The Story Of The Second Son Of The Baron Family [EN]: Chapter 14

Baron’s Family Second Son – Episode 14

“I heard you reached the Fourth Circle! And more than that, I heard you refused to go to the capital?! Why would you make such a choice?”

“Thank you. And it’s not decided yet. I haven’t even properly reported it to the Magic Tower yet… I just said I would stay even if that happened, but they haven’t told me to come up yet.”

“That’s the same thing! Ugh, ugh! What’s so great about this place that you want to stay? I don’t understand! If it were me, I would have packed my bags already and waited for them to tell me to come up.”

“Hey, Derren, you always said that life in the Magic Tower was tough. You said there were so many people ready to bite your head off at the slightest mistake, which made it uncomfortable.”

“Still! If I had to choose between being mentally uncomfortable and physically uncomfortable, I’d choose the former!”

“Ah! I don’t know. Anyway, I already told the Elder and Duke Zeke, so it’s all settled.”

“They say geniuses are all a little weird, and it’s true. It’s really true!”

The news that I had reached the Fourth Circle and that I would stay here spread like wildfire among the mages of the Terra Barrier. The reactions were largely twofold. Some people were shocked to hear my choice and came to me, horrified, asking why I would make such a decision. Their tone was generally rough, and they acted like I had done something foolish, but I could feel that it was out of concern for me, which was heartwarming.

And the other reaction was negative. This was mainly from mages who weren’t close to me and who were stuck at the Third Circle. They had been unable to overcome the barrier for at least several years, or even more than a decade, and I had surpassed it in just over a year, so they couldn’t help but be jealous. Fortunately, only a very small number of people showed such a reaction.

In the meantime, time passed, and news of me reached the Magic Tower. As Ild and Wonder had predicted, the Magic Tower’s response was simple: an order to come to the Magic Tower in the capital to handle circle measurement and related tasks. It was stamped with the Magic Tower Lord’s seal, and the content was normal, so if I hadn’t prepared in advance, I would have had to go to the Magic Tower without a choice. But I saw the benefits of persuading Duke Zeke.

The reason given was that the Terra Barrier’s situation was too critical to remove a mage from the front lines. Also, a warrior under the Emperor’s command could not be moved privately without the Emperor’s order. Since there had never been a refusal to summon a mage for these reasons, Wonder received an additional letter telling him to persuade Duke Zeke, but since I had already persuaded him, I didn’t have to go to the Magic Tower.

“It’s not too late now. Are you sure you won’t regret it?”

“Yes. My decision is firm.”

“Okay. That’s all I needed to know.”

After that, I became very busy. I wasn’t exactly free before, but these days, I was so busy that I didn’t have a spare moment, without exaggeration.

Even though I had reached the Fourth Circle, magic wasn’t just about reaching a new circle. It was about how efficiently I could use the newly acquired circle. If I couldn’t do that, I would just be a mage with a lot of mana, stuck in my room. What good would it do if I couldn’t use that mana in actual combat?

In addition to personal training, I had to make time to receive instruction from Wonder. In the end, this was the time when I could gain the most. Wonder had the most experience and skill as a mage of anyone I had ever been taught by, and he taught me with all his heart.

I needed to grow quickly to gain more fame, so it was only natural, but I could feel the ambition in his teachings.

It wasn’t that his teachings were lacking. It was just that our directions were different. I wanted qualitative expansion, refining my current abilities and using them skillfully, while Wonder seemed to want quantitative expansion, putting aside everything else and increasing the amount of mana and circles. It couldn’t be helped, given his position of needing to raise his reputation.

Moreover, magic wasn’t the only weapon I had: Ability Imprint. Until now, I had only used one letter at a time.

However, increasing the number of circles also meant increasing the absolute amount of mana and the amount of mana that could be handled at once. There hadn’t been much progress yet, but I expected that if I became more familiar with using the Fourth Circle, I would be able to break through the barrier with Imprint as well.

At the same time, I regularly went to the barrier to attend battles and worked hard to train my body with the knights. This wasn’t just to build physical strength, but to learn how to use my body. After all, I was the only one who could save myself here. The more means to achieve the result of survival, the better.

“Go ahead and produce some results. Whether it’s a plan or an item, if there’s a way to kill even a few less soldiers, and if that method is feasible enough, I will spare no support.”

In addition, I had to take responsibility for what I had said in front of Duke Zeke. Whether my direct approach had been too strong, or whether Duke Zeke had always had such thoughts but had no way to implement them, he called me out separately and told me to come up with a concrete method for what I had said. He added that there would be no blame even if I failed, but as the person who had brought it up, I couldn’t help but think of a way.

“Damn it. If I could just come up with a method when I was told to, this place wouldn’t have such a bad reputation!”

The amount of human and material resources consumed to defend the Terra Barrier is beyond imagination. Also, it wasn’t that the Empire had the luxury to maintain the Terra Barrier.

The only reason they were forcibly maintaining the Terra Barrier was because it was the most efficient way. If the Terra Barrier couldn’t stop the monsters, they would pass through the narrow entrance and ravage the wide plains indiscriminately, and it would take more troops and more supplies to stop them.

