noveldrama
Chapter 373
Chapter 373
Chapter 373
In this world, there were two exceptions to the general standard: the talent vending machine Ellen, and the cheat-user me. Or so I thought. In truth, there were actually three. I had to include the protagonist, Ludwig.
“...”
“...”
Ellen, Cliffman, and I were quietly staring at Ludwig, who was peacefully sleeping in the recovery room behind the duty priest’s office.
I knew what this was. He was unconscious due to the aftereffects of Mana Reinforcement.
Delphine, who was sitting beside Ludwig and watching over him, nodded at us. “Oh, hi. You’re here.”
The yoga master teacher, who was more or less a healer in such a situation, must have already visited, as Ludwig seemed to be in good condition. Or, if not the yoga master teacher, then someone else who was capable of doing something similar.
Sabioleen Tana was also sitting beside Ludwig.
“During last night’s sparring session, Ludwig used Mana Reinforcement,” she said briefly.
This explained the reason why Cliffman had come to Ellen and I to seek our advice that day. He knew he was being too hasty and understood that Ellen and I were exceptions among exceptions, but hearing that Ludwig had managed to use Mana Reinforcement given his level of mana probably made him wonder if there was something wrong with him, prompting him to seek advice.
“He kept mumbling about not having time and how things couldn’t go on like this, and then suddenly used Mana Reinforcement, so I was... just as surprised...”
Ludwig had indeed said something at Duke Granz’s funeral about not being able to forgive the demons. The unexpected event had clearly angered him.
Even though he hadn’t been friends with the Granz family, he felt anger over a classmate’s parent being killed by the Demon King, and like Cliffman, he seemed to think that the fight with the Demon King wasn’t something that would only occur in the distant future, but that could happen anytime.
The urgency in his heart had amplified his desire for strength, and the world had responded by granting Ludwig a new path, allowing him to awaken Mana Reinforcement.
Sabioleen Tana seemed deeply shocked to witness it firsthand. She had only heard about Ellen and me achieving Mana Reinforcement on our own, but she had seen Ludwig do it with her own eyes.
She was undoubtedly impressed in her own way after having witnessed someone who persevered and constantly worked hard finally break through a barrier. And Cliffman, seeing Ludwig achieve Mana Reinforcement on his own, had begun to doubt himself, wondering if he was lacking because he couldn’t do it.
“Mmm...” Ludwig groaned.
“Is he waking up?”
As Ludwig groaned and stirred, Delphine checked his complexion.
‘No. Stay in bed for a few more days! If he wakes up in just one day, it might hurt my pride a bit!’
“Ugh... mmm.”
Fortunately, he did not regain consciousness after just one day, sparing my ego from being mildly damaged.
‘That’s it. Sleep a bit more. Since you’re the protagonist, I’ll allow you to wake up a day earlier than me.’
If I was having these thoughts, it was only natural that Cliffman was feeling completely deflated, with no pride left.
Ellen and I, slightly stunned but otherwise fine, looked down at the still-sleeping Ludwig, and our eyes naturally turned to Cliffman. It felt as if Ellen and I had become twins.
‘I’m useless. I’m worthless. I’m pathetic.
‘Help? Someone like me?
‘I’m a hindrance. A piece of trash that can’t even do Mana Reinforcement.
‘I’m trash. Trash should just die.’
“...”
“...”
Seeing the despair on his face, and recognizing that he had crossed from self-doubt into serious self-loathing, Ellen and I both felt like we couldn’t just stand idly by.
“Let’s go do something,” Ellen said calmly.
And then...
[New Event Update - Mana Reinforcement (Cliffman)]
[Description: Help Cliffman awaken Mana Reinforcement.]
[Reward: 2000 Achievement Points, increased sensitivity to Mana Reinforcement.]
An event had been triggered.
It seemed like an opportunity to earn back some points after my recent big expenditure. Achievement Points were important, something I could always fall back on. Moreover, gaining an increased sensitivity to Mana Reinforcement might be even more important than Achievement Points, as I needed to become proficient in Mana Reinforcement to eventually reach the Master class.
