Chapter 112

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For a room reserved for the strongest person in the city, it wasn’t particularly nice. It was only a storeroom converted into a bedroom in the first place. There was just one bed, empty barrels and crates lay scattered in a corner, and cobwebs hung in the corners of the ceiling.

Its advantages were that it offered a fairly large space all to oneself, was relatively quiet, and had both an emergency staircase leading underground and a private back door. Outside that door, a donkey stood tethered, chewing fodder. It was Magnoli, the first entry on the Viola clan’s list of possessions. Beyond it lay a neglected, desolate vegetable patch, across which was the forest. This was one of the few reasonably comfortable places in the city with a secure escape route. And Bori was its current occupant.

Ricard, Marie, and their companions had all come into Bori’s room. It was spacious enough that even with everyone inside, it wasn’t cramped at all. First, Ricard introduced everyone to Bori.

“Let’s start with introductions. That’s Mr. Hartmann, his wife Mrs. Elia, Becca, Roy, and our guide, Mr. Bremen. Everyone, this is Bori.”

“Hello, I’m Bori. I’m friends with these two.”

They were sitting a little apart, perhaps feeling awkward around one another. Bori gave Hartmann’s family and Bremen a slight bow of his head, and they nodded back.

“Hartmann.”

“Bremen.”

After those greetings, which amounted to little more than nods, Bori asked Ricard, “Anyway, why the eastern frontier?”

“Well, you know... They say it’s where the last hope is.”

Bori glanced toward Hartmann’s family before turning back to Ricard. “I don’t know. I doubt it’s much different from here.”

“Won’t know until we go. Anyway, I hear you stole a secret manual?”

“No. I just took it out with me. Killed anyone who tried to stop me. That’s not stealing, then. I didn’t sneak it out.”

“Either way, those people are after you.”

“Yeah, they are. They want to absorb my mana. That’s why I’m lying low for a bit. I’ll probably have to move on soon.”

“Absorb your mana? What do you mean?” Marie asked.

“It’s a long story, but apparently if you kill someone in some particular way and eat their heart, you can absorb their mana. Even ordinary people have a little mana. I don’t know how many people they’ve absorbed mana from, or how much they’ve taken. But a Sword Master’s mana would be the most tempting prize. What the Rubens clan really wants is to capture me.”

It was a shocking revelation. People catching other people and eating their hearts? Wasn’t that the sort of thing monsters like orcs or goblins would do?

“Even a vampire wouldn’t pull that shit. Is that what the secret manual’s about, though? Eating hearts?”

“Yeah.”

“Worth stealing, then.”

“I told you, I didn’t steal it.”

Unlike his reunions with Volka and Delphi, seeing Bori again after four years didn’t stir any tender, wistful feelings. Ricard was simply happy to see him, and comfortable in the certainty that Bori felt exactly the same. Every friendship felt a little different.

“Well, anyway, is that what you’re doing now? Punishing bad guys and finding strange codices to burn?”

“No.”

“Then what? That’s what Volka told me.”

“Volka doesn’t understand. Neither do the others.”

“Understand what?”

“Mana Drive. I’m going to create a new one. That’s what I’m really trying to do. The rest is just incidental.”

“Why?”

“Oh? Really?”

Ricard and Marie reacted differently. Ricard’s response was to wonder why he would bother with something like that, while Marie showed immediate curiosity.

“I’m trying to find a proper way to train in Mana Drive, one that isn’t dangerous and doesn’t hurt other people. We only had the basics, after all. We threw ourselves into real fights and let things take their course, then stumbled onto something by sheer luck. I suspect that’s why everyone’s made such a mess of things. The church, Rubens, the other clans—all of them. No one’s ever shown them a proper path.”

“I don’t really get it.”

Ricard had never learned Mana Drive by conventional means to begin with, so he couldn’t appreciate why anyone needed to go to such trouble. He simply took Bori’s word for it.

“Can you show me what you’ve come up with so far?”

At Marie’s request, Bori shared his Mana Drive notes without the slightest hesitation. Though unfinished, the research was worth more than a fortune in gold to anyone versed in the field. The parchment cover bore what appeared to be a working title: <Black Stone>.

