The Power That Shatters a Hero
“W-wait…!”
Sacred Fire Dana let out a horrified shriek the moment she saw the hand reaching toward her. ‘What kind of mana is this…!’
Even at a glance, the sheer volume of mana was anything but ordinary. As an S-class hero known as Sacred Fire Dana, she had always been confident in her own mana reserves, but the amount gathering before her eyes had crossed the line by a ridiculous margin. The mana condensing in the small hand of a girl who had lived only half—no, barely a third—of her own lifespan was crackling with red sparks, screaming with its entire being that something was very, very wrong.
That was why Dana, forgetting this was supposed to be a test, poured every ounce of her power into reinforcing the barrier around her body. The translucent membrane made of sacred fire transformed, using all of her mana, into an opaque crimson wall. Its strength was enough to block even a missile. Dana breathed a small sigh of relief once the barrier had expanded to its maximum density before the girl’s fist could fully strike.
But Wilhelm, who had been secretly watching from the side, clicked his tongue inwardly.
‘That is not an attack you block. It is an attack you dodge…’
And Wilhelm’s prediction proved painfully accurate.
-CRACK.
“Huh?”
A faint crushing sound rang out. Dana stared blankly at the red barrier shattering and scattering like brittle glass, muttering as if she couldn’t comprehend what had just happened. Perhaps it was the shock of seeing a full-powered barrier from one of the 5 Greats—the pinnacle of this nation’s heroes—shatter in a single blow. She couldn’t react at all as the girl’s deceptively dainty fist slammed straight into her abdomen.
-BOOM!
With a sound like a drum being split open, Dana’s body flew across the room and crashed hard into the far wall.
*
“Huh?”
This was completely unexpected. No, this was beyond imagination. Didn’t they say that woman was one of the 5 Greats? In my memories, the 5 Greats were absurdly powerful heroes… Especially the Witch of Terrifying Flames, Dana. Wasn’t she considered one of the worst bosses in Cyber Psycho? Her highest difficulty patterns and an amount of mana that made the word “limitless” feel like an understatement—she was on a completely different level.
But… even if this was her younger days, was it really okay for the Witch of Terrifying Flames to get knocked out this easily?
I stared at my own fist in disbelief. From the far corner of the room came the sound of rustling.
“Ughhh… what the hell… bleeegh…”
The woman clutching her stomach and vomiting up the lunch she had just eaten was none other than Sacred Fire Dana. The sight of vomit dripping from her mouth made a look of disgust creep onto my face, but since my fist was the culprit behind that vomit, I quickly stiffened my facial muscles and maintained a blank expression.
“Are you okay?”
“Do I look okay…?”
She clearly did not. I had only asked out of politeness.
“Just how much mana did you condense… ugh… If I hadn’t blocked with my maximum barrier, I would’ve died…”
“Come on, aren’t you exaggerating? There’s no way one of the 5 Greats would die from a single punch, right?”
After all, even after going berserk she could tank a whole barrage of missiles and still be fine. There was no way she’d die from what was basically a kid’s punch. The fact that she was throwing up right now was probably because she had eaten lunch right before getting hit in the solar plexus.
When I let out a small chuckle, Dana’s eyes widened. But what could she say? This was clearly her own fault for eating before training. I felt completely justified, so I helped her up and brought her back to where we had been standing earlier. Once her body seemed to have recovered a bit, Dana straightened her posture and steadied her breathing.
“Haa… I feel a little better now. If I didn’t have regeneration, I really might have died…”
“You’re exaggerating again.”
“Exag—! …Never mind. Getting angry at a child is pointless… Anyway, I’ve roughly figured out your ability level.”
“Already?”
Dana kept pouting her lips as if she still felt wronged, but she didn’t forget her duty to teach me about my powers. She explained my current specs in an easy-to-understand way.
“Overall physical ability is about that of an average middle schooler. As for mana volume and output… surprisingly, it’s one stage higher than mine.”
“That much?”
“Yeah… It’s seriously ridiculous.”
Maybe it stung her pride that a seven-year-old girl had more mana than she did. She grumbled as she spoke.
‘I expected the mana volume since the nation is extracting it from her, but I didn’t think her output would be this high too.’
