Water Magician

Final intermission chapter before new arc!

It’s been a month since Ryo and the Southern Army returned to the City of Rune.

Ryo’s life is fairly regular.

In the morning, as the sun rises, he gets up, stretches, and does practice swings.

After having breakfast, he does some alchemy and magic all morning, and has lunch at a shop near the east gate around ‘Houshoku-tei’.

In the afternoon, he has mock combat with Sera at the Knights Training Ground and occasionally visits the library and Gecko’s merchant company.

He has dinner on his way home, returns home before it is late to take a bath, and goes to bed.

Two main forces disturb Ryo’s regular life.

One is his former roommates, Room 10.

The other is B-rank … no, Abel, who earned points on the expedition to the Inbury Duchy, had finally become A-rank.

As a result, Abel’s ‘Crimson Sword’ party became an A-rank party.

By the way, as the Kingdom had only one A-rank party based in the Royal Capital, Crimson Sword became the second A-rank party in active duty.

Ryo attended Abel’s promotion ceremony at the Rune Adventurer’s Guild with the members of Room 10.

Niels was moved to tears.

Etho comforted him.

Amon resolved to be in his place someday.

All three of them had different reactions.

Ryo?

Ryo folded his arms and nodded many times.

For some reason, it felt as though he was a parent feeling pleased his son had grown up.

‘Abel was raised by me.’ … Maybe he thought so in his heart.

Although Abel probably didn’t have a sliver of such thought.

A Swordsman visited Ryo’s house in the morning a few days after the promotion ceremony.

“Am I too early …?”

When he took out his pocket watch to check, it was still 8 o’clock in the morning.

He was probably awake, but Abel hesitated in front of the house.

At that moment, the side door to the right opened and a person exited from inside.

“Hmm? Abel? You’re early.”

It was the Elf who instructs the Rune Knights in swordsmanship …

“Oh … Sera, good morning …”

“Right, congratulations on your promotion to A-rank. The Lord was especially pleased.”

“Ah… thank you.”

“See you then, I’m in a hurry.”

Sera said and coiled wind around her before disappearing.

It wasn’t until after a while that Abel realized she was moving at high speed with wind magic.

The moment Abel regained himself, Ryo stepped out of the entrance where Sera exited.

“I thought I could hear someone, so it was Abel? This is rare, so early in the morning.”

“Y-yeah … No, well, I didn’t mean to …”

Abel replied incoherently for some reason.

“What? If you have something to say, you should just say it clearly?”

“Well, I met Sera who came out just now …”

“You met her so?”

“Did she stay overnight?”

Abel turned bright red as he asked. Perhaps he wasn’t accustomed in that field?

Even though he was an adult in his mid-twenties.

“Hah …”

Ryo sighed and went into the house without answering.

“H-hey, wait.”

Abel also entered the house in a hurry.

There was a nice scent of food inside.

But there was no food on the desk and instead dozens of paper bundles.

He saw Margrave Rune’s seal on the paper on the top of the pile.

“Sera brought me that bundle of paper. At the same time, we also ate together. Today, it seems that the Knights will have an unannounced monster combat training, and her role as swordsmanship instructor will be evaluated, so she came to tell me that she can’t do our usual mock combat in the afternoon.”

Ryo said as he skillfully ground coffee beans with a mill.

The mill was made by Gecko’s merchant company and has been his recent favorite because it could ground much better compared to using an alchemy mortar.

“I-I see …”

Knowing that Sera hadn’t stayed overnight, Abel’s bright red face returned to normal.

“So what is this bundle of paper? Can I see it?”

“Ah, you might not understand even if you took a look at it? It’s related to alchemy.”

“Hey, don’t belittle me. Sure, I can’t use alchemy, but my knowledge … knowledge … knowledge …”

Abel answered while reading the bundle of paper he had in his hand, but his words became softer and softer.

That was because he could hardly understand what was written.

