Several months had passed since Rietz became one of House Louvent’s retainers. Over that short period, he’d already proven himself in battle, and the people around him were finally beginning to realize that his intellect was just as exceptional as his skill with a blade.
My father had fought by Rietz’s side several times, at that point, and was among those who had realized how clever he really was. He ended up tasking Rietz to read a book as a test, and Rietz responded by breezing through it at record speed and summarizing its contents in perfect detail. Even my father was astonished by that spectacle!
It was quickly decided that Rietz would be given as high a level of an education as possible, and his standing in the household grew to the point that even though he was still a mere soldier in theory, nobody would have thought to call him one in practice. A formal education had done wonders for his Intelligence, as well, which was sitting at a current score of 89. It wouldn’t be long before he broke into the 90s, at the rate things were going. Finally, my father gave Rietz a new position in the household, which meant he would no longer be going out into battle.
“Now then, Master Ars, it’s time for us to begin your studies for the day!” said Rietz.
Right, he had been appointed to oversee my education!
At that moment in time, Rietz was the most knowledgeable member of the Louvent household. Considering he’d only started focusing on his education a matter of months beforehand, the leaps and bounds he’d taken were truly mind-bending. Meanwhile, as the house’s eldest son, my education was considered a priority, so Rietz was entrusted with the job in the hopes that he would train me to be skilled with both the pen and the sword.
I, by the way, had spent the past several months so absorbed in my search for talent that I’d unfortunately let my quest to learn everything there was to know about my new world fall to the wayside. Having Rietz around to teach me the ways of the world couldn’t have suited my purposes better.
Rietz stood before me, a book in hand. “Today, we’ll be discussing the current state of the Summerforth Empire,” he explained, opening the book up and setting it down on the table in front of me.
A map of the empire, and by extension the entire continent of Summerforth, was drawn on his chosen page. It wasn’t much of a map, though─in fact, it seemed downright slipshod. Apparently, this world had yet to master the art of cartography.
“Let’s see,” began Rietz. “I believe we’ve already discussed how the continent used to be home to seven kingdoms, and how their unification signified the birth of the empire?”
“That’s right!” I replied.
I already knew the seven countries that formerly occupied the continent. The Kingdom of Rofeille had been in the continent’s northeast regions, to start. The northwest was home to the Kingdom of Canshiep, while the Kingdom of Ansel was in the eastern-central region, and the Kingdom of Scheutz took up the central-west. Between Ansel and Scheutz, at the very heart of the continent, sat the Kingdom of Paradille. Finally, the Kingdoms of Seitz and Missian were down south, with Seitz in the southwest and Missian in the southeast.
The nearest continent to Summerforth was across a channel, and the Kingdom of Ansel, which was located closest to that channel, had gained an edge over the other kingdoms by way of foreign trade. Ansel gradually amassed more and more power, and ultimately mounted an all-out invasion of its surrounding nations. The ensuing war of conquest proved successful, and the king of Ansel, Anathis Bydoras, proclaimed himself an emperor. Thus, the Summerforth Empire was born.
The old kingdoms’ names weren’t just a historical curiosity, incidentally. They were still used to refer to regions in the modern era. The Kingdom of Rofeille, for instance, corresponded to a modern-day duchy of the same name. The Kingdom of Canshiep became the Duchy of Canshiep, and so on and so forth.
Each duchy was ruled by a governor formally known as a duke. The dukes tended to be either descendants of the imperial line, or the descendants of monarchs who chose to surrender and swear fealty to the Kingdom of Ansel in the early stages of the war.
The territory we lived in, Lamberg, was located in the Duchy of Missian. Missian was characterized by its seasonal climate and expansive flatland, which made the territory ripe for agriculture. Its population was quite large as well, so it struck me as a pleasant region all around.
“This year marks the two hundred and thirtieth anniversary of the Summerforth Empire’s founding,” explained Rietz. “Of course, the empire currently stands on its last legs. The dukes hardly lend an ear to the emperor’s orders, and the duchies grow more and more independent with each passing day. Nevertheless, the power wielded by the imperial line is still far from insubstantial. The Bydoras family holds direct control over a considerable swath of territory, and it’s not entirely unthinkable that the empire could regain its former glory under the command of an especially capable leader.”
“Is the current head of the Bydoras family capable?” I asked.