Instant output was a measure of how much mana could be used in a single strike. I knew that training mana efficiency could raise instant output, but I never imagined it could reach the level of the 5 Greats.
‘I thought it would be around A-rank at best…’
Was this what it meant to far exceed the creator’s expectations in terms of propulsion power?
While I was lost in those meaningless thoughts, Dana, who had been pondering something beside me, suddenly clapped her hands.
“Anyway, this decides the direction I’ll be training you in.”
With a little grunt, Dana stood up and dragged over one of the machines scattered around the room.
“What’s that?”
“This is a mana control training device. From now on, most of your training will revolve around this.”
Mana control… In the game, it was an effect that reduced mana consumption when using abilities. But… was it really necessary? The mana my ability produced was practically infinite, so wasting it freely shouldn’t matter at all. Did I really need training to reduce mana consumption? Wouldn’t it be far more helpful to train concentration to shorten casting time, or basic but extremely useful reflex training…?
“Hmm? You look like you don’t understand why we’re training this… Am I right?”
“Yes…”
When I answered shyly, she sat down and rested her chin on her hand.
“Well… First of all, Plea, you know that your mana is far greater than other people’s, right?”
“I know that much.”
“Then, do you also know that the more mana you have, the harder it becomes to control it delicately?”
“Huh?”
What was she talking about? Delicate control…? That never came up in the game.
“Looks like you really didn’t know. Human mana is like water stored in a dam. And an ability is like the sluice gate installed at the bottom of that dam. So here’s the question: If you want to release 100 liters of water, is it easier to open and close the gate on a small bathtub-sized dam, or on a massive dam?”
“Well… it’d be a bit easier on the small dam.”
“Correct. The water in a small dam has lower water pressure, so its force is weaker. But the water in a huge dam has insanely high pressure. If you close the gate even a little too late, instead of 100 liters you might waste 1,000 liters. And if you close it too quickly because you don’t want overflow, you might only release 10 liters.”
“I understand.”
The analogy was a little vague, but if I summarized what she was saying, it meant that because I had too much mana, there was a high chance my abilities would go out of control or fizzle during use.
‘This must be a change that happened when the game became reality…’
In the game, control training was only used to reduce mana consumption. That was it. But now that it had become reality, control training also lowered the chance of abilities going berserk or failing. The game system never had mechanics for abilities running out of control or misfiring in the first place.
When I nodded, she patted my head as if I had done something praiseworthy. I didn’t particularly mind. A man might have hated it, but when a beautiful woman strokes your head, there’s no way it feels bad.
“Good girl. Plea really is smart, aren’t you?”
I let her keep stroking my head for a moment while she giggled, but then I shook my head free and stood up.
“Then let’s start training right away!”
“Aw… Can’t I stroke it just a little longer? It’s so fluffy and nice…”
“No.”
I refused firmly. If I let her keep going now, she would probably spend the next several dozen minutes just petting my head.
“Hmph…”
She expressed her dissatisfaction with a pitiful whine but still stood up to supervise my training. No matter what, she was a person with a sense of professional duty.
*
The mana control training was a bit… no, much more complicated than the mana efficiency training we had done last time. Efficiency training had simply required enduring the vibrations hitting my body, but control training required me to actively do something.
“Nngh…!”
The mana control training involved inserting exactly the amount of mana shown on the small monitor attached to the left side of a circular measuring device. If the monitor said to insert 40 mana, I had to put in 40. If it said 100, I had to insert 100 within the time limit and maintain it for five seconds…
“Plea, relax! Calm down! Just put in exactly 30! Not 3,000, 30!!!”
“Huuueee…”
“Too much again. It’s at 5 right now!”
“What is this?! The numbers keep jumping all over the place! Are you really assisting me properly?”
The mana I was supposed to insert was exactly 30. But the amount actually entering the device? It ranged from as little as 3 to as much as five digits. And those numbers were even being assisted by Dana, who was called one of the 5 Greats.
‘They say God is fair to everyone…’
It seemed that saying was true.
“Um… Plea, I’m sorry to say this but… it looks like you have no talent for mana control…”
She hesitated before speaking, but there was nothing I could say in return. The moment her assistance was removed, I had nearly pumped 130,000 mana into the device and almost blew it up. Having watched the process in real time, Dana’s face had gone completely pale.