Chapter 41 - Damn Reincarnation

Akron

Research Chamber Eleven, beneath the magic tower.

The rumors about it made Hera tilt her head in puzzlement. The chamber was practically Eugene’s private workspace, and word had it that explosions and tremors had been coming from it nonstop for the past few days.

‘Explosions and tremors reaching outside the chamber?’

The Red Tower’s signature discipline was summoning magic. There were many variables in what happened during a summoning, and the magic itself deliberately allowed for some of them. Explosions and tremors were therefore commonplace, and the research chambers were thoroughly protected against them.

‘Eugene’s magic shouldn’t be powerful enough for the explosions to be heard outside...’

Hera had been busy in several ways lately. She had been taking a break after achieving results in her existing research, but Eugene’s substitution of a core for circles had given her tremendous inspiration. She had even quit her position as librarian to devote herself to planning new research.

As a result, she had not visited Eugene’s research chamber since last time. But between the rumors and an errand from the Red Tower Master, she could no longer stay shut away in her own chamber.

It happened occasionally: someone newly introduced to magic would repeatedly push themselves too hard in their excessive enthusiasm and suffer an injury that no amount of talent could remedy.

Hera did not want that monstrously gifted boy to suffer a needless injury by overexerting himself with magic.

“Eugene?”

Rumors were naturally prone to exaggeration. The underground research wing was as quiet as ever, without any explosions or tremors. Inwardly relieved, Hera knocked on the door to Chamber Eleven.

“Are you in—”

She had not even finished her question.

BOOM!

With a tremendous noise, the door to Chamber Eleven shook. Startled, Hera immediately drew her staff and opened the door without hesitation.

“E-Eugene! Are you all—”

Once again, she could not finish her question. Her mouth fell half open at the sight before her.

Fine cracks spread across every inch of the floor. Eugene was staggering amid billowing clouds of mana mist. There had been an accident. Horrified, Hera swept her staff through the air, and all the drifting mana mist vanished at once.

“Eugeeene...”

Again, she failed to finish what she was saying. Drawing out his name, Hera lowered her staff. In the middle of that lingering call, she swallowed hard.

“Whew.”

Eugene turned his head, shaking off the sweat that drenched him. Standing in the middle of the chamber, he wore nothing but a comfortable pair of trousers. Which meant his bare upper body, glistening with sweat, was in full view.

‘What... how does a seventeen-year-old have a body like that?’

Hera swallowed and discreetly looked away. Before she did, her eyes naturally swept over his body once more. Not all mages were like this, but most had unimpressive physiques. They spent much of their time sitting and researching, and seldom worked up a sweat exercising, leaving them with thin limbs and protruding bellies.

At least in the Red Tower, not a single mage had a body as firm as Eugene’s. Lovellian did make a consistent effort to stay in shape, but even his muscles were not so sharply defined.

‘One, two, three... s-six.’

It was her first time seeing a six-pack in person. Hera swallowed again and stepped backward. Then she realized how rude she was being and, with a start, looked back at Eugene.

Getting another look in the process.

“I-I’m sorry. I should have waited for your answer before coming in, but there was such a loud noise...”

“It’s all right.”

Eugene answered as though it were no big deal. He called over a sylph drifting nearby and had it blow away the sweat running down his body.

“I was going to answer, but I thought I should finish what I was doing first.”

“What you were doing... Wh-what were you doing?”

Hera gathered her scattered wits and asked. She had wondered whether he was practicing summoning magic, but a look around the chamber suggested otherwise.

‘There’s no magic circle... What’s that?’

A fragment of some unidentified metal lay in the center of the chamber. The surrounding floor was cracked and torn up, but the spot where the fragment rested remained completely unscathed.

“I was training my mana. Practicing magic at the same time.”

Eugene shrugged as he answered.

A week had passed since the incident on Bolero Street. Eugene had spent most of each day in the research chamber, training his magic and mana against the fragment of moonlight stone.

The results were not particularly satisfying. Even sword aura released with all his resolve scattered when it approached the fragment. Magic did the same, and the sylphs refused to approach the Moonlight Sword. Even if he forced them with an order, they were sent back to the spirit realm the moment they came near it.

But he had not made no progress at all. At first, his spells dispersed before they could properly detonate. Now he could forcibly hold the scattering mana together long enough to cause an explosion nearby.

It meant the cohesion of his mana had grown stronger.