The words that he could barely read were ‘Baron Kenneth Hayward’ and ‘Vaedra’.

Meanwhile, Ryo poured the finished coffee into an ice cup and placed it in front of Abel and himself.

“That’s information about the Inbury Duchy’s magical weapon.”

“Magical weapon? That green light that shot from the spire!”

It seemed that Abel also remembered it. From the top of the cliff at the bottleneck, the Southern Army watched the entire event unfold.

“Yes, that. Anyway, it’s apparently a copy, and the original is in the alchemy workshop of the Kingdom, in other words, Vaedra was made by Kenneth …”

“Oh, I knew it. But why is it in the Inbury Duchy … No way …”

“It looks like the technology was stolen. Of course, it wasn’t by Kenneth. Kenneth isn’t that stupid. It’s suspected to have leaked from the Ministry of Home Affairs, which has jurisdiction over the alchemy workshop. The sequence of events is documented in that report.”

Ryo took a sip of Kona coffee and was satisfied with the taste.

The gap between what he was saying and his facial expression was quite a thing.

“Why can Ryo see such a report in the first place?”

“The golem deflected that fake Vaedra attack, right? I sent a report to the Lord’s mansion about the principle of deflection. Of course, I asked him to make a ‘request’ through the guild. In return, I asked for information on that ‘green light’ and that was delivered.”

That shock wave is based on the same principle as that of the snapping shrimp that knocked Ryo out in the sea.

Ryo understood a considerable part from the memory of that humiliation.

“You said something about miniature thunder …”

Abel recalled only fragments of the words Ryo used to explain.

At that time, he said ‘I see’ but he didn’t understand after all.

“Abel … it’s okay, you have your sword. Even if you can’t do anything else, it’s okay because you have a sword.”

“Yeah, Ryo, you’re definitely making fun of me.”

Ryo, who was pointed out, said with a frightened expression.

“How could you tell …”

“Someday I will definitely make you cry!”

“Right, I have a question that I would like to ask an A-rank Swordsman.”

“I’m surprised you can say that after making fun of me …”

Ryo deliberately slapped his hand and tried to say it in a bright tone. In contrast, Abel replied, glaring at Ryo with his eyes.

“Abel, as humans, it is important to be able to adapt.”

“Who do you think is at fault!”

“Of course, it’s Abel’s fault. Don’t they say that everything depends on the way you look at things? It all depends on Abel’s frame of mind.”

“Yes, yes, I’m going to do that now. So? What’s the question?”

Abel gave up on various retorts and urged Ryo to ask his question.

“Actually, it’s about fighting, but I heard that Combat Arts can only be learned by people who can’t use magic.”

Upon hearing Ryo’s question, one of Abel’s eyebrows twitched slightly.

“That’s an unusual question. Who said that?”

“Sera and Phelps.”

Sera from ‘Wind’ and Phelps from ‘White Brigade’.

Both are B-rank adventurers who represent the City of Rune.

“It is probably true.”

“Probably?”

“Yeah. In the first place, a person with a physical-based job has to be quite strong before they can acquire Combat Arts. Therefore, there is not much information. In fact, Combat Arts only appeared a hundred years ago. We talked about that before?”

“Yes. When I had my arm cut off.”

They talked about it when Ryo had his arm cut off by Leonor on their way back from the royal capital to Rune.

“I take my hat off to you for having the courage to talk about that experience with a laugh.”

Abel shook his head.

And continued.

“After that, I was a little intrigued and did a lot of research, and it seems that Combat Arts spread from the west.”

“West?”

To the west of the Kingdom is the ‘Western Forest’, where Elves live. Further west, the mountains rise, and people do not come and go.

“Ah, I can imagine what Ryo is thinking. The Elves are probably not involved. For example, Sera wields such exquisite skill with the sword, but she doesn’t have any Combat Arts.”

“Hmm … that’s a mystery.”

The mystery deepened.

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