The Scum (2)
"Puhaha, what's that kid even saying?"
"How do you eat all the mana in a mana vein? Is he stupid?"
"How disappointing. I should have known—a baron's house… How am I even in the same class as someone like that?"
The classroom was thick with sneers and snide laughter.
They were hyenas, waiting for any chance to tear someone apart. Children who turned their aggression on lower nobles were almost always the offspring of vassal houses under some greater lord—kids who snapped and clawed at one another for their master's notice, desperate to prove themselves the most useful of the pack.
The boy who had asked the question flushed scarlet and sat frozen, not knowing where to look.
"Quiet! Quiet, everyone. It's all right not to know. That's exactly why the Knight Academy exists—to learn what you don't know. Ahem. Now, let me answer the question. A mana vein isn't such a difficult concept. The mana that fills the world moves about like wind, or so it's said. We simply can't see it. Imagine those currents gathering into a lake. Tell me—can our curious student drink an entire lake dry?"
A few of the children burst out laughing again. The professor ignored them and continued.
"Lakes attract all sorts of living things. Rabbits and deer come to drink. Predators come to hunt the deer. And of course there are countless fish and creatures living in the water itself. A mana vein is much the same. If some monster truly swallowed every last drop of that mana, it would have to be enormous beyond belief—like one of the giants from the old myths."
Roy thought of Noah and let out a quiet sigh.
Not a giant, though… His true form was certainly huge.
But that wasn't the real problem. The problem was that the creature refused to listen to his master.
I got away with it this time thanks to Rapid Arthema… Next time, I won't be so lucky.
Roy was fairly certain Noah could hear every word of that thought. The spirit had a habit of reading his mind whenever it pleased.
While Roy's mind wandered, the lecture rolled on.
"Even if some colossal monster did exist and drained a mana vein completely dry, a vein is by nature a place where ambient mana gathers easily. Given time, it would return to what it was."
If it hadn't, the Steelheart father and son would have taken my head.
The memory of scrambling to convince the king and the prince rose unbidden. I don't even remember what I said anymore.
This time a newly awakened ability had let him slide past the whole mess, but Roy was still keeping score. If Noah made a similar mistake even once more, there would be no forgiveness.
I should put him through a proper test soon.
Roy began laying plans for how to break in that damned, disobedient spirit.
A cat that climbs onto the hearth has to be punished hard.
Even with half his mind elsewhere, the class crawled forward at a glacial pace. The professor moved on to monsters discovered in the Steel Kingdom's dungeons—giant worms that fed on mana-vein soil and grew from it, undying spiders that regenerated endlessly until a hidden magic circle on their bodies was destroyed, talking skeletons, slimes that swallowed everything they touched, and more.
At least these were pieces of knowledge he had never found in the books of the baronial library as a child.
But does any of this even matter now?
Roy had grown strong. Ten times stronger than when he had brought down the ogre—maybe more.
Was enrolling in the Knight Academy a mistake?
He had come to school and found almost nothing worth learning. Current foreign affairs, the Steel Kingdom's detailed geography, politics, and cultural quirks—those he still needed. But when it came to ancient dungeons, relics, and magic, the professors simply couldn't keep up with him.
So Roy paid close attention in the classes where he was weak, swordsmanship among them, and spent the theory and practical magic hours thinking about anything else. Mostly he mapped out the next stages of his business plans, set goals, and considered how to identify useful talent and pull it to his side.
That did not mean he could already call himself a better mage than the faculty. He did not remember every spell in existence. High-tier magic, especially, remained largely a blank. In his previous life his pitiful mana pool had made casting powerful spells impossible, and even encountering the formulas had been rare. Some of it he had deliberately ignored—no point staring at a tree he could never climb. Ironically, he remembered far more of the lost ancient magic he had hunted for research purposes.
But the situation had changed. His mana already surpassed a count's. And he had no intention of stopping here.
"Professor! Is there any way to get books on high-tier magic? The school library barely has any."
"For that, go see Professor Daisy. As someone who carries royal blood, her mana reserves are exceptional, and none of us can match her in that field."
Ah. Of course it would be that unpleasant old hag.
Roy heaved a long sigh.
"All right, that concludes today's theory class. Anyone interested in golems, come see me. You're only first-years, but if you want to finish a successful graduation project four years from now, you need to focus on a single line of research starting now. If any of you managed to restore a self-moving golem? That person would draw attention from every direction the moment they graduated—including the royal family."
A few pairs of eyes lit up. Roy felt nothing of the sort.
Yesterday I might have been interested.
The brand-new ability he had gained through Noah made the labor of building something as finicky as a golem unnecessary. And his swordsmanship was already Class A besides.
The earth-rending spell Roy had used during the magic exam remained the talk of the school for some time. Professors and students alike came calling without end. Facing a parade of unfamiliar faces every day, he discovered that turning people down properly was a skill of its own—because most of them belonged to houses ranked above his own.
What I have to watch carefully is…
Roy now held nearly twice the mana of a count's child. The people who truly required his attention had narrowed to five.
First, Daniel, the youngest son of Margrave Biswalt. Daniel was on hold for now. Irritating personality, but also easy to handle. Ignore him just enough and he should stay out of the way for a while.
The remaining four were children of marquis houses. Three boys, one girl.
"Hey, Greenhilt."
Everyone else used given names. These ones made a point of using the family name. The ones speaking today were hangers-on of the only girl among the marquis children. A few came from vassal houses under that marquis; a few more belonged to independent houses not unlike Roy's own. Their territories must have been struggling, because they had already attached themselves to the marquis's shadow. The girl they followed was the daughter of the most powerful marquis house of all—Rosemond.
Greenhilt was the kingdom's second-largest grain producer. And the first? Rosemond. The difference between first and second was only a single digit on paper, but the gap in actual output belonged to another dimension entirely. Four times the territory, five times the grain yield—vast plains that fed not only the northern holdings but the capital itself when stores ran short. So the Marquis of Rosemond's influence scraped the sky, and the northern lords scrambled to stay in his good graces. If the south had Biswalt, the north had Rosemond.
When the baron had handed Roy a list of houses and children to watch, that marquis's daughter had been the very first name.
Roy had asked him then, "If we're both granary territories, our interests should be similar enough to talk, shouldn't they?"
"You don't understand. Without us, their position would only have grown stronger. Who sits as head of a house matters, and the current Marquis of Rosemond does not enjoy a good reputation among the nobility. Word is his greed runs too deep. Northern gossip may be only that—gossip—but there's no harm in caution. We've only just begun our reclamation work. If they learn of it, interference is certain."
"Hmm. We're at opposite ends of the kingdom. Would they really go that far?"
"We prepare anyway. Thorough preparation is always better than doing nothing and getting caught flat-footed. Don't give that family's daughter any excuse to move against us."
"Understood."
Remembering that conversation, Roy looked at the cluster of children gathered in front of him.
They picked the fight without preamble. In his previous life, too, the dirty work had always been left to the underlings. Highborn rarely dirtied their own hands.
Kids this young, and all they've learned is how to be rotten…
"Haa…"
Roy let out a deep sigh. The faces of the boys who had spoken twisted.
"Hey, Greenhilt. Don't get cocky just because they praised you in the magic exam. You're only a baron's son."
"Who are you?"
Roy asked the question with perfect calm. The boy's face went scarlet with rage.
"I'm the second son of a viscount's house! How dare a baron's third son—"
"How did you even know that? And so what if I am?"
When a pack of boys swarmed someone like this, most children folded. Roy was so openly unbothered that the confusion fell on the other side instead.