Chapter 81 - Damn Reincarnation

Genos Lionheart

Hamel Style Secret Art, Ignition.

First Technique, Mana Parrying.

Second Technique, Ten Thousand Thunderbolts.

Third Technique, Lightning Counter.

Fourth Technique, Asura’s Frenzied Slaughter.

Fifth Technique, Dragon Burst.

Sixth Technique, Cyclone.

Seventh Technique, Dead End.

Eighth Technique, Divine Aura of Destruction.

Ninth Technique, Infinite Purgatory.

"..."

Eugene wanted to bury his nose in a saucer of water and drown himself right then and there. Had he ever fought while shouting names like those in his previous life?

He had. He had erased it from his memory because he couldn’t bear to remember, but listening to Genos recite the names with such a serious expression brought those embarrassing memories, buried in the distant recesses of his mind, creeping back one by one.

["Asura’s Frenzied Slaughter!"]

["What the hell is that bastard doing?"]

["He must be full of himself."]

["What does swinging your sword all over the place have to do with Asura’s Frenzied Slaughter?"]

["You fucking call it Fire Blast or whatever when all you do is make fire go boom!"]

["That’s... that’s the spell’s name! I didn’t name it...! Magic needs an incantation to manifest. What do you expect me to do?!"]

["And you, Anise! You shout Holy Cross when all you do is shoot out light!"]

["At least I actually make a cross out of light."]

["You just don’t understand. Swinging a weapon is exactly like magic. They both use mana, so what’s the difference?"]

["So shouting Asura’s Frenzied Slaughter makes your technique stronger, does it?"]

["Of course. A battle cry helps you put more strength into it."]

Senya and Anise would look utterly bewildered, but Moron would nod in admiration.

["I think it’s impressive. When Hamel swings his sword and shouts Asura’s Frenzied Slaughter, he truly becomes an asura."]

["Now you understand."]

Understand, his ass. Eugene trembled as he recalled the distant past. Hamel had been far too young back then. He had only just turned twenty. That was young enough, wasn’t it?

He had named ten techniques and shouted their names. Later, he stopped calling them out individually. It was embarrassing. And unnecessary. As far as Eugene remembered, he had fought while shouting those idiotic names for only a few years at most. He had spent overwhelmingly more time fighting without calling out any names.

But Vermouth. That son of a bitch had remembered all ten idiotic names and taught them to his son.

Eugene bowed his burning-red face, his shoulders trembling. He should have gone back in time instead of reincarnating. Then he would never have shouted those idiotic technique names. Or he could have killed his past self with his own hands.

'And I would’ve killed that son of a bitch Vermouth too.'

That damned storybook was another example. His former companions had shown far too little respect for Hamel, who had died before them. He could understand it if they had done it to remember their deceased friend, but...

'Then you shouldn’t have reincarnated me.'

Why bring a dead man back just to make him read that damned storybook and hear a complete stranger recite those embarrassing techniques? Eugene barely managed to collect himself and raise his head.

Genos was watching him with a bewildered expression. Seeing his face gave Eugene another powerful urge to kill himself.

"... Those... ten are all of them?"

"Yes. Were there more techniques in the secret manual you found, Senior?"

"That’s... not it. There were, uh... ten... No, those techniques weren’t written in it at all."

"What do you mean?"

Genos’s eyes widened. Eugene desperately racked his brain. This was a serious problem. What could he say to salvage the late Hamel’s honor and stop those idiotic techniques from being passed down any further?

"... Well... those techniques were things Lord Hamel created when he was young and immature."

"How do you know that, Senior?"

"Uh... because none of them were in the secret manual I found. Our great founder’s teachings couldn’t have been wrong, but I think... he remembered techniques Lord Hamel had used in the past and taught them to your ancestor, Junior."

"I see... So Lord Hamel’s youthful techniques were so outstanding that they remained vividly in the founder’s memory."

Why the fuck was he taking it that way? Eugene continued, his clenched fists trembling.

"Hmm... Well, that’s possible. He was overshadowed by the founder’s radiance, but Lord Hamel was an exceptionally talented and admirable man too."

Saying things like that no longer made him blush.

