How a Wizard Survives (38)
How a Wizard Survives (38)
Most noble families had what was called a main house, a small group consisting of the family head and their direct-line relatives, the true nobility within the household.
By that measure, the Einhold Family was anything but ordinary, having adopted a unique method of succession: the Family Head Tournament.
In theory, as long as you had the ability, you could inherit the title of family head even if you were not the current head's child.
In practice, it had happened more than a few times.
But that didn't mean the concept of a main house did not exist in Einhold.
In principle, all Einhold bloodlines were equal...
Yet some families were more equal than others, such as bloodlines that had produced family heads multiple times.
They had accumulated wealth and honor through past heads and did receive better treatment.
I didn't have to look far. Angelica, who hung around with me often, was exactly that sort.
Hector Einhold was the current family head's closest confidant, so she received some extra attention as well.
Nevertheless.
You almost never heard titles like "young master" in Einhold.
In other families it might have been a normal form of address, but things worked very differently here.
If a hired hand used a title like that, it was one thing.
Luft was one of the Eight Swords of Einhold, unbowed before anyone.
A man Angelica called "uncle."
While I stood there flustered, he laboriously straightened himself.
"Regrettably, we don't have time. First, the demon's corpse..."
"Ah, understood."
Right. This was no time to stand frozen.
I turned to the demon's corpse and used Transformation Magic.
The creature's mana had been so immense that some Magic Resistance lingered even in death, but I used Ultimate Mimicry again to cancel it out.
'I can't leave it like this. If anyone conducts an autopsy, they'll notice the discrepancy right away...'
A demon's corpse was magically precious.
If we took it into the fortress, it would certainly be carved up piece by piece.
To hide my identity, I altered the cause of death.
Our official version was that I had managed to slice the creature's throat during the fight, while its crushed heart was merely a finishing blow.
After it was dead, Katrina cut it open and poured Rejection Magic into it.
"Ah, right. Actually, I'm an Awakened One..."
"I am aware. This whole affair began from there."
"!"
When I tossed out the remark, partly to gauge his reaction again, Luft answered in a somber voice.
This was not an act.
Awakened Ones are hardly common; this was supposedly the first in three hundred years.
If he had just learned of it now, he couldn't have responded so calmly.
We carved up the demon's corpse and barely managed to load it onto the horses when a clamor erupted from the west.
The catapult destruction operation must have finished some time ago. They would be retreating now.
"Should we go too?"
"No. We have secured the demon's corpse, so let us withdraw."
Luft was oddly restless, yet he continued using formal, respectful speech.
Katrina and I both found his attitude unfamiliar and deeply awkward.
As if misunderstanding our reaction, he added swiftly, "One demon has already been slain. They won't dare attempt something similar in the future. Demons are a species that does not cooperate well by nature. In a sense, we have achieved something far greater than destroying catapults."
"Merit or whatever, I don't care about that."
"Then all the more reason to withdraw!"
We withdrew immediately, following Luft's suggestion.
I wanted to recover the soldiers' bodies too, but my horse was already carrying a heavy load.
Luft kept pace with us easily on foot.
He wielded Gravity Magic with effortless familiarity.
'His movement and stealth techniques are leagues above mine. I should watch closely and copy them.'
Just before we arrived, he came back toward me, still volunteering as the vanguard, and said quietly, "And that person... can she be trusted?"
"Lady Katrina already knows everything about me. If she wanted to report me, she could have done so a hundred times over."
"...Understood. Also, this is dreadfully presumptuous, but regarding the fight with Diego... it would be best if I am recorded as having participated as well."
"I'd be grateful if you did."
The truth was, if Katrina and I claimed to have slain a demon by ourselves, suspicion would fall on us first.
From my perspective, Luft taking an appropriate share of the credit was welcome.
'Can I really trust this man? No... trust or not, he already helped destroy evidence. Now even if he wants to report me, he can't.'
We returned to the fortress under high tension, and shortly afterward, Reinhardt and the other special forces arrived.
Ragged from battle, they started in shock at the sight of the demon's corpse.
"Th-this thing... isn't this Diego, the Enfeeblement Demon?"
"Don't tell me Lord Luft caught it himself?"
"I merely lent a hand."
Luft's reply was brusque, but people seemed used to it.
Reinhardt tried to maintain gravitas, yet he couldn't stop the corners of his mouth from twitching upward.
"Even a Lowest-Rank demon is still a demon. Morelai of the Plague will be horrified when they hear."
"They should've stayed properly holed up, then!"
"Well done, Katrina. From now on, they won't throw themselves at us recklessly."
Seeing not only the special forces but the rank-and-file soldiers so unreservedly delighted, I realized slaying a demon really was that difficult.
The commander immediately ordered a grand banquet.
Though "grand" was laughably modest compared to what I'd seen at the royal palace... the lively atmosphere was unmatched.
After coaxing the inexplicably sulky Angelica and humoring Reinhardt's drunken rambling, I finally managed to sit at Luft's table.
Katrina, forcing a smile, stayed by my side.
Anyone watching would think we were chattering about the day's fighting.
Thankfully, this time Luft spoke first.
"Young Master Green, forgive me, but may I explain immediately?"
"Here?"
"The eye of the storm is, by its nature, the safest place. This is my area of expertise, so you needn't worry."
