The Ugly Duckling (2)
The training room on the 40th floor.
Franc, who had more or less been dragged there, let out a pessimistic sigh.
"I don't know. I'm not sure I can manage in one day what I haven't managed in years."
"It's possible. In exchange, you'll have to trust me completely."
"...What exactly are you planning to teach me?"
"First, stand in a natural stance and close your eyes."
The natural stance meant standing still, releasing all tension from the body and stretching the limbs out straight. It had the drawback of a slower mana flow compared to a full lotus position, but it carried a corresponding advantage of its own.
Humans are, at their core, bipedal creatures.
Which meant that if you wanted to assess someone's habits and ingrained tendencies, studying this stance served better than a cross-legged posture.
"Like this?"
"Good. Now circulate mana through your entire body."
"......"
Eyes shut, Franc slipped into a state of deep concentration and slowly set his mana in motion.
Oscar watched him for a moment, then moved.
"Here, and here, and over this way..."
Having traced out more than a dozen points along Franc's mana circuits with his fingertip, he spoke.
"These are the sections where your mana bleeds out as it circulates."
"...!"
The eyelashes of the blindfolded Franc trembled.
After all, a flaw even he himself had never noticed had been pinpointed in a single stroke.
"When you have this many of them, your spellcraft can't help but lose polish."
"...If I fix them, can I reach Level 4?"
"Not a chance. This has nothing whatsoever to do with levels."
Truth be told, with enough talent, a mage could reach Level 4 even carrying habits an utter mess.
"As a matter of fact, 99.9% of mages never spare these things a second thought."
"Then why...?"
"But the 0.1% whom history has called great archmages — every last one of them, without exception, cared about this."
"...!"
What the very best insist upon always has a reason.
Oscar intended to address Franc's fundamental problems before the lesson proper began.
"From now on, commit everything I tell you to memory and practice it every morning."
As if reciting the answers to a mathematics problem, he began to enumerate the flaws in each circuit.
"The circuit I just pointed out is a sharp curve. The mana entering it moves too fast, so it crashes into the wall every time, and that collision bleeds off a massive amount of mana. Pay closer attention to your entry speed."
"Conversely, this section here is too slow. Push your mana through it more boldly and faster."
"This circuit has six entry lanes, so you need to split your mana into six streams. That's how you minimize loss while driving your speed to its maximum."
Franc could never have dreamed it.
How much what he was hearing right now was actually worth.
These were teachings that even a high-tier mage of considerable standing would struggle to pass on — the kind of insight only someone who had planted a flag atop a summit higher than anyone else's could ever offer.
"...Do I really have to mind every single one of these every time I cast?"
"Keep at it, and one day you'll do it as naturally as breathing."
Franc stared at Oscar as if beholding a monster, then clicked his tongue.
"This is why geniuses are... Fine, I've memorized everything you taught me."
Fortunately, Franc was sharp enough to memorize the material after only a single explanation.
Oscar nodded with a satisfied expression.
"Now then, shall we begin the real lesson?"
At those words, Franc started and opened his eyes.
"You mean that wasn't even the start?"
"I told you. This has nothing to do with levels."
Everything up to this point had merely laid the groundwork for becoming an excellent mage — the most basic framework, nothing more. With that scaffolding in place, Oscar's expression abruptly turned grave.
"Franc Sirius. I made myself clear before the lesson began, didn't I? That you would trust me completely."
"I did say that."
"Then show me. The magic you used fighting that swordsman at the herb field."
"...You saw that?"
Franc exhaled a long, deep sigh and hung his head.
"I'm sorry."
"Was the trust you promised a lie?"
"No, it's not that I don't trust you, it's just..."
Avoiding Oscar's gaze, the young man muttered in a shrinking voice.
"It scares me."
"...Scares you?"
Oscar's expression turned odd.
After all, there were generally only two reasons a mage came to fear his own magic.
"Does using it cause some serious side effect? Or is there some bad memory attached — the kind that leaves a trauma behind?"
"The latter."
Franc's shoulders slumped as he went on.
"I nearly died using that magic once."
