The Faraway Paladin Vol.1 Ch. 2

The Faraway Paladin, volume 1: The Boy in the City of the Dead.

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Chapter 2.

A solemn silence that seemed as if it would reject even a single cough had spread through the chilly hall.

I folded my legs into the lotus position, and rested the backs of my hands on my knees. I rocked my body a little to adjust my posture. Then I sat up absolutely straight, as if my spine was a pole connecting the earth to the heavens, and drew in my chin.

I quietly closed my eyes to the temple’s large hall.

My sight had been shut off. My senses of sound, touch, smell, and taste were also receiving very little stimulation.

I breathed out slowly, and breathed in none too deeply. I counted that cycle as “one.”

One, two, three, four, five… I concentrated solely on counting. Whenever an unnecessary thought entered my mind, I started over from the beginning.

— The state of no-mindedness is not about not thinking. That will lead to a fruitless cycle of thinking about how not to think. You can’t achieve it by playing with words and abstract thoughts.

— To achieve no-mindedness, to truly be without mind, is to focus intently on the “now” as it exists. Chase out your recollections of the past and your imaginations of the future. Think only of the now that exists before you.

— Cast yourself down before God. Not your past self, nor your future self. Your present self, small and insignificant, as you exist, here in this moment. There are no hidden tricks to it. Just do that and that alone, in earnest. Think of the now, focus on it, and cast yourself down. That is all there is to “praying without mind.”

Mary’s words crossed my mind. I counted breaths, and soon even those were gone.

One, two, three, four, five… Over and over, I simply focused on counting.

I thought of nothing else.

I heard the wind. A bird chirped far away.

I could feel the sensations upon my skin as I sat upon the floor.

Over and over, I counted.

I felt the air being breathed out, the air being breathed in, the sound of my breathing, and the beating of my heart.

Over and over, I counted.

I counted.

Counted.

Deeper.

Forever deeper.

I felt like I was diving into the depths of the blue ocean.

Down.

Down.

Forever down.

How long had I spent “diving”?

The clear, high-pitched ring of a bell brought me back to reality.

I opened my eyelids after a long time of keeping them closed. The scenery of the temple returned. It looked incredibly vivid.

Night had long since fallen, and my surroundings were lit by a lamp. The sculptures of the gods, lit by wavering flames in the cold darkness, were deeply fantastical and enchanting.

We humans really do get used to things. Once we get used to seeing something, we don’t pay as much attention the next time we see it. Get used to hearing something, and we don’t pay as much attention the next time we hear it. Touch, smell, and taste all work the same.

It’s the way we learn to respond to stimuli efficiently. But on the flip side, it also dulls our sensibilities and causes us to forget our feelings.

That was why I loved these moments of awakening from deep prayer. Everything I saw and heard felt fresh, as if I had just been reborn. It was an exhilarating feeling, as if I had just wiped my body clean of a grime that adhered to all my senses.

I basked in the feeling for a while, and then slowly moved my body out of the lotus position. I had been in the same pose for some time. My body ached all over.

“Well done, Will.” Mary had waited for me to move before speaking. She was holding the bell she used to signal the end of worship.

“This concludes the five-day rite of silent prayer.”

“Th-Thanks…”

I was thirteen by their reckoning now. Already five years had passed since I had burned my arms.

In fact, I could have had them healed without a trace by further use of benediction, so long as I was prepared for Mary to turn into a torch again. She had offered to do that for me, but I turned her down. It was partly because I didn’t think the burns were bad enough to ask something like that of her, and partly because Blood had told me they were a badge of honor.

I received treatment for it, including by Gus’s magic, and after much suffering, I was left with discolored skin from the palms of my hands to somewhere up my arms, mostly as expected. They told me I was pretty lucky. I’d actually been steeling myself for the burns to turn into gruesomely swollen scars, so I was left feeling a bit like, “Oh, is that all?” But even now, my badge was still coiled around both of my arms.

Since then, I had shot up in height. I was now at eye level with Mary, and getting pretty close to Gus as well. I still had to look up at Blood, but he complimented me once on how manly I was looking.

When I was reborn into this world after my past life, I hadn’t exactly brought a ruler with me. I could only guess at my height in “old figures,” but I thought I was probably over 160 cm at this point.

This world mainly used anthropic units of measurement. Like how, if you make a finger gun with your thumb and index finger, the distance between the two is about fifteen centimeters. I couldn’t help but convert to metric, though. It must have been the influence of my past life’s memories.

Let me return to the present situation.

For the past five days, I had been taking time off my lessons with Gus and Blood to perform the rite of silent prayer. It was a strict religious rite performed in the winter at monasteries for Mater the Earth-Mother. Mary had gone through it herself a number of times while she was alive.

The rite was… quite something.

From sunrise to sunset five days later, you were forbidden to utter a single word, except in the event of an emergency. Communication could only take place through a bell, and other than the time spent sleeping and so on, which was to be kept to a minimum, virtually all the remainder of the time was to be devoted to single-minded prayer.

Get up, pray. Sit down, pray. When your body starts becoming stiff and painful, get up and walk, and while walking, pray. Once you feel back to form, sit down, pray. When it’s time for bed, before bed, pray. There were to be prayers of thanks while eating meals, prayers of dialogue while looking at yourself, prayers of petition to wish for protection, prayers of praise for God.

And after performing that repertoire of every kind of prayer under the sun, the rite was to be concluded with those several long hours of no-mindedness.

When I first heard what I was in for, I, too, was in disbelief. But it’s quite terrifying and surprising what feats humans are capable of when they actually make the attempt.

Mary, incidentally, told me that she was physically incapable of praying for such a long length of time without reducing herself to ashes. She assisted me instead. I understood, of course.

I did wonder, for a brief moment, whether I might be blessed with benediction after all this praying, but there were no signs of that happening whatsoever. Judging by that, it seemed that benediction really did require a strong affinity with your god. Mary had told me that many deeply devout believers are never blessed with the art. I figured that was just how it was.

In any event, Mary’s teachings on prayer were certainly an ordeal, but…

There was actually worse.

◆

The rite of silence was the worst that Mary’s lessons had to offer, by far. Normally, they were far more tame: how to make shoes, how to sew clothes, how to grow vegetables, how to conduct yourself with decency, and so on. They were… y’know, soothing. Ordinary.

Gus’s lessons, on the other hand, had been getting a little out of control recently.

I was grateful for him teaching me, despite his face telling me louder than his words that he really didn’t want to bother. The problem was the content, which had become increasingly advanced. It was also far more dense in terms of how much he would teach me at once.

I was seriously overloaded.

He had me committing all kinds of Words to memory, and combining Words to make phrases and sentences. He would make me practice vocalization and pronunciation, so that I could speak them and recite them correctly. He would teach me everything at once, from geometry and arithmetic to rhetoric and argument. There was geographical history, law, astronomy, civil engineering, construction, medicine, economics and business management… and after teaching me all of that, would tell me to have it memorized by the following day.

The following day there would be a test, followed by further cramming, followed by another test, and once every ten days, there would be a review of what we had covered. “Cramming” was too easygoing a word for the quantity offensive he had launched against me.

Honestly, I had begun to wonder whether he was secretly hoping for me to throw in the towel.

Of course, my past life’s memories were of use for geometry and arithmetic. I’d been pretty good at math, so for a while, I was using that to give myself some breathing room. However, even that was now becoming difficult, because when Gus judged that I was understanding something, he would skip right over that part like I’d just been moved up a year, and find something extra to teach me as well.

A part of me wished that I’d kept him fooled a little longer. Still, I’d decided to live this life seriously. I wanted to pull out all the stops. Luckily for me, this body was still young, and had a great memory, so I was somehow still hanging on.

And having been taught so much, I was finally coming to appreciate that not only was Gus’s knowledge extremely broad, but unfathomably deep as well.

Blood had once told me that Gus used to be exalted as “The Wandering Sage.” I could get the sense that he really had wandered the world and been to all kinds of places, and had learned from both experience and factual knowledge.

This world’s civilization was less advanced than my previous life—assuming you discounted the magic bits. Yet whether Gus talked about the anatomy of animals or the procedure for constructing a building, he spoke pragmatically and with clarity. Not a single moment was spent on the kinds of fanciful ideas that the medieval scholars of my old world had indulged in.

Even when Gus talked about demihumans and mythical beasts, which in my past life were nothing more than figments of the imagination, there wasn’t the slightest hesitation in his speech. As I listened to him talk about these things after having apparently actually encountered them, I started to realize I was not being smart or clever by constantly doubting their existence. My past life’s knowledge could not be applied to this world, and I was beginning to feel stupid for thinking it ever could. After all, the person in front of me was indisputably a ghost.

In any case, Gus’s lessons ran on an incredibly tightly packed schedule. I was desperately trying to keep up, but it was questionable how long I would last. Gus, irritable as he was, would have no hesitation in stopping the lesson if I started to whine about it, so I wasn’t even permitted to grumble. I simply had to work hard and show I could carry out the immense number of tasks he was setting before me.

It was grueling. I could be forgiven for calling it a little out of control. But Gus’s lessons, despite my complaints, were still only second-worst.

Blood’s lessons were out of control even in comparison to Gus’s. Not “a little” out of control—seriously big-time crazy.

