Thirteen Chances
Thirteen Chances
Inside the mansion. The Northern Grand Duke's study, where not a single ray of light entered.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
In that dark space, only the sound of fingers drumming against a table filled the air.
It went on for a long while.
"What do you intend to do?"
A shadow that had been standing in the darkness stirred.
Hansen, the Northern Grand Duke's right hand.
He knelt before the Grand Duke.
"Everything is prepared. Most of the nobles are gathered in the training grounds. With so many Awakened Ones present, we should easily be able to gather thirty years' worth of Blood Cultivation."
"Thirty years, is it..."
"If the absorption goes well, you will place within the top five in a single leap."
At the very peak of the Blood Rock Sect's law-of-the-jungle pyramid were the thirteen exalted beings—the 13 Seats.
To be counted among the top five of that group carried a special significance.
It meant finally gaining an audience with the Blood Rock Cult Leader, which was precisely why Northern Grand Duke Richard Pierce had thrown his lot in with the Blood Rock Sect in the first place.
The Grand Duke's eyes briefly flared a bloody crimson.
He gently closed them.
A chilling energy radiated outward from him.
When he opened his eyes again, they had returned to their natural blue.
"Did you survey the training grounds?"
"The child is there."
"Are you speaking of Lord Hermann? Shall I warn him off, pull him out so he isn't offered as a sacrifice?"
The Northern Grand Duke shook his head without a flicker of hesitation.
"No. Those children were raised for this from the start."
The Grand Duke, who referred to his own flesh and blood as 'those things,' was utterly frigid. Hansen was accustomed to it. If anything, he was more curious about what gave the Grand Duke pause.
"... Then you must be referring to the Blackangus bloodline."
"......"
The silence was his affirmation.
Hansen had known the Grand Duke took an unusual interest in the boy named Ian Blackangus. But he had not expected it to outweigh his concern for his own child.
The Northern Grand Duke asked:
"Can he reach the Blood Demon?"
"It seems unlikely."
"Then there's no need to go against the Seventh Seat, I suppose."
In the end, it all came down to the Seventh Seat's interest in Ian. Hansen asked carefully:
"The Seventh Seat... why that boy, specifically?"
"You don't need to know."
The Grand Duke's reply was ice.
◆
"Whoaaaaa!"
The semifinals.
The crowd erupted in thunderous cheers at Ian's spectacular victory.
"What is that! Look at the sheer flash of it!"
"I've never even seen anyone use basic magic like that!"
Not just the tournament participants—even the spectators possessed a certain baseline of knowledge.
And Ian was a far cry from the sort of "mage" they had in mind.
Typically, the mage types kept their distance and pursued only the most extreme damage with an air of arrogance.
But Ian's fighting style was something completely new.
He was an earth-attribute mage who fought up close, and his primary form of damage was physical.
Faced with such an entirely unheard-of style, excitement was inevitable.
On top of that, the spell Ian had aggressively used this match was the most basic skill in the earth-elemental tree: 'Soil Bulge.'
He had devoured a family's guardian knight with a magic meant for ten-year-olds whose talent was just budding. The cheers practically had no choice but to explode.
— Click.
Capturing Ian's image through a magic engineering lens, Schwab curled his lips into a grin.
'See? I told you that kid was built different.'
The high nobles seated in the very front row—the ones who had thoroughly dismissed both Schwab and Ian. He didn't need to turn around to know they had gone utterly silent.
'Serves them right.'
Schwab kept swallowing the cheers that threatened to burst out at Ian's performance.
Going forward, Ian Blackangus would be hailed as one of the empire's premier rising stars. But Schwab had no intention of immediately turning Ian's exploits into an article.
With skill like that, the rumors would spread by word of mouth even without journalistic help.
And the moment Ian became famous and all eyes were fixed on him.
'That's when I'll start releasing the story bit by bit—what really happened here.'
Doing it that way would make his genius shine all the brighter.
That also went for the reputation of Schwab himself, who had recognized that genius and covered him from the very beginning.
'At times like this, I really wonder if the gods are helping me out.'
To have coincidentally sat beside Ian on the trans-mountain train and cemented a friendship... He couldn't have asked for better luck.
.
Meanwhile.
"Th-that... that pathetic little bastard...!"
Count Limcreux's blood pressure had shot through the roof; his face was crimson as he ground his teeth.
Even knowing that Lord Hermann Pierce was seated right beside him, he couldn't stop the profanity from slipping out.
Of all people, it had to be their family's guardian knight.
He'd busted his ass finding a young, skilled fighter to win this tournament!
The money sunk into that bastard alone was hundreds of gold.
And now, in the mere semifinals, he was losing to some snot-nosed mage brat?
"Grrrrgh!"
While Count Limcreux hovered on the brink of a hypertension-induced stroke.
"......"
Hermann Pierce was silently looking down at the arena.
'Ian Blackangus.'
Ian, attending as the Third Princess's proxy, had given Hermann a strange, inexplicable feeling of unease.
The boy had the scent of someone concealing something.
He'd briefly set the doubt aside after watching him dance at the banquet.
— The next bout is...
"That would be me."
Hermann began his slow descent toward the training grounds.
◆
Watching Hermann's semifinal, Ian bit his lip lightly.
'I'm screwed.'
Hermann's appearance was unexpected.
The Grand Martial Tournament, as far as the story went, was only supposed to involve high-ranked knights of House Pierce, or at most Sharon Pierce.
Hermann was on an entirely different tier—too high to face in this tournament.
'Fanta X Aca's star ranks operated on a level system where climbing got exponentially harder in the later stages.
The same went for the knights.
