She was taking it easy, though.
After breakfast, the four of us gathered in the living room. Nobody had told Mom about the magic or the goblin incident yet. She had been bedridden with her injury, after all. Now there was little trace of the wound left. It was such a relief to see her back to her old self again.
“So, what is it that we need to talk about?” Mom asked.
Facing her gentle smile, I told her everything. Dad and Marie chimed in with additional details.
When I finished, Mom nodded. “I see, I see. Is it really true? I don’t think I fully understand it, but you should follow your passion, Shion.”
Her simple response took me off guard. It made sense once I thought about it more. She always watched over me with so much patience and kindness. It was inevitable that she would accept me.
She sat there beaming at me with her trademark soft smile. Her broad-hearted generosity moved me. Are there really parents out there like this? They are so composed and kind? I felt so grateful to have been born into this family.
“Just make sure to tell me and your father if anything happens, okay?” she said. “We’ll be here to help you. Even if we can’t, it’ll feel better to get things off your chest.”
“Yes, I will from now on.” I said. “I already promised Dad I would.”
Mom giggled. “Then we’re good to go. Good luck, darling.”
I felt almost bewildered in the face of her cheery expression. Mom and Dad were both so magnanimous. I had freedom thanks to them.
Overcome by the combination of gratitude and respect, I finally smiled. The last of my anxieties were all cleared up. I had new determination in my heart. I could now devote myself to magic to the fullest extent.
Let’s do this!
***
Time passed. The house repairs finally concluded, and everything calmed down. It was time to resume the sword fighting training in earnest. That is, Marie and Rose began their training, while I ran around them in circles.
Dad told me I had to work on my fitness alongside my magic, so I started exercising regularly. It was true that not being fit would lead to its fair share of problems. Who knew what could happen? It was possible that more monsters would attack. I’d need to be ready. With that in mind, I made up my mind and managed to convince myself to exercise more.
Marie and Rose sparred. They were evenly matched. Marie’s fighting style overwhelmed an opponent with fast, athletic moves, whereas Rose kept her movements sparse while making sharp judgments in timing her strikes. Of course, they were both kids, so they’d be useless in a real battle now. Even so, Dad was training them from the ground up, while keeping their age and aptitudes in mind.
Marie’s instinctual attacks gave her a lot of edge . Rose couldn’t mix in a series of bluffs and blows the way that Marie could. With a flurry of swift assaults, Marie’s sword managed to catch Rose’s arm. Rose dropped her wooden sword to the ground and grabbed her arm to rub it.
“Ugh! I lost.”
They both collapsed to the ground and gasped for breath. They had really fought to the limit.
“Nice work!” Dad called. “That’s enough training for the day.”
Rose popped up and started to tidy up as though her defeat were in the distant past.
I had seen them fight many times now. I could tell that Marie had the slight edge. Rose had a good eye, and she responded to Marie’s attacks well, but she didn’t have the endurance to win.
Rose wandered over toward me.
“Good job, Rose,” I said.
“The same to you,” she replied. She wiped away her sweat. “You don’t seem to be out of breath from your running.”
“I’m getting used to it. You get into decent shape when you run this much.”
“Indeed.”
Rose looked pensive, overly so for our small talk.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
“Well, I don’t feel like I’m getting much better at fighting.”
“That’s not true, Rose,” I said. She must have been disappointed at losing the duel, although she didn’t seem to care much before. Rose tended to keep her true feelings hidden. She wasn’t cold, but she was guarded around others, especially when troubled.
“I think I want to try combining magic with my fighting,” she said. “But since you need one hand to use Magicluster, that means I’d wield a sword one-handed as well. I can’t do that skillfully enough right now.”
“That’s a good thought, Rose.” Dad came over. He sounded impressed. “It would certainly be difficult for a child of your age to wield a sword with one hand. You could pull it off with a lightweight rapier or dagger, but I don’t recommend that for beginners. Longswords are the fundamental basics, you know. They’ll develop your muscles and keep your options open to changing weapons in the future.”
“Right, I see. Maybe I can’t fight with magic right now, after all. I suppose that’s just how it is.”
It would be one thing to focus solely on using magic, like me, but to do so while fighting with a blade seemed tough. Maybe, with new discoveries, that would change in the future.
“I have to go home now,” Rose said.
“Be careful on the road,” Dad said.
“See you later, Rose!”
Once we saw Rose off, I looked for Marie. She was still practicing in the garden. She’d been at it nonstop the past few weeks. Even after her training with Dad finished, she’d go right back into the garden to practice swipes and jabs by herself.
Marie had changed ever since the goblin attack. She was herself most of the time, but she was more devoted to the blade than ever.
“Marie, that’s enough for today,” Dad said.
“No, I’m fine,” she replied. “I’ll come inside for dinner. You said that the more I train the stronger I’ll get, right?”
“I did say that, but there’s a limit.” I think he was concerned Marie was overdoing it. I had to agree with him.
“Marie, listen to Dad. Why won’t you take a break?”
Marie dropped her arms. I thought we had convinced her, but then she glared at me. I was taken aback. I’d never seen her like that before. It was shocking to have someone you’re so close with get mad at you like that. It shook me to my core, and my heart rattled in my chest.
The glare only lasted for a second. She looked at the ground.
“Yeah, I know. You’re probably right.” With that, she went back inside.
I couldn’t respond. All I could do was stand there motionless.
“Don’t worry about it, Shion. Marie’s just a little on edge.” Dad patted me on the head.
“I know.”
She’d been through a lot. It would be difficult to just go back to the way things were before. Dad and Mom managed to carry along like usual, but I’m sure there was a lot that they worried over. Not only had Marie put her life on the line to protect us, but Mom sacrificed herself and was injured in the process. It was an earth-shattering event. Personally, I found the incident inspiring. It helped me figure out how to protect my family by using magic.
Does she hate me now? Marie was so important to me that the unbidden thought terrified me.
Dad and I went inside together. The day ended with awkwardness lingering in the air.
***
While it was still a work in progress, I decided to name my elemental fire magic Flare. Since it was far from legitimate magic, I called it Trial Flare for now. The flames created by Trial Flare floated up and away. That made it a completely incompetent offense. It served no purpose whatsoever. My biggest goal now was to make it shoot straight forward. If I could do that, the small flames could become a weapon for me.
To accomplish this, I needed to up the intensity of my consciousness and focus. I developed a command: Mana, shoot straight out of my right hand. This would shift the energy from Magicoat to Magicluster, then shoot 60 percent of the mana out. I realized that some mana was lost during this moving process. Issuing a command apparently consumed some mana.
I decided on a new experiment. My research question: when you released the bare minimum amount of mana, did it decrease the further away it was from your body? Yes, I learned that it did, although only by a small amount. Still, the magical flame became smaller the further I stood from the fire.
At present, I could activate Magicoat up to thirty times in one day. Therefore, I could conduct up to thirty attempts at Trial Flare. There was no doubt about it—I’d invented a magic spell. It was a flying ball of flame, and it made for a menacing attack. I could use it to defeat all goblins or monsters that attacked us.
I tested Trial Flare on a variety of objects. Naturally, rocks and hard objects were unaffected, but flammable objects like wood were set aflame. This meant that I could burn objects from a distance. Of course, I couldn’t aim the flames to set an enemy target on fire like the magic of my dreams. Regardless, the fire magic would burn anything it touched. It was the equivalent of throwing a torch at your opponent. Since I could perform it up to thirty times, it was already an effective attack. It created new work for me to do, however.
“Shion, can you light it?”
I followed Dad’s request and set light to the firewood. The weather had turned cold, so we were using our fireplaces inside. Since it took a while to light them manually, it became my daily chore. I carried around the portable flint, used Trial Flare, and started the fires.
“Thanks! That really helps. The blue flame is a bit disturbing, though,” Dad said.
“I’d say it’s disappointingly ordinary.”
“What are you talking about? This is anything but ordinary. You’re the only person in the world who can do this. I think it’s incredible.”
The praise was nice, although it felt like flattery to coax me into doing more errands. Still, it felt good to be useful. Fire magic was different from how I had imagined it, but it wasn’t bad. Now, if I could just overcome my next dead end…
At present, a fire source was required to activate the spell. No problem: along with a source, I had a flammable substance—mana—and oxygen. It was useless without my flint, though. I wanted to figure out how to use the technique without it. It wasn’t exactly cool to carrying a flint around with me everywhere I went. Ideally, I could use a staff or a wand to control my magic.
On the one hand, I felt like I had begun to use proper, real magic; on the other, my goal still lay far ahead. I wanted to use not just magic, but epic magic. I didn’t even know if that was possible, but I couldn’t just give up on my dreams.
I wanted to figure out how to use magic barehanded, but I had no clue where to start. Maybe Flare wasn’t even possible in the first place. To get unstuck, I needed a new tactic. That was how I’d always dealt with things.
I decided to put Flare on hold for a bit while I moved on to the next experiment.
Chapter 5: Thundercite
Chapter 5:
Thundercite
WINTER ARRIVED AND BROUGHT WITH IT cold, dry air. I changed my set of clothes to deal with the chilly temperatures. I didn’t mind it. I found there was something fantastical as well as purifying about it.
Since I was giving Flare a rest, I officially moved on to my next big experiment: lightning magic. There was a reason why I decided to do lightning after fire. In video games, the main types of magic were usually fire, water, wind, earth, lightning, darkness, and holy. Out of these, earth and water were physical objects rather than phenomena, and I didn’t know what to do about darkness or holy magic. That left fire, wind, and lightning.
Judging from my fire experiments, I assessed that mana interacted with it. Wind was nothing more than air, so it already blew against my mana every time I practiced it. I did try sending some mana into the ground and water, but nothing happened. Lightning was my only hope.
I know what you are thinking. Flints create fire by producing a spark—an electric spark, meaning that the Flare technique that I had been calling fire magic was actually a lightning magic of sorts. Perhaps this was why the flint created blue flames.
I arrived at a provisional hypothesis: the physics and sciences of this world did not align with what I knew from Earth. That, or magic simply existed beyond the bounds of those rules. Either way, I presumed that under the principles of magic, the physical phenomena of discharging sparks fell within the category of fire magic.
It may sound like a big assumption, but I was starting to consider that this planet was likely not Earth. I had thought about this plenty of times before, but I had always gotten caught up in logic and commonsense and lost track of an answer. Magic was supposedly pure fantasy, after all.
I concluded that spark discharge equals fire magic. If you wanted to get really technical, both electricity and fire were related to plasma…no, never mind that. I thought that I needed a direct source of electricity to create lightning magic. Part of me feared that no substances other than fire reacted to mana. That would mean that magic in this world didn’t live up to my expectations, and all I could do was pray for another outcome.
Only experiments would tell. I would see what happens when mana is applied to a source of electricity! The only obvious problem? There were no electrical outlets or anything of the sort here. I’d have to make an electric source from scratch.
The simplest way to self-generate electricity was to create static electricity. You could do this by rubbing some fabric or wool material against a rod of metal or glass. My best bet was using metal as a conductor, but for that I’d also need the equivalent of a grounding wire that would absorb and reset the current. For that, I’d need rubber…if it existed here.
Hang on, isn’t glass also an electricity insulator? I felt like I had heard that it didn’t conduct electricity well. Neon tubes would’ve been even better, but of course I didn’t have access to those. They required electricity to be made in the first place. But would generating static electricity in the first place be enough to create sparks with my mana?
Uh, do we have any Hiraga Gennai’s in the chat? Or maybe one of his famous hand-operated generators? But I’d need a Leyden jar for that (I think?). Ugh, I don’t even know where to begin. I wasn’t particularly interested in beginning, either. Especially since I had no idea if the glass in this world, or any of the other substances, would possess the same properties as they had on Earth. I’d need to investigate all of that to find out. If there were electric eels or a similar animal around, all this would be a heck of a lot easier.
Of course, I could research each of these things individually, but that would be pricey. Any custom glassware or metal products would be crazy expensive. Certainly, they would be out of a seven-year-old’s budget, and I didn’t want to cause Dad any trouble.
All I needed was a cheap source of electricity. The most surefire method would be a static electricity generator, but I didn’t have any synthetic fibers or plastics. Even if I had, it would be tough generating a static spark large enough to be visible. I’d heard that historically, static electricity wasn’t something most people encountered in their lives.
How do I do this?
I hardly moved before I bumped into another wall. Maybe Dad would have some ideas. I went to the living room where Dad was resting.
“Hey there, Shion. Do you need any help with your research today?”
“Yeah, kinda. I’m a bit stuck, and would like to hear your thoughts. Are there any tools or animals out there that can create electricity?”
“Electricity? What’s that?” Dad scratched his chin.
Oh. I guess that makes sense, I thought. They didn’t even have a word for it.
“Err, uh, you know, it’s what happens when there’s a lightning strike.”
“There aren’t any animals or tools that make lightning,” Dad said. “Does it need to be actual lightning?”
“I want to touch my mana to it,” I explained. “Of course, lightning is unpredictable and too dangerous. Even if you set up and stood there with a lightning rod, who knows how long it would take.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I get the gist. Still, this electricity thing…I do feel like I’ve heard about something like a lightning strike, but less intense.”
Was he was talking about static electricity? His phrasing made it seem more like he was talking about a natural phenomenon. If the surge was big enough to be seen, then it meant that whatever it generated was a substantial amount of electricity. How did it work?
“Graste has mentioned it before,” Dad said. “All right, should we head for Istria today?”
“Yeah! Please!”
Mom was out for the day, and Marie said she wanted to stay home to practice sword fighting. She never took so much as a single day off. Sure, I had been working on my magic daily, but that didn’t really strain my body. Training with a sword really wiped you out. I couldn’t even imagine what it would feel like to train as much as Marie did.
Mom and Dad were often concerned and cautioned her to rest. She wouldn’t even talk to me about it, not after the goblin attack. We talked normally mostly, but whenever I brought up her fighting, her eyes told me that she had no comment. I hated seeing Marie like that, so I started avoiding the topic. I guess she felt cornered. Still, it wasn’t that big of a problem for now, so I just kept an eye on her.
It was a boy’s trip to the city. I thought about inviting Rose, but that would mean more work for Dad. She probably had chores to do anyhow. Kids worked a lot in the village, so she couldn’t spontaneously take a day off.
After making our preparations, we went outside. Dad got the horses ready without the carriage.
“Where’s the carriage?” I asked.
“We don’t need it today,” Dad said. “We don’t need to shop. It’ll be fastest with just the horses. We’ll arrive twice as quickly.”
Made sense to me. This was my first time riding a horse, and I was a little nervous about it.
“All right, get on up.” Dad lifted me up on to the saddle. It was a lot harder than expected. My butt was for sure gonna be sore after this.
Dad hopped on the steed behind me. He tugged the reigns and the horses moved.
“Th-this is p-pretty bumpy!”
“You’ll get used to it,” Dad said. “Just hang in there. Hold on tight. We’re off to the races!”
I gripped the front of the saddle, and pushed myself into a more comfortable position. The horses were way too fast. Were they always this speedy? This was nothing like human running. It felt like we weren’t running so much as gliding over the ground. There was still plenty of shaking and vibrating though. My rear already ached.
The beginning was the easiest part. My butt started tingling after about ten minutes or so. Then, the pain spread to my bones. I tried to stretch out my back to compensate.
“Lower yourself down,” Dad commanded.
I had no choice. If I stretched too high, I could easily fall off the horse given the speed and turbulence. Dad hugged me closely from behind, so I could only assume we were moving at a fraction of the maximum speed. Yet we were moving fast enough to make my butt ache. What would things look like at full speed? I was pretty sure that would just rip my body in two.
Somehow, I bore it for about an hour. Dad kept our pace steady, and compared our one-hour time on horse to the several hours it would have taken on foot or by carriage. My butt had gone numb by the time we reached Istria. I felt utterly wiped out. I wished we had taken the carriage.
“I don’t like horses,” I told Dad.
“You will have to ride them to get by as an adult, son,” Dad said. “You can’t keep riding with me all the time.”
Into my mind popped the image of an adult man riding a horse with his father. What an unpleasant sight. I guess I would have to practice riding from now on.
In any case, we made it to Istria.
I’ll stop the grievances here. I didn’t want to complain when Dad had gone out of his way to take me there.
We passed through the various streets to Graste’s shop. We arrived, tethered the horses, and went in.
“Welc—oh, is that really you, Gawain? Just father and son today?”
“Just so,” Dad said. “Do you have a moment? We wanted to ask you about something.”
“Do I look busy? I’m so free that I’m a hair’s width from closing shop.”
It was only noon. That seemed too soon to call from my perspective. Maybe he was joking?
“So, what is it?” Graste asked.
“Didn’t you tell me once about a type of stone that makes lightning? Do you remember that?”
“Oh, yeah. I remember. It’s called thundercite. What about it?”
“We happen to be in the market for some,” Dad said. “Where can we find some?”
Huh? I didn’t discuss that with Dad! I had only asked him if such a thing existed. He was thinking two steps ahead of me. I felt bad that he’d spend more money for my sake, but he took the initiative without even asking me.
“You want to find thundercite? That’s not gonna be easy.”
“Is it rare?”
“Nah, you see it everywhere. There’s plenty to mine, if you have a permit. It’s a beast to transport, though. Thundercite’s always shooting out lightning, y’see, so you can’t touch it. That makes it a dangerous nuisance for the most part, so most people leave it alone. Some folks thought of setting it up where they could take people to see it. That’s risky business—not to mention, all it does is crackle and sparkle. It doesn’t hold people’s attention long.”
Dad glanced at me to ask me how I wanted to proceed. From what Graste had said so far, thundercite sounded too good to be true if it really produced electricity unprompted. It made me feel like this really was a fantasy world.
I wasn’t interested in thundercite itself. I just wanted to see what happened when I sent mana into it. How to proceed? I had an idea, but it wasn’t a particularly good one.
The way I saw it, if something as convenient as thundercite existed on Earth, it would have all kinds of uses. Electricity hadn’t been discovered here, so naturally no one knew how to apply it. People in this world probably thought that it was something that either looked cool or served as a lantern. I think my plan would work. We would need to solve the transport problem first.
It was time to ask the next logical question, then. “Mr. Graste, have you ever heard of a tree that oozes a white liquid?” I asked. “It also has a distinct smell.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’d go ask an herbologist about that.”
I guess there were no rubber trees here. That or they were still undiscovered. It made sense that this world wouldn’t necessarily have the same species as we did on Earth. I put my rubber idea aside for now.
“Okay, then what about mocha—I mean—mica? It’s a mineral that looks like a crystal. It’s composed of thin layers that look like you could peel apart. It’s pretty and transparent. Do you know it?”
I was referring to the mica group of silicate minerals. They had insulating properties and were widely used back on Earth. At this world’s development level, they probably didn’t have anything more advanced than glass. The worst-case scenario would be that we wrap the thundercite in huge fabrics to carry it. That was still potentially dangerous. It all depended on how much electricity the ore generated.
Someone more scientifically knowledgeable than me might be able to brainstorm other options, but that was all I knew. The extent of my learning came from science class and things I picked up here and there. If I could access the Internet or some textbooks, this would be easier to solve.
“Mica? No, I’ve never heard of it,” Graste said. “But I do know somethin’ that sounds an awful lot like it—you’re talking about peralite. It doesn’t melt well, and it’s not tough enough for me to use, or anyone else for that matter. Hang on a sec—I knew a guy who mined the stuff.”
Graste went into the back of his store, then reappeared holding a white and yellowish mineral. I’d only ever seen mica in illustrated encyclopedias back in the day, but I was pretty sure that was it.
Well, how about that? Mica exists in this world, too, I thought.
“Is this it? It’s got an interesting shape and it’s right pretty, so I took it off his hands. It’s not rare by any means, it’s just something nice to look at.”
“May I see it?”
“Be my guest.”
I took the mica from him and examined it closely. The more I looked, the more I felt certain that it looked like the real thing. Of course, I didn’t know that. Most of the materials that this world and Earth shared in common had the same names—hemp, cloth, iron, copper, and so on. It was possible that this peralite had the same properties as mica from Earth. If I was going to use it as an insulator against this thundercite, I’d need to be really careful until this theory had been proven.
The real question was how could the mica be made into an effective insulator? All I knew to do on my own would be to strip off the layers and press them back together again. Since mica was thin enough to peel apart, you could paste those layers together into a single sheet. On Earth, I’d read that people used that as an insulator, and they figured out how to make sheets of it like paper. This gave it a lot more toughness and tension, making it harder to break. In other words, you could mold and shape it without depending on advanced technology.
However, I was at a complete loss as to what to use for an adhesive. I also assumed the mica would require some kind of processing in order to break it apart into sheets. I didn’t know what other materials or tools I would need. Maybe some sort of slatted drainboard?
I needed to acquire a huge quantity of mica, break it apart, soak it in water, then ladle it out. This wouldn’t be even close to enough mica. Hang on, I remember hearing that mica floated? Even though it’s ore… Assuming that a mineral would be dense and heavy was just a preconceived notion of mine. They were all assumptions, and I didn’t know which were applicable in this world.
I doubted that I was correctly remembering my science, anyway. As an adult, you forget a lot of what you’d learned in school, especially if it doesn’t pertain to daily life. What if I had mica confused with some other insulating mineral?
This is no good, I thought. I was chasing myself in circles.
As I grumbled to myself, Graste turned to Dad.
“What are you up to with all this?” he asked.
“Who knows? It’s all in that head of his.”
“Shion’s? Man, kids have the weirdest thoughts.”
“Well, I think it’s different in Shion’s case. He thinks well beyond the scope of a child.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll see.”
Dad and Graste waited patiently while I thought everything through.
“Yeah, it’s not worth making it like that.” I looked up at them. “That’s not my goal, after all. Mr. Graste, do they sell any bigger pieces of this ore?”
“Oh, yeah. I saw one that was this big.” He gestured with his hands, indicating that it was about seven inches wide. That was big. I didn’t know pieces that big even existed, or maybe that was just here. It would be big enough for my purposes.
“But it’s quite pricey, especially since it’s only for show. It was on sale for four thousand lirum.”
Was that a lot? I didn’t have an allowance, and I always had to ask Dad to buy me stuff. Four thousand sounded beyond the scope of what a seven-year-old should ask for. What to do?
A lirum was this world’s unit of currency. I’d heard the expression “fifty lirum for one potato.” Potatoes grew even during poor harvests, so their prices were fairly stable. Hence the adage that they served as a reliable standard for prices. That meant that four thousand lirum was the cost of eighty potatoes. That sounded expensive…maybe?
“Where were they selling it?” Dad asked Graste before I could say a word.
