The Assessment Ceremony
Cradled in Sylvia's arms, Raon left the Annex for the first time and set out for the main estate of House Zieghart.
So that's the main house.
It was already visible in the distance. The building rose so high it seemed to meet the sky itself, and even from this far away its breadth was too vast to take in at a single glance. The scale was such that calling it a house would have been absurd. It was a castle.
Fitting for the rulers of the North.
Though House Zieghart was a single family, it held more territory and military might than most kingdoms. There was a reason it stood as one pillar of the Six Kings.
And they all live in there, don't they?
Helen had told him that every direct descendant besides Sylvia and himself lived around the Lord's Palace in the main estate. There was surely a reason Sylvia lived apart in the Annex, but no one had seen fit to explain it.
The Assessment Ceremony, huh.
Raon swept his gaze over the Lord's Palace rising at the heart of the main estate and turned the day's event over in his mind.
They really will make a ceremony out of anything.
A child's skull, open toward the heavens at birth, began to close around the age of four—and from that moment on, the talent for mana they possessed would never change. Gathering the children whose skulls had closed and measuring the extent of that talent was the entire purpose of today's Assessment Ceremony.
Whatever it says about me, it doesn't matter.
Even if his present talent proved wretched, the Ring of Fire would raise his body and his sensitivity to mana to their absolute peak. Innate talent was a story that had nothing to do with him.
"Raon."
He had been slowly circulating the Ring of Fire when Sylvia lifted him a little higher. He glanced aside and found they had already arrived before the main estate.
"Mama doesn't care what you do, Raon. All I want is for you to grow up healthy."
"Okay. I got it."
He gave her a bright, empty smile, the picture of a child who understood nothing.
"Our son really is the cutest!"
She started nuzzling her face against his cheek again. Once she got like this, he wouldn't be able to move for a good five minutes.
"Ahem. Lady Sylvia."
"Ah—sorry!"
Helen's pointed cough snapped her back to her senses. It was a genuine relief that she had come along.
"Let's go in. We're going to be a little late."
"Yes."
Still holding him, she stepped into the Lord's Palace.
Hah.
Raon narrowed his eyes as he took in the people inside.
The level here is high.
Perhaps because this was the main estate—and the Lord's Palace, no less—there was not a single ordinary person in the building. It wasn't only the warriors. Even the eyes of the attendants and maids held a trained, martial gleam.
"We'll be there soon. Just hold on a little longer."
"Okay."
Raon walked the central corridor of the first floor with Sylvia. At its end stood an iron door so massive a giant could have passed through it without ducking—the entrance to the Audience Chamber, where today's ceremony would be held.
"Sylvia Zieghart, Raon Zieghart, Helen Carbin. Confirmed."
The warrior guarding the Audience Chamber shifted into a formal stance and opened the door.
The iron groaned, a heavy sound like metal being wrenched out of true—and another world opened beyond it.
Radiance in five brilliant colors poured down from the ceiling, and the golden walls were lined with ornaments whose worth could not even be guessed at. This was a place that made the jaw drop at the sheer extravagance of everything in sight: the Audience Chamber, where one could meet Glenn, the Patriarch of House Zieghart.
The door boomed shut—and every gaze in the room struck Raon like an arrow.
"Sylvia? Then that child is Sylvia's?"
"What kind of toddler has a face like that…"
"Blonde hair. Red eyes."
"He's small. I heard he was sick—so it was true?"
"He inherited a loser's blood. Of course he turned out like that."
"Not a loser. Call him what he is—a dropout."
Strangers turned their interest on Raon. None of it was kind.
In this young body—no, because of this young body—Raon could feel every drop of the rancid emotion they were hurling at him.
"To think even a brat like that would be allowed into the Audience Chamber."
"Does a dropout's child even need to go through the Assessment Ceremony?"
"Right? It's beneath the occasion."
He had no idea what they meant by failure or dropout, but they were openly slandering Sylvia and him both.
Tch…
Raon flexed his small fist. Being called small himself didn't bother him in the slightest. Listening to them curse Sylvia, though, made his chest grow tight.
"It's all right, Raon. Just look at Mama."
Even after being called a loser and a runaway, she smiled at him.
This woman is strong.
Sylvia was strong of heart. Her gentle voice settled the unrest in his chest.
So those are the direct descendants.
Composure restored, Raon swept the interior of the Audience Chamber—and his eyes stopped on the dais.
Seven people sat in chairs of a deep, burning red. The aura wrapped around them was of an entirely different order from the people below, and they looked down on the hall as if it already belonged to them.
A different class altogether.
