The Unyielding Flame
Raon Zieghart opened his eyes slowly. A smile touched his lips at the scorching energy that had taken firm root in his aura core.
At last.
He had forced his way through Wrath's violent interference and created the aura of the Cultivation of Ten Thousand Flames—and not just any aura. The mass of it was far larger, and far more refined, than he had ever expected.
And the Cultivation of Ten Thousand Flames isn't all of it.
Beside that aura, which sat like magma packed into a perfect sphere, a cold had gathered as well—a cold as if he had hauled a glacier up from the North Sea. It was an accidental byproduct, born in the moment he used the charcoal kiln's heat to drive Wrath's frost back.
So this is how a disaster turns into a blessing?
The aura of Ten Thousand Flames was more than twice the size he had anticipated, and a frost aura had formed right beside it. The price of staking his life and enduring that savage agony had come back to him far beyond anything he had imagined.
"Hooo."
Raon soothed his hammering heart and looked at the messages floating before his eyes.
The Cultivation of Ten Thousand Flames had climbed to 2-Star the instant it was formed.
I knew it would.
The energy settled in his aura core had been so much greater than expected that he had already known it would vault him straight to a 2-Star achievement.
I should be able to make the flower bloom right away.
The Single Flower—which was also the Single Flame. A technique available from the moment the art reached 2-Star. He felt as though he could use that power immediately.
A smile of anticipation was still on his face when the second wave of messages rose.
Two strands of cold from the Curse of Bitter Cold have melted away.
Constitution Inferior Stamina has disappeared.
The melted cold has condensed, creating the trait Bitter Frost.
Having received Wrath's overwhelming cold, Bitter Frost has reached 2-Star.
"Oh."
The sound escaped him on its own. Two strands of the Curse of Bitter Cold had melted away, and Inferior Stamina had vanished. That alone would have been remarkable—but the real prize sat beneath it.
The cold in his mana circuits had gathered and become a trait called Bitter Frost. The frost aura sitting beside the aura of Ten Thousand Flames was precisely that.
Frost, huh…
The truth was, he had tried to take in the cold in his mana circuits rather than expel it for one reason only: to raise his water-attribute resistance. A reward he had never even imagined—Bitter Frost—left him pleased and a little thrown all at once.
He had not even finished parsing the contents when the third wave of messages appeared.
The messages appeared, and his stats rose with them. A hot rush of exhilaration swept once more through a body and mind that had swollen and then contracted.
Is this a dream?
He had only meant to learn the Cultivation of Ten Thousand Flames. Instead he had 2-Star flames, 2-Star frost, and a rise in every stat besides. Thanks to Wrath's interference, he had reached in a single stroke a realm that should have taken years of training.
He was dismissing the messages with a smile when a strangled voice burst out of Wrath.
"You goddamn—!"
"What the hell are you?! How could you possibly overcome that?!"
Even the lofty tone Wrath usually put on was gone. He was, quite literally, exploding with rage.
You said it wouldn't work on me. Nothing you do will matter.
Raon waved a hand, putting on a show of swagger.
"This makes no sense! This doesn't make any sense! Even when This King was in the Demon Realm, This King never suffered such humiliation. How can something like this—"
Give it up already.
He was playing at ease, but a moment ago he had truly thought he was going to die. He had only survived because, for three months, he had walked those charcoal kilns and learned to read the energy around him.
I'll have to be careful.
Today had made it certain. However much they had grown a little closer, Wrath was unmistakably an enemy. He could never afford to let that creature glimpse a weakness or a secret.
"A-are you all right?"
While Wrath was still trembling, Vulcan came closer. The old smith's pupils were shaking as if they might leap from his head.
"I'm all right."
Raon rose. With his stats increased and two kinds of aura newly formed, his body felt light as a feather.
"Then you obtained it?"
Vulcan's voice was low, but his lips were still trembling.
"Yes. Thanks to you."
Raon nodded deeply. With the aura generated in his core, strength seemed to overflow no matter what he did.