“At the general market, I think. It’s always there, so I doubt the price has changed. Nobody’s buying it. It’s unpopular even for a showpiece.”
Feeling flustered, I tugged at Dad’s shirt. “Uh, Dad? Are you going to buy it for me?”
“Of course,” he said. “Don’t you need it for your research?”
“Well, yes, but it sounds expensive.”
“Don’t worry about that. You’re just a kid. Besides, you’ve never asked me for anything before. I’ve bought Marie her fair share of stuff, so it’s only fair.” Dad put his hands on my shoulders and smiled. “Shion, you can be more selfish around your old man. If you go too far, I’ll just tell you no. If it’s fine, I’ll tell you yes. Don’t hold back for my sake.”
I was lucky to have this man as my father. If I ever become a father, I hope I will be like him.
Graste snorted. “Always the doting dad.”
“Yes, and proud to be one, Graste! Come on, Shion. Let’s go to the general market.”
“Oh, but before we do that, I need to test it out.”
“Test?” Dad asked. “What you’re planning to do with this mineral?”
I couldn’t believe he offered to buy it for me without even knowing what I was going to use it for.
I winced, then answered. “This mineral has insulating properties. That means that electricity—or, I mean, lightning—can’t get through it? Basically, I think we might be able to use it to transport thundercite.”
I could achieve my research goals immediately if I went to a thundercite mine and used mana on the ore. That would draw unwanted attention on me, and break my promise to Dad. I couldn’t do that. I had to keep the research a secret. That was fine by me so long as I could use magic!
Dad and Graste exchanged a long look.
“Is that really true, Shion?” Dad asked.
“I dunno,” I said. “But I want to try.”
“There’s no point in me asking why you know all this, right?”
I paused. “Uhh…yeah.”
I was only seven years old. The fact that I knew things that nobody else did in this world was bound to be puzzling. Even if you wrote it off as a kid’s imagination, that couldn’t apply to the sort of stuff I was saying. This stuff was well beyond anyone’s notion of common sense.
The fact that Dad had accepted all this about me without question spoke to his own broad-mindedness. I would probably disturb everyone else. Most people would try to dig deeper into my motives, or try to stop me altogether.
Not Dad. He mulled it over, then said, “Hmm, I get it. Let’s go for it. We’ll have to go to a mine to test it out.” He turned to Graste. “Is there one nearby?”
I felt so grateful! I was damn lucky to have been born to this man in this world.
Graste didn’t question me any further. He scratched his head, deep in thought.
“Yeah,” he eventually said. “It’s a few minutes’ walk from here. Shall we go?” Graste patted me on the head.
We walked outside. Graste shut and locked the door, and hung up his Closed sign.
I resisted asking him if he was sure about this. He didn’t look concerned in the least. So, I didn’t question it.
With that, the three of us headed off to the thundercite mine. I felt a twinge of nerves. Everything was going so well that I was starting to feel anxious. No point in dwelling on things, I thought.
There was a mining facility about a ten-minute walk from Istria. It was much closer than I imagined. Was mining a big industry here? If it was a place we could just wander into, then that suggested there many mines around that were open to the general public. As we approached, I saw mine workers as well as ordinary people. The road we were on must’ve doubled as the way to the mine and a footpath to other locations. We passed by travelers and merchants as we walked.
The mine was divided into two sections. One was a restricted, private area for employees only. The other could be entered by anyone who had acquired permission. All you needed to do was pay a fee, and then you could enter the mine freely. Given that it was a public mine though, the available ore wasn’t worth much. It’d take a considerable amount of labor and tools to excavate anything useful out of it. For those reasons, Graste explained, the public-use mine was actually running at a loss.
The thundercite we were looking for wasn’t located within the bedrock, but outside and exposed to air. Before long, we saw a sign about it: Thundercite Warning.
Straight ahead on a large hunk of rock, I saw the thundercite shooting out electricity, as promised. Bright blue sparks crackled and forked around glowing white stones. Looking at it was like watching high-powered sparklers. The stone itself looked slick and smooth.
It looked dangerous, so keeping a distance was vital. There were both large and small hunks of thundercite, and the amount of electricity they emitted corresponded with their size.
“Approach carefully,” Graste warned. “Or you’ll get burned.”
I looked around our surroundings. Certainly, the thundercite stones that were as big as my own body were too hazardous. The hand-sized ones didn’t look as powerful, but they still made plenty of fireworks.
“What’s your plan?” Dad asked. “Are you going to try and touch it with the peralite?”
I shook my head. “This peralite is thick enough that the electricity wouldn’t pass through it, even if it wasn’t an insulator. So, I’ll have to do this…” I tried to tear off a layer of the mica, but it was tougher than expected. I couldn’t rip it away.
“Gimme here,” Graste said. I handed it over. He immediately tore the mineral apart into layers.
Well, that simplifies things. I thanked him while stacking up a few of the layers. Then I held them loosely in my palm. I didn’t feel very protected, making me nervous. Nonetheless, I sat down next to a smaller piece of thundercite and quickly touched it with the mica.
“Wait, Shion!” Dad rushed over to me and yanked me away from the thundercite, forcing the mica to fall out of my hand.
“What in the world are you doing? Are you okay? Did you get hurt?”
Dad examined my hand closely and found no injury there. Once he realized I was okay, he put his hand over his heart. “Heaven’s sake. Don’t do anything dangerous, Shion!”
“Sorry, Dad. I’m perfectly fine. It really is mica. It’s an insulator!”
Dad finally let me go. I gathered up the pieces of fallen mica and showed them to him.
“See? There’s no sign of burns or damage. Insulators absorb electri—I mean, lightning.”
Dad nodded. “You’re right. It’s hard to believe it, but you’ve proven it.”
Graste was watching us from the side. He came closer. “So, it’s safe if you touch it with the peralite, eh? Lemme try.” He snatched the mica out of my hand and piled it up in his palm. Then he reached down to the thundercite.
“Huh. Whaddaya know? It’s completely safe.” Graste glanced in my direction with surprise. He had a deep suspicion in his eyes.
I searched quickly for words. “W-well, see, now we know that peralite is an insulator. Now we just need to buy a few big pieces of it, then we can safely transport thundercite.”
Achieving this objective proved possible. The whole process would take a lot of time and effort, but it would be worth it. There was no other way to generate a convenient source of electricity. I couldn’t complain, especially when the prospect of more magic was on the horizon.
Graste was thinking about something, but he didn’t share it with us. Had I gone too far? Mom and Dad never bothered me for saying things beyond my years, but not everyone loved me unconditionally as they did. Graste seemed like a good guy, but that didn’t mean he would accept everything I said or did without question. Maybe I’d been too hasty.
“I suppose, now, we go back to town, buy more peralite, then come back,” Dad said. He seemed unconcerned, only giving Graste a quick glance.
Dad and I were two minds of a kind, now. Although, I’m sure he would’ve tried to stop me if he understood what I was trying to do. He hadn’t thought that deeply about it. Neither had I, honestly.
Still, with our goal seemingly achieved, all that was left to do was get the thundercite and head back home. I had a lot to think about, but I felt a surge of excitement at having discovered this new direction for my magical research.
I hope that this approach is even more exciting and magical than Flare, I mused while we began the walk back into town.
***
We wrapped the peralite slabs in cloth and used them to carry thundercite back home. We took a stone of about eight inches in diameter. We couldn’t haul something too heavy; plus, the larger the stone was, the more dangerous it would be. This was the biggest one that we could handle, according to Dad. There was no argument from me. It was the perfect size for my research.
We gave the leftover peralite to Graste, which was only fair—considering he ended up paying for half of it. Plus, he was a good guy. It went for a hefty price, but he forked over the lirum with a smile, saying I was like his nephew. I needed to do my best with this research in order to repay his and Dad’s kindness.
You should have seen the look on the receptionist’s face when she saw us carry the thundercite out of the mine.
After we got back home, I stood in the garden with the thundercite. It wouldn’t stop crackling and sparking, so naturally we couldn’t bring it inside. We didn’t want any house fires, so we placed it on a bed of stones inside the garden.
Thundercite was an ore that intermittently released an electric current. I had a lot of questions about where it got its energy from, but I was neither a physicist nor a geologist. No matter so long as I could use it for magic. I had no intentions of investigating its energy source.
Mom and Dad watched over me from a safe distance. Dad’s eyes sparkled with excitement, while Mom wore her typical smile. I felt safe with them there.
Marie was out, apparently. I wondered what was she was up to, but decided to stay focused on the matter in front of me. Dad and I returned straight home, so Rose wasn’t around either. I wanted to research with everyone together, but the timing couldn’t be helped.
I stood in front of the thundercite and extended my hand. I used Magicluster and sent mana to my right hand. Then a large orb burst out of my palm and floated toward the thundercite.
The moment the mana touched the stone, its blue sparks turned red. For a moment, the light pulsed.
Dad gasped and leapt up. “Wh-what?!”
However, his excitement drained away as fast as it appeared. The sparks had returned to their bluish hue. The thundercite kept crackling as if nothing changed. The phenomenon had only lasted for a second.
The application of mana changed the color of the light and the amount of electricity, but nothing more. The amount of voltage only increased slightly. Unlike with fire, where the mana I released moved for a bit before vanishing, this time the mana disappeared a mere instant after it touched the thundercite.
“Did it work?” Mom asked.
“I don’t think so,” Dad said.
I heard their disappointment and concern from behind me. I hadn’t budged from the stone, and so my parents approached me.
“Not everything will go smoothly, Shion,” Dad said. “Think of all the failures you went through before you figured out how to use fire magic. So, don’t be so down on yourself.” He patted me on the shoulder.
At that moment, Mom tilted her head. “Huh? Shion, don’t tell me…”
My shoulders were quaking, not with sadness, but with joy. I was cackling.
“Hoo! Hoo heh! Heh heh heh!”
“Shion, what’s going on? I thought it didn’t work! But your expression…are you going to puke or something?!” Dad exclaimed.
“Oh my, Shion, you’ve got that special look on your face.” Mom chuckled. “I can tell you’re happy, and I can’t help but to be happy, too.”
“Shion! Have you got a gash in your brain? Get it together!”
I don’t think getting it together would be possible if I really was brain damaged, but forget that. I couldn’t be happier.
“It worked. I did it!”
“What do you mean?” Dad pressed. “Nothing’s happening, Shion! Unless… Does the color change and spark bursts mean that it worked? It doesn’t seem like much compared to what you demonstrated with the fire!”
While I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face, I did explain the situation to my parents.
“Ha ha. You see, a flint produces the same physical phenomenon as the thundercite. They both use sparks to start a fire. When I touched the fire with my mana, the flames turned blue.
“When that happened, I formed two possible theories. The first was that even though it didn’t have any other physical properties, mana was a flammable substance. The other was that mana could be a flammable substance, while also possessing some other properties. These are both provisional theories, mind you. But since the only thing I knew about mana was that it’s flammable, that implied that it would light up in flames when it touched the thundercite. But that didn’t happen. Instead, the electricity changed colors and grew stronger. That proved the second of my theories—that mana can be a flammable substance, but it can also do other things. That means that I should be able to use magic in many different ways, just like I hoped.”
When mana contacted with fire, it set ablaze. When it made contact with electricity, it flashed. I was willing to bet it would have other effects when applied to even more substances!
It was hard to make assumptions based on scientific laws from Earth. I certainly wasn’t a scientist. All I could do was apply mana to different substances and build a theory based on the results. The outcome this time changed my whole view of what I could achieve with mana.
The result was important, even if it was a partial one. Above all else, I now knew that mana could do other things besides catch fire. Of course, I had no clue how to create lightning magic out of this. The flash was a good start. I couldn’t stop smiling.
It’s not like I had been expecting something dramatic. I was only hoping for an outcome that was different from the flint, and I had not been disappointed.
Dad sighed and asked, “Does this mean that you can use lightning magic now?”
“Possibly,” I said. “Of course, not like this. It looks like the mana just alters the electricity a bit.”
“And what, exactly, does a successful result look like to you?”
I thought about it. “Well, I want to shoot electricity out of my hand.”
“Wouldn’t that only end up in shocking you?”
Dad’s thought process made sense, and I had been wondering the same thing.
“Yes, if I directly touched the electricity with my hands. It’s just like with the fire. I need to figure out how to channel it properly. I’ll need to do some more testing to get there.”
“I get it,” Dad said. “Well, I’d love to watch you do more research, but I think that’s enough for today. We only just got home.”
He was right. We’d done a lot in one day: we traveled to Istria, went to both the mine and the market, and did some other shopping while we were at it. We hadn’t returned home until early evening. There was still plenty I wanted to do, but it was getting late.
The day had been all about me, and it cost Dad both plenty of his time and money. He paid for the peralite and the mine entrance fee, and it wasn’t cheap. Maybe it was selfish to think, but I felt grateful to have been born a noble.
As Dad suggested, I walked through the garden to return to the house. Behind me, I saw that the sky was dyed red and illuminated by the occasional sparks of thundercite.
That stands out like a sore thumb.
I realized we needed to build some sort of cover, immediately. With those thoughts in mind, I finally went inside.
***
A month had passed since I’d obtained the thundercite. We were in the heart of winter. The air had become a lot drier and colder. Snow was ready to fall at any moment.
I had spent all month preparing for the season. Every winter, we depended on our food and fuel reserves. This wasn’t Japan, where groceries and supplies were available year-round. It was expected that Marie and I would work, so we often helped out in the village and brought supplies back this time of year. So, I didn’t have as much time currently to research as in the summer. Even so, I used any spare time I had to continue my studies, and I discovered a few things.
When you apply mana to thundercite, the electrical charge turns red and momentarily flashes. Despite numerous attempts, this was the only result I obtained. I decided to stop questioning why exactly those changes happened.
Unlike with fire magic, where the mana could keep floating aflame and be used as a projectile fireball, the mana disappeared instantly after touching the electricity. The change in the mana was only momentary, but I didn’t know why.
I’d been assuming that, while mana wasn’t the same as a flammable substance, it had some sort of energy or quality that allowed it to burn. So long as that mana didn’t naturally disappear, it would continue to exhibit the quality of the substance it encountered. Along with a heat source and oxygen, you needed a flammable substance to light a fire. I had assumed that mana fulfilled that role. My experiments with thundercite proved this hypothesis to be false.
I tried to think about the difference between fire and electricity. They both had plasma, but in different ways. With fire, it would continue to burn until the combustibles were exhausted. In other words, it was a phenomenon that naturally continued. But what about electricity? An electric current moved until all energy was discharged. Then, it stopped until a new electric charge supplied more energy.
You can observe this during a lightning strike. The electricity doesn’t keep flowing. There’s no natural phenomenon where electricity continuously flows, as far as I knew—except for thundercite, which existed here but not on Earth. If fire could be called a continuous phenomenon, electricity was an intermittent one. Of course, electricity could flow continuously with a strong electricity source and a close distance in play, such as with an arc discharge. This wasn’t happening here.
There was another difference as well: the continuity of each phenomenon’s interaction with magic. Fire continued interacting with the mana after it had been supplied, but mana disappeared momentarily after touching the electricity. This led me to arrive at a new conclusion about mana’s function: mana isolates natural phenomenon, forces it to occur, then amplifies it.
With fire, I already had a heat source and the oxygen in our air. My supplied mana filled in the gaps by burning with a sort of “pseudo-fire,” thus mimicking the same natural phenomenon that it encountered. In the case of electricity, thundercite was my source. You needed a moving electric charge to generate an electric current. Mana can’t recreate such a thing. All my lightning magic did was momentarily amplify the electricity.
Therefore, I concluded that mana served as an amplifier. The color changes in both instances served as partial proof of this. Fire would burn, and electricity would discharge. I could only assume that because the thundercite’s electricity grew brighter, that meant a spark of some kind was discharging. In other words, an electric current would run through my mana—which in this case was shaped like an orb—and it would boost the voltage. This was a perfect example of how mana amplifies natural phenomena.
In conclusion, I had identified two qualities of mana: it imitates the natural phenomenon that it encounters, and it replicates what it encounters and amplifies its power.
All in all, mana was not a flammable substance. Of course, all of this was only a provisional theory. I needed to experience a lot more trial and error to both prove it and make my magic more functional.
And that’s as far as I had made it. I still needed to figure out how the heck to make lightning magic.
Fire would keep burning naturally, so I managed to create a fireball projectile just by launching my mana into a spark. Thundercite was tricker since the electricity just dispersed into the air. Yes, the mana amplified its voltage, but it didn’t make it flow anywhere. Electricity’s natural flow was spontaneous and intermittent. I didn’t know how I could get around that.
Anyway, this brings us all to the current moment where I sat on my bed, in my usual place, trying to figure this out. I shook my head left and right, left and right, in frustration.
“Hmmm,” I groaned. “What do I do?”
If my goal was strictly to study the interaction between electricity and mana, then technically, I had achieved that. But I wanted to be able to wield magic freely. The same thing went for fire magic. I needed to figure out how I could use them practically. With fire magic, the best I could do was light firewood and, when armed with a portable flint, aim a fireball at an enemy.
Mana itself was useful, like when I used it to vanquish the goblin by touching it. I still didn’t understand those particulars, other than that the target itself had to possess mana to create a reaction.
“Lightning magic…lightning magic…lightning…” I muttered. “I think I’m starting from the wrong place here.”
I could emit mana from my hands using Magicluster and Mana Eject, and then it would drift away. I used it once, and watched the orb zoom away with my jaw hanging slack.
Something fundamental was off, but what?
“Am I too attached to the trout?” I wondered. They were the reasons that I discovered mana in the first place, so the only way I knew mana worked was the way it worked with them.
Right, I realized. The answer is simple!
The answer?
Mana doesn’t have to be shaped like an orb! Right! How did I not realize that before? The image had been stuck in my head not just because of the trout, but because in fantasy series, mysterious sources of energy are often depicted as orbs. Thus, that was how I’d always imagined how mana would appear.
To test this out, I tried the following command: “Mana gather in my right hand, then release as a cube!” Out of my thousands of attempts to use Mana Eject so far, only once had it released as a sphere. This time, it came out as a cube!
“Whoa! It actually worked!” I watched the cube float up toward the ceiling and disappear. I immediately tried out different shapes, and they all came out just as I wanted. The problem all along had been my fixations on my previous assumptions.
I needed more fluid thinking. I was so fixated on my ideas about magic that I was neglecting what else there was to learn about mana. I needed to start shaking things up.
That meant not just with mana’s shape, but also my commands. I’d only focused on ejecting it out of my hand; perhaps I could make it move in other ways. It was time to start experimenting.
“Heh heh. Let’s do this.” My mouth curled into a grin.
I summoned my mana. At this point, I could activate it around forty times a day. Naturally, there was a limit to how much could be activated at once. While it could increase with further practice, I felt I’d maxed out my emission for any one-time release. It was fine if I had—I didn’t think I necessarily needed more.
With that, I tested out various Mana Ejects. I repeated different commands and observed which ones did and didn’t work. I lost track of time and exhausted my mana. This left me incapacitated and my family grumbling the rest of the night. It was unsettling how accustomed they had become to my antics.
***
My eyes fluttered open. I felt sluggish. My nonstop magic research had left me feeling exhausted in the mornings. I was working too hard, but I was making solid progress. I was learning a lot of new things, so I couldn’t stop now. The feeling reminded me of being in the middle of a fun videogame. Despite that rush, I needed to look after myself more. Starting after today’s research, of course.
I went downstairs and ate breakfast with Mom. Glancing out the window, I saw Marie practicing her swordplay. I realized then that I had no right to be telling her to slow down. She looked deadly serious as she swiped and stabbed. She trained from morning to night, every single day, and had become unapproachable. I assumed that her training would slow eventually, but she showed no signs of it. She was overdoing it, but given my own situation, I wasn’t the person to tell her that.
Mom looked out the window from time to time. She was worried too.
“Thanks for breakfast,” I said.
“It was nothing special,” Mom said. She gave me her gentle smile as she took my plate for me.
Mom wouldn’t scold Marie. Of course she was worried and would remind her to go easy and take proper breaks. She knew she’d never be able to tell Marie to stop altogether. The same went for me. I think her decision to let me and Marie go this far was a sign of her trust in us. It went hand in hand with her love and attention for us.
And as much as I wanted to trust Marie, I couldn’t just let this situation be. These attacks she was practicing were new. They were rough and violent. I had to say something.
She might get mad at me. She might dislike me for it. I owed this to her as her brother. She had stood by my side before, and I knew she would do the same thing for me. I built up my resolve, then went out into the garden.
Marie huffed and grunted as she swung and thrusted her sword. Her feet moved in unison with the vertical and diagonal thrusts of her strikes. She was so focused that she didn’t even notice I was there.
My sister was a nine-year-old girl who had devoted her entire life to training with the blade. The thought viciously tugged and squeezed at my heart. Marie was stubborn. She would never stop, even if she noticed that we were all worried about her.
I went over to the edge of the garden and watched her train. Time and time again, when I had been doing my magic research, Marie had watched over me in this same way. Now I was paying it back.
For two hours straight, Marie kept practicing her moves. After that, she began running. She jogged at a considerable speed until lunchtime. When she came to the table, she heaved for breath, and sweat dripped down her face.
“Haah! Haah! Haah!”
It was disturbing to see a kid gasping this desperately for air. Marie had driven herself to the brink. I was speechless at seeing her like this. I understood that you needed to train to become stronger. The harder you trained, the faster and better results you obtained. But at what cost? Right now, my sister was in pain. I could hardly stand to see it, although I didn’t dare avert my eyes. I was her ally, and I would stand by her side no matter what.
Were that true, would doing nothing be to her benefit? The best thing for Marie would be to stop her.
“Marie…”
She instantly spun around. I fixed my eyes on hers only to find my eyes pierced straight through. Her gaze was crystal clear. I swallowed my words and aimlessly stood there.
She was annoyed. “What is it?”
Marie was usually kind, except for during her training. Even when she talked about it, she got like this. The last time that I suggested that she should stop training early, a subtle but definite barrier grew up between us. She didn’t hate me, but the relationship wasn’t harmonious at the moment. We still talked all the time and got along, but there was something off. She felt distant, and it was driving me crazy.
I cared for Marie. I wanted to spend time with her. I wanted to be on her side. Because of all of that, I knew that she needed to train less.
So what if I thought she should stop training. Could I—who was supposed to be on her side—tell her that she was wrong?
“Marie…”
“I already asked you, what is it?”
“Sorry.” I hung my head.
“For what?”
“For not being on your side,” I said. “I’m apologizing for that. I didn’t try to understand your feelings. I just stood on the high ground and denied your way of thinking.”