He murmured it with considerable confidence, then in that somber voice began to unspool the secret.
The beginning of the story was roughly what I had expected.
There could be only one reason he used such extreme formal speech with me.
"As you may already have guessed... I was your father's squire."
"Then my father is..."
"Yes. He has already left this world. The hero of the Einhold Family, Dietrich Einhold, is your true father, Young Master Green."
"Di-Dietrich Einhold..."
The exclamation came not from me but from Katrina.
As for me, it was the first time in my life hearing the name, so even if I wanted to be moved, I couldn't.
"Is he famous?"
"If you wander around here a little, you'll find at least a statue..."
That famous, then.
As I was vaguely grasping his stature, Katrina interjected.
"But Dietrich Einhold was supposed to be unmarried, wasn't he?"
"He was known to have been unmarried."
Luft's solemn eyes fixed directly on me.
Within his now-clouded gaze, a rapturous memory replayed.
"Lord Dietrich was a knight among knights. The image of him fighting against Bael is still vivid to me."
"...The Demon King?"
"That is correct. Lest there be any misunderstanding, allow me to say: your uncle did not abandon you, young master."
Luft's voice caught briefly; he swallowed a mouthful of beer and continued.
Beside me, Katrina could hardly breathe.
Even so, the story sounded unpleasant to me.
"Then why was I stuck in that backwater village...?"
"Because he wished for you to live happily."
"?"
"Lord Dietrich welcomed your birth. Your mother's status meant nothing to him. The two of them genuinely..."
No matter how I looked at it, I couldn't believe it.
Luft, reading my expression, quickly moved on.
"Originally, he planned to inform the family before it was too late, but unfortunately... you were born an Awakened One, young master."
"...How did you know that?"
"It was known before you were born. Your mother, who did not possess a speck of mana, began to use magic the moment she conceived you."
So Awakened Ones even had that kind of ability.
Being an Awakened One had brought nothing good.
That day, my father had resented himself and my mother for the first time, or so it was said.
"Lord Dietrich wished you had no talent. Even if you failed at the training center and could never bear the name Einhold, he wanted you to live safely and peacefully."
Yet I had been a genius who displayed his talent even before birth.
To the Einhold Family, an unprecedented blessing.
To my parents, an unprecedented curse.
"A hero of the Front Lines is, in the end, merely expendable goods for the nobles. All you leave behind when you die are a statue and meaningless war stories."
My father and Luft had known.
If it were revealed that I was an Awakened One, I would never be able to leave the Front Lines.
That my fate was to fight battle after battle and die a futile, agonizing death...
My father had met exactly that end.
"So he made up his mind. He would smuggle you out of here somehow..."
"And that method was to shove me into some nameless backwater village?"
"It could not be helped. Naturally, I wanted to settle you in a better place, but the more remote, the safer. Moreover... we sealed your mana. If an Awakened One's still-developing magic ran wild, all our lives would be forfeit."
"...Sealed?"
"That's right. You didn't notice? Because we couldn't properly suppress your power, it must have undone itself the moment you met a mage..."
Apart from being born with transcendent talent, I had felt nothing at all until I met Ulysses.
So that was what had happened.
A seal that broke the moment another mage merely approached. It was exasperating.
A Heretic Inquisitor.
Luft looked at me in my white Inquisition uniform and lamented silently.
My parents' plan—and his—had failed spectacularly.
"I already knew your mother had passed. Every two years without fail, we came to observe you from a distance and then returned."
I wanted to remark that they'd visited awfully often, but... if they had come more often, there would have been no point in hiding me in a backwater to begin with.
I swallowed my complaints and sighed.
"If things had gone according to plan, what were you going to do?"
"Once you safely reached adulthood, you would certainly have been conscripted to the Front Lines. And spiriting one person out of here is a trivial matter for me."
He wasn't simply talking about arranging a posting in a village.
This fortress wall had fallen several times throughout history.
My father and Luft had intended to abandon the wealth and honor they had built and flee somewhere.
Katrina clicked her tongue softly, as if the words stirred a sense of déjà vu.
Only now did Luft reach the heart of the matter.
"The preparations were completed long ago. Give the command, young master, and we can leave tonight."
"L-leave?"
"I have a decent villa in the southern lands, far from the Front Lines. It isn't terribly luxurious, but... your life there would never be one of poverty."
Luft practically entreated me.
But I couldn't accept what he was saying.
Abandon my teacher and Katrina? Run away now, after everything?
There was no way I could do such a thing.
Besides, my father and Luft had made a critical mistake.
I pointed it out with confidence.
"You were both wrong."
"...Excuse me?"
"There is no law that says fighting on the Front Lines makes you expendable. I am far stronger than either of you predicted."
Mid-sentence, I burst into a short laugh.
To think it would all connect like this.
As always, my teacher Ulysses had been right.
When I recalled his grand plan, I couldn't wipe the smile away.
"I'll go see that villa in the south after I've killed all the demons. Or something."
"Y-young master..."
"The Heretic Inquisitors will return early tomorrow morning. If it's all right, see us off as far as Reshutal."
I rose a little unsteadily from my seat, and Katrina followed me without hesitation.
Later, in front of her own quarters, she hesitated, then grabbed me tightly as I was saying goodnight and pulled me close.