In the end, Ellen and I had to reverse our previous stance that he shouldn't need to rush.
“Cliffman, there’s no reason you can’t do it too,” I said.
“... Okay.”
Rewards aside, it felt like something bad might happen to him if we didn’t say something like that to reassure him.
Of course, Delphine and Sabioleen Tana had no idea what we were talking about as we stood in front of the unconscious Ludwig.
In the end, it wasn’t until we returned to the training grounds that we realized how cruel we were for not worrying at all about Ludwig’s condition.
***
Cliffman urgently needed to master Mana Reinforcement, but trying to grasp it without any sense of what it was was like a blind man trying to understand what an elephant was by touching it. No matter how hard he tried, he was trying to force something that wasn’t there.
We spent hours beside the struggling Cliffman, telling him to try this and that. In the end, it ended up with Ellen and I bickering while Cliffman sat between us, clueless.
“No, you have to feel it as if you’re sensing the essence within your body,” Ellen said.
“Essence? Can you even explain what essence is?” I retorted.
“Mana or essence, it’s all the same.”
“All the same? You can do it any way you want, but for people like me and him, you need to explain it clearly and systematically. If you explain something vague with even vaguer words, how is he supposed to grasp it?”
“Can you explain it systematically then?”
“No, not at all.”
“... Why are you so confident then?”
“Because you’re the genius, so you should be explaining it properly. It’s not my role.”
“Doing something and teaching it is different.”
“No, you’re good at teaching too. You’re good at everything, so you must be good at teaching as well. The problem is you don’t try. You should try to teach well.”
“There are things I can’t do as well.”
“No, if you try, you’ll be good at everything. Use your brain to teach well. Why don’t you use that good brain of yours? Are you an idiot?”
“... I’m not an idiot.”
‘Oh, really? Got you there.’
“Oh? If you’re not the idiot then are you saying that others are?”
At my words, Ellen’s face turned pale.
“No, that’s not what I meant...”
“Oh, so you’re saying the idiot isn’t you but... huh.”
“No, I wasn’t thinking anything like that. I just said I’m not an idiot.”
“Really? Then who do you think is the idiot? Just say it.”
“I won’t. I don’t think that way.”
“You thought the idiot was someone else, didn’t you? Come on, speak your mind. Tell the truth!”
Ellen seemed genuinely angry, and I held my breath.
“I’m the idiot,” I said.
“Good.”
If I had pushed it further, I might have gotten hit.
Anyway, we ended up talking about things completely unrelated to Mana Reinforcement.
“Guys, guys... I feel like I’m going to bleed from my ears, not my mouth...”
Cliffman, who could end up bleeding from all seven orifices if there was a problem with Mana Reinforcement, complained, so we shut up and looked at him.
As expected, nothing special happened.
***
Ellen’s statement that doing and teaching were different was true. Neither Ellen nor I had any particular talent for teaching, and Mana Reinforcement was especially difficult to teach, so Cliffman made no progress.
It would have been awfully strange if talking someone’s ear off for a day could lead to Mana Reinforcement. In the end, with no progress made with regards to Mana Reinforcement, we returned to the clanging method.
I didn’t know if the old ways were the best, but at least it gave us the feeling that we were doing something.
Struggling to achieve Mana Reinforcement every day made one wonder if one was doing anything right.
Thud!
“Ugh!”
The blow from my training sword sent Cliffman flying backwards.
“Huff... huff...”
He staggered to his feet, battered and bruised.
“I’m not one to talk,” I said, “but overworking yourself doesn’t always translate into skill improvement.”
Cliffman nodded as he staggered to his feet. “Still, I have to do it.”
“...”
Since he couldn’t grasp Mana Reinforcement, he reluctantly engaged in swordsmanship training.
I had trained with Cliffman quite a few times, but when I used Mana Reinforcement, Cliffman was no match for me. My swordsmanship had greatly improved thanks to Ellen, and I had already mastered Mana Domination.
