[10] The First Step Toward a Dream (2)
Shirone, history book in hand, started nagging again.
"Get up and bring the books. Study."
"Ugh, training's been brutal lately."
After sending Rian to the study, Shirone sat down and opened the history book. Lately fieldwork finished faster than paperwork, so he actually had quite a bit of free time.
Once he focused on the pages, they flew by.
Upper-left, lower-left, upper-right, lower-right. Two pages flipped with four eye twitches. And once he hit his rhythm, it rarely broke until he finished a whole volume.
That meant the range of knowledge in his head exceeded the range of the book. Having plowed through 650 history volumes, the remaining couple hundred were like drinking a glass of water.
"Hey, Shirone. I found a fun one."
Rian shook a book as he approached. He saw Shirone flipping pages at an incredible speed and lost the nerve to tease him. For example, Shirone once took more than ten hours to turn a single page—he'd been reading and when he opened his eyes it was morning.
Rian sat down beside Shirone and opened the book he'd brought. The "fun" title read:
Swordsman VS Mage.
"The foreword. You've probably asked this at least once: if a swordsman and a mage faced off, who would win?"
When Rian read that aloud, Shirone's hand slowed. That was the sort of thing to make an aspiring mage's ears perk.
"I traveled the world for the answer. I still see it when I close my eyes: the Artusna Range at six thousand meters above sea level. There are carnivorous trees that eat mountain birds…"
Rian slammed the book shut.
"This is disgustingly boring."
"What? I like it!"
Startled by Shirone's shout, Rian blinked. He'd pretended not to care, but like a fox he'd been all ears.
"What's fun about it? There aren't even pictures or sword techniques."
"You're saying that without reading a single page!"
"A writer should think about the reader. Start exciting, end moving."
"This isn't a novel. Give me the book. So who wins?"
"Who cares who wins? Do you think a swordsman and a mage would foolishly fight mano a mano? If it's favorable they charge in, if not they run away."
Shirone flipped to the middle of Swordsman VS Mage and skimmed.
"There could be cases where they have no choice but to fight. If that happens, who would win?"
"Hm… if I had to guess—"
"Obviously the swordsman wins."
A sharp voice sounded from beyond the stacks. A man with a cold expression stepped into view. He wasn't as bulky as Rian but was much taller, with long, lean limbs.
He was Ozent Rai, the second son of the Ozent family.
Even as siblings, he and Rian were very different in demeanor and looks. For one thing, Rai's hair was jet-black.
The Ozent family maintained two distinct bloodlines: blue hair and black hair.
The family head Bishoff, the eldest son, and the second son inherited black hair, while the second daughter and the youngest, Rian, had the blue-tinted hair.
Rian's grandfather, a state-certified level-3 swordsman, also had blue hair.
Of course the family was bound by close ties.
Still, it was amusing how alliances could form along bloodlines. Which lineage seemed superior swung with the generations; this time the black line through Bishoff and Rai was in vogue.
"Ah! Hello."
Shirone bowed hastily. The family didn't know he was friends with Rian. If Rai had overheard their earlier conversation, Shirone could've been in real trouble.
"You think swordsmen win? Why are you so sure? Is it because your brother's a swordsman?"
Rian, aware of that fact, tried to needle Rai's pride.
"Do we need such grand claims of certainty? It's obvious if you know the positions swordsmen and mages hold across the continents."
Fortunately Rai didn't seem worried about Rian's connection, but Shirone couldn't relax. Whenever he came to the library, he felt this man was hard to read.
"Anyway, this is a one-on-one fight. I hope you're not going to say the same on a battlefield—'I'm above you, so step back.' Something like that?"
Rian laughed triumphantly as if he'd landed a blow.
Rai didn't bother reacting and turned to Shirone with an indifferent gaze.
"What do you think, kid?"
"Um… assuming top-level combat, magic is immensely powerful and could deal a swordsman a fatal blow. But swordsmen have superior physical ability, so if they close in before a spell is cast…"
"No. You're wrong. A mage can't beat a swordsman."
Shirone felt a sting in his chest. He was only a hopeful in training, but being a mage was his dream. Hearing that his dream was objectively inferior left him unsettled.
Rian, angered that his friend had been dismissed, snapped back.
"Who does he think he is to say that? Does he think he's the representative of swordsmen?"
Rai lifted one corner of his mouth in the contemptuous sneer Rian despised.
"Pride as a swordsman isn't something anyone can buy. But a mage's knowledge can be bought with money."
There was truth in Rai's words. In reality, swordsmen had a way to neutralize magic.
They were artifacts called anti-magic.
Anti-magic produced a special wave that disrupted a mage's Spirit Zone. If the Spirit Zone quivered, a spell's power would inevitably plummet.
Anti-magic artifacts were fashioned as crystal spheres and mounted on armor, shields, or swords. Because they required a dragon's heart that emitted mana waves, the highest-grade artifacts were prohibitively expensive.
And equipping ten artifacts with 10 percent efficiency each didn't mean you got 100 percent magic defense.
