Lemonade Slush After Class
Holy power was an abstract force.
Unlike magic and aura that drew upon mana, spirit arts that borrowed the aid of spirits, or shamanism that pulled forth the power of the soul through a medium—unlike the countless other forces that existed across Europa and beyond—holy power was nothing more than a god answering a believer’s sincere faith, prayer, and devotion by granting and lending strength.
Of course, talent still played a role. That much was only natural. The ability to focus deeply, immerse oneself completely, and pour effort into something was itself a form of talent.
For Karem, who had grasped the fundamentals of holy power in an instant, there was only one path left if he truly meant to master it.
“Your power is light!”
“That’s because you’re far too heavy, Lord Iona!”
“It is the weight of years and knowledge!”
Iona let the wooden sword glance off with both hands like a salmon slipping past an obstacle. His elbow naturally took the lead, and he drove his leg forward to slam into the shield.
Crazy. In a completely different sense, this is like fighting a fat Gordon!
Granted, the comparison was to Gordon when he was casually fending things off with a spoon.
Karem went flying, landed on both feet, and staggered. No joke—the light, butterfly-like rush that had closed the distance made the impact against his shield feel like being hit by a speeding car. A wooden sword painting a pure-white arc never even finished its swing before a fist that might as well have been a block of ice smashed into him.
Yet it was nothing like Gordon’s method during the business trip. Whether the sparring was passive or aggressive hardly mattered when both men were clearly holding back. Gordon’s training had been like trying to catch leaves scattered by a fierce wind—except every time you reached, the leaves brushed past and battered you from every angle. If Gordon ever heard that he hadn’t been stabbed even once to the very end, he would probably just ask whether standing still and letting yourself get stabbed wouldn’t be stranger. With that thought, Karem raised his shield.
I can see how he’s moving, at least.
That, too, was thanks to Gordon’s violence disguised as training. Whether the lessons had been beaten into his body or his body simply refused to forget the experience even after growing, every glance and motion of Iona charging like a starving boar was laid bare before his eyes.
He could only see them.
“You’re young—stop just blocking and swing that sword and shield!”
Clang! Clang! Clang! Iona’s fists, looking like frozen hammers, streaked in with trails of cold. Fist-shaped frozen imprints only multiplied across Karem’s shield.
“How about giving me a chance once in a while?!”
There weren’t many chances. No—having any chances at all was already a remarkable achievement. All thanks to Gordon. Naturally Iona moved slower than Gordon; it was simply mind-boggling that a body like a heavy tank-shaped bouncy ball could still move like the wind. And of course that tank-shaped bouncy ball was going easy on him.
Karem caught one blow on the wooden sword. He gave way rather than resist the follow-up strike that hammered his shield and retreated. While he was still floating and landing to reset his stance, Iona charged in with a kindly smile and ferocious speed.
Do I push in first? Or take the attack?
Thoughts kept popping up one after another, but in the end he chose neither. Whatever action he picked, the result was obvious: deflected, blocked, and sent flying.
Wait—how is this any different from a brawl?
Why was he trading blows with Iona in the first place? Wasn’t all of this for the sake of handling holy power skillfully? How had he been fighting in the lessons so far? He had just coated his body and weapons with holy power and swung. How was that any different from a street fight?
It’s exactly the same as facing a minor version of Gordon.
He needed a different perspective. Holy power was a force whose true nature was as vague as could be. He had been paying far too much attention to the sight of Iona uprooting great trees.
Karem concentrated holy power into his shield—and threw it at Iona, who had closed right in.
Oh?
Iona’s curiosity stirred. Through the sparring that was really a lesson, Karem had naturally learned how to coat weapons with holy power and how to wrap it around his body quickly and cleanly.
Whatever else, the boy has talent when it comes to a fight. That much is certain.
Just as Gordon had said. Rather than any single field like sword or spear, he had more talent for plain old brawling. Exactly like now.
The moment the shield left his hand, the momentum shifted. Holy power could be felt, yet it was still feather-light. No—wait.
Clang—!
“Hm!?”
Holy power? The shock that traveled into his fist was different from before. The ice sheathing a fist that had never once cracked until now fissured and chipped. It was the spot where the ice-hardened edge of the shield, wrapped in holy power, had struck.
Still, it was no problem for attacking Karem. He simply brushed the chipped fist aside, and the shield that had frozen solid was already bouncing away.
