Chapter 50

“So this part hasn't changed after all.”

Turan sounded a little disappointed as he watched lightning strike the snow. Neither the mana expenditure nor his precision felt any different from before. It seemed he hadn't gained power over lightning.

It wasn't particularly surprising. The reason even great houses generally possessed only two bloodlines was that combinations of three or more were exceedingly rare, and even then, one of those bloodlines usually fell away in the next generation.

In other words, two bloodlines were the upper limit for stable inheritance. Four bloodlines were so far beyond the realm of possibility that they hardly warranted mention. Had it not been for the information he acquired in the underground labyrinth, even Turan would never have imagined such a thing possible.

Of course, another possibility remained: perhaps he hadn't inherited a diminished bloodline at all. Perhaps some of his locked bloodlines had yet to open, and accumulating more mana would eventually let him command lightning as well...

'If I have four bloodlines, that would mean I still have a great deal of potential left.'

It was no secret that those born with more bloodlines generally had higher growth limits. One needed only look at how none of the heads of ordinary, single-bloodline houses could rival the heads of the great houses.

Moreover, children of great-house bloodlines were born with stronger mana on average, and were more likely to be nobles rather than knights. That was how those houses could secure hundreds of nobles while ordinary bloodlines formed houses with a mere dozen or so.

Suddenly wanting to visit the library, Turan looked southwest. The library spirit had detected his Arabion bloodline even when it was completely locked. Surely it could tell whether he still had more left to unlock.

'But... that would be difficult right now.'

Even riding Vije, it would take three or four days if he was lucky enough to find the right route. Allowing for complications along the way, his business there, and the return trip, he would have to leave the city for close to ten days at the very least. That was far too long to abandon a city with no wizard besides himself. A single reasonably powerful monster could lay the whole place waste.

There was no need to rush, anyway. It would soon be decided who would take over Kalamap. Surely at least one of the seven cities' House Heads would have discovered where his mother had gone.

Now that he knew the identity of his hidden bloodline, he wanted the truth more than ever. What could possibly have happened for him to be born to people from two houses that killed one another...?

“Shall we head back, then? Vije—no, wait.”

About to fly off with Vije, Turan stopped as a thought struck him. Then he used levitation to slowly lift himself several meters into the air.

'Let's see...'

Wizards could lift and move their own bodies just as they controlled ordinary humans, but the speed and precision were embarrassingly poor for anything called “flight.” Arabion nobles, however, could wrap wind around their levitating bodies and soar swiftly through the sky.

Such a feat was utterly beyond ordinary wizards, who could only manipulate wind in large masses. Even Turan had once given it a cursory try and immediately given up. But now, it should be possible.

“Shall we try flying together?”

As Vije chirped as if to ask what he meant, Turan wrapped wind around himself and gave it direction. It felt as though his entire body were being pushed from behind—

“Whoa—”

In that instant, sky and earth, left and right, all jumbled together. Every color around him lost its outline and blurred into an unrecognizable mess. Then, with a crash, he realized he had slammed into something.

“Ow...”

By the time his dizziness had eased a little, Vije landed on his head and clicked her beak in apparent disgust. Thankfully, she seemed to have escaped in time. Not that crashing alongside him at that speed would have hurt her much. Smiling wryly, Turan brushed off his dirty clothes.

“Yes, I know I'm pathetic. You don't have to tell me. Flying isn't as easy as I thought.”

The Arabion nobles made it look so effortless that he had assumed it was simple, but doing it himself proved far harder than expected. He had to slam headfirst into the ground another fifteen or sixteen times before he began to get the hang of it.

What had happened earlier was that his upper body, catching more wind than his narrow legs, had pitched too far forward. The trick seemed to be adjusting the wind's strength around each part of his body to maintain balance.

A little later, Turan was flying through the sky at roughly his running speed.

“So this is what flying feels like...”

A tiny world stretched out far below. He had often seen it while flying with Vije's help, but this felt different. Was it because he was flying under his own power, without anyone's help?

Just then, Vije, flying beside him, pecked his head once. Through their soul bond, he could feel her anxiety. Did she think she would be useless now that he could fly on his own?

“Don't worry. You're still much faster than I am. And even if you ever become slower, I won't abandon you.”

Reassuring her, Turan took hold of her leg, stopped flying, and let her carry him. This was certainly far superior in both speed and mana efficiency.

Watching Vije flap her wings vigorously, her spirits restored, Turan impulsively manipulated the wind to form a current beneath her wings. In an instant, he felt himself surge forward.

“Whoa!”

Vije chirped in surprise too, but, being a creature of the air, she immediately read the wind he had created and rode it. Their flying speed had increased considerably, despite the small amount of mana he had spent.

He suddenly remembered speeding up a ship by blowing wind into its sails. If he ever traveled by ship again, it might be rather fun to send a whole sailboat skimming along under his power alone.

* * *

By the time he arrived, the sun had already set thanks to the time spent practicing flight, and no one noticed him flying over Kalamap. As he opened an upper window of city hall and climbed in, someone called to him urgently.

“Protector!”

He had sensed someone inside before entering and wondered who would be there so late. It was Daruk, the head of the city's officials.

“Don't tell me you've been waiting here all these hours since I left?”

“I have.”

He had clearly said he would be gone for several days. What a foolish thing to do. Before he could chide him, however, Daruk saw his condition and cried out in horror. The clothes Asiz had made him were an absolute mess: the tears in the fabric had yet to mend, and both his own blood and the dwarves' stained them.

“Are you injured? We must call a doctor at once—”

“It's nothing serious. Don't worry about it.”

