The Last Place Hero’s Return - Chapter 103

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 103. The Ryu Family’s Scoundrel (4)
“Ah….”
A sigh escaped between my lips.
The crushing weight of despair pressed down upon me.
‘What do I do about this?’
If Berald’s inability to learn magic stemmed from some other cause, I could identify and eliminate it.
If he were cursed, I could break the curse; if poisoned, I could administer an antidote.
With the Primordial Flame in my possession, neither would prove insurmountable.
‘But.’
If the reason he couldn’t use magic despite all his efforts was simply that he was born intellectually deficient…
‘Then there’s nothing I can do about it.’
How could I possibly make someone intelligent when they were born foolish?
‘Even if I could, it’s impossible in three days.’
How could I enable magical calculations in three days when decades of effort had failed?
“Sigh.”
My mind grew tangled, and a deep breath escaped me.
Berald wore a bitter smile and shook his head.
“There’s no need to strain yourself, hyung. I already knew it was difficult.”
“…Berald.”
“Even if the support from the main house stops, I won’t have immediate trouble surviving. We’re still the Ryu Family, after all. We’re not that poor.”
Berald continued, shrugging his shoulders.
“Of course, I won’t be able to receive regular treatment anymore… but even after receiving treatment weekly for the past five years, my condition hasn’t improved, so whether I receive treatment or not, there’s really no difference, is there?”
“….”
There was absolutely a difference.
The possibility of recovery, however slim, was entirely different from abandoning treatment altogether.
“Your father—how did he get injured?”
I had never heard in my previous life that Berald’s Father was ill.
Even though Berald and I had known each other since our Academy days, we weren’t close enough to share such dark family secrets.
“Heh heh. You mean our father?”
Berald continued with a sorrowful gaze.
He dropped onto the Training Ground floor and took a bite of the bread he’d split in half.
“Five years ago, there was a conflict between the Ryu Family and the Demon God Church.”
“…I’ve never heard of that.”
The Ryu Family was among the most powerful in the Republic.
If such a clash had occurred between them and the Demon God Church, it would have caused great upheaval in the Republic, yet I recalled no such disturbance.
“The family must have suppressed the information from spreading. It wasn’t really that large a conflict anyway. There weren’t many casualties.”
Berald spoke with a bitter smile, but.
‘In other words, even if it wasn’t a large conflict, a conflict still occurred.’
And even if there weren’t many casualties, there were casualties nonetheless.
And one of them was Berald’s Father.
“Father sustained grave injuries in that battle.”
Berald continued in a measured tone.
“Fortunately, he survived, but he developed aftereffects—his memory has been gradually deteriorating.”
Though his words remained composed, his lowered voice carried profound emotion beneath the surface.
“That stubborn old man tormented me from childhood, and now he’s forgotten even his own son’s name… It’s retribution, pure retribution.”
Berald laughed softly, covering his eyes with his hand.
“….”
Suddenly, a memory from my past life flashed through my mind.
A brief conversation we’d shared not long before his death.
-Hehehehe! If a name is truly necessary, then call me ‘Berald’s Combat Art’!
-Since you possess an immortal body, you’ll live for an extraordinarily long time, won’t you? Our old man was exactly like that—when people age, they tend to forget their own children’s names.
-Even if I die, please remember my name.
The image of him asking me to remember at least his name.
‘That scoundrel… back then he spoke as though he’d simply forgotten with age.’
So there was this backstory all along.
‘That’s why he was so obsessed with his name.’
Watching Berald silently weep with his hand covering his eyes, I opened my mouth.
“There is a way.”
“…What way are you talking about?”
“A way for you to use magic in three days.”
“…?”
Berald looked at me with an expression asking what nonsense I was spouting.
I closed my eyes tightly and organized the method that had surfaced in my mind.
A way for Berald, who couldn’t control magic at all, to use it.
That would be….
“Give up.”
The way for Berald, who possessed an indomitable perseverance that knew no surrender, to use magic lay paradoxically in abandonment.
“…What in the world are you saying?”
Berald asked, his expression bewildered.
“You know there are three stages of magic, right?”
“I’m aware of that.”
The flow of magic progressing through release, manifestation, and control.
Among these, the realm that Berald could never reach no matter how hard he tried was ‘control’ itself.
If that were the case….
“Abandon control entirely.”
“…Abandon control?”
“Yes.”
Release and manifestation.
Narrowing the scope to just these two stages.
“Create a mana bullet again. This time, don’t even think about moving it from the start.”
“Very well. Let me give it a try.”