"Explain in more detail. Only then can I figure out how to solve it."
"Ugh."
His face scrunched up, Franc touched a memory he didn't even want to recall.
Franc Sirius had believed himself a genius from childhood.
He had never once lost first place among his peers — not in any sport, not in any study.
"......"
Had he been born into any other house than the Sirius family, he would likely have lived out his days perfectly content with that talent.
Thwack!
"Ow!"
Struck on the crown of the head by a wooden sword, Franc lay collapsed on the ground as his six older siblings gathered around him. Ignoring the youngest, who had begun to bawl his eyes out, they simply talked among themselves.
"This is bad. The little one has no talent for the sword either. I hear he placed a mere fourteenth nationwide on the last mock examination."
"Good grief. Who would have thought the Sirius family would ever produce someone who missed first place in the entire empire...?"
"I'm worried. He wasn't the brightest to begin with, and now even his physical talent falls short."
Looking back, the only problem was his yardstick. Franc's two older brothers and his older sister were monsters whose genius was whispered of across the whole empire.
"The third son of the Sirius family? Ah, you mean that ugly duckling? Every other member of that family is exceptional, but the youngest is a touch behind. And it's not as if they picked him up off the street or anything."
Even when he overheard someone slandering him, he couldn't storm out and rage. He was terrified that he really might have been picked up off the street — terrified of facing that truth.
Even on the personality assessment that had swept the empire in a craze, his results came out different from everyone else's.
"How curious. Everyone in our household got the same result — except the youngest."
"Apparently, we are a breed of humans of outstanding ability, yet needlessly grave, lacking in flexibility and consideration, and hopelessly hidebound."
"Nonsense. This test is nothing but pseudo-science without a shred of solid evidence. Everyone should stop being taken in by it."
"Oh, and according to the test, the youngest has shallow, scattered interests, lacks perseverance, and is a coward."
"I knew it."
"Precisely as expected."
Shrinking smaller and smaller among his emotionally tone-deaf family, Franc had exactly one place to lean on.
Magic.
"...Fine. If that's how it's going to be, I'm going to the White Tower."
There, he intended to prove it, loud and clear — that while he might be the neglected leftovers at home, out in the world he was a man people called a genius.
But even in the White Tower, rumored far and wide to be in decline, there were three geniuses who outshone him.
This can't go on.
The gnawing anxiety, the dread of becoming a nobody — the restlessness that hounded him like a beast closing in for the kill eventually drove him to a dangerous thought.
What if I could turn not just part of my body, but all of it, into wind?
He knew full well how dangerous it was. But the future painted by an anxious mind was filled to the brim with hope that had no foundation whatsoever.
If it works out, wouldn't that be an absolute jackpot?
Famous newspapers would line up for interviews, invitations would pour in from every corner of high society. After that, he would become the mage who represented the White Tower, and of course his family would have to acknowledge him at last.
Above all, that sweet future sat there like a cookie placed within arm's reach. All he needed, he believed, was the single sliver of courage to stretch out his hand.
"...Huh?"
But accidents always come without warning.
The instant Franc succeeded in turning his lower body into wind, his mana slipped beyond his control.
"Wh-what's happening to me! Damn it!"
He thrashed and screamed, desperate to flee the training room, but it was no use. His legs no longer existed. Worse, his upper body was rapidly dissolving into wind as well.
"Hah— hah—"
The sensation that his soul was splitting into a thousand, ten thousand threads and burning away. The terror that his very existence would become wind and drift through this world forever. With nothing left of his body above the neck, he couldn't even breathe properly.
"...Franc? Franc!"
Had Tower Master Sasha not happened to be passing down the corridor at that very moment, he would have died that day. No — died wasn't quite the word. Erasure of existence would have been the truer term.
After that incident, Franc could never again use the rare-attribute magic that had been his sole pride.
"Every time I try to use it, my breathing goes ragged and I break out in a cold sweat."
Franc held out his trembling hands and smiled a bitter, self-mocking smile.
"Pretty pathetic, huh?"
