Talent Gone Completely Berserk

Talent's going completely berserk, isn't it?

"…Still, you're light as a feather. I keep telling you to eat properly."

Arlea muttered, holding me in a princess carry.

I'm not exactly the lightweight type, you know. It's just that this woman's raw strength is so overwhelming that I come off as light by comparison.

Sophia, trailing behind us, chewed hard on her lower lip.

"D-Don't toy with Oppa."

"This isn't toying."

"Sniff… you smell so good."

As Sophia ground her teeth, Arlea buried her face straight into my hair without the slightest shame.

Sexually harassing a sleeping person. Seriously. This woman doesn't even have poison mixed into her personality, and she's still like this?

Oh no.

I should stop the sleeping act for a while. Her affection keeps climbing.

Anyway, I was carefully laid down in the upper tier of the training grounds — on spectator seats shaped like those of a circular arena. Of course, I never forgot my true nature.

"Kuuuul… kuuuul—"

Sophia had cast a sleep spell, so I had to keep pretending to be out cold. A kind of… safety measure. Well, calling it a safety measure was generous — it was closer to a full surrender.

Everyone except those two idiot yanderes had fallen into a deep sleep. The fact that I alone stayed conscious meant I was thrashing around, begging to be caught. Still, my acting skills had improved by leaps and bounds. Thanks to that, both of them fell for it completely — which was exactly why Arlea kept poking my cheek over and over.

Hey! Hey!

You damn woman, stop poking me!

"Hehehe."

Arlea hugged me tight and rubbed her own scent all over me like some clingy cat. How badly did she want to claim me?

A sigh escaped on its own, but then—

"So, mage… what exactly are you?"

"Y-You're asking about a complicated formula."

"Complicated or not. Mage. You — your very essence is bizarre beyond measure."

"Well. I only woke up here not long ago myself."

Sophia shrugged. There wasn't much more she could explain. Setting the regression aside, both of them were beings who had crossed over from other dimensions. Put simply, they were like two kinds of rubber twisted together.

Wow. Two yanderes.

Are they trying to drive people insane on purpose?

"The ceasefire still holds, I take it?"

Arlea jerked her chin toward Sophia.

"Yes. As we agreed, we'll put the fighting aside for now. The way we treasure Oppa — that much is the same."

She didn't like it, but Sophia added the words anyway.

"Agreed."

They couldn't afford an all-out battle. Having stepped into the realm of the superhuman, even wounding each other was difficult. These were beings who could bounce a holy sword and endure the remaking of heaven and earth. Killing was possible, sure — but only if they unleashed the power they kept suppressed. Even the slightest aftershock of that force snatching Mikhail's life was unthinkable.

If this had been the era of the Empire's First Sword, maybe. But with his fragile current ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠body, safety couldn't be guaranteed. Arlea had conceded that point within a few exchanges.

"Fine. I want an agreement. A ceasefire until he recovers the memories he's lost. How about it?"

"They say there are no eternal enemies or allies. Hah."

Sophia clicked her tongue.

"We'll settle everything once it's over. Mage, I'll get to the point. Is there a way for him to regain his memories?"

Twelve Circles. The sole existence who had driven twelve magic circles into her own heart — commonly called an Archmage. Even she, a being beyond the heavens, seemed just as lost.

"I… haven't found anything concrete either. There are research records, but the odds of realizing them are vanishingly small."

The heavy dark circles under her eyes and skin white as snow from shunning sunlight proved just how obsessively she had devoted herself to research.

Honestly, if she'd put that much effort into something normal, she would've swept every Nobel Prize.

"'Vanishingly small' means the phenomenon is theoretically possible."

"Yes. If we assume a ritual formula spanning the entire continent, the mana required would… need thousands of Twelve-Circle Archmages offered as sacrifices."

"In the Empire, Twelve Circles exist only…"

Arlea lowered her voice. Sophia placed a hand over her own chest. Would she really seal her power just to live an ordinary daily life?