Marie had always stood by my side. She never tried to stop me from being attached to magic, which would have ordinarily been suspicious to others. Instead, she helped me. In return, here I was opposing her decisions. I wasn’t on her side. I was remonstrating her.
I had been playing the adult and making my own judgments about her actions. Who did I think I was? Sure, I felt bad for her when she pushed herself. There had to be limits on her for that. That was up for her to decide, not me. I wasn’t the adult here. I wasn’t her parent. But as her brother, I needed to be her ultimate ally. Even if she was wrong, it wasn’t my place to give her a high-and-mighty lecture. I needed to walk down her path with her.
We had faced struggles and sadness together. We had faced remonstration from the world around us, but we persisted together in the face of it all. That’s exactly what Marie had done for me.
I mean, take magic for instance. We weren’t sure it existed, and yet she accepted it and accepted me. How could I even think of trying to stop her on her own path?
My previous rebuff basically rejected all of the kindness she’d shown me. How had I been so stupid to not realize my mistake?
I felt a surge of anger toward myself for not realizing this sooner.
“That’s not it,” Marie said. “I don’t feel that way.”
I looked up at her. “But you’ve always been so supportive of me. And I…”
“I mean, I did wonder a bit why you weren’t taking my side with Mom and Dad. But I know that you’re right. So, it’s fine. It’s okay.”
No, it wasn’t. I didn’t think it was at all, but apparently that wasn’t what was on Marie’s mind. No, it had to be a part of it, but she was keeping it bottled up. It was bothering her—she just wasn’t aware of it yet.
“So, uh, then, what is it?” I didn’t know what I wanted to say. I wanted to ask her if she was mad at me, but that didn’t feel right. She didn’t act mad at me when we usually talked. She wasn’t deliberately distancing herself from me. For some reason, it had become harder for me to be close to her. Her attitude had changed since then.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Marie said. “I think I’m just a little jealous.”
“Jealous?”
“I’m your big sister, Shion. It’s my job to protect you. I’ve helped you out and worked on my sword fighting. I thought I’d be able to protect you, even from a monster. But I couldn’t. I was terrified. My legs were quaking and I lost all my strength. And because I couldn’t do anything…Mom…I…” Marie wrapped her arms around herself.
Understandably, the goblin attack had traumatized her. The feelings of fear and powerlessness must have been overwhelming. Marie considered herself strong with a sword. No person could remain composed in the face of such a monstrous opponent, and she couldn’t overcome the memories of that day.
“I thought I was going to die,” she said. “Then Mom saved me. I got so confused. I couldn’t stop screaming. We all would’ve died if not for you, Shion. I’m happy that we survived, but every time I remember what happened to Mom, I get angry at myself for being so powerless. Plus the fact that you protected me even though I’m supposed to be protecting you. I just can’t forgive myself.”
“Do…do you hate me?”
Marie shook her head and stomped toward me.
“Hate? I could never hate you! You’re my brother, and I’ll never stop loving you. I can’t forgive myself, though, and I’m jealous that you were so strong. I am mad that I’m weak, and then I get even more mad at myself for being jealous of you. So, I need to get stronger. Then I’ll be able to get back on my feet and become who I think I am.”
I saw that her hands were stained red from gripping the sword all day. Those hands must have been so raw and sore.
“That’s why you’ve been training so much?” I asked.
“Yes. I know its unhealthy to keep going on like this. Whenever I think I should stop, then I remember that day, and how jealous I feel when I see you. I can’t shake all that off.”
“Marie…”
Children don’t just stumble through life. They have real hopes and feelings like adults do. I had forgotten that somehow. When I was a kid, I didn’t take much seriously, but I still had my own worries and difficult times.
Despite Marie’s age, she had gone through a fierce battle with the cruel world we lived in. Her courage and integrity pierced me to my very soul. Taking control of my overflowing emotions, I channeled them and drew Marie to me. I hugged her then and there.
“Sh-Shion…?”
“I’m sorry for not noticing, Marie,” I said. “I knew that you were upset about something, but I was just too scared that you were mad at me. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I wasn’t by your side.”
Marie was still a bit taller than me. I held her tight. Eventually, she put her hand on my back and clutched on to me. Finally, I felt like we had understood one another.
“I should apologize too,” Marie said. “I haven’t been very nice. I’m sorry for that.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “You can take it out on me. Whatever you need to express, I’m there for it.”
Silently, Marie held me in her arms.
It didn’t matter if we were kids or adults. We were all trying our best to live. It was one of the biggest things I had learned being reborn in this world.
I couldn’t see her face, but I heard occasional gasps of weeping. I knew just how she felt. We both stood in silence, and held on to each other as if we needed the warmth of the other to even breathe. It was as if we couldn’t bear to let go. We stayed that way until we both felt better.
From that moment on, Marie stopped overdoing her training.
***
It was morning, and I had already started working with the thundercite. Marie, Rose, and I stood before it watching the piece of ore intermittently shoot off electricity.
Dad wasn’t around today. Normally, I wasn’t supposed to conduct experiments without him, but he said I could with Marie so long as it wasn’t dangerous. To comply with Dad’s instructions, we had a bucket full of water located nearby. This was the extent of our safety measures in Dad’s mind.
Rose was here, staring at us like we were crazy. Unable to stand it anymore, I turned to Marie.
“Uh, um, Marie.”
She glanced at me. “Hmm? What is it?”
We were close. So, so, so close. Marie and I had our arms linked together, pressed together close enough to feel each other’s body heat. We’d been as thick as thieves ever since we cleared the air. Now we spent as much time together as ever, and we now felt closer than before. We might’ve seemed like a couple of cute kittens, but I had to admit it felt more like we were lovers than siblings. It was nice to be close with her, but Dad would say something if we were too clingy. Thinking about the future, I also had to admit that this would probably be the closest we could ever be. But I decided to not worry about that for now.
What I was currently worried about was that I couldn’t stand to be this close to Marie right now considering Rose’s glaring.
“Marie, I need you to back up,” I said.
“Huh? Why?”
“Well, I’m going to do the experiment. It might be dangerous for you.”
“I’m in your way?” Her eyes trembled.
What the heck? This resembled the kind of flirting I’d see among couples back in Japan. They always disgusted me and I wanted to curse them. Now I stood in the same position as siblings.
“No, you’re not in the way! But it’ll be easier to do the experiment if you back up a little.”
Biting her tongue, Marie pulled back. I saw her gaze fall to my right arm. Did she have some sort of special attachment to it?
“Fine, fine,” she said, puffing her cheeks and backing away.
She sat down in the corner of the garden and hugged her knees. I knew that Marie had a bratty side, although she always understood once I explained things to her. Still, I wished she wouldn’t act like this around Rose. Unfortunately, it was too late.
Rose, who normally was nothing but collected and logical, seemed to have broken down around the uncomfortable atmosphere of sibling love, and resorted to glaring pointedly at us. It was a viciously thorny, accusatory glare. I had never seen her display such expression since the goblin attack. I’ll come up with some explanation for her later, I decided.
I gave a small sigh. It was time to get back to business and start today’s research. First things first: revenge. There were a few different experiments I had been conducting recently. The goal for all of them was to change the shape of my mana.
Up until recently, my mana always released in the shape of an orb. That was probably its natural shape when it didn’t have any other command. After experimenting with various shapes, I drew several conclusions.
Firstly, the amount of mana ejected from the body can be modulated.
When I released mana without any particular command, it appeared in the shape of an orb about eight inches in diameter. With specific commands, I could thin it out and extend it. Let’s say you had sixty mana inside and sixty mana outside the body. That ratio isn’t fixed. Instead, you could keep eighty inside the body and eject forty outside. The only thing that was fixed was the sum total of mana. In my case, it was 120, but the real amount would vary by the individual.
I didn’t intend to calculate the exact amount of mana I had at the moment, but I was confident about this principle. Maybe it was self-explanatory.
Once the mana was outside of your body, it couldn’t be altered any more. It would only naturally decrease. Once it exited the body, the energy would slowly drain away. This realization raised several new questions to my mind. How much could the amount of mana change once it exited the body?
For example, I could spread out the fixed amount of mana to form an orb over a hundred feet in diameter. If it was spread too thin, it wouldn’t activate properly as magic. It wouldn’t catch fire or interact with electricity. Basically, there needed to be a certain density of mana for me to use Flare or any other sort of magic spell.
I found out that an orb about fifteen feet in diameter would barely catch the electric current. A ten foot orb would softly spark only for the briefest moment. At three feet, it would light up bright and the spark clearly visible.
So, the density of mana had an undisputed effect on its interaction with elements. There certainly wasn’t much point in having electricity run sparsely through a twenty-foot radius. You’d feel a tingle and nothing more.
As for Flare, the mana only caught fire when it was close to my default orb size. Anything thinner and it wouldn’t even light. This rendered the technique useless.
So, what would happen if I shrunk down the orbs’ size, which increased the mana’s concentration? In the case of electricity, it just let off a flash. I suppose the orb didn’t have enough volume to interact properly with the current. Maybe the voltage was higher, but I couldn’t see any way to make use of it.
The result for Flare was different from my expectations. The fire looked just like the flame of a gas burner. Compared to the normal lump of flame, the increased density of mana was clearly creating a more powerful fire.
To test this out, I tried striking a piece of firewood with both types of Flare. The normal-sized Flare, of course, lit up the firewood, which then slowly started to burn. The new Flare—which I called Gas Flare—scorched the wood the moment it touched it. The firewood lit up, and from there, the fire seemed to grow normally. The scorch marks on the wood, however, told me tell that Gas Flare packed a punch. Flare lasted longer. It stayed in the air up to five seconds while Gas Flare only lasted about three seconds. That meant that Flare could shoot about twice as far as Gas Flare, at about thirty instead of fifteen feet.
Secondly, changing mana’s shape is difficult.
I made my mana into shapes that roughly resembled triangles, squares, and pentagons, but anything more than that just resulted in a circle. It was difficult to produce anything detailed. Perhaps it was a matter of practice, but that was the gist of the matter.
Was it possible to make more complicated, finely-tuned shapes, like a spider web? TLDR: yes, it is possible. I found it really difficult to do, though, especially getting the mana to manifest the way you envisioned.
It required a great deal more sensitivity than the usual commands of ejecting the mana or shooting it straight ahead. You needed to visualize a clear image in your head. This was tricky, since human thoughts are sticky business and things are constantly mixed up together. Even when you think you have an image in your head, any idle thought could interfere. No matter how calm and serene your mind is, it would take a considerable amount of experience and training to produce mana exactly according to your mind’s eye.
I would need to train a lot to be able to do this. I had no current need for mana in particular shapes, so there wasn’t a rush. Even so, it would certainly be worthwhile to train and learn how to produce finely shaped mana.
Thirdly, it is possible to change mana’s shape while it is in the process of ejecting from my body.
When I activated Mana Eject, I gathered mana in the palm of my hand. So, for example, if I decided to make mana in the shape of a long, thin column, the mana extended in that shape out of my palm. Then I could change the shape to something else while it’s shooting out of my hand. It’s basically like Sun Wukong’s magic staff from Journey to the West.
Any mana shape of up to about three feet in size will appear instantaneously, but anything longer than that takes some time. The more that you stretch out the Mana Eject—in other words, the less mana you use in a single Mana Eject—the more mana remains in the body. On principle, obviously, I needed to command the mana to both appear and shoot forward, so that the fire and electricity wouldn’t conduct straight through my body.
That is everything I had learned thus far, and everything I knew when I stood in front of the thundercite that morning. I activated Mana Eject. The mana flowed out of my hand in the shape of a staff. It separated from my hand and collided with the thundercite, catching an electric current that ran through it.
The current ran through the mana and outside of the stone. The air right in front of my eyes flashed red as the electricity crackled a fearsome spark. Its bright red light illuminated the entire garden and then vanished.
Instinctively, I had pulled my hand away, but my heart still pounded. I wasn’t shocked because the mana had fully left my hand when it touched the thundercite.
“Shion, are you okay?” Marie asked.
“Did you get hurt just now?” Rose followed up.
They rushed over to me. I was fine, if a bit frightened. This result was unexpected, but it did make sense once I thought it over.
“I’m okay. It didn’t hurt at all.”
“Oh, it didn’t? That’s good. But what just happened?” Marie inquired.
“The electricity shot toward you, didn’t it?” Rose said. “I thought it would go the other way.”
“This goes for Flare too, but when mana gets consumed, magic appears,” I explained. “Since I am the user with mana flowing through me, it makes sense why the electricity jolts this way once the mana touches the thundercite.”
Marie hung her head, confused. Rose’s strained expression indicated some degree of understanding, but not a full one. It was hard to explain, especially because the concept of electricity didn’t exist here. I supposed I could try to explain using lightning.
For now, I needed to verify the previous experiment. So far, everything made sense. I had produced staff-shaped mana and touched the thundercite with it, letting go just before they made contact. As a result, the electric current ran up the staff toward me. It was the result I expected. Just the experience had been scarier than I expected.
Unlike Flare, channeling electricity in the desired direction proved challenging. To have any effect, the front and back end of the staff had to touch the desired target. In other words, I would need the thundercite to be directly between me and my target, and then to have the mana staff extend all the way through the stone to the target.
The approach seemed both inefficient and complicated, especially given the amount of mana it would expend. I would have to activate Mana Eject, extend the mana out, fix the shape, then make the staff’s center move into the thundercite as well as the desired target. That was a heck of a lot of commands to will into being.
Ideally, I could extend the mana but not have it conduct electricity until the desired moment. That was impossible, since thundercite constantly produced electricity that would always shock me. Of course, I could block the charge with mica—or should I say peralite—but I was trying to make magic here. I couldn’t just constantly expect to always have peralite on hand. At this rate, lightning magic was becoming as impractical as Flare.
I calmed the two worried girls down, particularly Marie. Then, I returned to the experiment. This time, I stretched out my mana fairly thin and let it touch the thundercite. As previously described, a ten-foot sphere lit up briefly and conducted a small amount of electricity. When making that, I hung on to the mana until the last minute, produced the full shape, and then touched it to the thundercite.
Lightning magic sure was finnicky—it was far more problematic than fire magic. I was at a loss. While mana undoubtedly acted as a crazy electrical conductor, it didn’t last long. Unlike fire, lightning burned through its mana all at once and disappeared, greatly limiting its uses. Still, I sensed there were potential uses.
By the time I had finished my experiments and analyzed the results, the sun started to set. Marie and Rose had done their best to help out, but in the end, the day ended before we made much progress. I was starting to think I had hit a wall again.
At present, lightning magic was useless. It was dead in the water because something was missing. My mind couldn’t find any solution.
***
Back in my room, I took solace in its familiarity. I sat on my bed, staring at the floor. At present, my magic research had run up against a reef. It wasn’t hopeless. I could still detach myself and keep sailing somehow, but I just didn’t know how.
On the one hand, mana felt like it had unlimited possibilities. It was just I who lacked in both knowledge and imagination. I knew there had to be other things I could do with it, but the days kept passing by without any answers.
I’m sure that inventors back on Earth went through this same anguish. Those guys were geniuses blessed with remarkable intellects—unlike me, who was just a normal human. It only made sense that my mental blocks were even rougher than those of famous inventors.
In fact, it was surprising that everything had gone so smoothly thus far. You could say too smoothly. For a hot minute, it seemed like I’d legitimately discovered magic in this world. Now, that pace had slowed to a crawl.
“The big problem is lightning magic, right?” I muttered.
Applying mana to the thundercite had no practical use whatsoever. I could use Flare so long as I had a portable flint on me, but lightning magic had too many conditions—not to mention it didn’t function like I wanted it to. Maybe I had to admit my approach was off.
I needed to change my focus. Rather than focusing on the mana, I could focus on the tools I had available. Basically, how could I change the thundercite to function like a flint?
Thundercite was a mineral that intermittently emitted electricity. This meant that I couldn’t control when I needed the lightning. If I had a tool that could generate electricity, that would solve everything.
Yeah, right. I didn’t even have the technology to make such a tool.
These were my thoughts over the past few days, and as I mulled over them further, I heard a knock on the door. Dad was the only one who knocked, so I assumed it was him. I was surprised when I opened the door.
“Howdy, Shion.”
It was Graste, Dad’s old friend and blacksmith from Istria, who had made Marie’s sword. I overcame my surprise and smiled. “Hello, Mr. Graste.”
“Hello, hello. Sorry to interrupt, but can you come downstairs? I need to talk to you.”
“Talk…with me? O-okay.”
I hadn’t seen Graste since mining the thundercite. I’d been so focused on researching magic, I never joined Dad on his trips to the city. Marie and Mom went with him sometimes, but I ended up staying home every time.
I certainly wasn’t expecting Graste to have any business with me. It wasn’t like I’d done anything wrong to him, so there was no need to be concerned. I followed him downstairs to the living room. Mom, Dad, and Marie were all gathered there. They were sitting down and pleasantly chatting. They didn’t seem worried, but I noticed that Dad was staring at Graste with annoyance.
Ignoring the look, Graste sat down as if everything was normal. I joined Marie on the couch, opposite Mom and Dad, with Graste next to them. I glanced at Marie to see if she knew what was going on. Marie lightly shook her head. She had no idea.
“So, as for what I wanted to talk to y’all about…” Graste swiveled his eyes toward Dad.
Dad sighed in response and cleared his throat. “Shion, do you remember when we mined the thundercite?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Right. Well, this idiot here started using your peralite knowledge to mine more thundercite. Since it was practically impossible to transport up until now, he started carrying it into town to sell it.”
Graste looked up at the ceiling as if he didn’t have the slightest clue what Dad was talking about. He wasn’t fooling anyone, of course.
“Well, what happened was…eh-hmm, Graste. It’s your turn to talk.” Dad’s voice bristled with annoyance.
Graste gave me an uncomfortable glance and opened his mouth as he scratched the edge of his nose. “Ah, you know. I mean, I’m sorry for using your knowledge for my own benefit. I should have gotten your permission before I started trying to make money by transporting it. My bad.”
Graste’s gaze wavered all over the place as he spoke. Dad listened to Graste talk with a series of approving nods, while Mom looked troubled. I looked over at Marie, who was clueless.
I was too, as I couldn’t figure out what was going on. All I could do was express my honest feeling.
“It’s really not a big deal,” I said.
Graste opened his mouth wide, and Dad raised his eyebrows.
“B-but I stole your idea, Shion.”
“I mean, I guess you technically did. I don’t really mind.”
“You came up with something that no one else knew or could think of. I took advantage of that without so much as asking you! I’d understand if you were upset with me and wanted a cut of the profits!”
I mean…I guess so? I did come up with the idea, but it wasn’t my objective to make money off of thundercite in the first place. I was interested in a different subject.
“Did you make money?” I asked.
Graste looked like he was sucking on a lemon. I supposed things didn’t go very well.
“Well, there is some profit, but not much once you take into account the amount of labor. It’s too dangerous to use thundercite as a light source. At first, some people bought it outta curiosity. Those folks were not repeat shoppers.”
I’d never seen Graste look so down in the dumps. His smile was brittle, and his lifeless eyes stared down at the coffee table. Had he been pouring effort into mining and selling thundercite ever since that day?
“Then I don’t need any of it. If you’d made tons of money, then sure, but it doesn’t seem like things…er, have gone very well.”
I expected the conversation to end there. I’d accepted Graste’s apologies and told him that it didn’t matter to me in the first place. Yet the awkward atmosphere didn’t dissipate, and Graste’s expression didn’t lighten.
I looked at Dad for clues as to what the heck was going on.
He sighed again, then got to the point. “That’s not the problem. Graste hasn’t been transporting a little bit of thundercite, but tons of it. Now he’s got a massive overstock of the stuff.”
“Massive overstock? Does that mean he’s storing it in a warehouse?”
“Ah, yeah,” Graste said. “At first it was only a few pieces, but those first few flew of the shelves. So, I kinda decided that it’d be more efficient to mine a whole bunch at once. I rented a warehouse and stored it there. Now, I can’t move it.”
“How many pieces?”
“Close to a hundred small ones.”
I recalled that some of the stones I’d seen at the mine had been as big as my body. Certainly, he hadn’t transported any of those. Were we back on Earth, you could use the thundercite for energy and other applications, and thus easily make a fortune. The science of electricity was required for that, of course.
While the Japanese were aware of electricity during the middle ages and Edo Period, they lacked the tools to utilize it. It was basically just something sparkling to observe. I obviously didn’t have the expertise to make any electric machines. Neither did Graste, who now had a ton of thundercite and no use for it.
I could guess the rest from the haggard look on his face: he’d run out of money due to the warehouse rental, plus the total cost of transport. Now, he was in a tight spot. Why bring this up to me? Was it just to make me feel bad for him?
“That being said, I got a favor to ask of you,” Graste said. “Can’t you think of any way I can sell the stuff? You knew how to transport it, right? I thought maybe you might be able to come up with somethin’…to help.”
Ah, so this was what his self-pity and misery came down to. His gaze and posture had been withering away the longer he talked. It was strange to see someone who was ordinarily such a big personality become so small. Asking a favor from a kid my age was a big blow to his pride.
I understood. It wasn’t easy to ask a child to do something for you as an adult. That wasn’t a problem if you could do it yourself, but to have a child help you out—that was uncomfortable, to say the least. Grown-ups have pride as grown-ups, after all.
With that in mind, I was at a loss of how to respond. I recognized the seriousness of his situation. He came all the way here to ask me, that was all the proof I needed. Dad and Mom looked clueless themselves.
Graste had helped me out with getting the thundercite. He was also Dad’s friend, so I couldn’t just leave him hanging. Emotionally, I wanted to help him out. My hesitation came from not knowing whether I really could. I didn’t know if I could figure something out or not, and I didn’t want to let him down. Even if there was a solution, I didn’t know if it would be possible. At this point, I had no clue what to do. And yet…
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll try to see what I can come up with.”
“A-are you sure? I realize it’s a selfish ask.”
“I’m sure. I don’t have anything in mind right now, so please don’t expect fast results. I’ll come up with something if I can, but this isn’t an easy problem to solve.”
“Of course! That’s fine. Wow, thanks. Thank you!” The light came back to Graste’s eyes as he grinned at me.
Could you please not expect so much of me? I was just a kid. I’m sure he wasn’t placing all his eggs in my basket, but given his desperation, he must’ve figured it was worth a shot. Just a little bit of hope can work wonders on the heart.
No matter the result, I decided that I would do something to help. Plus, a notion began to form—not about this problem—but it was a thought about my magic research. There was a chance this project would go hand-in-hand with my studies.
