Shall We Fix Your Mana Road Together?
"Abel... would you mind if I took another look at your Mana Road?"
Celia's question caught Abel completely off guard.
It wasn't strange for her to examine it—she had already treated his Mana Road once, when his life hung in the balance. If anything, having a warrior of her caliber—someone powerful enough to help defeat the Demon King—offer to inspect it was something he ought to be grateful for.
"My Mana Road? Why?"
...Even so, Abel couldn't simply accept it.
He hadn't done anything for Celia that would warrant such a kindness. He saw no reason to receive the gift of a Mana Road examination.
"Ah—! My Ice Soul ability has awakened, you see. Back then I only managed emergency treatment—plugging the holes in your Mana Road. But now I can do it perfectly..."
Celia trailed off mid-sentence, smiling, then took one look at Abel's face.
"Hmm? What is it... Don't tell me you're thinking I haven't done anything to deserve looking at your Mana Road. Is that it?"
She leaned in slightly as she asked.
"...Yeah. I'm already grateful that you repaired my Mana Road once. But no matter how hard I think about it, I haven't done a single thing that would make you go this far for me."
Abel answered without holding anything back.
Thump! Thump!
"Abel! You overthink everything!"
Celia rapped her knuckles against his chest a couple of times.
"Keep it simple. You played with me, so I'm doing something for you in return. How about that?"
"Just from a little play like that...?"
"It might be 'just a little play' to you. But for me, it was the first time I've ever done anything like that in my life. Of everything I've ever called 'fun,' that was the newest and the most enjoyable."
If I hadn't met you, I never would have experienced it.
The violet eyes of Celia de Valstein shone with such clear, unclouded light as she said it that she couldn't possibly have been lying.
"So sit down. You know I check through the back, right?"
Abel knew that already—his father had taught him that channeling mana through the back was the best way to examine the Mana Road throughout the entire body.
He closed his eyes and settled into a cross-legged seat. Celia knelt behind him and laid both palms against his back.
Wmmm—...!
A soft frost-light rose around Celia's body. At the same time—
Sizzle...
—the tips of her hair lifted and floated free, and on either side of her bared shoulders, blue circuit-like patterns bloomed into view.
He hasn't used it at a dangerous level.
She had sealed the holes in his Mana Road, yes—but if he had deployed his mana even a few more times, those seals would have torn open again. Mana would have leaked out, and the pathways would have necrotized.
Ice Soul.
With her awakened power, she sealed the holes once more—this time with ice mana far more durable than before. He still wouldn't be able to use it as if it were fully intact, but in an emergency he could circulate mana through his legs and run.
That should be enough for now...
Celia was about to lift her hands from Abel's back when—
"What...?"
—a peculiarity she discovered made her eyes fly open before she could stop herself.
"Lia?"
"Ah...! It's nothing. Nothing's wrong."
When Abel called her name, she shook her head and insisted it was fine.
Is something like this... even possible?
But as she examined the inside of Abel's body again, Celia's expression hardened beyond any hope of concealment.
Shhhh—...
Her mana swam through the Mana Road of Abel's lower body—and then beyond it, into his upper body as well.
There's no Mana Road... but the residual organs where a Mana Road once existed are still there.
She was witnessing an anomaly that had never been recorded in any book.
Ordinarily, a person's Mana Road was fixed from birth—its range predetermined. The wider its distribution through the body, the better; the thicker the channels, the better. If it had been possible to extract an existing Mana Road and transplant or modify it, full-body Mana Road holders would have multiplied, and the world would have overflowed with the powerful.
In other words, it was impossible.
When he said he gave his Mana Road to Seraphina to heal her... it wasn't that he poured in so much mana it burned the pathways away?
When Celia first met him, Abel's Mana Road had been so underdeveloped it didn't even reach a warrior's standard. She had assumed he simply didn't understand Mana Roads well enough and had used the word "transplant" loosely.
It really has been extracted... as if the Mana Road alone was cleanly separated from the flesh. How is that even possible?
Across everything she had learned about Mana Roads since childhood—every text, every lesson—she had never seen anything like this.
The channels of the Mana Road are gone, but the pathways remain. Then maybe...
Driven by pure curiosity as a Mana Road practitioner herself—
Ziiing—!
—Celia pushed her Ice Soul to its absolute limit and invoked the technique of the Valstein ancestors: the Ice That Never Melts.
Crack...!
In the empty pathways where the Mana Road had vanished, Celia's ice formed rounded rings—partial channels taking shape.
Shhhh—— Then she guided Abel's faint mana, drawing it to flow through those extended ice channels.
It's circulating without any problem.
The experiment she had attempted out of simple curiosity succeeded with startling ease, and color flooded Celia's face—pure delight at the growth of her knowledge and experience.
"Li... Lia..."
"Ah."
Abel's voice, trembling with cold, finally made her notice what was happening around them.
Crack!
The air near their bodies had frozen solid; ice shards shattered at the slightest movement. Her clothes had become a dress of white frost—an ice gown.
"What... went wrong...?"
Even the black fabric of Abel's back was dusted white with frost.
"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry, Abel!"
Only then did Celia realize the magnitude of what she had done. In the name of simple scientific curiosity, she had performed a human experiment of unknown consequence—without asking the subject's permission.
"The truth is, I found something strange in your body..."
Celia told Abel everything she had discovered, holding nothing back.
"I'm truly sorry! If something had gone wrong, it could have caused you serious harm...!"
Despite being the daughter of a ducal house, she bowed her head again and again to Abel, her butler, apologizing.
"I'm really fine. More importantly..."