“The current head of the family, Bydoras XII, is an eight-year-old child. His retainers hold the true power, it would seem. I don’t know the details myself, but it would seem there’s no single individual who holds all the cards. A variety of factions are vying for influence, and frankly, I don’t get the impression it’s going especially well for any of them.”
They’re focusing on political infighting while the empire falls to ruin around them? Sounds like I shouldn’t expect much from the imperial family.
“To be clear,” Rietz continued, “the Bydoras family is hardly exceptional in that sense. In fact, it’s quite likely that we’ll be seeing a conflict of succession here in Missian before long.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked.
“The current Duke of Missian, Lord Amador Salemakhia, is quite old. There’s been no word of him falling ill, but the odds are very good he’ll pass away before the decade is done. Furthermore, Lord Amador has two sons. Under ordinary circumstances, the eldest would inherit his title, but the younger of the two is exceptionally talented when compared with his elder brother. Word has it that Lord Amador himself is unsure which son he intends to name as his successor.
“Needless to say,” Rietz went on, “if he passes away before reaching a decision, war is all but guaranteed. And even if he does name an heir, the odds of conflict breaking out are considerable. Both brothers have expressed a desire to inherit the title, after all.”
A war of succession…
That was the sort of conflict that could spiral horribly out of control. Small-scale skirmishes weren’t particularly uncommon, from what I understood, but a real, large-scale war had yet to occur in my lifetime.
If such a war were to break out, and if my family were to throw their weight behind the losing side, then it was possible we’d lose our territory. On the other hand, if we were to ally with the victors and prove our worth in battle, expanding our territory was very much also on the table. Of course, my father would almost certainly still be alive if any of this ever happened, so deciding which side to support would fall on his shoulders. I had to wonder if he was already planning for that eventuality.
“Who do you think my father would choose to support?” I asked.
“I understand that Lord Raven is inclined to back the elder brother, but regardless, he wouldn’t be in a position to make that decision,” Rietz answered.
Oh, that’s right!
It had entirely slipped my mind that my father was not, in fact, a direct vassal of the Duke of Missian. Each duchy of the Summerforth Empire was divided up into counties. Around ten or so counties per duchy was typical, and each county was managed by a local count. Lamberg was a part of the County of Canarre, and my father’s direct superior was the Count of Canarre. I guess if I were to write it out like a modern address, it’d go something along the lines of: Lamberg, County of Canarre, Duchy of Missian, Summerforth Empire.
Anyway, the point was that the count would be responsible for choosing which of the brothers Canarre would support, so my father had no say in the matter. I suppose he at least had the count’s ear, though, so his opinion might play a factor in the final decision.
“Who do you think should inherit the title, Rietz?” I asked.
“Y-You want my opinion? Hmm… I’ve never met either of them, so I’m afraid it’s hard for me to judge.”
I’d thought Rietz would have an answer ready for me, considering how high his Intelligence and Politics scores were, but I supposed that was asking too much when he had so little information to work with. I had a feeling that when the time finally came, my Appraisal skill was going to come in handy.
If I could get a chance to evaluate their skills, and the skills of their closest allies while I was at it, I figured I’d be able to easily determine which brother had the higher odds of coming out on top. Then I’d just have to convince my father to see things my way and have him convince the count in turn. We’d be on the road to certain victory in no time!
“For local lords with small domains like House Louvent, I believe this state of affairs presents an opportunity. In a war of this nature, proving yourself in battle could be all it takes to be promoted all the way to count. It may well be in our interests to be as prepared as possible for that development,” concluded Rietz.
We spent a while longer immersed in our studies, and finally, the day’s lesson concluded. I, of course, wasted no time in suggesting our next activity.
“All right! I think it’s time for us to head out on our usual personnel hunt! We’ll need as many skilled subordinates as we can gather if we want to be prepared for a war of succession, after all!”
“Very well, then. I’ll accompany you,” replied Rietz. He’d been coming along on my headhunting missions more often than not recently, largely to serve as my personal guard.
I’d appraised the vast majority of the local villagers already, so I’d started expanding my search to the nearby towns, as well. A few Lamberg locals were skilled enough to be of some use, and I’d recruited a number of them, but unfortunately, I’d yet to find a single person with the sort of raw talent Rietz had. Venturing out to the nearby towns posed a certain degree of risk, of course, but I knew I had nothing to fear with Rietz there to protect me.
