The Disciple's Mage Companion Underestimated the Master's Talent
Hero candidate Leo had been all but kidnapped… no, he had quite literally been kidnapped. Frankly, Archmage William had expected the boy to throw a fit the moment he came to his senses.
"Yes, I'm fine!"
…But surprisingly, he was fine. William was so taken aback that he made no effort to hide it, staring at Leo as he asked,
"…You're really all right?"
"Yes, I'm fine! I get to learn all sorts of things from Lady Sera, don't I? This is actually a good thing for me!"
Having felt Sera's strength with his own body, Leo seemed to have realized the opposite truth as well — just how strong she was, and how much there was to learn from her.
What a strange boy.
Even so, this was peculiar. No matter how rationally correct something might be, people naturally moved according to their own emotions. And the younger they were, the more true that became. Considering the boy's age, it would have been entirely unsurprising if he'd thrown a tantrum and declared, "There's no way I'm following Sera after she beat me up like that!" In fact, that would have been the more natural reaction. Which meant this situation was unnatural — abnormal. And that, in turn, led to one conclusion: this boy was an extraordinarily unusual kid.
"I want to get stronger! I want to get strong enough to prove that my master was a great man! That's something only I can do — as his only disciple!"
"……"
William knew about "Cliff Sword" Drew Mace as well. He was by no means a man worthy of respect. Even if this boy grew into an outstanding Hero candidate and made a name for himself, the evaluation of Drew Mace would likely not change much. If anything, the only effect would be that people thought even more highly of this boy for working so hard on behalf of a worthless master. That was how hopelessly trash Drew Mace had been.
…He despaired and despaired again over never becoming the strongest himself… but when it came to luck with disciples, he might just have been the strongest of all.
Truly the worst master and the best disciple — William could not help but think so.
At any rate, contrary to William's expectations, Hero candidate Leo blended into the party with ease.
However…
"Gyaaaaaah!!!!"
"You're going to collapse from just this? Hold on. Didn't you say you were going to prove Drew Mace was a great master?"
"Ghhhkk!!!!"
As I thought… maybe I should have stopped her…
No matter how you looked at it, that wasn't training — it was abuse. And yet William felt no urge to intervene.
"Ueeeegh…"
One glance at the elf Riel, already hanging upside down from a tree after she'd tried to step in, and any such will evaporated completely.
I never imagined that elf wouldn't put up even the slightest resistance.
From William's perspective, the elf Riel was a powerhouse who didn't fall short of any Transcendent. And yet Sera had felled her in an instant and left her on display like that. His lord had been monstrously strong from the first time he saw her, and with each passing day she only grew more monstrous still.
Watching her go through that hellish training every day like it's nothing, you'd get stronger whether you wanted to or not…
To an outside observer, her training methods looked so mindlessly self-destructive they bordered on masochism. But William, an Archmage whose eye for a person's condition surpassed anyone else's, had reached a different conclusion: there was no training method more ruthlessly efficient. Of course, that applied only to Sera. For anyone else, it would be nothing but pure self-harm. No — an ordinary person wouldn't even make it through half of that regimen before their body broke down. It was that insane.
Fortunately, Sera did not subject Leo to that same monstrous hell training. But that didn't mean she went easy on him, either. She calculated his limits with ruthless precision and pushed him to challenge them every single session. It was nowhere near the hell she put herself through, but for Leo it was extreme training painful enough to matter.
She drove him so hard he could barely eat… and even knowing how rapidly he was growing under that regimen, William couldn't help thinking someone ought to stop her. In the end, Riel had been the one to try — and now hung upside down from a tree for her trouble.
"Enough. Rest."
Thud!
The instant the words left her mouth, Leo collapsed. The moment he heard he was allowed to rest, he let go of the consciousness he'd been clinging to by sheer force of will and blacked out on the spot.
"William. Healing magic."
"Yes, ma'am…"
William felt sorry for Hero candidate Leo that he happened to be an Archmage. If he hadn't been here, Sera wouldn't have been able to push the boy this hard… but because he was, she could put Leo through extreme training to her heart's content.
If I weren't here, she probably would have gone and fetched a Saintess or a Saint instead…
Knowing his lord was more than capable of that, William honestly felt that the moment Leo had caught Sera's eye, his fate had already been sealed. So he resolved to cook the boy the meal he'd managed to eat last time — the one he'd forced down while trembling, insisting it was delicious. …A rather humble notion, thoroughly unbefitting an Archmage.
"William."
"Yes, my lord."
"Go check on Master."
"Pardon? Why?"
"I have a bad feeling."
"……"
Even so — what could possibly have happened in that short a time?
