Second Brother Returns
"Your second brother is back."
That voice was terribly familiar. The kind you desperately wanted to forget, but it stubbornly refused to fade from memory. The grating tone that scraped at your nerves, the deep mid-range timbre.
Of all the timing, Felix has to show up now...
My second brother, Joshua's loyal hound. And one of the main culprits who had thoroughly wrecked my life in the family.
"...Brother."
I let out a deep sigh and slowly opened the door.
The moment it swung open, rough breathing and chilling eyes greeted me. A raw, wolf-like aura pressed in heavily.
"That's right. When you come back, shouldn't you greet this brother first?"
"I didn't know you'd arrived."
Felix slowly shrugged off his fur-lined coat, gazing down at me intently. Even though my height wasn't short, his overwhelming build let him loom over me. It was a massive frame that evoked the bloodline of a knightly house.
"Just as I heard, you've really fallen apart. Rumor has it you can even use magic now?"
Nothing had changed even after all this time. That same infuriating tone, utterly convinced of his own superiority.
Honestly, at this point, I could probably kill him in under five minutes...
But if I did, it wouldn't end with just getting kicked out of the family. Unfortunately, the world wasn't soft enough to let you off someone just because they pissed you off. Though, I no longer had any reason to grovel before him like before.
"Yes. I can."
"...Hah. Your eyes are completely different from half a year ago."
"A lot has happened."
A lot had happened, indeed. Beyond just breaking the curse and meeting Lilia, I'd overcome countless trials staking my life on the line. Memories I never wanted to relive, but the results were undeniable.
"No matter how much time you've had, I doubt it was worth much."
"No. It was more valuable than I thought. Academy."
"......Now you're even talking back to me."
For a split second, Felix's eyebrow twisted grotesquely. Just this much rebellion from someone who'd been obedient his whole life, and he reacted like that? Was this guy seriously suffering from intermittent explosive disorder?
"Looks like after such a long time apart, I need to give you some brotherly guidance right away... What do you think, Donovan?"
Felix flashed a nasty smile and glanced at the knight watching from behind.
Like master, like knight. A knight twisted by warped notions of justice and loyalty wasn't a knight at all.
"...It'll be excellent guidance. I'm sure he'll appreciate it."
"Right. So, shall we give you a refresher?"
He phrased it like he was asking my opinion, but the answer was already decided. Proof of that: a savage surge of mana was boiling up from Felix's body right now, like it was itching to be unleashed.
"I won't refuse."
"......Haha. Good. I'll make you feel firsthand why you wanted to escape this family."
Following Felix, I soon arrived at the training grounds.
Cracks everywhere from magic aftershocks, shattered targets. Even though it had been ages, the suffocating oppression hit me immediately.
To think I'd come back here. And with Felix, no less.
The underground training hall. Originally a space for the direct descendants of the Vergilius family to train... but after I'd grown a bit, it had become nothing more than an arena for merciless violence.
The eldest brother and sister no longer needed to come to the training grounds.
This place had essentially been just for me and Felix. And accordingly, his "education" had been inflicted on me here countless times.
Unlike with others, where it ended in mere dismissal, Felix alone had always resorted to brute force.
"Brings back old memories, doesn't it?"
"......Yeah, it does."
"Don't worry if you can't remember. I'll make sure it all comes flooding back."
Felix grinned wickedly as he slowly began to boil his mana. Using the same circle cultivation method as me, his mana surged aggressively and ferociously. A flow I was all too familiar with.
"Master."
"What?"
"This is... not what I imagined."
Lilia, who'd been silently watching, finally spoke up.
Not what she imagined? Did this bastard stumble on some opportunity and hit 7th Circle or something? That would be a slight variable, but...
"Didn't you say he used to bully you when you were a kid?"
"Just like I said."
"But..."
"What?"
"He's... that weak...?"
"Ah."
So that was it—she thought he was weaker than expected.
It wasn't incomprehensible. Objectively, Felix was an excellent mage. Entering 6th Circle at just 23.