So, it was with a mixture of altruism and self-interest that I agreed to help Graste out.
“Listen up, Graste,” Dad said. “Shion’s just helping out. You’ve gotten yourself into this mess, and Shion’s lending you a hand to get out of it. No matter what happens, don’t blame things on him.”
“Of course, I know that,” Graste said. “I’m just grateful that he agreed to help at all. I’m really sorry, little guy, for putting this on your plate. But I just thought maybe you…if it were you… After all, you’re—”
“Graste!” Dad raised his voice.
The atmosphere of the living room became tense. Marie and I stayed silent. We were confused about what had just happened.
“Ah, um, sorry, it’s nothing,” Graste said. “Forget it.”
What was Graste about to say? I decided to squash my curiosity. The grim look on Dad’s face indicated that I’d be better off if I didn’t ask. A dry patting sound hit against my eardrums.
Mom had clapped her hands together and broke the tension. “Well, now that that is all settled, why don’t we have lunch? I’ve made a seafood stew.” She spoke as cheerfully as usual and went straight into the kitchen.
That was when I realized I smelled something delicious wafting from the kitchen. She had been cooking when Graste arrived. The awkward atmosphere had prevented me from even noticing.
Dad and Graste had perked up, but they still looked uncomfortable.
“Lunch time,” Dad said. “So, Shion, do you have any ideas for your next step?”
His voice sounded kindly in spite of his stern expression. I could tell that Graste wasn’t feeling better yet, but time would heal that.
Had Graste been trying to tell me something? What could it have been? Maybe it had to do with my true parentage. I knew that I wasn’t my parents’ blood child, so it could have been that. Or it could have been something different altogether. I put a lid on the curiosity welling up inside my mind and tried to act normal. That was the best I could do for now.
Once I regained my composure, I answered Dad’s question.
“First, I’d like to go to Istria to assess the situation. I’ll tell you my thoughts after that.”
Dad vigorously nodded. The hint of a smile crept on to his face. During lunch, the cheerful conversation got Graste back on his feet. With our stomachs full, we took a rest before finally heading out an hour later.
To be honest, while I currently had no thoughts to share, I did have a vague sense of what direction to head in.
***
“Whoa!” The word leaked out. Given what I was looking at, my reaction was understandable. The storehouse was spacious and filled to the brim with sparking and bright thundercite.
The rows of the electric stones, each of them separated by a foot or two, was a sight to behold. They were all on the floor. Was this because Graste didn’t want them touching anything else? While it was a beautiful sight, if the sparks hit anything flammable there would be an immediate fire. It was a dangerous setup, to say the least.
Dad gripped his head and Marie gripped my arm. They stared openmouthed at the thundercite. Mom looked unsettled and Graste gave a twinge of an anxious smile.
Yeah, what the heck could I do about this?
I mean, I knew it would be nuts, but it was a different matter to see it for myself. This is nuts. Totally nuts! This was so nuts that the only word that came to my mouth was “nuts,” which is nuts.
“They’re a total nuisance,” Graste said. “I wouldn’t mind so much if they just glowed all night, but they make a lotta noise too. The owner said I gotta do something about the sound in the next three days or I’m outta here. There’s nowhere else to go.”
“So, we have three days?” I asked.
“Yup. Well, if we can’t come up with nothin’, I’ll just have to return the thundercite to the mines. That’ll mean I must pay the mine fees again, then this will all have been for nothing. I’ll be even deeper in the red. I haven’t been opening my shop much ’cuz I’ve been spendin’ all my time on this.”
I didn’t mind the strict deadline. That just meant I wouldn’t have to waste too much time on this. Even with that bit of silver lining, this was still a rough situation.
Hearing Graste had a hundred pieces and seeing those hundred pieces were totally different things. That was a lot. At least, the largest pieces were still small enough for me to pick up, I guess.
I looked around the warehouse. You never knew where a solution could come from. I needed to be as observant as possible. Eventually, a question popped up.
“Why did you separate the thundercite pieces from each other?” I asked Graste.
“Well, y’see, somethin’ kinda special happens when you put ’em too close together.”
He retrieved a towel that hung on the wall. I could see that he had sewn pieces of mica into the cloth. He had made a clever improvement. He took the mica towel in his hand and used it to push a piece of thundercite closer to the one next to it. As he did so, a huge burst of electricity released. The stones reacted to one another and shared their electric current between the two pieces. It was like an electric rope had tied them together.
“This much electricity is pretty dangerous, innit? So, I’ve spread them out like this.” Graste said.
It was an electrical reaction. Thundercite didn’t just produce electricity in isolation, but electricity that would interact with other pieces of ore. The pieces let off electrical discharges intermittently, but when they were near another thundercite ore, the electricity flow stabilized. It looked like an arc discharge. I assumed that the voltage wasn’t particularly high, but it would be enough to leave a burn if you touched it.
“Did you try smithing with the thundercite?” I asked.
“Yeah, I did,” Graste said. “I tried to forge a piece. It melts at a low heat, or at least the kiln in my shop was enough. There was a little bit of a problem. I’ll show you back at my shop, c’mon.”
There was some more information for me to learn. At Graste’s shop, which seemed to be temporarily closed, we entered the dimly lit store and went into the back room. I saw a furnace installed with a large smelting kiln, various and well-used tools and hammers hanging on the wall, then a large stack of bricks in the corner.
Graste grabbed a metal piece from the table and handed it to me. It had a faint blue color and was lighter than expected. It didn’t feel like metal at all.
“This is what happens when you smelt thundercite and forget it.”
It seemed mundane for having come from thundercite. It was a blueish metal, that’s it. With its smooth surface, it seemed like pure thundercite. Graste had done a great job forging it. However, it had lost all its special properties. It didn’t have a trace of electricity sparking from it.
“Does this have an electrical reaction?” I asked. “Or do multiple pieces together react like the thundercite?”
“Try for yourself.” Graste handed me a second piece.
Judging from his reaction, he must’ve already tried it. I touched the two pieces together, but nothing happened.
“Can I ask how you forged this?” I asked.
“Yeah, sure,” Graste said. “First, I broke the thundercite apart with a hammer and then put it in the smelting furnace. I added a few special materials, made a wood fire, then removed the impurities from the melted mixture. I poured it into a mold before it hardened. It still wasn’t smooth at this point, so I cleaned it up with more forging and a hammer. It got stronger, but it’s still inferior to other metals.”
“At what point did it stop conducting electricity?”
“When I first broke it up. The pieces only had a little bit of spark left. It probably stopped sparking altogether after I melted it down. I did everything all in one go, so it’s hard to say. Maybe it was the melting, or removing the impurities. It could have also been the stuff I added in.”
The process sounded like how pig iron was made. If we wanted to exhaust all the possibilities, we could probably try different forging methods. Given the bricks, he must’ve had a bloomery iron smelt. I doubted that a one-man smithing operation had anything like a blast furnace.
If there was still some electrical response when the thundercite was broken apart, that meant its electricity was lost at some point afterward. It made sense that the electrical properties wouldn’t survive the heating and smelting process. At the same time, I didn’t know what other forging process there could be in this world other than melting the ore down. Regardless, I could safely assume it had to do with the heating.
Heat…fire? That suggested Flare. Flare was fire magic produced by the electrical spark of a flint. Besides a bright blue flame, it was like normal fire.
But what was “normal fire,” anyway? Flare’s fire was magical: it was bright blue and fueled by mana. I wasn’t adding the mana to an already-burning fire. No, I was literally using the mana to light a flame that would burn until it consumed the mana and floated away.
The faintest lightbulb flickered in my mind. All right, it’s worth a try.
“Hey, Dad.” I took out my portable flint and gestured at him.
He watched me for a second, then nodded. “All right, sure.”
I was pleased he caught on so fast. It saved me the trouble of explaining my thought process.
“I want to try something out,” I said, turning back to Graste. “Can you set up the forge?”
“Sure, but what for?”
“You’ll have to wait and see.”
Graste gave me a puzzled glance and got to work. Once he filled the furnace with charcoal, he came back over to me.
“Anything else?” he asked.
“I’ll light the fire. Once I do, start smelting.”
“That’s it?”
“Yep. I have no clue whether it will work or not.”
This was a simple experiment of trial and error. I gathered mana in my right hand and struck the flint. I shot the fireball into the furnace, engulfing the burning wood in a blue flame.
“Holy cow!” Graste gasped. “Wh-what was that?”
“Graste, please start your work.”
“Just hang on second! Am I supposed to pretend that didn’t just happen? What did I just see? Fire shot out of your hand!”
“It’s called magic,” I said.
“M-magic?”
Dad nodded and explained it. He didn’t want other people to know about magic, but I guess he didn’t mind telling a good friend like Graste. Graste looked shaken after Dad finished talking.
“Th-that’s unbelievable! Gawain and Shion, you have both known about this all along?”
“More or less,” Dad said. Then they exchanged a look. I missed the meaning behind it, but after a moment, Graste let out a tense sigh and grimaced.
“Well, I guess I have to believe my own eyes and have to believe you. Magic, eh? So, you’re wondering if things are gonna be different when you try and forge using the magic fire?”
“I really don’t know,” I said.
“Huh? You don’t?”
“No. I’m still researching and haven’t properly developed magic yet. This is just a test. If this doesn’t work, then I’ll have no choice but to use the unforged thundercite. From my current understanding, that seems very difficult.”
I didn’t see any way to make a practical tool out of a small piece of thundercite, particularly because the electrical discharge grew weaker the smaller the ore. It needed to be at least as large as my hand to carry a suitable amount of electricity. I was basically thinking that if you could produce a more pure, refined thundercite metal, then you could have more electricity in a smaller size. That would make it a lot more practical for use.
“Hmm,” Graste said. “Well, I guess we’ll just have to give it a try. This’ll take about one hour, so go wait outside until then.”
“No, I’d actually like to observe the process myself.”
“If Shion’s staying, then I am too!” Marie immediately chimed in. She had been clinging to my arm this entire time.
I didn’t mind it, per se, but she did make it hard to move around. Not to mention Graste’s strained expression was putting a strain on my mood, too.
“Emma and I have to take care of a few errands,” Dad said. “Mind looking after them, Graste?”
“No trouble at all.”
“See you later, kids,” Mom said with a wave. We waved back and our parents left the forgery.
I watched Graste from behind as he stood in front of the furnace. Grown-ups sure did seem large from a kid’s perspective. Since I was technically an adult mentally, I often forgot my actual age in this life. It was a strange feeling progressing through my second life like this.
The fire blazed brilliantly. The room grew warmer and I started to sweat. Marie still clung to me, despite my clamminess.
“Oh, I meant to tell you,” Graste spoke to us while working at the forge, “that when this is all over, I want to do something for you as thanks. Let me know if there’s anything you need.”
“A few things come to mind,” I said.
“A few things, eh? Just gimme a break on anything too expensive.”
“Don’t worry, they won’t cost anything.”
“That so? All right, good enough for me. What’re you thinkin’?”
“Allow me to ask you a question first. You used to travel with Dad back in the day, yeah? I know that Dad fights with a sword; do you fight too?”
“Sure can. Most smiths know how to wield the weapons they make. I’m up with the best of ’em. ’Course, I’m no match against Gawain.”
“That’s good to hear. In that case, I will make the request later after we see if the experiment is successful. It can wait until then.”
“No need to hold back, kiddo. What’s with this grown-up restraint? Makes me feel kinda pathetic to be treated like a kid by an actual kid.”
“It’s not restraint,” I said. “Maybe I’m just an idealist? I just get the sense that you would try to make me accept the gift even if we fail.”
Graste stopped working and turned around to look at me. “Who knew kids thought so deeply, eh?”
“This is just what I’m like. There’s nothing deep about it.”
“If you say so. Gawain did tell me about all this.”
Marie and I turned to each other.
“Tell you about what?” I asked.
“Oh, just how well put together you are, Shion. He wishes you would be a little more selfish. He wants to spoil you a little. Although, he doesn’t complain like he used to.”
There was an obvious explanation for that. I felt a twinge in my cheek.
“Well, he’s been helping you with magic research all the time now,” Marie said. “But that seems to make him happy. So, it’s fine, right?”
“Huh? Maybe so.” I continued to watch Graste work while I reflected. I wasn’t the type who liked asking a lot of other people. I supposed most parents would be happy to help their kids with something. Thinking back, Dad was always pumped whenever we worked on research together.
At last, Marie seemed to have overheated. She pulled away from me and sat down in a chair, resting her face in her hands. After an hour passed, Mom and Dad returned. Then we all waited a while longer.
“All done!” Graste plunked down two thundercite ingots on the table. He had just finished taking them out of the sand and clay molds, and cooled them down.
They appeared different from the previous one. The metal looked slightly reddish. I could tell right away that something had changed. Did simply the color or heat of the flame affect the results?
I looked up at Graste with anticipation. Graste nodded, took the mica cloth into his hand, and touched the two pieces together. There was a sharp zap and the whole room flashed white with blinding light. During the brief length of that flash, I saw a pathway stretch out before me.
“Whoa!” Graste staggered back.
The actual result wasn’t particularly impressive, compared to the raw thundercite ore. Still, the small pieces Graste held had the comparable force of much larger pieces. For the small size of the ingots, it was more than enough electricity.
“Electricity! It happened!” Dad shouted. He, Mom, and Marie burst into applause.
What was all that about? Graste and I looked at the floor, scratching our heads at the appellation.
“Well, what now?” Graste asked me. “What’s the point?”
We made all this progress and that’s what you ask me? Oh, Graste. I gave a half-smile and approached the table. “Can I use that cloth?”
Graste gave me the mica cloth, which I used to touch the ingot. Examining it up close, I couldn’t see any signs of electricity, as there was only a reciprocal discharge when touched by another piece of thundercite. One ingot wasn’t dangerous on its own.
I got rid of the cloth and put my bare hand on the shard. Everyone scrambled to stop me, but I already held the ingot in my hand. As I expected, there was no shock. One lone piece lacked any electrical current.
Or so I thought. I felt my hair frizz up like it did with static electricity. There was, in fact, an electric current, but it was a charge similar to static. That meant that the ingot was like a battery, and it continuously carried an electric charge.
I took the mica cloth back in my hand and held the ingot. I pressed it to a piece of normal iron where nothing happened. The discharge only occurred with other pieces of forged thundercite. This was quite the discovery. The experiment was more successful than I could’ve imagined.
“Oi, Shion.” It was Graste. “What’re you doing?”
“Just some experiments,” I said. “But I think I got it now.”
“Got what, Shion?” Dad asked.
“How to sell this forged thundercite at market,” I said. “We’re not done yet, but I think you could make good money selling this.”
Dad and Graste tilted their heads and made eye contact. Those two really were peas in a pod.
“But there’s not much time,” I continued. “So we might have to grind pretty hard to get everything done.”
“That’s fine with me,” Graste said. “I can work three days without sleeping. What should I do?”
I scratched my head. “It may be too late, but are you sure you want to do this? You believe a kid like me?”
“Part of me does, part of me doesn’t. I had done plenty of trial and error myself, and only hit dead ends. Based on what you’ve shown me so far, it doesn’t matter that you’re just a kid.” Graste grinned and ruffled my hair.
Despite his lack of articulation, he had a generous heart. People with personalities like his probably succeeded in any field.
I nodded.
“For now, let’s call this metal…let’s call it ‘Elecsteel.’” I explained. “So, you make this Elecsteel for me. It’ll take a long time since you need to forge all of the thundercite that you have. I want you to make two different types of Elecsteel. The first I want molded into small marbles. The second will be made into bars about the size of this ingot.”
They all listened to my explanation carefully.
“Can you do all that, Graste?” I concluded.
“I think so. I’m unsure whether I’ll get all hundred done in three days, though. I’ll get you some trial pieces as soon as I can.”
“That sounds good. Let’s do our best.”
I gripped my fist, and Graste followed my lead. We bumped our fists together and nodded.
“I’ll go break up the thundercite and carry it over for you,” I said.
“Wha? You’re gonna help?”
I looked back, confused. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I?”
“You just gave me your ideas, Shion. That’s more than enough.” Graste looked exasperated.
“But it’ll be difficult for you to finish this all by yourself. Besides, what if you run into some problem along the way? You might need more ideas at that point. It’s only right for me to work alongside you, together, until we succeed.”
Marie nodded in agreement. She had become worked up and was breathing faster. From behind, I heard my parents sigh. I felt a flash of uncertainty.
“Once Shion gets started, you can’t stop him,” Dad said. “But I think he’s right. Let’s all work together for the next three days. I already told the villagers I might be gone for a bit. I had a feeling this trip might become an adventure.”
Mom chuckled. “It’s certainly been quite some time since we stayed in Istria. It’s kind of exciting!”
“I’ll do everything I can to help!” Marie exclaimed. “Whatever you need, Mr. Graste!”
Graste nodded. “Thanks, gang, but I don’t want you over doing it. Any help’s much appreciated.”
“I can take it easy,” I said. “Don’t worry.”
Graste’s smile stretched halfway between exasperation and happiness. On that day, a new battle had begun.
***
The division of labor was clear. Dad hammered the thundercite ore into pieces. This required a lot of strength to do, so it would’ve taken Marie and I too long. Instead, we were to carry it from the warehouse to Graste’s store. Since there was a considerable distance between them, and the transport took more time than hammering, we waited for Dad to join us once he finished his task.
Meanwhile, Graste forged the thundercite nonstop. That process required the most tenacity and technique, and it took the longest, as well. The furnace was small, so he could only smelt a few pieces of thundercite at once. He also had to constantly prepare fresh charcoal and the other ingot materials. It was exhausting labor, as smelting also required standing close to the hot furnace. He kept at it, though, with his back to us, facing the furnace, continuing his work. It must’ve been rough.
As for Mom…well, you’re about to see what she’d been up to.
Three long days passed, and every last piece of thundercite was forged.
“Oof. We actually did it.”
Graste, Marie, and I all tumbled to the ground. Exhaustion had made Mom and Dad look undead. We were all wiped out, but Graste had gone three straight days without sleep.
Marie and I slept proper every night, but we were still wrecked since transporting the thundercite pieces had taken longer than expected. Dad worked the hardest out of our four family members. He assisted with the transport in an impressive rush, but even with his help, it took until the last minute.
“Boy, would I like to sleep,” Graste grumbled. “But I s’pose we gotta check our finished products first.” He heaved himself to his feet.
“Yes, you’re right. There shouldn’t be any problem, but let’s double check.”
Of course, we tested the ingots along the way, but you couldn’t be too careful.
The five of us left the forgery and walked over to Graste’s small storehouse in the back garden. Unlike the impressive warehouse he rented, it was a shed the size of a large kitchen. It did the job, and the fruits of our labors slumbered inside.
Graste opened up the doors of the storehouse, revealing a huge number of small wooden boxes. We opened and checked each box and took the contents out.
There were two finished products. The first I called the Electern. This portmanteau of “electric” and “lantern” referred to a device designed to produce a light source. It looked like a handheld oil lamp, but its structure was completely different. Inside, two thin, long rectangular bars of Elecsteel were placed face to face, with just enough space in between them to fit a few thin strips of mica. This blocked the electrical reaction between the Elecsteel pieces. The mica strips were affixed to the lantern’s lid, so when it closed, nothing happened, but then it lit up when you lifted the lid off. We insulated the bottom of the lantern so that the electrical current wouldn’t escape to the outside. Everything was enclosed in a glass case, so the Electern shone at a considerable brightness once you took off the lid.
Under normal circumstances, electrical discharge was too unstable and sporadic to act as a light force. However, when two pieces of Elecsteel are put together, they shine at a steady brightness, making the middle of the Electern a glowing shaft of electricity. Its electrical discharge functions similarly to an arc lighter or stun gun, although it was silent. It certainly let off more than enough electricity to power something. The only mystery was how long the power would last.
Our second product was the Sparker. It was basically a new type of flint. It resembled my portable flint, but at the end of what resembled a pair of metal tweezers, we affixed one-inch-diameter orbs of Elecsteel. Since Elecsteel lacked an electrical reaction with other types of metal, the construction was safe.
It wasn’t so easy to light fires with a spark discharge. This design solved that problem by producing a spark when the two orbs of Elecsteel touched. Then you could light a flame like the Flare spell without any magic at all. Flints broke easily, but using the Sparker didn’t put any strain on the device, so you’d probably be able to use it for some time.
Putting the products together was Mom’s handiwork. Her sewing skills were nearly at professional level, and she did an impressive job. She did seem exhausted after the three days of work, though.
A source of light and a source of fire—these were the two products I invented. People needed both, so convenient and easy-to-use sources like these would surely be useful to a large demographic. After trying both of them for myself, I was pleased with the results. The rest of my family members were over the moon too.
Everyone grinned at one another. We couldn’t find any problems after the final testing.
“And that finally does it!” exclaimed Graste. “Thank you, everyone! Great work!”
We all nodded in relief. The four of us were sitting outside together, a rare occurrence. Mom and Dad looked like they couldn’t even stand up from exhaustion.
“Shion, I gotta say…” Graste said. “How d’ya even come up with this stuff?”
“Pretty amazing, right?” Dad said. “My boy.”
“You’re the cleverest boy in the whole world, Shion,” Mom added. “I’m just so proud of you.”
I relished the praise, even if it did make me feel slightly awkward.
I worried that Marie might be jealous, but when I glanced at her, I saw her cheering me on too. That was certainly unexpected. Girls stumped me sometimes.
“We don’t know if it will sell or not,” I said.
“Oh, this’ll sell,” Graste replied. “Ain’t nothin’ out there this convenient. Even if it doesn’t, I don’t care because I think this is one of the coolest inventions I’ve ever seen in my life. I can’t thank all of you enough. You all saved my butt, especially you, Shion. This is all thanks to you. I’m really grateful.” He bowed his head to me.
He was an honest man with a heart of gold. Sure, he had his selfish side, but we all do. I didn’t think there were many people out there who could give as good of a “thank you” as he did.
“Don’t mention it,” I said. “I had fun doing it, and it was also useful for me.”
“Yeah, don’t mention it!” chimed in Marie. “I had fun too!”
Mom giggled. “This feels like the old days when it was fun to achieve something with everyone working together!”
“Really, don’t worry about it, Graste,” Dad said. “Your gratitude’s more than enough.”
After hearing our responses, Graste raised his head. When he did, the four of us all flinched in surprise.
Graste was sobbing. “Th-thank you—sniff—you guys are the—snort—best. Nnngh—I’m juff so dang—shlorpf—happy! Thank you, Thank you—wahhh—thank youuuu—wahh!”
