Why Are You Coming Out Of There? (2)

The next day came.

Leonard had dragged himself home the evening before completely spent, so he claimed he wasn’t feeling well and got out of the field work. With his parents gone and the house to himself, he was free to move however he liked.

He’d climbed all the way to the third Circle in a single day.

The average adult mage stood at the fourth Circle, so it was an achievement that was hard to believe. He still couldn’t take on a whole horde of monsters by himself, but he now had enough power to buy himself the time he needed.

The urgent fire’s out. All that’s left is the reinforcements.

Leonard tore at his hair for a while as he dug through his mustiest memories. Then he gathered mana at his fingertips and pressed them to the floor of his room, and when he lifted his hand a moment later, a single glowing sign was left where it had been.

The Sign of Notification.

The Citra Empire had spread this magical mark across the whole country to keep track of commoner-born mage talents, who could turn up anywhere, at any time.

Once someone who had just stepped into the first Circle registered their information in the management rolls through the sign, the nearest mage academy was to send out a mage and a knight to escort them back and see to their enrollment.

It was the one and only way up open to commoners, so there wasn’t a soul who didn’t know of it. That made it the best and most natural way for Leonard to call in his “reinforcements.”

The closest institution to here was Kestral Academy.

The Empire had set up three institutions to raise mages.

Delonia and Everforce Academy were called the sanctuaries of the elite nobility, while Kestral Academy took in mostly commoners, Leonard among them.

There isn’t much time.

Once Kestral Academy received his information through the mark, it would take them at least six days, by a rough guess, to send someone out. That lined up more or less with when the dimensional rift would open.

If they were late even after all this, it would be a disaster. Would they really make it in time?

They say there’s no such thing as preparing too much…

Leonard left the house and headed toward the well to take a casual look around. The moment he stepped onto the main road running through the middle of the village, voices reached him from every side.

“Hey, Marco! You heading over to Avery Hill today or tomorrow, by any chance? I’ve got some things that need sending.”

“Why not ask our next-door neighbors instead? I hear they’re heading out to sell fruit.”

Peaceful.

Looking at it, there was no way to imagine that monsters would show up here in six days.

Monsters, huh.

Most monsters cross over into this world through a rift torn in the boundary between dimensions.

Leonard’s village had been wiped out in the blink of an eye because, by the worst luck imaginable, that rift had formed right beside it.

It really was swept away in a heartbeat.

The other reason was how closed off the village was.

Keld Village had never gone hungry through famine and had never had to deal with bandits, let alone the monsters everyone else knew about. Villagers who had chased off a wild animal or two at most were never going to be a match for monsters.

Fighting with the village’s outer wall for a shield looks impossible… so that means laying traps on the knoll…

He was turning it all over in his head as he walked, and the moment he stepped into a side alley, somebody blocked his path.

“Hey, Leonard!”

“?”

Leonard looked up at the voice and knit his brows. The face was familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it.

Reddish hair that glittered like sunlight. A mean-looking face, and a build too big for a child. It was none other than Zachary Grayson, the village chief’s grandson.

“Wow, now this really is a blast from the past,” Leonard muttered, with real delight soaked into his voice.

Zachary was two years older than Leonard, and he was the strong, foul-tempered alley boss that every village has at least one of. He never walked the streets without at least two companions in tow, and he picked fights with any small kid who caught his eye.

Sure enough, there were two friends stuck to his side today too.

Right, this one existed too.

Zachary had been one of the handful of children who survived when the monsters attacked the village. After it was destroyed, a knight with ties to the village chief took him in, and by his twenties he’d begun making a name for himself as a knight of real skill.

You’d never guess it from the thoroughly unpromising look of him right now, though.

Come to think of it, his nickname was…

Leonard rubbed the tip of his chin, then snapped his fingers.

“…Candlelight.”

“I told you not to call me that!”

Zachary flew into a rage, his bright orange hair swinging, and grabbed Leonard by the collar and hauled him straight off the ground. But Leonard just snickered at him as if something had come loose in his head, and Zachary’s companions cocked their heads in bewilderment.

“What’s up with this kid?”

“Maybe he’s been hit so many times his head’s gone funny.”

Zachary’s voice came out close to a growl.

“You think this is funny, huh?”

— Thunk!

His fist flew in without warning and buried itself in Leonard’s stomach. Yet somehow it was Zachary, not Leonard, who ended up screaming.

“Ngh… aagh!”

“Oh, dear. That’s enough of that, kiddo.”

Zachary hunched over, clutching his aching fist, while Leonard walked past all three of them, laughing out loud. They had no idea what on earth had just happened, so they could only stare at his back in confusion.

“Hey, wait! Hey!”

Zachary sprang to his feet and shoved Leonard from behind. With the difference in their size, “shoved” was generous. It was closer to pouncing on him.

“…Huh?”

He’d expected the kid to go down. Instead he found himself standing there with his arms clamped around Leonard’s waist. Since when was it this hard to knock over one small child?

“What th—”

Zachary pushed and pulled, grunting with the effort, but Leonard held his ground as stubbornly as a great tree. In the end it was Zachary who wore out first. He dropped down where he stood, dragging in ragged breaths.

I lost on strength? Me?

If he’d stopped to think about it even a little, he would easily have realized there was more than simple strength at work here. But he was far too worked up to have room for that.

“If you’re done, I’m off.”

Leonard waved a hand at him so casually that Zachary’s face twisted up.