We’d moved on from our play-fighting, and I’d been practicing with more realistic wooden swords and wooden spears, and learning techniques and form. This much was okay. As an extension of our hunting, I’d learned how to set traps, how to drive prey, how to bring down big game, and how to survive for days in the forest. This, too, made sense. And the regimented training runs and muscle training Blood had begun to impose on me as my body started to take shape were also nothing surprising, and obviously in line with his approach.

The real equipment started coming out: real swords, real spears, and genuine leather armor. I had no idea where he’d gotten these, but it was only natural that you’d keep them hidden and out of a child’s reach. He had me run around wearing that stuff, and practice my swings and techniques with it. All this I considered a completely natural part of a warrior’s education.

But after that, it started to get crazy. Seriously crazy.

“Okay. So, from today on, I’m gonna start throwing you into real battles.”

What?

“Lemme warn you, the guy you’ll be fighting is gonna have nothing on his mind except killing you.”

What?

“Okay, let’s go. I’ll supervise, of course, but if there’s an accident, you’re seriously gonna die. So, uh, try not to end up dead.”

WHAT?!

◆

I’ll spoil the ending. I had an awful time.

To get into the specifics, Blood gave me a long sword and circular shield, and made me fight to the death against a weak undead he’d captured somewhere.

It was the dry, pitch-black corpse of a monster. It had no nose or ears, one cyclopean eye, and a mouth that opened wide in a disturbing smile shaped like a crescent moon. Its build was not much different from mine. When Blood released it, I was immediately charged, as it swung its chipped and cracked claws.

Oh, yeah. I was terrified.

That might surprise you after hearing about all my training. However, the training and the real thing were worlds apart.

It was horrifying to face an opponent who intended to kill you. How could I describe that horror?

There was a sense of security that came with training. It had restrictions, agreed upon by everyone taking part, so that the risk of accidents or serious injury was reduced as much as possible. If your opponent took on risk and surprised you with a movement you were unable to deal with, you wouldn’t end up seriously injured, and you wouldn’t die. The same would hold if you tried a risky and bold action of your own.

The cost to pay for the act of taking on risk was low. That was what allowed you to try out all kinds of different behaviors, investigate their pros and cons, and distill them down to the one or two that were really effective. In my past world, too, the martial arts enjoyed great popularity and technical advancement as a result of establishing a safe format for fighting.

But in a real battle, all actions came with risk. If you took a single bad hit, if your foot slipped just once, that alone could be the end of you. Death: the ultimate dead end.

I was now in a real battle, and every action I took had the possibility of leading to some level of risk. My mind went blank, and I started to lose confidence in what I was meant to do.

Of course, I remembered having a previous life, but my intuitive feeling was that this was an exceedingly rare occurrence, and I had no expectation that I was going to get another. Even if I were, it wouldn’t have made a jot of difference to the biological aversion to death that was bubbling up within me.

And fatal wounds weren’t the only thing I was scared of. If I got my eye gouged out, I wouldn’t be able to see anymore. If a tendon were cut, I’d lose movement in that limb. My windpipe could be crushed. I could lose my fingers. I wondered if there was any truth to that rumor I’d heard in my past life, that if you got your nose cut off, mucus would dribble out of the hole in your face.

My enemy’s murderous intent forced me to confront all those horrifying possibilities at once.

I got tunnel vision. My heart raced. My breathing grew ragged, my body started shaking, all thought ceased—and as if none of that mattered, I moved to cut my enemy down with a single stroke.

As the undead monster swung its claws down at me, I bashed them away from me with my shield and stepped diagonally forward. As we crossed, I slashed my sword horizontally towards its torso. Assisted by the rotational inertia of my well-trained lower body, my shoulders and arm muscles drove the sword in.

I felt a reassuring resistance as the blade connected.

I put distance between us again. When I looked next, the bone-dry body of the undead creature had been sliced in two, and was crumbling to dust.

Fighting in a real battle was terrifying. I could say without doubt that I’d been scared stiff. My muscles, however, which had been conditioned from a young age, were faithful and brave. They moved on their own, leaving my cowardly thoughts behind. The best response to any given attack was already imprinted in them as a reflex action.

In my previous world, soldiers and fighters who had undergone a lot of training for battle were sometimes referred to as “killing machines.” I now understood how apt that description was. Properly trained warriors could kill their enemies as a mechanical response, setting all their fear and disgust to the side, just as Blood had once told me.

“Phew…”

The monster I’d just cut down was probably a demon, one of the minions of the evil god of dimensions, Dyrhygma. Unless I was mistaken, the demon I’d just fought was one of the lowest-ranked and weakest. I’d gained that knowledge from Gus’s natural history lessons, so I was sure it was right.

I was a little surprised, though. Demons were beings from another dimension, and I’d heard that when defeated, they often simply disappeared. I had no idea they could become undead as well. Maybe that one was special, I thought, as I stood over the monster I’d cut down and watched it turn to dust.

I’d just killed something that looked like a person. Sure, it was an undead monster, but I still found it strange how emotionless I felt. I wasn’t feeling pumped up, panicked, or confused. If another of the same kind of enemy were to charge at me, I was sure I could cut it down in the same way. My lack of hesitancy toward taking a life was probably the result of how proficient all my training had made me.

After I made sure that it had entirely turned to dust, I looked at Blood, whose face appeared stupefied. His skeletal expression was no different from usual, of course, but his mouth was half-open, and he was looking directly at me.

“Blood, I won. What’s wrong?”

“Uh… Right. Yeah, good job. Uh, that was okay, considering it was your first battle.” He tried to pass it off like it was nothing, but his voice was a little unconvincing. He seemed pleased.

The impression I was getting was that Blood personally thought what I’d shown off there was very good, but he didn’t want it to go to my head, so he was telling me to take it easy.

Well, well, well. I softly chuckled through my nose. Learning this made me happy. I’d made use of what Blood had taught me. I was feeling very proud of myself. Now, then…

I said at the beginning that I had an awful time. You’re thinking “that wasn’t so bad,” right? Yeah, no. This was where it all went wrong.

“H-Hey! Don’t get cocky. It was okay, I said, just okay.”

“Come on, give it up. Just say it, I’m a genius!” Of course, I was joking. I was setting him up to make a joke at my expense. That wasn’t what I got, though.

“Genius, huh. Yeah… Maybe you are.” For some reason, Blood responded to my joke with a relatively serious tone. And then, switching to a cheerful one, he said something absolutely horrifying. “All right, genius, why don’t we move up the schedule and give a harder one a go?!”

Seriously?

◆

The ruined city was always something I’d looked upon from above, from the temple hill. I’d never been allowed to approach it because it was too dangerous, and so I’d never known before now that it also had a complex underground portion.

Before we’d gone inside, Blood had told me that this city had once been inhabited by humans and a race of dwarves.

The dwarves were of short stature, but powerfully built, and excelled in metallurgy, engineering, and construction. Familiar with the earth, they preferred living in caves underground, and this place was no exception. They had constructed a large city of their own below the city here.

In the present day, the underground city below the ruins was a dangerous place, roamed by savage and mindless undead like the one Blood had captured earlier. The reason I’d been forbidden to approach the ruined city was because undead creatures just like that one occasionally wandered out of the underground.

That underground was where I now found myself.

The equipment I’d been given was clothing, shoes, leather armor, a longsword, a dagger, a circular shield, and finally, the pack on my back, which contained bread, dried meat, and a skin full of water. Blood had left me here, deep in the underground city. I was to make it back out of here myself with only the stuff I’d been given.

Deep blackness was spread out before me. It wasn’t merely dark. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. This was true blackness, without the slightest trace light, throwing off even my sense of balance.

As you may have noticed, a source of light was not included among the equipment I was given. Blood had carried me here through the pitch darkness. He, of course, no longer had human eyeballs, and seemed to use some other paranormal method for perceiving his surroundings. Of course, I hadn’t been able to memorize the path we’d taken to get here. Then, he’d just left, without even giving me a light, leaving me in the middle of this den of the undead. So here I was.

Things were not looking good, to say the least, and I hadn’t even started yet. That said, panicking wasn’t going to solve anything. Essentially, this was a practical exam. This was, presumably, meant to be a situation I could get myself out of, if I made good use of everything given to me so far.

I breathed in deeply, and as if expanding my sense of touch outside the limits of my skin, I sensed the surrounding mana, and synchronized with it. Drawing my dagger, I then carefully engraved the Word Lumen, which meant “light,” into my shield.

The shield lit up, and with its magical light I could see the surrounding area, up to about ten meters, in vivid detail. The light didn’t waver like a flame would, and was brighter, too, close to the brightness of a fluorescent lamp from my old world. It would run out in a few hours, but once that happened, it could be made to shine again by drawing the surrounding mana into the engraved Word.

I checked my surroundings with the light. I seemed to be in some kind of small room. There was one entrance, and everywhere my light didn’t reach was steeped in darkness. I could hear the low howl of wind blowing through from somewhere.

I had no idea how long escaping was going to take. Resting will be the problem, I thought. I had no one here to stand guard for me when I needed it. To rest in circumstances like this required strong nerves and a number of preparations.

You had no problem being alone in your room before, I thought bitterly. For the past ten years, Blood had always been there, and Mary, and Gus.

“Being by yourself makes you so lonely and… anxious,” I mumbled. I’d forgotten that.

