Chapter 9: Training My Underlings and the Dragon Materials

Author: 十一屋　翠 (Juuichiya Sui)

 

As I had promised them a while ago, Jairo-kun and co.’s training began.

“For body strengthening magic, you just need to feel your mana once, then the rest is easy.”

“Bro, it’s not easy at all!”

“Hang on, you didn’t use an incantation earlier, did you!? How did you do that!?”

“Can we also do that?”

“It doesn’t feel that way…”

They’re all so faint-hearted.

“Body strengthening magic is called magic, but actually, all it’s really about is circulating your mana throughout your body.
So there’s no need to transform that mana into a specific attribute like with normal magic.”

And since it worked even when not chanted out loud, body strengthening magic was also useful as a foothold for learning chantless magic.

“Heee, really?”

“You’re convinced way too easily!”

“Mina-san and Norb-san, you can already use magic, so you will likely master it faster.
Jairo-kun and Meguri-san, you should try practising feeling your mana.”

And so, we began practising body strengthening magic.

◆ ◆

“Ughhhh, I can feel my mana, but… using it without a chant is really hard.”

“Yeah… my mana’s moving in a completely different direction to where I want to send it to…”

It seemed like Mina-san and Norb-san could feel their mana perfectly fine, but anything more than that didn’t seem to be going well.

Having relied on chants for many years, they couldn’t seem to grab a hold of the sense of how to control their mana without using chants.

“Ughhh… I can feel it, but I also don’t…”

Perhaps it was good for Meguri-san that she was a thief who listened to her intuition when working in places with poor visibility or for trap detection, because she seemed to have become able to feel her mana once every few tries.

I was watching for it with her, and when she could feel her mana, its usually vague outline became sharp and clear for a second.

From among them, Meguri-san might be the first to be able to use body strengthening magic.

And as for Jairo-kun…

“Haaaaaaaa…! Take thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis!! ”

Imitating what I had done before, he was punching the ground.

But, since he wasn’t gathering any mana in his hand, he was just punching it normally.

“Uuu, the ground’s not getting blown away at all.
And my hand hurts.”

Are my teaching methods bad?

Is there some better way to teach this?

◆ ◆

“Ha!!”

Mina-san punched a tree with a mana-covered fist, breaking it with a loud boom.

“Ha!!”

Putting mana in his leg, Norb-san kicked a boulder, cracking it all over.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to break it apart totally though.

“Ta!!”

Putting mana into both her legs, Meguri-san leapt nearly five meters into the air, jumping up to a high-up tree branch straight from the ground.

“You’re all awesome! You’re so good at learning things too!”

Since earlier, Meguri-san was the first to have learned body strengthening, followed by Mina-san and Norb-san also succeeding.

“This is pretty useful.
It’ll come in handy if we ever get into close-quarters-combat unexpectedly.”

“I’m not that good at raising my attack power, but I feel like my defence is better than bad armour.”

“This’ll come in really useful for covert operations!”

It seemed Mina-san had an aptitude for increasing attack power, Norb-san for defensive power, and Meguri-san for physical ability.

This magic had some unevenness in the fact that it strengthened some parts more than others depending on an individual’s aptitude, but luckily they all seemed to have had the right parts strengthened for their professions.

And as for Jairo-kun…

“Say, bro, will I really be able to use it?”

He still hadn’t been able to feel his mana.

“You will.
I also had to practise to be able to use it.”

“You practised… how exactly did you go about that?”

“Eh?”

I unintentionally let out a voice at the completely unexpected question.

“‘Cause you’re insanely amazing! Where did you practise and who instructed you?”

“What kind of practise…?”

As Jairo-kun asked me, I recalled the days once upon a time in my before-previous life when I had trained.

“– Magic, is an idea, an expression.
And even how much mana you have can be easily overridden by improving your magic through its idea, its expression, its visualisation.”

Right, Master did say the idea was important.

“And the most essential point for magic is… spirit! With enough spirit, you can even use magic chantlessly!!”

Yeah, let’s forget that part though.

In the end, I found out through later research that there were laws that allowed chantless magic to be used.

But it was not a waste of time, because it caused me to try to understand the reasons for and laws of things.

And that was what had led to me acquiring the magical knowledge and skills to be called the Sage.

“Heeey, big brother?”

Oops, we can’t have this.

I completely lost sight of my surroundings reminiscing about the past.

“Right, in my case, I trained and researched looking for the origin’s reason.”

“Reason?”

