The Test Results
A village lay between the kingdom's north and its heartlands.
With no proper roads leading to it, ordinary folk could hardly approach the place at all. And while it was called a village, its fortifications were those of a small fortress — and right now, that fortress, hidden away in the dark of the forest, was burning.
"Kraaagh!"
A man collapsed, coughing up blood. Standing before him was a woman — a sword wreathed in flame clutched in her hand. Astria.
"……"
"I heard you'd grown stronger... but I never imagined it would be to this degree."
Even as he lay bleeding on the ground, the man wore a smile. Astria had burned this fortress to the ground for one simple reason: this was the home base of Blood Sword, the organization that had ambushed her. She had gained power, yes — but the truth remained unchanged. Lucenoct was still a formidable enemy. So she had decided to strike at Blood Sword first.
'...He's not here.'
Her golden eyes swept the surroundings. Nothing remained but those who had been reduced to ash. Not a single trace of any other presence.
"Where... did you go?"
She stared at the man with those emotionless golden eyes. She had succeeded in destroying Blood Sword's stronghold — but the one person who mattered most had slipped away.
At her question, the man endured the pain radiating from his gut and answered with a smile.
"If you're looking for Kallion, you're already too late."
The name of the captain who commanded Blood Sword. Apparently having accepted that death was his fate regardless, the man went on, still grinning.
"While you were hunting us down... we did our own digging. We found out... who it was that made you what you are."
"……"
FWOOSH!
The moment she heard that much, she didn't wait for the rest. Ryuhwa engulfed him, reducing him to ash. That single remark had been enough for her to understand why Kallion, captain of Blood Sword, had left his post. Anything more he said would only be words meant to provoke her — there was no need to listen.
When she slid Ryuhwa back into its scabbard, the flames consuming the fortress died away in an instant.
"……"
She fell silent, lost in thought. Kallion had been the singularly strongest member of Blood Sword. Back when he had come to select the candidates who would join the organization, she had understood at a glance that he was someone far beyond her ability to fight.
"Master might... be in danger."
She had been about to set off, driven by that thought — when she stopped short, her expression turning grave as she sank into deliberation. Kallion was strong, that much was true. Even for her, now far stronger than before, the outcome of a duel was anything but certain.
But compare him to Sian?
"...Perhaps he's the one in danger?"
This was a man who, after knowing her for mere days, had gauged her level at a glance, told her to discover the name of her sword, and even pointed the way toward how she might grow stronger. Just how powerful did a person have to be to see all of that in a single look?
'Master's realm...'
How strong was Sian, exactly? She found it difficult even to imagine. And yet — what could the likes of Kallion possibly accomplish against him? At most, she'd have to praise him for managing to leave a single scratch.
"……"
She found Kallion infuriating, and yet she hesitated, torn over whether to give chase. By the time she arrived, the odds were high that he would already be dead at Sian's hands. And besides — as a disciple, she couldn't very well fail to serve her master while piling more of a burden on him.
Moreover—
'What if...'
Just in case. She didn't believe he would, but if Master were to say that she'd only brought him more trouble, and that he never wanted to see her again—
'That would... be unbearable.'
Merely imagining it made something heavy sink into her chest. Sian was the first person who had ever seen her so clearly, understood her that deeply. There was still so much she wanted to learn from him.
"...Kallion."
She murmured the name of the Blood Sword captain who had become such a nuisance. If he had stayed put like a good little prey, she would have burned him alive along with his underlings. Targeting her master was one thing — but going so far as to make more trouble for her? She vowed he would not die an easy death.
"Let's go, Ryuhwa."
At her call, the sword gave a short cry, as if answering her.
The very top floor of the Hero's Rest, in Cavelon.
Sian stretched lazily, gazing at the sunlight streaming in through the window.
"Whew. This is the life, all right."
After sleeping on a soft, plush bed for the first time in ages, he'd woken to a truly refreshing morning. He donned the gear he'd carelessly stripped off the night before and headed for the training hall.
There stood Tiana, alone in the center of the vast, empty training room.
"……"
She wasn't doing anything at all — simply holding her sword in both hands, motionless. Then, sensing Sian's gaze, she turned to meet it.
"Oh, Teacher. You're awake. My apologies — I was so absorbed in turning over yesterday's words that I lost all track of time."
"No, there's nothing to apologize for..."
He had told her, almost offhandedly, to try wielding her sword with both hands — and she'd seemed to grasp something profound from it, plunging straight into a state of deep concentration. To draw an epiphany from a single passing remark... At this point, wasn't that genuinely main-character-of-a-manga-tier talent?
"Where are you headed? Allow me to accompany you!"
"No, it's fine. Just meeting an acquaintance I ran into yesterday."
"I see. Once you've seen that person, will your business in the city be concluded?"
"...For now, yes."
His goal had been to move. But after Belka's odd mutterings yesterday about heretic cults and whatnot, he found himself hesitating. When your own life might be on the line, caution came naturally — nothing to be done about it. He wasn't leaving right away anyway, so he'd decided to talk things over with Belka first, and he was on his way out when—
"Then I shall prepare for our return!"
Sian stopped dead in his tracks at the voice behind him.
"...?"
That sounded suspiciously like she was planning to come back with him. Was he hearing things? He turned to look at her. For all that she kept misunderstanding everything, her instincts were oddly sharp when it came to certain things — and as if she knew exactly what he was wondering, she spoke up.
