33. Training

— Kang Minho, was it.

“Yes. Uh, what should I call you…?”

— Call me Fafnir. And don’t slap any weird title on it.

“Understood.”

— What’s your unique trait?

Kang Minho raised his shield.

— Wuuuung-!

A faint blue light wreathed the surface of the shield.

— So it’s the ability to reinforce a shield with mana.

“I’m supposed to pin enemies down, but they tell me it just bounces them off and scatters our front line.”

A wry smile crossed Kang Minho’s face.

— What a pack of idiots.

“Sorry?”

— From now on, don’t bother carrying that sword you can’t even use properly. Just carry the shield.

Fafnir spoke with finality.

That’s the right answer.

Kang Minho’s primary weapon was the shield, you see.

Eye of the War God.

With a single glance it let him grasp the shape of any martial art, its strengths and weaknesses alike. It was no unique trait handed out at random. Fafnir, or rather Park Haneul of his past life, had earned the Eye of the War God by his own power, on the strength of staggering talent and discernment. Had he only avoided being caught up in the Arahan Guild’s scheming and killed for it, a renowned Hunter house might well have risen in this country.

Of course.

“How am I supposed to bring an enemy down carrying only a shield?”

It wasn’t easy for the man himself to swallow that line all at once.

— Hand me that shield.

Fafnir took the shield Kang Minho had been using and ran his arm through a few motions.

— Watch closely what I’m about to do.

A pitch-black current wrapped the shield. Fafnir stirred up his Dark Fighting-Aura and pressed it against a tree in one slow, deliberate motion.

— BWOOOOM-!

A sound much like a balloon stuffed full of air bursting, but far weightier in timbre, rang out as the tree shattered to pieces.

— Well? Pretty easy, isn’t it?

“What did you just do?”

— A way to maximize your ability.

Fafnir pointed at the shield.

— The core of the Mana Discharge ability isn’t defense. Well, to be precise, it’s better to call it offense and defense as one.

“Offense and defense as one. I don’t quite follow.”

— The gist is simple. Reinforce the shield with mana in time with the moment you put force into the swing.

— Whish-!

Kang Minho caught the shield Fafnir tossed, doubt clouding his eyes. A conflicted look crossed his face; he glanced off to the side, then squeezed both eyes shut.

“Ah, screw it, I’ll give it a shot.”

He braced the shield against his right arm and planted himself before a nearby tree.

He wouldn’t be making me do something pointless.

Kang Minho didn’t put full faith in the martial prowess Fafnir had just shown. The gap in raw specs between that fearsome undead and himself was overwhelming; even with a skill built on the same principle, there was no way the same destructive force would come out of him.

And yet.

“I’ll make you stronger.”

He trusted that Yujin wouldn’t have handed him a worthless instruction. Kang Minho let out a deep breath.

Focus.

Just as Fafnir had taught him, he drove force into his left arm, wrapped the shield in mana at the same moment, and swung it straight at the tree. The instant the steel struck, a tremendous recoil shoved his arm back.

“Hup.”

A yelp nearly burst out, but he clamped down on it and held his grip. An explosion erupted, trailing a single streak of radiance. The tree split into dozens of pieces, and the recoil flung Kang Minho himself back several meters.

— You forced in too much mana.

Fafnir caught Kang Minho out of the air. The watching Scraps stared, eyes round as saucers.

“B-Big Bro. Did you really do that?”
“Senior. What in the world was that just now!”
“…It actually works.”

Kang Minho didn’t answer the two of them, only muttering under his breath. Dumbfounded, he kept glancing between the shattered tree and the shield.

You don’t get it. Truly worthy of an Incompetent Constellation.

What Fafnir showed is imitation through and through. And even that takes the divine prowess of a 4th-Rank to manage.

Endowing mana with will to give it form was the first stage of aura emission, an art only those who had broken through the wall could display.

Shields only, sure — but it lets him wield power that leaps past his station.

If that were so, would I have struggled against the twins back in my past life?