Wow, the man sure cried in a crazy way only he could. Not that I didn’t appreciate his appreciation, but the sobbing was so loud and intense that the rest of us practically had to pull away from him while exchanging uncomfortable glances with one another.
As we did, however, we broke into smiles. We weren’t laughing at him. From the bottom of our hearts, we were overcome with joy. Soon we were all laughing as Graste sobbed and wept all the while. I had never experienced such a crazy and yet truly happy moment.
Chapter 6: Compound Magic, Spark Gauntlet, and Bolt
Chapter 6:
Compound Magic, Spark Gauntlet, and Bolt
IT WAS THE DAY AFTER WE RETURNED FROM Istria. Once we had finished the two Elecsteel products, I had communicated my request to Graste. Graste’s response to that request would have huge implications for my magical research moving forward.
For the time being, I anticipated that I wouldn’t see Graste for a while and restarted my magical research accordingly. There was something that had been bothering me. I headed into the garden with a few tools.
“Oh, Shion? What’re you doing?” Marie called out.
“Last I recall, you were at a dead end with your magic research, no?” Rose asked.
The girls were sweaty, having just finished sparring together. They wiped themselves dry with towels as I approached them across the garden. From time to time I saw them spar like this, usually under Dad’s keen observation.
“A cup and a candle? What for?” Marie asked.
“I suppose he’s going to attempt some peculiar experiment, per usual,” Rose said.
I had captured their curiosity. I always felt a bit uplifted when that happened.
“Just watch and see,” I said.
I placed the candle down on top of a flat stone. I lit it with a match instead of Flare. It was a breezeless day, so the flame flickered calmly.
I put the cup down on top of the candle. When I raised the cup, the flame had extinguished.
“Did you two know that fire can’t burn without oxygen? It goes out when you cover it up like this.”
“Pffth! Of course I knew that!” Marie shouted. She obviously didn’t have a clue.
“Marie, it’s the same as snuffing out an oil lantern. You’ve done that before, haven’t you?” Rose said, exasperated.
Marie looked between the two of us defiantly. Even in this world, it was common knowledge that you could extinguish a fire by covering it up. Still, people only snuffed their fires with water or by letting them burn down. So, maybe the scientific principles behind it weren’t understood.
“B-but what about it, anyway?” Marie asked.
“Well, this is how normal fires work, but what about magical fires? I’m testing that out. What do you think will happen?”
“It’ll stay lit!” Marie exclaimed. “Yeah!”
“I think it will still go out,” Rose said.
Indeed, Rose would be correct under normal circumstances. These were not normal circumstances. I lit the candle by using Flare with my right hand. I put the cup over the top of the blue flame. When I raised the cup up, the fire…still burned.
Marie laughed. “Look! It’s still burning! Rose was wrong!”
“Yes, so it seems.” Rose shook her head.
Marie was more thrilled with her victory than Rose was despondent at her defeat. There was a hint of frustration in her voice, because deep down, Rose hated to lose. Marie hated to lose even more, though.
But I digress. The fire kept burning, even without oxygen. Normal fires required a heat source, oxygen, and a flammable substance to burn. In the case of fire magic, I previously hypothesized that mana functioned as a flammable substance, but under that assumption, the fire would still need oxygen to burn. This experiment totally contradicted my previous theory. Fire magic did not, in fact, require oxygen.
Did that mean that mana possessed both the properties of a flammable substance and oxygen? In my experiments with lightning magic, I found that mana conducted electricity. That led me to theorize that mana was a mutable substance, and that it possessed different properties depending on the energy type it contacted. Typically, this contact led to replicating and amplifying the phenomenon in question.
Now, I learned that oxygen wasn’t necessary for fire magic. In other words, mana replicated all of the necessary properties of a given phenomenon. Mana replicated the properties of fire after contacting it, regardless of the natural conditions. That would indicate that mana could replicate and amplify the properties of a phenomenon regardless of the surroundings conditions. It could light a fire in outer space, for example.
So why, then, did water quench fire magic? That seemed to contradict the theory, but maybe it had to do with its nature. In all possibility, water made fire magic weak. Could water function as some kind of designated counter to fire magic?
It wasn’t logical, that was for sure. I decided to put the water-fire interaction question aside for the time being. Regardless, fire magic produced by Flare had unique properties and effects. Using its flame had resulted in the unique properties of Elecsteel in the thundercite forging process. These fires were much more than just fires.
“Okay, so what does it mean?” Marie chimed in.
“Nothing yet,” I responded. “I just know that it’s different from normal fires now. But it should apply to lightning magic as well.”
At that moment, a lightbulb went off in my mind. I immediately shot up and raced to the center of the garden.
“I want to try something. Can you two cast some mana for me?”
“Of course,” Marie said. “It’s not much, but I can.”
“I can as well, but mine doesn’t last long. Marie has better control.”
I knew that even though the two of them could emit mana, the amount they ejected was less than mine, so it couldn’t support fires very well. If either of them tried to cast Flare, the fire would disappear within a few seconds. If I labeled my own emission capacity at sixty, Rose and Marie were probably in the twenty to thirty range. However, the two of them had a better sensitivity for controlling their mana that I did. Marie could manipulate it with the palm of her hand in complicated ways that I hadn’t figured out yet.
“I’m going to cast Flare in this direction and make it float there,” I said, pointing. “Marie, can you shoot an orb to collide with it? You can stand right there.”
“Sure, I’ll try.”
“And Rose, can you stand by with a bucket of water? Just to be safe.”
“Of course,” Rose said, with a hint of skepticism. “I’ll be interested to see what happens.”
“Yes, you will,” I responded. “Okay, let’s get started.”
Flare didn’t require oxygen or a flammable substance. Mana adapted the properties of both. If that was true, what would happen when you contributed even more mana to fire magic? Fire magic consumed mana. Mana contained all the properties of a flame. Therefore, I theorized that if I added more mana to my fire magic, the fire would become even more powerful.
I fired off a Flare into the air. It hovered there while Marie shot off her own orb.
What would happen? Would there be a sudden burst of flame? Or would the intensity of the fire increase? Would the color change, or something else altogether? I waited in anticipation for the outcome.
We made contact, and it created a shrill, piercing bang. A forceful blast, accompanied by a searing wind, sent me reeling. Overwhelming heat and light blinded my entire field of vision. A second later, I watched a blue flame shoot into the sky. It scorched the air with fire. It was an all-out explosion!
Marie screamed. I raced over to her, but she had just fallen on her back. I gave a gasp of relief and looked up to see that the fire had faded away. Fortunately, there we no traces of damage in the garden.
“Wh-what was that?” shouted Rose, the bucket of water still in her hands.
Marie sat on the ground and stared blankly in shock.
My heart was racing. I could’ve never imagined this outcome. Why? How did the addition of mana cause a full-on explosion? It just didn’t make sense.
The explosion would’ve contained an outstanding amount of energy. Marie could only cast about half of my mana, if not less. That amount of extra mana didn’t add up to the dramatic increase in force we had just witnessed. What was the explanation for that much energy generating from her simple addition of mana?
I helped Marie to her feet, then faced her and Rose. “Are you two all right?”
“I…I’m fine,” Marie said. “I was a little surprised. But I’m not hurt.”
“Shion, did you know that would happen?” Rose asked.
“No, of course not,” I said. “I thought maybe the fire would burn a little stronger, that’s all.”
“Really. Then what in the world was that crazy wind?” Marie asked. “All I did was add more mana.”
“It certainly doesn’t correspond to the amount added,” Rose said.
It certainly did not. We just witnessed a literal explosion. It was like setting fire to TNT. Was mana the equivalent of explosives, too? Could that really be?
Hang on, I said to myself. I had to slow down. I already figured that mana possessed mutable properties. In fact, I was practically sure of it, but something was off.
Mana burned when it touched fire, and discharged when it touched electricity.
Flammable substance, oxygen, fire. Electric current, electric discharge, lightning.
Hmm…electric current?Oh…
Once I had the realization, I hurried over to the thundercite in the corner of the garden. Marie and Rose raced after me. I cast some mana into the thundercite. I knew that mana conducted electricity, and that electrical current flowed in a jagged shape—hence why lightning bolts look the way they do. When I finally considered why electricity flowed in that shape, my fog of confusion blew away in a mighty wind.
Yes. Why do lightning bolts look the way they do when they shoot through the atmosphere?
I gathered more mana into my palm. Was the faint glow gathering there also mana? That’s it. It was mana, but it also wasn’t.
“That’s it!” I shouted. “This isn’t mana! It’s not mana!”
“Shion, what are you talking about?” exclaimed Rose. “You’re the one who told us that what you’re holding right now is mana!”
“Yes, you’re right. I did say that. It is mana, but it’s not! It’s actually mana reacting to the air!”
I stared at the light in my palm, full of conviction. When you emitted mana, it glowed around your body in the form of Magicoat. However, that wasn’t its physical appearance—that was its reaction with the atmosphere. It was amplifying light and U.V. radiation, in the form of a faint glow, and infrared radiation, in the form of a faint heat. All of which came from the sun.
This alone wasn’t enough evidence; however, I knew without a doubt that lightning magic had trouble traversing the air. So maybe what was really happening was that the mana reacted to two phenomena at once—that of electricity, and of the atmosphere itself.
This experiment wasn’t enough evidence. I knew without a doubt that Flare didn’t require oxygen, and that when burning with mana alone, it exploded when additional mana was applied. I followed this line of thought into the next problem. Why didn’t mana explode when applied to a normal fire? Probably because a magical fire had different properties than a normal one. These two forms of mana or magic interacted with one another. What happened when my mana touched the goblin’s mana during the attack was a fairly similar occurrence. It all added up: when mana was applied to mana that had already reacted with the air, the result was an explosive amount of force. In other words, what we had just witnessed between my Flare and Marie’s mana.
“Wow! I got it! This is huge! I found it—the breakthrough I’ve been looking for! Hah!” My excitement overflowed into confidence. I stood at the doorstep of a considerable breakthrough. I was on the verge of a huge new development.
“Oh boy, now he’s making that face,” Marie said.
“At least he’s happy.” Rose giggled.
“But he can’t go around in public with that face, can he?” Marie laughed.
“Maybe he should! It’s him at his best, after all. It’s such a big expression of happiness that I can’t help but to feel somewhat joyous myself.”
I didn’t hear a word they said—I was trying to get Marie’s attention. “Sister! Over here, I need your help!”
“Okay. What should I do?”
“I want you to cast your mana into my lightning magic.”
Marie paused. “Won’t it explode again?”
“Not if what I’m thinking is correct,” I said, but then stopped myself. “Still, maybe stand back a bit.” I was so excited that I could hardly formulate words. I couldn’t stop myself either.
I produced my staff-shaped mana and then signaled to Marie. She shot an orb at the tip of the staff. After that, I inserted my mana into the thundercite. The electricity flowed straight forward and didn’t flow to the opposite end of the staff where Marie’s mana was.
“Huh?” Marie looked confused. “Why didn’t the electricity flow the other way?”
“That’s strange,” Rose said. “It’s totally different from what happened with fire magic.”
“It’s because of the air resistance,” I said. “Mana reacts with the air that it touches and that stops the flow of electricity, or so I think. This pretty much proves it. When mana is touching air, it’s replicating the various properties of air, including oxygen.”
“Air resistance? Oxygen?”
“I have no clue what you mean.”
The confusion was visible on both Marie and Rose’s faces. That was reasonable. It would be weirder if they did understand me.
“I don’t really get it myself,” I said. “But there’s something that I’m close to discovering.” I couldn’t hide the excitement in my voice. I felt wired.
Rose and Marie just watched me in my zone with satisfied expressions.
This is it, I thought. These are the moments I live for.
I often struggled and became stuck during the course of my magic research. But sometimes, progress was made. This feeling of breaking through was fun and exciting. I wondered if researchers got hooked on this emotion. It felt like stepping into a whole new world. I decided to call my new discovery “Compound Magic.”
***
To activate Compound Magic, you must apply mana to magic. Activating it together with Marie was fine, but I wanted to be able to do it myself. My idea was that at the same moment I ejected mana from my right hand, I could also cast mana from another part of my body.
Let’s say I have a hundred points of mana. I could emit sixty from my hand, leaving forty remaining in my body. What if I could emit that other forty from somewhere else?
Turns out the answer was yes, kind of. It was difficult to focus my attention on both my right and left hands, but I eventually figured it out. I had other experiments I wanted to work on, but discovering Compound Magic had me excited. Once I became better at simultaneous casting, then I’d be able to really start trying out Compound Magic.
Meanwhile, Graste dropped by to announce that all Electerns and Sparkers had sold out. This was quicker than I expected. He asked me to help him make more. It’d basically be like a part-time job for me.
I solely practiced my magic for a few days, then began working in Graste’s store. My new schedule consisted mainly of helping him with the forging, with my training done in my spare time. I spent my time in that new way of life until, before I knew it, I had turned eight years old.
Now, I was practicing my magic control in my room at home. I tried it out, casting mana from my right and my left hands simultaneously.
“Phew,” I sighed. “Guess I’ve pretty much managed it.”
From my right hand, I cast an orb about the size of a soccer ball. That took up sixty mana points. Then, from my left hand, I cast mana the size of a baseball. That was probably twenty to thirty mana points. This was about as much as Marie could cast. I managed to cast them at nearly the exact same time.
“Now I’ll finally be able to make new discoveries with Compound Magic! Hee hee, ha ha!” I chuckled to myself.
The corners of my mouth involuntarily twitched, letting out maniacal cackles. All right, calm down, me. I couldn’t get too excited yet. I had experiments to do.
With that, I headed downstairs, ready to begin. I paused to listen to the loud sounds coming from outside. It sounded like hooves. Were we expecting a visitor?
I went to the living room. From there, I saw Graste open the door open and enter. I’d spent enough time with him lately that he was a familiar sight at this point.
Graste spoke with Dad. We made eye contact, and I nodded as Graste raised his hand.
“Hi, Mr. Graste,” I said. “You’re not at your forge today?”
“Hey there, Shion. Nope, I’ve got some other stuff to take care of today.” Graste grinned and lifted up his bag. He took something out of it and showed it to me. “It’s what I promised you. Here ya go.”
Oh!It’s finally here! The item I ordered from Graste!
I took a small pair of gloves into my hand. They felt lighter than I expected. They were made of smooth leather with metal plates lining the back of the hand, joints, fingertips, and palm. They looked extremely tough.
“Introducing: the world’s first magic tool! As you requested, I took high quality mica strips and a tough, fire-resistant leather and sewed them together,” explained Graste with a self-satisfied look. “There’s Elecsteel woven into the palm. It’s connected with copper and silver, which’ll stop the electric charge. The back of the hands are lined with a pure, high-quality steel. That’ll make it so it also protects your hands in a pinch. The fingers are a top-of-the-line flint. You can start a fire with the snap of your fingers. All this, plus it’s tough, and it’ll last you for years.”
This was the real deal. I understood why he was proud of it. Meanwhile, Dad stood behind Graste with a resigned expression on his face. I had already explained exactly what I’d requested with the caveat that it was pivotal to future research. Since this favor was well within the bounds of reason given what I’d done for him before, it was a fair trade.
The gloves were perfect. The only problem I could see would be needed size adjustments as I grew bigger. I decided to call the gloves “Spark Gauntlets.”
I slipped them on and flexed my fingers. They were unexpectedly light and flexible. It was an amazing piece of work. They even had subtle ornamentation. They gave off an air of craftsmanship and expertise.
“This is amazing,” I said. “I never expected something this…this amazing.”
“I appreciate the praise, but let’s see the sucker in action already.” Graste chuckled.
I nodded. “Let’s go outside.”
“I’ve been dying to see this so-called lightning magic. I can’t wait,” Dad said.
I hadn’t shown Compound Magic yet to Mom or Dad. Not even Marie had seen it, since I happened to have only finally perfected my control over the technique today. I’d been practicing for over a month straight, progressing at a turtle’s pace. During that time, I mulled over how to apply it. Today, it felt like everything was coming together.
I can’t wait, I thought. I was so elated I could’ve started skipping.
“Uh oh,” Dad said. “Shion’s in his evil chuckle mode.”
Mom laughed. “That’s how we know something big’s going to happen! Is something going to go wrong?”
“I-it’s gonna be fine!” Marie exclaimed. “Probably!”
My family sounded a little bit concerned, but I certainly wasn’t.
There was a knock on the door. I opened it to find it was Rose. She must have had the day off.
“Oh, hello. You’re all together today, I see.”
“Yep,” I said, “and you are just in time for another powerful magic demonstration! Come join us, Rose!”
She giggled. “Very well, then. I shall.”
We all moved into the middle of the garden. I faced away from the house and held up my hand. I decided to start with something simple. I gathered mana in my right hand. Then I quickly rubbed my thumb and middle finger together. A clean snap announced a shower of sparks, setting fire to my mana. I had focused a specific command in my head: “Release mana into my palm and stay there.” When I snapped, a blue flame was born into the palm of my hand.
The Spark Gauntlet was resistant to both fire and electricity. I couldn’t touch either for long, but I was safe. So, now I could activate fire and lightning magic with my own body. Being able to make Flare with my hand was a huge step forward.
Behind me, I heard a chorus of impressed shouts. They sounded genuinely happy for me. My family and Rose had supported me this whole time, and Graste was an active participant in crafting this magic tool.
I held my hand forward and shot out the flame. This elicited no reaction from the crowd as it was an old trick, or so they thought! I quickly shot mana out from my left hand, and sent it shooting towards the blue flame that wobbled through the air.
BOOM. The wind blew hot while sparks showered through the air. The explosion packed enough punch to send small animals flying.
“Whoa! Holy hell!”
Thanks for the nice reaction, Graste. I smiled.
“What was that?” Dad said, frowning. “That wasn’t Flare.”
“Y’see, Dad…” Marie chimed in to explain what happened. It didn’t make his expression relax, though. I couldn’t blame him, given the force of the explosion. Anyone would assume that was dangerous. I owed him an apology later.
Next up, I activated Flare in both my right and left hand. I released the right-hand Flare forward, and then once it reached a small distance away, I shot Flare from my left hand so the two would collide. When they did…nothing happened.
Apparently, once mana was activated as fire magic, the combining of two sources of mana didn’t produce any results. Both fireballs maintained their individual shapes, wavered, and disappeared.
“So, what the heck does that mean, huh?” Graste was dumbfounded.
“I have no idea,” muttered Marie.
Rose smoothly stepped in. “I suspect Shion was testing what would happen when two types of magic are combined. What he has discovered is that nothing happens whatsoever.”
“That makes sense, I guess,” Graste said. “Wow, you sure are clever, little lady. Speaking of, we haven’t met before. Should’ve introduced myself.”
“I should have done the same, so please accept my apologies.”
While Rose and Graste introduced themselves to each other behind me, I decided to focus on myself. Marie stood next to them looking dissatisfied while Dad explained the results to Mom.
Turns out that combining different types of magic together produced nothing. Oh, well, on to the next test! I concentrated mana into both of my hands. I wanted to combine the two orbs of mana before I turned them into magic.
As I did, the two orbs of mana smoothly merged into one. Well, how about that. Apparently two different pieces of mana could safely combine in their current state of amplifying the properties of the atmosphere. Now I had to activate this combined atmospheric mana as magic. I snapped my fingers and lit a fire.
A fireball about twice the size of Flare appeared. It traveled about ten or twenty feet before stopping, burning brightly all the while, and took about fifteen seconds to fade away. As suspected, the increased mana load had boosted the power and properties of the fire magic, both in power and longevity.
Typically, Flare wasn’t particularly hot or powerful, but the compound Flare felt at least as hot as a live hearth fire. I intuited that touching it with a bare hand would leave a serious burn. Suddenly, I literally had powerful fire magic on my hands.
“Does that mean he just combined two sources of mana to make a stronger Flare?”
“I’m almost certain. Don’t you think so, Mr. Gawain?”
“That’s what it looks like,” Dad said, “but sheesh, look at him—my boy carefully examining every possible combination. Look at his serious expression as he’s deep in thought. He looks all grown up!”
“To me it just looks like he’s making a sloppy expression. Kinda creepy, to be honest.”
“That’s what you used to think too, Dad,” Marie said.
“Do not tell me this means I’m going to eventually be impressed by that look on his face?”
“I’ve always thought it was a wonderful expression, darling,” Mom said.
Ignoring the background chatter, every inch of my body quivered with excitement. The results so far had been beyond my expectations. I burst into elated laughter.
I mean, anyone, regardless of age, can’t help but get this excited when they achieve something, right? I was just the same as anyone else celebrating their successes, right? Right?
I needed to run more experiments. Specifically, I wanted to test out the effects of Compound Magic on Gas Flare. As with Flare, I found that combining two different Gas Flares did nothing. While combining one Gas Flare with one orb of mana caused an explosion, combining two pieces of mana into one Gas Flare produced a more high-powered Gas Flare. It was strong enough to possibly open a hole in metal. This made me start to think of it like a burner.
That was enough tests on Flare—they had just been appetizers, anyway. Now it was time to move on to the main course. I asked Graste to make the Spark Gauntlet for creating lightning magic, after all. These buffs to fire magic were all freebies.
Up until now, it was almost impossible to move lightning magic where I wanted it to go. The most I’d managed was to draw the electricity flow towards me with my mana staff. The only way I knew how to get electricity to strike something was to create a mana staff long enough to go through a piece of thundercite and touch the target. Then I ejected the mana staff so that its center collided with the thundercite and the target at the same time. It was a pretty impractical scenario to pull off. The Spark Gauntlet should solve this problem for me, and I was moments away from finding out just how well it worked.
I faced my hands toward one another. I turned my back to one side while resting my hands close to my waist. Then, as I shifted back to face forward, I held out my hands and combined each palm’s mana together into the shape of a staff. I extended the mana staff forward and pushed my wrists together, then twisted my palms so that they both faced forward. It was basically a Kamehameha pose from Dragon Ball Z.
Once in this formation, the Elecsteel in my Spark Gauntlets were close enough to interact and produce an electrical discharge. The newfound electrical current passed through the mana, and conducted forward in the direction that I released the mana staff. In other words, it zapped in where I wanted it to. A red light flashed and crackled and shot forth a small lightning bolt.
“I did it! I did it, I did it, I freaking did it! I created lighting magic, and I dub thee ‘Bolt!’” My hands trembled and my voice shook as I ecstatically screamed at the top of my lungs.
My wildest dreams had really come true. I’d been troubled for a long time by the mixed bag of results from my experiments. Not today, for finally my labors had yielded true, undeniable fruit.
