How Far Should I Show? (2)
The moment Roy heard Daniel’s chant, he knew exactly which spell it was.
Phoenix’s Flight—a high-order fire magic.
A colossal firebird, born before the caster, would spread its vast wings and soar straight ahead, reducing everything in its path to ash. It was no single-target strike, but a wide-area spell meant to engulf an entire zone. That scale demanded a correspondingly enormous reservoir of mana, making it a spell of considerable difficulty.
In his previous life, it had been a favorite among the great mages who could turn entire demon hordes into cinders in the blink of an eye. Given enough mana, it was the easiest way to burn the largest number of monsters in the shortest time.
Whoooosh—
The chant completed, and an immense firebird took shape. With a cry like a scream, it spread its wings wide and glided low over the earth. Had goblins or orcs been massed there, dozens—hundreds—would have been roasted alive.
Control, however, still eluded him. Barely a few dozen meters out, the firebird abruptly climbed skyward and vanished. Properly cast, the spell could cover hundreds of meters; greater range simply demanded greater skill.
Every child watching gaped in open astonishment at the advanced magic none of them had ever seen. Of course they hadn’t. Even knowing the chant, the only ones present who could actually cast it were the four marquis heirs—and Daniel Biswald himself.
Professor Daisy applauded, her face bright. The chill that had lingered on her features melted into genuine animation.
“Ohoho. Magnificent. To have memorized such a grand spell at that tender age. As expected—a Margrave’s child truly is different.”
At her praise, roughly a hundred children broke into simultaneous applause. Daniel strode back to his place with the serene confidence of someone who had merely done the obvious. His nostrils still flared restlessly, betraying how thoroughly the performance had thrilled him.
Then his eyes found Roy. He even winked.
Crazy bastard.
Roy was thoroughly disgusted.
Daisy called for the next student to step forward and show something impressive. Gazes drifted, then settled on the marquis children. None of them moved. After a display like that, no one had the faintest idea what to follow with.
A marquisate outranked a margraviate, after all. Pride alone made them unwilling to cast immediately afterward and invite direct comparison.
“No one? With so little confidence, how can you proudly call yourselves the children of lords?”
The old woman’s jab made several brows furrow. That was when the damned Biswald opened his mouth again.
“Roy! You show them.”
Why the hell is that maniac targeting me?
Every child who had been dreading the call suddenly fixed on Roy. Even Chloe, seated beside him, piled on.
“Come to think of it, I’ve seen you with a sword twice, but never with magic. Didn’t you say magic was your specialty?”
Roy turned to her and heaved a long sigh. The motion set her glossy hair sliding aside, briefly baring a pretty forehead.
“After me, it’s your turn, Chloe.”
“Fine. I will.”
Daisy’s voice was already summoning him. There was no escape now. It was Roy’s turn to perform.
Every stare burned into his back. Roy walked out to the open ground a short distance from the waiting area. Professor Daisy looked distinctly unimpressed—exactly what one would expect from the old woman who insisted that mana quantity was the whole of magic. Other professors had often approached him out of curiosity about Geren’s weapons. This one had never once shown interest. The same indifference extended to every child of baronial or viscount rank, as though bloodlines below that level were little more than vermin.
Hmm. How far do I show them?
Roy weighed the options carefully. A polite demonstration of baron-level magic was out of the question. He intended to begin serious business in the capital under his own name rather than through Geren as proxy. He would claim the techniques came from Master Geren, of course, but he still needed people to see his talent.
How much, then? Everything? Half?
That was the question. Ordinary viscount-level magic would earn praise—“outstanding talent”—and make a young man starting a business seem plausible enough. But it would not be enough. Roy’s long-term design was to sift the best among the count and marquis heirs and bind them as subordinates. Impossible for now, a distant future. Still, leaving an impact strong enough for rumors of a mutant born to House Greenhilt to spread was very much under consideration.
I have the guardian amulet, and Noah’s power as well. I should be able to handle at least one count-level opponent…
With amulets and enchanted weapons, he was confident he could defeat a count-level foe—Noah as the final trump card. Adult standards, of course. There was no longer any need to hide his strength the way he had as a child. Only by revealing enough could he do business openly, accumulate capital, expand his faction, buy information, gather elixirs. Too many plans hinged on the decision he made right now.
What do I do…
When he remained motionless, Daisy’s sharp, scolding voice cut across the field.