His shield-reinforcement trait meant that when Kang Minho channeled aura through the shield as a medium, even that aura’s might rose. What was more, only his proficiency was lacking; had he matched the moment of applied force to the timing of his mana emission just now, he’d have produced even greater force than Fafnir.

— Then we repeat it until you’ve mastered it.

“Sorry?”

— You think an enemy will wait around for you to focus?

“They’re not going to just stand there watching… are they.”

— If you know that, then stop blinking your eyes and move!

Startled by Fafnir’s command, Kang Minho hurriedly hoisted his shield.

Somehow this doesn’t feel like someone else’s problem.

“Well then, shall we get started too.”
“Is there any chance I could back out even now?”

Kang Minyeong’s face had gone white as she spoke, and Yujin shook his head side to side.

“You’re free to come in, but not so much to leave.”

Don’t worry.

You’ve got green shoots in you too, so roll around a little and you’ll get the hang of it.

I can’t be sure about Lee Seongmin, since he wasn’t counted among the ‘Mirror Hunters’ in my past life, but—

As long as he doesn’t wash out, he’ll at least make the middle of the pack.

I’ll make you useful enough.

The two of them faced Yujin, tension plain on their faces.

“First, tell me your trait.”
“Y-yes, sir!”

Kang Minyeong all but screamed it.

Same as the Movable Fortress. Know how to use it properly and it’s powerful.

Sync is a fairly common unique trait among Hunters. The ordinary way to use it is simply to sync with one’s primary weapon and feed it extra mana to boost its power.

The one who worked out the true use of Sync was Kang Minyeong.

To be precise, the Mirror Hunter she would one day become.

Yujin called to mind the time he’d fought the Mirror Hunters with his life on the line.

“First, learn this.”
“Huh. It’s a skill book.”
“It’s a common-line skill, Telekinesis. I’ll take it all back from you later, so be grateful.”
“Tch. Don’t get my hopes up like that.”

Kang Minyeong, lips pushed out as though her earlier nerves had never existed, opened the skill book.

— Paaa-sss.

The booklet crumbled to powder the moment she took in the essence it held. Kang Minyeong blinked a few times, then crooked her hand, and a stone lying on the ground floated up into the air.

“Wow. The cost-performance on this is really bad.”
“How much are you expecting from a common-line skill?”
“Still, it’s a skill book you gave me, Bro, so I figured it’d be special.”

Why did this one keep calling him Bro, Bro? The address felt off, but he didn’t bother pointing it out.

“Put Sync on the crossbow you’re using right now and move it with Telekinesis.”
“Got it.”

Kang Minyeong lifted the synced crossbow with her mind.

“Huh? Why’s this so easy?”
“A synced armament has its wavelength assimilated to your mind, so it becomes far easier to move with Telekinesis.”

Yujin pointed at a tree standing roughly 300 meters off.

“Hit the tree with the crossbow.”
“…Um. So you’re saying, control the crossbow by remote with Telekinesis?”
“You catch on well.”
“At a distance that’s hard even firing it by hand?”
“You’ll be able to. If it doesn’t work the first time, just do it twice.”

Without overthinking it, Kang Minyeong focused on controlling the crossbow the way Yujin had said. At some point it began to feel like an extension of her own body, and her field of vision suddenly opened wide.

I think I can do it.

Sync and Telekinesis were working in synergy. When she pulled the trigger, the taut bowstring snapped loose, and the recoil sent the bolt slicing through the air with vigor.

— Thunk!

The bolt struck the tree dead center. The force packed into its head must have been tremendous; rather than simply lodging in, it punched clean through and flew out the far side.

“A-are you insane!”

Lee Seongmin, who’d been watching, burst into cheers.

Kang Minyeong caught her breath. The mana drain hadn’t been large, but deploying Sync and Telekinesis at once had wrung her concentration to its limit, and now the strain told.

A good while later, once she’d confirmed the result, Minyeong let out a shriek: eek!

“See. I told you it’d work.”
“Hey, Bro. The hitting it I’ll grant you, but why did the crossbow’s power get that strong?”
“Because your mana rode the bolt.”
“I lifted it with Telekinesis. I didn’t use it directly, so how…”

Among Martial-line Hunters, few fight at range. Why don’t modern weapons like guns work on monsters? Because they carry no mana.

