Embracing Magic - E.M Chapter 104 (Part 1)
Rodin cast a Familiar spell on a bird. The Familiar spell allowed him to share senses with the animal.
Through the familiar, Rodin watched Larry throughout the day.
*Thud!*
“Still not giving up, huh?”
“You have no talent, seriously.”
“Some people just can’t seem to know their place. Thought you were from a noble family because of those nice clothes.”
Rodin silently observed Larry being bullied. He didn’t show any anger. He looked as if he had no emotions.
In reality, however, Rodin was quite furious. Was it because Larry was being bullied? That was part of it, but what angered him more was that there was no clear way to resolve the situation.
*Sigh* ‘What should I do?’
There were several reasons Larry was being bullied.
One was that he was from a family with no connection to swordsmanship.
In the Richmond Marquisate, there was a strong culture of revering the sword, and those who weren’t from sword-wielding families were often looked down upon.
Another reason was Larry’s ambiguous talent for aura.
He wasn’t exceptional, so people created an atmosphere where it seemed fine to torment him.
Compared to the average person, Larry’s aura talent was decent. If he had been born into a reputable family, he would have grown up without being excessively criticized and would have received reasonable treatment.
But the Cardos Sword hall was one of the three best sword schools within the Richmond Marquisate.
Because so many talented individuals gathered there, the competition was fierce, and Larry’s aura talent was clearly at the bottom tier among them.
‘Who should I blame for this?’
There were simply too many trainees at the sword school to single out and reprimand. There were about 130 trainees at Cardos, and most of them bullied and beat Larry.
No matter how angry he was, he couldn’t punish all of them.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t fight them. In the Richmond Marquisate, the only person Rodin couldn’t face head-on was the Marquis of Richmond himself. He was confident he could take on anyone else, no matter how many they were.
But if he did, they would no longer be able to stay in the Richmond Marquisate. Naturally, Larry would have to leave the Cardos Sword School as well.
‘And blaming the sword school isn’t an option either.’
The rule at Cardos Sword hall was that trainees were expected to solve their own issues.
Unless a trainee was harmed so severely that they could no longer hold a sword, the school didn’t intervene or punish them.
‘The sword school’s not at fault, there are too many bullies… How can I fix this?’
Should he go and talk to them? That wouldn’t work. If it seemed like Larry had brought in someone to protect him, they’d bully him even more.
‘He started learning swordsmanship too late.’
Neither Bianca nor Larry had particularly exceptional talent. With hard work, they could barely pass as swordsmen or magicians.
But Bianca had started learning magic two years earlier than Larry, which already put her ahead of him.
Moreover, Bianca had Rodin teaching her, a genius in magical knowledge. She was in good hands.
In contrast, Larry had only encountered aura two years later, already falling behind.
The teaching at the Cardos Sword hall was too rigid. They didn’t consider individual traits, so those who were behind had difficulty catching up with those who were ahead.
“Should I tell him to quit?”
“Huh? Why? Are you saying we shouldn’t study today?”
“No, I wasn’t talking to you. Keep studying.”
“Okay, big brother.”
After brushing Bianca off, Rodin continued to ponder.
No matter how he thought about it, staying at the Cardos Sword hall wasn’t going to help Larry. Time would pass, and he would remain just another trainee without much distinction.
‘Should I send him to a different sword school?’
That would mean leaving the Richmond Marquisate. But if people heard that Larry couldn’t keep up at Cardos and moved to another school, it would damage his reputation.
‘Swordsmanship… Swordsmanship…’
Rodin stood up and headed down to the training room. Bianca shouted something behind him, but he just waved her off.
Once in the training room, Rodin manipulated his pocket watch. The hour hand pointed to 11 o’clock—the second-to-last stage of the pocket watch’s lessons.
In the lessons of the pocket watch, the difficulty wasn’t necessarily tied to the time shown, except for 1 and 2 o’clock. The 11 o’clock lesson wasn’t particularly harder than the 3 o’clock one; it simply taught a different subject.
“The 11 o’clock lesson is swordsmanship.”
Rodin couldn’t give Larry the knowledge stored in the pocket watch or the ring filled with its teachings. The pocket watch and ring of Frouval were too precious to hand over to anyone.
He felt sorry for Larry, but his faith in his younger sibling wasn’t that strong yet. Not that he lacked affection, but he needed more time to develop absolute trust.
“Swordsmanship… I never thought I’d be taking a lesson like this.”
He didn’t dislike sweating. From a young age, he had worked hard to build his stamina, and even now, he devoted at least an hour each day to physical training.
But he wasn’t particularly interested in swordsmanship. He didn’t enjoy close combat with enemies.
Moreover, his aptitude scores from the Special Forces Academy were starkly different. There were far more efficient ways for him to become stronger, so he didn’t want to waste time on swordsmanship, where his talent was lacking.
“As long as it’s good enough to replace my regular workout.”
Rodin attended the 11 o’clock lesson from Frouval’s watch. Once again, the familiar teacher appeared to instruct him.
It was impossible to complete the swordsmanship lesson in just one day. It took three days to learn the forms and their explanations.
“Hm, this is an odd swordsmanship style.”
The sword forms numbered 63. It was quite a lot, but memorizing them wasn’t difficult.
However, the swordsmanship taught by Frouval’s illusion was extremely unbalanced and excessive.
Out of the 63 forms, only 7 were focused on attack, while the remaining 56 were geared toward defense.
“Blocking, deflecting, evading, parrying. Out of the 56, more than half—32 forms—are about repelling the opponent. This is swordsmanship solely designed to protect a magician.”
In particular, the techniques for knocking back or pushing away opponents made up more than half of the forms. This wasn’t a common tactic for most swordsmen.
Pushing an opponent away reset the battle to neutral, which wasn’t a method swordsmen preferred.
It was more advantageous to slightly disrupt the opponent’s balance or break their weapon rather than push them back.
But if you were protecting a magician, it was different. Creating distance gave the magician enough space to cast spells freely.
“Would this suit Larry?”
It was an extremely unbalanced and unconventional swordsmanship.
Rodin hesitated to teach it to Larry. He worried that teaching such a method might end up ruining him.
“But it’s not for me to decide.”
The choice was Larry’s. Rodin thought it would be enough to tell him, “Here’s this kind of swordsmanship, if you want to learn it.”
That night, Larry returned from the Cardos Sword School. He looked fine on the outside, but he was covered in bruises yet again.
“Larry.”
“Huh? Big Brother? What’s up?”
“I need to talk to you.”
“Alright.”