My first magic item, the Spark Gauntlets, and my first lightning magic spell, Bolt, were complete. I had also discovered Compound Magic, which led to all sorts of new possibilities. Everything had gone so, so perfectly well. All the slow days of progress up until this point were suddenly rewarded, and magnificently so.
“Wow, that was crazy! So that’s lightning magic, eh? Serious business right there!”
“That was the most amazing magic so far…Shion?”
“Shion! Are you okay? Are you injured?”
Marie and Rose ran up to me. I was completely unresponsive. Marie laid her hand on my shoulder.
“What’s happening, Shion?” she asked.
“He…he’s crying!”
The tears streamed down my cheeks. I sniffled. “I did it…I really…really…” I was choked by tears of joy.
I’d carried these dreams of magic with me for so long and suffered so much for them. But now, at last, they were realized. I’d spent two lives being told that magic didn’t exist, but it did. It really did!
Yes, I had been thrilled when I came up with Flare. Bolt was so much more revolutionary, and its myriad possibilities blossomed before my eyes. Success rained down on me, and I couldn’t contain my joy.
Some people might think me silly, but there was no one else but me who could use magic. I had achieved the impossible with my own two hands. How could I not be proud of myself?
“Shion, you’re such a crybaby,” Marie said kindly, putting her arms around me.
I didn’t resist and fell into them. Dad, Mom, and Graste approached us. They patted my back and my head in congratulations.
I now had both magic and family in this world. Perhaps my first life’s purpose on Earth had been to foster my love and fascination with magic, all so that I could discover both it and true happiness here in this world.
Chapter 7: Aqua
Chapter 7:
Aqua
I CONTINUED MY EXPERIMENTS ON COMPOUND Magic in earnest. Allow me to provide you with a brief list of the techniques I discovered.
Structure of Compound Magic
Mana + Mana = Compound Mana
Increases mana volume and density. Activation time: Instant.
Compound Mana × Flare = Twin Flare
Flare cast with compound mana. Superior version of Flare. Activation time: Instant.
Flare × Mana Eject = Bomb Flare
Flare that contacts raw mana. Brief, but powerful. Activation time: A few seconds.
Compound Mana × Flare × 2 Mana Ejects = Double Bomb Flare
Flare explodes by repeated Mana Ejects. Very powerful. Activation time: six or more seconds.
Compound Mana × Bolt = Line Bolt
Bolt cast with compound mana. Superior version of bolt. Activation time: Instant.
Bolt × Mana Eject = Reduced Power
Due to air resistance, Mana Eject interferes with the electrical current. Useless. Activation time: Instant.
Flare × Bolt = Separate spells.
They activate separately while not interfering with one another. Activation time: Instant.
Those were all the types of magic I tried out the other day. The first name to appear is the base spell, and the second one to appear is the sub spell. I activate the base spell with my right hand and the sub-spell with my left. Most of these are impossible to do with just one hand.
Today, Marie, Rose, and I sojourned to the nearby lake. The scene was a familiar one—this was where it all started. I hadn’t been here in a while, though, since I didn’t have a reason to visit anymore.
“Wow, I sure missed this place. It’s been two years,” Marie said.
Two years? Was that all? Somehow, the years had been so packed that it felt like even longer ago. Two long years ago, I first learned about magic here when Marie showed me the Etten trout emitting orbs of mana. Today, I used several kinds of magic myself.
Surely, this was a miracle. Sometimes I wondered if any of this had really happened. But, without question, I existed and wielded magic. I became the magician that I’d dreamed of for so long. Still, I had a ways to go on this path.
I walked up to the lake’s surface and stooped down to look at the water.
“What are you going to do, Shion?” Marie asked.
“Knowing him, surely something magical,” Rose said.
“Yep,” I replied. “There’s something I want to try out here. But first, I need a simple confirmation.”
I stared down into the water. I couldn’t see the bottom, but I tried to stare as deep as I could. Naturally, that didn’t get me very far.
I saw something shining in the water. It was faint, but definitely there. Even outside of mating season, Etten trout emitted a faint light from their skin—just like people who possessed mana.
I hadn’t been able to see it before, but as I trained more with magic, I began seeing mana more clearly. I didn’t know for certain, but I thought now I could pretty much see whenever something or someone had it. So even when the trout weren’t emitting the orbs of light, I could still see their power.
I was interested in confirming this, since a few days ago, on a trip to Istria, I swung by a different lake. There, the Etten trout didn’t have mana. That meant that those trout were different for some reason. Why did some Etten trout have mana, but others didn’t?
It was the lake. This lake, so close to the house where I was born, was special! Was it just a coincidence? Or was I born here for a reason? Maybe it wasn’t worth thinking about. It wasn’t up to me to know the truth of fates or destiny or oracles.
“Is that a light down there?” Marie asked.
“It is! It’s just as I thought, the trout in this lake are special. Is it the fish or is it the lake itself?”
“The other creatures in this lake don’t shine,” Rose said. “So, it must be the trout, no?”
“Maybe, but not necessarily,” I said. “Remember, some people have mana while others don’t. Just having mana on its own is worthless unless you know how to make use of it.”
“What do you mean?”
I shrugged. “That’s why we’re here today.”
I took off my boots and stepped into the lake. I walked in until the water reached my knees. There, I turned my right palm face down toward the water. I used Mana Eject to create a mana sphere and sent it through the lake’s surface. The mana passed through without effect. The mana orb glowed underwater, but before long its light faded away.
Nothing seemed unusual about this. All I could see was the orb of light going from the air into the water. The water didn’t even resist the mana; it passed through as if it were one and the same as the air.
I had already tried this before. At the time, I had assumed that mana had no effect on water. Was that really true? I began doubting it.
Those doubts began when I realized that what I had actually observed was mana interacting with the atmosphere. All the properties I thought were of the mana itself were actually amplifications of the natural properties of air. Mana turned into fire when it touched fire, and it turned into electricity when it touched electricity. Following those patterns, it was only natural to assume that mana would take on the properties of water when it touched water. I expected that it would start to float and become more viscous than the air. Why didn’t that happen?
I lowered my arm into the water up to my elbow. I released mana directly into the water. I commanded my mana to release from my hand and float up to the surface. What appeared was the exact same mana as what I casted into the air previously. It sailed smoothly and quickly up into the sky and vanished. The mana had the exact same properties in the water that it did in the air, even when it was touching the water. I didn’t get it at all.
I’ve got to think about this deeper, I decided.
Mana in the air is exactly the same as mana in the water. Did that mean that mana adapted air’s properties before it even touched it? Had I been wrong this whole time, and my initial assumptions that mana naturally glowed and floated were correct? Or did mana naturally take on the atmosphere’s qualities without needing to touch it directly?
No, I needed to slow down. I was rushing. In mana’s reactions with fire and electricity, the natural properties of air played a role. With fire, it played the role of oxygen; with electricity, it played the role of air resistance. It made more sense to assume that mana was in fact taking on the properties of the atmosphere as it contacted the air. Mana didn’t act like fire or electricity until it actually contacted either, after all.
Maybe, when I released the mana underwater, it was reacting with the properties of water in some way, but no, that wasn’t right. The mana behaved the same when I released it into the air, both before and after it touched the water. It didn’t change when it moved from underwater to above water, either. Unlike the cases of fire and electricity, there was no change in water whatsoever. What did that mean?
I knew that I could cast spells by combining two pieces of mana together, but what was the Compound Magic of air and water? The atmosphere does naturally have water in it… Maybe above water and underwater weren’t different enough to change its mana properties? That could potentially explain why it didn’t change even when passing from air to water, and vice versa.
Obviously, the atmosphere and water interacted with each other in various ways. Air could cause water to evaporate, depending on its heat. It could also cool the water down, with lower air temperatures even freezing it. Those reactions happened according to changes in the atmosphere, so maybe it wasn’t unfair to consider the properties of the atmosphere and water as similar enough.
I remembered my attempts to touch my mana to rocks, trees, and other physical objects. When it came to these kinds of impermeable substances, I could only observe how the outer surface reacted with the mana, but I never noticed any sort of change. Nothing at all. I needed to find a new approach.
To start, I decided to activate my mana underwater. I issued the command: “Lift up the water.” That propelled my mana up toward the surface. More complicated mana commands required more mana to start up, so I couldn’t issue a particularly large load of mana with an order like that. I just needed to see if the mana could interact with the water at all. That was it. Could mana move water? Surely, I could find the answer.
I issued the commands. And…the lifting mana caused a splash of water as it lifted out of the lake and disappeared into the sky.
“Huh? Did that water just move?” Marie asked.
Rose nodded in agreement. “Unless you just splashed the water, Shion?”
“Nope, that was the mana. I ordered it to lift up the water.”
“Hang on,” Marie gasped. “Mana can do things to water!”
“Yep, looks like it,” I said.
“Th-that’s amazing! That’s a major discovery!”
“Now you’ll be able to use water magic too!” exclaimed Rose.
“Hm, well, probably. Hoo hoo.” My cheeks scrunched up in a grin, but I couldn’t cut loose yet—there was still a long way to go.
The girls had observed correctly, but the mana didn’t exactly lift the water up like I wanted it to. Instead, the surface water tension burst and it caused a splash. You couldn’t exactly call that water magic.
Next, I decided to try using Compound Magic with the same command. This resulted in a ping pong-sized ball of water rising up a few inches above the water’s surface before dropping back into the lake.
“It floated! The water—it floated!” Marie shouted, splashing through the lake and grabbing me by the shoulders.
“It did…float…ugh… Marie…stop…shoulder shaking!”
“Calm down, Marie,” said Rose, who had joined us in the lake and pulled my sister away.
Marie blushed. “Uh, sorry. I just got a little carried away.”
My ear canals rang from the aggressive shaking. I took a few deep breaths.
“You don’t usually get this happy for me, Marie,” I said.
“Oh, well, you were always experimenting with scary stuff like fire and electricity. I like water magic much more; it’s so fantastical and pretty.”
That made sense. I could tell from Rose’s expression that she also looked a bit more excited than normal. Girls really stumped me sometimes. Still, it was nice seeing their two thrilled faces beam at me.
Let’s get back to more experiments, I thought. That previous technique had no practical usage. If I could manipulate the movements of water freely through the air, that would be another story. Sadly, the previous technique maxed out the force of mana I could activate at once. Maybe in the future, I would be able to increase that amount. But now I was at my limit.
Unlike fire and electricity, water was a physical substance. It had weight and mass, and it did not let off free energy for me to manipulate. That meant that it would take a considerable amount of energy to move it or change it. Did that mean water magic was off limits for me? No, surely it was too early for that conclusion.
I had to think more about the atmosphere and how mana amplified its properties. Since the atmosphere naturally had water vapor within it, I theorized that mana could freely move through water as it did through the air. In that case, I should think more about commands I could issue as air magic.
Magic occurs when mana contacts another phenomenon. Water magic was different. It manifested when mana contacts a physical substance. This was both a disadvantage and an advantage.
As for mana, I could issue it specific commands in terms of its movement or amount, but those commands were ineffective unless the mana also contacted a natural phenomenon. In the case of water, I had to stick to the basics. With Flare, I could freely increase the amount of mana to boost or reduce the thermal power. The fire still behaved according to its own natural properties, so I couldn’t freely manipulate the temperature to melt literally anything. Maybe in the future, with more mana, that would become possible, but it wasn’t now.
How did all this change when it came to a physical substance? Could I issue commands to the air that touched my mana? Commands that I knew worked hinged on manipulating movement and the mana’s amount and power.
Were there any other ideas I could try? Could I reduce the temperature in a sphere of air touching my mana until the moisture inside there froze? Surely not. Mana wasn’t all powerful; it couldn’t just manipulate the properties of the air like that.
Maybe I could if the conditions of the air were already right, but I doubted that mana could shift the surrounding environmental conditions. I had to think up something that mana’s natural properties could handle effectively. Something about a physical substance that mana could manipulate.
I knew that mana could increase the amount or force of a phenomenon and move it around freely. Of course, once what I was manipulating moved away from my body, it became autonomous, and I could no longer issue commands. To flip that logic around, I could issue as many commands as I wanted, so long as I was physically touching the substance or phenomenon in question.
That’s it! If I released what I was handling from Magicluster, I’d lose control of it.
I held out my right hand and used Magicluster. I kept the mana in the palm of my hand and focused my attention on it. Then I commanded: “Gather the water vapor from the air.”
Will it work? I thought. Will nothing happen?Hang on, is my hand starting to feel wet…?
Next to me, Rose squinted, waiting for something to happen. Meanwhile, Marie looked around for results in all directions. Their reactions were making me flustered, but I couldn’t tell them to back off.
I didn’t blame them for not noticing. In my hand, I had generated an orb the size of a basketball. There wasn’t much moisture in that much air volume. If I’m remembering my figures correctly, there’s about seventeen grams of water in a cubic meter of air, depending on the humidity and temperature.
Wait—that’s it? One gram of water was one milliliter, and an average water bottle was five hundred milliliters. So, I’d need…let’s run the numbers…thirty cubic meters of air for that much water? Would it even be possible for mana to be effective when stretched out that thin?
Even if I put my hand underwater, gathering the water like that didn’t seem much easier. Even if I somehow managed to gather all that water and freeze it, the technique wouldn’t exactly be more practical than what I had done before with the splash of water. But no, I hadn’t thought this through enough. Let’s see…I know that lifting up water requires a large amount of energy, I thought. It would be a tall task to carry water using mana alone.
Water had weight, tension, and pressure. Gathering the water vapor in the air didn’t require fighting all those forces, so it should be much easier than lifting a volume of liquid water. At first, you might think that lifting water sounded easier than gathering water vapor together. It was much more energy efficient to gather water vapor from the air.
The proof would be in the pudding. For now, I had to try creating a thirty cubic foot orb of mana, all while keeping the mana touching my hand. That was stupidly big, but it was possible.
I tried it out. I cast my mana ten feet in each direction, commanded the water vapor to gather, and then lastly gathered the mana back into my palm. When I did, a large amount of water filled my hand, floating in space on top of it. It wiggled in the air, burbling and bubbling, before falling in a splash down to the lake.
“Whoa!” shouted Marie. “Where’d all that water come from? It wasn’t from the lake, right?”
Rose stared in surprise at the bubbling surface of the water.
“Right,” I said. “I took that water out of the air. Apparently, doing so doesn’t require much mana. I could do it even stretching out my mana to cover a large area. It doesn’t appear to have an impact on our surroundings, either.” I had been assuming that sucking the water vapor out of the air of a bedroom-sized area would cause some kind of effect, but it didn’t even feel particularly dry. Maybe it was because we were standing right next to a lake. I imagined that there would be some kind of effect if I drained the moisture out of an even bigger area.
It doesn’t matter if I steal the water vapor out of the air? I supposed that it only composed a tiny percentage of the atmosphere anyway, and that the water vapor from the surrounding area would just move in and replenish wherever I drained. Maybe the air had felt a tad dry after I used the technique, but that was it.
Thinking back to the blob of water from before, it had been less water than I was expecting. Maybe I hadn’t actually absorbed all of the water from the volume of my mana. Regardless, I now knew that mana could gather the water out of thin air.
Next up, I had to see what kind of things I could do with that gathered water.
I quickly found out that I was, in fact, able to move the water, and apply force to the water I had gathered using mana. That force turned out to be quite low. The water did shoot a few feet through the air and splash everywhere, but I didn’t manage anything beyond that.
Water was water. I couldn’t make it do anything that ordinary water couldn’t do. If I could keep my mana activated for a few minutes straight, there was a chance I could gather enough water to wrap it around an enemy’s mouth and nose, and suffocate them to death. That would require more lasting time, and at present, the water dispersed after three to four seconds. That wasn’t nearly long enough. Using Flare with Compound Magic only extended it to about ten seconds.
Still, I was glad I managed to do something with water. Who knows, maybe I’d come up with some practical use later. I decided to be happy with my results.
“Boy, I’m loving this,” Marie said. “I’m digging this!”
Rose nodded. “I’m also intrigued by this type of magic. It’s not nearly so dangerous.”
Marie and Rose stood a few feet away, gathering water themselves. They figured it out in a jiffy once I taught them the basics. They were skilled magic users and learned the method in no time at all.
“Okay, now, let’s take a look around the lake,” I said. “You guys have the hang of water magic now.”
“Yeah, sure.” Marie looked at me. “But Shion, you’re not as excited as usual. Even though we’re using water magic!”
“Good point, Marie,” Rose said. “I thought you would’ve been chuckling like a madman at this point.”
I shrugged. “Water magic—uh, let’s call it Aqua—but as is, Aqua doesn’t have any practical uses. Maybe it could make you thirstier or less thirsty, but that’s about it.”
“True, you can’t really do much with this. I’m sure you’ll figure something out!” Rose said.
“Yeah, that’s true. It’ll come in time,” Marie echoed.
“But why do you want to take a look around the lake?” Rose asked.
“I thought maybe we could figure out why the Etten trout here have mana,” I replied. “I doubt we’ll find anything, but who knows.”
“It’s certainly true that if we could figure out why they have mana, it may have a big impact on our understanding of it.” Rose said.
“I’ve never looked around too closely myself,” Marie said. “Sounds good to me. Let’s split up and investigate!”
We got out of the lake, split up, and searched the surroundings. As Marie pointed out, we had never actually done this before. We had only really paid attention to the trout back in the day.
One lap around showed me that this lake was connected to a few different rivers. I assumed that they flowed down from the nearby mountains. Did that mean the source of the mana was coming from there?
Starting that day, we followed these rivers upstream. We found waterfalls and a few ponds with more Etten trout. Those trout didn’t have any mana. Sometimes, we found trout in the rivers in between the ponds, but those didn’t have mana, either.
What did that mean? It puzzled me deeply, and I couldn’t solve it. Eventually, I decided to drop the issue for now and move on to the next batch of experiments.
Chapter 8: Monster Hunting
Chapter 8:
Monster Hunting
MARIE AND ROSE WALKED BESIDE ME AS WE all followed Mr. Graste through the clamor. We were in Istria today. Coming here had become routine, but today something felt different. Marie and Rose had serious gazes. Their swords were stashed on their waists more visibly than usual.
The same went for me. My heart thumped in my chest, and my legs trembled ever so slightly as I stepped. Thick and jumbled nerves impeded every motion of my thoughts. Yet, I kept moving forward.
It wasn’t often that we got to be a part of a crowd, so the chaos felt novel. I spent most of my time at home, and even when I traveled to Istria, I normally stayed in the carriage. I spotted all kinds of townspeople in the throng—merchants and mercenaries, men and women both young and old. I didn’t see any demi-humans, though. I’m not in the furry fandom or anything, but I wouldn’t turn down the opportunity to see something like that.
Next thing I knew, I was standing next to Graste.
“Don’t be nervous, kiddo,” he grunted. “Yer safe with me.”
I saw the tension in Marie and Rose’s faces loosen slightly.
Graste looked unconcerned and overflowed with confidence. That was just how strong he was. We needed strength like his, given today’s objective.
“Thank you for doing this, Mr. Graste,” I said.
“Don’t mention it. I did some monster hunts as a lad back in the day. You’ve just gotta build up some solid experience. First stop’s the guild. It’s the best place to accept a monster hunting quest, ya know. There are all kinds of guilds about, but we’ll be heading to the Adventurers’ Guild today. Basically, they act as a mediator for quests coming from the government, organizations, or even individuals. You can find all sorts of quests, too, be it hunting or capturing monsters, escorting travelers, or even just helping out with chores. You can find these guilds all over the world.”
I’d heard of an Adventurers’ Guild before, and it turned out this world had them too. I never even knew that until today. Most people would check a place like that out as soon as they appeared in a fantasy world, but I’d just too focused on my magic.
I had only recently developed an interest in monsters once I realized that they possessed mana. The problem was I didn’t know if that only applied to goblins, or all sorts of other monsters.
“Can I ask why we’re going to the guild? Why can’t we just go hunt some on our own?” I asked Graste.
“Well, we could do that,” he replied. “But using the guild has some perks. First, we can earn a reward. That’s the big one. Having a reward at stake gives you a big boost of motivation. Also, when you accept a guild quest, you receive intel about the monsters: like species, population, and their location. Once you register at the guild, you’ll be permanently registered. Anytime you complete a quest, you’ll be evaluated on that success, and eventually go up the ranks. When you raise your rank, you’ll be able to accept more difficult quests, and the guild will start coming to you directly for quests. You can even earn special privileges.”
That made sense. Registering at the guild would certainly be advantageous. There didn’t seem to be any downsides, at least.
“What special privileges?” I asked.
“Permission to enter restricted areas and the like,” he said. “There are certain mines and forests that ordinary folks can’t enter. You can also get discounts at certain shops. Only drawback is you could be called upon to help in emergencies, so keep that in mind.”
Guild registration could be big for me, helping me move forward on my path. Gaining access to restricted areas sounded especially promising.
There was still so much that I didn’t know about magic. Why did some Etten trout have mana? Why was the goblin wounded by my mana? How did thundercite function? I wouldn’t find the answers to those questions in my bedroom at home. Those answers and more lurked in the outside world. To find them, I should become an adventurer and earn a high enough rank to access restricted areas. I was still young, so none of this would come immediately, but I saw a road forward.
“That’s why guild registration is the first step,” Graste said. “For kids, you need a recommendation from an adventurer of at least Gold-rank. I’m Platinum, so no issue there. The ranks are Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, and Orichalcum. There are only a few Orichalcum-ranked adventurers in all the world. They’re basically legends.”
The ranking system seemed familiar and simple enough. I glanced at Rose and Marie, who were both still on pins and needles. I realized this was natural as we were planning to face off against monsters, after all. Monsters were fearsome beasts. I would be a lot more concerned if the two of them were cool and confident.
However, Graste seemed a bit worried about Marie. “Don’t push yourself, eh? We don’t need to do this today. Shion’s still eight, and you’re only ten, right? Sure, there are some kids your age who go fight monsters, but that doesn’t mean you ought to.”
Marie shook her head. “No, I’m fine,” she said. “I can’t run away. If I do, I’ll always be a coward, and I won’t get stronger. I want to get stronger. I want to be strong enough…strong enough to protect Shion.” Marie turned to Graste and clenched her fists.
“I shan’t retreat, either,” said Rose. “I also need to grow stronger.” Her eyes sparkled with fighting spirit.
Graste looked between Marie and Rose and beamed a spectacular grin.
“That so, eh? But just to be clear, you three have absolutely nothin’ to fear. Nothin’ at all, because I’m here. I’ll protect you, be sure of that. It’s your first fight after all. I’ll take some load off yer shoulders.”