“Shall we?” I suggested.
“All right,” agreed Rietz.
As the two of us stepped out from the estate, a voice rang out.
“Ars! Going into town again today, are you?” called my father from the training grounds. He’d just finished running through his swordsmanship drills, it seemed, and he wiped the sweat from his brow as he walked over to us.
“That’s right!” I replied. “I’m off to look for more talented new recruits!”
“I see,” said my father with a nod. “As it happens, I have a favor to ask. I want you to find someone proficient with magic, next.”
“With magic?” I parroted.
“Right. Magic will be a critical factor in the battles to come, and a force that can’t use it may as well not even take to the field. I don’t have the knack for it, myself, and I don’t have nearly enough men serving under me who do. If you find anyone with a talent for magic, I want you to bring them to me.”
Magic…
I was far from knowledgeable in that field. I’d only used it once, on my father’s orders. I’d had to pour a mysterious red liquid into some sort of strange device and chant a short spell, which produced a tiny ball of fire that leaped through the air.
Unfortunately, it seemed that the test was something of a failure. My father told me that I clearly wasn’t suited for magic, and he never let me use it again. That was pretty disappointing, honestly─I’d been downright moved to cast my very first spell, and I really wanted to give it another go someday.
I guess I just didn’t have a talent for magic, in the end. That said, if it was possible to determine someone’s talent in the field with a single, simple test, I had to wonder why my father even had to bother sending me out to hunt for a magic user at all. Or maybe I had it wrong─maybe it wasn’t easy to find talent, and my results made that fact painfully clear.
“All right,” I agreed. “I’ll search for someone who excels in magic!”
“Best of luck,” my father replied with a nod.
And so, I set off for town with Rietz, eager to make my father proud.
○
We made the journey to town on horseback. I couldn’t actually ride yet, so Rietz had to more or less hold me in his arms as he literally took the reins. Thankfully, his S-ranked Cavalry aptitude wasn’t just for show, and he was an impressive enough horseman to make even my father sing his praises.
On horseback, the trip from Lamberg to the next town took roughly two hours. We were planning on staying there for two days.
“I don’t know much about magic, Rietz. Is there anything you can teach me?” I asked partway through the trip. We had all that time, so a crash course on the subject seemed like the perfect way to use it.
“Magic? Let’s see…” replied Rietz. “Are you already familiar with the basics?”
“Yes! I’ve used it once, myself. I poured some sort of red stuff into a weird device, chanted a spell, and it just worked.”
“Yes, that sounds about right. The ‘weird device’ was a catalyzer and the red liquid is called aqua magia. Magic is cast by loading a catalyzer with aqua magia and reciting an incantation. The aqua magia is expended in the process.”
Catalyzers and aqua magia, huh? I have a feeling I should remember those words.
“In the past, the incantations required to cast spells were incredibly long, so their output was considered insufficient to be used in battle. As a result, magic was more or less considered a party trick,” Rietz continued. “The invention of catalyzers, however, rewrote the rulebook. They allow for shorter incantations and amplify the effects of spells, making magic a practical and lethal weapon. The proliferation of magical warfare in Summerforth began about a decade ago, and it has spread to a dramatic degree since then.”
Oh, so magic’s a new thing? It hasn’t been used for ages? That’s sort of a surprise.
“So aqua magia’s like magical fuel?” I asked. “Is it easy to get?”
“Aqua magia is made by liquefying a type of stone called magistone. Magistones aren’t especially rare, but the demand for it has skyrocketed in recent years, so the price has risen accordingly. Supplying a magical combat unit with aqua magia would cost a considerable sum of money.”
“So it’s expensive, huh…? And House Louvent doesn’t exactly have the highest income…”
Lamberg was a small territory to begin with, and we didn’t have any local specialties or notable natural resources to boast of. The territory brought in very little money, all things considered. We were scraping by; that was the best I could say for our finances.
“Even if we can’t put an entire unit together, having just one skilled mage in our army could make all the difference,” said Rietz. “I’m sure we’ll be able to find at least one person to fill that role. Let’s make that our priority for this excursion.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I quickly agreed.
A long, bumpy horse ride later, we’d arrived at our destination: Canarre, a city that served as both the namesake and central hub of the County of Canarre. It was a properly fortified city, too, surrounded by a spectacular curtain wall.