If the collaterals below were foxes and wolves, the direct descendants on the dais were dragons that had already ascended to the heavens, radiating a presence so immense it filled the air. They did not open their mouths the way the collaterals had—but they looked down at Raon and Sylvia as if inspecting trash.
Enemies, every last one of them.
He was thinking what a thoroughly rotten family this was when Sylvia headed not for the dais, but below it—to the very last seat at the end of the row.
Strange.
Questions piled up from every direction.
Ordinarily, an unbridgeable wall stood between a family's direct line and its collaterals. Direct descendants picking a fight was one thing, but collaterals openly baiting one was bizarre. On top of that, Sylvia lived apart, and she had not been permitted to take a seat on the dais. Direct descendant or not, she was clearly being discriminated against for some reason.
But why?
Runaway. Dropout. Perhaps she had lost a duel, or a battle.
He was still turning over the reason for Sylvia's treatment when the warriors stationed at the Audience Chamber's doors slammed their spears into the floor.
The rightful lord of House Zieghart, who reigns over the North.
Patriarch Glenn Zieghart now enters!
With those words, the enormous iron doors of the Audience Chamber swung wide.
A crushing wave of presence rolled through the air until it seemed to tremble—and Glenn Zieghart revealed himself.
His appearance alone made gravity grow heavier. Raon's heart clenched. A tension thick enough to choke the breath from his lungs ran down his spine.
"We greet the Patriarch!"
The dragons who had been looking down from the dais and the wolves who had been baring their teeth below dropped to their knees as one.
Those footsteps.
With the same hard, measured tread Raon had heard five years ago, Glenn Zieghart entered the hall. Absolute presence pressed down on the entire Audience Chamber as he took his seat upon the golden throne raised at the center of the dais.
"Begin."
He flicked a finger, and a sword surged up from the center of the Audience Chamber—a colossal stone blade that would have looked oversized even in a giant's hands.
So that's the Assessment Sword.
The blade was a thousand years old. Place a hand upon it, and it would read the mana talent of whoever touched it. Using that power to judge the children's gifts was the true nature of today's ceremony.
"First—Burren Zieghart."
At the officiant's call, a boy of about six with green hair rose from the second row of the dais.
"Please place your hand upon the sword."
He descended from the platform, and the master of ceremonies pointed to the stone blade. Burren nodded and set his hand upon it.
A deep hum rolled out. Green light bloomed from Burren's fingertips and swallowed the entire sword, and a dense wind stirred near the end of the hilt.
"Ohh!"
"Wind! It's wind!"
"The whole blade is shining—the quality of his mana is of the highest grade!"
"Talent worthy of Lord Karoon's son!"
"Congratulations!"
The collaterals standing below the dais sent their applause and cheers toward the middle-aged man seated ahead of Burren.
"A fine attribute, well suited to a swordsman. From now on, concentrate on sensing the wind."
"Yes, sir!"
Glenn nodded, and Burren broke into a smile as bright as a sunflower turning toward the sun before returning to his seat.
"Next—Runaan Sullion, of the vassal house Sullion."
"Yes."
A silver-haired girl seated at the far right of the dais rose quietly to her feet.
The vassal house Sullion, is it.
Like nobles serving a king, the vassal houses were the great Northern families that followed House Zieghart. Sullion stood as their representative, which was apparently why she had been seated on the dais with the direct line.
The girl called Runaan approached the stone sword with indifferent eyes and laid her hand upon it.
A sharp, ringing chime. The moment her hand met the blade, a silver radiance like melted moonlight surged from the blunt tip. The light filled the edge, overflowed it, climbed the hilt, and laid a coat of silver frost across the entire sword.
"Frost? And over the whole blade?"
"Talent on the same level as young master Burren…"
"There's a reason Sullion is Sullion."
"Another genius born to House Sullion."
Unlike with Burren, however, the cheers and applause were muted. There seemed to be a rivalry between the vassal houses and the collaterals.
"You possess a fine attribute. Hone it as sharp as a blade, and there will be no energy you cannot pierce."
Glenn Zieghart nodded to Runaan as well.
"Thank you."
Without any great change in expression, Runaan bowed her head, then hopped back to her seat like a cat.
After that, two more children of the direct line and a great many from the collaterals and vassal houses placed their hands upon the stone sword. Not one of them possessed talent to match Burren or Runaan.
Now I see.
Raon flicked a finger. Watching the others' assessments, he had grasped what counted as good and what counted as poor.
The purity of mana is how far the light travels along the blade. The attribute shows itself at the end of the hilt.
When the quality of the mana was exceptional, the entire sword flared the way it had for Runaan and Burren. Special attributes, it seemed, could be read through the hilt.
