A Faint Presence
A faint presence could be felt. It was light as a gentle breeze, yet irritating like a mosquito or fly that had slipped into the house. Kain, who had been staring at his smartphone, shifted his gaze toward the veranda at this utterly insignificant and trivial presence that had entered his domain—something he normally wouldn't have paid the slightest attention to.
"......"
Overcoming his annoyance, he rose from his seat. Kain set his smartphone down on the table and walked toward the veranda. He opened the glass door and stepped outside, where a mysterious paper bag sitting on the floor caught his eye.
Must be that Jealousy bastard.
It was a neatly square paper bag shaped like a shopping bag. He didn't need to open it to know what was inside. It seemed the item he'd requested from the Ellemental Royal Family some time ago had finally arrived. An object that had passed through the underworld, been thoroughly cleaned, and delivered straight to him. The location data had been scrambled, and any potential tracking or eavesdropping spells had been completely stripped away during the process. Since Pride had inspected it and Jealousy had delivered it personally, the procedure was undoubtedly flawless.
Yet Kain stared at the paper bag for a full two seconds before nodding, as if finally convinced it was safe to pick up.
That sort of thing shouldn't happen, but you can never be too sure.
The negotiation had only just concluded yesterday. As the Majoan, he obviously wouldn't do anything that could cause problems, but there was no harm in being cautious. With the Majoan's skill, he could easily plant magic so subtly that his subordinates would never notice. But he could never fool Kain's eyes.
If I get fooled, then that's on me.
If he failed to notice and took the hit, that was his own fault. That was one of the underworld's basic rules. If he couldn't detect it, he'd simply swallow his frustration and acknowledge that the Majoan's ability was truly that impressive. Nothing was more foolish or pathetic in the underworld than blaming others for your own shortcomings.
Well, that won't happen anyway.
Kain, who stood at the very peak of that underworld, had absolute confidence in his own power. No matter how skilled the Majoan might be, he could never deceive Kain's eyes if Kain truly focused.
He picked up the bag lightly, as if accepting a simple delivery, and stepped back inside. When he turned, his eyes fell on Arina. She sat beside the sofa he'd just vacated, books and notebooks scattered messily across the table as she studied with fierce concentration.
Was she reviewing what she'd learned at the academy? She kept glancing between her own notes and the book borrowed from the library. Her brow was furrowed deeply without her even realizing it, as if something wasn't adding up.
"If a kid like you walks around making faces like that, you'll get wrinkles early."
It was one of the random internet facts he'd read on his smartphone before standing up. Women cared more about beauty than men, didn't they? Kain nagged her in place of his dead sister, swapping out the usual advice about starting skincare young.
At the same time, he dropped back onto the sofa with a heavy thud. He glanced at what Arina was looking at and spoke casually.
"That part's an error in the book. You must have borrowed the first edition before the revision. What you wrote is more accurate in terms of the spell formula, so don't overthink it."
"Oh, really?"
"If it still bothers you, check the study. The revised edition should be on the right bookshelf the moment you walk in."
He remembered buying and stocking it there recently. With a light tone, Kain resolved the obstacle Arina had run into and placed the paper bag he'd brought from the veranda on top of her open book. Ignoring her questioning stare that clearly asked what it was, he picked up the smartphone he'd left beside him, flopped back onto the sofa, and answered.
"A gift."
"A gift?"
Suddenly? Was today some special occasion? Since Kain wasn't the type to remember birthdays or anniversaries, Arina looked back and forth between her smartphone calendar and his face with growing confusion.
It's not even a special day.
April 13th, Sunday. The date was highlighted in red, but as expected, it held no significance. And as she'd already noted, it certainly wasn't a birthday or anything similar.
"Thank you, Uncle."
She was puzzled, but not at all displeased. If anything, she felt happy that the usually blunt Kain had prepared a gift. Never imagining he'd simply picked up something someone had left on the veranda, Arina peered into the paper bag with bright anticipation, wondering what he could have gotten her.
"......"
At the same time, her expression sank into even deeper confusion. She kept glancing between the contents and Kain as if to ask whether this was truly a gift. Her eyes shook violently, a perfect 5.0 on the scale of bewilderment and absurdity.
She paused her unusually busy thoughts, slipped her right hand into the bag, and pulled out a pair of silver handcuffs that sparkled in the sunlight streaming through the window. They clinked and rattled with her movements, and no matter how she looked at them, they were unmistakably real handcuffs. Not the cheap toy kind sold at marts, but heavy, serious ones with genuine weight.
"What is this?"
She had to ask. Arina was confident she could happily accept almost anything, but this gift was so completely out of left field that its purpose was utterly unclear.
"Handcuffs."
"That's not what I'm asking."
"To be exact, they're mana restriction cuffs."
"That's still not what I'm asking."
The conversation refused to connect. The more they spoke, the deeper the mystery grew.