Blood was probably testing my all-around practical skills: the robust physical strength needed to endure the intense circumstances of a real battle, the flexibility to find the right technique to handle any kind of situation, and the mental fortitude to stay composed in the face of constant loneliness and danger.

Ensuring that I could make use of everything I’d learned from the three of them, even when none of them were around—that was the point of this exercise.

I was thirteen now, soon to be fourteen. Adulthood was thought to begin at fifteen in this world, so the time for me to stand on my own two feet was near.

I wanted them to see me perform at my best. I wanted the three of them to know that the things they’d taught me were coming to fruition, that it had been worth their time to teach me. If possible, I wanted them to feel proud that I was their apprentice.

Resolved to make full use of my capabilities, I walked into the maze.

◆

Using my shield, I deflected the spiked tail swinging at me from the edges of my vision.

“Tacere, os!” Without faltering, I spoke the Words to enforce silence. The jaw of the skeletal monster in front of me locked shut, and the Words it was trying to issue were interrupted.

Not intending to miss my chance, I stepped in toward it, but a storm of wild swings of its short spear forced me to a very sudden stop, followed by a retreat. I glared into the congealed blackness in its eye sockets, and it seemed to glare back.

I was in a wide, open area of the city underground. The thing in front of me was a skeleton that had once belonged to a demon. To summarize its appearance in a few words, it was was a blend of human and crocodile.

It was about two meters tall, and its skull reminded me of a dinosaur. It had a thick spine to match its physique, with a dramatic series of bony projections running down its length, and its spindly, bizarrely long tail had spikes on the end. It was gripping a short metal spear, untouched by rust, in its human-like hands.

I remembered learning about this demon from Gus. It was called a vraskus.

I’d been told that a bite of its jaws could crush metal armor, while the strikes of its tail were like those of an assassin, coming from unexpected angles. It was relatively high-ranked, being proficient in the use of all kinds of weapons, and even capable of wielding the Words of Creation.

Its tough scales, rubbery skin, and thick muscles were said to frustrate its opponents to the same degree as a warrior’s full set of armor. Fortunately, since it was now a skeleton, that protection had been lost. I felt a little lucky.

Gus had told me during his lessons that if you sent ten warriors to fight this demon, you’d end up with nothing more than ten dead bodies. He might have been exaggerating, though. After all, this guy was really sluggish compared to Blood.

I waited for the right moment, and closed in as fast as I could. As it thrust its short spear forward, I deflected it with my shield. I heard the shield and spear scrape against each other. I drew right up close. The vraskus came at me with jaws that could no longer use magic, trying to bite me instead. I’d been anticipating that, too. I ducked low and rolled forward to avoid it, leaped up, and thrust the point of my longsword in somewhere around its tailbone. I immediately twisted it hard. The tail was swinging at me again from a blind spot. I destroyed the part connecting it to the rest of its body, and felt it lose strength and collapse.

The vraskus stalled for an instant in apparent surprise.

I wasn’t going to let up. I raised my round shield, and attempted a shield bash.

This should go without saying, but ordinarily, a boy of 160 cm would never be able to shake a huge beast two meters tall just by tackling it. But my opponent was no more than bones, and the loss of its long tail had upset his balance. I slammed my body and shield into it with all the strength I could muster. There was a forcible impact, and the next instant, the vraskus was down on the ground.

I stepped down on the grip of the spear.

But the vraskus was quick to think and act. It released the spear immediately and sprang at me with outstretched arms, trying to bite me.

Just as I thought it would.

I already had my sword gripped in both hands, held high over my head, waiting to intercept its attack.

“Y-Yaaaaaaghhh!” As the vraskus dived for my windpipe, I smashed my sword down onto its skull with all of my energy. Fragments of bone flew everywhere, and the huge skeleton collapsed onto the floor facedown.

The broken tip of my sword flipped rapidly through the air. It clanged against the floor and spun to a stop in the corner of the room.

“Ah…”

The vraskus had started turning to dust, but I was more concerned with the state of the trusty longsword I had never given a name. As if in exchange for felling that strong foe, it was now impressively broken.

I felt my blood run cold.

This… was bad.

The undead were prowling this place, and I was here with no main weapon. This was very bad.

I’d certainly been shaken up, but I was soon distracted. My eye caught the short spear the vraskus had been holding. It wasn’t turning to dust. I picked it up and had a look. It didn’t look demonic. If anything, this was a dwarven spear.

I hummed thoughtfully. Maybe this was the work of the dwarves that used to live here?

But in that case, how could it have lasted so many years without rusting? Wondering this, I inspected it more closely, and noticed that Words of Creation had been engraved on it in numerous places. According to Gus, in the era of the warring gods, the gods engraved all kinds of Signs onto all kinds of items, and created a great many divine swords and legendary treasures. The dwarves had in part inherited these skills, and possessed a secret technique for imbuing their weapons with the Words.

Then this rust-free spear was a magical weapon, made by the dwarves who had peopled this land.

As a general rule, these kinds of weapons were extremely durable, and could have an effect even on specters like Gus, who couldn’t be touched by normal physical attacks. There were even some that had powerful additional effects such as spouting fire or stunning the opponent with a shock wave. The only problem was, I had no way of determining that here. I was afraid to swing around a spear whose magical effects I didn’t know.

But being without a main weapon was scarier still.

Given that the vraskus had been swinging it around perfectly fine, I figured that whatever these Words were, they probably weren’t harmful to the user. I decided to have Gus evaluate it later, and borrow its strength for the time being.

I grabbed the shaft, and practiced some jabs and thrusts to get a feel for it. It felt wonderfully easy to use, as if it was clinging to my hand.

“Right.”

Let’s see if I can’t do something with this, I thought, and no sooner had I put my foot forward when a shivering chill ran up my spine.

I spun around. Gus was there. He was staring at me, and there was murder in his eyes.

◆

“Gus? That… is you, right?” I couldn’t help but check. His aura was that foreboding.

I knew Gus as a stubborn and slightly eccentric old ghost who was intelligent and knew everything, and had a hooked nose and unfriendly eyes. Unlike Blood and Mary, he kept a little distance in his interactions with me, but if I asked him repeatedly to teach me, and had a serious attitude about it, he was conscientious enough not to dismiss me out of hand.

That was the usual Gus. I believed that deep down, he was a very good-natured and kind person. But he wasn’t like that now. There was a clearly murderous intent in his piercing stare, and his hands, held in a firm stance, felt full of mana, likely sufficient to use magic of considerable power.

The back of my neck shivered, as if someone had blown a cold breath on it.

Gus said nothing.

He was like an entirely different person. Just a menacing look and a threatening pose made him this frightening?

It didn’t look to me like this was some kind of illusion or disguise. It was definitely Gus. But what had made him so deathly angry? Why was he even here at all?

“Ah…”

— I’ll supervise, of course, but if there’s an accident, you’re seriously gonna die. So, uh, try not to end up dead.

I remembered Blood’s words.

Saying, “I’ll supervise, but there’s the danger of accidental death,” meant that I probably wouldn’t die unless said accident really occurred. In other words, no matter how arduous the lesson was, it was still a lesson. Unless I bumped straight into an enemy unprepared, somehow died instantly, or made some horrendous mistake, I could expect help to come if the situation became more than I could handle.

How would they get that help to me? If anyone was to be tasked with helping me here, in this city underground, surely it would be Gus, who, as a specter, could pass through walls. The job of tailing me would be impossible for Mary, and no doubt very difficult even for Blood. Gus had almost certainly been constantly watching me as I wandered around this underground city, battled, and searched for the exit. Which had to mean…

“This is… part of the lesson?” I asked, with trepidation in my voice. Maybe this was another part of the lesson, where Gus would be my opponent. I wanted to believe that it was.

My instinct was blaring all its warning sirens at full volume, screaming at me that I was wrong.

“It is, right? Are you going to tell me what I’m su—”

He started drawing a Word in midair in place of an answer. I could tell by looking at it. That was an attack Word.

Magic for killing someone.

The instant I recognized it, I turned on my heel and chose to run. I didn’t have a clue what was going on. But I could sense it. I needed to run, as fast as possible! While being wary of what was behind me, I ran as fast as I could toward the room’s exit.

“Expergisci,” Gus said, spinning a Word from his lips in a bone-chilling tone.

Near the exit I was just about to run through, the pile of rubble shifted and stood, taking the form of a nearly three-meter-tall giant that scraped the ceiling.

“Wh—?!” It was a golem, made with the power of magic! Gus had engraved a complex Sign into the rubble ahead of time, and had now incanted the Word to awaken it.

The character he’d drawn with his finger was for show. He’d drawn it to make me choose to flee. Which meant… that Gus had already sectioned off this place, and turned it into his own meticulously prepared kill zone.

By the time I realized that, the golem’s fist was already closing in on me. There was no way I could fully block the overwhelming mass of that fist with my little, circular shield.

Waiting until the last possible moment, I shifted my body and dodged the blow. Then, as if to counter, I thrust forward with the magical spear I’d just obtained. I was aiming for its stomach—specifically, the Sign that was sustaining it.

The point of the spear sank into the rubble golem like a skewer into meat. I swept it sideways, and scraped off the Sign. The golem turned back into individual chunks of stone debris and crashed to the ground—but barely a moment later, something grazed the side of my face and shot past it, making a hard impact with the wall and shattering there.

