A Conversation Between Peers

"Mm…"

Raon's chin trembled, even as his heart remained perfectly still.

"No need to be so tense. We just want a little chat."

The long-haired collateral at the front of the group stepped forward. Raon knew the boy's name. Crain Zieghart. The same one who had picked a fight that morning, and who had shown fairly impressive talent at the aptitude test.

"Hey."

At Crain's chin-jerk, the three children beside him closed in—one on Raon's left, one on his right, and one at his back.

"A chat? What kind of chat?"

He tried to step back, but all three blocked his path at once. There was nowhere to go.

"Follow us and you'll find out."

"Come quietly."

Crain grinned and flicked his fingers. The boys at Raon's sides started shoving him along by the shoulders.

Raon was small for his age; the collaterals were large for theirs. Moving together, they looked less like children and more like adults dragging a kid away.

"H-hold on. We can talk right here…"

"Too late for that."

"You should've known when to stop showing off."

Raon dropped his gaze and hunched his shoulders, and the collateral children snickered as they hooked their arms through his.

"You said you would show This King a scene worth watching. What is this supposed to be?"

Even rice has to steam before it tastes good. Just wait.

Outwardly, Raon wore a look of panic. Inwardly, he had never been calmer.

"Ugh!"

They dragged him, limp and unresisting, to the outer edge of the training ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ground and flung him against the wall. It was a dim, out-of-the-way corner. No one passed by.

"W-what is this about?"

"You elixir-boosted brat."

"What?"

"Abandoned by the direct line, and you still have the nerve to swagger around on an elixir you got lucky enough to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠swallow?"

"Without the elixir you received from the Saint, you wouldn't even have been able to run today!"

"Coward!"

The collaterals' faces twisted, savage as predators that had found their prey.

They're jumping him for a reason that pathetic?

The motive was as childish and shabby as one would expect from actual children.

And they don't even consider the possibility they might lose.

Raon let out a quiet snort of laughter.

I suppose that's only natural.

He was twelve. The collaterals were thirteen, and far bigger besides. They had been training for a long time already. The thought of losing had probably never crossed their minds.

"Don't worry. We'll make sure it doesn't show."

"This isn't our first time doing this, you know."

"You heard the instructor. We're just having a little talk between classmates."

The collaterals rolled their shoulders and came in, fists clenched.

Raon lifted his bowed head. A faint smile touched his lips.

"You're right."

"Right for a beating."

The fear and confusion that had been in his eyes a moment ago were gone without a trace.

"You little—!"

The bowl-cut boy on the right threw a punch.

Raon twisted his shoulder and let the fist slide past, then drove his right elbow into the boy's chest.

"Gaaahk!"

The bowl-cut boy slammed face-first into the dirt, gagging. He couldn't draw a proper breath. His nails scraped at the ground.

"W-what the hell!"

The narrow-eyed boy on the left snapped a kick up toward him.

A dull, heavy thud.

Raon slapped the rising foot aside with his left hand, stepped in, and drove a fist into the boy's solar plexus.

"Ghhhk…"

The narrow-eyed child clutched his gut, toppled over, and his eyes rolled back.

A sharp crack.

The one behind him bunched his fist and brought it down like a hammer. Raon let it glance off his palm and kicked him in the stomach.

"Haaahk!"

The biggest of them dropped to his knees, gasping for air.

"Y-you idiots! How are you losing to a guy like that?!"

Crain, the only one still standing, stumbled backward. His words caught in his throat. His pupils shook.

"This is a conversation. The intimate little heart-to-heart between peers that you wanted."

Raon closed the distance as fast as Crain gave it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠up.

"Stay back!"

Crain bellowed and threw his left fist. The right came right behind it—a properly drilled combination.

The one receiving it, however, was no ordinary twelve-year-old.

A grinding twist of bone and joint.

Raon's hand coiled up like a viper, wound around Crain's left arm, and wrenched it to the right.

"Aaaagh!"

