Chapter 99
Chapter 99
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 34
Chapter Title: Visit (2)
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Late evening.
A single carriage entered the Welton Count's residence.
It was the carriage carrying the Valle Viscount's family.
"I can't even remember how many months it's been."
The Welton Count, who had come out to greet them, tightly embraced his sworn brother, the Valle Viscount.
"We last saw each other at the eastern nobles' party, so it's been just under half a year."
"Haha. Half a year is plenty long enough."
"Indeed. It's been a while, Madam."
"Welcome, Viscount."
Sears responded to the viscount's greeting with an elegant smile, lightly lifting the hem of her skirt.
Her gaze then turned to the two cute girls standing quietly behind him. The eldest daughter, Rebecca Valle, and the second daughter, Ash Valle.
"How are you two?"
"Ah, hello. I'm Ash Valle."
"I'm Rebecca Valle. Please take care of me while we're staying here."
Ash bowed her head like a boy, her face slightly tense, while Rebecca lifted the hem of her skirt just as Sears had done.
From that alone, one could tell the two girls had completely opposite personalities.
The count and his wife, who rarely saw girls aside from their own daughter, looked on fondly.
Then they noticed the viscountess was absent and asked about it.
"Did you come alone with the children?"
"She had some business at her family home and left the kids with me before heading down there."
"Whatever it is, I hope it resolves smoothly."
"It's nothing major. By the way, where's Jamie?"
"Jamie's probably hard at training right now. We might not see him until tomorrow morning."
"Training?"
Was he training magic?
However, the words from the count's mouth had nothing to do with magic.
"He started learning the sword yesterday."
"The sword?"
"It's getting chilly now that the sun's down. Let's head inside and talk."
"Ah, yes. Let's do that."
It was the season where the air grew cold after sunset.
They chatted idly as they made their way to the mansion.
At that moment, Ash, who had been following closely behind the viscount, suddenly stopped in place. Being at the very back, no one noticed she wasn't keeping up.
Ash blankly stared in one direction.
Then she muttered toward someone.
"Looks like someone's swinging a sword hard. Aren't you curious too?"
A gentle breeze rustled by.
"Let's go take a look."
Ash smiled faintly and started walking.
Remaining repetitions: 26 more times.
His clothes were soaked with sweat from the previous evening. Even though the weather had turned chilly, heat poured from his body.
Jamie roughly exhaled the breath filling his lungs.
"Hooah—"
He swept back his emerald hair, slick as if drenched by a waterfall.
Then he looked at the hand he'd used to sweep it back. The skin where he'd gripped the wooden sword was completely peeled away.
There were even traces of dried blood.
A thousand times meant that much. Physically, it was better than yesterday, but other parts were creaking.
Still, his mood was good.
'Wounds like this heal in a day anyway.'
Trivial injuries regenerated in an instant thanks to the Orb of Life.
Ignoring the stinging pain, he gripped the wooden sword tightly again.
After over nine hundred repetitions, his body was exhausted, but he had perfectly grasped the principles of the linkage.
Hamilton's demonstration replayed naturally in Jamie's mind. That clean swordsmanship, footwork, and muscle movements.
A linkage close to perfection.
Now, to imitate it right beside the real thing.
Mana flowed out and projected into the air. It recreated Hamilton from his memory.
The illusory Hamilton stood motionless in a ready stance.
"Good."
He had promised not to use mana during sword training, but that meant no tricks like physical augmentation.
Refusing magic's help when it could improve his skills more efficiently would be foolish.
Jamie took up the exact same stance beside Hamilton.
Through endless repetition, he had come to understand his body's movements and the sword's flow.
He wasn't sure if he could match Hamilton perfectly—
"Begin."
The moment the signal dropped, the mana-formed Hamilton executed the linkage motions.
Jamie moved at the same time.
Their builds differed, but they performed the identical motions, swinging their swords in unison.
In that instant, Jamie fell into a trance.
Slash downward, thrust, spin once and slash sideways, spin back the other way from above to below, then below to above, pull the sword back and thrust at the center.
All motions concluded simultaneously, perfectly in sync.
Hamilton's illusion dispersed.
"Hahk, hahk, hahk, hahk—"
Jamie gasped for breath.
The extreme focus consumed even more stamina, but his mind was clearer than ever.
"Was that okay?"
He understood the principles, but until now, even in repetition, something had felt lacking.
But this time was a bit different.
First, he hadn't missed any of Hamilton's movements. Second, the swordsmanship executed in that state of utmost concentration satisfied even him.
"Black. You recorded it properly, right?"
Jamie asked the air, and Black appeared as his transparency faded.
Kreek!
Black affirmed and sprayed mana from his eyes to replay the scene.
Jamie had been using Black to continuously record his form.
Study comes from review. Since he was the student learning swordsmanship, after the thousand reps, he planned to review the footage.
