Sending Away My Disciple's Suspicious Companion
I was certain my disciple was a Hero candidate. The talent she possessed defied any other explanation—it was a gift from the heavens, the kind of genius that belonged to a Hero and nothing less. And I was that Hero's master. Which meant that for my disciple, the greatest vulnerability was me: my current, fragile self.
If I truly wanted what was best for her, sitting around and praying wasn't going to cut it.
I needed to become capable of protecting myself somehow.
And now I had a means to do just that.
The Natural Mana I had gained through the Elf's Breathing Method.
The problem was that the amount was far too small.
It had been leftover energy to begin with—mere dregs—so of course it would be scarce. Even so, at this rate it was useless as a weapon.
All I could do was train.
Which meant I kept fainting.
Simply drawing on the Natural Mana remaining inside me wasn't enough. I wanted more than that, and the side effect of that greed was blacking out. Looking at it another way, it made perfect sense. Natural Mana was the only thing holding my collapsing body together. Forcing it past its limits was bound to produce a backlash.
But that crude method of training hadn't been entirely meaningless.
...It's increased. Just a little, but it has.
The training was working—even if it was basically just a fainting show. So all I had to do was train harder. As a result, any sense of time I still possessed had completely vanished. Sometimes it was night, sometimes morning; there was no pattern to it at all.
Thanks to that, I could now fire three arrows charged with Natural Mana in a single day. It still required pushing myself, but the fact that I could loose three without fainting was hugely significant for me.
If I just kept increasing it little by little, I'd be fine. That was what I was telling myself when an intruder appeared.
It could have been one of Sera's companions, like Teacher Las—the Great Mage William's alias—but...
For that, the movements are far too cautious. Like an assassin or a thief.
Was it because I'd been continuously training with Natural Mana? I could sense a person's presence as keenly as I once had when I still possessed an Aura Heart. Unfortunately, I still lacked the ability to read an opponent's strength or level the way I could back then. But experience could make up for that.
Footwork that produces not a single sound even while walking—that level of skill is at least master-class... possibly even a Transcendent.
It's hard to dress up something lacking to look abundant, but it's equally hard to disguise abundance as scarcity. Anyone with enough experience can catch that dissonance precisely, and I was more than capable of that much.
The opponent was strong.
If they had come with good intentions, fine. If not, this was the worst-case scenario.
So I had no choice but to stay on guard.
I fired one arrow charged with Natural Mana. Since they might be an acquaintance of Sera's, I made sure to aim just barely off-target.
If they harbored malice, even a single shot might provoke some kind of reaction.
They seemed to try defending with an artifact—and then something astonishing happened.
The arrow charged with Natural Mana punched straight through the shield. That was an irregularity even I hadn't anticipated. Looking back, it made sense. Every expensive artifact I'd owned, I'd given to Sera. Nothing remained, which meant I'd never been able to experiment against artifacts. Using a Natural Mana arrow against a shield spell for the first time, even I had no idea what would happen.
In response, the opponent swiftly swung a dagger and knocked my arrow aside. In that instant, I knew. From the way they handled aura with perfect precision even in an emergency, without the slightest error, I had no choice but to recognize it: the opponent was at the Transcendent level. Knowing that, I had to be even more wary—and so I immediately fired a second Natural Mana arrow.
Sera was cautious and careful by nature. Just as she had with Teacher Las, she would have made arrangements to prevent a situation like this from arising in the first place. The fact that someone at the Transcendent level, even after being ambushed, showed no immediate counterattack or hostility meant I couldn't rule out the possibility they meant no harm. But I still couldn't dismiss the chance that this person was an unwelcome guest with some ulterior motive.
In that case, verifying the truth was my duty as a master. Even if it cost me my life.
I fired the second arrow—then immediately poured every last scrap of Natural Mana into high-speed movement, aiming for the intruder's back.
By that point, I was already at my limit.
Considering that high-speed movement using Natural Mana consumed even more energy than the arrows charged with it, the result was inevitable.
But this would give me my answer.
If I came to and nothing was wrong, the opponent meant no harm. If something had gone wrong, they definitely had malicious intent.
I would know the answer for certain.
With that thought, I lost consciousness.
Rain was dumbfounded.
"Huh. You even prepared poison in your mouth."
If things looked bad when he came to, he was probably planning to use this poison as a last resort. Should she call that cautious? Or say he valued his own life so little it was beyond reason? Or maybe...
"'I'd rather die than hold my disciple back'—is that it...?"
