Chapter 44

Hunting Hounds (1)

Mana, the primordial energy.

Refine that mana into usable energy, and you have magical power and aura.

Both derive from mana, but the mechanisms by which they operate are not merely different. They clash.

Those who use magical power cannot wield aura. Those who wield aura cannot use magical power.

This has long been both a rule and common knowledge throughout the continent.

But I knew that wasn't true.

The Archmage, one of the allied army's heroes, had told me:

["To be precise, it's the mages who use magical power who cannot wield aura."]

The Archmage's definition of aura was simple.

The power to bring things that exist only in the imagination into reality.

["Take the tremendous strength of warriors who wield aura, for example."]

Warriors strengthened their bodies with aura to exert superhuman force. According to the Archmage, that idea had originally been inspired by ants.

Ants. Tiny insects that lifted weights thousands of times greater than their own.

What if that physical structure were applied to a human? Wouldn't humans also be able to lift weights thousands of times greater than their own?

A mage's answer to those questions was this:

["Strength is proportional to the cross-sectional area of a muscle."]

That meant the bigger the muscles, the greater the strength.

And that was the full extent of what I could understand. Everything after that went in one ear and out the other.

["As a body grows larger, its cross-sectional area increases with the square of its dimensions."]

Because cross-sectional area was length × width. Volume, on the other hand, was length × width × height. For the same increase in dimensions, volume increased by the cube.

["The body's volume increases exponentially relative to the cross-sectional area of its muscles."]

So what happened if an ant grew to the size of a human?

It could no longer exert that much strength.

Conversely, what if a human shrank to the size of an ant?

They could exert strength like an ant.

Come to think of it, the only creatures that exerted force thousands of times greater than their own weight were tiny insects. Fleas were another example.

Thus, the reason ants could lift objects thousands of times heavier than themselves was their size. In other words, their small volume.

That was why giving a human an ant's physical structure would not let them lift objects thousands of times their own weight.

["And so mages reach a conclusion."]

Ah! That was impossible to begin with!

That was why even when mages used muscle-enhancing spells such as Strength, they could not exert force beyond the limits of human anatomy. Their superior intellect had allowed them to understand that it was impossible.

["But warriors who wield aura say this."]

I just tried it, and it worked?

They really were a bunch of lunatics.

It was absolutely impossible under the principles of magic. No way in hell was it possible under the laws of this world, either.

Yet there they were, warriors applying an ant's physical structure to themselves and bounding about right before your eyes.

It drove mages absolutely up the wall.

["It's what people commonly call... a mental breakdown."]

That was how aura enhanced physical abilities. It used imagination to disregard the laws of the world, dragging things that existed only in an individual's mind into reality—

Aura. An absurd power that had never existed anywhere, and yet existed.

That was why mages could not use aura. Their superior intellect had allowed them to understand that aura itself could not possibly exist.

Conversely, knights could not use magical power either. The moment they studied and understood magical power, they would deny aura's existence.

Aura and magical power.

Though both were modified forms of the same primordial mana, that was why aura was considered the exclusive domain of knights, and magical power the exclusive domain of mages.

That did not mean aura was all-powerful. Precisely because it defied the laws of the world, it could not act without restriction.

The Archmage described it as "meeting resistance from the world."

As such, even enhancing physical abilities and strengthening the blades they wielded was a struggle.

But every once in a while, there were exceptions.

Lunatics who brought their own ridiculous imaginings into reality, things the laws of the world could never allow.

A state in which aura not only overcame the world's resistance but surpassed the critical threshold.

Master.

Masters manifested their own unique imaginings in this world. Then they applied them to themselves as though they had always been laws of nature.

In doing so, they could accomplish truly absurd things that completely disregarded the laws of the world.

And now, that power I could sense from Kai.

It resembled my Regeneration[B+], but operated on an entirely different basis. It bore a passing resemblance to the Saintess's miracles, yet its nature was different.

It was a power no living creature in this world had ever possessed. An ability that could absolutely, unequivocally never manifest in this world.

Immortality.

In other words, Kai had now taken a step into the realm of a Master.

Which meant he had taken another step toward becoming the Legion Commander of Bitter Cold.

Seriously...

'That crazy bastard.'

Across both my previous life and this one, he was the most formidable lunatic I had ever seen.

* * *

While I had been searching the snowy mountains, Kai had taken a step into the realm of a Master.

If there was one saving grace...

'He isn't a full-fledged Master yet.'

Master wasn't some title you handed out to any stray dog. It wasn't a level you could reach in one leap.

Even in the Kingdom of Battenberg, to which House Whitewolf belonged, you could count them on your fingers. There weren't many Masters even across the entire continent.

Master, the pinnacle of aura.

Kai had only taken a single step into that realm.

But even that was frankly absurd.

Kai was only twenty. As far as I knew, no one had ever come within reach of becoming a Master at that age.

At any rate, he hadn't attained complete immortality as he had in my previous life.

Actually, even then, it hadn't been complete immortality.

There was only one truly immortal being: the Sovereign of Immortality, one of the six Sovereigns serving the Emperor.

Kai's immortality was not immortality in the truest sense. Just as I absolutely needed nutrients for Regeneration[B+], he absolutely needed aura for his immortality.

In other words, once his aura ran dry, his power of immortality vanished.

As the Legion Commander of Bitter Cold, he had overcome that limitation to some extent by becoming a lich.

But right now, he was still human. The limits of his immortality were clear.

'Still a crazy bastard, though.'

A lunatic was a lunatic regardless.

More importantly, he hadn't been this bad in my previous life. He hadn't grown anywhere near this quickly.

Of course, I hadn't gotten a proper look at Kai after running away from the county. But he certainly hadn't grown this much.

