A Returner’s Magic Should Be Special - Chapter 93

Episode 93. They Press Forward (3)

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The Dezir Party threw themselves into serious training.
The newly recruited members were greenhorns with almost no actual combat experience. There was a long road ahead—from teaching them how to establish basic formations to building up their individual skills.
Dezir, who had spent time with countless swordsmen from across the continent in the Shadow Labyrinth, had mastered the fundamentals of most sword styles. He taught Ren, who wielded a Bastard Sword, the Hebrion Imperial Army Swordsmanship, and gave Takiran, who carried a Greatsword, instruction in the Northern Style Swordsmanship, which allowed him to press his opponents back with overwhelming force.
Priciel was a Water Attribute Magic practitioner. The spells in her arsenal were few and far between. First and foremost, she needed to expand her repertoire of usable magic.
Dezir taught her several 1-Circle Water Attribute spells and had her memorize the incantations.

After attending to the new recruits, Dezir reviewed the training progress of his existing party members.
Among them, Fram had achieved the most remarkable growth.
“Excellent work, Fram.”
Dezir spoke as he observed a faint, bluish glow kindling at the edge of the sword Fram held.
Though still faint and dim, it was unmistakably Aura. Fram had taken the first step into the Rook Rank.
“I’ve been practicing really hard.”
“Outstanding. Keep training that way. Once you can coat your blade with Aura consistently, let’s have a match together.”
“Understood!”

Next came Romantika.
In the Wind Magic Training Ground, an iron Shot Put hurtled through the air at 200 kilometers per hour. The sphere, originally the size of a fist, shrank to a dot in an instant as it rocketed away at such speed.
Romantika aimed her Rifle at the empty space where nothing was visible. Moments later, she pulled the trigger. The discharge ignited the magic stored within the Rifle, sending it forth.
Crack.
A faint sound echoed.

[Success.]

A dull mechanical voice.
Romantika’s Sniping had shattered the Shot Put into fragments.
Dezir applauded as he heard the click of the Rifle reloading, and she turned to look at him.
“Your Sniping accuracy has improved tremendously. At that level, you’ll be able to target enemies from even greater distances. And with your Silent Casting, fewer and fewer enemies will be able to detect your shots. That’s a truly excellent result.”
“This much? It’s only the basics.”
Silent Casting was Romantika’s greatest strength.
Her Sniping, executed at incredible speed, was one of the most difficult attack patterns to counter.
During her previous fight with the Crow Mask, Romantika had shattered his mask using a Sniping spell developed through Silent Casting.
“Assume your stance again.”
Dezir signaled Romantika to prepare.
Romantika brought her eye to the scope of the Rifle.
“But your Sniping isn’t perfected yet. Right now, it’s effective when you’re targeting a single opponent, but there’s no guarantee you’ll always face just one enemy.”
Dezir pulled the lever, and another Shot Put was launched.
Romantika began to aim. But before she could pull the trigger, Dezir pulled the lever again.
A second Shot Put flew. Her crosshairs wavered slightly.
“Hold on, wait—”
“Concentrate, Romantika.”
Dezir pulled the lever once more.
Romantika clenched her teeth and stared through the scope.
‘Which one do I hit first? The first one’s already too far—I should give up on it and aim for the second, which is closer. No, wait—it hasn’t gone so far that I can’t possibly hit it!’
The disturbance sent shockwaves through her mind. After a moment’s deliberation, Romantika fired her first shot, but it missed entirely.

[Failed.]
[Failed.]
[Failed.]

A dismal result.
……
Romantika pulled her eye away from the Rifle.
“Another exercise added to your routine, I see?”