From the outside, he looked every bit the mage, but wasn't this precisely how a sorcerer trained the sword?
He no longer needed to create Hamilton's illusion.
"Let's finish the rest..."
As Jamie assumed his stance to complete the remaining reps,
a presence appeared behind him.
It crept closer stealthily, with something flitting about beside it—not alive, it seemed. Or perhaps something without vital signs.
An intruder sneaking into the mansion?
Jamie silently continued the linkage motions before deploying mana.
And used teleportation.
"I don't know who you are, but to dare infiltrate the Welton estate—you've got some guts...!"
"Kyaaak!"
Jamie teleported behind the intruder, thrusting with his wooden sword.
But upon seeing the petite girl's back, smaller than him, he hastily twisted the sword's trajectory.
Thud!
The wooden sword struck the ground.
He had nearly clubbed her skull.
Jamie looked at the intruder with mild surprise.
The girl was crouched, arms wrapped around her head.
When nothing happened, she slowly lowered her arms and looked up.
Ash sniffled as she spoke.
"Y-you scared me!"
Jamie tapped his shoulder with the wooden sword as he looked down at Ash kneeling before him.
"Forgot what I said before?"
"Hehe..."
Ash grinned with wide, innocent eyes, like she was playing dumb—"I don't know anything~."
Jamie had no idea what to do with this foal of a girl.
"How did you get here?"
"I came with Dad."
"The Valle Viscount is here?"
"Yeah. My sister's with him too."
His sister would be Rebecca Valle.
The reincarnation of Jane, Diablo Volpir's former lover from his past life.
She was here now.
Jamie's expression hardened. Seeing that, Ash misunderstood and flashed a sly, unchildlike smile.
"You must've really missed my sister, huh?"
"What?"
"You seemed a bit smitten last time we met. Hehe."
It was a similar guess, but Ash was completely off the mark. Well, she was only eight.
Expecting deep thought from her was ridiculous in itself.
Of course, Jamie, who said such things, looked every bit the kid on the outside too.
'She's grown even more than before.'
The aura of wind around Ash.
As a wind spiritist, it was natural, but it was markedly different from the mere presence of a spiritist.
'Maintaining a spirit in the physical world already.'
Spiritists summoned spirits from the spirit realm as needed. But advanced spiritists could keep their summoned spirits manifested in the physical world without returning them.
Jamie wasn't a spiritist, so he didn't know the details, but he knew it required at least intermediate skill.
Ash was eight. She was known as a genius wind spiritist with incredible affinity, but intermediate level seemed premature.
Yet having seen it with his own eyes, he couldn't deny it.
"You didn't just play around at home, did you?"
"You can tell, right?"
As Ash's eyes sparkled, Jamie snorted indifferently.
Ignoring him, Ash beamed childishly—well, she was a child—and began chattering.
"I was doing my usual communion training with spirits when a top-grade spirit came to me!"
"...A top-grade spirit?"
Top-grade spirits were the highest rank excluding the Spirit Kings, each with unique forms unlike lower spirits of the same grade that shared appearances.
That meant immense power.
In his past life, Jamie had clashed with a few top-grade spirits, and their strength exceeded natural disasters.
For one to approach Ash first...
"Yeah! A top-grade spirit. Its name's Ripid."
Ripid.
The renowned top-grade wind spirit who served the Wind Spirit King, Sylphid.
"What did it say?"
"It didn't say anything. It just watched me and vanished. But the next day, my affinity shot up, and I could keep a sylph manifested here."
He didn't know the purpose, but as a result, Ash had become the youngest intermediate spiritist.
It was talent worth the world's attention, even if not on Jamie's level.
But Jamie's eyes widened at Ash's next words.
"My sister's even more amazing! She started summoning high-grade spirits already. Only for a few seconds, though."
"...What?"
"I figured even you'd be shocked. Hehe!"
Ash puffed out her chest proudly, as if it were her own achievement.
But nothing registered in Jamie's ears.
Rebecca had succeeded—even if briefly—in summoning a high-grade spirit. And she was just turning ten.
"Dad was super, super, super shocked too. Said it was impossible."
The Valle Viscount, one of the kingdom's three great spiritists, would know.
What it meant for Rebecca to summon a high-grade spirit.
Sorry to Ash, but Rebecca's talent was incomparable to hers.
Yes. On a level comparable to Jamie.
Equivalent to a 9th-class mage's prodigy.
'...Because she's the reincarnation.'
Rebecca was born into a wind spiritist family, yet a water spirit had come first and contracted with her.
This wasn't just about her talent.
Jamie was certain.
'Consideration from the Spirit King.'
The Water Spirit King, Elquines, honoring the soul of the previous contractor.
Ash watched Jamie, then startled and jumped to her feet.
"What's wrong?"
"I forgot."
"Forgot what?"
"Dad told me not to tell."
Jamie looked at her with pitiful eyes.