Never Mind the Heir, I’ll Focus on Healing — Chapter 107
Never Mind the Heir, I’ll Focus on Healing — Chapter 107
Everyone was startled by Lion’s sudden entrance.
Petrick, of course, but Rickson, who was kneeling awkwardly, was even more so.
‘Why would the young master be here…?’
And more than that, hadn’t he just said something about a way?
Did he know about Varg?
How?
Rickson studied the young master’s face carefully, wondering if he had misunderstood.
Then he realized.
Those eyes truly held the look of someone who knew everything.
More than that, his gaze shone with a deep light, as though he had made up his mind—or as though a powerful inspiration had struck him.
‘The young master has that kind of look…?’
He hadn’t been right at Lion’s side all this time, but he knew better than anyone that the young master had undergone many changes.
By all appearances, he was the commander of the Asteri Knight Order.
Staying on top of household affairs and the direct line’s whereabouts and accomplishments was always part of his job.
So of course he was aware that the young master had grown far healthier than before and had come to possess remarkable abilities.
But still.
‘A look like that? Such confidence?’
Lion had been under the Asteri family’s immense protection, whether he knew it or not.
As a child he’d been frail, and once he’d grown a little, his behavior had become unpredictable as well.
Because of that, troops were always deployed to keep him safe wherever he wandered in the territory.
So up to now, the Lion Asteri that Rickson knew was the most delicate being in the family, someone who had to be protected.
Yet now, that expression, that confident bearing.
And those eyes, the characteristic Asteri amethyst eyes that so closely resembled the family head’s—who would look at him and think he was someone in need of protection?
Rickson’s eyes, honed over decades of running the Asteri Knight Order, were accurate.
‘If so.’
Before Rickson could move, Petrick spoke first.
“A way, you said. Are you talking about Varg?”
“Yes. That’s correct.”
“May I ask what this way is?”
“I’m afraid it’s difficult to explain right now.”
“Pardon?”
Rickson was taken aback by Lion’s firm answer.
He couldn’t explain the way?
‘Is he employing some kind of secret technique?’
At most, Rickson figured it would be alchemy.
The young master was far sharper than he looked and had an unconventional mind, so he supposed Lion had come up with some kind of method now too.
That alone was extraordinary.
He’d found a way in a situation that had no way.
But he couldn’t explain it?
This was…
‘There’s no way the family head would permit it.’
Being unable to verbally explain something you know meant the refinement of that knowledge was
incomplete—much like the difference between wielding a sword and teaching someone else to wield one.
Rickson bowed his head again.
‘Guess I was wrong.’
The family head as he knew him would never approve such an uncertain plan.
“Understood. What do you need me to do?”
…He was supposed to refuse.
The deeply lowered head rose again.
He’d given permission?
Had the family head ever agreed so readily?
Without even hearing an explanation?
Why?
Simply because Lion was his beloved first grandson?
No, that wasn’t it.
The family head treasured his family deeply, but precisely because of that, he was all the more thorough in matters of work.
Even when dealing with Rickshel, the heir, on official matters, it was the same.
If a report had the slightest gap, Petrick didn’t hesitate to ask sharp questions.
Rickshel, for his part, would either provide additional answers or supplement the report as though that was only natural.
It had been that way since long ago.
Once, feeling sympathy for Rickshel as the young heir, Rickson had even spoken to him by way of consolation.
“Doesn’t it upset you?”
he’d asked.
But the reply that came back was unexpectedly calm and cool-headed.
“Because that’s how I can protect it.”
It was a remarkably cool-headed yet mature answer, coming from a child.
That was the kind of person he was.
That was the kind of family they were.
‘So if it were something I wasn’t supposed to know, he would have sent me out and heard the reason anyway.’
But he hadn’t done that.
That implied an enormous foundation of belief and trust in the young master, of course, and…
‘He’s pulled off the impossible before.’
And quite successfully, multiple times at that.
Rickson didn’t know exactly what,
but one thing was certain.
This was the last hope that could save Varg.
Rickson moved swiftly.
“Young master. If there is anything I can assist with, I will give it my absolute best.”
“Thank you. As it happens, this is something we can only pull off if everyone buys time.”
“If it’s time… Understood.”
Clearly he meant that someone would need to hold Varg off if he went on a rampage.
‘The duration seems… unsettled.’
Well, this was the first attempt at a method that didn’t yet exist in the world.
Even the young master couldn’t give any guarantees.
In that case, there was no choice but to trust him.
…Honestly, if the family head hadn’t agreed on the spot, Rickson would have had doubts.
He still didn’t know the full extent of Lion’s abilities.
He only knew that there was something there.
“Ah, and in the meantime, you need to take good care of his food. If his condition gradually worsens, his appetite will be the first thing to go. Make sure he eats, even if it’s forced.”
“Yes. Understood.”
Rickson watched the two of them for a moment before rising from his spot.
Then he bowed to Lion with due courtesy.
“I leave it in your hands, young master. I will do what I can. And…”
Rickson fell quiet for a moment, then spoke.
“Even should things go wrong… it will not be your fault.”
Lion gave a faint smile at those words.
‘He’s a good man.’
Hadn’t he heard many things while speaking with Varg earlier?
Among them were stories about Rickson.