'Is it because of me?'

Dragon Rage Explosion[E], which I had used yesterday.

He seemed to have realized something after taking that attack and surviving it.

I had no idea what, though. Who could know what went on inside a lunatic's head?

Apparently, I wasn't the only one who had changed from my previous life.

More precisely, as I changed, Kai was changing too. The tiny change that was me had stirred up a mighty wind within him.

'Well, this...'

Killing Kai had just become a little harder.

I also now knew that consuming his heart with Predation[S+] would give me no abilities whatsoever.

Predation[S+] absorbed the underlying source that allowed an ability to manifest.

For monsters, that was the mutagenic factor called Madness. In Kai's case, it would mean absorbing his aura.

But I couldn't wield aura. Nor could I use magical power.

I couldn't manipulate mana itself.

That was precisely why I hadn't eaten human hearts in my previous life. There was nothing to gain from eating them.

I would only succumb to Madness and rampage for nothing.

The Sovereigns and their legion commanders were different, however.

The Sovereigns possessed abilities known as Authorities. Their legion commanders were beings who had received power from them.

Using Predation[S+] on them would allow me to obtain a Sovereign's Authority and power.

With one exception.

Kai.

He hadn't received power from Seraphia. All on his own, for her sake, he grew, surpassed his limits, and transcended them. The bastard was practically a one-man band.

'Crazy bastard.'

He truly stood head and shoulders above every lunatic I had ever seen.

'I'd better not consume Kai.'

At any rate, I no longer had any reason to use Predation[S+] on him. At the same time, killing him had become somewhat more difficult...

'Well, it also means our odds of hunting down the Legion Commander of Beasts have improved.'

Since things had turned out this way, I decided to look on the bright side.

It would all be resolved once Ian arrived anyway. For now, it was time to focus on the Legion Commander of Beasts.

"Did you find traces of the legion?"

"Yes."

"Where is it now?"

"I don't know."

Kai tilted his head at my answer.

"Didn't you just say you'd found traces of it?"

"I said I found traces. I never said I knew where it was."

As I'd said, what I had found were traces. Evidence that the one commanding the legion was the Legion Commander of Beasts.

Information confirming that the Legion Commander of Beasts was somewhere in the north right now.

"I don't know where the bastard is now."

"Then let's search together."

With that, Kai started to lead the way. He was positively bursting with energy.

I, however, had no intention of doing that.

"No. We aren't searching."

How were we supposed to search when we had no idea where in the north the Sovereign of Beasts was?

If I'd intended to search every last place, I wouldn't have returned to the county. I would have kept searching the snowy mountains for the Legion Commander of Beasts. There would have been no reason to come back.

Obviously, I couldn't go around searching the entire north.

Did he have any idea how vast the north was? Was I supposed to waste my time combing through every damn inch of it?

I needed to find Ian as soon as possible. To do that, I had to make the Predator Merchant Company the greatest trading company on the continent.

There was barely enough time to prepare for the next trading expedition, and I also had to raise the residents' affinity to [Trust] within ninety days.

I had a whole goblin horde's worth of things to do. Where was I supposed to find the time to chase the Legion Commander of Beasts around?

"Then you're saying you won't look for it?"

"That's right. I'll make it come to us on its own."

Kai tilted his head again.

Naturally. He didn't know who the Legion Commander of Beasts was.

But I had been Chief of Covert Operations for the special warfare unit. I had personally gathered and managed intelligence on the Sovereigns and their legion commanders.

All that information was currently inside my head.

If this was the particular individual I thought it was...

"We're taking one more person on this hunt."

There was a way to make the Legion Commander of Beasts come to us of its own accord.

* * *

A strange sensation tickled the corners of her eyes.

"Mmm..."

Seraphia's graceful brows twitched as her awareness slowly returned. Feeling the soft bed beneath her, she realized she was lying down in it.

But she couldn't open her eyes. She couldn't bring herself to.

Adrian, with both arms gone. That gruesome sight of him twitching, his nerves not yet dead.

The horrific scene rose before her eyes again, crushing her mind and heart.

She squeezed her closed eyes even tighter, trying to force the memory away. A teardrop rolled down the deep, tear-stained tracks on her face.

"Hic..."

She couldn't accept it.

She simply couldn't accept the fact that Adrian was dead—

"If you're awake, get ready right away."

A voice suddenly reached her.

Seraphia's eyes flew open. Her entire body felt sluggish, and her mind was still in turmoil.

But as her vision slowly came into focus, she saw a man.

"B-Brother?!"

... It was Adrian.

She jolted upright.

"Weren't you dead?! Did you come back to life?! How?!"

"Did you want me dead?"

"Absolutely not!!!"

Seraphia shouted as though the very idea were preposterous. Though her voice had risen, rather than backing down, she stared at him wide-eyed, determined to make herself clear.

Perhaps because of her reaction, Adrian said nothing more.

"But are you all right?! You're not going to d-die again, are you?!"

"As you can see."

Her eyes darted over him, checking his condition.

Dark black bangs falling slightly over his forehead. Clear, well-defined features. Deep-set eyes brimming with commanding charisma. Long lashes and a sharp jawline.

And two firmly muscled arms, both perfectly intact.

"Hah..."

Only upon seeing him so completely unharmed could Seraphia finally feel relieved.

Adrian, who seemed to have been checking her condition in turn, soon spoke.

"Then get ready and come out right away."

He turned as though to leave the room.

"Get... ready?"

Adrian paused at her question. His answer came a moment later.

"You, me, and Kai. The three of us are going to kill the legion's leader."

Seraphia's crimson eyes grew wider than lanterns.