The wall didn’t contain the entirety of the city, to be clear─plenty of large, well-constructed buildings stood outside the fortifications as well. I took that as a sign of how long this region had been at peace. The people here didn’t see a need to keep their homes all that soundly defended, it seemed.
The walls themselves were built in the era before the unification of Summerforth, and were naturally more than a little time-worn as a result. At the very center of the town stood Castle Canarre: the home of House Pyres, the head of which served as Canarre’s count.
I started by strolling around the part of town that was outside the walls. In the present day, the only people who were allowed within the walls were those of the upper class. As the son of a lord, I qualified, of course; I could have gone inside if I’d wanted to, but my goal was to find personnel, and going into the walls didn’t seem necessary for that purpose. There were plenty of people in the city outside, after all.
And there really were plenty of people. The total population of the town was supposedly somewhere in the vicinity of fifty thousand, and the thought of appraising all of them was already making my eyes water. Thankfully, appraising literally everyone wasn’t even on the table─I was planning on centering my search around the poor in particular.
The problem with coming out to a city like this was that even if I did find someone exceptional, the odds were high that they’d refuse to enter into my family’s service. After all, who would want to move from the big city to a provincial hamlet like Lamberg? It wasn’t like we had the funding to offer an enormous salary in exchange or anything, either.
As such, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to hire anyone unless they were in serious need of money. The people who’d been living in Lamberg all their lives were basically the only exception to that rule. And if scouting out affluent individuals was a lost cause, I just had to turn my eye to those in need!
“All right, let’s get searching!”
“Very well.”
I scanned the crowd from horseback, keeping a keen eye out for anyone who looked relatively destitute. I didn’t hit pay dirt right away, though. I found some people with reasonably remarkable talents, don’t get me wrong, but I was looking for someone with talent as a mage in particular, and I wasn’t planning on chatting up anyone who didn’t fulfill that requirement. I didn’t need them to be as incredible as Rietz or anything, but if their highest stats were in the mid-60s, I didn’t feel the need to go out of my way to scout them.
All that squinting and eye strain got the better of me eventually, and I happened to also have worked up an appetite. We decided to take a break and dismounted to find something in the market to fill our stomachs. As we walked into the marketplace, though, I noticed something surprising out of the corner of my eye.
“Wait, is that…?”
I took a closer look, and indeed, I hadn’t been seeing things. A cage stood in the market, and within that cage stood a cluster of people with placards hung around their necks.
“A slave trader,” muttered Rietz as he followed my gaze.
Slaves.
Slavery was a common practice in the not-so-distant history of certain cultures back on Earth, but I’d never been confronted with the reality of the slave trade until that moment. My first impulse was revulsion at the thought of buying a human being, but a moment later, a second thought struck me: Who’s to say that slaves can’t be just as talented as any other person?
Going this route would certainly simplify the negotiation process for bringing them in as a retainer, as well. The problem, of course, was the question of price. I’d brought a chunk of funding with me to serve as an advance payment for anyone I recruited, but would that be enough?
No point speculating─I should take a look at them before doing anything else.
“Let’s have a look at the slaves before we eat,” I said to Rietz.
“The slaves?” asked Rietz. “Are you planning to buy one?”
“One of them might have talent, for all we know!”
“That’s…true, I suppose,” Rietz replied. He seemed more than a little hesitant, but he didn’t try to dissuade me, so we approached the cage.
I took a moment to appraise everyone there, one by one. None of the numbers that were coming up were particularly impressive, though. Just as I was about to give up, my gaze fell upon a particular girl.
My eyes widened in shock.
A 92 in Leadership, a 116 in Valor, and an S-ranked aptitude as a mage…? Those numbers are insane!
Her other stats weren’t anything to write home about, to be fair, but her strong points were undeniably out of this world. Hell, her Valor was on par with my father’s, and she hadn’t even reached her full potential yet!
A person’s capability in combat was determined by a combination of their Valor score and their aptitudes. As such, no matter how high your Valor was, if you were fighting in a field you had a D-ranked aptitude in, you wouldn’t be very effective at all. All of the girl’s aptitudes other than Mage were D, so in all likelihood, she wouldn’t be useful for anything other than magic on the field of battle, but that Mage aptitude! That alone would make her an overwhelming force in battle!