"So I should apologize. The kiln collapsed because of me."
He pointed at the ruined charcoal kiln. That something so solid had come apart like that was his doing.
"It's fine."
As Raon bowed his head in apology, Vulcan clapped him on the shoulder and walked toward the kiln.
"If there's no problem, that's all that matters. A charcoal kiln can always be built again… Hm?"
He had been inspecting the wreckage with a faint smile when his eyes flew wide as lanterns.
"This is…"
He rummaged through the fallen kiln and, near the firebox, lifted three pieces of charcoal that glittered gold in his tongs.
What is that?
Raon had seen white charcoal and black charcoal, but never charcoal that shone with a color like that.
"Ah!"
He remembered. When they first met, Vulcan had said he was trying to make not white charcoal or black charcoal, but Gold Charcoal. Looking at that golden light, this had to be it.
"It seems the stroke of fortune wasn't yours alone."
"Ah."
"This is Gold Charcoal. A master's charcoal—heat stronger than white charcoal, lasting power better than black charcoal."
Vulcan set the charcoal, still shedding golden heat, down on a steel plate.
"I've spent more than ten years trying to make this charcoal, and to succeed like this… You never can tell with life."
He gazed at the Gold Charcoal with a face full of wonder.
"It's thanks to you. Thank you."
"I didn't really do anything."
"Every time you cultivated, the kiln's flames surged, and life sprang up in the fire with your breathing. I'm just an ignorant old man who's held nothing but a hammer his whole life, but I can tell what you did. This is thanks to you."
Raon was about to insist again that he had done nothing when Vulcan went on.
"What is your goal?"
"My goal?"
He could not answer at once. He did not know why the question had been asked, but the gravity in Vulcan's eyes made it feel as though he had to.
A goal…
As he had sworn while cultivating, what waited at the end of the road was, of course, revenge against Derus. But what mattered most right now was Sylvia. He wanted her to live happily.
And for that, he needed not a monstrous kind of strength, but a strength that would never break, never fall, no matter the situation. It was the same logic as the unquenchable flame he had grasped when he fixed his image of fire.
"I want to become a swordsman who will not break—not for anyone, and not in any situation."
"Will not break? That's not something that should come out of a brat's mouth."
Vulcan gave a short laugh. It was not mockery. It sounded closer to delight.
"Raon Zieghart."
It was the first time he had spoken Raon's name. It felt like Vulcan's own form of recognition.
"How many years until you can have a personal sword?"
"I'm not certain, but I expect it will take about three to five years."
For a warrior of House Zieghart to receive not a standard-issue blade but a sword of his own, he had to finish basic training and pass the swordsman's examination. It took roughly three to five years.
"I see."
Vulcan muttered that he could hold out that long.
"When you've forged that unyielding heart, come find me. I'll save these fellows for that day."
He gave the Gold Charcoal on the steel plate a careful little shake.
"Are you saying you'll make me a sword? I thought you had retired."
"Un-retiring is a fairly common thing."
Vulcan smiled faintly. The wrinkles that had been full of fatigue and hollowness when they first met seemed to fill with life.
"Don't die."
He waved lightly and started down the mountain. It was a rather slight farewell for three months of facing each other day after day—but it was just like him.
"Mm."
With the sunlight at his back, Vulcan looked thirty years younger than the man Raon had first seen.
Well. That worked out.
Raon opened his hand, and a crimson flame flared up like a snake's tongue. The aura of the Cultivation of Ten Thousand Flames. Because it had been 2-Star from the start, he did not even need to wrestle it into obedience. The fire followed his will perfectly.
He closed his fist. The flames vanished, leaving only a thin thread of heat.
This time… Hm?
He was about to draw up the Bitter Frost when he felt a presence so faint it sat in the tree to his right. It was small enough to be a mountain bird or some little woodland creature—but Raon knew exactly who it was.
"You can come out now."
He looked up into the tree and dusted off his palms. He held his gaze there, and from a stretch of branches that had held nothing at all, Rimer dropped like a monkey.