I immediately leaped to the side. The exit receded.

Barely an instant after I wondered what had just been shot at me, several more pieces were flying my way. Rubble! I looked back at Gus to see a large Word drawn in midair, around the circumference of which were floating countless tiny pieces of rock.

He fired them at me one after the other, like bullets from a handgun. This magic was Stone Blast, and what’s more, a very advanced version!

“Uhh—Wahh—Ahh—?!” I rolled across the floor, trying to avoid them.

I couldn’t block all of those fine fragments of rubble with my shield. They hit me in places and stung like fire. Fighting to control my breathing, I prepared to speak the Word of Negation for the next pellets that had just been cast at me, but then—

“Cadere Araneum.”

I felt a chill of fear. I was familiar with this magic. It was the Word of Web-making. I had used it in my training with Blood, so I knew firsthand how dreadful this magic could be.

I quickly flung a Word of Negation upwards. The web vanished. I put up my shield and tried to make a dash for the exit, but slipped right over on the grease that had run under my feet without any warning.

What— What was going on? He was casting this magic way too fast. Even Gus shouldn’t be able to chain spells one after another as fast as this! I turned my eyes to him, and realized the truth. He was performing verbal incantations and written inscriptions in parallel.

“Double casting!” I knew it was possible in theory, but making even the slightest mistake while using the Words could lead to the caster’s own destruction. To speak and write different Words at the same time, while also correctly allocating the mana for each—I could tell without even trying it. It wasn’t simple.

“Khhh—!” I madly rolled around, avoiding yet another rubble barrage. I tried to escape out of the greased area, but down came another web.

Paralysis. Weakening. Slowdown. Cloud of Sleep. An endless number of brutal enfeebling techniques overwhelmed me.

If I stopped moving for even a second, I would fall victim to the hail of rubble. Using the Words of Negation and my own body movements, I somehow avoided taking any lethal hits. I made a number of unsightly attempts to escape, but all to no avail. I was desperately trying to manage, but I was slowly but surely being cornered…

Expressionless, but presumably tired of my resistance, Gus spread his hands apart.

“What?”

The Signs being drawn in the air glinted with mana. Two of them—different ones for each hand.

He was still incanting Words nonstop from his mouth.

Triple casting.

“No… way…”

There was no more hope. Simple mental calculation told me that this proved Gus was capable of unleashing a whole additional person’s worth of firepower. There was no possibility of escape. I couldn’t get away. I was going to be killed.

Gus was looking down on me mercilessly, preparing to activate his magic without the slightest hesitation. He was serious. He was really going to kill me.

Why? Why?

“Gus…” I was going to be killed by the parent who had raised me, without even knowing why.

No, I thought.

No, no no no.

I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die! My eyes filled with tears. Thoughts raced through my mind.

I don’t want to die. I have to run. But I can’t run. I’ll never be able to get away.

I don’t want to die.

I don’t want to die.

If I don’t want to die…

What do I have to do to not die?

This spear has Words engraved on it. It works on specters.

Use it like a javelin. Throw it at him. Impale him. My own voice whispered calmly to me inside my head.

I might be an instant faster right now. If I impale Gus… If I strike him just right… If I kill him, I can live.

He was the one who tried to kill me. He’s getting what he deserves. So—

Impale him. Just impale him. Impale him. Impale him.

KILL HIM!

As I listened to the insane screaming echoing inside my head, I forced a smile, and, with tense hands… I cast the spear aside.

The sound of it rolling away echoed awfully loudly. Surprised, Gus stopped activating his magic.

“Gus? Hey, Gus?” What was I meant to say? I didn’t know. But there was something I did know. “If you have to kill me, that means… you must have some good reason why, right?”

He would never do it otherwise. Even now that things had come to this, I could still believe that.

I loved him. I really loved him.

“Gus? Old Gus?” I spread my arms. I tilted my head back, and exposed my throat, to make it an easy target. “It’s okay. You don’t have to give me a ‘chance to fight back.’”

He swallowed, and seemed like he wanted to reply, but choked on his words. When was the last time I saw Gus this surprised? It might not have been since I answered that question about words when I was young.

“I get it,” I said.

If Gus had been serious, this whole farce would have been completely unnecessary. I was the only living being in this space underground. All he needed to do was blast Ignis around enough, and he could have killed me, and only me, by depriving me of oxygen and poisoning me with carbon monoxide. Even more simply, he could have just used a shock magic to collapse this large room’s ceiling. Since Gus was a specter and could pass through walls, he could also pass through a collapsing ceiling. Again, I would be the only fatality.

Yet Gus had tried to kill me with a drawn-out method like Stone Blast. As if he was giving me a chance to fight back.

“I get it… I understand what you’re doing, but…”

I could tell that this was the best compromise Gus could afford to give me. But even then—

“I don’t want to kill you, Gus…”

Tears spilled from my eyes. Of course I didn’t want to die. I was scared—very scared. The memory of having died once already didn’t change that in the slightest. But even so—

“I’d rather die than hurt you, Gus…”

Something welled up inside of me, expanding like a balloon, and I started to hiccup uncontrollably. I felt so uncool.

I’d wanted to accept death. It wasn’t like I hadn’t gone through it before.

“If this is important to you,” I hiccupped again, “that’s all I care about.”

Gus was still just lingering there in silence, not casting anything. I smiled awkwardly at him.

“You can kill me. I’m not afraid to die.” Forcing my lips into a tight smile, I tried to act as stoic as I could. I couldn’t let my death be unsightly. I was Gus’s apprentice.

“J-Just try not to make it hurt too much… please…”

Slowly… Gus approached me. I clenched my quivering hands. He reached out, and held a palm over my head. I closed my eyes tightly, and the next thing I heard—

“Ahh, sorry, boy! I went a bit too far, didn’t I?! Hah hah hah!” Gus spoke and laughed in a loud, exaggerated voice, and pretended to stroke my head with his translucent hand.

“Huh…?” I was shocked.

“It looks like I win! I did have the terrain advantage, though. Come on, pick yourself up. I know, I spooked you, but it’s not all bad. You got some valuable experience in what a battle with a mage is like, didn’t you?”

This couldn’t have been a lesson, and that wasn’t what was shocking me. No—it was because Gus was trying to pretend that this had all been a lesson.

His voice was the proof. He was never normally this loud or voluble. Why? Had emotion gotten the better of him? Was that possible, for someone of Gus’s caliber? No way. But then… why?

“Gus…”

“Now, now, we can talk later! You defeated a vraskus and even obtained a spear. Blood will be over the moon! Now let’s not dawdle any longer in this vexatious place. Come along, Will!” Gus was being incredibly verbose.

“Oh, I know!” he said, far too brightly. “I bet you were impressed by that double and triple casting! Now, tricks like that are bad manners, but in the heat of battle, you’re better served knowing them. I’ll teach you things like that as well from now on. How does that sound? Come on, cheer up, won’t you? Please?”

My face must have looked awful at that point in time, but right now, even Gus looked like he might have been about to cry.

There were definitely mysteries surrounding this city, the three, and my background. Blood would probably tell me everything before I was fifteen.

The day for light to be shed on all these mysteries was fast approaching.

◆

The days that followed the Gus incident were no different than the days that had come before. Even after I made it to the exit with Gus and reunited with Blood, I didn’t breathe a single word to him about our fight. I trusted Gus, and if he wasn’t going to disclose it to Blood, there must be worthy reason why.

Of course, that meant I was hiding something, so I might have acted a little strangely. But I had been thrown into a den of the undead, and had only just come back from that altogether crazy training, having spent half a day there. A little bit of strange behavior was easily misinterpreted by Blood and Mary as the effects of fear and tension which hadn’t yet worn off.

To add to that, as it turned out, a vraskus skeleton actually spelled quite a bit of trouble. As Gus reported to Blood how my training had gone, and got to the part where I had to fight a vraskus, Blood gave a hum of understanding and tried to cheer me up, saying it was no wonder Gus had needed to jump in and help me. He didn’t sound like he’d even considered the possibility that I might have won by myself.

Gus told him that I beat it on my own, and Blood’s jaw dropped. Literally. His entire bottom jaw fell off and dropped to the ground. The sight of Blood in a fluster trying to fit his jawbone back on was pretty surreal.

Was a vraskus really that much of a problem? It had seemed several times less powerful than Blood to me, but maybe it was weak compared to what they were usually like for some reason. Yet as far as I’d been taught, the abilities and skills of the undead never changed from how they’d been in life.

“Umm, how difficult an opponent is a vraskus to you, Blood?”

“Hm? Me?” he replied, folding his arms behind his head. “I could just charge straight in there and lop its head off.”

Huh. Then a vraskus wasn’t very strong after all. Blood had just been underestimating me slightly, or thinking I wouldn’t be able to achieve my full potential in an actual battle.

“Then I still have a long way to go. I can’t rest easy just ’cause I beat a vraskus.” If you get full of yourself every time you get the slightest bit stronger, you’re just setting yourself up for a fall. I had to rein it in.

Blood and Gus both made strange faces after hearing that comment, and mumbled, “Yeah,” and “Indeed,” and other indistinct things I couldn’t make out.

Hm. I felt like I was laboring under some huge misunderstanding.