"I'm currently the only one. No wonder they call me a madwoman."

"I suppose that's all there is to it."

"I… should stay positive, then."

Both of them arrived at the same image at once. The common nemesis they had never fully dealt with. Things that straddled multiple dimensions, devouring life and spreading corruption.

"Demons."

Arlea and Sophia spoke the word in unison.

Divine beings worshipped by the heretics of the far north. Absolute evil that sought to destroy the continent and all living things. In both of their worlds, every demon had been purged — but a surviving specimen might have set something in motion. Beings that transcended time and space. Unable to kill them completely, they must have resorted to banishing them across dimensions as a last resort.

After a moment of thought, Arlea's face twisted.

"What's wrong?"

"If we're talking about women with ties to Mikhail, there must be plenty besides us."

"If possible, recruiting them would be best."

"To a degree."

"We can thin out the competition later. Once their hearts loosen, their actions tend to get lighter."

Petty filth for the greater good? It could be buried. True filth, though, could simply be peeled away a thousand times over.

Well then. Let's give it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a proper try.

Agreed.

Arlea and Sophia nodded at the same time.

Damn it.

Talk about bad timing. On day one, two regressors forming an alliance — total catastrophe!

A body full of aches. A head swimming in fog. Ah, was this how it felt when you caught the three great modern diseases Dad always talked about — hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol?

The Imperial mad dog teaming up with a drug-addled mad ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠scientist… The odds of that happening even if the world split in two were basically zero. Winning the lottery ten times over still wouldn't cover it!

Then again, these were women with dozens of snakes coiled in their guts. Nothing to be done about it.

—You're fucked.

"Father. Do you have to put it so harshly—"

—What? Am I wrong?

"Kim Sarang…"

You see right through everything and still deliver it in that tone?

"Haa… Words really do become seeds."

I pressed my throbbing forehead. I was definitely going to summon Mother and tip her off that Dad was cursing out his own son.

Still, it wasn't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠as if there had been no harvest. The old saying never lies — even if the sky collapses, there's always a hole to crawl through.

"Hoo…"

I had completed the quest.

"Excellent work, Mikhail. You didn't just freeload that escort knight position after all. Mikhail Yohan."

"Not at all, sir."

I answered in the most drained voice I could manage. Sophia had rewritten everyone's perception so that it looked like I had taken them all down myself, and praise poured in.

"You are a model among knights. Based on your exam results, I will add the maximum three hundred points. Welcome to your first Class A."

Carlos drew out the words and clapped from the podium. Look at him — the same man who'd been drooling through a deep nap. His shoulders were practically ascending to heaven.

Even the magic Sophia had thrown for me to dodge, he hadn't been able to block with aura.

When I shrugged, Arlea beside me took hold of my arm. She pressed close without the slightest hesitation.

"Wonderful, Mikhail."

"You flatter me, Your Highness. Without Your Highness's masterful command, none of this would have been possible."

I laid on the praise for Arlea with a long, practiced tongue.

"Thank you, Your Highness. This humble one has received such instruction."

"It's nothing. You simply did well. Haa, what am I supposed to do with a man who can't even fulfill his duties as a man, yet handles a knight's work so perfectly?"

Arlea smiled slyly. If I didn't know the genre, I might have mistaken this for a fresh academy romance.

I thumped my lower back with a rough fist.

"Aaagh. Stiff as hell."

I'd been stuck in one position the whole time, and those two had been chewing on me and sucking on me the entire while. Using me as a human body pillow, the pair of them. My body ached the same way it had in the early days of possession, when I'd been rolled half to death… or the day I'd fled in the middle of the night.

Well, I was still better off than the ones who'd gotten beaten while they slept.

"Ugh… uuugh…"

"To lose… how humiliating."

Those ones looked better ignored. While I was busy looking elsewhere, Carlos had already come down to the first floor of the training grounds and tapped my shoulder.

"Ahahaha. To awaken an Aura Blade so quickly. Truly remarkable. I'll grant you this much — your survival instincts are the real deal."

