Chapter 33
Amber bit her lip as she looked at Kaian's bitter expression.
...Isn't there anything I can do for him?
She had felt the same when Eldarin spoke about Ilias.
Amber hadn't known what she could say to comfort her.
She hadn't known what she could do to help.
Even when Eldarin had been about to enter Twofold Lake...
Amber had been powerless.
This was the first time she had ever felt that way.
What did it feel like to lose someone you loved forever?
How painful was it?
Amber didn't know.
That was why she couldn't easily understand what help she could offer.
Still... I want to do something.
After thinking for a while, Amber carefully held out her hand to Kaian.
"[Um... Kaian, if you're all right with it, I can reshape that sealing stone so it's easier to carry. If I make it into an earring, it'll be harder to lose, and it shouldn't be uncomfortable to wear all the time.]"
Kaian's face immediately brightened.
If the sealing stone became an earring, then perhaps his mother could see the same sights he saw.
"Yes! I'd like that! Please do."
Seeing Kaian smile seemed to put Eldarin at ease as well.
She finally returned to her usual emotionless tone.
"Now, get up. We should return home."
At those words, Pulgor stirred and approached them.
Even then, Eldarin couldn't resist giving Kaian one small jab.
"Because of you, the old lady will have to rest for quite some time. You drained so much of her mana..."
"Ah! You mean Twofold Lake, right?"
Kaian jumped up in alarm.
Then he suddenly bowed deeply toward the lake.
He had once read that people in Silvaris traditionally expressed gratitude and apology in this way.
"Grandma! I'm sorry! And thank you for helping me!"
His legs shook violently.
Kaian looked like he could faint again at any moment, but he stubbornly finished his bow.
Eldarin secretly smiled at the sight.
Still, she decided to keep acting serious.
"Because of you, Eldergrove's mana balance has been disturbed for the first time."
"Whaaaat?! Th-then what do we do?"
Kaian looked horrified.
He remembered the beautiful balance he had sensed throughout Eldergrove when his Imaginary World reawakened.
The thought that he had damaged it left him completely flustered.
"Well... I can't say I had no responsibility for what happened this time. I'll help you fix it."
"Really?"
Eldarin barely held back a smile and reached into the air.
Thin silver-white vines rose from the ground and began twisting together into the shape of an elegant staff.
Shhhh...
The staff perfectly matched Eldarin's silver hair.
Kaian's eyes widened.
"Whoa..."
"Watch carefully. This is ancient magic used to regulate the balance of mana."
Eldarin poured her magic into the staff.
Shhhhh...
The silver-white vines began glowing softly.
Turquoise leaves bloomed along them one by one.
Then Eldarin began chanting.
"[O my garden, lend me your ears.]"
She lightly tapped the bottom of her staff against the ground.
Thoom.
A small ripple spread around her feet like the beat of a drum.
"[Your master solemnly declares.]"
Thoom.
The second ripple spread farther.
"[Bloom at once in joy.]"
"[Rebalancing.]"
As she spoke the final word, Eldarin struck the ground with her staff one last time.
Thoom.
A tremendous wind spread outward like a giant ripple.
It was as though a forest that had slept for thousands of years suddenly breathed out green life all at once.
The turquoise leaves blooming on Eldarin's staff were carried by the wind and scattered across all of Eldergrove.
Whoooooosh...
Kaian became completely absorbed in the miraculous moment when Eldergrove's mana regained perfect balance.
It was so wondrous that he couldn't close his mouth.
Just as the sunset painted the world red, Kaian's heart burned with love and passion for magic.
Then Eldarin's voice, still carrying a sacred quality, reached deep into his soul.
"If you truly want to become a hero, go to Arcadium."
Kaian immediately looked up at her.
The two mages' eyes met.
And for the first time, Kaian noticed a certain desire hidden deep within Eldarin's eyes.
He struggled to contain his excitement.
"Arcadium? You mean the Arcadium Academy I know?"
The academies of Mana Gaia could broadly be divided into normal academies and magic academies.
Normal academies covered many different fields.
Agriculture.
Commerce.
Administration.
Diplomacy.
Law.
Art.
And many others.
Magic academies, however, focused on a single goal.
Training powerful mages who could be deployed in the field.
That was why only mid-rank mana users and above could enter a magic academy.
Less than half of those who enrolled ever graduated.
Each of Mana Gaia's five continents had one of those proud and prestigious magic academies.
Among them, Arcadium was famous for being the hardest to graduate from.
Eldarin curled one corner of her lips upward.
"Arcadium is one of the greatest academies in existence. Two of the First Five Heroes graduated from there. If you intend to become a hero, attending a magic academy is unavoidable."
She looked directly at him.
"And if you're going to attend one, shouldn't you choose the place known as the best?"
"Of course!"
Kaian completely agreed.
More importantly, Arcadium was located in the Valancia Empire.
Every member of his family had graduated from Arcadium.
There was also a high chance that the people who destroyed the Valentin family were Arcadium graduates.
For that reason alone, Kaian had never even considered another academy.
Eldarin calmed the visibly excited boy.
"Of course, I'm not telling you to leave immediately. You can't enter the academy until you're fifteen. There will be many things you need to prepare before then."
Kaian clenched his fist.
Of course.
If he wanted revenge, he would need to prepare many things.
"For example, tuition."
"Right, I'll need tuition too... Huh?"
Kaian blinked.
That wasn't the sort of preparation he'd expected.
"Uh... I have to earn that myself?"
"Do you expect me to give it to you?"
"...I see."
But his determination returned almost immediately.
Kaian snorted fiercely.
"Fine! I'll prepare everything perfectly from beginning to end!"