“What are you doing? Don’t tell me you don’t remember a single spell?”
Irritation flared again. Since things had come this far, startling the old woman held a certain appeal.
Should I just go for it?
The crown prince’s existence flickered through his mind. Securing the prince’s protection with this opportunity would not be a bad outcome. Opening dealings through magic weapons and amulets was one path—shelter under that shade until his own power base was complete. Far better than enduring the contempt of this hag.
“May I use a staff?”
“Hm?”
“It is a staff my longtime master, Geren, and I crafted together. Several spells are enchanted into it. Would that be acceptable?”
“Go ahead and try.”
Her expression said clearly enough that she expected nothing of consequence from the likes of him. Roy decided he would startle the old woman and the watching children alike.
Whew… this will be the first time I use it properly in public.
He unslung the staff from his back. After the entrance ceremony, too many curious eyes had followed it, so he had kept it wrapped in cloth. This was the first time he revealed it openly. The knots came free, and the unicorn’s golden-horn wand emerged.
Seven small gems of complex, shifting color and one larger stone. To ordinary eyes they would look like oddly hued jewels. They were not. They were black stones packed full of mana—every night, before sleep, Roy had poured his entire reserve into them.
He leveled the staff and spoke the words. Not a full chant—an activation phrase, short and sharp. The seven mana stones blazed with brilliant light. Mana left his body and enveloped the staff; like any enchanted weapon, it flushed a menacing crimson. Then something unexpected happened. As though the entire staff drank that mana and exhaled new power, it flooded with pure golden radiance—an anomalous property of unicorn horn even Roy had not fully anticipated.
Preparations complete. With his free hand he laid his palm on the largest stone crowning the staff. The true chanting began.
The first spell was for drawing mana out of the black stones and feeding it into the magic that would follow.
“Huh? I’ve heard that chant somewhere.”
“Me too… where was it?”
Children who remembered handling the black-stone holy sword at the baptism ceremony caught the similarity. It was not identical. Then the spell had injected mana; now it extracted it.
The circle completed in an instant. An enormous, luminous magic array bloomed in the air directly before the staff. Every child watched, entranced. Even Professor Daisy Steelheart, who had dismissed him, stood with her mouth open.
Without pause the next chant followed—the true magic Roy intended. It was not a lengthy spell. Variable and hungry, its power scaled directly with the mana poured into it.
The moment it finished, the ground began to tremble. An earthquake seemed to have struck. Even the children watching from a distance felt the shaking.
“Wasn’t that just earth magic?”
“It is. A fairly simple one, actually.”
“But he cast a whole string of spells before that—what were those? And why does it keep shaking? It’s making me dizzy.”
The true face of the magic had not yet shown itself. While the tremors continued, Roy tilted the staff and struck the ground with its head—bang.
The vast circle hovering opposite the staff moved with it, sinking into the earth. At the same instant nearly every drop of mana in Roy’s body was ripped away.
KWA-GWA-GWANG!
A thunderous roar. The land itself howled. Crack—craaaaack—
Centered on Roy, the ground split open. This was no sword-cut. Tens of meters—no, hundreds—of earth tore apart in a long, yawning fissure. The backlash made the ground around him heave violently; nearby buildings shuddered. The crack widened relentlessly until the entire magic testing ground lay cleanly divided in two. Only then did it stop.
Even after the spell ended, the chasm remained. A deep valley had been born; its bottom could not be seen.
Whew. That should be enough.
Roy was spent. He had forced more mana than necessary simply to make the demonstration decisive. Fire magic would have been flashier for a show of force, but its afterimage was brief. Without fuel it vanished almost at once. Earth magic, however, stayed exactly where it was. Until some other mage poured vast mana into sealing the wound, everyone who saw it would keep remembering the scale of what Roy Greenhilt had done. That lingering impression was precisely the impact he had chosen.
Careful not to tumble into the new cliff, he stepped to solid ground and walked back toward the waiting area. The fissure reached nearly to its edge. As he approached, every face wore the same expression: What kind of monster is that?
Professor Daisy, still shaken, forced her features into something resembling composure.
“You… claimed to be of a baronial house, did you not?”
“I did. Roy of House Greenhilt.”
“This is absurd…”
Roy gave a single, casual shrug as though nothing remarkable had occurred, returned to his seat, and sat down.