Dezir checked Azest’s training one final time.
“You’ve felt your growth stalling lately, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
“That’s why you’ve been practicing Magic Sword so intensively.”
“……Is that wrong?”
Dezir shook his head.
“It’s not the wrong approach. Polishing your weaker techniques is always necessary. But if what you mean by reaching a higher level refers to attaining Rook Rank and becoming a 4-Circle Mage, then that method has a fundamental problem.”
“Then what should I do?”
“Few people in this world are born with the talent to reach 4-Circle. But even those rare few find it’s far from easy to attain it.”
The realm of 4-Circle and beyond was one that talent alone could not reach.
“The reason is simple: people with an unshakable Mental Image within themselves are extraordinarily rare.”
Magic fundamentally cannot be deployed without a Mental Image.
Moreover, the more clearly and concretely you can crystallize an image through your Mental Image, the more powerful magic you can deploy.
“From 4-Circle onward, technique in handling Mana matters, calculation ability matters, but Mental Image becomes incomparably more crucial than before.”
“Mental Image……”
“Yes. Training your Mental Image will not only help when you reach 4-Circle, but will prove invaluable in how you deploy magic moving forward.”
It was a task he was setting before her. If she could properly construct a true Mental Image, she would gain a foothold to advance yet further.
Azest fell into thought, turning Dezir’s words over in her mind.
The Dezir Party’s training proceeded in this manner.

* * *

That same day, Keltic was occupied with paperwork related to the Blue Moon Party.
The Blue Moon Party was so large that rather than managing all grades uniformly, it appointed department heads by year to oversee operations.
Keltic served as the leader of the second-year cohort in the Blue Moon Party.
Though his brother being a professor certainly helped, he possessed sufficient ability in his own right, and his fellow party members recognized that in him.
The quill had danced across the page, then stopped. Fuggman, his brother, had somehow approached and now sat before him.
“How’s the work coming?”
Fuggman Pasil Niplecar—head professor at Hebrion Academy and overseeing Magical Engineering.
He was a man whose frame had swollen into shapelessness. Whatever handsome features might once have been guessed at lay buried long ago beneath rolls of flesh.
“I’m nearly finished organizing the new member paperwork. Just need to finalize the financial management.”
“Good. Very capable. Well, takes after his brother—only natural you’d be capable.”
Fuggman pulled an apple from his pocket.
“Care for one?”
Keltic declined with a shake of his head.
As Fuggman bit into the apple, juice splattered onto the documents. Keltic had just wiped it away with his palm.
“But listen, Keltic. I heard you lost to Dezir……”
Lost.
At that word, Keltic found himself studying his brother’s expression.
In the Niplecar House, that word carried immense weight.
The Niplecar House did not tolerate defeat.
It never had.
They stood with the victors.
How else had they survived revolutions?
“It’s just that, well……”
Keltic struggled to compose himself.
“……Dezir was stronger than I expected. I thought all the rumors amounted to nothing, that he’d be unremarkable in reality—I’d assumed commoners lacked talent entirely. I was wrong, clearly.”
“……My, Keltic.”
The moment Keltic saw his brother’s expression, he knew he’d made a mistake.
Fuggman glared at him once, then set the apple down on the desk.
‘I won’t be finishing work today.’
Keltic gathered the documents and shoved them beneath the desk.
“Keltic, don’t tell me you’re actually recognizing commoners? You absolutely must not let yourself be seduced by them.”
Fuggman’s voice was measured, but the emotion it carried was anything but calm.
“Those creatures are utterly vicious trash. I still remember their atrocities with perfect clarity. Countless houses that supported the Empire were slaughtered and erased. The Niplecar House itself survived only by paying a terrible price in blood. Do you remember that time, Keltic?”
“I do. I remember.”
Fuggman repeated this story countless times, and each time Keltic said he remembered, but truthfully, those events from his childhood were a blur. He’d been far too young.
“The moment commoners get an opening, they’ll rise again. The instant they gain any power, they’ll certainly rise again. You must never give them room to maneuver, Keltic. Never, do you hear me?”
Fuggman picked up the apple from the desk and bit into it.
“But lately, commoners have been getting out of hand, forgetting their place. There are those who delude themselves into thinking they stand on equal footing with the nobility. Some have even gone so far as to establish parties—organizing themselves systematically, no less.”
He was referring to the Dezir Party.
Fuggman despised Dezir so thoroughly that his teeth would grind at the mere mention of the name.
“They’re preparing and training for the Inter-Party Tournament, I hear. Keltic, make certain you crush the Dezir Party in that tournament. Teach them to know their station.”
Keltic could only nod in acknowledgment.

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