"Eh—you knew I was here?"
He scratched the back of his head and offered an awkward smile.
"I only noticed just now."
"Tsk. I figured. I was so startled when I saw the fire."
Rimer clicked his tongue. Clear astonishment still lingered in his green eyes.
"Have you been watching the whole time?"
"No. Today's the first."
He was smiling, but the usual ease was not there. It was the face of a child caught in a lie.
Well. That tracks.
Rimer was not the kind of man who would dump a trainee here and simply walk away. He had clearly been keeping watch, steadily, for the past three months.
"Thank you."
Raon bowed his head.
"I said it wasn't like that. Honestly."
Rimer scrubbed at his hair and looked away.
Strange.
Told thank you, he did not look pleased—he looked embarrassed. This elf, too, was a long way from ordinary.
"A bit late, but you've got aura now. Congratulations."
"Thank you. Though I don't particularly think it was late."
Raon unfurled a red flame along his fingertip. Rimer's face twisted at the sight.
"Using it the instant you created it…"
He let out a sigh, looking thoroughly fed up.
"Isn't that normal?"
"You're the first bastard I've seen use aura the moment he learned it."
Rimer muttered that people usually took anywhere from a week to a month before they could handle aura with any real skill.
"Head down now. You need to get there before you're late for training."
He gave Raon's shoulder a couple of pats and smiled.
"Aren't you coming, Instructor?"
"I'm going to tidy that up first."
He pointed at the charcoal kiln, which had slumped into a heap. The flames were gone, but the heat still lingered.
"I'll help."
"No need."
Rimer shook his head and caught Raon as he started to turn away.
"I'm an instructor, so it's fine if I'm late. A trainee can't be."
"……"
Raon's face said, quite plainly, that that was complete nonsense. Rimer fanned him off and ignored it.
"Anyway, I'll handle all of it. Go on down."
"…Understood. Thank you."
Raon bowed once more and started down the mountain.
"Hoo."
Once he had confirmed Raon was gone, Rimer looked at the charcoal kiln. Vulcan had built it from the start so the fire would not spread; there was no real need to touch the wreckage.
That was not why he had stayed.
"You can come out now."
The same way Raon had called to him, Rimer looked up and called to the man above.
The empty air rippled without a sound, and a blond old man in a black greatcloak descended. Glenn Zieghart.
"Did you enjoy the show?"
"……"
Glenn said nothing. He studied the collapsed kiln and the place where Raon had been sitting.
"You came every single day because you were worried about your grandson. I imagine your heart's a little lighter now."
"I did no such thing."
Glenn shook his head and lifted a finger.
A low hum answered him. At his gesture, the wreckage of the fallen kiln gathered into one place.
The debris twisted in on itself like rose vines, compressed into a sphere—and then simply vanished. If not for the black scorch on the ground, no one would have believed a kiln had ever stood there. The aura control was staggering.
"Thanks to devouring all the heat inside the charcoal kiln, the quantity and purity of his aura is no joke. And he operated the aura the moment it settled. As expected, his talent is extraordinary."
"That is not all of it."
Glenn looked down the mountain path Raon had taken and lowered his eyes.
South of House Zieghart there is a village where the lights never go out. The city of smiths. Mirtan Village, where blacksmiths swing their hammers day and night.
In the innermost part of the village sits a workshop shaped like a ball. Fire had come to that smithy, which had not seen a flame in more than ten years.
"What the—! There's a fire in the former village head's workshop!"
"The village head—no, the former village head is back!"
"Back? He retired!"
"Didn't the old man go home to his hometown?"
Smiths who had been working, smiths who had been sleeping, even smiths who had been about to leave on a job—every last one of them crowded toward the former village head's workshop.
And they asked him why he had returned.
"I made a promise."
Vulcan—former head of Mirtan Village, a legend among blacksmiths—brushed the dust from the forge.
"I have to get my body ready for that day."
He took up his hammer, stoked the fire, and laughed as if a weight had come off his chest.