To some, it would sound like the whining of a well-fed man. They would dismiss it as nothing more than the petty grumbling of a talented boy born with every advantage.
"My family's personalities are blunt as stone, but I know they're all good people deep down. It's just... I can't shake the feeling that I'm always on the outside of my own family. What am I supposed to do about that?"
"...I don't think you're pathetic. Everyone has their own circumstances."
Though honestly speaking, Oscar couldn't quite bring himself to feel full sympathy.
He himself had grown up an orphan, rummaging through trash cans in back alleys until by sheer chance he caught his master's eye — and seizing that bit of luck, he had become a mage. Countless mages had envied his genius-level talent like mountains, but he had crushed them all with skill, won them over with character, and climbed his way to the seat of Tower Master. He was the very specimen of human triumph.
They had simply been born and raised in different worlds, so empathy could only stretch so far.
"In any case, to sum up your story: you have a desire to be acknowledged by your family."
"Yeah."
"And so you want to become an exceptional mage, but the trauma from the accident is holding you back."
"That's right."
The fear that the magic would swallow him whole. That, precisely, was why Franc had never been able to properly wield Pungbaek (Wind Lord).
At the same time, Oscar nodded to himself.
So that's what it was.
It explained why this boy so often seemed short on self-esteem, or excessively hungry for recognition.
Having resolved his question, Oscar spoke up.
"By the way, you used it just fine when you fought that swordsman in the hills, didn't you?"
"That wasn't me using it. My life was on the line, so it activated on its own."
In other words, he couldn't use it deliberately. Oscar considered this for a moment, then asked.
"Describe the accident in more detail. Why did you nearly scatter into wind?"
"...All of a sudden, my mana slipped out of my control and went berserk."
The hands he'd sneaked a glance at were still trembling. He was doing his best to look composed, but a memory that terrified him on mere recall was bound to have that effect.
Well, no one alive is unafraid of the erasure of existence, after all.
Had even the Demon Army's proudest generals not wailed like infants before it?
Oscar, who knew that truth better than anyone, simply patted Franc on the shoulder first.
"Thank you. For sharing that secret with me."
"Well, I did say I'd trust you."
Franc turned his head slightly away and murmured under his breath.
"...Hearing someone say they need me — that's a first, so it feels kind of nice, too."
"Hmm? What was that?"
"Nothing. Forget you heard it."
Flustered, Franc changed the subject.
"So what am I supposed to do now? I don't have much confidence, but I'll do whatever you tell me."
"First, you should understand this: what you're dealing with is a problem mages run into far more often than you'd think."
"...Really?"
"Really."
Greed was always the culprit. The desire to knock upon the door of truth standing at some greater height — every mage alive carried that bomb tucked away in one corner of their heart.
"But the solution is surprisingly simple."
Oscar extended his index finger and pointed at Franc.
"Put simply, this whole mess stems from your mana control being insufficient. So we shore up that part. That's all."
"...Easy for you to say. But that's a matter of innate talent, isn't it?"
Mana control and perception were commonly called the Sixth Sense — the sense beyond the five. It was a domain you had to grasp by instinct, not by intellect. Just as hearing a sound with your ears or seeing something with your eyes is nothing you learn by being taught.
"Usually, yes. But there is a way to forcibly raise that ability."
Not a method available to everyone, of course. Even in the past, only a vanishing few had known of it, and those who succeeded with it could be counted on a single hand.
"...What are you suddenly doing?"
Tap, tap, tap!
Franc asked, watching Oscar abruptly begin drawing something on the training room floor.
"Me? I'm drawing a summoning circle."
"Summoning what? Don't tell me... you're not about to make me contract with some demon, are you?"
Oscar looked at Franc's thoroughly frightened face and snorted with laughter.
"Are you insane? Besides, those demon bastards wouldn't come even if I called."
One whiff of the scent his soul gave off and they'd wet themselves and bolt.
"Then... what exactly are you summoning?"
"A spirit."
Tap, tap!
Finishing the summoning circle to perfection, Oscar answered.
"Right now, I'm going to summon the wind spirit that we'll implant into your body."