The Candy Pouch
"Why on earth isn't the instructor stepping in?!"
"He likely lacks the confidence to subdue him without inflicting fatal harm."
Dark mana was an inherently destructive power. Raw lethality aside, a clumsy attempt at suppression risked driving Zaku to total self-destruction. Yet unlike the instructor, who hesitated before the life-or-death crisis of a student, Orknodi had taken the initiative herself, stepping forward to execute the containment he should have handled.
"It's still not too late. Let's pull Orknodi out of there."
"Out of the question. Intervening now will only divide his focus, complicating matters further."
"The merchant speaks the truth. That lower-class lad has been reacting hypersensitively to every sound and movement nearby since the beginning."
Stripped of conscious thought, he was moving purely on instinctive reflexes to external stimuli. If they meddled now and triggered an erratic response, Orknodi, themselves, and the lower-class boy would all be thrust into mortal peril.
"Is Orknodi going to be fine? Drawing upon such volatile power right in his face..."
"Observe her output."
Giselle pointed toward the dark mana clinging to Orknodi's blade. When she had ignited that burst earlier to seize everyone's attention, her output had been overwhelmingly superior; now, however, she maintained only the thinnest film over her steel, like a delicate coating along the edge.
"It appears our young lady possesses absolute mastery over the output of dark mana, notoriously uncontrollable as it is. One need only see how she shaved such tempestuous energy down to a mere whisper over her blade."
"Is that something we can celebrate?"
"Splendid news, without a doubt. It means we have far less reason to fear our young lady losing control or succumbing to madness like that lower-class student."
To the naked eye, Zaku held the advantage in raw, surging force, but in truth, Orknodi's feat of sustaining such low, pinpoint precision was vastly more terrifying.
Though it is what follows that truly troubles me.
Giselle could not shake his unease. This incident would serve as the decisive strike, pouring fuel over the already vile rumors surrounding Orknodi—and it was entirely because of that boy. Zaku, the knight aspirant. Watching him, Giselle's eyes chilled colder than a winter gale.
Mob had grown remarkably strong. It was the rise of his closest friend, an achievement he ought to celebrate with an open heart. Yet no joy rose within him.
He could not bring himself to rejoice, because he could not share in Mob's triumph.
He knew better than anyone what qualities this trial demanded. The Mana Verification Test was an examination explicitly interrogating one's capacity to govern mana.
— If you cannot command mana, your blade will feed not on monsters, but on the blood of men.
— Continue down that path, and you too will become a monster. Merely a beast wearing the skin of a human.
— That is the wretched lot of mercenaries who know nothing of mana.
His master had warned him never to turn out like him, insisting it was better to wager his life than succumb to such an existence. And now, his very life hung upon the small vial tucked against his chest.
It was barely enough liquid to fill half a teacup. Drink it, and death was near certainty. Nine times out of ten, death claimed the drinker, and even if one survived, life would never be the same. Escaping without debilitating side effects was a miracle against impossible odds.
Yet his master had handed it over anyway, telling him that drinking it was better than the alternative. He had made it clear just how ruthless the remaining years would be as a hound for the underworld syndicates. Better to die in an instant than cross the threshold into the 'life of a monster' he so often spoke of.
Even so, Zaku had steeled his resolve.
If Mob and I leave the academy together, I can gladly accept my fate.
They would have dared to dream of turning their lives around at the world's foremost academy, only to fail side by side. They would have entered together and departed together, spending the rest of their days looking back fondly on those fleeting times. He could have lived peacefully with that memory.
Instead, Mob had passed. Mob had torn himself free of the failing tier.
If Zaku fell here, he would be cast out alone. He would be forced into the shadowed underbelly of society, condemned to an existence civilized folk dared not even look upon.
Ten years of blood and sweat just to stand shoulder to shoulder. For a brief moment, I thought I had caught up. But if you forge ahead again, and I alone am cast aside...
How many more years would he need then? Twenty? Thirty? He might spend the remainder of his days and never draw even with Mob again. Even so, he had never wanted to drag Mob down.
Opportunities had been everywhere. He could have tampered with their shared meals or engineered an accident during practice drills. Countless filthy schemes had crossed his mind, ways that could have dragged Mob down into the mud right beside him. Yet he had never acted on a single one.
Mob. We survived a living hell together when we were kids. We swore we would become knights who rescue people like us.
How could he ever betray that bond? In the end, he had made his choice: he would betray himself, not Mob.
He swallowed the draught in a single gulp and stepped into the examination line. The instructor watched him drain the potion and did nothing to stop him. Doping with combat enhancers was regarded as a student's own resource within the academy. After all, if one could not sustain such enhancers indefinitely or survive the inevitable backlash, they would naturally be discarded in due time.