Abel closed his eyes for a moment and circulated the mana within his body, checking his Mana Road.
The areas where mana can move have expanded.
Even the regions that had not carried a single drop of mana since the day he saved Seraphina now held an extended flow. His one remaining dark eye flew wide open.
Did Celia... fix this? Did she really?
The Mana Road he had sacrificed to save the one person most precious to him. And the Mana Road that had become utterly worthless the moment that same person betrayed him.
"Celia—right now, my Mana Road is..."
"It expanded, right? There were residual organs where a Mana Road used to exist, so I used my Ice Soul to build channels in the empty space."
Danke, Magiavell's physician, had said this was impossible to repair. But even Danke, for all his advanced healing arts, couldn't have known the unique properties of the Valstein Ice Soul.
If the mana is circulating... then if Lia expands the channels with her ability, my Mana Road might actually function normally again.
Having studied medicine under Danke, Abel understood the phenomenon at once.
Even if he had given it away to protect someone precious, it had never been worthless to him. Losing that power had left him with a crushing sense of absence. For a long time he had imagined, over and over, what life would have been like if his Mana Road had still been intact. Even in the moment the Hero had beaten him down, he had felt the bitter injustice of it—if only he'd still had his Mana Road, he might at least have landed a single blow.
"Lia... I... that is..."
He wanted to say it, but the words wouldn't come.
He wanted his Mana Road restored. He wanted to reclaim the future that had crumbled into nothing. But how could he possibly ask Celia de Valstein for that?
She had already saved his life once. Because of her, he was living the life he had now.
Clasp—!
In that moment, Celia's hands closed around both of his.
Hands that wielded freezing power—and yet carried a warmth that sank deep into him.
Rustle...
As her mana settled, her sky-blue hair fanned out like wings and drifted back down.
"Abel. Want to try fixing your Mana Road together with me?"
Like a savior. Like an angel. Celia offered it to him.
"Abel, my boy. I've been hearing talk that you've grown rather close with Lady Celia of late... Always remember this. A butler must never become too intimate with the lady of the house."
Sebas, the head butler, issued the warning as he passed by.
"Abel! I know you're close with our young lady, but... if this turns into something between a man and a woman—you know what I mean? Cross that line and the Duke will turn you into a kebab. Be careful. I don't want to lose the man who handles my late-night snacks..."
Sir Alphonse, captain of the knights, offered his own caution.
"Abel, this is serious! Really serious! Rumors that you and Lady Celia are that kind of close have already spread everywhere...! Ugh, what do we do? The Duke is terrifying when he's angry...!"
Agnes fretted, her two ears quivering.
And so, little by little, Abel began to worry.
It was true... he had been spending an awful lot of time with Lia lately.
In exchange for helping repair his Mana Road, she always demanded that he play with her and keep her entertained. During work hours he served as her personal butler. After work, they played together as friends. And at the end of the day, they conducted their "research" into restoring his Mana Road.
Even just walking around arm-in-arm without a second thought, or chatting over meals together, was enough to look strange to everyone around them. And the Mana Road restoration itself—thanks to various practical difficulties—involved things that, as a man and a woman, a butler and his mistress really shouldn't be doing.
If Duke Dryunain ever found out, Abel might face a truly severe reckoning. That thought was starting to frighten him too.
"Abel."
"Y-Yes! Your Grace."
Speak of the devil. The Duke—who always called him "Bel" so warmly when they fished—suddenly spoke his full name in a heavy, deliberate tone.
"You seem to have grown quite close with Celia."
Here it comes...!
The Duke changed the bait on the end of his line and asked the question as if it barely mattered.
Of course. A commoner like me—someone of no consequence—sticking so close to his one precious daughter. Of course he disapproves...!
Abel decided this was no time for fishing. He should be on his knees begging forgiveness. He was about to rise from his seat when—
"Even as a child, she preferred running through the mountains in comfortable clothes with a sword in hand over dressing up and going to parties..."
It sounded as though the Duke was about to say something important, so Abel sat back down.
"She finds the empty chatter of noble children unbearably dull. One day at a tea party she lost her patience and flipped the entire table, I'm told. Ah. Is that a demerit?"
"Pardon?"
"You don't dislike the spirited type, do you?"
What on earth is he talking about...?
"...I don't dislike it, Your Grace."
After all, his first love had been someone bright and full of energy too.
"Good."
The Duke nodded once and returned his gaze to the fishing line.
"She seems uninterested in most things, but once something catches her attention, she becomes extraordinarily fixated. So don't try to put on airs or overthink your approach—just be honest with her. She's a child who finds enormous joy in simply running around together and sharing good food."
"Y-Yes, Your Grace."
Abel didn't fully grasp the Duke's intent, but it seemed he was being told to stay close to the young lady.
Of course, even without the Duke saying so, Lia was someone to whom Abel could devote his entire life and still not repay the debt he owed. She had repaired the Mana Road in his lower body that the Hero had punctured—and now she had already restored nearly half of the upper-body Mana Road he had thought forever lost.
How could he not be grateful to a friend who undertook such difficult, painstaking work for his sake?
"I will only do things that make the young lady happy."
"That's all I ask."
The Duke grinned with clear satisfaction—
Twang—!
"Oh-ho?!"
—and the moment the line went taut, he shot to his feet.
"Bel! Abel! This one's enormous! It might be the biggest catch of my entire life!"
"If you pull too hard, the line will snap!"
"Grrr—! Bel, I need your help! Without your reel control, this is impossible!!"
"I'll help!"
And just like that, the conversation was forgotten. The two of them threw themselves entirely into landing the new record catch of the Duke's life.