Opening the parchment pages revealed haphazard, disorganized scrawls. There were diagrams and drawings, explanations, and plenty of sentences phrased as questions. Everything was in ancient script, so only those who knew it could read it. Marie was engrossed in an instant, reading through the Mana Drive book Bori was developing.

“By the way, Bori, I met your pupils on the way here. Kaspar and Yulia, right?”

“Hmm, were there kids by those names? I suppose there might have been.”

“What’s with you? You don’t even know your pupils’ names?”

“It’s less that I chose them as pupils and more that the clan assigned them to me. They sent me kids who showed the potential to become Sword Masters. But I don’t see it. They’re too wrapped up in pointless notions, so... Anyway, I’m not comfortable at the clan.”

How could he be so much like Ricard? Their personalities had seemed like polar opposites. Or had they? When it came to likes and dislikes, the two of them seemed to have quite a lot in common. Still, his complete lack of attachment to his pupils was a little surprising.

“At least I know my pupils’ names.”

“You have pupils?”

“Those two. Becca and Roy.”

Originally, only Roy had been his pupil, but somewhere along the journey, Ricard had simply taken both of them on.

“But aren’t you bad at teaching, Riki?”

“Ahahaha!”

Marie burst out laughing the moment she heard that, right in the middle of reading Bori’s parchment notes. Bori grinned too. Ricard felt a little stung, but he laughed along. To be honest, deep down, he thought Bori was right.

“Huh? You’re not getting angry?”

“I’m a grown-up now, Bori.”

“Hmm? You seemed more grown-up when you were little, Riki. But I like you better now.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“He’s right. You used to be like a little old man. You hardly ever smiled. Always lonely, off by yourself.”

Marie agreed. The person you thought you were and the person others saw were not necessarily the same.

“You used to have a certain cuteness, Bori. And Marie was a bit naive.”

Ricard offered his own memories of them. Marie and Bori only smiled softly in response.

“There’s something I’m curious about, though. How do you use Mana Drive, Riki? You didn’t have mana before.”

“I think I learned it naturally after that day. It feels like wind blowing through my body. Then, the moment I swing my sword, it turns into flame. Maybe flickering flames and shifting wind are really the same thing. The only difference is whether they’re hot or not, visible or not.”

“Wind? Fire? Not water?” Marie asked. They had always taken one another’s abilities for granted, so this was the first time they had discussed the specifics.

“Mine’s closer to stone. Black stone,” Bori said.

“Now what do you mean, stone?”

“Anyway, we each feel something different. You could say I’m studying how that works. Mana is like the mind. It has no tangible form, but it clearly exists. Maybe that’s why I keep remembering things you said that I didn’t understand back then, Riki. I find myself thinking, ‘Oh, is that why Riki said that?’”

“What did I say?”

“To swing your sword without thinking.”

“If you think, you’re too late.”

“Right. I agree. But that’s not something you tell someone who’s only just started learning the sword. What you say is like describing the sky to someone who’s spent their whole life looking at the ground.” Bori smiled as he spoke.

Ricard had only ever described things exactly as he felt them. He had never intended to confound or torment beginners. But as Bori said, his teaching was like describing the sky to someone who had looked at nothing but the ground since birth. They had to lift their head and see the sky before they could understand the explanation.

Conversely, Ricard had spent his whole life looking only at the sky, which was why teaching someone frustrated him. Bori knew that. Now, at least. Listening to him, Ricard realized something. His approach had been wrong from the start. Rather than describe the sky, he should have looked at the ground himself. Perhaps truly teaching someone was synonymous with learning.

“Look at you, Bori. Not bad!”

“I’m a grown-up too, you know? Two years older than you, Riki, remember?”

Some things changed with age, but others never did. That was how it was with Ricard and Bori. Just looking at each other made them smile.

“So what will you do now? Go back to the clan?”

“No.”

“Isn’t it still a bit dangerous on your own?”

“Not anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m going to the eastern frontier too.”

“... Why?”

“Not to see about some last hope. Codices came from the eastern frontier in the first place. There are plenty of ancient ruins there, so there should be plenty to study. I’d already been thinking of going, and this seems like the opportunity.”

“... What about the clan?”