“Practicing magic...?”

“Like this.”

Rather than explain step by step, Eugene immediately cast spells: the First Circle Magic Missile and Fireball he had used most often over the past week. Hera’s eyes trembled at the speed.

‘He’s gotten even faster.’

He had been unbelievably fast when he first cast them last time, but now he was faster still. At a glance, it was quick enough to make her wonder whether he had used magic scrolls.

‘Those aren’t scrolls. He’s manipulating his mana right now... He’s using his core exactly like circles, isn’t he?’

The absence of an incantation was no longer even surprising. Nor was speed all there was to it. Hera focused on the arrangement of the mana composing Eugene’s spells.

It was so dense and precise that she could hardly believe it belonged to someone at his level of magic. The cohesion of the mana was absurdly strong as well, leaving few openings she could see for breaking it down with Dispel. No one would think those were First Circle Magic Missiles and Fireballs.

“... Are you practicing combat against other mages?”

Hera asked hesitantly. Spells that were difficult to dismantle gave their caster an advantage in magical combat. With their power amplified as well, Eugene could now hold his own even against a mage of a higher level.

“That’s part of it, but my main purpose is training the mana itself.”

As he spoke, Eugene dispersed his spells. Instead of spreading into the surroundings, the released mana immediately wrapped around his body. The transition between magic and the White Flame Formula flowed as naturally as water.

“... It looks as though you’ve gotten results.”

“Yes.”

Eugene answered with a grin. Hera gazed at him, trying to calm her heart, which was pounding in surprise. The pure white flames enveloping him radiated an oppressive force that was difficult to describe, yet his face still retained a boyish innocence.

A face like that, paired with such sharply defined muscles... Hera thumped her chest, which refused to stop racing, and cleared her throat.

“I-I’m glad you haven’t been hurt. But please don’t push yourself too hard, Eugene. If you were to get injured, it would put not just me, but the Red Tower Master and the Red Tower itself in a difficult position.”

“Yes, I’ll be careful.”

Eugene smiled and nodded. Her warning was not unwarranted.

A week ago, Eward had left the Red Tower and returned to the main estate. Eugene had not seen him leave, nor had he wanted to. Whether that idiot eldest son took this incident as a chance to get his act together or grew even more twisted and became a complete dumbass was no longer any concern of Eugene’s.

That was Theonis’s responsibility. She had gone so far as to argue with Gilead before taking her son away to her family home, so presumably she intended to oversee his education herself.

In any case, the incident had indeed put the Red Tower and Lovellian in an awkward position. They had kept Eward with them despite the complaints and ridicule of other mages, only for his disgraceful behavior to become known to every citizen of Pentagon.

There had already been plenty of unsavory rumors about Eward, but remaining a rumor and being publicly confirmed were entirely different matters. Thanks to Eward, a major drug crackdown had begun on Bolero Street, and both the guild’s black mages and the low-ranking demons had found their positions diminished.

In truth, the Lionheart main family had suffered the greatest damage. The honor passed down from their ancestor, Vermouth the Great, had been splattered with shit by the revelation that their eldest son, Eward, had tried to contract with a mere incubus.

‘Good thing I never had children.’

When he first visited the Lionheart main estate, he had regretted not leaving any descendants in his previous life.

He no longer felt any such regret. If one of his own descendants pulled the kind of bullshit Eward had... Just imagining it was horrifying.

‘If it were me, I’d have smashed my way out of my coffin even if I was fucking dead.’

With that thought, Eugene drew his mana back in.

“Did you come all the way down here because you were worried about me?”

“Ah, n-no, I mean, yes.”

“Is that a no or a yes?”

“I was worried... but there’s something else, too.”

“What is it?”

“First... please... put a shirt on.”

Hera looked away again as she spoke. Only then did Eugene realize he was shirtless.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I was sweating so much while I worked.”

“It’s... it’s all right.”

She had gotten quite a nice view out of it, too. Conscious of the memory lingering in her mind, Hera moved her lips. Memory-preservation magic. A bright smile spread across her face at the thought of extracting this memory later and saving it as a video.

“The tower master asked me to bring you.”

“Up to the top floor?”

“No, he’s out at the moment.”

“Then where are we going?”

“Akron.”

Hera spoke with a broad smile.

At that, Eugene smiled broadly, too.

* * *

Pentagon, the capital of Aroth.