However, even though it was the only efficient method, the amount of supplies consumed was still enormous. Why wouldn’t they have tried to reduce the consumption rate, given that it was impossible to wipe out the monsters’ land north of the Terra Barrier? The Empire’s top geniuses had come up with all sorts of methods, but in the face of the endless waves of monsters, they had only ended up spinning their wheels.

So, the problem is that I, who had boasted that I would do what even the Empire had given up on, was the problem.

“No matter how I think about it, it’s impossible right now.”

Fourth Circle. Reaching the Fourth Circle before the age of twenty was definitely a great achievement that would shake the Magic Tower. However, that was only because of the potential for the future, not because of the present. Frankly, there were more than twenty Fourth Circle mages in the Terra Barrier. Imprint was also a unique weapon, but its power was far from enough to be the scissors to cut off the chain.

“The simplest answer is to increase firepower.”

Let’s think about a typical RPG game. If we apply the current situation of the Terra Barrier to the protagonist of an RPG game, the answer itself is simple. In a situation where there is no keyword to escape, there are only two ways to hunt monsters while saving the character’s HP as much as possible.

First, raise your defense to the point where the monster’s attacks feel like tickles. Second, kill the monster so quickly that it can’t even attack. The method I focused on was the latter.

The former had clear limitations. No matter how excellent the armor with high defense was, not all soldiers could wear it. Also, even if the armor held up, the human body inside, with its fragile flesh, would have its limits. In this case, it would only protect the important brain and heart, while giving up both arms and legs.

“Firepower. Firepower…!”

The weapons of this era were still at the level of cold weapons [non-firearm weapons]. The gunpowder weapons that brought about the downfall of knights on Earth could not be found even in the Empire, the most developed country on the continent, or even in the Terra Barrier, its front line.

In such a situation, the representative long-range weapon had to be the bow, but the number of mages who could replace gunpowder weapons was far from sufficient. Trebuchets [a type of catapult] couldn’t hit monsters that were stuck to the walls, so there was no way a solution would come out in a short period of time.

I, who had been an ordinary office worker in my previous life, had no knowledge of how to make gunpowder, and even if I did get gunpowder, how much meaning would it have? How would I make a weapon that could use gunpowder, and even if I did, its power would only be enough to hurt people. The enemy here wasn’t humans, but monsters with thick skin and regenerative abilities.

“Still, I have to try… If I don’t even try, there won’t be even a shred of possibility.”

I have no knowledge of gunpowder or weapons. But I have magic and the ability to Imprint. As proof, there is a pistol that plays the role of a gun, albeit clumsily, even though the structure is completely different. Soldiers can’t handle mana, so it doesn’t have any meaning so far, but if I do research and try, who knows what might happen.

There are 9 years and 6 months left. The time that had felt so long when I first came here felt not so long for the first time.

#

As the weather warmed up, the Terra Barrier began to get busy again. It was the time of year when monsters increased their numbers after the cold winter. So, my comrades and I were riding horses and looking around the monsters’ land for reconnaissance.

This time, the purpose was to assess the situation, not to fight, so several groups of four – three knights and one mage – were scattered again.

“Mages make such amazing things. Just by looking around, they can automatically draw the terrain and even find monsters. There’s a reason they’re called geniuses.”

“You flatter me.”

I imprinted a map on a piece of paper slightly larger than my palm, and the Imprint of Search on my body. Then, just by moving, the surrounding terrain was displayed on the paper based on me. This was possible because the Imprint had also developed as I became more familiar with the four circles. It was one of the most useful Imprints I had ever created.

“There’s a mana reaction in front of us. Judging by the size of the mana… it seems to be a higher species.”

“Really?”

Sure enough, before long, a cyclops with one eye gleaming, looking for prey, came into view. As this happened repeatedly, the knights changed their course just by listening to me. Since the purpose was reconnaissance, it was best to avoid combat if it was expected.

“You make reconnaissance so easy! At other times, I would have been urging my horse to run away.”

As we were proceeding smoothly with the reconnaissance, I rubbed my eyes at a mana reaction I had never seen before. It was such a powerful mana reaction that I momentarily thought the map had broken.

“Excuse me, Sir Morito.”

“What is it?”

“I think we need to change direction a bit. There’s a mana reaction not far from here…”

“There is?”

“If I were to judge by the size of the mana alone, it seems like hundreds, no, thousands of higher species are gathered. Even if we have to run away, I think we should check it out…”

I trailed off. I couldn’t believe it even as I was saying it. Hundreds or thousands of monsters like orcs or lizardmen would be understandable, but thousands of higher species? Even the knights, who had learned through several experiences that my words were true, couldn’t believe it and asked if it was broken.

“Let’s go for now… If what you say is true, it’s no ordinary matter. We must find out what’s in that place where you felt the mana reaction.”

My comrades and I rode our horses, tense. As we headed closer to the source, our words decreased and the frequency of looking around decreased. However, even though the source was getting closer, the large monster I had expected was nowhere to be seen. We should have seen it already at this distance.

“There’s nothing here?”

The source we finally arrived at. But there was nothing there. However, the mana reaction we had seen for the first time was still being detected on the map. I couldn’t be sure whether the Imprint was wrong or whether there was something in this place that we couldn’t see with our eyes.

Baron’s Family Second Son – Episode 14 – End