With my confusion unresolved, the conversation moved on to the spoils of battle. I’d spotted old coins and ornaments underground, but due to the hassle of carrying them, the only thing I’d brought back was that single short spear. It was my first battle trophy, and the three of them showed great interest in it. We all looked at it together, and spent a while discussing its various aspects.

The blade of the spear was straight, double-edged, and reasonably long. Together with the shaft, it made for a spear that was longer than I was tall.

The curved point of the blade was long, and there was a straight temper line dividing the blade from the rest of the metal. The steel shone with a cold and brilliant light. The base of the blade, where it joined the shaft, was pinched inwards on both sides. Blood liked the look, calling it quite seductive.

The shaft was a tasteful dark brown. According to Mary, it was made of walnut. A bronze ring with a Word engraved in it was set at the base of the blade.

Overall, it was a functional spear, seemingly of dwarven make. However, the fact that all the nonessential elements had been pared away gave it a beauty and impact of its own.

The dark color of the handle contrasted impressively with the steel blade, gleaming a bright white as it reflected the light. When I thought about how this was my weapon I started getting a little excited, which was unusual for me. So much so that I couldn’t help myself from grabbing it and taking it to the garden to practice swings and form.

It’s a fact of life, as embarrassing as it is to admit, that all men long to have something of their very own that they can obsess over, be it a weapon, a car, or whatever else. I was sure that any male would be able to understand this feeling.

Gus looked at the spear in close detail with me, while re-explaining what to look for. After careful inspection, we found that this spear was known as Pale Moon. The blade and the shaft had both been endowed with magical effects through the Words of Creation.

On the blade, there were Words to augment its ability to penetrate and sever, and Words to protect it against wear and destruction. In addition, a Word based on Lumen was engraved there, making the blade serve also as a source of illumination with adjustable range and brightness. It didn’t seem like it could shine brightly enough to blind an enemy, but it was certainly enough for lighting my way through the dark. No need for a torch, then.

The handle, meanwhile, in addition to the same Words for strength and quality retention, was engraved with Words pertaining to the contraction and expansion of matter. It appeared that its length could be adjusted, to a limited extent, over the span of a few minutes, while still preserving the material’s hardness and toughness. It couldn’t suddenly be extended in the middle of a fight, but it could be used as a pike if the situation called for it. As a short spear, it could be carried into small spaces.

They weren’t flashy effects like fire or shock waves, but each was undeniably useful. I could think of endless ways to use this thing.

This was amazing. It really was amazing. It was a real magic weapon! And it was mine! I got even more carried away, testing out a whole different range of lengths, seeing what they felt like to swing, and polishing the spear repeatedly even though it wasn’t dirty. The three—Blood and Gus in particular—watched me with very warm eyes.

◆

The days after that passed peacefully.

Blood’s lessons now sometimes involved descents to the underground city, but I’d gotten used to it. Sometimes with Pale Moon and sometimes with a longsword, I experienced battle after battle against undead demons. Even when I encountered demons on the same level as a vraskus, they still caused me less trouble than in my first fight.

Eventually, not only did I end up memorizing the structure of the underground city, but nothing down there was a match for me anymore, so Blood started giving me handicaps. For example: I was to enter the underground city with only clothing and a dagger, acquire weapons and armor while there by stealing them from the undead, and return after taking down a certain number. That was pretty hard, but it didn’t take me all that long before I managed to get the hang of that as well.

Incidentally, though I picked up a number of well-preserved weapons and ornaments, none of them were able to outshine Pale Moon. Nevertheless, I thought it was a very useful experience to try out all kinds of different equipment. There were poor-quality weapons where I favored quantity instead, equipment with names, long weapons, short ones, and everything in-between.

Just as Gus had promised, he taught me the secret tricks to the double and triple use of magic.

Even in my previous world, writing different letters with your left and right hands was an impressive trick, and I also remembered seeing street performances where the performer would play an instrument while doing something else at the same time. Multicasting magic was similar to those tricks. Just like Blood’s martial arts, the trick was probably to train your body to remember useful combinations so you could pull them off without thinking.

Gus and I settled on a few practical combinations together. I practiced them to build up my muscle memory. But double casting aside, triple casting was simply far too difficult, and I couldn’t entirely pull it off yet. It must have taken Gus many long years of practice to get that good. I wanted to catch up to him someday.

His lectures changed, too. There was no more relentless cramming.

“This will suffice for your scholarly education.” In our usual classroom, Gus nodded at me with a smile on his face. “It’s time you learned something different.”

“Something different?” I asked, and Gus nodded.

“Go down to the underground city with Blood and gather up some coins,” he said, in a serious tone. “I’m going to teach you something important.” I sat up straight and nodded.

I had no idea what Gus was planning to use the coins for, but if he was speaking this seriously about it, I had no doubt that it really did have to be a matter of some importance.

After a while, Blood and I returned with the coins.

“Ah, good. I’ve been waiting for you.” Gus was carrying dice, a bowl, and… what looked like playing pieces and a board.

“Oh! It’s been a while. Up for a game, old man?!” Blood said, in a really cheerful voice. “Hey, Will, you’ve never played before, right?!”

I didn’t answer.

“No big deal, I guess, only takes once to get the idea… Will?”

“Um. Gus?” I said.

“Yes?” Gus replied.

“Isn’t this… you know… gambling?”

“‘Gambling’ is such a crude term. Have a little elegance. Let’s call it an intellectual game.”

“It is gambling!”

“All right, all right, there’s no need to lose your temper.”

“Yes, there is! I thought you had something really important to teach me! Why gambling?!”

“Oh, I daresay you would be surprised by what intellectual games have to offer.” And that finally started Gus on his train of sophistry. “When you become an elite sorcerer, a modest familiarity with intellectual games is to be expected. Games of this sort are occasionally used for duels between sorcerers. Magic is dangerous in many ways, after all. If you get into a dispute with a sorcerer you detest, and have a physical battle, it is not uncommon for both sides to destroy each other, which is a result that serves no one. Which is why, in the case of a dispute, one will on occasion draw up a contract, and resolve the conflict through an intellectual game, so as to…”

Memories of card-game manga from my previous life flashed through my mind. But thinking about it, games being used as the format to settle a duel wasn’t just a manga thing. There were real, historical examples as well. So maybe, even in this world, it was a good idea to learn how to—

“Oh no, you’re not getting me like that!” I shook my head rapidly. “Gambling is gambling! Mary would be so angry!”

“Oho… Will, my boy…” Gus grinned. “You are scared, I see.”

“What?”

“No, no, no. There’s no need to hide it. It’s only natural that you would be intimidated by the prospect of directly competing against me, the exalted Wandering Sage, in an intellectual game.” His smile was a mocking one. “Yes, and Mary will be angry, after all. No one could blame you for running away! For fleeing! Yes, run, boy, run. I will have my fun with Blood.” He even added a sneering cackle onto the end.

“Oh, that’s it.” I couldn’t help but respond to his provocation.

So, I proceeded to respond to his provocation.

As you know, gambling is addictive. So much so that pathological gambling was an actual recognized disorder in my previous world.

Gambling stimulates the brain. Panic and anger if you lose, but pleasure and satisfaction if you win. Eventually, the brain becomes desensitized to these stimuli, and the person seeks out stronger stimulation, becoming more and more hooked. There was plenty of literature written about this in my previous world, and I hardly needed to quote it to say that countless people had fallen to the allure of these devilish games.

Why am I telling you all this? To illustrate a simple point:

“Double six! Looks like I take this one, Old Gus!”

“Tch! You always did have good instincts…”

“Okay, next game! Let’s play again!”

The devil was not so easily eluded.

The game involved moving pieces across a board using dice, in a similar way to backgammon.

“Okay, let’s go again. Hold up, though, before we start. Will, there’s a trick to this. Let me teach you. See, there’s this thing called an unlucky streak.”

“Pure fantasy!” Gus scoffed. “There are only results and probabilities. Play logically for long enough, and ultimately—”

“Yeah? And who’s the one being slowly bled dry here?”

Blood currently had a big pile of gold coins in front of him. He had taken a lot of minor losses, but never missed when it mattered. Watching him made me want to believe in instinct and streaks of luck.

I remained silent, my eyes on the sizable mountain of silver coins I had amassed by making safe decisions and avoiding big showdowns with Blood. I was currently second.

Gus made a guttural sound of frustration. He was, of course, last. Even though he talked about the importance of theory and probability, whenever a big clash arose between him and Blood, his obstinate personality led him to discard all that and try to outdo him.

I wanted to play well and maintain second place, and if possible, find just the right opportunity to snatch first. So, strategically speaking, my next move should be—

A loud bang interrupted my thoughts. The door was open, and Mary was standing there.

All three of us opened our mouths and made an “ah” sound at the same time.

For a moment, she said nothing. She had her eyes cast downward, and a gentle smile on her face. It appeared to be the same expression she always had, but for some reason, I couldn’t stop trembling.

“You three, sit here.” Her calm voice made me break into a copious, cold sweat.

“I, ah, well,” Gus started.

“Mary, I can explain—”

“It was Gus’s idea—”

We all waved our hands before us as we tried to defend ourselves.

“Sit here.”

Not one of us could disobey Mary’s smile. Her lecture was long and severe, and taught me something very important: getting hooked on gambling is a bad idea!