They nodded. Seeing my sister’s conviction lit a fire in my breast. I knew just how determined Marie had been since the goblin encounter, and how focused she was on overcoming her fear of that day. I knew that she was deeply traumatized from the battle. Instead of running from her fear, she battled against it, face to face. I knew her struggle well and remained silent. Long ago, we had pledged to fight by each other’s sides.
Rose, whatever her reason, sought strength too. I never heard about the circumstances around her motivations. I watched her train countless hours with a blade, in pursuit of conquering some unseen foe, but why? Was it all for self-defense? Or another cause altogether? I didn’t have a clue. Maybe her motivation was the same as Marie’s.
As for myself, I wanted to embark on a monster hunting mission to verify whether magic could effectively eradicate monsters. Such a venture was far too perilous, and I knew Dad would never let me do it alone. When I heard that Graste had impressive fighting skills, asking for his assistance turned out to be just what the mission needed. Between this and the Spark Gauntlet, I wondered if I asked too much of him, but Graste didn’t hesitate to accept my appeal.
“I’m thinkin’ we’ll go hunting for kobolds today. They’re perfect for newbies as they’re pretty much bottom of the barrel when it comes to monsters. The main monsters out there are goblins, kobolds, and orcs. Kobolds are the most common. They reproduce like crazy, but each individual one is weak. Goblins are scarce, but each individual specimen’s got serious strength. Then orcs are even rarer and more powerful as individuals. That’s about it.”
“Are there other kinds of monsters?” I asked.
“You bet, but those three are pretty much it for this general area. You’ll find most quests at any guild in the region are mostly for hunting those three species. Anything else is a rare find.”
Monsters were a constant risk for humans in this world. It sounded as those three species were the major ones. One of them had even laid waste to my own home.
So, there’s no downside to killing them? I wondered.
We discussed more as we made our way through the city and arrived at our destination. The Adventurers’ Guild was an impressive institution. A constant stream of people flowed in and out of the massive, wooden building, and it looked like there was a constant chatter of activity from within. The scene had an air of drama and Arthurian romance to it. Not bad, not bad at all.
Graste immediately went through the front doors. We followed him in.
Inside, I spotted plenty of armored men with weapons, but also several ordinary civilians. There were multiple reception desks for both accepting and submitting quests. I remembered Graste mentioning that individuals also posted quests, so it made sense that there weren’t just adventurers in here. For that reason, and luckily so, three kids didn’t stand out too much.
We went to the registration section. There was no line, so we strolled right up to the desk.
“Three new registrations for the kiddos here.” Graste pulled a chain off from around his neck and showed it to the receptionist. The tip of its pendant sparkled in the light. Was it platinum, or a mock-metal that resembled it?
“Certainly,” the receptionist replied. “Are you also their recommender?”
Graste grunted in confusion. “Also?”
The receptionist tilted her head past us, and we immediately spun around. A person had come up behind us. It was Dad!
Our jaws dropped and our feet froze to the ground. My brain stopped moving all together due to the surprise. Why was Dad here? How did he know about our plan? Was he here to stop us?
Running the different possibilities through my mind, I felt like a kid whose prank had just been exposed. Am I gonna get scolded? Punished? I still couldn’t move, but Dad responded to the receptionist without delay.
“Yes, I’ll also be recommending them. I’m Diamond-rank. Will that be a problem?” Dad took his chain off as well. Its medallion tip sparkled even brighter than Graste’s.
“No, no problem at all. Not for Diamond-rank, no!” The flustered receptionist pushed papers in Dad’s direction. “Um, may I have your signature here, please?”
Dad moved passed us to the desk to sign the papers and that was all it took to confirm our registration. Marie, Rose, and I lowered our heads and accepted our own small necklaces with tiny bronze pendants.
“These serve as proof of your adventurer status,” the receptionist said. “Don’t lose them, as re-issuance will incur a fee. Now, I will ask you to please uphold the adventurers’ standard and dutifully fulfil any quest that you take on. I wish you all good luck!” She spun off the lines as if she were reading from a manual, then smiled and waved.
We bowed, then retreated from the reception desk. The four of us—besides Dad—were unable to feel particularly upbeat at the moment.
“Go ahead, and do what you came to do,” Dad said. “We can talk later.”
“Err…right on.” Graste glanced at Dad before tentatively taking down a piece of paper from the bulletin board. Then he led us over to the quest acceptance counter.
Accepting a quest was simple enough. We just submitted a written application, then, once we finished the assignment, we brought back some of the monster parts as proof of fulfillment.
With our first quest accepted, we went outside. The tense atmosphere followed us out, and the four of us lined up side-by-side and faced my father.
“So, do you have anything to say for yourselves?” he asked.
“My bad!”
“I’m sorry!”
“Sorry!”
“Please accept our apologies!”
Four simultaneous apologies, accompanied by bows of the head. It was the best we all could do. There weren’t any excuses we could offer.
I had no idea how Dad had gotten the scoop on our plan, but that was irrelevant now. I stole a glance at Dad. At least he didn’t look mad.
“You’re all so predictable,” he sighed.
“Predictable…? Dad, you predicted that we would go monster hunting?”
“I wasn’t sure if you were going to do it, but I knew you were up to something. I saw it in Marie’s eyes when we’ve talked over the last few days. It was obvious you two were hiding something.”
Marie gulped. “Uh, sorry, my bad.”
I tried to keep everything under wraps, but I had been too focused on myself. I hadn’t thought to keep tabs on Marie’s overly honest personality.
“You really schemed a monster hunt without telling me.” Dad crossed his arms. “Monsters are dangerous, and willfully seeking them out is certified madness. Haven’t I warned you all about this before?”
“Y-you have.”
“Father, we’re sorry.”
Marie and I hung our heads. We knew we had broken the rules. We also knew that those rules were necessary to break, even if it meant defying Dad.
“And Rose, you of all people should know better. Does Ted know about this?”
She shook her head. “No, sir.”
“I bet he’s worried sick wondering when you’ll be home.”
“That may be true, but he will be reassured when he’s heard that I was with you,” Rose said. “He trusts you completely.”
Dad gave a resigned sigh. “Fine. Well, I have nothing left to say.”
I saw a victorious smile flicker on Rose’s face. Was Ted the guy who picked up Rose that one time? I thought. Ted must be the village headman whom Rose lived with. If Ted had complete faith in Dad, then Rose could probably go monster hunting with us so long as he was there. That meant that Rose, at least, had solid permission to accompany us.
Graste cleared his throat. “Look, Gawain, this is what we all settled on after hearing plenty of ideas from the youngsters. Don’t tell ’em off too much, eh?”
Dad glared at Graste. “Don’t get me started on you, pal.”
Graste averted his gaze and clumsily whistled. He was defenseless against Dad.
Eventually, Dad sighed again and shook his head. “Go on, then. Tell me your plan.”
We started to explain. We touched on how Marie wanted to get stronger and overcome the fear she felt from the goblin attack. I expressed my desire to test mana’s effect on monsters. For her part, Rose didn’t mention anything specific, just that she thought it would be necessary for her future. When we finished, Dad sighed yet again.
“I get it. I see now that this is not just a game. Although, I have to say I knew that from the beginning. I know you kids. I know you wouldn’t do something this stupid just for the fun of it, but I needed to hear it for myself.
“Okay, you two, lift your heads up. Be proud! There was real meaning behind your decision to do this, wasn’t there? You should be proud of those decisions, even if it means that you’ll be yelled at by your old man.”
Marie and I looked up at Dad. He had a little smile on his face. Was he…happy?
“I have to say, I’m impressed that you all decided to not just do this on your own, but you sought someone stronger than yourselves, and whom you can trust. You considered the obstacles and prepared yourselves to overcome them. I’m sure you would’ve been safe with Graste, even if I had never found out about this. But there are no sure promises in this world. It is better to be safe than sorry. So next time, tell me your plans, no matter what. You’ll be a lot better off hunting monsters with two high-ranking adventurers.”
“Does that mean…?”
Dad nodded. “I’m coming with you.”
I was so shocked that I was speechless. It was true that Dad had stood by our side so far. He had also set plenty of boundaries for us and had always been strongly opposed to us taking dangerous actions.
“Judging from your progress with magic and sword fighting, I think it’s time for you all to try something new,” he said. “And that’ll be a lot better when accompanied by people stronger than yourselves. After all, we adults have a duty to look after you kids. All three of you have proven yourselves and improved in an impressive amount of time. That included doing a lot of things I couldn’t have done myself. I’ve been thinking about that, that’s all.”
Dad must have read what I was thinking, and answered my question of why he had changed his mind.
“Thank you, Dad,” I said.
“Thanks so much! I’m gonna try even harder now!” Marie said.
“Mr. Gawain, I am so grateful for your support,” Rose said.
“Don’t mention it.” Dad chuckled. “But we need to take the fights seriously. You all need to stay focused, okay?”
“Yes, sir!” we all shouted as Graste nodded vigorously.
Dad turned to Graste. “Next time, you’re getting a panther fist to the throat.”
“You wanna kill me? Oi! I get the idea! I screwed it up! Sheesh, gimme a break! The kiddos woulda been safe with me!”
“Let’s see this so-called strength on display then!”
Somehow, all the blame had fallen on to Graste. I owed him an apology.
“Let’s get going,” Dad said. “We don’t want to get home too late tonight.”
Dad took the lead, and we followed him out of the guild. Our plan experienced a few twists and turns, but I supposed the result was the same as we hoped for…more or less?
With that, our monster hunting adventure had begun.
***
We traveled to some woods near the west of Istria. Plains surrounded the city for the most part, but we didn’t need to journey far before reaching a forest. Monsters were more plentiful in places that humans found hard to reach, such as mountains, woods, and caves, more so than plains.
Kobold nests were plentiful in forests. They built small-scale settlements in the clearings that typically housed a few dozen or so of their kind. We made our way over by foot, which was a fundamental adventurer practice, as monsters tended to attack and eat horses. On our way there, Dad explained the basics about kobolds and what to look out for.
“Kobolds aren’t as powerful as goblins, but they can be a pain to deal with. They make up for strength with numbers and group coordination. Still, they’re overall easier to fight than goblins, especially with certain methods. For that reason, they’re the first monsters that adventurers, swordsmen, and mercenaries take on. That’s why we’ve chosen kobolds, I presume?”
He directed his last words at Graste, who shrugged his shoulders in response.
“They may be at the bottom of the barrel, but you need to keep up your guard,” Dad said. “Even experienced adventurers have been killed by kobolds. If you lose focus, they’ll get you. No matter what kind of opponent you’re fighting, you must stay focused, collected, and ready for anything. That’s the first, indisputable rule of monster hunting.”
Initially, I wasn’t that worried about the danger factor. Maybe it was because I’d killed a goblin before, or a sense of security with the adults present, but the more I observed Dad and Graste, the more nervous I began to feel.
I had no intention of retreating. I needed to verify whether my magic was in fact effective against monsters. It would be too late if I needed to find out during an emergency struggle. Today had to be both an experiment and a battle experience.
“Our formation will be me, Marie, Rose, Shion, and then Graste. I’ll issue all orders. Graste will observe our surroundings and inform us of anything important, so stay alert. If we encounter the enemy, I’ll lead the vanguard. If they attack us first, take on only one at a time.”
Dad and Graste seemed relaxed. It was reassuring and made me feel that we would be fine with them. Their cool manner made Marie and Rose more relaxed than they were a few minutes ago.
We continued to talk as we walked through the plain, until we came to the forest. It resembled the woods closest to our house. It was probably around the same size. I didn’t see any other adventurers, and I only heard the sounds of footsteps and rustling leaves. Today, the typical soothing sounds of nature carried a hint of danger.
We advanced until Dad raised his right hand, then we stopped. Dad crouched down to examine some footprints. They were the size of a human child’s foot, but with only three toes each. Were those kobold tracks?
I strained my ears and caught a low and deep whisper of something passing by. I debated whether they were growls or even a distant conversation, but then I started to hear it everywhere. I saw faces through some nearby brush.
It was the kobolds! There were about ten of them. That was more than I expected. They had dog-like faces, ruffled, unkempt fur, and they reeked of the wild, just as Dad described.
I squinted and saw there was mana glittering faintly around their bodies. They had it exactly like the goblins.
Dad turned to us and signaled us to wait here. This was way too many enemies! Surely, we couldn’t take on this number at once. Dad drew his sword and nonchalantly started to walk towards the kobold settlement. I gasped from shock as he grew nearer to them.
The kobolds sat under a crudely raised tent. When they noticed Dad, they rushed through it, gripping their weapons. They yipped and howled like mad dogs, then encircled him while bearing their fangs.
Everyone was frozen in place until one of the kobolds charged at Dad. The others followed its lead. There were four or five kicking off the ground toward him at once. There was no way Dad could escape or take them all out at once.
So I thought! With a lowered posture, Dad weaved his blade through the attacking monsters, piercing their web in one swift blow. The kobolds howled and their bodies thumped to the ground as Dad’s sword concluded its arc through the crowd.
Neither us nor the kobolds understood what was happening. It all occurred in a single motion, and every last kobold lay lifeless on the ground within less than thirty seconds. There were no more signs of monster life here. Dad had exterminated them all.
Marie, Rose, and my jaw hung agape. We were awestruck.
“Goodness, Gawain, but you’re still a beast, ain’t ya?” Graste scratched the back of his head as he plodded over toward Dad. The rest of us shook off our shock and followed him into the kobold settlement.
Dad had taken them all out in one stroke. I wasn’t an expert, but I knew enough to know that wasn’t normal.
“We’re safe now.” He said as he wiped the blood off his sword and sheathed it.
Yes, we were technically safe, but weren’t we supposed to fight the kobolds too? Dad had taken all of our kills and we’d be unable to fulfill our goals for today.
Dad grimaced and nodded to us. “Don’t worry. That was just to trim their numbers. There will be a few more kobolds that will come back soon from hunting. You can fight those.”
Oh, good. Dad had thought this through. I knew he wouldn’t have slaughtered the kobolds without reason.
While we waited, Dad and Graste chopped off the kobold ears and collected them in a leather bag. It wasn’t a pleasant process, but the ears were the proof the guild required to fulfill the monster hunt. In the midst of that work, Dad glanced up into the forest.
We followed his gaze and saw about six kobolds standing in the distance. I immediately saw the fury in their snarling and menacing expressions. They didn’t come in for an attack. Instead, they hunched close to the ground and growled as they readied their weapons.
“Hunter kobolds have better battle instincts and are more cautious than the others,” Dad explained. “They can see that we don’t have ranged weapons, so they’re keeping their distance. Marie and Rose, move in front. Shion, stay behind. And Shion…they don’t have any ranged weapons either, so…”
“So, I can use magic on them.”
I readied myself and placed the Spark Gauntlet into position. I activated mana in both hands. The kobolds remained still, which gave me the time to do a test run. I snapped my right finger, applied mana to the flame, and used Flare.
The moment the blue fire shot through the air, I saw the kobolds shudder. They didn’t react immediately, but the moment Flare arrived before their eyes, I shot mana toward it from out of my left hand. The mana struck the blue ball of fire and it exploded.
With a fierce bang, the blast sent the front two kobolds flying as their flesh scattered into the trees. It was Bomb Flare, and it was even more powerful than I expected. I had to quell my elation and stay focused on my next move. I had to wait at least three seconds before I could re-activate my mana.
The surviving kobolds were considerably shaken by the explosion. They stood frozen in terror. I gathered mana into both hands again, but this time the remaining kobolds realized what I was doing and sprang through the air. They raced toward us faster than I could’ve imagined.
Two seconds had passed. It wasn’t enough; I needed one more second. The fact that you couldn’t consecutively release mana was undoubtedly magic’s greatest weakness.
One kobold swung an axe in my direction. Marie appeared in its path. I saw the metallic glint of her blade, and the blur of her body.
“You’re never getting your paws on Shion!” she shouted, and the axe was swept away. She had diverted its blow. Now the second kobold charged at me, but Rose intercepted its path. She parried the blow with a clean sidestep.
“You think you can beat us with such simple attacks?” she taunted.
This may have been Rose and Marie’s first real battle, but their movements were crisp, and didn’t betray any nerves. Marie battled the first kobold with her overpowering agility and speed, and Rose defeated the second monster with her sharp technique. I couldn’t conceal my surprise at their level of ability. I shouldn’t have been surprised given all the training they’d done.
I combined the mana from my two hands and turned sideways. Instantly, staff-shaped mana extended from my right hand, and I twisted my two hands together to birth an electric current. This was called Line Bolt. It was a fearsome zap of electricity created with compound mana.
Red lightning whizzed at the kobolds, and struck them with high-voltage electricity. The strike created a blinding light sparked along with a screeching pop.
“Garrruuuuu!” The kobolds howled in their death throes, collapsing to the ground in vicious convulsions. A burnt, foul odor rose off their bodies. Now, they were dead.
Wow…Bomb Flare and Line Bolt were fearsome attacks, to say the least. I suspected that ordinary Flare and Bolt would’ve only left serious burns, but not death. Compounding mana really did multiply magic’s effectiveness.
The remaining two kobolds trembled with fear after having seen four of their companions go down. They stood their ground, though, and kept their eyes trained on Dad and Graste. Maybe they sensed that they wouldn’t be able to escape from such powerful foes.
Then they came for us, probably prepared to die in the process. At the current moment, I was completely vulnerable. They approached me as my mana-timer ticked. I jumped back and Marie and Rose sprang forward in a perfect fighting formation. Their faces were gripped with a bold determination that masked their fear. They moved in front of me to take on the incoming kobolds.
One of the kobolds swung its weapon at Marie. She was ready for it and struck a firm fighting stance. She dodged the blow and swiped at the kobold’s legs.
Losing your stance could lead to instant defeat. Marie hardly left a wound on the kobold, but she slightly broke its stance. Not missing a beat, she instantly launched into a fresh offense. The kobold squirmed and tried to escape the reach of Marie’s sword.
“No chance!” she yelled.
Her sword swept down, and the kobold’s head flew up into the air. Marie drew a beautiful arc that led the kobold’s head straight into the dirt.
“Eww!” Its blood had splattered into my eyes.
Just as Marie’s kobold crumpled to the ground, Rose felled the other with a vicious stab to the neck. Its blood spewed everywhere as it collapsed to the ground and became motionless.
Gasping for air, Rose pulled her blade out of the kobold’s neck.
Was that all of them? I didn’t see any more kobolds around. Marie and Rose seemed to agree, and let their guards down. Then suddenly, the bushes shook, and from them leapt a concealed kobold.
“Garrrrgarrr!” The kobold snarled as it came brandishing its sword at the girls. They were defenseless, since they had already laid down their weapons. It seemed as though they couldn’t escape in time, and yet…
The kobold let out a shrill scream as a blue flame scorched its backside. It rolled on the ground, fighting the furious heat, until it stopped moving.
Introducing Twin Flare: a compound magic technique that combines compound mana with Flare. The moment I saw the brush shaking, I activated mana and cast it just in the nick of time.
“Th-thanks, Shion.”
“You saved us. Thank you.”
I saw the relief on their faces. That had been a close call, and I was relieved I had been fast enough. Thank goodness.
The three of us waited and kept an eye on our surroundings. Dad came over and confirmed that the kobolds were dead.
“You got them! Nice work, kids.”
We breathed sighs of relief at Dad’s words. It was over. Somehow, we had defeated the kobolds. It left me with an intense feeling of exhaustion. Although we had only fought six in all, my nerves had been pulled noodle-thin.
I had learned volumes from this battle. First, I discovered that magic took too long to activate. Second, that while each individual attack was powerful, I’d be left momentarily defenseless if I didn’t land a killing blow. Rose and Marie’s actions had covered up those weaknesses, but I would’ve been dead meat on my own.
“Thank you,” I said to them. “Thanks for rescuing me.”
“Of course we’d protect you,” Marie said. “Plus, the only reason I could fight in the first place was because you were here. I felt more confident with you around.”
“We would’ve been in bad shape without your magic,” said Rose. “Thank you so much, Shion.”
“It was a good effort for your first fight,” Dad said. “Marie faced her fears head on and kept her cool. Rose was able to actualize what she’s shown us in training—a fine fighting effort. And Shion demonstrated the power of magic. It’s clear now that magic is a stronger weapon than I could’ve ever imagined.”
“This magic stuff’s totally next level,” Graste said, shaking his head. “I wish I had the goods for it,” he added, sounding regretful.
I had never seen an adult with mana before, so I assumed Graste would never be able to use magic, unfortunately. Although, technically, no one besides me could use magic, as far as I knew.
Yes, Marie and Rose could a little, but without the Spark Gauntlet’s utility, magic had little practical application in a battle. As to whether anyone else in the world could use it, and whether such people were plentiful or few, I didn’t have a clue. It wasn’t worth thinking through the particulars of magical training or applications. For now, I had to stay focused on the moment.
I had learned so much from this one battle. This single experience of fighting monsters totally changed my outlook. I realized that there was a lot I needed to do to improve magic.
Before I could begin to think through those possibilities, I heard Dad speak.
“Once we finish gathering the ears, we’ll be off to the next kobold den.”
“Next?!”
The three of us all had the same thought. We fought a battle, our first one, so we all assumed we would be heading home after this. Dad seemed fired up for more.
“It’ll be hard for Graste or me to find time for quests, so you won’t have many chances. Let’s build up as much experience for you all while we can.”
It was a fair point. I wasn’t sure I was up for it, though. I was totally wiped out after the battle. The feeling that I wanted to go home was whacking me over the head like a hammer. A single look at Dad, however, made me abandon those feelings. It was clear that we were going to continue.
“Now, let’s get to it,” he said. “I’ve already found some more tracks!”
Bubbling with enthusiasm, Dad led the way. Behind me, Graste tapped my shoulder.
“Nothing you can do when he gets like this,” he said. “Best to just give in.”
Graste was Dad’s best friend. He knew our father a lot longer than we had, and I was sure they had been through a lot together. So I just sighed, smiled resignedly, and followed after Dad. That was all we could do.
***
My breathing was heavy and sweat clung to my skin. My heart pounded, my lungs screamed as exhaustion swept through every fiber and nerve of my body. Still, I forced my magic to unleash.
“Garuuuuu!” I zapped the charging kobold, and he fell to the ground electrified. I bent down to the ground.
Ah, I’m done!
At last, the final one was dead, and just in time, as my mana was about to run out. I’d become completely immobile If I used any more. I already felt maxed out psychologically. The feeling that I wanted to do nothing at all kept bludgeoning me at the side of my head.
