The Price of Grace
The Magic Stone erupted with light.
The moment Chloe recognized it, she had to make a split-second decision.
-Kiiiiiiing!
This phenomenon was the sign that the magic power sealed inside the Magic Stone was about to explode. The chaotic flow of mana bubbled and churned like boiling sludge. Cracks spiderwebbed across its surface as the stone began to shatter. But there was still a brief window of time before the detonation.
If it were just her, Chloe could have easily pulled back and retreated from this spot in that short span. Yes. If she were alone.
-Kiiiiiiing!
She gauged the amount of surging mana. This much power… it wasn’t on the level of anything ordinary in either quality or quantity. The blast radius would definitely catch not only the alley but the surrounding buildings and the territory residents living in them. And if she had to withdraw to a safe distance, she would have to abandon the bald merchant—the owner of this slave caravan—who was standing directly beneath the stone. He would vanish without a trace.
The people from the other merchant groups might know something about the masterminds behind this. But since most of them were slaves, the one most likely to have information was this bald merchant. Therefore, he had to be kept alive.
Chloe’s thoughts were short, and her judgment was swift.
“Ugh…!”
She reached out toward the Magic Stone, which was cracking open in what felt like slow motion, and grabbed it. The instant her hand made contact, the mana inside swelled violently. The repulsive force she felt through her palm was unmistakable. It had been aimed deliberately. This was clearly a trap designed to activate automatically when a mana user approached—and the trigger range was set to require this exact proximity.
“Kgh…!”
Chloe immediately drew up her own magic power. In the most extreme sense, what she was doing wasn’t all that different from the test Leoric Franz had performed. She was suppressing the explosion bursting from her hand and redirecting its force into the empty air where no one stood. But the difficulty of that redirection was on an entirely different level from back then.
The tips of her fingers wrapped around the stone were blown off. The skin of her palm burned away, and the bones in her arm shattered. Just touching it produced this much destructive power. She judged that even a knight’s body—without noble blood—would struggle to remain standing.
A body reinforced by magic power had durability far beyond that of ordinary humans. It wasn’t impossible for it to become harder than a monster’s. And yet… even so, she would die.
She could feel the force of the impending explosion through her skin. The moment it detonated, even her reinforced body would be unable to endure. It would burst apart, leaving nothing behind. She would never see her master again.
That thought flickered through her mind for an instant, but Chloe erased it. She didn’t have the mental resources to spare on such thoughts right now.
-Crack.
Her body was fracturing. Bones broke and splintered. In that brief moment, after assessing the damage being done to her, Chloe made her decision. This much was acceptable. As she had told the bald merchant, her revered master’s healing arts were on a completely different level from her own. As long as her heart and brain remained intact, there would be no problem.
Having judged as much, she began diverting most of the magic power she had been using for reinforcement—except for the bare minimum.
-Crack.
The mana rising from Chloe’s entire body drew a circle. Her body became like a pillar. Centered on that pillar, her magic power traced a perfect ring. And that ring began to act as a path, guiding the Magic Stone’s rampaging mana.
She had only understood perhaps half of what her master had explained, but the core point was that there was no need to forcibly control it. There was no reason to directly interfere with this wild, exploding flow of mana. She simply needed to twist its direction.
The important thing is the idea. That was what he had said.
The magic control techniques used by knights in this era were refined. Techniques honed through repeated real combat on the battlefield were already complete—no further refinement was necessary. Yet if there was one thing they lacked, it was variety. Ideas. Imagination. Flashes of insight bordering on delusion. Don’t dismiss absurd nonsense as mere jokes—ponder them. Don’t laugh at wild dreams—consider how to actually make them real.
-Thud!
Instead of resisting the repulsive force pushing her body back, she allowed herself to retreat. The only parts she kept reinforced were her head, heart, spine, and the bare minimum of skeletal structure needed to stay upright. Standing firm, Chloe twisted the Magic Stone in her hand upward into the empty air.
Several fingers had already been lost to the repulsive force. The skin had long since peeled away, exposing the red muscle and white bone beneath. Even so, she endured the pain and began to move gracefully. She drew a circle. Not trying to control the power. Not trying to seize it. Simply pushing it away.
This wasn’t mana exploding under someone’s deliberate control. It was simply the detonation of condensed power. At this level, Chloe judged that she could handle it. So she would.