Cliffman was unable to face me when I managed to use stable Mana Reinforcement. In fact, I could face Cliffman without difficulty even while relying only on Self-Deception, without the help of Mana Reinforcement.
Unless I sealed away several of my abilities, like playing a game of chess after first taking away certain pieces, Cliffman was no more a match for me.
I would lose if it came down to pure swordsmanship. But when did purity ever really apply in a fight? Saying “I could beat you if we removed certain conditions” wouldn’t hold water.
If I had faced Leverier Lanche alone, I would have died a hundred times out of a hundred. Yet, Leverier Lanche had died by my hand. That was what fighting was. You could be part of a joint attack or fall victim to one. The outcome was binary, where the one who met death was the loser, and the one who survived was the winner. The only thing that mattered in a fight was victory.
I didn’t share these thoughts with Cliffman. He was the one who had asked for this. He’d asked me to give it my all, saying it wouldn’t be meaningful otherwise.
Cliffman had decided to help Riana in her search for revenge against the Demon King. However, he felt his abilities were inferior, and wanted to at least meet the minimum condition of mastering Mana Reinforcement.
Even before the sudden surge of power, Riana had already been considered a very powerful supernatural being. Her powers had increased naturally and were now at a level incomparable to the level she had been while on the deserted island.
Even if Cliffman mastered Mana Reinforcement, he would need much more training to be of any help to Riana. Of course, once the fight actually began and they got involved, it was hard to say what would happen to Cliffman and Riana.
Just as Riana was exercising to improve her weak physical strength, Cliffman, who was teaching her, also longed for the next step. He knew he could help Riana, but felt like it would not be any meaningful help.
Like Ellen, like me, and like Ludwig, he wanted to reach the next stair of Mana Reinforcement. Someone who wasn’t an exception wanted to become one.
“Here I come.”
This was too messed up.
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clack!
Clang!
“Ugh!”
I watched as Cliffman dropped his sword and struggled to get up. It was pitiful and pathetic, and though I had my own reasons, unknown to them, I was helping someone who was training to kill me.
Perhaps someone else could help. At the very least, I wasn’t supposed to be the one to help him.
Ellen had the mindset that she had to face the Demon King, but Cliffman and Riana had a clear goal of killing the Demon King. I didn’t know the extent of Riana’s desire for revenge, but I couldn’t underestimate Cliffman’s determination to help her. Just as Ellen had said she was willing to die for me, Cliffman could easily have similar thoughts.
With Cliffman unable to reach Mana Reinforcement, we continued to clash, body to body. Cliffman kept getting up even after falling repeatedly, as if something would change. Because it worked for me, and because Ludwig had managed it too. As if he believed he could do it too. As if he believed that if he managed not to fall, something would be achieved.
I quietly watched Cliffman, who was so exhausted that his legs were trembling as he stood up.
“Going on like this won’t get you anywhere,” said Ellen.
She had been watching from the side, and intervened to stop Cliffman. When even Ellen, who had been observing, stepped in, Cliffman placed his training sword back on the rack.
“I’m going to visit the duty priest’s office for a bit.”
“...”
If exhaustion was the problem, then he needed to be in a state where he wasn’t exhausted.
According to Adriana, this kind of training wasn’t very good. Strictly speaking, it was like training on steroids. However, no one seemed to believe that taking time to slowly get stronger was even an option, because of the threat that the Demon King could invade their daily lives at any moment.
After receiving some restorative magic from the priest, Cliffman returned looking perfectly fine.
Mana Reinforcement was still a mystery to him, so all he could do was clash swords. It wasn’t so much that he believed he could reach somewhere at the end of it. Rather, it was the only thing he could do, and his expression was one of desperation.
He wasn’t weak, nor did he lack talent. It was just that his peers were so overwhelmingly strong that Cliffman felt relatively insignificant.
“You know, that’s not good for you.”
Cliffman looked at me calmly. “It’s fine.”
Ellen quietly watched our sparring.