"Anyway, those idiotic... I mean, embarrassing techniques weren’t in the manual I found. As Lord Hamel traveled with the founder and gained experience, he outgrew those embarrassing techniques."

"Embarrassing techniques..."

Genos’s expression stiffened slightly. He opened his eyes wide and glared at Eugene.

"You may be my senior, but I cannot sit by and listen to you disparage those techniques."

"Uh... why?"

"My family has inherited and practiced Lord Hamel’s techniques for three hundred long years. My father, who passed away long ago, practiced them, and my child, who is not here at Black Lion Castle, practices them as well."

Genos subtly emphasized the word “child.” They might have become fellow disciples, but he wanted to stress that he was old enough to have a child of his own.

"While we’re on the subject, my child participated in the Bloodline Succession Ceremony sixteen years ago. Twenty-six years old this year."

"Oh, right."

What was he supposed to do with that? Eugene paid little attention.

"You’ve misunderstood something, Junior. I respect Lord Hamel too. I respected him enormously even before I found the manual. And what I called embarrassing wasn’t the techniques themselves. It was their names."

"... Their names..."

"Junior, be honest. Put your hand over your heart and tell me honestly. Ten Thousand Thunderbolts? Asura’s Frenzied Slaughter? Dead End? Dragon Burst? Divine... Aura of Destruction? Infinite Purgatory...? Do you really think those names aren’t embarrassing?"

"... Hmm..."

Even Genos couldn’t answer that immediately. He hesitated, then averted his eyes for no particular reason and muttered,

"... Lady Carmen’s ultimate secret art is Destiny Breaker."

"... Incredible."

"Her combination begins with Iron Fist Chain, followed by Eclipse, Overlord’s Kick, Lightning Flash, and finally Destiny Breaker. Even among the Black Lion Knights, it is renowned for its brutality and power."

"You’re a legend for remembering all of that."

Eugene muttered in genuine admiration. He had felt it when he saw her walking around with an unlit cigar in her mouth, too, but his great-aunt Carmen Lionheart truly was an incredible person.

"Lady Carmen is Lady Carmen. What about you, Junior? Do you shout ‘Asura’s Frenzied Slaughter!’ when you fight?"

"... In my head..."

"Could you shout it aloud? Could you shout ‘Divine Aura of Destruction!’ in front of your Second Division knights?"

"... There’s no need to shout it aloud, is there?"

"See? You’re too embarrassed to shout it too! How do you think Lord Hamel felt? That’s why his final manual didn’t contain technique names. Once you’ve fully mastered a technique, you can use it without shouting its name."

Unable to answer, Genos obediently closed his mouth.

"... Enough about the names. Show me."

"Right now?"

"If demonstrating is awkward, write it down. Each technique uses mana differently, doesn’t it?"

"That’s... hmm..."

Genos shook his head with a long sigh.

"... I have no objection to showing you, Senior. But as I said earlier, Lord Hamel’s techniques are difficult and complex to learn. So... after three hundred years, we can no longer fully reproduce the founder’s teachings."

That was understandable. The second son Vermouth had taught might have been talented enough to physically master his teachings, but his descendants couldn’t all be that talented.

'And there wouldn’t have been any room for improvement.'

They would have deteriorated instead. Eugene felt a little bitter about that. Not because his techniques hadn’t been passed down intact.

'They should’ve died out completely. Then I wouldn’t have had to hear about them again.'

Eugene calmed his seething anger. Meanwhile, Genos obtained paper and a pen from the attendant outside and sat at the desk.

"... Have you ever entered the founder’s mausoleum, Junior?"

After staring toward the window, Eugene abruptly spoke. Genos answered while his pen moved busily.

"Once, when I became a captain."

"Really?"

"Not just me. Everyone appointed a captain of the Black Lion Knights must enter the founder’s mausoleum once and swear to protect the family with their life."

"... What sort of place is it?"

"Don’t imagine anything too grand. It is such a secret place that I cannot tell you much, but it isn’t like Lord Hamel’s tomb, with a statue and a memorial stone."

Genos stopped speaking and fell silent for a moment.

"... If I had to describe it... it resembles a temple."

"A temple?"

"There are many temples in this world, aren’t there? We don’t actually worship a god there, but the mausoleum of our founder, who saved the world, resembles a temple. Perhaps... the founder became a god after his death. Perhaps that was what he wished for."