Whoosh—!
Then a wooden sword, freezing into a sharp edge, shot straight toward him.
Hm? Again?
The amount packed into it was greater than what had been in the shield. At the very least more than double. And it was aimed at the head, not the chest. He couldn’t block this the same way.
Had the boy switched to ranged attacks because close quarters weren’t working? The change of approach was certainly novel compared to everything so far. But it was still more of the same. If he simply drew out even a fraction more of the power he had been holding back, it would be no issue at all.
Even so, it counted as a pass. Using power not as an extension of the body but while separated from it—combined with the earlier results, the lesson could be called a success. Thinking that, Iona swung his fist upward and knocked the razor-edged wooden sword aside.
“Just oooooooone—!!!”
In that instant—
“Mm!?”
Karem, who had still been at a distance, was suddenly right there. Leading with his left elbow and right fist cocked, he charged—no, he flew.
This one was going to land.
Thud—!
Iona yanked both hands back in a flash. He caught the elbow aimed at his solar plexus. The moment it was blocked, he also caught the right fist rising for an uppercut.
“Huh.”
Thump. But he was half a beat late. The back of the hand that had blocked the elbow smacked into his chest.
“A surprise shot, you said?”
“Let me ask just one thing.”
“Yes.”
“How did you manage that speed just now?”
Iona set Karem down on the ground as he asked. There had been no great change in the holy power that would suggest body reinforcement. Then what method could it have been?
Thud. Landing on the ground, Karem wordlessly stepped aside as if to say, look for yourself.
“This is… an ice pillar?”
An ice column the thickness of a foot sole had grown diagonally from the ground where Karem had stood, stretching all the way to just beneath the spot he had flown into.
“You rapidly formed an ice pillar under your feet and used it to shove your whole body forward?”
“The window was only that brief moment when your vision was blocked. There wasn’t enough time to move my body the normal way, so I used a different method.”
“Huh.”
“So… did I pass?”
Iona let out a belated, empty laugh. Using holy power as terrain itself? He had been thoroughly outplayed.
“Yes. You pass.”
“…Oh.”
“That’s a drier reaction than I expected.”
“Right? I thought I’d be over the moon.”
Hooo. Watching Karem let out a long breath as if cooling something hot, Iona shook his head.
So this is youth.
They said the mind grew rigid with age. Until he saw it with his own eyes, he had never once conceived of such a fresh application. Using the very properties of ice itself, even before holy power.
“As I said earlier—”
“With this, the basics are finished.”
Karem walked over to the table, picked up one of the pitchers on the tray beside the package, and poured into a cup. One was lemonade, the other orangeade—drinks he had prepared ahead of training and brought along.
“May I have a cup as well?”
“Yes. Orange or lemon?”
“Orange would be nice.”
Karem poured a cup of orangeade and a cup of lemonade, started to carry them over, then paused. Just in case, he picked up the spoon he had brought for removing foreign matter.
I should make it colder.
Even though the weather was cold, his body was so hot that cold sweat beaded on his forehead. That meant sweat could pour down like a waterfall at any moment. He was already exhausted enough without having to deal with sweat on top of it. That, at least, he would not allow. Karem stirred the lemonade in the cup at a steady, rapid pace with the spoon and concentrated a very faint amount of holy power.
Clink, swirl— swirl— swirl—
Ice melts and water freezes at zero degrees. Turning water into solid ice took a fair amount of time. So he kept stirring without pause while it froze.
“Karem? Why are you suddenly doing that instead of just drinking?”
“I want to freeze it a little and drink it that way.”
“Then you could simply concentrate holy power.”
He kept the temperature just a touch below zero while stirring the spoon rapidly without rest. The change registered at his fingertips. The ade swirling and spinning inside the cup froze into snowflake shapes, crumbled, and repeated the process until it grew slushy like wet sleet. Karem slowed the spoon’s rotation a little. If it broke under the force of the spoon and melted, it would all be for nothing. From here on he had to trust the sensation in his hand rather than his eyes.
He poured in a little more holy power, and the resistance felt through the spoon grew stronger. Crunch— crunch— crunch— When a sound like shoveling snow reached his ears, he pulled the spoon free. Thin strands of frozen lemonade particles stretched and then broke. The lemonade slush, increased in volume and mounded slightly over the rim of the cup, looked exactly like the ones he had eaten as a child in his previous life.