***
Clang! Clang! Clatter!
Thud!
“Ugh!”
Ellen watched silently as Cliffman rolled along the ground. It had been hours, countless rounds. He was no match.
Reinhart could enhance his combat abilities in two stages. Once with Self-Deception, and again with Mana Reinforcement. Perhaps if Tiamata was included, his abilities could be enhanced a third time, though Ellen did not know the details behind it. Furthermore, Ellen could feel that Reinhart’s Mana Reinforcement was far more stable than before.
Despite continuously using Mana Reinforcement, he had been able to maintain it well, and it wasn’t that different from when their sparring had begun. It felt as if his proficiency in Mana Reinforcement had suddenly leaped forward.
Even though Cliffman had gone to the duty priest to receive recovery several times over the hours, Reinhart hadn’t sought the priest once. Reinhart had always managed strange feats like suddenly becoming much stronger, so this didn’t seem unusual to Ellen.
However, Cliffman was not Reinhart. The bizarre supernatural power of Self-Deception could be seen as the source of Reinhart’s unusual strength, and Cliffman didn’t have anything like that. While he desired to become strong like Reinhart, he couldn’t.
If everyone could become strong just by pushing themselves to the limit, the world would be overflowing with swordmasters, grand mages, and supernatural beings.
As she watched Cliffman charge at Reinhart repeatedly, Ellen felt a sense of déjà vu. Reinhart stood like an iron wall, subduing Cliffman time and again. Cliffman, despite falling over and over, kept getting back up to face Reinhart.
In Cliffman, Ellen saw Reinhart, and in Reinhart, she saw herself.
Reinhart, who had always been the one to fall, was now standing like an iron wall in front of someone else. Ellen could no longer deny it.
Clang!
“Ugh!”
Reinhart was strong. In the past, Cliffman had always been the one to bring Reinhart to his knees. But at some point, the balance of power had shifted, seemingly irreversibly.
Ludwig had a strange inferiority complex when it came to Reinhart, and the core of Cliffman’s sense of inferiority, which was stronger than Ludwig’s, also stemmed from Reinhart, not Ludwig, who had suddenly mastered Mana Reinforcement the day before.
Ludwig, who was from Class B, had watched Reinhart’s growth from afar, but Cliffman had seen it up close. He had crossed swords with Reinhart directly, always securing overwhelming victory, until suddenly he couldn’t win anymore.
Reinhart had been an opponent he’d had to hold back against, but now, Reinhart was the one who had to hold back, and soon, perhaps, he would have to hold back even further.
Cliffman wasn’t lazy. He had always worked hard.
Both of them worked hard, but only Reinhart grew rapidly. Of course, Cliffman had also grown stronger, but Reinhart’s growth had outpaced his.
Cliffman had to watch from the training grounds as a runner who had started far behind him disappeared beyond sight. The fact that this sense of inferiority hadn’t manifested as malice or hatred was evidence of one of Cliffman’s good qualities, but the sense of inferiority was unavoidable.
Clang!
“Ugh!”
Cliffman, who used to knock others down, was now the one being knocked down. He kept getting up, despite being pushed, thrown, and subdued by an opponent he’d once toyed with.
“Huff... huff...”
Reinhart, knowing what Cliffman had to be feeling inside, could hardly feel at ease. At least, that’s how it seemed to Ellen.
Reinhart, however, didn’t show any signs of pity towards Cliffman. Pity was the last thing Cliffman would want. For someone trying to move forward, receiving a look of pity from someone who was ahead was a subtle message that they could never advance.
At least Reinhart didn’t pity Cliffman. He was simply facing Cliffman with all his strength, as Cliffman had requested.
Still, in the end, Cliffman could never be a match for Reinhart. Just as Ellen was an insurmountable wall for Reinhart, Reinhart had now become an insurmountable wall for someone else. For Ludwig, who had just mastered Mana Reinforcement, and for Cliffman, who had not.
Reinhart stood there, a wall looking down at his fallen opponent, not looking even slightly tired.