He didn’t know the full details, but just from the content of that conversation, Rickson was like a lifesaver to that kid.
And whenever Varg wasn’t feeling well, Rickson had apparently looked after him quietly as well.
“I know it might be impertinent toward the knight commander, but I thought of him like a father…!”
It wasn’t just pity.
Lion got the feeling that maybe Rickson also regarded Varg as a son.
For that same Rickson to say something like this to him—those couldn’t be words spoken with an ordinary heart.
Perhaps that was why Lion felt he wanted to say this.
“Don’t worry. There will be no failure.”
After finishing their exchange, Lion called out toward Rickson’s back as he was leaving.
“…!”
Through the gap in the door, Rickson’s frame trembled slightly.
Seeing that, Petrick smiled to himself with quiet satisfaction.
‘That boy is better than me.’
Between the ideal and reality, Petrick was a man who chose reality.
That would not change going forward.
But watching his grandson, he thought that from time to time, learning how to compromise with ideals might not be a bad thing.
It was a new realization.
“So… tell me what you need me to prepare.”
“Ah.”
After confirming that the door had shut completely, Lion spoke.
“I need a mana stone of the highest grade.”
A mana stone?
The highest-grade mana stones were, naturally, so rare and expensive that their price was whatever you named.
To the average person—no, even to mages in the Magic Tower—they were something you might see once in a lifetime, if at all…
But that didn’t apply within House Asteri.
If Lion, as the eldest son of House Asteri, wanted them, he could easily get his hands on several chests’ worth of the rarest mana stones.
Lion surely knew that.
Which meant Petrick had to do something with that mana stone.
“What do you need me to do with the mana stone?”
“Please remove all the magic power inside it.”
At Lion’s words, Petrick let out a quiet laugh.
Draining every last bit of magic power from a top-grade mana stone!
Practically speaking, it was near impossible.
After all, even an ordinary mage working for decades couldn’t completely drain the magic power contained in a top-grade mana stone.
To begin with, a mana stone held a staggering amount of magic power, and the magic power within a mana stone could only be used up to the limit of a mage’s circle.
“Any other mage wouldn’t be able to do it, but you can, Grandfather.”
That was true.
An archmage could.
‘I can’t even remember how many mana stones I used up in my younger days.’
The staff passed down through the family; he’d at least cherished it enough not to break, but even that he’d used almost to the point of ruin.
Yet what Lion wanted was a mana stone whose form was intact but whose contents were completely empty.
“The reason you told Rickson you couldn’t explain the method must be because you intend to use your abilities. Will the location be the Labyrinth?”
“That’s right. And I also need you to cast a sealing magic on that empty mana stone.”
Likely to ensure no other power entered it.
Petrick tapped the desk as if thinking, then, as though he had realized something, his eyes gleamed with interest.
‘Don’t tell me—he’s planning to turn the lunar essence into a mana stone?’
Quite an ingenious approach, but it wasn’t a completely empty idea.
A hollow mana stone would create a kind of vacuum, and sealing it would preserve that state.
‘If he releases the sealed mana stone in a place brimming with lunar energy…’
Some natural energy and mana would mix in, but it would also temporarily absorb lunar energy at a rapid pace.
The grade would be lower than what a beastfolk could produce directly, but nonetheless, an artificial lunar essence could be created!
But wasn’t lunar essence practically poison to Varg, who was suffering from Eclipse?
Petrick couldn’t grasp what would come after, but he was sure his grandson had a special method.
Petrick opened the cabinet, and from beside the very first potion bottle Lion had ever made—which he’d left as a haphazard decoration—he picked up a fist-sized mana stone.
“This should do the trick.”
“That’s…”
[Top-Grade Mana Stone (★★★)]
-It pulses faintly, like a heart.
-It holds as much magic power as an ancient dragon’s heart, and its conductivity is tremendous!
-It can contain any form of energy, making its uses limitless. Anyone would covet this mana stone.
Even from the description alone, it was clearly an extraordinary mana stone.
An energy that could not be described as any single color coursed vigorously within the stone.
The thought crossed Lion’s mind that no human could possibly absorb all that energy in full—but.
Squeeze.
Without hesitation, Petrick gripped the mana stone tightly and absorbed the magic power.
The energy of the stone was siphoned through Petrick’s hand, through his veins and mana circuits, in a long draw.
With an uncanny glow, a tremendous wind whipped up in an instant.
Documents, of course, but even the fountain pen and the heavy paperweight holding the papers down were sent fluttering in the current of magic power.
After a few minutes—no, after several dozen minutes—the mana stone gradually lost its light, and the fluttering documents settled onto the floor.
At last, the inside of the mana stone turned translucent, as if it had been hollowed out.
“Hmm. Not bad, for the first time in a while.”
Petrick chuckled, feeling his power fully replenished after a long time.
For a fleeting moment, that image overlapped with the figure of himself in his prime—but it lasted only an instant.
He then emanated the magic power he’d absorbed outward and cast a sealing magic around the mana stone.
Soon, a barrier enveloped the stone completely, and in his other hand, a key capable of undoing that barrier was generated.
Petrick handed the sealed mana stone and the key to Lion.
“Will that do?”
“…”
His voice was so perfectly unruffled that it was hard to believe he’d just done something so momentous.
Not even a single bead of sweat had formed.
‘He really is incredible…’