She had long, blue hair and a face so perfectly proportioned you’d think she was a living doll. She’d surely be beautiful when she grew up…not that I even cared. I was set! I’d buy her no matter what, bring her back to Lamberg, and have her be our army’s resident mage!
“How much for that Charlotte girl?” I asked the slave trader.
“Huh? Oh, her? Five silver. Why, you want ’er?”
Five silver…
Five gold coins─with each being equivalent in value to ten silver─was enough to cover a typical adult’s living expenses for a year. From that perspective, five silver was hardly an outrageous price. I checked on the other slaves’ prices as well, and found that on average, the men were priced higher than the women. People probably thought men would be more valuable for manual labor purposes, I assumed. Charlotte was young and attractive, which was most likely why her price was set a little higher than the other female slaves.
At the moment, I had five gold coins on hand. In other words, more than enough money to make the purchase feasible.
“P-Pardon me, Master Ars?” said Rietz. “I hope you’re not actually planning on buying that girl…”
“I am!” I replied immediately. “She has an unbelievable talent for magic!”
“I, uh, don’t mean to doubt your eye for such things, but she is a girl. We can’t exactly send her out onto the battlefield… Or rather, I don’t believe Lord Raven would ever allow us to do so.”
In this world, it was broadly accepted that women were not suited for combat. It wasn’t an unfamiliar perspective to me─plenty of cultures back on Earth had similar values, after all. If I were to bring a girl back with me and say I planned to have her serve as a soldier, I’d probably raise even more eyebrows than I did when I brought in Rietz the Malkan to be one of our retainers.
People might start thinking I’m some sort of maniac, in the worst case! But then again, no matter what they think of me at first, seeing her literally work her magic should shut them up nice and quick.
“What’s important, Rietz, is that she has an unmistakable aptitude for magic that we can’t ignore! Passing up this chance just because she’s female would be foolish!” I declared.
Rietz frowned, but remained silent. Apparently, he’d given up.
I passed the slave trader a gold coin. He gave me five silver in return, thanked me, then brought Charlotte out of the cage. Leading her over to me, he passed me the chain connected to the collar around her neck as well as the key to the collar itself.
I wasn’t about all that collar business, though. I knew that if I was judging her correctly, she’d go on to accomplish truly incredible feats in battle. Having a woman like that wear a collar just felt wrong to me, so I immediately reached up to unlock it.
“Whoa there, kiddo, not so fast!” snapped the slave trader. “She might be obedient, but trust me─you’d be better off keeping her on a leash!”
“I’ll be fine, thank you,” I replied, removing Charlotte’s collar without a second thought. She just stood there, not running away or even moving at all.
“Why did you take it off?” Charlotte eventually asked. That was my first time hearing her voice.
“Because I have no intention of keeping you as a slave,” I replied. “I paid for you because I want you as one of my family’s retainers. A collar isn’t appropriate attire for someone of that station, right?”
Charlotte cocked her head. I got the impression she didn’t really understand what I was talking about.
“Tell you what─I’m pretty hungry. Let’s go get some food, and I can give you the details while we eat!”
I found some food at a nearby market stall, and we had a quick meal. Well, Rietz and I did, but it seemed Charlotte wasn’t hungry, as she declined to eat with us. After we finished, I decided it was time to formally introduce ourselves.
“Now then, my name is Ars Louvent and this is…”
“Rietz Muses. Nice to meet you.”
“My name is Charlotte Lace. Likewise,” she replied. The way she spoke was sort of flat─almost monotone, even.
“As I said a moment ago, I bought you from that slave trader because I want to make you one of my family’s retainers,” I explained. I went on to tell Charlotte that I was the son of the lord of Lamberg. “So, if possible, I’d like you to come back with us and work for my household. What do you say?”
“The son of a lord? Okay,” replied Charlotte immediately. “I don’t have anywhere else to go, so I wouldn’t mind being a retainer. I’m a girl, though. I don’t know why you’d want me for a position like that. Did you think I was a boy or something? I know I don’t have much of a chest, but I’m a girl through and through. Should I prove it?”
Before I even had time to ask her how she planned to prove it to me, Charlotte had already stood up and started pulling down her trousers.