"An excellent attitude. More importantly, there had better never be anything as ridiculous as a student trained by me failing to take first place."
"Ugh..."
Eldarin smiled gently.
"I expect great things from you, Kaian Veloir Valentin."
It was an ordinary voice.
An ordinary name.
Yet it was the first time she had spoken his full name.
Kaian quickly raised his head in surprise.
But Eldarin was already climbing onto Pulgor.
"How long are you going to stand there? Hurry up!"
Kaian's face broke into a bright smile as he kicked off the ground and ran after her.
It was time for all of them to go home.
...
...
...
And time flowed like a river.
Before anyone knew it, Kaian was approaching the age of fifteen, when he would finally be old enough to enter the academy.
And the changes that had taken place over those years were so great that one might say mountains had become plains.
***
A refreshing breeze blew through the crown of an elm tree.
Standing under the blazing sun still made it feel as though summer was raging on.
But somehow, summer was already beginning to pass.
Kaian was starting to feel impatient at how mercilessly the seasons continued to move.
"Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, tweeeenty... silver."
He sat on a branch near the top of the elm tree, counting the money he had.
A wooden board floated beside him.
Its surface was strangely smooth, almost as though someone had ripped the top off a market stall.
Clink. Clink.
"Sixty-eight, sixty-nine copper... Aaaagh! I'm nowhere near enough!"
Kaian furiously kicked at the empty air.
If he wanted to successfully enroll at Arcadium Academy next spring, he needed at least fourteen gold.
That was because all eight semesters of tuition had to be paid in advance.
And that was only tuition.
It didn't include dormitory fees, textbooks, assignment materials, food, living expenses, entertainment...
Just the tuition alone required fourteen gold.
And the amount currently in Kaian's possession was...
Clink.
Six gold and sixty-nine copper.
Kaian raised his head toward the clear sky and shouted with all his rage.
"Do they think fourteen gold is pocket change?! You nobles with your completely broken sense of money!"
In Silvaris, a normal loaf of grain bread cost one copper.
One gold equaled twenty silver.
Twenty silver equaled one hundred copper.
In other words, that damned school was demanding the price of twenty-eight thousand loaves of bread for eight semesters of tuition.
Kaian scratched his messy black hair.
"I still need eight more gold. How many loaves of bread is that? Sixteen thousand? Ugh... My stomach hurts just thinking about it!"
He clutched his stomach and rolled around on the floating wooden board.
Of course, expecting a fourteen-year-old to earn his entire tuition himself was unreasonable in the first place.
But Kaian had lost his family at a young age and grown up in the forest.
To him, supporting himself was simply a natural part of life.
If I want something, I should earn it with my own hands.
Because of that, he had been working like a dog since the beginning of the year.
When he first joined the exchange as an escort, he'd thought everything would go smoothly.
One gold was roughly equal to the payment from three or four high-rank transport escorts.
He'd assumed earning tuition would be easy.
Unfortunately, the place he'd joined turned out to be an unauthorized transport exchange that sent goods through Silvaris's lawless forest.
Forget high-rank jobs.
He was lucky when they even had low-rank work.
Then again, if it hadn't been illegal in the first place, they wouldn't have hired a kid like him.
"Still! How is anyone supposed to make a living when the exchange is this dead?!"
Most of the six gold he had now had actually come from bounty hunting.
He had realized that working only as a transport escort would never earn him fourteen gold in time.
So Kaian had spent months hunting wanted criminals with burning determination.
Unfortunately, he'd caused so much trouble for the criminals that there were barely any bounties left.
The other escorts at the exchange often praised him, saying the lawless region had become a safe zone because of him.
"Old men! You don't know anything about my problems!"
There simply wasn't enough work.
Kaian knew that better than anyone.
That was why he'd counted his money three separate times.
Carefully.
One coin at a time.
Hoping that silver coins might somehow miraculously multiply between counts.
Cruelly, the number of gold, silver, and copper coins never changed.
"Ughhh... There's only three months left before applications close..."
Kaian grabbed his badly grown-out black hair in despair.
Finn floated around him with both arms folded behind her head.
"I keep telling you. Just attend an academy in the Silvaris Federation. Everything in the Valancia Empire is waaaay too expensive."
She was right.
At an academy on another continent, ten gold would've been more than enough.
But Kaian snorted.
"Arcadium. It has to be Arcadium."
"Why? Because Eldarin told you to go there? Or because of the First Heroes?"
Hero.
The word was ancient and worn out to most people.
Yet it still echoed strangely inside Kaian's chest.
Of course it did.
He had been completely trapped by that damned word.
"The title sounds cool, doesn't it? A next-generation hero carrying on the will of the First Heroes! Ahh, incredible."
It was a lie.
There was only one real reason he had chosen Arcadium.
Because it was in the Valancia Empire.
The bastards who murdered my family are probably still living comfortably in Valancia. I'm not going to sit back and tolerate that.
There had been no clause in his hero contract saying revenge couldn't be part of the process.
He would fulfill the contract.
He would complete his revenge.
Then he would finally be free.
Kaian swallowed the familiar murderous intent.
Like Finn, he folded both arms behind his head and lay flat on the wooden board.
The flawless blue sky swayed between the leaves.
"Ahhh... What nice weather."
He had to live a long and happy life.
Long enough for the family members who had died to save him as well.
That goal came before the contract.
Before revenge.
The dream of a long, healthy life that I carved into my heart yesterday and the day before! Let's carve it in again today! Let's go!
Right.
Wasn't becoming a hero and taking revenge all ultimately part of living a long and healthy life?
Kaian sincerely believed so.
"Ahh... I wish a whole pile of murderers would fall out of the sky somewhere."