The pain of his arm being bent the wrong way tore a scream out of Crain before he could finish the right-hand punch.

"We're not done."

Raon chopped a knife-hand into Crain's right side.

"Ghk! Gaaahk!"

Crain screamed as if his breath had been cut off and rolled across the ground.

"A splendid scream. But you still haven't smashed their skulls. Crush them at once."

That skull of yours, more like…

Raon shook his head and looked down at the four collaterals writhing on the dirt.

"Now then. What should I do with you?"

He rolled his neck and walked toward them. A cold murderous intent gathered in his eyes.

"Hhk!"

"Uuuuh…"

"W-what is…"

The collaterals shook as if a chill had seized them. What showed on their faces now was not mere shock. It was terror.

"Uhh…"

Crain's teeth chattered as if he had been dropped into ice water.

What is this guy?

It was a presence he had never felt from Burren, a direct descendant—nor from any of the older directs. Something dark clung to Raon, something that was not aura at all.

It feels like looking at an adult…

Not just any adult. It was the same cold sensation as meeting the eyes of the men who had become the pillars of the house.

"Uaaagh!"

"P-please!"

Raon smiled as he closed in, and the collaterals' teeth clacked together as if they had met the reaper himself.

Thud. Thud-thud.

His fists found them before they could even scream. They curled in on themselves like slugs.

"You beat them quite thoroughly. For the first time, This King finds you agreeable."

I'll take that as a compliment.

Raon worked the collaterals over thoroughly enough to draw Wrath's admiration—and he did it by picking, unseen, only the places where the pain would be worst.

"Ghhk!"

"Uaaagh…"

The collaterals could no longer even look him in the eye. They only huddled smaller, like shrimp stranded on dry land.

"P-please, stop…"

"We're sorry!"

"Urgh!"

Raon made sure they could not even look at his feet before he finally stood.

"What we did today was a conversation between peers. Right?"

"Y-yes!"

"Th-that's right!"

"And you won't go around talking about a conversation between peers. Will you?"

"O-of course not!"

"Absolutely not!"

Crain and the collaterals, desperate not to be hit again, nodded so fast their heads might have come off.

"Then we should wrap things up before we end this conversation."

"W-wrap up?"

"What does that mean…"

"Who put you up to this? Who sent you after me? Burren?"

"Uh…"

"What? N-no, it wasn't—"

The collaterals shook their heads.

"Then who?"

"Y-Young Master Burren never gave us any orders."

"Yes. He actually told us not to. We just…"

"Is that so?"

Raon gave a short laugh. Their faces were too frantic for a lie. Burren really had nothing to do with this.

So he's not completely rotten.

Burren clearly disliked him, and his mouth was foul—but he didn't seem to be irredeemable trash.

"If you don't want another conversation with me tomorrow, you'd best stay out of my way."

"Yes!"

"Of course!"

"W-we won't even step on your shadow!"

Raon listened to their answers and turned away. He was about to leave the alley when a chime sounded in his mind.

Ding.

A soft landing.

Rimer dropped into the corner of the alley Raon and the collaterals had just left.

"Hoh."

He watched the collaterals limp away, then clicked his tongue with a little smack of his lips.

Now that was worth watching.

He had been killing time the way he always did, and he had stumbled onto an excellent show.

The more I see of him, the stranger he gets.

The Raon he had watched today was nothing like the pitiful invalid Glenn and Sylvia had described.

A genius, then?

Raon had never learned martial arts. Rimer had been told the boy had never hit anyone, and had never been hit. The movements he had just shown said otherwise.

He had slipped the first punch by the smallest possible margin and driven his own fist in immediately after. The second and third, he had finished before his opponents could even decide what to do, striking the vitals and ending it in a single exchange. There was a roughness to it, yes—but it was not the fist-work of someone in his first fight.

Rimer had thought the boy's willpower was the remarkable thing. It seemed there was talent for martial arts in him as well.

Blood will tell, I suppose.