Unless you learn a trait suited to ranged combat the way Kang Minyeong did, there’s no reason to use a weapon like a bow.

By setting Sync on the crossbow, she loaded it with mana whenever it fired. That had been her way of using the trait all along.

Because even the mana spent on the Telekinesis adds to the might.

The first to uncover the secret of the unique trait Sync had been Kang Minyeong. Once the synergy of Telekinesis and Sync came to light, the price of the skill book jumped several times over.

The only one who utilized that ability to the fullest was Kang Minyeong.

The Mirror Hunters hadn’t earned their infamy for nothing; it rested entirely on Kang Minyeong’s heaven-sent gift for mana control. Before the regression, at her peak, she had set Sync on dozens of armaments and driven her opponents relentlessly, steering every one of them by Telekinesis.

So you could say it pairs perfectly with Telekinesis.

Because the one she pressed was me.

A downpour of bolts, every one steeped in aura. Against that endless rain, even higher undead like Death Knights couldn’t hold their ground.

Heh heh. This right here is what you’d call a lottery ticket with a 100% winning rate.

Yujin swallowed the laugh threatening to spill out. A little more practice with the link between Telekinesis and Sync, and she might even pick up a related trait.

“Practice until your mana reserves run dry.”
“You’re not going to coach me anymore?”
“There’s one more in your group, isn’t there.”

Yujin’s finger turned toward Lee Seongmin, who stood off to the side, ill at ease, a partner of the Mirror Hunters he’d never laid eyes on in his past life. The man had never made a name for himself, so his ability probably wouldn’t amount to much either.

Expecting little, Yujin parted his lips.

“What’s your specialty?”
“Well, it’s a bit embarrassing to say.”
“Hey. Movable Fortress and Sync aren’t such hot-shot traits either, you know?”

Lee Seongmin shrank back under Kang Minyeong’s jab. After a moment, opening his mouth with difficulty, he explained his trait.

“Space, you say?”
“Yes, sir. I can make one like this.”

When Lee Seongmin clapped his hands, clap-, a pitch-black space appeared in midair.

“I got excited hearing ‘space creation,’ but the storage capacity’s nothing much.”
“How much can it store?”
“At my mana figure, a little over one kilogram.”

Lee Seongmin scratched the back of his head, embarrassed.

No. Not necessarily. Satisfy a few conditions and it’s a powerful trait.

The Romanov family’s number two, Sofia Andreyevna Romanov, held the Space trait, just as Lee Seongmin did.

That’s right. My enemy.

Don’t say things like that while putting on a sour face, would you?

But drawing out the full power of the Space ability came with one precondition: a staggering amount of money.

Sofia would store all manner of Relics and spells, then fire them off.

A Relic with real history and standing put out tactical-weapon-grade force just by being launched. The artifacts she fired, she would recover again with her unique trait, and simply loosing them a second time was enough to sweep away most run-of-the-mill Hunters.

She supposedly gorged on elixirs by the ton just to expand her sub-space’s storage capacity.

In other words, it was an ability suited only to the super-rich.

Where do you even pick up phrases like that?

I can’t raise him the way Sofia was raised.

The Romanov family was a power whose influence, even in the present age, loomed over everything, as befit one of the Seven Great Families. Yujin’s individual resourcefulness could never catch up to a great house’s capital.

Why. Do what you, Incompetent Constellation, said, and it’s useful, isn’t it.

I’m dead serious, though.

It’s not that I just mean to work him to the bone.

I do have to teach him a way to grow as a Magic-line Hunter and the knack for controlling a sub-space.

A Necromancer, too, is a lower job-class of the Magic line. Having already reached the summit of necromancy, Yujin found teaching one snot-nosed Magic-line Hunter to be child’s play.

“Right then, shall we take a look at mana rearrangement first.”

For those two it was enough to teach them how to use their abilities and drill them by repetition.

You’re going to have to suffer a fair bit.

The corners of Yujin’s mouth curved into a cold smile.