"Ah, battery's dead." Frowning at the warning, Kain reached under the sofa and fumbled for the dangling charger cord. As always, he had zero sense of conversational etiquette—his eyes never once left his smartphone from start to finish, not even glancing at Arina.
"After asking around, it sounded pretty reasonable."
Why did people with high mana affinity tend to struggle with control? Because they couldn't properly grasp the feeling of handling small amounts of mana. They'd been sensing and manipulating this much mana by default since birth. Suddenly being told to handle far less with precision was like the brain issuing orders that the body simply couldn't follow. What they needed was experience—to directly feel and understand what handling minimal mana was truly like.
"Ah."
Arina let out a small sound of realization as she finally understood the gift's purpose. More than a week had passed since she'd received the assignment from Professor Natilda Scape. The progress she'd made in that time was minuscule. She'd only managed to lower her score from 126.4 to 124.9. The path to her target of 10.0 still stretched endlessly before her, its end nowhere in sight. In this moment, when the devil's whisper to give up and focus solely on Professor Magnus's assignment like Marily was running wild in her mind, Kain's words cut through the darkness like a single ray of light.
"But if you restrict the mana completely, won't I lose the ability to even feel the mana I can control?"
"Doesn't matter. Restriction cuffs can freely adjust the total amount of mana they suppress based on the registered user's settings."
Unless dealing with particularly heinous criminals, the police didn't completely seal off a criminal's mana. The reason was that total restriction would cause the stars within the body to gradually collapse after a certain period of time. It was a perfectly natural phenomenon, much like how unused joints or muscles atrophy over time. Of course, for the user to actually feel that loss, they'd need to wear the cuffs for anywhere from several months to several years.
Criminals' human rights and all that nonsense—to Kain, the king of the underworld, it was laughable. An unspoken rule had formed to avoid complete restriction whenever possible in order to "protect" those rights. That was why people said it was better to become a slave in a noble house than in the underworld, and why criminals who wanted to get caught would rather be arrested in the Ellemental Kingdom.
That same function was even exploited by serious offenders, who bribed guards to slightly loosen their restrictions. While CCTVs on buildings and black boxes on automatic carriages had reduced hidden crimes and raised arrest rates, Kain's honest opinion was that the Fan Empire treated its criminals better. As for Yggdrasil, if the Empress was in a bad mood that day, both petty thieves and mass murderers were summarily executed, so there was no point even comparing treatment.
His thoughts had wandered for a moment, but the conclusion was simple: Arina's worry was completely unnecessary.
"Just register yourself as the owner now, to be safe."
If he put it off and she accidentally clamped it on her own wrist, the only solution would be to destroy it. And asking the Majoan for a replacement would be a hassle.
Stingy bastard. I told him to send a few, but he only sent one.
Even though it was half-damaged, Kain clicked his tongue, unable to show gratitude to the Majoan and instead grumbling about what a miser he was.
"Yes."
Arina snapped back to attention at Kain's words as he finally located the charger and plugged in his phone. She engraved her information into the magic tool. Then, to test whether the registration had worked, she tried clamping it on her right wrist.
"Ugh."
She frowned at the sudden wave of dizziness. It felt suffocating. Like being submerged in water. Even though she was breathing normally, each breath felt labored and difficult.
"Haa!"
When she removed the cuff, the rush of freedom made her face light up. It was the ultimate contrast. She now understood perfectly why criminals frowned when dragged away in handcuffs.
"......"
This time she adjusted the settings to be a bit looser. After registering as the user and reading the holographic instructions, Arina modified the mana restriction level. When she put it on her wrist again, the suffocating feeling had decreased noticeably. It still wasn't comfortable, though. It felt like a right-handed person suddenly forced to write or use chopsticks with their left hand. The mana she handled every day now moved with an alien awkwardness that was strangely fascinating.
Is this what ordinary people feel when handling mana?
Seeing it from this perspective, she gained a fresh understanding of just how much talent she possessed.
"Thank you, Uncle."
And she saw hope. If she trained with these, she might actually be able to complete Professor Scape's assignment.
"......"
At her bright smile, Kain briefly lifted his eyes from his smartphone and glanced at her. Then he returned to scrolling through internet news and replied.
"Use it however you want. It probably won't happen, but if it breaks, tell me. I'll get you a new one."
"Yes!"
Well, it probably didn't matter. Seeing her this happy, enduring the annoyance once or twice seemed acceptable. My sister did ask me to look after her.
Arina, who normally showed zero interest in her surroundings and rarely acted on anything she found bothersome, stopped her spell practice. The Seven Deadly Sins would have been left stunned with their jaws on the floor at the sight. She emerged from her room carrying the test magic tool Professor Natilda Scape had given her.
As Kain looked at his smartphone, feeling the faint breeze rising from the tool along with her mana manipulation brush against his bangs, a faint smile curved his lips.