It was true. It remained doubtful whether he could endure this exam, and even if he did, there was no telling how many more times his body could withstand the strain. This doping held no lasting meaning; it was nothing more than an ephemeral bid to prolong his chances. Even so, he refused to retreat. Even if it meant abandoning the noble dream of an honorable knight, he stepped forward.
He had to show him. He had to prove he could stand beside him, that he was no longer the helpless boy from ten years ago, and that the past decade had not been spent in vain.
I will prove it. Every single moment of my ten years!
His heart plummeted into an icy abyss as his perception twisted. Dark mana erupted from the tip of his sword, pitch-black aura billowing upward like roaring, chaotic flames.
A thunderous crash echoed across the grounds as fractures spiderwebbed across the boulder, blasting stone shards in all directions. He had no time to marvel at destructive power far eclipsing his normal limits.
— Never forget. If you swallow that draught, you must cease the release the instant a suffocating agony clutches your heart.
— Dark mana will never submit to its wielder. The moment you lose control and cross the threshold of restraint, your survival is beyond anyone's guarantee.
He could not stop. Even having consumed the drug, failing the exam meant he would collapse into convulsions from dark mana sooner or later, left uncertain if he would ever open his eyes again.
Master. The moment I resolved to drink this potion, I threw all thought of safety away. All I have left is to sprint until the bitter end.
He needed greater strength to bridge the chasm of innate talent, to counterfeit the deficit in his meager efforts. Clinging desperately to a heart that squeezed tighter by the second and consciousness that frayed at the edges, he drove his blade forward once more.
The stone ruptured into dust. He had accomplished an impossible trial.
The reverent gazes of his peers, the impassioned cheers shaking the arena, and the sound of Mob clapping with pure pride all reached his ears as a muffled drone. It felt impossibly distant, like peering at the world above from the bottom of a deep sea.
So this is it.
He had already crossed beyond the threshold of control. In exchange for this fleeting taste of triumph, he had traded away the rest of his existence. His master had lived his entire life in bitter regret for failing to achieve this single moment. What about him? Was he satisfied that he had not ended up like his master? Did he regret casting away his life?
Before Zaku could reach a conclusion, his vision shuttered dark, and his consciousness evaporated into nothingness.
One look at his dark mana output and his battered frame made everything painfully obvious: this friend had suffered through a mountain of grief in life!
NPCs who wielded dark mana almost always carried motives far darker and heavier than Isabelle's quest for adventuring party revenge. To produce this density, he had to have grown up witnessing the deaths of at least ten thousand souls. A character whose past was steeped in profound tragedy was far too layered to remain a mere background extra. Handled properly, he could easily evolve from a minor role into a full-fledged named villain.
Of course, having chugged a dark potion that stood as the twin terror to a Berserk Potion, he was currently slated to self-destruct under the overflowing dark mana he could no longer rein in.
"Running into me... lucky break for both of us!"
Well, lucky until he crossed paths with me.
Truth be told, dark mana concealed a rather amusing mechanic. When you calculated the absolute value of dark mana—multiplying purity by volume—whichever side held the smaller value was heavily influenced, consciously or unconsciously, by the larger one. Monsters didn't obey demons for no reason, and fiends didn't roll over for demonkind just for fun. The Demon King commanding the entire demon realm functioned on the exact same principle.
When someone's absolute value of dark mana was overwhelmingly superior, lower-tier entities fell into unconditional obedience, harboring boundless loyalty, awe, or even strange, affectionate reverence. How you commanded them to express that dynamic defined that entity's identity and flavor.
What identity should I go with for this run?
I pondered as I watched Zaku twitching, warily sizing me up. As a veteran grinder, I could pull off whatever role I wanted, which meant I could roleplay any personality to perfection! That said, just because I had absolute freedom didn't mean a seven-foot-tall wall of muscle whining "Uwoo?" while twirling his hair was an acceptable concept. That was a botched build.
There was a sacred rule in this world called TPO: Time, Place, and Occasion. It meant one had to act according to the moment, the setting, and the circumstances. TPO was just as vital for roleplay concepts.
A petite, four-foot-four eleven-year-old girl. Top freshman co-valedictorian. The entire reason I had maintained a child's bubbly tone and mannerisms from the moment I possessed this cute little girl was specifically to preserve this TPO! My dark mana concept couldn't afford to break character either.
Cute is definitely the way to go!
Suddenly bulging with veins and crushing him with monstrous brute force or glaring everyone into submission with dark charisma would completely ruin the concept. So, I deliberately suppressed my aura to project an opening, baiting Zaku into lunging forward. The instant he took the bait, I corrected my deliberately sloppy footing and raised my blade.