Chapter 8

Chapter 8

“Gngh...... Wh-What?!”

Had that voice just told him to hand over the magic scroll? His ears perking up, the mercenary captain forgot his pain and sprang to his feet, searching for the owner of the voice. The moment the small figure beyond the completely jumbled scenery entered his eyes, the mercenary captain frowned and tilted his head.

“A child......?”

No, I couldn’t define him as only that. Correcting his first impression, the mercenary captain tensed his entire body. That was because the boy’s two eyes, which were sweeping over this side, were shining with a deep purple light.

Even if his appearance was nothing but that of a child, that boy was certainly a mage of considerable level. Most likely, the sudden dismantling and disappearance of the lord’s residence building had been that boy’s doing. The same went for the sudden interference and distribution of strange weapons to the domain residents.

As if answering the mercenary captain’s thoughts, the mercenaries who confirmed the boy’s face began making a fuss.

“C-Captain! Th-That’s him!”

“He’s the one who suddenly appeared and handed those strange weapons to the domain residents......!”

“Do not run your mouths carelessly. Be quiet.”

“Yes......?”

The mercenaries, bewildered by the unexpected order, looked back at the mercenary captain. Soon, the mercenary captain’s thoroughly tense state entered their eyes, and tension began to circulate among the mercenaries as they realized something was unusual.

Despite the opponent having inflicted enormous damage on the mercenary company, the mercenary captain was reacting like that. It meant there was a strong possibility the other party was of a high status they could not touch carelessly—in other words, someone connected to the royal court.

‘Damn it. Then does that mean the kingdom’s army has already intervened? What a disaster!’

However, unlike the discouraged mercenaries, the mercenary captain was guessing that the boy did not belong to the kingdom’s army. To become a mage belonging to the kingdom’s army, one had to graduate from the Royal Academy, and the average age of those who entered that place was from the late teens to the early twenties. Therefore, there was no way a boy who looked only fourteen or fifteen at a glance could be a mage belonging to the kingdom’s army. Unless he was a noble young master who was about to enter the Royal Academy and had his family’s expectations gathered upon him.

Yes, a noble young master with some talent in magic. No matter how he thought about it, that side seemed more likely. Nobles were thoroughly educated from childhood while surrounded by tutors and the like, after all. Thanks to that, by the time they turned sixteen, they often became 3rd-circle mages or upper-intermediate aura users, or so he had heard.

Ah, of course...... there were bastards like that pig who produced no real results no matter how much education they received....... Muttering that inwardly, the mercenary captain glanced toward the lord. The man, who would normally still be shrieking that it hurt and calling for his mother, had for some reason sprung to his feet and was pointing at the boy. It seemed the boy’s mention of the magic scroll had snapped him back to his senses.

“Wh-What is this insolent bastard now? Hand over the magic scroll? How dare you tell me to hand over what’s mine or not? Do you know who I am? Huh?!”

As the lord screamed and glared at the boy, the boy frowned, flinched, then sharply turned his gaze away. Or rather, he had not even been meeting anyone’s eyes in the first place. In the mercenary captain’s eyes, it seemed the boy did not have that worthless pig bastard in his mind at all.

“Y-You bastard! Are you ignoring me right now?! I am the lord here! How dare you try to ignore me!”

No. In the mercenary captain’s eyes, the boy was not only ignoring the lord but everyone present here. The boy did not even give a proper glance to the mercenaries, including the mercenary captain, and was merely looking around indifferently.

Watching that, the mercenary captain recalled the noble employers he had met so far. There were occasionally some who were kind to commoners, but most of them treated hired commoners with the indifference one would show to “objects.” It was an attitude born from arrogance, ingrained from birth, that considered others beneath them. And that boy was showing exactly the same attitude as them. In other words, that boy was also a noble young master from somewhere.

If there was one slightly strange point, it was that for some reason, the boy’s shoulders flinched slightly whenever their eyes almost met....... In any case, what mattered was that a fight was about to break out between nobles, and the mercenaries looked likely to get caught in the middle.

Getting caught between nobles is extremely exhausting....... As he pondered briefly, the thought that this might instead be for the best crossed the mercenary captain’s mind. Thinking about it carefully, while the nobles were locked in a war of nerves, he could obtain the magic scroll, then run off while saying, “We commoners will withdraw.”

By nature, disputes between nobles were matters strictly regulated by the royal court because they could even lead to the splintering of the kingdom. Because of that, among mercenaries, it had become basic common sense to wash one’s hands of the matter and leave the moment a dispute between nobles broke out. If they dawdled while making excuses about the principle of good faith and sincerity or the payment being a waste, they would end up receiving summary execution from the kingdom’s army along with the nobles.

That was why employment contracts between nobles and mercenaries always included a clause stating, “If a dispute between nobles occurs, the request is automatically voided.” What that meant was that even if the mercenaries left this place now—though they had intended to leave anyway—there would be no contractual problem.

Good. I just need to get my hands on the magic scroll quickly and slip away. Hoping the new lord would continue drawing the boy’s attention, the mercenary captain secretly began deploying a tracking formula to find the magic scroll.

And in that instant, the gaze of the boy who had been indifferent the whole time flicked toward the mercenary captain.

“There. You pasted the design code wrong.”

“Y-Yes......?”