The Healers had spent nearly all their strength on the seriously wounded, so he hadn't had his few injuries treated. But a night's sleep would be enough to heal them. It wasn't as though he could die from an infected wound like a commoner.

Yet instead of meekly obeying as he usually did, Daruk shook his head firmly and declared, “Protector, you are this city's guardian deity and its father! We dare not dismiss even the smallest wound! If you refuse treatment, then strike off this foolish old man's head instead!”

He hadn't acted like this even when Turan announced that he would relinquish the city. In the end, Turan had to have his wounds examined before he could so much as wash.

“Uh, um—it's an honor to meet you, Protector...”

Summoned in the middle of the night, the doctor was so nervous that his hands trembled. Was it the pressure of examining an actual noble, or the thought that something existed that could injure even one of them?

After examining Turan's bare torso, he said that only the two wounds on his back and flank needed stitches. Both had come from the dwarves' spears.

But when he took a needle and thread from his bag and tried to stitch the wounds, a startling fact emerged: the needle couldn't penetrate a noble's body. On reflection, it would have been ridiculous for a needle to pierce flesh that even swords and spears thrust by burly pirates couldn't scratch.

“Ngh, ugh... Why won't it go in...?”

“That's enough. Wounds like these will heal by tomorrow anyway. They've already stopped bleeding.”

In the end, the doctor finished the treatment by applying a few herbal juices said to be good for wounds. As he packed his things to leave, Daruk sidled up to him and issued a threat.

“It goes without saying that no one must learn the city's Protector was injured and received treatment. If rumors spread, know that neither you nor your family will be safe.”

“Y-yes... I'll remember that...”

Turan hadn't noticed because Daruk was always so obsequious toward him, but watching him intimidate the doctor, he realized the man had acquired the air of someone in power. Indeed, among commoners, there was scarcely anyone of higher rank. No wonder the doctor was frightened.

After the doctor left, Turan pulled on his shirt, which would probably be restored by dawn, and addressed Daruk.

“Come to think of it, I should tell you now. The threat in the west is gone.”

He said it so casually, as though announcing that the sun would rise tomorrow, that Daruk seemed not to understand at first. After irreverently asking, “Pardon?” his eyes widened far more than they had earlier.

“Wh-what do you mean...?”

“Arabion's army will withdraw soon, too. The west will be entirely unclaimed, so I imagine a few people will want to expand into it.”

Just as House Valtas had once ruled both Orem and Murei, houses inevitably extended their reach when there was ample land and many cities but too few nobles. Of course, expanding into a region as distant as this effectively meant establishing a separate house.

“Did you perhaps eliminate the western threat alongside Arabion's army, Protector?”

It was a natural conclusion, given that he had suddenly departed and returned covered in wounds to make such an announcement.

“Yes.”

“Ah, this city owes you yet another debt...”

“Don't tell anyone about that. It wouldn't be good for word to spread that I'm too closely involved with Arabion.”

The previous rumors had merely been about Arabion contacting him, but fighting alongside them was another matter. Zahar was undoubtedly preoccupied with investigating Perga's death at present, but it would be better for both sides if no one mistakenly concluded that Arabion had extended its reach into the Gray Zone.

“In any case, start letting the others know that the city is completely safe now, and that another house will soon take charge of it.”

“Understood.”

Unlike before, Daruk nodded heavily.

* * *

As expected, by the following day Turan's wounds had healed, leaving only small scars. He could have erased even those with the Healer Bloodline power stored in his Holy Relic, but he didn't. It would be a waste to spend it on little marks on his flank and back, rather than his face.

The news that the western threat was completely gone and that Kalamap would soon change hands drew mixed reactions. Those who had moved in after the city stabilized welcomed the prospect, believing proper management by a house preferable to rule by a lone noble. But the citizens he had saved during the city's collapse went so far as to weep and beg outside city hall for him to keep ruling them.

Uncomfortable watching them, Turan flew each day to a rocky mountainside overlooking the city to develop his newly acquired Storm Bloodline power. He began with practical applications: improving his flight, for instance, or wrapping wind around himself to briefly increase his running speed. He also tried things such as the sound-blocking barrier Maysa had demonstrated. Some didn't work as he had hoped, but many proved quite useful.

Next, he studied ways to use wind offensively. The simplest was to crush an opponent's entire body with the force of a shove, as he had once done to some robbers. He also experimented with adding cutting power by swirling coarse sand into the wind, and with firing compressed air and making it explode on impact.

After practicing these techniques a few times, however, he concluded that there was a reason Arabion nobles relied so relentlessly on lightning magic.

'It's less impressive on the offensive than I expected.'

Perhaps because both methods forced a power that wasn't inherently offensive into an offensive role, they lacked not only mana efficiency but destructive force as well. At best, they might be useful for subduing much weaker opponents. His thoroughly familiar method of launching a single stone from a sling would be far better.

Wondering how he might increase his offensive power, Turan threw a stone with his sling to warm up. Keeping his skills honed like this also made him more efficient when using magic.

The stone, hurled with all his might, split the wind with its usual deafening bang—

“Oh.”

Suddenly, he recalled the laws of nature the librarian had taught him. First, wind was a current created by the movement of the air that filled the world. Second, the deafening sound made by a fast-moving object came from its tearing through that air...

Loading another stone and whirling the sling, Turan thought back to sailing with Armani on the North Sea. Hadn't the trick to moving a ship easily been to part the water blocking its path, rather than trying to move the ship itself?

'Make a path ahead, and imagine the air in front parting to either side as the stone passes...'

The instant he hurled the stone with all his strength, Turan knew his prediction had been right. Instead of making a deafening, sound-splitting boom, the stone flew far faster and more quietly than usual, piercing a massive cliff.