Rain possessed a vast array of information. And that didn't just mean she held knowledge—it meant she had trained her own body in everything she could learn. That included medicine. Applying that knowledge through aura to precisely analyze an opponent's body was one of the many skills at her disposal.
"No Aura Heart... Instead, some foreign power is barely holding his body's collapse at bay. Given that my senses made me feel like I was dealing with an elf... the Elf's Breathing Method? A mercenary just happened to possess information of this caliber? It's far more realistic to assume that absurd Hero gave it to her master after he lost his Aura Heart."
If that was the case—where had Jade's Aura Heart gone?
Rain had no trouble recalling the strange Aura Blade the Hero had wielded. Jade's Aura Heart was inside the Hero. And it hadn't been taken by force.
This world was full of madmen, and plenty of lunatics who tried to forcibly seize others' Aura Hearts to make up for their own lack of talent. Not a single one of them had ever succeeded. Forcible extraction inevitably damaged the Aura Heart, and absorbing a damaged one was tantamount to suicide. A wounded Aura Heart only continued to rot—it never healed. In the end, those who forcibly took another's Aura Heart were no different from absorbing living poison into their own bodies.
So she could only conclude one thing.
Jade's Aura Heart had settled inside the Hero purely of his own free will.
He had offered up his Aura Heart—what could be called the sum of a lifetime's achievements—for his disciple's sake. And now he was ready to throw away even his life rather than hold her back.
An irredeemable fool beyond all help.
There was no other way to describe him.
A fool so outrageous that no path to salvation was in sight.
Even Rain, who had gathered every kind of information and seen every type of person imaginable, could declare with certainty that she had never encountered a fool of this magnitude.
"...I think I understand why that Hero treasures him so much."
Rain returned.
She couldn't leave an unconscious man on the floor, so she carefully laid him down in his hermitage and even pulled a blanket over him. She would have preferred to talk, but she figured that would be difficult. Jade seemed like a sharp one. He'd likely see through any plausible lie in an instant. Judging it more rational to quietly withdraw for now, she had simply come back.
And waiting for her was—
"You came back sooner than I expected."
...As expected, the Hero was waiting.
Her closest aide, Alfredo, was lying collapsed on the ground.
Rain did not get agitated.
She had undertaken this knowing a situation like this might unfold.
"Did you think you could ignore my warning not to touch my master?"
"As you well know, Hero, refusing to sell information in this business is hardly a simple matter. Naturally, risks come with the territory. So I needed to accurately assess whether this was a risk worth bearing."
That was the moment.
Shwaaaang!
Clang!
"......!"
Rain couldn't help but be stunned.
Her escort had been taken down, yes—but that escort existed only to conceal her true power. Transcendents didn't keep bodyguards, and the prejudice that someone with multiple escorts couldn't possibly be a Transcendent was exactly what she exploited. She could have floored her own escort anytime she wished.
In other words, she still had her pride as a Transcendent.
So no matter how strong the Hero was, she believed she herself was strong enough not to fall easily.
How baseless that confidence had been—she was forced to confirm it in this very moment.
"...That was a very expensive piece."
Her favored dagger had been cleanly sliced in half. It was proof of total defeat in aura, in strength, and in skill—and it demonstrated that the Hero's current level had surpassed even the Transcendent realm.
"You'd do well to assume there won't be a next time."
"...Yes. I'll take that to heart."
"You should."
With that, the Hero sheathed her sword.
"That's a fairly fine blade, but it seems insufficient for a Hero. Shall I prepare a better one as an apology?"
"I'll pass. There's no sword better than this one for me."
Rain had no trouble recognizing at once that the sword was the one Jade had gifted to Sera. A woman's heart was best read by another woman, so it wasn't difficult.
...The Great Mage William isn't here.
The Great Mage William, who always attended at her side, was absent.
Rain easily realized that a third party had been present during her confrontation with Jade. Had she tried any lethal techniques or attempted to harm Jade in that moment...
She would have experienced firsthand just how terrifying a Great Mage's magic could be.
"Master and disciple both—thorough to a fault."
Rain said this with a peculiar smile.
Then—
"Ugh."
"Are you all right, Alfredo?"
"Ah. Young miss. Are you unharmed?"
"I'm fine. My favorite dagger, not so much. But more importantly, are you okay, Alfredo?"
"Pardon? Hmm? Not just okay—I feel healthy."
"What?"
"...Even my bad back feels wonderfully refreshed."
"......"
It went without saying—
That if Rain was someone precious to Sera, then Alfredo, who had always stayed by her side, was also someone precious to her.
In every way, like master, like disciple.