The thought crossed his mind for a moment, but…
Jade was the man who got tangled up with elves and the World Tree just by sitting still. Elves that adventurers and mages spent their whole lives combing forests to glimpse without ever meeting one — Jade met one while sitting quietly at home. The World Tree, which everyone believed never left its barrier, had come out herself to meet him…
At this point, it was hard not to conclude that Jade possessed some kind of talent(?) for getting swept up in every manner of incident and accident without lifting a finger. So it wouldn't be strange at all if something enormous had happened again. If anything, it would be stranger if something strange didn't happen — that was how thoroughly Jade-like it had come to feel.
Perhaps, just as his lord said, going to see Jade might bring yet another surprise.
Ah, come on… even so, after everything with the World Tree, there's no way something else has already happened…
With the vague sense that he was merely putting his lord's concerns to rest, William disguised himself as Teacher Las and prepared a spatial transfer spell.
…William reflected.
His lord's instincts had been dead-on.
And he himself had been completely wrong.
He had severely underestimated Master's talent(?).
As an Archmage, having his prediction proven wrong might have wounded his pride — but William accepted it calmly. He had now fully acknowledged that Jade's talent(?) was something that surpassed even an Archmage's foresight, and so there was no mental shock to speak of.
"…Master, what is this?"
"An egg."
"Yes, but what kind of egg, exactly?"
"A dragon egg."
"……"
Had William been a mage of even slightly lower standing than an Archmage, he never would have believed a word Jade said. Dragons were that thoroughly a thing of the past — something that simply could not exist in the modern age. But William was an Archmage. And so he could feel it: the overwhelming presence radiating from that egg, a presence of an entirely different order. The moment he laid eyes on it, he had no choice but to be certain — it could be nothing other than a dragon egg.
I never thought I'd live to see a dragon egg…
As an Archmage, he had prided himself on having experienced and researched more of this world's hidden mysteries than anyone alive… only to realize what a colossal delusion that had been. Because even he had never found a dragon egg — never even found a trace of a dragon. The best he'd managed were old documents with records about them. And now Jade had simply held out a dragon egg in front of him. It was the Archmage's total defeat. William himself couldn't even tell what event, by what rules, he had lost — but the result, the defeat itself, he felt with vivid clarity.
"So… the magic of the last Dragon Lord, Roael, appeared in your dreams and entrusted this dragon egg to you?"
"Yes, that's right."
Jade spoke as if to say, Oh, isn't that something? — as though it weren't particularly remarkable. But William, who knew enough as an Archmage to recognize it, understood perfectly well that what Jade had experienced ranked among the most mysterious events even in this world overflowing with mysteries.
Dragon Lord Roael.
It was a name William knew as well. As a mage who pursued mysteries, he had naturally taken an interest in the most perfect race said to have ever existed in this world, and had researched them enough to uncover the name of the last Dragon Lord. And just as Jade said, that name was Roael. In the modern age, only a handful of people knew it. Which meant William judged it highly unlikely that this was some fabrication targeting Jade or Sera.
Magic that held for seven hundred and thirty-five years… even if she used an entire Dragon Lord's Dragon Heart to do it… that I never got to experience that mystery myself is almost too painful as a mage… but I suppose that's exactly why she judged Master the right person.
An ordinary person would have been so captivated by the mystery they'd experienced that they'd fixate on that alone, dragon egg be damned…
"So, do you happen to know how to care for a dragon egg?"
Jade was interested only in the dragon egg. Already, William could see the resolve and sense of responsibility of a guardian in his eyes. As a parent and a doting father himself, William could feel it with absolute certainty.
As expected of a Dragon Lord's magic… I have no choice but to admit the selection was flawless.
From those who would sell a dragon egg for wealth the moment it fell into their hands, to those who would carefully raise the hatchling born from it and seize whatever power they desired… a single dragon egg could serve as a catalyst to inflame countless human desires. But in Jade's eyes, there was not so much as a speck of dust of any such thing.
He was, quite simply, worrying over and caring for the dragon egg as nothing more than a small living creature.
That was something only Jade could do — of that there was no doubt.
…And that was precisely the problem.
Gulp.
…How am I supposed to report this to my lord?
Tell her that in the short time he'd been gone, Master had acquired a child to raise?
His lord's Aura Blade rose unbidden in William's mind.
O God…
Why do You visit such trials upon me?!
Why?!!!!!!!!!
Why!!!!!!!!!!
As a mage, William had never thought particularly well of the gods — and today, his feelings on the matter only grew worse.
…But that didn't last long either.
O God! I don't want to die! I haven't even seen my daughter Ely get married yet… and how am I supposed to marry her off without knowing what kind of scoundrel she'd end up with?! Anyway! I haven't even seen her fully grown — how can You tell me to die?! O God!! I have to live!
Even an Archmage was only human. When a true crisis loomed, one prayed to God.