Rimer pictured Raon beating the collaterals and then turning their own words around to threaten them, and a quiet laugh escaped him.

Glenn had been like that too, back when Rimer had still believed the world was small and that he himself was the strongest in it. Glenn had looked ordinary—until he stepped forward, and then no one alive could match him.

Rimer had spent his life looking down on humans, and even he had been moved enough to follow the man. That said all that needed saying about what kind of person Glenn had been.

And besides…

The way Raon had taken the collaterals' words and used them as a threat looked even more like Glenn.

"An unfathomable talent, nestled in among the very finest…"

Rimer tapped the ground lightly with his foot, as if playing a piano.

The corner of his mouth curved up, slow and pleased.

At the dormitory entrance, an instructor handed Raon a key. He followed the number to Room 405.

It was a generous private room, not so different from his own back at the Annex. The bed looked soft, and there was space enough to cultivate.

All right.

He finished looking around and sat on the edge of the bed, then called up the message he had seen a moment ago.

A message appeared: Wrath was satisfied—and a stat had gone up with it.

So I can raise my stats this way too?

It wasn't only enduring Wrath's interference that produced results. Satisfying him seemed to generate stats as well.

Except—

"A delusion! This King is not satisfied! It is still not enough! This King would only be satisfied if you took their heads!"

Judging by the tantrum, the message had gone through whether Wrath liked it or not.

"And where, exactly, have those stats been coming from?!"

Wrath didn't seem to know the source of the extra points either.

"You don't know either? For something that's supposed to be your power, you sure don't know much."

"Do you not realize this is happening because you stole what belongs to This King?!"

"So you don't know. That's what I said."

"Ghhhk…"

Wrath's voice shook, as if every scrap of good humor from a moment ago had been scraped away.

"Very well. This King shall go and find out. Wait here."

With that, Wrath's presence vanished. The bracelet remained on Raon's wrist, but the soul inside it seemed to have flown off somewhere. He waved his hand back and forth. Nothing answered.

"Quiet, for once."

Raon lowered his hand. He took advantage of Wrath's silence to get ready to wash, and headed for the bath on the fourth floor.

He bathed quickly and came back to his room. Without even drying his hair, he sat down on the floor.

Looking at it now, he's a goose that lays golden eggs.

He glanced at the flower bracelet on his wrist and gave a short laugh. Stats for earning recognition, or for enduring interference—it was practically free.

He had the Ring of Fire and his water-attribute resistance. There was no chance of losing to Wrath. Every angle came up in his favor.

Might as well cultivate before he gets back.

Holding on to that pleasant mood, Raon closed his eyes to circulate the Ring of Fire.

A low, gathering hum.

He had just drawn his focus together and was about to begin when—

"Ghhhk!"

"Back already?"

Raon clicked his tongue and opened his eyes. Wrath, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠still bound to his wrist, was trembling violently.

"You thief!"

"Thief?"

"You were stealing the power This King left in his true body!"

True body?

Come to think of it, Wrath had called himself a king of somewhere, and referred to himself as This King. Raon hadn't considered it important enough to remember.

"The Demon Realm! This King was a monarch of the Demon Realm!"

Is that so.

He wasn't particularly interested, so he gave a small nod.

A grinding of teeth came from Wrath.

"What kind of answer is that? You dung fly who leeches power from This King. Kneel and pay homage."

"You weren't even trying to give it to me. Why should I be grateful?"

"Ghhhk…"

Wrath had nothing to say to that. He only groaned.

"Your insolence truly pierces the heavens."

"Not really."

Raon shook his head. He had never thought of it that way. Wrath had spent a lifetime being worshipped; he simply couldn't endure even a little firmness.

"At present, This King's body is connected to you. That is why the status window's abilities are being transferred to you."

Hmm…

"And so This King has a proposal."

"A proposal?"

"Let us make a wager. If you win, This King shall hand over the stats. But if you lose, you will take This King's wrath."

Wrath's voice was packed with the same fury and resentment as the day they had first met.