As Expected, It Didn't Die
“You’re a man of surprises.”
Ruri delivered the remark the moment she stepped in to prepare breakfast, her gaze fixed on Ferda. As a Dragon Spawn and Baldrova’s sole attendant, her eye for detail was razor-sharp.
“Did you truly open the circuit?”
In a single night?
Ferda nodded. “Yes.”
“An ordinary human shouldn’t be able to force one open in a day.”
“That’s because I’m not ordinary, wouldn’t you agree? More importantly, I’d like an answer.”
“To what, exactly?”
“Have I proven myself worthy of becoming a consort with this?”
“….”
Instead of answering, Ruri pressed her lips into a thin line and looked up at him. By the measure of potential she held in her mind, he had already passed.
No—he’s exceeded every expectation.
Barely two weeks earlier, when she had first made the proposal, she had thought that if he somehow managed to squeeze out a single drop on the final day of the fourth week, it would count as a miracle. Yet Ferda had satisfied the condition with almost casual ease in only two weeks.
It wasn’t even two weeks.
There had been no warning signs at all; he had simply done it overnight.
The cause of that awakening… has to be the battle with Master.
What possible change could a human have felt in the middle of that? Nothing but crushing terror and awe. She herself had been the one to carry his ruined body to bed; she knew exactly how broken he had been. Watching him act as if the whole thing were perfectly natural grated on her.
“Why no answer?”
“…It’s fine.”
“What is?”
“The standard.”
Ruri cleared her throat and deliberately changed the subject.
“You’ve met the criteria, so feel free to rest until the engagement ceremony. You’ve worked hard.”
“Resting is well and good, but there’s still a long road ahead, isn’t there?”
Having finished breakfast, Ferda wiped his mouth with a napkin and rose from his seat.
“Is there somewhere suitable for practice?”
“What do you intend to practice?”
“Magic.”
Ruri shook her head.
“Unfortunately we keep nothing for mages. I could send for supplies, but it would take roughly three days.”
“It won’t take that long. I don’t need anything of that sort.”
The training Ferda planned required none of those expensive, precision instruments.
“A few targets will do.”
“Targets?”
“Just set up some scarecrows or the like.”
Ruri’s expression turned dubious. A fledgling who had only just set foot in the 1st Circle wanted to train with straw dummies? Yet for Ferda those crude figures were the best and most perfect tools available. His brand of magic demanded a delicacy no ordinary equipment could measure or correct—and that level of control was already well within his solitary grasp.
The place Ruri led him to was the same clearing where wings had once been unfurled for the flight to the mountain peak. It had now become a training ground—one meant for ordinary soldiers rather than mages. Straw scarecrows, distance markers, obstacles, and assorted implements filled the space.
Managing this entire castle alone suddenly makes sense.
She had transformed the open ground into a proper training field in thirty minutes flat. With skill and speed like that, what could she not accomplish?
Ferda glanced at Ruri, who stood demurely at his side.
“Thank you for preparing it.”
“What precisely do you mean to practice?”
“Control of mana.”
Ruri tilted her head.
“Why control it?”
“To use magic efficiently. Waste too much mana and you exhaust yourself; use too little and the spell fizzles. It happens often.”
She tilted her head the other way.
“Does that actually happen?”
“Don’t dragons experience it? I was told every dragon can cast at least a little magic.”
Ruri nodded.
“As you say, we can handle magic. The spells we command differ according to whose blood we inherited as our ruler, yet nearly every Dragon Spawn is capable.”
“And yet you don’t understand?”
“Yes. To put it simply, what you’re saying feels like fretting over whether you’ll still be able to breathe. Other Dragon Spawns would call it ‘primitive’ if they heard.”
Ferda fixed her with a steady look.
“So what I’m doing looks primitive to you?”
“I am a Dragon Spawn myself.”
Primitive, she called it.
“Well, you’re not entirely wrong.”
What else could one expect from beings whose arrogance was practically their default nature? Dragon Spawns who wielded magic by birthright, and humans who clawed their way to the same power through effort and understanding—it was only natural that the two would fail to comprehend each other.