◆

Although Gus’s gambling parlor operation was not to be repeated, it did show the large ways in which his lessons were changing. In comparison, Blood’s didn’t change much.

“Hfff!” I exhaled. I was bare-chested, gripping a tree branch, and doing pull-ups. Slowly, to make my back muscles work, I pulled my body up.

With one hand.

“Hfff!”

“Man, your back’s gotten pretty thick.”

Blood’s training was a constant. Train your body, train your technique, practice your skills—hunting, tree climbing, rock climbing, swimming, gathering food—and while doing that, gradually build your knowledge of how to identify the different fish and plants you encounter.

The training never changed. My body, however, was slowly changing to cope with it. I did pull-ups with both hands at first, then with weights, then one-handed. Push-ups, too, I did with a weight on my back, or while in a handstand.

I’d developed visible abs, I was building a muscular chest, and my arms and thighs were getting thicker and stronger. Bit by bit, I was changing into the muscled warrior that Blood had once been.

“Okay, that’ll do,” Blood said, after I’d run through my basic training routine for the day.

“So what are we doing today?” I asked. “Sparring?”

“Nah, I’ve got a little something else in mind today. We’re gonna look for a beehive. Go splash water on yourself and wash the sweat off, put plenty of layers on, and come back here with a cloth.”

I nodded. I splashed cold water on myself, washed off the sweat, put a lot of clothes on, and returned to Blood.

When I got back, Blood was peering into a small jar. He seemed to be grinning.

“Hm? What’s that?”

“Have a look.”

I peered inside. There was the richly sweet smell of forest grapes, and at the same time, my nose was filled by a second, very distinctive smell. I could see bubbles rising in the liquid inside.

“Okay, listen, Will. What I did was, I got this pot to boiling temperature, and I put in the juice of pressed forest grapes…”

“You’re making alcohol?”

“Oh, you do know!”

“So the reason you’re looking for a beehive—”

“Yup. We’re gonna shove honey in here and sweeten it up.”

If a certain type of fungus gets into a liquid containing sugar, it starts breaking the sugar down and producing alcohol. Of course, the more sugar you add, the higher the alcohol concentration, and the harder the drink.

“A man’s gotta be able to handle his booze,” he said.

“Are you sure Mary won’t get angry?”

“Come on. She doesn’t need to know, right? It’ll be our secret!” His will-o’-the-wisps were twinkling, and he looked like he was really having fun. It was too hard to turn him down.

I was on board without much convincing, and the two of us ran through the forest looking for a bees’ nest. We laughed loudly together as we smoked it out. It was no trouble to get the honey, and we added it to the jar.

I tried some bee larvae on Blood’s suggestion. They were surprisingly tasty. It hit me how much rougher and less fussy I’d become, compared to my previous life.

We left it for a number of days, and after checking that it had properly fermented and become alcohol, we sat in secret opposite each other and enjoyed a drink together. Having said that, Blood had no throat or tongue, of course. No sooner had he poured it into his mouth than it was dripping onto the ground.

“Oh, that’s good. That’s damn good,” he said with relish. I was sure he couldn’t taste it, and couldn’t get drunk, either. Yet Blood looked like he was loving it, and seemed to be having a lot of fun.

“Yeah.” This drink, shared with Blood, tasted wonderful to me as well.

With nothing much to snack on, we poured cup after cup, and got drunk while gazing at the moon. It wasn’t long before a really nice, light, floaty feeling filled my head, and we were laughing like idiots at the smallest little jokes. We got more and more excitable, and when it got to the point where we were acting like a pair of total drunkards…

“You wanna show me you’ve got guts?” Blood slurred.

“Yeah?”

“Let’s go peep on Mary getting undressed.”

“Ooh, gutsy!”

“I am gutsy, aren’t I?”

“Hahaha!” We both laughed our heads off. How did this end up happening?

Obviously, I knew in my head that this was not something we should be doing. I feel sure that even as dulled as my brain was, it was still correctly asking me, What’s even fun about this in the first place?!

“Ahahahah!”

“Ahahahah!”

It’s just that it was pointless asking that question to a drunk.

We moved quickly. The temple’s corridors were wobbling. No, wait, that was me.

We judged our timing, and swiftly moved to the door of Mary’s room. I could hear the rustle of fabric. Blood and I peeked through the gap, and saw that Mary was just taking off her loose robe.

Blood and I both were capable of moving around very quietly and expertly when we wanted to. Peeping on someone was easy for us… or would have been when we were sober.

“Ah—”

“You—idiot!”

I wobbled, staggered, and brought us both crashing to the ground.

Mary shrieked. “Wh-Who’s there?!”

We tried to run, but weren’t fast enough. She was able to find something close at hand to wear, and in no time at all, she had put it on, darted out, and caught us both.

“Will?! Blood?! What in the world—ugh, you reek of alcohol!”

I rarely saw Mary this flustered.

“Um, I… this isn’t…!”

“Heheh, thought we’d take a li’l peek at you getting changed.”

“Wh—Wh—Wh—?!”

If she’d been alive, her face would surely have gone bright red. The way Mary was losing her composure in embarrassment was actually adorable, and I felt my heart leap for just a moment.

“What are you two doing?!”

A red handprint was left on my cheek. As for the main culprit, Blood, Mary socked him so hard that his skull spun in circles. Then she got on top of him, pinned him down, and punched him repeatedly.

Not only had we gotten completely plastered, we’d peeped on a lady in a state of undress. The punishment fit the crime. Frankly, we’d gotten off lightly.

And when I woke up the following morning, for some reason, I’d had a wet dream. Yes, for the first time.

My voice was breaking around this time, so it wasn’t surprising, but to think my awakening to sex was Mary getting undressed. My awakening to sex was Mary getting undressed. And to make matters worse, Blood found out, and he doubled over laughing while pointing a finger at me. I kicked him.

And, as I washed my soiled loincloth, I made him swear to me that we’d take this secret with us to the grave.

No more booze. Seriously, no more.

◆

Focusing on my “episodes” with Blood and Gus may give you the impression that I was a mischief maker of the highest order. But I was basically a good kid. I… thought I was, anyway. Probably. Most likely.

“Mary, I weeded the field. Also, I put the washing out.”

“Thank you, Will.”

“Also, I dusted the gods’ statues and laid down some flowers.”

“Oh, my goodness.”

As proof, recently, I’d gotten to the point where I wasn’t just helping Mary with the chores, I was beating her to them. Surprisingly, that was much more difficult than it sounded. I couldn’t wait around for directions. I had to have a total grasp of her procedure, think about what was needed, and carry it out before she could.

Mary was quick. She told me that the trick to not letting chores get on top of you was to take care of things immediately the moment you noticed them. The cleaning tools and the farm tools were kept within easy reach at all times, and if she noticed a little bit of dust or a weed, she dealt with it then and there, and got it out of the way.

To do things before she could, I had to constantly be on the lookout, and I couldn’t let myself get lazy, either. Always thinking about reducing Mary’s workload as I went about my business taught me more, in a way, than even the lessons being given to me by Blood and Gus. At least in terms of how it impacted my regular life, it was far more important than strengthening my muscles.

If I’d at least done some housework in my previous life, I could have been slightly less of a burden on my family. Now that I was living in this world, I never wanted to make the same mistakes again.

“Thank you very much, Will. Well, now I have some time on my hands. I know, why don’t I cut your hair today?”

“Ah, good idea.”

My hair had grown quite long without me really noticing it. When was the last time Mary cut it for me?

She was good at haircutting. Gus, incidentally, never once offered, and the one time I asked Blood to do it could be summed up with the word “appalling.”

“Okay, ready. Thanks, Mary.”

My voice had finally stopped changing recently. I’d grown much taller, and my shoulders had gotten broader, too. I’d overtaken both Mary and Gus in height, and although I still couldn’t stand shoulder to shoulder with Blood, the difference in our physiques had narrowed quite a bit. I could practice unarmed combat with him now.

It was a refreshingly cool autumn morning. Mary chopped away at my hair, showing no hesitation with the well-sharpened scissors.

“I can see your Adam’s apple sticking out now. You might start growing a beard soon.”

“Yeah. Maybe I’ll get Blood to teach me how to use a razor. I wonder if he remembers.”

Mary let out a little laugh. “I wonder. I expect he hasn’t used one for a long time.”

Electric razors were so common in my previous world. I wondered how many young people had ever shaved their beards with a straight razor. I couldn’t do it either, of course. I’d have to learn.

Then again, cutting yourself with a razor looked painful. If the customs of the outside world would allow it, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to let it grow…

“Come to think of it, what did Blood’s face look like?”

Gus looked like he always had. Mary was just sapped of moisture, and still had her abundant blonde hair and her gentle eyes, so her, I could at least imagine. Blood was the most difficult.

Mary stopped snipping and looked into the distance wistfully.

“Blood looked quite different from you. I’m sure you can tell from his skeletal structure. His arms and neck were thick, and he had broad shoulders. He had a wild face… an indomitable face, full of confidence. His hair trailed in the wind like a lion’s mane. He had sharp, piercing eyes. Perhaps he looked a bit too tough to call good-looking?”

I imagined burly muscles overlaid on Blood’s familiar skeleton. I stretched skin over them, and added hair. A piercing stare, wild and brawny, a lion of a man.

“Whoa, I can see him.”