A god.

Eugene narrowed his eyes as he looked out the window. Just as in his previous life, he had no religious faith. He didn’t doubt that gods existed. Wasn’t the divine magic wielded by priests proof of their existence?

But believing in the existence of gods and serving them were entirely different matters. Eugene trusted a sword or spear in his own hands more than some god holed up who knew where.

'Vermouth... a god... '­

Perhaps.

He found himself thinking it might be possible. Maybe not anyone else, but Vermouth could have become a god after dying. If he had, then the miracle of reincarnating a dead companion would be possible too.

'... If he really became a god, he wouldn’t have fought Senya.'

Perhaps the intruder in the tomb had been someone entirely different, not Vermouth. But Eugene simply couldn’t incline toward that explanation. Who else could have found the sealed tomb, opened the coffin, removed Hamel’s corpse, sealed the Moonlight Sword, and defeated Senya when she came to stop them?

"I’ve finished writing."

Several hours had passed. Genos rose from his chair. Eugene took the thick stack of papers and grimaced at the very first page.

Hamel Style.

'Oh, fuck.'

After shooting Genos an entirely unnecessary glare, Eugene began reading about that damned Hamel Style. Perhaps because Genos had spent hours writing it, the explanation was exceedingly detailed. Anyone skilled at handling mana could have begun practicing Hamel Style with it immediately.

But Eugene didn’t need hours to read it all. He didn’t even need ten minutes. Once he reached the end, he turned back to the first page and read it again.

'... This sucks.'

The mana manipulation itself was excellent, beyond reproach. Genos’s ancestor, the first to learn Hamel Style, would have practiced the White Flame Formula, but the descendants who followed him had not. Hamel Style, however, made no distinction between the White Flame Formula and the Red Flame Formula. It simply taught methods of manipulating mana.

Vermouth must have adapted it to those two formulas. No one else could have organized it so neatly. But the mana manipulation and the transitions between techniques were disjointed.

After examining it several times, Eugene confirmed that the Hamel Style mana manipulation methods had dispensed with the difficult, grueling process of physical training. As a result, the flow of mana was no longer smooth.

'It doesn’t just suck. This is a fucking mess.'

With the mana flowing unevenly, of course the techniques failed to connect properly. Eugene had no trouble figuring out why. The idiots who inherited Hamel Style had clearly tinkered with it here and there, claiming to improve what they found inconvenient.

It must have been because physical training had long since been dismissed as an outdated practice. Though it couldn’t compare to the White Flame Formula, the Red Flame Formula was a mana manipulation method that could hold its own anywhere. Having learned such an outstanding formula, they must have been skeptical about practicing antiquated physical training alongside it.

'Still, they did put some effort into connecting it all.'

They had called it improvement, but Eugene saw only regression. Even so, they had apparently worked hard to compensate, because the techniques were still usable.

"... This is very different from what was in the secret manual."

Muttering, Eugene went over to the desk and sat down. He picked up a pen and looked back at Genos.

"Does the Red Flame Formula you practice split the core too, Junior?"

"It has five stars."

"How many do you have?"

"I have five."

Genos answered with his chest proudly out. It was something worth being proud of, but Eugene wasn’t particularly impressed. Hadn’t Gargis’s family also increased their Red Flame Formula cores to five? Naturally, equal numbers of stars didn’t mean equal power, but to Eugene, Genos’s Red Flame Formula didn’t seem all that different from the one practiced by that armpit-stinking Gargis.

'It’s too late to make him take up physical training alongside it now... '­

His situation was different from Cyan’s. Cyan was still young, and his White Flame Formula was still developing, so adding physical training wouldn’t cause any major problems. But Genos was already well along in years and had mastered the Red Flame Formula to its peak. Even if he began physical training now, it would be difficult to break away from the methods he had long since grown accustomed to.

Really, there was no need to agonize over it. Eugene could simply give him a few cursory pointers. But he didn’t want to do that. Though he had never personally accepted Genos as a disciple, Genos considered himself Hamel’s disciple. As his teacher, shouldn’t he teach him properly?

After some deliberation, Eugene picked up the pen. First, he vigorously crossed out the words “Hamel Style” at the top.