Berald nodded and focused his concentration.
Whooooooosh!
The Sacred Mark blazed with light as tremendous mana swirled violently around us.
“Hah!”
A resonant shout accompanied the mana sphere manifested in the air.
It was roughly the size of a fist.
The consistency, which had been as soft as dough before, had hardened considerably.
‘Exactly as I thought!’
Watching the mana sphere Berald created, I clenched my fist with satisfaction.
It was far more refined than the one he’d initially formed.
‘By abandoning the very idea of control, the completion improved.’
When you thought about it, it made perfect sense.
Consider crafting a magical carriage, for instance.
Isn’t creating a mere replica that merely resembles the exterior overwhelmingly easier than constructing one that actually functions?
“…Huh?”
Berald too seemed startled by the refinement of his creation, his eyes widening.
“H-hey, hyung! Did you see this? I made a mana sphere the size of my fist!”
Berald cried out in an excited voice.
“How is it? Much better now that you’ve abandoned the control process, right?”
“Is that what you call it? It feels more like… I’ve gone from hopping on one leg to sitting in a wheelchair!”
From hopping on one leg to sitting in a wheelchair.
‘That’s a surprisingly accurate analogy.’
Having struggled futilely to maintain control that was never possible, abandoning it entirely made manifesting magic far easier.
“Good. Let’s continue raising the completion this way.”
“Understood!”
Berald nodded and created another mana sphere.
* * *
Three days passed like that.
Berald’s mana sphere had achieved a level of refinement incomparable to his initial creation.
The sphere, once barely the size of two finger joints, had grown to roughly the size of a human head, and its consistency, which had felt like touching soft dough, now possessed the hardness of steel or beyond.
‘I never imagined he’d grow this much in just three days.’
Of course.
Such dramatic progress hadn’t occurred simply from abandoning a single ‘control’ process.
‘It’s thanks to the effort he’s accumulated all this time.’
Berald had likely worked harder than anyone else to master magic from the very day he began learning it.
‘Because it’s Berald.’
Even if no one acknowledged it.
Even if no one recognized it.
I knew.
How relentless he was—a man who knew nothing of surrender.
Even when everyone dismissed him, insisting he couldn’t do it, he must have continued his magical training alone.
‘And.’
All that accumulated effort had finally found direction and blossomed into fruition.
“I, I actually created this mana sphere myself….”
Berald stared at the translucent sphere, roughly the size of a human head, his expression one of disbelief.
Compared to the crude mana sphere he’d first created, this one possessed a level of refinement that made comparison almost embarrassing.
‘Of course, relative to the mana I poured into it, this is still quite lacking.’
If I’d once needed to expend 100 units of mana to produce a result worth 1, now I could generate results worth perhaps 10.
Compared to Sophia, who could expend 100 units of mana and produce results worth 2 or 3 times that, it was questionable whether this should even be called the same ‘magic’.
‘No matter how generously I frame it, the completion is below average, and I can’t use any magic besides mana spheres.’
But that’s fine.
Compared to my past life, when I couldn’t manifest magic at all, a new path had opened for Berald.
Now all that remained for me was to show him how to walk down that newly opened path.
“But you know, hyung.”
“Hmm?”
“It’s funny to say this now, but…”
Berald scratched the back of his head, his smile awkward.
“This mana sphere just floats in the air—it can’t actually move, can it?”
“Of course not. I abandoned control entirely.”
“…Then what’s the point? How am I supposed to defeat Laios with a mana sphere that doesn’t even move?”
Berald stared at me with a vacant expression.
I couldn’t help but let out a laugh at the sight of him.
“Is that really the question you’re asking after three straight days of magical training?”
“Ahem! Well, doesn’t that just show how much I trusted you?”
Berald cleared his throat awkwardly and averted his gaze.
He’d probably been so thrilled at the fact that he could actually create a proper mana sphere that he hadn’t thought about anything else.
‘That’s so like Berald.’
Though it goes without saying.
I hadn’t had him practice creating immobile mana spheres without any plan in mind.
“Berald. Have you ever heard that saying?”
“What saying?”
“If the mind is weak, the body suffers.”
It was one of the Republic’s ancient maxims.
“Hah. I’ve heard it so many times from Father I’m sick of it.”
Berald laughed as though he’d heard it countless times before.
“Then think of it the other way around.”
“The other way?”
I gazed at Berald’s physique, which was packed with overwhelming musculature, and let a sly smile spread across my face.
“If you have an overwhelmingly superior body… a weak mind doesn’t matter much.”

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————