Just a few days ago, the kid had cowered the instant their eyes met. Zachary had no idea why he was suddenly so sure of himself. One thing was certain, though: he’d just been made light of in front of everyone.

Zachary trembled for a moment, then stepped up behind Leonard, whose back was wide open, and raised one hand high.

— Smack!

It came down on the back of Leonard’s head so hard that the sound carried clear out of the alley. Zachary’s friends had seen what his hands could do before, so they sucked in a breath and looked away.

“…Ah, shit.”

Memories are at their most beautiful while they stay memories.

That one blow ran Leonard’s patience completely dry, and all the bad memories he’d buried deep in his heart came bursting out at once, along with his irritation.

“Ngh.”

Zachary groaned in pain and peeled his hand off the back of Leonard’s head with real effort. It had been like slapping a lump of rock, not human skin.

“If you hit a man,”

The truth was that Leonard’s gifts as a mage had been lacking, barely enough to keep him off the list of the substandard. So his awakening had come late, and unlike the other students, he’d struggled even to release mana outside his body.

“you’d better be ready to get hit back.”

So, to get around the problem, he’d concentrated on controlling the mana inside his body, which was comparatively easier to reach. The result was a grotesque creation: “strengthening his own body and fighting with his fists.”

And with a fist like that, it was certain to hurt. Very much so.

— Krrrk.

Mana spilled out of his blood meridian, rode his blood vessels, and soaked in between the muscle fibers of his whole body. His skin hardened until it was as tough as steel, and a terrifying brute strength began to settle into his fist.

…I said all that, but using this on a bunch of kids feels a bit much.

Leonard unclenched his fist, and Zachary swallowed dryly.

What the hell?

Something was off. The brat had only just turned nine, yet he was giving off exactly the same pressure as a grown man with a weapon in his hands. Zachary’s friends must have felt it too, because neither of them could get a single word out.

“Y-you crazy—!”

In the end, one of the boys ran out of patience and closed the distance first. He swung his fist exactly as Zachary had, and Leonard raised his forearm upright and blocked it.

“Urgh!”

Leonard walked past the boy, who was folding over at the waist, and up to the other one, who was just standing there blankly. He hooked the boy’s ankle and brought him down, then grabbed both his legs, lifted them, and stomped on his groin without mercy.

“Agh! Aaaaaagh!”

“Don’t be such a baby. I went easy on you,” Leonard said as he dropped the boy’s legs. The first one had only hurt himself, and the second he’d only put down lightly.

“Now it’s just you left.”

“…”

“Want to keep going? Go ahead. But if you do…”

— Crack.

Leonard stretched his neck one way, then the other, as he spoke.

“your family line ends right here, right now.”

Zachary didn’t really understand what that was supposed to mean, but one thing was clear: if he kept thrashing about here, that threat would come back at him for real. He bit his lip as if it galled him and stepped back.

Anything he’d wanted, he’d been able to get, and anything he’d done, he’d been forgiven for. Now that unshakable rule had crumbled in front of this brat.

“Go on.”

Zachary walked off unsteadily toward the far end of the alley. He was arrogance given a body, and he’d run away. That must have been quite a shock, because his companions stared blankly after him for a long while at the spot where he’d disappeared.

What a nuisance.

Leonard looked them over as if they were pathetic, then headed for the knoll behind the village.

“Professor Prospero?”

“…Ah, Flavius.”

Ethan returned the greeting with a soulless wave of his hand. It was nothing at all like his usual, pointlessly energetic self.

“What’s got you so deflated?”

“Just got an earful from the Dean about being a lazy good-for-nothing.”

“Ah-ha.”

Ethan Prospero had a reputation as a genius, yet he left teaching at the bottom of his list and hadn’t put out a single proper paper. All that painstakingly built-up knowledge was going to rot for nothing, so the Dean could hardly help being exasperated.

Sophia accepted it without a second’s hesitation, and Ethan looked slightly wounded.

“Got anything that needs doing? I’ll lend a hand.”

“It’s fine. Just go.”

“Please, just give me something. Anything. If I go back like this, I won’t have a single excuse for the Dean.”

Sophia sighed at his pleading. He didn’t look like he’d back off until she threw him something.

“…A child’s name was added to the mage management rolls this morning.”

“Good for them. More mages are always welcome.”

“We ran a location trace, and I’m told the signal came from a place called Keld Village. The child doesn’t seem to be a noble, at any rate.”

“Lucky them. Raise one child right and the whole family’s set to turn noble.”

Commoner-born students are granted a title equal to a semi-noble the moment they graduate from a mage academy. In practice, they climb into the ranks of the nobility fairly easily, without putting in a scrap of effort.

“So, why are you telling me this?”

“Because I’m the one who’s been sent out to meet the child.”

At that, Ethan’s brows drew together. It isn’t especially unusual for a professor to go out in person for a candidate who can’t reach the academy on their own. But it was past the middle of April now, with classes in full swing, so she had to be busy.

“Why you, of all people? There must be plenty of other mages with time on their hands.”

“Well, the thing is…”

Sophia glanced around for a moment, then murmured into his ear.

“The measurement record puts the child at the third Circle.”

“The third Circle?!”

Ethan was so startled he said it at full volume, and Sophia gestured for him to keep quiet.

“It could be an error, but there’s never been one before. The Dean ordered me to go and confirm it in person.”

“Then I’ll come along too.”

“What? No, but this is something the Dean—”

“Didn’t I say so a minute ago? I’ve got to do something,” Ethan said with a wide grin.

“How could I ignore something that looks this interesting?”