“No, no, stop!” I shouted frantically. “I already know you’re a girl! You don’t have to prove anything!”
“Oh…?” replied Charlotte, cocking her head. “I guess that makes sense. Nobody would mistake a girl as pretty as me for a boy.”
Did she just call herself pretty? I mean, she’s not wrong, but still, wow.
At that point, Rietz leaned in, his voice a whisper, and said, “M-Master Ars, don’t you think this girl is…a little strange? Are you really sure about this?” he asked with concern.
“I don’t care if she’s a little strange, as long as she has talent!” I replied, though it didn’t seem to do much to assuage Rietz’s worries.
“So tell me, why do you want a girl like me as a retainer?” asked Charlotte.
“Because you have a talent for magic,” I replied.
“For magic?” said Charlotte, cocking her head again. “I’ve never used magic at all, though. How could I possibly have the talent for it?”
I could immediately tell she was speaking the truth─she’d genuinely never used magic before.
That’s weird, I thought. With a Valor score that high, I assumed she had some real combat experience. Her maximum value’s crazy high, sure, but that doesn’t explain how someone so inexperienced could have a current Valor score that’s that huge!
I didn’t have any doubts about my own Appraisal skill, but just in case, I decided to have her use some magic for us and see what happened. Fortunately, I’d had Rietz bring the necessary materials along.
“Rietz? I’d like to have her use some magic for us, as a test,” I said.
“Very well. However, the middle of the city is hardly the place for such a thing. We should leave town first, Master Ars.”
“Oh, right! Good point.”
Rietz, Charlotte, and I made our way out to a plain just outside the city limits.
“All right,” I said the moment we arrived and confirmed there wasn’t anyone else nearby. “Let’s do it! Think you can show us some magic?”
Rietz produced the tools Charlotte would need for her test: a catalyzer and a leather flask full of aqua magia. The catalyzer was a sphere that was about the same size as a baseball, with writing in an alphabet I didn’t recognize inscribed across its surface. A chain was attached to it, and all you had to do to use it was loop it around your neck.
To start, Rietz had to fill the catalyzer with aqua magia. Part of the catalyzer was basically a lid, and removing it allowed access to the reservoir inside. Rietz took off the lid and poured a very small portion of the thick, viscous liquid into the device. Catalyzers were made to use up all of the aqua magia you put into them, regardless of how much. As a natural result, people couldn’t cast multiple spells in a row with one.
“Now then, put this on,” said Rietz, recapping the catalyzer and passing it over to Charlotte. She did as he said and hung it around her neck.
“What do I do now?” she asked.
“Once you’re wearing it, all you have to do is recite an incantation,” explained Rietz. “I only brought flame aqua magia with me today, so you’ll want to use some form of fire magic.”
“Huh?” I interjected, my ears perking up at a new piece of information. “Wait, does that mean there’s more than one type of aqua magia?”
I’ve only ever seen the red stuff! Could there be a bunch of them?
“Yes, there is. Some are blue, some green─there’s all sorts, really,” Rietz confirmed.
“What do the different colors mean?” I asked.
“Different types of magic have different aspects, and the color of the aqua magia indicates what magical aspects it’s capable of evoking. Red aqua magia, for instance, allows you to use flame-aspected magic. For simplicity’s sake, people tend to call it flame aqua magia as a result. Blue aqua magia allows you to use water-aspected magic, so it’s water aqua magia, while green allows the use of wind magic, and is wind aqua magia.”
“How many aspects are there?”
“Too many to list. The three I already mentioned aside, there’s lightning, darkness, light, ice, sound, poison, shadow, profane, healing, force, etcetera, etcetera.”
Rietz was pretty much blowing my mind. He’d listed off more magical aspects than I could’ve imagined, and there were even more of them he hadn’t bothered mentioning. And wait, how were dark-aspected magic and shadow-aspected magic even any different?!
“Flame magistones are commonly mined in Missian,” Rietz continued. “So most of the aqua magia in circulation in this region is flame-aspected. I believe the second most common form of aqua magia in the area would be sound-aspected, if memory serves.”
Sound… What would you even use sound magic for? I guess you could send signals on the battlefield with it, or something? Or maybe you could make noises loud enough to burst people’s eardrums?! No, wait, that would be just as bad for your troops as it would be for your enemy’s. Scratch that plan.