“You can, can’t you? He was pretty cool,” Mary laughed, a little shyly. Maybe they really did have something together.

I couldn’t really tell, because neither of them would ever relax their self-restraint as adults in front of me. Even with my previous life’s memories, I obviously didn’t know much about the subtleties of this kind of thing.

Mary resumed snipping, and once again pieces of my hair started falling to the floor.

Her hands were moving as though this was second nature to her. From time to time, she would peer at me from different angles to check how it was looking.

“All done,” she said after a while, and showed me a hand mirror.

A young man with a clean-cut and cheerful countenance looked back at me from inside the mirror. He had slightly messy chestnut-brown hair, and I got an impression of meekness from his deep blue-green eyes. From just his face he’d look like a pampered rich kid, but with the muscular body, he was more like a young warrior from a good family instead.

Mary chuckled. “I think you’re pretty good-looking, don’t you?”

“I don’t think so. I’d have preferred a face like Blood’s.” This world seemed to be dangerous, so I thought a strong-looking, intimidating face with presence would probably be more useful. And on a more personal level, I just wanted to be like him. “It’s a bit of a shame we don’t look much alike.”

“Two Bloods might be one too many,” Mary said, laughing. “But I think you really are looking a lot more grown—oh, yes.”

“Hm?”

“It’s going to be time for your adulthood rite soon, remember,” she said, as she removed the cloth from my neck and brushed up the hair on the floor. “You need to think hard about your guardian deity, and decide on your oath.”

Crap. I’d totally forgotten.

◆

This world had many gods. Major gods, minor gods—all different, and all respected by someone.

Every individual person had their own “guardian deity,” the god that person had the most faith in. I was told that until a child became an adult, he was considered to be under the protection of his parents’ guardian deities. The adulthood rite was about parting with that protection: determining your own guardian deity, making an oath, and wishing for protection yourself.

And it was held that people should live and die in a manner with which their own guardian deity would be pleased. It sounds restrictive, but it was apparently possible to perform the rite again at a later time to change your guardian deity, if your attitude or circumstances changed.

Also, it was normal for people to worship other gods than their guardian deity when the situation called for it. For instance, just about everyone would make an offering to Whirl, the god of wind, before setting out on a journey. It didn’t seem to be a very strict type of polytheism.

Their perspective on life and death was based around reincarnation.

When a person died, they would be summoned beyond this dimension, to the place of the gods they believed in, where they would be judged on their actions in life. If the god received them favorably, repose would be given in the pleasant fields. If not, penitence would be demanded in the wilderness of suffering. And after a certain period, they would be reborn again. After countless such rebirths, after the soul had been refined to the highest degree, that person would ascend the ladder to godhood. The highest of heroes and saints would surpass the dimension of humans, and become gods.

I found this hard to understand in concrete terms. In the polytheistic worlds of Japan and ancient Rome, truly exceptional individuals were worshipped after their deaths as gods. Was the goal to become something like that?

The temple’s hall was magnificent as usual. So much time had passed since I first awoke here on that day. Through the course of growing up and learning about this world, I’d come to know the names of each and every one of the gods depicted in these statues. These were the most famous of the gods, who had existed in this world since long ago.

The imposing man with an air of gravitas, in the prime of life, bearing a sword in the shape of lightning in his right hand, and a set of scales in the other—

This was the god of justice and lightning, Volt. He was the leader of the virtuous gods. God of gods and guardian of humans, he commanded the blessed rains, as well as the lightning that was his divine judgment. Many put their faith in him, from the ruling classes to the common people. His brother, the evil god Illtreat, had command over tyranny, and the two of them often fought fierce battles.

The woman with the loving smile, who was holding a baby in her arms, and standing in front of a background of rice plants growing out of the earth—

Mater the Earth-Mother. She was the god to whom Mary showed devotion, and governed the gifts of the earth and the raising of children. She was also said to be wife to Volt. Blessings made to her commonly related to farming and child-rearing, and people in rural areas in particular put deep faith in her, along with Volt.

The moustachioed man of short, beefy stature, with roaring flames at his back, hands gripping a hammer and tongs—

This was the god of fire and technology, Blaze. He was also said to be the forefather of the dwarves, and I often saw reliefs of him in the dwarven city underground. In addition to receiving the devotion of craftsmen, he was seemingly also popular with warriors, just as Volt was, for his advocacy of the merits of a fiery temper and ceaseless training. Incidentally, Blood had taken Blaze as his guardian deity.

The young person smiling amiably, holding a glass of wine and a number of gold coins, and surrounded by what seemed to be pictographs representing the blowing wind—

The god of wind and exchange, Whirl. Progenitor of the halflings, a bright and cheery race of little people, Whirl was a trickster with command over commerce, exchange, freedom, good luck, and other such things, and had the devotion of merchants, gamblers, and travelers. Small shrines dedicated to Whirl could often be found at the roadside.

The fine young woman clad in thin cloth, submerged up to her waist in a clear stream, holding a bow in one hand, and reaching out with her other to what might have been a fairy—

The god of water and greenery, Rhea Silvia. She was a capricious goddess, who was also said to be the foremother of the elves. She ruled over the seas, the rivers, the forests, and all their blessings, and also had domain over hunting and elementals. Hunters, fishermen, lumberjacks—many of her followers had occupations with ties to nature. The view of her as a capricious god may have arisen from her connection with natural disasters. Incidentally, although I had never seen them, elementals and fairies existed in this world, too, and there was a special, specific system of mystical techniques for borrowing their power.

The one-eyed old man who radiated intelligence, standing in front of some kind of inscription, holding a cane and an open book in his hands—

This was the god that Gus had once talked to me about who had created our letters. The god of knowledge, Enlight. He was a god who had many followers among intellectuals. It was said that his single eye perceived what could be seen, while his missing eye perceived what could not. Gus’s guardian deity was in fact not Enlight, god of knowledge, but Whirl, god of wind. According to Gus, “It is far better to travel with money than to be surrounded by books in an ivory tower.”

These six gods were the ones worshipped in a particularly large number of regions. The legends said that these gods had a Ragnarok-style battle with the evil gods, which ended in mutual defeat, and now both sides were healing their wounds beyond this dimension. However, I’d also been told that from time to time, they would send something called an Echo into this world, like a body split off from their own, to help guide people. These Echoes of the gods, both good and bad, made sporadic appearances in the epics I had been told through story and poetry.

The scale of everything I’d been told was on another level. I was planning to live a normal life. I doubted that I’d ever have anything to do with any of that stuff. As these thoughts went through my mind, I took a look at the sculpture with the lantern that had once inexplicably fascinated me.

The god of unknown gender, standing in front of no background, with a long-handled lantern in their hand. The child of the god of lightning, Volt, and the Earth-Mother, Mater. The god of the flame, whose domain was the endless cycle of transmigration. Gracefeel.

Gracefeel was a god resembling the Grim Reaper, with control over souls and reincarnation. They were said to appear before the souls of the dead, and show them the way with their lantern, guiding them to the fields of the gods, and to the next life. Little had been told about Gracefeel. Their gender was unknown, their appearance undescribed. They were extremely reticent, even for a god. They rarely offered revelations, and the unique arts they bestowed through benediction were scarcely useful.

A priest of Mater the Earth-Mother, for example, could use benediction to make the land fertile, to see a baby delivered safely for mother and child, or to give health to growing children. The god of lightning, Volt, offered benediction to judge the truthfulness of the target’s words. High-level priests could pray for rain to fall on land that was suffering a drought.

Gracefeel’s benediction, on the other hand, was reasonably lacking in practical use, and included things like granting repose and guidance to the souls of the dead.

In this world, the gods were able to exert actual influence on reality. I had personally grown up eating porridge and bread that had actually been made through benediction, so I wasn’t about to doubt it. If one day benediction suddenly awoke within you, that would be a life-changing event. You would suddenly be able to heal wounds and perform all manner of other miraculous feats, and would become the talk of everyone around you. It would be like winning the lottery. Because of that, many people factored practical considerations, such as the benediction they would receive, into their choice of guardian deity. As a result, Gracefeel was not that popular.

It was very natural for people to think that way. If you could only receive a single lottery ticket, of course you’d want it to be the one with the biggest jackpot. The devotion the gods amassed in this way translated directly into their power, and the more power the gods gained, the more people would follow them. This has kind of started sounding like a lecture on wealth inequality, hasn’t it?

In any case, that was Gracefeel: a second-string god, whose name would always come after the big six. Maybe the reason Gracefeel fascinated me so much was that I still had my memories from my previous life. I couldn’t help but feel a curious bond with them, given that their domain was samsara and the eternal flux of all things.

I looked around the temple. I was due to turn fifteen at this year’s winter solstice. I would make an oath to one of these gods, name them as my guardian deity… and then, in spring, I would probably leave this temple. The living had to return to the living. All three of them were thinking it, as if it was obvious.

I looked at my hands in silence. These hands were different now. The discoloration pattern from those burns, traveling up my arms, was still there. There were small cuts and dirt on the palms, from helping out Mary with chores and garden work. Ink stains, from my studying with Gus. Blisters, from my training with Blood. They weren’t the hands I’d had when I was young. They weren’t the unhealthy hands I’d had when I was the old me. They were hands that had been put to something.