Ferda turned toward the scarecrows.
“May I watch you train?”
“If watching someone practice breathing amuses you.”
“Very well.”
Ruri retreated a respectful distance and began to observe.
Ferda closed his eyes. Controlling magic normally meant sensing stillness and slowly approaching the gentle current. That was the standard method of mana control.
But only for the Blue Circle.
Most codified magic existed for the Blue Circle. Ferda’s circle was the Red Circle. A circuit forged from the turbulence of emotion could not be governed by Blue Circle techniques. Even if one forced such control, the result was a crippling loss of power that left the caster what was crudely called a “half-wit.”
I must control that which must never be controlled.
Contradiction itself was the nature of the Red Circle. Know the secret that shatters that paradox, and you could dominate the power. Ferda had already made it possible.
Eyes still shut, he let his awareness drift gently downward. Consciousness sank like a stone into a lake until it reached his dantian. The circle spinning taut and perfect there pressed vividly against his closed lids. He simply watched it.
The mana raced like a monsoon torrent. Approach carelessly and it would sweep you away. Ferda extended a careful hand. What he attempted was akin to shaping pottery—lightly touching the rim of the whirling circle, preserving its form while scooping mana free.
Scooping.
Even the slower Blue Circle demanded more than a year of training for this stage. The Red Circle required several times that.
I once bled for this.
The memory of that labor remained razor-sharp. Ferda focused and brought a fingertip to the circle. Torrential mana brushed the finger; the mana within seized the digit as a new channel and began to flow.
I feel it.
Power rose from the dantian, racing along the blood vessels—through the veins to the heart, from the heart into the arteries. Using the blood pathways as roads, the mana moved.
This alone takes a year.
Yet Ferda found the route with practiced ease and, at last, reached the tip of his right index finger.
One minute.
A year’s work finished in sixty seconds. Having drawn the mana up, he moved to the next stage: sphere formation.
Woooong—
Mana gathered at his fingertip spilled outward and scattered. He felt the blue threads of power unfurling from the skin.
Condense.
The dispersing strands collected a knuckle’s length above the finger and compressed. The denser the mass grew, the deeper its color became. When even an unawakened observer could see it clearly, the stage was complete. Ferda’s sphere formed smooth, hard, and perfect. Ordinarily a portion would escape as blue vapor; his wasted nothing.
Another year to reach this point.
Two full years of progress, compressed into two minutes. He felt no particular joy. As Ruri had said, it was as natural as breathing. No one celebrates rediscovering how to inhale.
Final stage.
The work that took most mages six years—and that even the gifted Ferda had needed three years to master. He entered the “three-beat” stage.
Ferda looked down at the pure crystal of mana resting on his finger—a blank slate that could become anything the will demanded. The first exercise performed with such a crystal was the simple throw known as a Mana Shot. The name meant exactly what it said: flinging a lump of mana. Yet the drill also measured whether a mage could truly fulfill a mage’s role.
Cohesion, velocity, and accuracy must all align.
That was the three-beat. A stage called the Wall of Lamentation; countless mages who had already reached the 3rd Circle still failed to clear it. Ferda himself had only managed it after becoming a 2nd-Circle mage.
He lifted his gaze. Exactly fifty meters away stood a marked sign and a scarecrow.
“Hmm…”
Ferda narrowed his eyes and murmured,
“This won’t do.”
He focused on his finger once more. Three spheres bloomed into existence and floated above the digit. Looking at them, he muttered,
“Yes. This is more like it.”
At least this much was needed if the exercise was to be worthwhile. His finger swept a broad arc through the air. Simultaneously the three mana bullets arced away on perfect parabolas, aimed precisely at the scarecrow’s forehead.
Puff-puff-boom!
The high-density projectiles detonated. The scarecrow’s head vanished without leaving so much as a shred.
Ferda regarded the result and murmured,
“As expected, it didn’t die.”
Firing three shots at the 1st Circle had consumed half his mana reserves, but that was fine. Mana capacity grew with every new circle. Having completed the practical test, Ferda no longer harbored the slightest doubt about his ability. The session ended there. From start to finish, the entire practice had taken a mere ten minutes.