“Weren’t you trying to deploy a tracking formula? I said you pasted in the wrong thing.”

A chill ran down the mercenary captain’s spine, and he hurriedly examined the formula he had been deploying. Just as the boy had pointed out, the formula the mercenary captain had been trying to deploy contained an incorrect design code. It seemed he had made a mistake while trying to deploy it secretly in the midst of his shock.

The astonishing part did not end there. Just as he felt mana suddenly drain out of his body, The formula the mercenary captain had been deploying was snatched away whole by the boy.

He hijacked a formula someone else was deploying? How is that possible? Bewildered by a situation he had never seen or heard of before, the mercenary captain blinked at the boy. Without caring about that gaze, the boy indifferently took the formula apart and addressed the mercenary captain.

“You’re 3rd-circle? Judging by the level of the design, it looks that way.”

“Yes......? Uh...... Ah, yes.......”

“You seem to be of commoner origin. You must have some talent?”

“Uh...... Yes....... I have heard that a few times.......”

As he answered in a daze, the mercenary captain tasted a slightly triumphant feeling. It was surprising that this noble young master knew how rare it was for a commoner, who was in no position to receive concentrated education like nobles, to reach the 3rd-circle, and it also felt as though his hard work so far had been recognized, putting a bit of strength into his shoulders.

No, wait. Is this really the time to feel proud about this? By the time the mercenary captain snapped back to his senses after thinking that far, the lord, who had been ignored the entire time, screamed and had a fit.

“You really, just because I kept watching...... You’ve been ignoring me since earlier, haven’t you? Do you want to die, you bastard?!”

With a sound like a pig being slaughtered, the lord cast fire magic at the boy. Perhaps because he had not even as much talent as an ant’s tear, what the lord deployed was a feeble spark that was embarrassing to even call fire magic.

While that spark wobbled toward the boy, the boy merely looked over the formula he had snatched from the mercenary captain. Though it was a pitiful level of magic, it was still technically attack magic, so the mercenary captain tilted his head, wondering if it was truly all right to ignore it like that. Then he watched the spark and was astonished to see it return to the form of a formula the instant it reached the boy.

“Huh? What? My magic......!”

“Magic, my ass. This is just shitting out mana dregs.”

“Wh-What did you say?!”

The new lord’s face flushed red and blue as he glared at the boy. Whether he did or not, the boy disassembled the lord’s magic without showing even a shred of interest. The design forming the formula shone purple and spread out in the air.

“Honestly, you call this garbage a design? Every part that looked even a little complicated was glossed over.”

Saying, “This is why the power came out like that,” the boy erased parts of the deployed formula’s design code here and there, then began writing each one anew. Of course, at the same time, he also wrote design code into the formula he had snatched from the mercenary captain.

Seeing that, the new lord forgot his anger and stared blankly at the boy with an astonished face. Everyone around them, including the mercenary captain, was the same. Hijacking two formulas, and someone else’s formulas at that, was shocking enough, but directly writing design code into them on the spot was absurd.

In this world, magic was the act of inserting specific commands between a concept and a form to connect the two. In other words, the essence of magic was weaving in various design codes to make what existed only as a concept manifest in reality.

For example, when trying to manifest “magic that fires a fire arrow, strikes an enemy’s vital point, and takes their life,” a mage had to specify the concepts of fire, an arrow, and the weapon born from combining the two, a fire arrow, then define the space in which it would operate and the enemy that would become its target. Only after finding the concept capable of weaving together every causal relationship related to it and weaving in the design code to complete the formula would the “magic that fires a fire arrow, strikes an enemy’s vital point, and takes their life” activate.

Because the act of handling magic itself was so complex and difficult, becoming a high-ranking mage in itself was treated by the world as something close to impossible. Since one could not even dream of becoming a mage without mana sensitivity, and even using magic was difficult and complex, that was only natural. There was a reason the great archmages who had become able to handle every formula in history could be counted on one hand.

And even those archmages used magic by storing the design codes they knew in their minds and bringing them out to combine them as needed, rather than writing in each design code directly one by one as the boy was doing. Since simply coming to handle all formulas was close to impossible, perfectly memorizing and freely manipulating the design codes that composed the designs of formulas was an impossible task. Something like that was only possible for a being half divine.

Yet he had done it...... Just what was that boy? While everyone around him felt something close to awe, the boy, who had completed the formulas before they knew it, activated the magic and added.

“See? This is what this magic originally was.”

The moment the boy’s words ended, what had been a powerless spark became a terrifying devouring fire and fell into the front yard of the lord’s residence. Flames like the inferno of hell blazed up, and the entire surrounding area sizzled and boiled. It was so hot that even in places the flames had not yet spread, stone and metal were on the verge of melting.

And the mercenary captain’s tracking formula was.......

“Uh......? Huh? Why is that going over there......?”

Following the marker they had assumed would fly among the jumbled furnishings, everyone around, including the mercenary captain, turned their bewildered gazes toward a distant place behind the site of the lord’s residence. On the far side of the backyard, blackened by the devouring fire, beyond a melted stone wall—the one the mercenaries had raised with magic—something could be seen hurriedly growing distant.

The one fleeing, already reduced to the size of a bean, was one of the retainers who had been flattering the lord until moments earlier. And in that retainer’s hand was a small box of the kind commonly used to store magic scrolls.