At the center of the pentagram formed by the five magic towers stood Abram, Aroth’s royal palace. Built in the middle of an enormous lake, Abram could only be reached by boat. Even the flying carriages that freely roamed Pentagon’s skies could not approach its airspace, and no magic could be used to cross the lake.

That was because of the magic-sealing array encompassing Abram and the entire lake.

Three hundred years ago, Senya the Wise had specialized in magic-sealing arrays that blocked mana within a certain area while allowing only her own magic to manifest.

The array protecting all of Abram was a gift she had given Aroth’s royal family as a token of affection. Even now, hundreds of years later, it continued to function admirably.

Akron, the royal library, was no less imposing than Abram in the distance. Eugene looked back and forth between its tall clock tower and Abram across the lake.

‘That’s insane.’

Thanks to his diligent reading of spellbooks lately, he had gained a rough understanding of magic. By Eugene’s understanding of what was possible, enclosing that enormous lake and the entire royal palace in a magic-sealing array seemed utterly inconceivable.

Three hundred years ago, there had been no lake around the royal palace. That lake, too, had been Senya’s gift. They said she had created the enormous lake in less than a week, then moved the entire royal palace from its previous location to the center of it.

“Isn’t it magnificent?”

Hera pointed at Abram, beaming.

“Even the tower masters can’t use magic in Abram. Only the royal family and the court mage corps, who have sworn absolute loyalty to the crown, can use magic there.”

“Does that mean the tower masters haven’t sworn absolute loyalty to the crown?”

“Hmm... They are loyal, but they can’t obey every order unconditionally, even unreasonable ones, can they? You could say the towers and Aroth cooperate with each other... Their relationship isn’t one of command and obedience.”

The king did not involve himself heavily in the politics of governing Aroth.

“The towers’ close ties are with parliament, not the royal palace. Since the palace has its court mage corps, the towers’ mages serve as parliament’s fighting force. That doesn’t mean the mages are at odds with each other, though.”

Aroth was peaceful. There was no civil war, nor did it have enemies abroad.

Since the war three hundred years ago, the continent had been peaceful. There had been some wars between small countries and some civil wars, but none on the vast scale of the war three hundred years ago.

“Would you like to visit Abram?”

When Eugene kept looking at Abram, Hera tilted her head and asked.

“I was just looking because it’s fascinating. It’s not somewhere you can visit just because you want to, is it?”

“That’s true. Only the great nobles and tower masters and the like can enter Abram... Oh, but you might be able to go, Eugene.”

“Because I’m a Lionheart?”

“That’s part of it, but anyone who receives an entry permit for Akron is summoned to the royal palace once. I’ve never been there myself, but the tower master told me about it.”

With that, Hera led the way.

“It’s not really my place to explain. You’ll probably hear about it today.”

Eugene entered Akron with Hera. A landmark of this scale might ordinarily have been crowded with tourists, but the area around Akron was deserted, without a single tourist in sight.

That was because of its stringent security. Without prior permission, one could not even approach the area around Akron. And that permission only granted access to the first floor. Without an entry permit, one could not set foot on the second floor or above.

“Well, I’ll head back now.”

Hera did not have an entry permit. She stopped leading the way and bowed to Eugene.

“Eugene, don’t be too nervous... You’ve got this!”

“Yes. I’ve got this.”

Eugene chuckled at the encouragement she offered with a clenched fist.

Akron, the royal library.

Although the Red Tower Master and Black Tower Master had written recommendations for him, the other three tower masters had questioned whether Eugene should receive an entry permit.

Lionheart, the family of Vermouth the Great.

However outstanding his descendant might be, wasn’t he ultimately just a young boy who knew nothing of the depths of magic?

Akron was not a place one could enter with mere letters of recommendation. It housed Aroth’s magical history and the very essence of Senya the Wise.

“My name is Eugene Lionheart.”

Eugene entered a spacious room on the first floor and bowed.

The five tower masters, including Lovellian and Balzac, gazed at him.

They were not the only ones present. The chief court mage of the royal palace and the head of the Mages’ Guild were there as well.

“Raise your head.”

At the center of these giants who guided Aroth sat a young man only slightly older than Eugene.

“I have been hearing your name for several years now. I had hoped to meet you someday, but I never imagined we would meet on an occasion like this.”

Honein Abram.

The crown prince of Aroth smiled at Eugene.