“That should be all of them,” Dad said.
“Yep, that was the last one. He’s dead as a doorknob.”
Dad and Graste grumbled that there weren’t enough kobolds, but Rose, Marie, and I were at the limit.
“Is…is it over?” Marie gasped for air.
“Please…please let that have been the last one,” Rose said.
“Yeah, I think so,” I breathed.
The three of us had worked carefully together in the fight. My magic and their swords had functioned in consecutive inhales and exhales. It still had been only our second fight, and we didn’t have experience, instincts, or practiced techniques. Despite all that, we crushed it and wiped all the kobolds out. It seemed the settlement was free and clear of all monsters now.
“I can’t anymore,” Marie said. “So…so tired.”
“Me too. This is it for me,” I agreed.
“I can hardly lift my arms myself,” Rose added.
All three of us sat on the forest floor. Our training hadn’t prepared us to keep up with Dad and Graste, who weren’t even out of breath and ready for more bouts. Keeping up with them was going to be a quest in and of itself.
“At least we figured it out,” Marie said. “That we really can fight.”
“Definitely,” I said. “That made today well worth it.”
“But we aren’t strong enough, yet,” Rose said. “I’ve realized a fair number of my own weak points.”
She had a good point—practice and real battles were like night and day. We learned a lot from just two fights.
“Okay everyone, rest up. Graste and I will grab the ears and the loot.”
Dad and Graste went deeper into the settlement to retrieve the kobold’s stolen spoils. Kobolds crafted their own tools and weapons, but not as well as humans could. They often had valuable stolen goods or metals stashed away. Gathering loot was a fundamental final step in any monster hunt, so that’s what Dad and Graste went to scoop up.
The three of us didn’t even have enough energy to stand, so we rested. After a few minutes, my breathing eventually calmed down. I still felt heavy and sluggish, and I knew that I wouldn’t even be able to move tomorrow morning.
I lifted my head for no particular reason, and one of the fabric tents in the settlement caught my eye. I stood up and approached it cautiously.
“Shion, what are you doing?”
“I don’t know. But I think…there’s something there.” I didn’t have any basis for my claim other than I heard someone whisper for me to: come, come here.
I staggered over to and entered the tent. It was decorated with ornaments made of bone and wood to such a luxurious extent that I wondered if this hut belonged to a high-ranking kobold. Marie and Rose wandered in behind me. A glint of light caught my eye. I drifted toward it, as if guided there.
“Where are you going, Shion? Are you sure this is a good idea?” Rose asked.
“I-it’s dark and it could be dangerous! Don’t go!” Marie pleaded.
They sounded scared. I didn’t think there was a monster here, but it was dark. Was that the reason they were so frightened? I could imagine Marie fearing the dark, but it was out of character for Rose. Based on her reaction, she’d never make it through a horror flick.
We proceeded into the tent with them both clinging to my arms. I followed the glint of light and swallowed when I realized what it led to.
There was a small humanoid inside a bird cage. It had wings on its back, and its whole body glowed with light. It sat with its head sadly facing the ground.
It appeared to be female, although its eye and hair color were unlike any human girl I’d known. I remembered that I had seen something like this before, from far away.
It was a fairy! Had she been captured by the kobolds?
She noticed us and quivered with fear. As we approached closer to the cage, she shrank toward its back edge, as if trying to run away. At that moment, I realized that the light shining from her body didn’t illuminate the cage or any of the surrounding environment. It was still possible to see in the dim interior, but she wasn’t the lamp. Her light meant only one thing: this fairy had mana.
The glow surrounding her body was just like that of the goblins and kobolds from before. All monsters seemed to have it. I didn’t want to see what would happen if our mana touched hers. I couldn’t believe it, though. We’d found a real-life fairy!
“This is a fairy, I see,” Rose said. “What is it doing here?”
“A fairy? Is that different from a monster?” Marie asked.
“I don’t know. I’ve only heard that they are not well-understood.”
“It doesn’t look like a dangerous monster.”
We presumed it was weak, given how scared of us she seemed. She was also probably traumatized. She was in rough shape. There were no wounds, but her body was covered in dirt.
“What do we do?” I asked. “If there are fairy shops…I-I guess that means we could sell it.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Marie said.
“Me neither,” I said.
Rose and Marie agreed with me. My hesitance to sell the creature was partially because I was interested in fairies, but it also felt plain wrong, since it was a humanoid creature. There was something instinctual about it, but I just felt bad for the poor thing.
“Should we set it free?” I suggested.
“Yes, I think that’s a fine idea,” Rose said.
“Okay, sure,” Marie agreed.
We approached the cage. The fairy quaked with fear, and a faint light of mana began emitting from its mouth. What was happening? The mana released and faded away sporadically, and the glow quickly disappeared.
Feeling uncertain, I opened the cage. It was unlocked, and maybe kobolds lacked that sort of technology. If that was so, why couldn’t the fairy escape by itself? We retreated from the cage in an effort to give her some space.
The fairy looked in our direction. Her eyes swam back and forth between us. She leveled its gaze at me for a long moment, then tentatively stood up. She walked to the exit, paused briefly, then walked out. We all marveled as her wings fluttered and she shot into the air.
“Ooh, it really can fly.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“I’ve never seen a fairy so close.”
Countless grains of light fell to the ground as she ascended. It was an entrancing sight. I didn’t know if she was happy or what, but the fairy zipped over our heads and stayed there. Then she released more mana from her lips before flying away.
I hope you find your way home safely, I thought.
“I’m glad it wasn’t hurt,” Marie said.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “It’s so cool that we actually saw a fairy!” I started to wonder what exactly the creature was. Up until this point, I had been so busy with other parts of my magic research that these topics had never occurred to me. Monsters and fairies—I realized that I ought to learn more about them both.
Rose yelped. I swung around to see Rose clinging to my sister for support.
“What happened? Are you okay?”
“Oh, it’s nothing.” She sighed. “I just slipped. I’m exhausted, to be honest.”
“I’m about to collapse myself,” Marie said. “My legs are wobbling.”
I was also completely beat. Despite all our training, we were still kids who had just fought our very first battles. Dad and Graste had seemed satisfied with all we accomplished. Surely, it was time to go home now.
Even thinking became painful. The three of us left the tent and found Dad and Graste loaded up with loot. Regrouped, we returned to Istria. At the guild, we submitted the quest completion report along with a heaping pile of kobold ears.
The quest results were as follows:
QUEST DETAILS: Kobold hunt
COMPLETION REQUIREMENTS: Five or more culls
COMPENSATION SCHEME: 4,000 lirum per five culls
TOTAL CULLS: 140
TOTAL COMPENSATION: 112,000 lirum
Now, we could go home.
***
The sun was setting. Before long, night would cast its curtain over the world. Marie, Dad, and I said our goodbyes to Graste and Rose, and we headed home.
I looked down at my own body. My clothes were covered in dirt and my limbs had a number of small scratches, chafes, and bruises. I had no deep wounds, though. Marie looked no better. We were both in a dire need of a bath.
Dad put the horses away, then joined us as we walked up to the door. Just as we were about to open it, Dad stopped in his tracks.
I glanced back at him. “What is it, Dad? You’re not going inside?”
“Dad?” Marie said. “You don’t look well.”
“It’s n-nothing. Nothing at all, whatsoever,” Dad stuttered.
Uh, obviously something was up. He was so shaken that I honestly wouldn’t have been surprised at what happened next. In fact, I had never seen Dad this worried before. He was always stern but dependable. Right now, he looked like a frightened small animal.
Marie and I shrugged at each other and went inside.
“We’re home.”
“Hi Mom.”
Mom was making dinner in the kitchen. When she heard us, she tottered out to greet us.
“There you are. How was your d—” Her mouth stiffened.
Huh? She was her normal, smiley self, but something was off with her expression now. The smile wasn’t gentle; in fact, it was a little scary.
Feeling uncertain, I cast a glance in Marie’s direction. She shook her head. She was as clueless as I was.
I sensed Dad come up behind us. When I looked back at him, he was averting his eyes from our mother. Mom’s next words were low and echoed through the house.
“Come here, darling.”
She was still smiling, but I could tell she was angry—really angry.
Fear ran through my spine for the first time in my life. Marie and I both sensed it, and we withered from her. It was clear that Dad was even more terrified than the both of us as he trudged slowly after her into the living room. For a while, the house fell silent as Marie and I remained frozen.
Then a voice rang out: “Argh! No, stop! Calm down, Emma!” It was Dad.
His howling was followed by a series of bangs and smacks. The whole house rattled.
“It was my fault!” Dad shrieked. “Oh, no. Not the candlestick! Emma, please put away the candlestick! S-stop! Calm yourself! Forgive me—ouch, oww, argh!”
For several minutes, our father’s screams echoed throughout the house. Eventually, they faded until all was silent. It felt like we were in a horror movie. My ears were ringing. Marie and I were terrified and couldn’t wrench our eyes from the door to the living room.
The door creaked opened slowly. Mom appeared with a perfect smile on her face.
Behind her we saw Dad collapsed on the floor, twitching and spazzing. He still breathed, but he wasn’t doing great. Mom closed the door behind her, and Marie and I stood up straight.
“We messed up,” I said quickly. “You’ve been so understanding and we…we just thought this would be good for us, but it was selfish!”
“D-d-don’t k-kill us!” Marie shrieked.
Surely that wasn’t on the menu, but at this point I really didn’t know what might be served up. It was horrifying to see someone who was usually so calm and happy get violently angry.
“Sit down!” she commanded. Her face was smiling, but her eyes weren’t. Her voice was calm.
Scared out of our wits, we immediately plunked down in the chairs behind us.
“I want to hear everything,” Mom said. “Did you go monster hunting today?”
“Y-yes, ma’am.”
Mom sighed. I’d never seen her like this before. The most upset I’d ever seen her was with a troubled smile on her lips. Dad scolded us from time to time, but Mom almost never did. She would get angry with us when we had gone too far, but she always let us off with gentle reprimands like, “Oh, stop now!” and “Won’t you two listen to me, for goodness’s sake?”
That’s why it was abundantly clear that we had screwed up big time. I felt a heavy ball of guilt grow heavier in my chest.
“Don’t be so dramatic. I’m not going to hurt you.” Despite her grimace, the kindliness returned to her voice.
Marie and I breathed sighs of relief. She wasn’t mad? Well, not at us, anyway.
“Dad told me before he went. He didn’t know if you were going monster hunting specifically, but he said that you were probably going to try something dangerous. So, he went to check on you two. And that’s fine. It’s not particularly rare for children your age to go on monster hunts, and Dad was there to protect you.”
“So…what’s the problem?” I asked.
Uh, did you not just go berserk on Dad? That was terrifying! Not wanting to push it, I kept those thoughts to myself.
“You shouldn’t be coming home completely exhausted and covered in scratches and bruises. I know that you want to get stronger, Marie, and that you want to research magic, Shion. I also understand that fighting monsters may be necessary to achieving those dreams. You are both exceptional kids, mature kids, but still kids. That means your parents need to look out for you.”
Marie and I once again looked down at our own bodies. It was certainly true that this wasn’t what kids looked like after they spent all day playing outside. Our clothes were tattered, and our bodies were scraped, battered, and bruised. Exhaustion was written all over our faces. She was right: kids shouldn’t look like this.
“That man—your father—can lose himself in whatever he’s doing and thinks of no one besides himself. He was trying to get you as much experience from fighting monsters as possible, right?”
Bullseye. Graste had said the same thing, but I felt like it would be a slightly hypocritical complaint, coming from me.
“It was your first time monster hunting, and your father went too far. I’m mad at him for that. He thought you two were up for it, and maybe you were, but you’re just little kids. There’s a limit. He should’ve taken it easier on you two. To be very clear, I want with all my heart to support you kids, but there are limits. I won’t stop supporting you—your life belongs to you and to you alone. Even as your mother, I can’t—shouldn’t—control you.”
Mom paused to look slowly at Marie and me.
“So long as you don’t recklessly hurt or belittle others, you’re free to do as you please. You don’t need to hold back on your dreams just because you’re still young. Go ahead, learn your magic, learn your swordsmanship, but this is my one request: that you care for yourselves. Value your own lives, and don’t take any risks, especially ones that can kill you. Please.”
She moved closer and hugged us both. “I’m happy so long as the two of you are alive. And if you’re happy, then I’m even happier. So, go and live the lives you dream of.”
I get it. Mom had been worried about us and the worst possible case scenario. She must’ve imagined it the whole time we were gone. So, when we got back, ragged and exhausted, she could tell right away that we really had been in a dangerous situation.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I said. “I’m sorry for worrying you.”
“Mother, please forgive us,” Marie said. “We shouldn’t have gone without telling you.”
Mom chuckled. “It’s all right. You know, it’s a big help to me as your mother that you always listen to and understand the things I tell you. Just remember that you have your own thoughts and ideas, too. Those might even be different from what your father and I think. But that doesn’t mean that your ideas are wrong. So, just talk to us next time. Okay?”
“Definitely,” I said. “I’ll talk to you about it next time!”
“Y-yeah, me too!” Marie chimed in. “I’ll tell you, Mother!”
“Thank you,” Mom said. “Don’t hold back, got it? Sometimes you’ll be wrong, and I’ll have to stop you, but for anything that’s important to you, I’ll do anything I can to help. Remember that! Dad and I are on your side. No matter what happens, we’re on your side.”
I felt Mom’s warmth seep into me. I felt calmer. The exhaustion I’d been feeling just moments before vanished into thin air. This warmth was like nothing I’d ever felt before. Back in my former life, I’d never been able to feel truly calm and at peace.
Once more, I thought of how fortunate I was to have been born into this life.
“That’s the end of that,” Mom said. “Now, why don’t you clean up before dinner, hmm? I asked some villagers to help fill the bath, so it’s all ready.”
“Yeah, sure!” Marie happily headed for the bath.
Since plumbing didn’t exist in this world, water for a bath was drawn by hand. For that reason, only upper-class families like ours could take proper baths. We didn’t have any live-in servants, so if we wanted to bathe, Mom or Dad would have villagers prepare the water and pay them a fee once every few days. I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy luxuries like this if I’d been born into a commoner family.
Incidentally, ever since I’d come to consciousness here, I’d always taken a bath by myself or with Dad. I think the reason for that speaks for itself.
But then…
“Shion, why don’t we all enjoy the bath together today?” Mom’s warm, kindly smile was pointed right at me.
I could hardly shake my head “no” to that smile. I couldn’t remember many times that I took a bath with Mom since I was a baby. That wasn’t exactly going into the bath together, it was just her bathing me.
I sensed multiple problems with this arrangement. First, the three of us weren’t blood relatives. Yes, we were family, so there was no chance of any sort of attraction occurring, but I still couldn’t see Emma as my birth mother. Therefore, I felt uncomfortable about being naked together. I needed to figure out a way to avoid that. Think, think quick! Mom kept staring at me, waiting for an answer that wouldn’t come.
“Uh, well, Mom—” I tried to say “no,” but she made an awfully sad face.
“Aw, Shion, let’s go together! Today of all days. We never bathe together.”
“Er, but Mom—”
“You must take a bath, darling! Look how filthy you are! We need to rinse and wash and scrub it all away!”
Ugh—phrasing, mom! I knew what she meant, though. She was basically pointing out what Marie always said—the faster you scrub off your dirt, the better.
“All right,” I said.
Mom rarely asked anything of me. So, it felt nearly impossible to say no when she did.
“Yay!” Mom grinned and giggled. “Let’s get going, then!”
I couldn’t back out now seeing how happy she was. Mom took Marie and me by the hands, and we headed for the bathroom.
Marie’s going to be part of this, too? I was not comfortable with this! She was only ten, and she was my sister, so it shouldn’t be a big deal. It kind of was, though. It felt problematic because if I looked around, I’d end up seeing her naked, like it or not. The best I could do was try to remain calm. No problem, right? I’m as tranquil as a river.
We entered the changing room at the end of the hall. I quickly undressed, wrapped myself in a towel, and beelined it into the bathing room. First-in-first-out, am I right?
“Why’s our little boy in such a hurry?” Mom laughed.
“Yeah, Shion! Wait up!”
Nope. I wait for no one. As in Japan, you washed yourself with water outside of the bath, then you just soaked in the tub. I got a head start on this, while noticing that the tub was barely big enough for me, not to mention the three of us.
They had soap here. That made sense since soap was an old invention back on Earth, too. It didn’t smell like much, which was fine with me. I rubbed away with the soap bar, hurrying to scrub the dirt from my body. I was pretty much caked in filth, so I was having a hard time getting it off quickly. This was the worst-case scenario.
“C’mon! Wait up, Shion!”
Mom laughed. “Don’t slip, Marie!”
Game over. Mom and Marie came into the bathing room. I kept my eyes on myself and scrubbed away with the soap. I felt their presence, one to the side of me and one behind me. How can I sense them so well?! I thought. What am I, a kobold?!
“Shion, I’ll help you wash, dear,” Mom said. She was the one standing behind me. Without waiting for my reply, she took the soap and started from the head. I sensed Marie standing to my side, washing up.
“Ugh!” moaned Marie. “It’s really caked in there!”
“Make sure to get out every last bit of dirt,” Mom warned.
“Yeah, I know,” Marie grumbled.
This was so strange to me. Normally, I’d only heard deep, male voices in this bathing room. Now that there were women’s voices echoing in the cramped space, the atmosphere felt completely different.
No, it doesn’t. Don’t think like that. I reminded myself. It’s my mom and my sister. There was no chance of attraction. No chance!
Something soft brushed up against my head. I felt my cheeks flush.
“Th-that’s good enough, Mom!” I poured water over my head, washed the soap away, and jumped into the bathtub.
“Hey!” Mom scolded. “There’s no need to rush like that!”
Yes, there was. I felt too defenseless. I mean, of course I was, given that this was at home with my family. It wasn’t so simple in my case. My mother was younger than my actual mental age, and this “mom” had brought me into a bath with not just her, but also her daughter. Marie and I weren’t the same age in this life, and bringing my past life into it, she was like a daughter to me. This only made me more confused about how I should be feeling about this situation. And yet here I was.
I made my plan: stay in the tub for a few minutes, then leave.
I kept my eyes trained on the wall as Marie and my mom washed themselves. I narrowed my eyes and beat the wall in a staring contest.
Don’t look. If you look, you’re done for.
A few minutes passed, and it sounded like they had finished up. Perfect timing, I thought. I didn’t mind a quick bath. A quick bath is what could let me escape from this puzzling purgatory.
“I-I think I’m done,” I said, scrambling to get out.
“I don’t think so, dear,” Mom said. “You need to warm up properly. Besides, I thought we were supposed to take this bath together!” She pouted again.
She was right: technically, we hadn’t bathed together. I didn’t think there was any convincing her that I’d fulfilled my end of the bargain unless we spent at least a little time in the tub together. Resigned, I sat back down in the tub.
“Just a few minutes,” I sputtered.
Mom giggled. “Thanks, love. Okay, Marie, hop in.”
“Okay!” Marie giggled. “This is kinda fun. We never go in the three of us!”
Did she really have to be so pleased about the situation? She’d just complicated my exit strategy!
Keeping my eyes averted, I counted the minutes in my head. Surely, a few more minutes would be enough. Until then, I just had to keep my head calm and my eyes down.
This was going quite well until Mom hugged me from behind. Yet again, fearsome clouds of softness pillowed at the back of my head. Pillowed? You know, pillows. Those pillows.
I felt the blood pump through my body. This was bad. This was really, really bad.
“I love hugging you, Mom!” Marie said.
“And I love hugging the two of you, my darlings,” Mom replied.
I knew I should chime in, but I couldn’t bring myself to say: “Me too, Mommy!” I was too troubled. I just couldn’t figure out how to shake my discomfort.
I wasn’t attracted to Mom, of course, but it was awkward knowing that she wasn’t really my mother. Ugh, these feelings are just so difficult to put into words! It wasn’t helping that the pillows springing into my head were dulling my thoughts. I needed to grin and bear it just a little longer.
While doing so, I had a nice conversation with Mom. I realized that we didn’t have many actual conversations. I lost any additional opportunity to leave though, and as pleasant as that was, her constant snuggles kept interrupting my thoughts. I had reached the absolute limit, both mentally and physically. It was time to get the heck out of here.
“I think I’m done,” Marie said.
“Yeah? Okay, just make sure you dry off well so you don’t get the chills.”
“Okay. See you guys at dinner.”
Huh? Marie beat me to the punch! If I got out now, we’d be drying off together. Ugh, I needed to wait a bit longer now.
Once I finally heard Marie’s footsteps going down the corridor, I had a bit of a wider range for my eyes. Mom still wouldn’t let go of me, though. Would she ever let me escape from her embrace?
Stumped, I heard soft chuckles over the top of my head.
“Why are you being so shy, Shion? No need for it.”
“I-I’m not being shy.”
Mom saw right through me, and that just made me blush all over again. I felt her grip around me tighten a little bit. Her chest was still pressed against my back side.
I looked up at Mom and fell silent. She had a sad smile on her face.
“Sorry, Shion. I’m sorry.”
Why was she apologizing? Why did she look so sad? I didn’t understand, but I didn’t have the courage to speak.
All I could do was accept her feelings, and her embrace, and hope that consoled her, even if by the tiniest bit. The room fell silent. I felt her pulse, her warmth, her body, and I wondered what in the world to do.
Moments passed.
“Sorry, Shion.” She chuckled. “I think I’ll get out now. What about you?”
“I’ll stay in a little longer.”
I couldn’t look in her direction, much less get out with her.
“Okay. Then I’ll see you at dinner.”
“Yep.”
I lowered my eyes to the water as Mom got out. At last, the pressure against my shoulders dissipated. I wanted to get out of the water myself, but now I’d have to wait a little longer.
You know, the experience wasn’t as bad as I expected. The struggle had become softened by the comfort and joy of spending time with such wonderful family members. I felt like shouting to the world: I’m so happy!
It wasn’t just because of my family in this world, but above all else, it was because I had magic. Magic that I had discovered myself. Real, actual, magic!
I’d been reborn here in this life and then invented magic. I could conjure Flare, Bolt, Aqua, and there was so much more I hadn’t learned yet. Now, unlike in my previous life, I lived a life full of hope, of anticipation, and of happiness. How could I not be grateful?
But I wasn’t satisfied yet. I wanted to use and discover more kinds of magic. To that end, I had to learn and research more. The prospect stirred with me feelings of uncertainty, but also of excitement.
What kind of magic will I develop next?
I let the thoughts stir in my head. It was all I could do to not swell up and explode.