“Can you teach me the incantation?” asked Charlotte. I was so caught up in Rietz’s impromptu lesson that I sort of forgot about her for a minute there.
“Oh, excuse me. Right away,” said Rietz, who turned back to her and began instructing her on the process. “The spell I’d like you to use today is called Fire Bullet. The incantation goes, ‘O bolt of flame, burn my foe to ash.’”
I knew that incantation. It was the same spell that I had used. When I cast it, an orb of flame had whizzed out in a straight line ahead of me and detonated the moment it hit something. “Detonated” might have been overstating it a bit, though─it was more of a pop than an explosion, really. That was probably on account of me rather than the spell, however, and considering Charlotte’s sheer, raw talent, I had a feeling we were about to witness a much bigger fireball.
“Oh, and when you cast magic, you have to hold a hand out before you,” added Rietz. “The catalyzer won’t activate otherwise.”
“Left? Right?” Charlotte asked bluntly.
“Whichever your dominant hand is. It’ll be easier to aim that way.”
“Left, then.”
Guess Charlotte’s a lefty.
The field we were standing in was dotted here and there with trees, and Rietz told Charlotte to use one of them as a target. She picked the tree nearest to us, held her palm out toward it, and chanted the spell.
“O bolt of flame, burn my foe to ash.”
For just an instant, the catalyzer let out a flash of light, and at the exact same moment, the Fire Bullet burst out from Charlotte’s hand.
And I mean it burst out, at a tremendous speed. It rocketed across the field, hitting the tree dead center.
Before I could even process that, a thunderous roar swept across the field as an enormous explosion engulfed the tree. When the dust settled and the smoke cleared, there wasn’t even a charred trace of the trunk left. All that remained was an enormous crater, centered upon the point where a tree had stood tall a couple of seconds ago.
Rietz and I stood there, stock-still, our mouths agape. When I cast that spell, its destructive potential was roughly equivalent to that of a firecracker. I knew that magic could be more or less effective depending on who was using it, but I was aghast that the difference could be that stark.
“That was…pretty good, right?” I mumbled in amazement.
“P-Pretty good doesn’t even begin to describe it…” muttered Rietz in response. “I’ve seen plenty of mages on the battlefield, but I’ve never seen a Fire Bullet like that before… Was that really your first time casting a spell?”
Charlotte simply nodded in reply.
“Then there’s no doubt about it. She’s a magical prodigy,” said Rietz.
I didn’t really need the confirmation, honestly. Watching her cast a single spell was enough to sell me.
“Once again, Master Ars, your eye for talent has proven its worth,” added Rietz, turning to me with a look of the utmost respect in his eyes. “I’m beyond impressed─you truly are incredible.”
Charlotte’s aptitude for magic was the real deal, and with firepower like that on the table, I couldn’t possibly imagine my father turning her away, girl or not. I was convinced that I’d be able to make her one of our retainers without much fuss. We’d initially planned on staying in Canarre for two days, but I considered our mission thoroughly accomplished, and we decided to return to the estate immediately.
The three of us mounted our horse together. I was barely bigger than a toddler, and Charlotte was far from fully grown as well, so the horse didn’t have too much trouble bearing all of our weight. It couldn’t quite gallop at full speed, though, so the trip back was noticeably slower than the journey to Canarre had been.
“I can’t believe I had this sort of talent hidden away in me,” Charlotte suddenly muttered to herself. “They say the heavens never grant two blessings at once, but I guess I’m an exception.”
“Huh? Wait, then what’s your other blessing?” I asked, my curiosity piqued.
“My face.”
“Oh.”
Somebody sure has tons of self-esteem. Like, a weirdly high amount of it.
Again, though, she wasn’t wrong, so I couldn’t bring myself to call her out on it.
Charlotte was hard to get a handle on in general, really. I still had no idea what sort of person she was. I remembered what my father had told me: finding people with talent was the first step, but it wouldn’t amount to anything if I didn’t know how to use their talents, as well. That meant that having a solid grasp on my retainers’ personalities was an absolute must.
I decided to start by asking about Charlotte’s history, and one question on that subject immediately sprang to mind.
“How did you end up getting enslaved, Charlotte?”
“That’s a long, tragic story,” she replied. And of course it was, so she most likely didn’t want to talk about it. I decided not to pry further, but she surprised me by continuing her story. “I never knew my parents, and I grew up in the slums.”