Karem made a slush of the orangeade as well and held it out to Iona.
“An instant sorbet, is it.”
“It’s called slush.”
Iona, who had been chuckling in admiration, clamped his mouth shut. Slush… a wet, messy heap of snow…
“…Lord Atanitas was right.”
“What, about my naming sense?”
Dodging the look that said ‘do I even need to answer that,’ Karem drained his cup.
Mmm…!
The electric tartness of lemon pricked his tongue. No sooner had that sparkle spread through his entire mouth than the soft slush, like lightly melting snow, began to dissolve slowly. A stinging sensation registered clearly—perhaps he had a cut inside his mouth. It hurt, yet he could not bring himself to take the cup from his lips.
It looked similar to sorbet at a glance, yet it was distinctly different. First, the texture. Sorbet was ultimately frozen juice—ice. Until it melted completely, a crunchy sensation lingered on the tongue. Worse, it could clump together inside the mouth into fruit-flavored ice. Slush was different. Because each particle was frozen separately, it was as soft as scooping up freshly fallen powder snow.
And above all, the taste. Unlike pure frozen juice sorbet, the lemonade had more sugar than anyone would imagine. After the tongue adjusted to the electric sourness of lemon, that was the next flavor it registered—and it was exactly what his body, worn out from the grueling training, fiercely craved. The sweet thrill that rode his tongue and then spread through the cold seeping into his body, traveling to every aching joint—he could feel it all with perfect clarity.
He wanted to drain the cup to the bottom just like this. Karem barely managed to cut short the temptation of that forbidden sensation and looked at Iona, who was already smacking his lips over what looked like an empty cup.
“Truly the most sacred ice cream in the world.”
“Doesn’t your head hurt, though?”
“Hm? From what?”
“Well… no matter how soft it is, it’s still crushed ice.”
Slush might look like that, but it still belonged to the family of frozen treats. Gobble it down and your forehead would ache.
“With enough training, this much is no problem at all.”
Is that even something you can train? Ignoring Karem’s incredulous stare, Iona lightly chilled the orangeade with holy power and downed it in one go.
“Whew. There’s something more important than that.”
“Right.”
Karem set down his cup and tapped the white package beside the tray. The tightly wrapped bundle looked roughly like a triangle with a blunted tip. Iona stared at the mysterious object and flushed like a man who had finally been allowed fried food after more than a year of careful dieting.
“Ahem. That package is truly…”
“Yes. The mammoth trunk you’ve been waiting for so long.”
Karem gave the package a light pat of confirmation.
“Then let’s head straight to Lord Jigmeser.”
He could not forget the taste of the mammoth steak he had eaten last time. Karem immediately picked up the package and left the training ground with Iona. Cleanup was left to the servants Iona summoned.
Their destination was the venue of the exchange conference—Jigmeser’s kitchen. Winterhome had kitchens scattered throughout in addition to the main castle kitchen, yet Iona specifically chose Jigmeser’s private kitchen.
“It’s not that I have a complaint, but why go out of our way to use Lord Jigmeser’s private kitchen?”
“Jigmeser’s private kitchen can block both sound and smell, thanks to magical tools.”
Iona looked casual enough, yet he cast suspicious glances at the people decorating every corner of the castle.
“As a bonus, the authority of the head chef completely cuts off anyone else’s interest at the source.”
“So it’s to keep troublemakers away?”
“Exactly.”
Iona nodded firmly. The thick flesh of his neck jiggled beneath his luxuriant beard.
Is it really that delicious?
Karem looked down at the package cradled in his right arm. Honestly, claiming he felt no doubt would be a lie, yet every single person he met—if not quite to Iona’s degree—praised it as the finest meat, the most delicious meat of all, so his curiosity only kept swelling.
They passed through corridors and people bustling about their work. Those they encountered seemed focused on their own tasks and showed no interest beyond a greeting. It looked as though they would reach their destination without incident. Yet someone was pacing back and forth in front of Jigmeser’s private kitchen. The identity became clear at once.
Pace—hesitate. Pace—
“…Lord Iona. That person.”
“It is our lord.”
“Uh, I think he’s spotted us.”
“…Damn it. Where did the word leak from!?”
Alfred, who had been fretting, spotted them, brightened, and hurried over.
Attached Materials
— Lemonade Slush —
A picture drawn for me by ChatGPT.