"Why are you crossing that out?"

"Be quiet."

Then he crossed out all ten named techniques except Ignition. He had stopped using the others as he grew older, but Ignition had stayed with him until the end. He simply couldn’t erase that one.

'Rework the mana transitions... Ten Thousand Thunderbolts? This is just spraying sword force everywhere. Idiots. Do you think all the mana wasted by spreading it out like this is a joke?'

Sighing repeatedly, Eugene began revising the techniques’ execution. Genos stood behind him, stealing sidelong glances at what he wrote.

Soon, Genos’s eyes trembled with astonishment. Eugene had called himself a genius, and he certainly lived up to the claim. Even if he had memorized the secret manual, modifying Hamel Style like this would have been impossible without a perfect understanding of both its contents and mana itself.

Genos straightened his casual posture. His much younger senior. He had decided he had no choice but to treat Eugene as his senior for the sake of the manual, but now awe joined that sense of obligation.

"... Hmm... Come to think of it, Junior."

"Yes, Senior."

"I forgot to mention this, but I taught Cyan a little from... Lord Hamel’s secret manual too."

"... Pardon?"

"That doesn’t mean you should call Cyan your senior. In fact, don’t. Pretend you don’t know anything about it."

"Why must I do that?"

"Partly because explaining everything would be a pain. And I didn’t teach him Lord Hamel’s techniques. I just taught him a bit about manipulating mana."

He had no intention of teaching Cyan embarrassing techniques like Ten Thousand Thunderbolts, Asura’s Frenzied Slaughter, or Infinite Purgatory. It would be impossible for now, but if Cyan diligently followed his instructions... he would eventually develop techniques suited to his own body without being taught any.

"I haven’t properly taught him, so Cyan isn’t Lord Hamel’s disciple. That means you don’t need to call him your senior. And remember this, Junior. These fucking... Hamel Style techniques aren’t actually impressive enough to deserve names. If anything, tying yourself to specific techniques limits what you can do."

Genos listened quietly without arguing. His senior, only nineteen years old, was discussing the limitations of techniques... After his own long years of training and countless battles, Genos should have found that ridiculous.

But he didn’t. Instead, he accepted it as a valid observation.

"From now on, you should work on moving beyond the Hamel Style techniques too, Junior."

"Your words are sound, Senior. But can you perform the Hamel Style techniques in their entirety?"

"If I couldn’t, how would I be rewriting them?"

"Please don’t take offense. I only ask because I’m curious how deeply you understand Lord Hamel’s techniques."

"Ugh."

Eugene sighed heavily, pushed his chair back, and stood. Fortunately, the room was as spacious as a decent training ground. After checking for anyone else nearby, he drew Wynnyd from his cloak.

"Watch closely."

The stars at his heart shone and spun. The Ring Flame Formula amplified his mana. Blue-white sword force coiled around Wynnyd’s blade. Genos looked astonished by its light and the absurd density of its mana.

Ignoring his surprise, Eugene held Wynnyd out in front of him. The wavering sword force became fierce flames. Those writhing flames condensed at the sword’s tip and swelled into a large sphere. Regulating the flow of mana, Eugene gave his wrist a slight twist.

The sphere of sword force burst, swallowing the empty air. Blue-white flames swirled through the air and gathered together again.

"... Infinite Purgatory...!"

"Shut up. Please."

"You performed Infinite Purgatory so effortlessly, despite the tremendous amount of mana it consumes...!"

Used properly, it could swallow an entire mountain, but that level of output was beyond Eugene’s current capabilities. And in Genos’s Hamel Style, this size was about the limit of Infinite Purgatory. That was how far it fell short of the original.

"Satisfied now?"

"Please show me Divine Aura of Destruction too."

"Wrap this around your body and that’s Divine Aura of Destruction. What else is there to show? Stop making me waste my energy and take this."

Eugene thrust the revised papers at him.

"And Junior. If Lady Carmen or anyone else tells you to take me as your squire, refuse outright. Understand?"

"... Must I?"

"Why? Want to order your senior around as a squire?"

"That isn’t what I mean. If someone like you joined the Black Lion Knights..."

"Then you’re not getting this."

"I will refuse outright."

Genos bowed his head and accepted Hamel Style with both hands.