“Cause, effect, law, whatever.
I wanted to find out why it happened.
If I could understand that, I could artificially reproduce its outcome.”

“You’re saying something really difficult to understand.”

Hmmm, I wasn’t intending on saying anything so complicated though.

“Right.
Let’s get you to understand what kind of thing mana is first, okay?”

“But, you can’t understand mana if you don’t have a talent for magic, right? I’m a warrior, so it’s impossible for me.”

“Like I said, that’s not the case.
Meguri-san’s a thief, and she used it, no? Hmm, yeah, that’s right…”

How do I get him to understand mana… ah, I got it!

“You’ve been healed by Norb-san’s healing magic before, haven’t you?”

“Yeah, I have.
You can heal simple wounds in the blink of an eye, magic really is amazing!”

Then, we might still get him to understand it.

“When you were being healed, didn’t you feel something?”

“When I was being healed? Umm, nothing other than a kind of floaty feeling.”

“That’s it! That’s mana!”

“Eeeh!? That floatyness!?”

“That’s right, when casting healing magic, a small part of the mana being used is also released with it.
Try what you were doing again with that feeling clearly in your mind.”

“Really!? Got it! Floatyness!”

Well, strictly speaking, the floatyness wasn’t mana itself but mana that had been converted into healing power.

But, I expected that if I went into that much detail, it would just confuse him, so I didn’t dare explain that.

The important thing was that he felt his mana and believed in himself.

And since Jairo-kun seemed to believe strongly in whatever he believed in, if this worked, it would be rather easy…

Boom!!

“!?”

In that moment, Jairo-kun suddenly exploded.

“Jairo-kun!?”

Luckily, the explosion had been small in scale, and the smoke cleared away quickly.

Emerging from the smoke were the shape of Jairo-kun collapsed on the ground and a small crater.

““““He made a crater!?””””

That’s right, at Jairo-kun’s feet, while it was only thirty centimeters in diameter, there was a crater.

“Amazing, Jairo-kun! You succeeded!”

“Way to go Jairo.”

“Splendid, Jairo-san!”

“Amazing”

We each applauded Jairo-kun in turn.

“Y-you guys… be worried about me having exploded first…”

““““Sorry.””””

I’m sorry, I just got a little excited…

◆ ◆

“Hahaha! Amazing awesome!!”

After that, and a moderate lecture, having become able to safely use body strengthening magic, Jairo-kun now seemed to be having a ton of fun going around breaking all the rocks and trees in the area.

“To think I’d become able to do something amazing like this! You’re the best, bro!”

I’m happy I’m being praised, but please keep the destruction of nature to a moderate level.

“Rex-san, even as a teacher, you are top-notch.
To be able to teach that Jairo-san magic…”

“Yeah, you’re amazing.
We undoubtedly got our hands on power equivalent to Rank 1 adventurers, if not even above that.”

Nono, that’s an exaggeration, Meguri-san.

“By the way, why did he explode earlier?”

Mina-san asked me why Jairo-kun had exploded earlier.

“Ah, it’s quite simple actually.
He had too much mana built up that hadn’t decided the direction it wanted to go in.”

“Too much mana built up?”

“If you endlessly pour more and more water into a flask, it’ll burst eventually, yes? What happened to him was the same.
Body strengthening magic is magic that strengthens the body by circulating a small amount of mana through it.
Jairo-kun stuffed more mana than would fit in him inside him, so he burst.
If you stuff a lot of mana in yourself, remember to make a proper exit too.”

“Hee… Wait what? But if you made an exit, that would be…”

“Yep, that’s magic.”

Magic meant the processing of mana in a human’s body that would then be released, so if he became able to do that, Jairo-kun would also join the ranks of the magicians.

“By the way, that’s the basis of chantless magic, so if you can consciously release the mana piled up in you, you’ll also become able to use chantless magic, Mina-san.”

This was why it was better to learn body strengthening magic before chantless magic.

“No way!? It’s that easy to use chantless magic!?”

Mina-san’s eyes were round from surprise.

“Yeah.
Well right now, you can only release unprocessed mana, so if you want to learn chantless magic, you’ll have to practice adding an attribute to your mana and processing it without chanting.”

“Ooooooooh! I can use chantless magic too!? Eh, no way!? Seriously!? Hey, that’s insane!!”

Mina-san excitedly immediately began practising releasing her mana out of her body.

She had already been able to use magic when we started, so she’d be able to use chantless magic in no time at this rate.

And if you can use chantless magic, your tactics during battle will also grow in number.