"In our duel yesterday, I became painfully aware of my own shortcomings. For the time being, I wish to remain at your side and receive further instruction."
Upon hearing that, Sian's resolve tipped decisively toward moving away. If it weren't an occasional visit but a permanent attachment camped out on his doorstep, peace and quiet would be dead on arrival — stress would kill him first.
'Get the results, then get out of here. Fast.'
With that thought, Sian left the Hero's Rest. The staff took one look at him — the guest who had arrived with Tiana — and attended to him with the utmost deference.
'Still, I'm glad nobody picked a fight with me.'
He'd assumed some punk would try to start trouble the moment someone as unremarkable-looking as himself walked in. So this was Tiana's aura of authority at work, was it? Musing on such trivialities, he made his way toward the shop where Belka was staying.
Even this early in the morning, the market was already buzzing with merchants preparing for the day's trade.
"Hm?"
Amid the bustle, he noticed a few people hurrying about with purpose, as if searching for something — though the market wasn't even properly open yet.
'Trying to do an opening rush?'
The odds of finding something good in a city market weren't high, but they weren't zero either. Occasionally, artisans who'd settled in the city would sell their wares dirt-cheap to build word of mouth. Back in his adventurer days, he'd once burned an entire day hunting for a bargain like that.
So thinking, Sian stepped into the alley.
Creeeak.
"Grams, I'm here."
The moment he pushed open the shop door, a musty, heavy smell greeted him. Footsteps sounded from the back.
"What took you so long, you rascal!"
"Huh? I'm early, aren't I?"
"Early, my foot! Do you know what time it is?!"
By the standards of all those diligent market merchants busily setting up their stalls, surely he counted as early enough—
'Old people just don't sleep much, I guess.'
From Belka's perspective, calling it late wasn't all that unreasonable. Besides, he was the one making the request — he could afford to swallow a bit of her grumbling.
"So? How did the blood test turn out?"
Truth be told, his heart was beating a little faster. The thought that a dream he'd long since given up on might be within reach again had stirred something in him.
Belka, who obviously had no idea what he was thinking, grumbled as she spoke.
"You came barging in out of nowhere begging for a blood analysis — I couldn't imagine what was going on."
"And?"
"'And,' he says. There's nothing, you rascal! You're a perfectly ordinary human!"
The faint hope that had colored Sian's mood sank rapidly at her words.
"...Seriously?"
"Why'd you ask if you weren't going to believe me?"
"...Fair point."
It was the result he'd expected, but he couldn't help feeling deflated all the same. Noticing his reaction, Belka began to explain further.
"I ran every basic test there is. Mana reactions, catalysts. I combed through your bloodline structure and checked for curses — found absolutely nothing."
"...That's, uh, quite a lot you can learn from blood, huh?"
"How much do you think there is to learn from blood, you brat? Anyway — your mana's slightly better than an average person's, that's it. Nothing strange mixed into your blood, your bloodline structure is completely ordinary, and no curses latched onto you."
In summary: he was the very definition of perfectly ordinary. Sure, his mana was a touch above the average person's, but that was a level that couldn't buy him so much as a polite nod anywhere.
"This much is the baseline. If you want to find anything beyond it, you'd need specialized equipment."
"There's more beyond that?"
"If I explained the specialized stuff, you wouldn't understand a word of it. Just know it exists."
"You can't do it here?"
"I said it needs equipment, didn't I? It doesn't come cheap. I don't have any, which is why I can't run those tests."
"Hmmm."
Sian stroked his chin. The basic tests had turned up nothing — was it really worth traveling elsewhere for an advanced screening? If he had some hidden ability, surely it would have shown up even in a basic analysis.
After mulling it over, Sian asked Belka a question.
"Hey, Grams — can blood tests tell if someone has, like, good luck or something?"
"What kind of nonsense is that? Luck? You mean fortune?"
"Yeah."
It wasn't simply good luck — if anything, it was more like fortune that inexplicably worked in his favor whenever he was the target of a misunderstanding. No, it went beyond good — it overflowed. Which made him wonder whether it was somehow related to luck itself. He wasn't sure you could define something like this as mere luck... but in a fantasy world where magic actually existed, who was to say?
"Hmmm. Word is something strange's been happening around you lately — is that what this is about?"
"...Something like that."
"You've always had decent instincts when it comes to ideas, but this is an interesting angle, I'll give you that."
Come to think of it, yesterday he'd tried to explain while she was drawing his blood, but the heretic cult topic had derailed things. Belka scratched her head and answered his question.
"If we're talking fortune, blessings are the classic example. But that's hard to detect through alchemy. You'd have to visit a temple to know for certain."
"A blessing, huh..."
He doubted this counted as a blessing, but still.
"So — what exactly is going on with you, that you're this hung up on it?"
"Ah, well, it's..."
Nothing that had happened to him lately was exactly a secret, so the moment he opened his mouth to tell Belka—
Creeeeak! The door flew open with an almost shriek.
'Bad timing,' Sian thought, turning his gaze toward the customers entering the shop — and there stood the two hooded figures he'd spotted earlier in the market. The eyes beneath their hoods flicked once toward Sian, then fixed on the shop's proprietor.
"Are you Belka?"
"...And if I am?"
Belka faced the two with a wary edge to her voice. And in response—
"So the meddler who's been digging into our affairs and obstructing us at every turn... turns out to be a little old woman."
From within the hood of the one who murmured that, a sharp dagger slid into view.