From mid-4-Star onward, you were a Sword Expert—capable of wielding mana through your blade. From late-4-Star to 5-Star, where you could control sword energy at will, you were called a Sword Master.
Thus, once you reached 4-Star, even the gap between mid and late could be called enormous.
A worst-case scenario for the plan to win the tournament and appeal to Yergina.
Ian quietly observed the bout between Hermann Pierce and some other knight.
— Shk.
With a perfectly ordinary horizontal slash, Hermann casually bisected his opponent's wooden sword.
No—calling it "reduced to sawdust" would be more accurate.
The wooden fragments that fell were so fine they made no sound even striking the floor.
The opponent had clad his own weapon in mana, but the gap in strength was insurmountable.
The audience didn't even have time to cheer before Hermann's mouth opened.
"It seems you may come right up. I doubt there's any need to rest. You'd grow bored with a long wait."
His gaze pointed directly at Ian.
'As expected, a thoroughly unpleasant guy.'
Ian did not like that veiled cordiality. Not when he'd shaken his hand at their first meeting, playing at psychological warfare while subtly leaking magic. And not now, when he pretended to be considerate while sneering down at him.
The man's greasy, melting-ice slickness triggered an instinctive revulsion.
His words sounded polite, but the subtext was clear: someone like you, I can beat without resting.
'He's not wrong, given the gap between us.'
It was just that outwardly acting like a decent person while inwardly abusing and gaslighting anyone weaker—that personality got under Ian's skin.
Anyway.
He'd boldly declared he'd win the whole thing to seduce Yergina... This was more than a little awkward.
"I never imagined Lord Hermann would personally show his face at a tournament like this."
"The Grand Martial Tournament is, from the outset, a venue for exchanging discourse on the Pierce family swordsmanship with many masters. There were so many excellent participants this time that I had no choice but to step forward myself."
"Ah, is that so."
Playing the good guy again.
Ian barely restrained the urge to dig a finger in his ear.
Then he raised his wooden sword.
Meaning: shut up and fight.
"Ha ha ha."
Hermann lifted his sword with an oily laugh.
But despite his expression, an immense battle aura radiated from him.
'In-Life.'
Had he ever faced a late-4-Star opponent before?
Darkened Rina had been close to the early stages of that rank, perhaps.
The difference in rank felt vividly real.
If he fought with intent to kill, he wasn't without confidence.
However.
'This isn't a deathmatch.'
Above all, he couldn't afford to pour everything out here.
Hermann was nothing more than a mid-boss.
He had to conserve the strength to deal with the Northern Grand Duke.
Ian's mind began racing.
Just as he formulated the one plan that seemed even remotely feasible, and was about to activate [Leap]—
— Ssssssss.
Without warning, a shiver raked down his spine.
"...?"
Ian stopped in his tracks, blankly.
The sensation was far too chilling to ignore.
The feeling of one's very existence being denied by something.
As if his instincts were screaming.
— Sssssssssss.
Once more, that skin-crawling sensation swept through his body.
'... A wave?'
Yes. This was a kind of wave.
And its epicenter was the center of the training grounds.
Ian silently fixed his gaze there.
Droplets of blood had fallen.
He'd assumed it was just the aftermath of the earlier bouts.
'... Thirteen.'
Thirteen droplets of blood.
Ian knew exactly what that meant.
He took an involuntary step backward.
"Frightened, now that we've come this far?"
Hermann spoke up.
His face was composed, brimming with confidence. Ian was bewildered.
'A guy who's reached that level didn't feel this?'
Hermann was at the extreme late stage of 4-Star.
It was hard to believe someone like that couldn't sense this horrifying wave.
Then... was it an act?
No. Ian's gut told him.
That this was "something" being unleashed by a being far more vicious and elevated—someone who could refer to Hermann with a dismissive "that guy."
— Ssssssssssssss.
Again. That wave.
This time, it slithered over his skin like a crawling snake.
Ian urgently scanned his surroundings.
The bewildered faces of the audience staring at him.
None of them knew.
None of them could feel this sensation.
'Why only me...?'
Did that mean it was just an illusion?
The wave cycle accelerated.
This time it pierced through his skin and invaded his mana circuits.
That moment.
— Tzzzzt!
His Authority, Dishwashing, activated automatically.
An unmistakable signal that something was going very wrong.
"Shit."
Ian turned and ran.
He had no time to care about the murmurs around him.
Where was Danya?
His eyes caught a pair of twitching ears.
"Danya!"
He grabbed her hand.
"Wh-what's wrong, nya?"
"We have to get out of here. As fast as possible... Guh—!"
— Tzzzzzzzzt!
The wave collided with his Authority again.
A violent upheaval wracked the inside of his body.
"O-over there, Rina is here too, nya!"
"Rina! Just run!"
"Okay!"
The panicked faces in Ian's field of view registered.
If they stayed put, they'd all end up as sacrifices.
"Everyone, get out of here as fast as you possibly can!"
Shouting that, Ian grabbed Danya's and Rina's hands.
He intended to use 'Leap' right then and there..
Whether he could travel with multiple people, whether it would be safe—he didn't know, but this wasn't a situation for weighing options.
"Hold on tight."
Ian's body lifted lightly.
Just as he was about to launch forward with a crackle of light static—
— Tzzzzzzzzt!
The twelfth wave pierced through Ian's body.
His magical balance collapsed; the Leap failed, and he staggered.
"Damn it."
No more waves followed.
Instead.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
His heart pounded violently.
— Crrrrkkk.
A spine-chilling sound swelled behind him.
Ian turned and looked back.
— Crrrrrrrrkkkk!
Space was being swallowed by darkness and crumpled.
"... Richard, you senile, crazy bastard."
The profanity had barely left his mouth.
His vision went dark.