I really had been taught so much. So many different things. Mary told me before that she didn’t know what things were like out there, just that it was very likely dangerous. Gus and Blood, too, said nothing about outside society. I still didn’t even know why I was here. But there was at least something I could say for sure.

These hands, which had been indelibly shaped by so many teachings, were full of the kindness the three of them had shown me. No matter how dangerous it was out there, no matter how harsh a place it was for an outsider of unknown origin, the three of them had taught me enough that I’d be able to survive.

One day… I wanted to come back here. If possible, with friends, or a family. And I’d introduce them to Blood, and Mary, and Gus. This is the house I grew up in, I could say, and this is my dad, and my mom, and my grandpa.

What would the three of them say when they saw me back? Would they be pleased to see my friends and family? What could I bring them as a gift?

My imagination was filled with that simple happiness.

◆

“Which god would the three of you recommend, if you had to name one?” I’d decided it was worth at least asking the three of them for their thoughts on a guardian deity.

Blood was first to answer. “Unless you’ve got some actual idea for how you wanna turn out, I’d just make some harmless oath to Volt.”

“Oh, that’s a good suggestion,” Mary agreed. “A wide range of people have faith in Volt, and he has the most social trustworthiness, too.”

“Hmm, Indeed.” Even Gus was on board. “A wise decision… A rarity for you, Blood.”

“Bug off.”

Gus gave a single disdainful snort in response.

“Now, now, you two. Stop that.”

Blood grumbled, clearly dissatisfied.

Coughing to clear the air, Gus continued. “Whirl is also not a bad choice for a guardian deity, but a number of Whirl’s followers are gamblers or thieves. I would certainly agree that Volt is a step up in the aspect of social trust. He seems the better choice.”

The three of them settled very quickly on Volt, god of gods, and ruler of justice and lightning.

“I’m surprised you all agreed so easily.”

“You can hardly go wrong with Volt,” Gus stated plainly. “That’s the simple truth. And it’s not as though you can’t change it later.”

Blood nodded. “It’d be a different story if you had dreams of becoming, I dunno, a craftsman or a scholar, but how can you dream like that when you don’t even know what the world’s like out there?”

“The best thing is for you to keep your options open,” Mary said thoughtfully, “so I would say that Volt is best, followed perhaps by Mater our Earth-Mother.”

All this talk about there being “no need to narrow your options at this stage” and “choosing something so you’re prepared, no matter what you choose in the future” was making me feel like I was choosing a career path.

Pick a high school with an ordinary curriculum—it can’t do you wrong. Like that.

“Okay, I’ll keep that in mind. And what kind of thing is good for the oath? In the ‘Berkeley Tale of Valor’ you told me before, he swore upon Volt’s lightning sword to vanquish all evil.”

“Yeah…” Blood sounded worried. “That’s a legendary epic. Don’t go getting all starry-eyed and making an oath like that, you hear me? A strong oath makes it easier to receive protection, but you end up letting yourself in for one hell of a rough fate. Become a hero or die, basically.”

“I’m sure the gods find idiots like that much more willing to get themselves into trouble,” Gus said.

So there were beliefs like that connected to these oaths as well. It remained to be seen how much truth there was in the stuff about “rough fates,” but I had no intention of making such a difficult oath anyway. I wasn’t going to puff up my own importance and think I was special just because I had memories from a previous life, and I had no aspirations of becoming a “hero.”

“Yes, a normal person’s oath would be something like…” Mary pondered for a moment. “‘I swear to live my life doing as little evil as possible,’ perhaps.”

Gus listed off a few more. “‘I will show consideration for my neighbor,’ ‘I will speak no lies,’ ‘I will treasure my family’… and such.”

Treasure my family… that one sounded nice. Summing up the examples I had heard so far, I said, “So basically, I just need to swear something like ‘I will live a proper life and not do anything bad’?”

“Roughly, yes,” Gus said. “That being said, sometimes one makes an oath that is suited to the personality of his individual god.”

“Umm, like?”

“Uhh, so what I did was,” Blood said, “I swore to Blaze to train every day and get stronger. Blaze values discipline and a honed craft.”

“My vow to Mater was a little more abstract,” Mary followed up. “I swore to live true to her will.”

Yes, that suited the two of them perfectly.

“As for me,” Gus said, “all this about guardian deities and oaths and such looked like a hassle. I chose Whirl because it seemed the most relaxed option, and I swore to do what I wanted and have fun with life.”

Old Gus was definitely rock ’n’ roll.

That about wrapped up the discussion. Mary went to the lake to do the washing, and Blood to the forest for firewood. Autumn was already ending. Not to moralize like an old fable, but preparing for winter was important.

As for me, I was taking a lesson with Gus. I practiced double casting over and over, raising my proficiency. Gus’s lessons had now become very hands-on.

“Listen, now, this is important. When attempting to use magic in a situation where your opponent can attack you before the count of five, never waste time thinking. Cast a spell by reflex, something you have trained your body to memorize in advance. You’ll find that most of the world’s sorcerers are overly theoretical. They always think first. A good number of them are incapable of what I’m telling you.”

Gus told me there were countless people who had died this way, shot or cut down while vacillating over what to use. Some even destroyed themselves by deciding to use a Word they weren’t familiar with and screwing it up.

That said, it wasn’t surprising. The majority of sorcerers were city scholars or handymen. People like me and Gus, who studied magic while envisaging how it would be used in battle, were by far the minority.

“Intelligent strategy is for when you have time to consider it. In a sudden encounter, don’t waste time thinking up terrible plans. Press the enemy hard with magic you’re familiar with. Complex chains of magic risk total failure if a single link breaks. The simpler the spell, the more resilient.”

Gus’s thoughts on battle tactics were very similar to Blood’s teachings. Maybe this was just what happened when your skills were shaped by actual battles.

“And Will, you will particularly benefit from identifying when it’s appropriate to rely on the Words and when it is not. Because you have the option of fighting with the techniques Blood drilled into you.”

I didn’t know if it was the presence of mana, or if this world was just made that way, but you could achieve greater results with training in this world than you ever could in my previous one. The physical abilities of a proper warrior in top form were a little bit monstrous.

I mean, take Blood. When he wasn’t running in a lower gear for the sake of my training, he could bend with ease the thick steel poles I used for swinging practice, and he could run with the speed and acuity of a swallow in flight. It was a bit scary to think that my own physical abilities were beginning to follow suit. A little bit further and I’d be superhuman.

Magic, on the other hand, carried the risk of self-destruction if you made a mistake in writing or pronunciation. Because of this, the area within about ten meters of the opponent was inescapably the exclusive domain of the warrior.

Gus, however, did know several “bad-mannered, underhanded tricks” for such a situation. I wondered just how many people this guy had taken down from within warrior range.

“Of course, the best outcome is for there not to be a fight in the first place, but if things do get heated, judge correctly.”

I nodded.

“Oh, something else,” Gus said. “I’ve been dabbling in astronomy the last few years, and I found out when we can expect the next winter solstice.”

My eyes opened wide upon hearing that. Had he been looking into that especially for my fifteenth?

“Say… Will. I have a request.”

“A request?”

“Mm,” he nodded. “Blood will probably ask you for a one-on-one battle, to be held on the day before the winter solstice, or thereabouts. An all-out battle, with nothing held back, and Mary standing by to offer healing and regeneration through benediction.”

His words didn’t surprise me. I’d been thinking for a while that Blood was likely to suggest something like that. And I was ready to take him up on it.

“Will…” Gus’s expression was heavy. “Could you… lose that battle, in a way that Blood won’t find out?” The words he forced out of his mouth were full of anguish.

“Why?”

The time I was almost killed by Gus came to mind. Back then, too, there was some unknown thought behind Gus’s actions. Without ever telling me, he had ruminated over some circumstances I didn’t know, and come to a conclusion that led to him trying to kill me. And then, for some reason, he stopped.

“Why do this?”

“It’s important.”

“No.” Not that.

“Not me, you! Why do you keep leaving me out of the loop?!” Without even realizing it, I was yelling at him in anger.

“I know you’re not an idiot! I know you wouldn’t trample over someone’s feelings without a reason!” I tried to grab him by the collar, but my hands swiped the air.

I glared up at him as he floated above me. “I’m capable of doing what you ask if you’d actually explain things to me! I’d lose on purpose for you! I’d offer my life for you, like I did back then! So why won’t you ever tell me anything?! Am I that untrustworthy to you?! Am I that insignificant to you?!” The words I’d been keeping bottled inside my heart poured out as if a dam had burst.

Gus still had a pained look on his face, and it didn’t change as he spoke. “Sorry, Will… I can’t. Sorry.”

I lowered my head and clenched my fists. I had to wrench the next words out of me.

“I see.” So that was how it was.

“Then… Then don’t expect me to help you.” I verbally pushed him away. I couldn’t lose such an important fight on purpose without even knowing why. “What you just said… I’ll pretend I didn’t hear it.”

This was going to be my last chance to challenge Blood at his full potential, without any restrictions getting in the way. As a warrior myself, I wanted to give it everything I had, and I was sure that Blood was thinking the same thing. To lose that on purpose, without even knowing why… It was just impossible.

But I wouldn’t tell on him to anyone. I didn’t hear anything. Simple as that.

That was my final word, and neither Gus nor I said anything more.

A few days later, Blood informed me about my final exam.

Diamond. diamond. diamond.