Honestly, this professor's affection had risen a little and he already looked ready to drag me straight into graduate school.

I am absolutely not going to grad school.

I'd rather surrender my chastity to Arlea or Sophia and die a hundred times over. This was the Middle Ages. Magic existed, and technology had been dragged up to something resembling the modern era — but graduate students still weren't human beings…!

"It's nothing, sir. All of it was thanks to your teaching."

"Passing the credit to your mentor. I look forward to your funeral. And you've got a silver tongue as well."

So why did you even come over here, then?

This is a man who'll just assign self-study from now on.

"Ah, there's someone I wanted to introduce."

"Someone to introduce, sir?"

I kept my expression neutral and focused on Carlos. Behind him, Sophia was already standing demurely.

"Professor of Practical Magic, Sophia Le Borsch. Young lady of a renowned count's house, and a genius Archmage courted simultaneously by all four great Magic Towers."

Archmage. In other words, a Grand Magus. If my memory served, the youngest in the Empire.

Well, you can't spit on a smiling face. I naturally offered Sophia a handshake.

"Mikhail Yohan. Escort knight to the Third Princess, and a student of the Swordsmanship Department."

Sophia slowly accepted my hand. She clearly hadn't expected me to offer the handshake first. A woman with a quiet streak of being clever in all the wrong ways.

"N-Nice to meet you! I'm Sophia Le Borsch. Please, just call me Sophie!"

Sophie?

A nickname that sounds like it'd get along great with Howl.

Sophia shrugged and continued.

"Anyway, first place… M-Mikhail, you're really amazing too!"

Squish, squish—

Sophia kneaded my hand the way one might work clay. Full of ulterior motives, wasn't she?

Thwack—

"A pleasure, mage of House Borsch. I've heard many rumors of the Empire's youngest genius."

Arlea intercepted the handshake with a smooth flourish. Ugh, look at that iron-plated smile on her face. She never showed me that fake smile.

"…That even Her Imperial Radiance would show such boundless interest in one so humble. As a child of a meritorious house, I am truly overwhelmed with gratitude."

Crackle—

Sparks flew from the eyes locked on each other. I could already feel a vein throbbing in my forehead.

So now I have two wives I have to manage until I can run away?

While I sighed, Arlea and Sophia kept piling flowery, hollow compliments on each other. Then, true to their agreement, Sophia explained what she had come to do.

"……Yes, Princess Arlea. I've come regarding your escort knight's aptitude for magic. May I examine him?"

"No reason not to."

Sophia released the hand she'd been shaking with Arlea.

"Ugh."

A soft groan slipped from Sophia as her hand came free. Her slender fingers were swollen and puffy.

Ow, that stings, Sophia muttered under her breath.

"Just… just a moment while I check."

Sophia pressed her thin fingers to my pulse. For a Twelve-Circle mage, simply reading a pulse would be enough to gauge the grade with perfect accuracy.

"Mana. Inject."

Before long, something began to surge backward from the region of my heart. Mana. And not just any mana — a vast, hail-class torrent.

Wait.

My eyes flew open. Even so, this volume of mana wasn't right. If before it had been a trivial stream, now it was an entire ocean.

The problem was that river-class current. It had already reached late-game levels. If my memory was correct, some parts that hadn't been lost should still remain — like the Aura Heart. And like the farce unfolding right now.

I wasn't the only one startled. Sophia's pupils trembled like a helium balloon about to burst.

Th-This shouldn't be possible.

I heard Sophia's inner voice. She turned toward Arlea and reported the result.

"Mana Grade One. He has a mage's talent."

"A mage's talent?"

Arlea narrowed her eyes. Even so, Sophia spoke only the truth. This was real. I had never possessed any talent for mana.

Ah. So that's how it works?

Unaware of any of this, Sophia zeroed in on the change. The sparkle in her eyes was anything but ordinary.

"Your Highness. Might I temporarily requisition your knight?!"

It looked like my life was about to get a whole lot busier.