"Last—Raon Zieghart. Please come forward."
"Let's go, Raon."
"Okay."
He nodded, and Sylvia smiled brightly as she lifted him.
"You saw what the other children did, right? Just do the same thing."
She set him down before the stone sword and reached out herself, as if to show him how.
"Okay."
He answered shortly and looked at the blade.
It won't show well.
The Ring of Fire had reached two stars, but a terrifying amount of cold still lingered in his mana circuits. Given the present state of his body, he would not be able to unfold a light as brilliant as the other children's.
He let out a slow breath and reached for the stone sword.
A deep pulse. The moment his hand met the blade, a ripple spread through his heart like a pebble dropped into a pond. The small beat swelled beyond his chest and resonated through his entire body.
What is this?
He was about to pull his hand away from that strange sensation when the world before his eyes flashed brilliant white.
A golden-haired man stood clad in silver armor.
Before him, monsters beyond counting surged forward like a tidal wave.
Upon a blade of piercing beauty, golden flames roared to life.
He brought the fire-wreathed sword down like a thunderbolt.
In that instant, golden fire erupted from the earth and swallowed the world.
What is this…
It was clearly an illusion, and yet the sensation was so vivid that cold sweat beaded on his forehead.
He couldn't even breathe properly. His hand was trembling when the man raised his sword. Golden fire climbed a blade so beautiful it ached to look at. The man brought that flame-wreathed edge down like a bolt of lightning—and in that instant, gold fire surged from the earth and covered the world.
He shut his eyes against the golden flames that had filled his entire field of vision. When he opened them, the world had changed again, and a message hung before his eyes.
Acquiring Ring of Fire (2-Star).
Failed to acquire ???.
Insufficient achievement.
He was tilting his head at the incomprehensible messages when light began to rise from the stone sword.
A deep hum. The light climbed vigorously, then lost its strength and stopped in the middle of the blade.
There was no special ability, as the others had shown. No high purity. It was a talent that fell far short of even the collaterals, let alone the direct line.
"It's over already?"
"It didn't even make it halfway?"
"Kahahaha! I've never seen one that weak!"
"The quality of the mana is poor, and it's a blank white—no ability at all."
"Nothing to look at except the face."
"I suppose even the God of Martial Arts doesn't watch over a runaway's child."
The direct descendants watching the ceremony frowned as if the whole thing were pathetic. The collaterals laughed in his face.
Glenn, who had offered brief advice to every direct descendant and collateral before this, did not open his mouth.
"It's all right, Raon. You did well."
Sylvia gathered him into her arms with the same smile she always wore, and Helen, who had drawn close before he noticed, bit her lip and covered his ears.
Raon let out a low breath.
Contempt was familiar. He had been raised as a dog rather than a human being and brainwashed on top of it; he had discarded things like feelings a long time ago. Criticism and insult were nothing he couldn't accept.
This body was only here to take what it needed and leave. He had intended not to care what happened in this place.
Sylvia and the maids had treated him as real family, but that resolve had not changed.
And yet now, his mood sank in a way he could not explain.
It wasn't only him. Watching those people sneer at Sylvia and Helen as well sent a jolt through his chest, sharp as a shock of current.
Good.
Raon clenched his molars. Sylvia and the maids were the first people who had ever treated him as a human being.
He vowed then that he would teach the direct descendants and collaterals who mocked them just how worthless innate talent truly was.
"I've attended every Assessment Ceremony, and I've never seen a level that low."
"Is he even really a Zieghart?"
"All the talent Sylvia had is gone too. Aside from the blonde hair and red eyes he shares with the Patriarch, there's nothing to look at."
He memorized the face of every last one of them who ran their mouths as if they had a right to.
"Enough."
Glenn's single, ice-cold word froze the entire Audience Chamber.
"The Assessment Ceremony is over. All of you, leave."
"Patriarch?"
"Must I say it again?"
"Everyone, disperse."
Karoon Zieghart, Glenn's second son, rose from his seat, and the others took the hint and filed out of the Audience Chamber—muttering curses at Raon and Sylvia under their breath, of course, just quietly enough not to be heard.
In less than five minutes, the only people left in the Audience Chamber were its master, Glenn Zieghart, and his chief butler, Roen.
"It couldn't be helped, I suppose."
Glenn looked at the Assessment Sword standing in the center of the hall and nodded, his face unreadable.
"Patriarch…"
Roen was just stepping toward him when it happened.
A sharp crack.
Light surged from the lower half of the Assessment Sword, overflowed the blade, and flooded all the way to the end of the hilt.
"Golden flames?"
For the first time, a storm swept through Glenn Zieghart's eyes.