Speaking of which, I’d think that was something they’d normally teach magicians, so why didn’t Mina-san’s teacher teach her that?

Or was their style of education to let the students find out on their own?

“Um, Rex-san.”

Norb-san called out to me.

“Are you also interested in chantless magic, Norb-san?”

“No, well, yes, I am, but more importantly.”

Saying so, Norb-san pointed to where Jairo-kun had been practising.

“Jairo-kun isn’t moving any more.”

“Eh?”

“…Owww.”

I looked in Jairo-kun’s direction, and just as Norb-san had said, Jairo-kun was lying on the ground shivering and groaning.

“Ah, he’s just out of mana.
Being able to use magic for the first time in their lives gets to someone’s head, they’ll exhaust all their mana and end up like that.
He’ll be able to move again after a moderate rest.”

“Ah, I see.
So it was that.
Thank goodness, he just collapsed all of a sudden, I thought it was an illness or something.
Anyway, so you can collapse from being out of mana just from body strengthening magic too?”

Ahaha, that’s exaggerating.

By the way, right after, Meguri-san also collapsed from mana exhaustion, followed by Mina-san, who had been practising chantless magic in a trance.

“Uu, sorry.”

“I’m sorry…”

Plan out your mana usage.

◆ ◆

“Welcome home, Sir.”

I greeted my Lord, Viscount Grimoa upon his return from the royal capital.

“Mhm.”

As far as I can tell, he seemed to have achieved his goal.

“It seems you were able to procure what you were looking for, my Lord?”

“…It cost me a pretty penny though.”

Making a complete change, my Lord’s usually calm and collected countenance turned unhappy.

It was an auction, after all, so using a lot of money could not be helped.

My Lord also understood that, but he was still in a bad mood.

“Baron Gatsey raised the price of it out of harassment.”

“That is quite the misfortune indeed, Sir.”

Baron Gatsey was a noble belonging to an opposing faction to Viscount Grimoa.

And not only that, he also hated Viscount Grimoa personally.

That was why he harassed my Lord in such ways, and not infrequently either.

But, even he didn’t go as far as to aim for my Lord’s life.

“Honestly, thanks to him, I spent more than I wanted.”

However, my Lord had a reason he needed to win the bid for one of the items put up for auction.

“I finally acquired the Dragon Core my daughter was looking for.
With this, my daughter’s Foresight’s accuracy should spring up too.”

That’s right, the one who wanted an item from the auction wasn’t the Viscount.

It had been his daughter, Miss Celia.

“It was essential for raising the accuracy of the Young Miss’ fortune-telling, was it not?”

“Mhm.
My daughter’s Foresight is indispensable for the operation of this territory.”

Miss Celia could use fortune-telling magic called Foresight.

There were many people in the world who could use fortune-telling magic, but the Young Miss’ fortune-telling’s accuracy was incomparable to that of all the other riffraff.

And this had a profound effect on the operation of Viscount Grimoa’s territory.

With this reason, Viscount Grimoa gave the Young Miss whatever she desired.

Especially things with direct relations to her fortune-telling were prioritised, without worrying about the budget.

“But how will a Dragon’s materials be used for fortune-telling?”

“Dunno.
The most important thing is to increase the reliability of her Foresight.
She needs to be the only one who understands how to use it.
Anyway, what about the other case?”

Nervousness and relief rushed through me simultaneously at the Viscount’s question.

That was close, if the negotiations had been delayed by just a few days, Viscount Grimoa’s mood would have been spoiled even more.

“Please rest assured.
I have already come into contact with said adventurer.
All that is left is a direct negotiation between him and you, Sir.”

“You think he’ll accept?”

“He had as much desire for power as anyone else.
He did want to be assigned somewhere he wouldn’t attract attention though.”

“Mh, so he’s either got something to hide, or is looking for a backer.”

Or it might be both.

“Well, it doesn’t matter which it is.
He’ll be able to deal with the disaster my daughter saw.”

The reason Viscount Grimoa had been after the Dragon’s materials as well as looking for a strong adventurer was that.

The sight Miss Celia had seen with her Foresight.

The sight of the territory sinking in a sea of flames at the hands of someone.
In order to avoid that.

“A Dragon, Evil Boars, a Dark Blob that infiltrated the city.
Something’s definitely going on.”

An attack from any of these monsters alone would be significant, but Viscount Grimoa’s concerns were definitely not being blown out of proportion.

“So then, the adventurer’s name?”

“Aug, is what he said his name was.”