That night Ruri descended into the lair, a sheaf of documents she had personally organized clutched in her hands.
“I present the weekly report.”
“Proceed.”
Even in seclusion, one still needed to know how the world turned. That duty fell to her sole attendant, and Ruri performed it willingly. Baldrova listened to the summary with calm attention. After thirty minutes the situation report concluded; Ruri closed the folder.
“That is all.”
“You have worked hard.”
“It is nothing worthy of the phrase. Do you have any questions?”
None. You may go.
That was the reply Ruri had always heard—yet this time a very different phrase lodged in her ears.
“Questions, you say…”
Baldrova’s claw scratched thoughtfully at her chin. Having served so long, Ruri recognized the sign at once: her master was curious about something.
At last—interest in the outside world?
Ruri’s eyes sparkled. Baldrova’s mouth worked, then she shook her great head vigorously.
“No. Nothing.”
“Please speak freely. What puzzles you? This humble Ruri stands ready to answer every question Master may pose.”
Ruri’s eyes shone. Baldrova looked down at that eager light and, with visible reluctance, opened her mouth.
“How fares the one who is to become my consort?”
“Ah.”
A sense of betrayal settled coldly in Ruri’s chest. It felt as though a private dream had shattered. Of all things to be curious about—that man’s well-being. Yet she had pressed for an answer; courtesy demanded she give one.
“Your future fiancé is doing quite well.”
“No discomforts, then?”
“None. You need not worry. I expected him to struggle without attendants, yet he manages perfectly. He is utterly unlike the so-called nobles of the present age.”
“I see.”
“And so…”
Contrary to Ruri’s expectation that the conversation would end there, her own lips continued to move. She hesitated, wondering whether the words should be spoken at all, then pressed on.
“And so I cannot make sense of him.”
“Cannot make sense? You mean he falls short of expectation?”
Ruri shook her head.
“No. His ability is exceptional. Rather, it is because he has surpassed everything I anticipated.”
“A human you acknowledge? How unusual.”
Baldrova was genuinely surprised. She already knew how deeply Ruri despised humanity.
“Then what is the trouble? Is his power unstable?”
“No. He was too perfect.”
“Is perfection not a virtue?”
“Of course perfection is good—but not in a human.”
Ruri recalled every observation she had made of Ferda. What had convinced her of danger more than anything else was today’s training session.
“Humans are a race that learns through failure. They can never be perfect from the very first attempt.”
He had never failed—not once. It was not limited to today. Over the past several days of watching him, that same impression had only deepened. Even Ruri, who loathed humans, had been forced to acknowledge him; his very bearing was simply wrong. Thus he had vaulted past mere competence into something else entirely.
“And so the only thought left to me is that the man is dangerous.”
Awe had taken root in Ruri’s chest—because it felt as though she had overlooked something, as though he carried a secret she could not name. As a loyal servant she could not permit such a presence at her master’s side.
“For you to harbor such thoughts, he must be a truly remarkable man.”
“I hate to admit it… but yes.”
Baldrova considered the words in silence.
“Even so, it is fine. Did you not say he came to meet me with pure intent?”
“….”
“Then I shall choose to trust him.”
The optimism of the statement was almost staggering. Ruri herself was sick with unease, yet the one most concerned spoke as though nothing were amiss.
This is my master.
Ruri knew it well and had already factored the trait into every calculation.
Therefore I must do everything within my power.
If she could not prevent the danger outright, she at least needed an opportunity to probe his true nature.
As expected… trying that might not be a bad idea either.
Ruri decided she would set the board herself. Even if it failed to force him to reveal his colors, it would still serve as a means of glimpsing what lay beneath. While she refined the plan, the phrase her master had used continued to circle through her mind.
“A remarkable man, you say…”
Turning the words over, Ruri suddenly recalled a face—Ferda’s face, smiling in admiration even while racked with pain. Her own features twisted as though she had stepped in filth on the road.
“Master. About that…”
“What is it?”
“…Nothing.”