Oof! Yeah, we’re off to a pretty heavy start. I bet slum life was so hard that she eventually had no choice but to let herself get sold off, or something along those lines.
“Life in the slums was hard…for pretty much everyone else, but I was more or less the boss of all the town’s slum brats.”
Well, scratch that theory. She was a boss? I guess it doesn’t make much of a difference whether you’re a boy or a girl when you’re a little kid. And considering her crazy Leadership score, it’s not a surprise that she’d end up in that sort of position.
“The lord who ruled over the area was a real tightwad. He taxed his people to their last copper while he lived in luxury. I hated his guts, and it’d been so long since we’d managed to get food that my kids were on the brink of starving, so I decided to go steal from his mansion’s kitchen. Long story short, I got caught. Most thieves get executed on the spot, but since I’m a real looker, he decided to sell me off instead.”
I couldn’t say she’d brought it upon herself, but I also couldn’t say she hadn’t walked right into it. Then again, if the lord in question really was that much of a tyrant, and if her only choices were to steal food or die, I couldn’t blame her for turning to theft.
“So? Did you shed a tear?” asked Charlotte.
“Not quite, sorry… You don’t sound all that torn up about it, either.”
“Huh. True enough.”
Once again, I met with a wall of impenetrable indifference. Talking to her wasn’t doing much at all to help me figure her out as a person, and the circumstances of her enslavement didn’t give me very many clues, either.
A few hours of getting tossed around by our horse’s canter later, we arrived at my family’s estate.
○
We made it back around dusk. The moment we arrived, I hurried off to find my father and ask him to make Charlotte one of our retainers.
“Absolutely not,” said my father, just as I expected. “What are you thinking, Ars? You’d make a girl a mage? Men fight to protect women, not to see them driven out onto the field of battle!”
“I thought you would say that,” I replied. “However, I believe that her talent for magic will fill that crucial void in your army! That’s why I brought her back with me.”
My father gave me a skeptical glance. Just then, Rietz stepped in to back me up.
“Master Ars speaks the truth, Milord. The girl, Charlotte Lace, possesses a talent for magic the likes of which I’ve never seen.”
Thankfully, our desperate appeal finally seemed to get through to him.
“Very well,” my father sighed. “I’ll give her one chance to demonstrate this supposed talent of hers. If she’s the unprecedented genius you claim her to be, I’ll take her under my command as a mage.”
It was time for another test! We moved outside to find an appropriate location for Charlotte to show off her magic. Knowing what she was capable of, I figured that having her cast anything on the training grounds would be incredibly dangerous, so I decided to find a different, wide-open space for the event.
In the end, we settled on an abandoned field. It had been cultivated at one point, but was now overgrown with weeds and thick undergrowth. We put a wooden box out into the center of it to serve as her target. Meanwhile, the rumor that we were putting Charlotte to the test had spread among my father’s men, who all gathered to watch.
“A girl? And she’s supposed to be a mage?”
“I wouldn’t be so hasty─she’s another one that the young master hand-picked for the job!”
“Right, but come on! This time he has to be going a step too far.”
“Can women even use magic?”
“Take a close look at her! With a face like that, maybe the young master’s planning on taking her as his bride?”
“He’s four, jackass!”
I decided to disregard their color commentary. Charlotte’s magic would shut them up before long, anyway.
“Go on, then,” said my father.
At his prompting, Charlotte began preparing to cast her spell. Setting up a catalyzer was a simple enough process that she’d learned how to do it just by seeing Rietz run through the steps once.
Charlotte extended her arm, holding her palm out toward the box, and chanted her incantation. A Fire Bullet burst forth from her hand, sailing across the field and scoring a direct hit on the box.
The ensuing explosion was, somehow, even more enormous than on her first try. It seemed that lone attempt had been enough practice for her to improve her magical ability substantially. It was hard─and terrifying─to imagine just how dangerous she’d become if she had the chance to get some real practice in.
The soldiers, by the way, were all gawking in bug-eyed horror. I could literally see the nervous sweat begin to drip down their faces. Even my father was openly shocked, for once. I’d never seen his jaw drop like that before.
For a moment, silence reigned. Then, at last, my father pulled himself together enough to speak.
“Very well, then. We have ourselves a mage.”
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