6th Circle. Objectively, far from low. But to me now, it was pathetically inadequate. Even if I weren't 7th Circle, it would be enough to win.
"I won't kill you."
"I'll do my best too."
As I murmured softly, a ferocious blade of flame came hurtling from his side.
6th Circle fire-attribute attack spell, Fire Lance. Clean magic, no frills. Fast deployment, fast calculations, and pinpoint accuracy.
"Poor opponent."
As Lilia quipped in my stead—
—Shaaaa...
The blade dissipated just before reaching me.
"Wh-what!?"
Startled, six perfect circles manifested vividly in the air.
—Zzzzap!!
A single bolt of lightning tore through the void and poured down. Excellent. Yes. Truly excellent, but...
"What the hell is this nonsense...!! What trick did you pull!!!"
Felix's magic could never touch me.
"Looks like Brother hasn't spent his time valuably."
"...You worthless trash dare—!!!"
"See? Great theory, but no experience. Experience."
I chuckled softly, standing still as I nullified every one of Felix's spells. For a mage, their magic not landing was the ultimate insult. And at the same time, the greatest despair.
His voice, fully immersed in his circles moments ago, was trembling.
"You!!! Abandoning magic for dirty tricks!!! You spineless cur!!"
"As if. You're just incompetent, Brother."
"My magic not reaching you makes no sense!! Even if Big Sis came...!"
As he ranted, radiating killing intent toward me, I replied calmly with just two words.
"Reverse calculation."
".........What?"
"I just reverse-calculated it."
What I'd done wasn't anything grand. I'd glimpsed his forming circles in an instant, analyzed the spell, and tweaked it bit by bit.
"What...?"
Confusion and fear flickered in Felix's eyes for a moment. Of course he couldn't comprehend. Reverse-calculating a mage's circles was nearly impossible.
But I have Insight.
Even with Insight, reverse-calculating 5th Circle or higher in real-time isn't easy. Experienced mages deliberately warp or alter their calculations to prevent others from reading or interfering.
"...Pathetic, really. Just casting spells straight up like that. You couldn't even handle demons."
"Yeah. Exactly."
If the calculations were that straightforward and simple, Insight made it impossible for them to ever reach me. They'd be reverse-calculated the instant they deployed.
"That's why your experience is lacking, Brother. Even if you used 10th Circle magic, it wouldn't change."
It wasn't just a circle issue. Pure lack of competence and experience as a mage. Even a 1st Circle spell with calculations twisted to the extreme couldn't be reverse-calculated.
"Reverse calculation...? Fine. Looks like you've picked up some petty tricks."
Hesitation flickered in Felix's eyes, but madness and killing intent soon mixed in.
The moment emotions a brother should never harbor toward a sibling surfaced—
"Then try reverse-calculating this."
What rose from Felix's palm wasn't magic.
"Master! That's...!"
"A bit dangerous if it hits."
Massive clumps of dense mana hurtled toward me. At that speed, it'd do more than break bone—it'd rip the limb clean off.
Viscous malice and madness. People really don't change. Even in a situation like this.
"Not a bad call, actually."
He'd simply unleashed the vast mana in his body without calculations, manifesting raw physical force. No calculations meant no reverse calculation.
—KABOOM!!!!!!!!!!
The mana clump slammed dead into my body. As the dust from the massive impact began to settle—
I was already straddling the fallen Felix.
"...Fuck. So you were gonna win anyway?"
"Obviously. It was never about that."
Smiling, I raised my fist.
"So don't cross the line anymore, you fucking bastard."
And smashed it straight into his face.
—BAM!!
BOOM!!!
KABOOM!!!!!
My arm muscles, honed by swordsmanship and training, pistoned up and down, pulverizing his face bit by bit.
"GAAAAAHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Screams rang out, but I didn't care. The knights were ones Felix had deliberately brought, after all.
"Th-this is wrong!! Insu, GAAAHHH!!! Re, rebell... guh!!!"
"No. That's not it."
This was nothing more than righteous guidance.