“I told you. I’m not comfortable there anymore. Why did you leave four years ago, Riki?”

“Well, I wanted a rest, and I thought Volka would do fine without me.”

“I didn’t. You left, then Marie and Ice left too, and I felt like I had to stay by his side. But now it seems to run just fine without me.”

Perhaps it was a difference in temperament. Volka had always been good at managing and leading people, and he enjoyed doing it. Ricard and Bori, on the other hand, had tended to keep a little apart from the crowd and stick together.

They had done plenty of meaningful things, but never once in the hope of personal reward. They had simply done them because they had to, and because they could. Feeding the students through winter, taking part in the war—it had all been the same. They had spent all that money they earned buying clothes for the others.

Helping Volka build the clan had been much the same. They hadn’t done it to settle down into comfortable lives. They had only wanted to give adventurers a better haven, and enjoyed being with their friends. But now that they had achieved that goal, both Ricard and Bori understood, deep down, that they had served their purpose. Perhaps the clan no longer suited them. That was how it felt to both of them now.

In truth, they could have left the clan without regret, but lingering affection kept them from severing that last thin thread. Ricard pondered for a while, then suddenly made a decision, following his heart.

“I’ve decided.”

“What?”

“Inner Fire.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m going to write a book too. That’s the title.”

“You’ve got a bit of a rivalry going with me, haven’t you, Riki?”

“Ha! Give me a break. You were the one who copied me when I wrote a swordsmanship book.”

“But did you know my book was chosen as the academy’s official swordsmanship textbook? It’s called ‘The Fundamentals of Swordsmanship,’ I’ll have you know.”

“Fundamentals, my ass. No way.”

“Yes way. You’re the one who hid your manuscript out of embarrassment before leaving, Riki.”

Even as they bickered, Ricard couldn’t stop smiling. It stung, but he felt as though he were a child again, making a wager.

“This time is different. I have an excellent assistant.” Ricard pulled Marie close by the shoulders while she was reading the notes.

“That seems a little unfair. And hasn’t all my information already been leaked?”

“If you don’t like it, get married yourself.”

“You know, now I want to write a book too. Thinking about it, Mana Drive seems just as important as swordsmanship. When you two were writing your swordsmanship books, I felt a little awkward about it. My swordsmanship belongs to my family, so I couldn’t really put it down in writing.”

Marie spoke. Until now, she had learned through trial and error in real combat, but it occurred to her that she might be able to establish a system of her own. Still, mana remained an unknown realm, almost metaphysical, so it would require an enormous amount of research. Writing a swordsmanship book had been difficult, but this was on an entirely different level.

It hadn’t been properly studied even in ancient times, and what knowledge there had been was passed down in secret, most of it eventually lost. All that remained were methods such as cutting away parts of the human mind. Easy, fast, and evil. And even those could only be learned by a tiny handful of people.

Then why not offer a proper method himself? That was Bori’s thinking, and Ricard and Marie shared his sentiment.

“You’re betraying me?” Ricard asked his wife. Marie, apparently too incredulous to answer, disentangled herself from her husband’s arm and spoke.

“You both chose titles based on what mana feels like to you, right? I’ll do the same. Purple Scarf. How’s that?”

“Sounds a little tacky.”

“Sounds like you’re showing off your family’s wealth.”

Silk scarves were expensive, which was why Bori accused her of showing off her family’s wealth.

“You two are unbelievable.”

Ricard and Bori’s simultaneous remarks left Marie flabbergasted. Of course, a smile was blooming on her lips as well.

Their companions, seated a little apart, watched the three with wonder. Ricard and Marie weren’t usually very talkative. But now that they had met Bori, the two chattered on and on without a pause, just like children. They seemed to inhabit a space all their own, oblivious to everyone else.

Some friends, reunited after a long absence, shared wistful feelings over the years and hardships that had passed. Others made you feel as if you had returned to the old days. What was there to be wistful about? They could still be together now. They might have lived apart for a while, but it was as though they had never truly been separated.

All three felt a fullness in their hearts, much like being sated without having eaten. That was the kind of friendship Ricard, Marie, and Bori shared. Put simply, they got along wonderfully. The proof lay not in tears, but in the quiet smiles that lingered on their faces.