The method itself was similar to the existing “redirecting” technique she had trained with in the knight order. Using her own body as the center, she simply continued drawing endless circles, never stopping for even a moment.
Taiji.
That was what her master had called it. A strange word whose pronunciation was difficult. She didn’t even know what it meant, yet she had never stopped training in the Taiji control method he had casually mentioned. She had never doubted him.
-Gooooooooh!
Blue mana was radiating into the empty air, into the sky. Drawn in the shape of circles, a massive vortex began to dye the night sky. And when she realized that every last drop had been released—
“Ah.”
Chloe, who had been in a trance altering the flow of mana, finally realized she had poured out even the magic power inside her own body. Only after seeing the now-calm surroundings and the completely cracked, utterly ruined, empty Magic Stone did she recognize that it was finally over. She looked up at the sky.
The blue-stained heavens she had created. The surrounding buildings showed no significant damage, and the bald merchant had merely fainted from the massive surge of mana. Only then did she realize she had succeeded.
“Ah…”
Only then did Chloe’s legs buckle as she understood it was over. Magic exhaustion, physical depletion, and the pain that came rushing in belatedly. Unable to hold on any longer, strength left her legs and she collapsed.
As she fell and her consciousness began to fade, she felt a soft, warm sensation enveloping her body. With the last of her strength, she focused her dimming eyes.
“You did well.”
Her blurred vision was dyed gold. The warm voice and gentle touch she heard at the very end. The feeling of her master’s hand wrapping around her. A faint smile formed on Chloe’s lips.
Taiji
* * *
At least Duke-class. From that level onward, there was hardly any difference from royalty. In this world, it was considered the highest grade of magic power. Although storing it in a Magic Stone had significantly reduced its purity.
Just who the hell made something like this?
If this thing had gone off inside the territory, it wouldn’t have been a matter of one or two buildings. An entire district would have been obliterated.
“It was set to detonate in reaction to a mana user’s approach.”
I stared at the cracked, now-empty Magic Stone. Having lost its function due to the mana it once contained, it was now nothing more than an ordinary rock. The circuits drawn on it had been destroyed in the explosion, but from the lingering traces, I could roughly infer its design.
“How dare they.”
Whether their target was Franz or not didn’t matter.
“How dare they.”
Just where did they think this was? They had the nerve to pull this kind of shit in Franz?
-Grind!
My vision began to be dyed with golden mana. My control was slipping from the rage. Even as I became aware of it, I couldn’t hold it back. The golden light rising from my body began to color the entire world.
“Whether it’s torture or whatever else—find out everything.”
By any means necessary. Even if it meant killing everyone who tried to stop us.
“Understood.”
Zeke, who had arrived late, knelt and answered. Not only him—the other retainers remaining in Franz also began moving silently at the sight of the enraged Leoric Franz.
In the end, they had blocked it without any casualties. If you only looked at the result, that was true.
“……”
I looked down at Chloe, who had fallen asleep in my arms.
If she had used the mana stored in her glasses, the repulsive force would have swept through the entire surrounding area. Instead, she had used only her own power to redirect the Magic Stone’s explosion and twist its direction into the sky. Thanks to that, not only the territory residents but the buildings as well remained unharmed, and she had even captured the bald merchant without a scratch.
Outstanding. I had to praise her for it.
I had noticed the Magic Stone’s explosion, but I had also sensed Chloe’s mana and watched slowly. If she hadn’t been able to handle it, I would have stepped in—but she had fulfilled her duty as a knight.
As her lord, I should praise her and grant her a reward, but…
“Haa.”
Chloe only had five fingers left on her remaining hand. Her skin had been peeled away, and her muscles were damaged. When you factored in her shattered bones and countless smaller wounds, it was a miracle she was still alive.
Golden mana slowly seeped into Chloe’s blood-soaked body, beginning to heal her injuries.
“…Yeah. A perfect score. A perfect score.”
It had been quite a while since she had exceeded a hundred points, but there was also the matter with my sister-in-law that I had put off.
“This is really something.”
I had been thinking it was about time to grant her Grace, but to throw her body around this recklessly… Should I deduct points instead?
“If she keeps acting this recklessly even after getting pregnant, I’ll have to discipline her a bit.”
I brushed aside Chloe’s disheveled hair and let out a small chuckle.