Waves resonate; adding new waves to an anti-magic wave inevitably causes overlapping portions.
In the end, the more artifacts you stack, the less efficient they become, and the question is how well you can suppress that loss.
The finest existing artifact set was the Oshinjang Armor Set, made by Archmage Yakra. The helm, armor, gauntlets, boots, and shield all housed artifacts, each granting the single-item maximum of 20 percent.
Research showed that wearing the entire Oshinjang set produced a suppression of a staggering 65 percent. For a mage, having their magic weakened by 65 percent was tantamount to being rendered helpless.
Another troublesome factor was the elemental essences. These essences crystallize only in minuscule amounts in nature—fire, water, wind, and earth. When fitted, they not only trigger magic but can perfectly block the corresponding element.
So far only 17 essences had been found worldwide—2 fire, 3 water, 5 wind, 7 earth—and a single one could be worth more than the budget of a small kingdom.
Shirone imagined the scene: if a schema master equipped the Oshinjang set with the four essences and swung his sword, what mage could possibly stand against him?
Of course it existed mostly in theory. The Oshinjang set was scattered across the world and of dubious provenance, and no nation but a state could even contemplate acquiring the elemental essences.
Stacking anti-magic was also problematic. Even Yakra, master of wave equations, spent ten years tuning the Oshinjang set.
Half-heartedly overlapping anti-magic was a money pit. Without a synthesis of wave equations, resonant frequencies, and mana interactions, efficiency wouldn't improve.
The joke that raising anti-magic by one percent could cost a noble half his fortune wasn't just a joke.
Herein lay the swordsman's dilemma. Rather than pour immense wealth into boosting anti-magic, it was far cheaper to hire a mage who specialized in anti-magic spells.
Rai's remark implied all this: mages were, in practice, tools of swordsmen. He also said a mage's knowledge could be bought.
Ironically, the one who developed anti-magic artifacts was a mage, not a swordsman. Countless mages researched how a dragon's mana affected the Spirit Zone, because success brought immense wealth and honor.
Rai was pointing out the irony of those who lived by magic studying how to weaken it. His point was that a mage who sold out for money couldn't beat a swordsman.
"What do you think? You seem to like books. Magic can be sealed with anti-magic. But a swordsman's body is different. Our physical abilities come only through pain."
Shirone understood Rai's point—but he didn't agree.
"That's precisely what a mage is."
"What?"
Rai looked puzzled that Shirone accepted the claim so calmly. A boy who loved magic would usually bristle.
"A mage obsessively probes the harmony of all things. So it isn't strange for them to study ways to suppress magic. What matters to them isn't whether they win a fight but whether they understand. In the end, artifacts are also products of that boundless intelligence. To say from the start that mages can't beat swordsmen is to start from a faulty premise."
Rai wasn't as stubborn as Rian. If he could win an argument, he'd marshal any logic to do so.
Yet he fell silent because he couldn't find a rebuttal to Shirone's reasoning.
Rian struggled to hold back his laughter. He'd always enjoyed watching his brother, who acted as if he knew everything, be rendered speechless by Shirone.
"Puhahaha! Serves him right. My friend's got the gift of the gab, huh?"
As time passed Rai's expression twisted. His brow furrowed and veins throbbed at his temples. Still, no new thought occurred.
"Ideal and reality differ. No matter the intent, the fact that you can't win a fight doesn't change."
Rai turned coldly and left the library. Seeing that, Rian pressed a hand to his mouth to stop a grin.
"Ideal and reality differ? That's all he can say? Ugh, what a fool. Go, just leave."
Once the library door closed, Rian couldn't hold back and burst out laughing.
"Puhahaha! Shirone, you're the best! I've never seen him make that face before!"
As Rian hugged and shook Shirone like a doll, Shirone kept his eyes fixed on the spot where Rai had gone.
Swordsman versus mage.
That one book Rian had brought planted many questions in Shirone's mind. Maybe Rai was right about reality being different.
But Shirone believed.
He believed that the spirit of mages—those who would put even their weaknesses on the experiment table—was precisely why intelligence existed in this world.
* * *
The great library felt chilly. Shelves once packed with knowledge stood hollow, and the glow lamps that lit the place like midday were off.
A single shaft of golden sunlight poured through a fourth-floor window and warmed the floor. Shirone turned pages in that light.
Page by page. And finally… the last page ended and the cover closed.
Shirone ran his hand over the back of the deep-orange cover. Flipping a book is easy. But to travel through hundreds of pages and finally close it—few could do that.
Eight hundred and fifty volumes of history.
Shirone had read every history book in the great library.
"It's finished. This is the backbone of my knowledge."
It felt warm. Like light welling up.
Shirone could understand the world. Even as a hunter's child, he could debate broad matters of the world with any noble.
It was the result of choosing and focusing. Talent only points to efficient directions; anyone who read 850 history books would understand the place they stood.
The library's relocation had also finished after a year and a half of major work. He could return home whenever he wanted and no longer had to worry about his family dying.
It felt like a dream. Countless things brushed through his mind like scenes from a dream.