Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 50 "I guess it's not this after all."
Watching the lightning bolt strike the snow, Turan spoke with a hint of disappointment.
His mana consumption and precision were exactly the same as before; he hadn't gained the ability to manipulate lightning.
In truth, it wasn't that surprising.
Even among the Great Families, possessing more than two bloodlines was incredibly rare. Usually, when passed down to the next generation, one of the bloodlines would fade out. Two was considered the upper limit for a stable hereditary bloodline.
Four bloodlines were so unheard of they weren't even part of the conversation. Had it not been for the information Turan obtained in the Underground Labyrinth, he wouldn't have even imagined such a thing was possible.
Of course, another possibility remained.
It wasn't necessarily that he had inherited a degraded bloodline, but rather that the locked bloodline hadn't fully awakened yet. Perhaps as he accumulated more mana, he would eventually be able to wield lightning as well...
'If I really have four bloodlines, it means my potential is still massive.'
It was no secret that those born with more bloodlines generally had a higher ceiling for growth. One only had to look at the heads of ordinary families with a single bloodline; none of them could match the strength of the heads of the Great Families.
Additionally, children of Great Family bloodlines were born with stronger mana on average and had a higher probability of being born as nobles rather than knights. This was the secret to how they could secure hundreds of nobles while ordinary bloodlines struggled to form a family with a mere dozen.
Turan suddenly felt the urge to visit the library and looked toward the southwest.
The Spirit of the Library had been able to sense the presence of the Arabion bloodline even when it was completely locked. Surely, it could confirm if anything else remained now.
'But... it's difficult right now.'
Even riding Bije, it would take three or four days if he were lucky enough to find the right path. Considering the variables of travel and the time needed to conduct his business and return, he would be away from the city for nearly ten days.
That was too long to leave a city that lacked any other mages. A single, moderately powerful magical beast could wander in and reduce the place to ashes.
There was no need to rush, anyway. It would soon be decided where the sovereignty of Kalamaf would be transferred. Among the heads of the seven cities, at least one must have discovered his mother's whereabouts.
Now that he had uncovered the identity of his hidden bloodline, he wanted to know the truth even more. Just what had happened to cause him to be born between two families who were constantly at each other's throats?
"Shall we head back then? Bije—no, wait a moment."
Turan, who was about to fly off on Bije, stopped as a thought occurred to him. Using levitation magic, he slowly lifted himself a few meters into the air.
'Let's see...'
Most mages could typically control their bodies to float and move as if they were manipulating a puppet, but the speed and precision were too clumsy to be called "flight."
However, the nobles of Arabion were capable of wrapping wind around their levitating bodies to fly swiftly through the sky. This was a feat impossible for mediocre mages who could only handle wind as a large, blunt mass. Even the past Turan had attempted it briefly before giving up.
But now, it felt possible.
"Shall we try flying together?"
Seeing Bije chirp as if asking what he meant, Turan wrapped wind around his body and gave it direction. With the sensation of his entire body being pushed from behind—
"Whoa—!"
In an instant, the world became a blur. Up, down, left, and right lost all meaning. Colors bled together until he slammed into something with a dull thud.
"Ouch..."
By the time his dizziness subsided, Bije had landed on his head and was pecking at him as if he were pathetic. Fortunately, the bird seemed to have escaped the collision in time. Though, crashing at this speed wouldn't have caused Turan any serious injury anyway.
Turan gave a bitter smile and brushed off his dirty clothes.
"Yeah, I know I'm pathetic. Flying is harder than I thought."
He had assumed it would be simple since the Arabion nobles did it so effortlessly, but doing it himself proved much more difficult. It took about fifteen more head-first dives into the ground before Turan finally got the hang of it.
The issue was his upper body, which caught more wind compared to his thin legs, causing him to lurch forward too much. The trick was adjusting the strength of the wind for each body part to maintain balance.
A short while later, Turan was flying through the sky at a speed comparable to a steady run.
"So this is what flying feels like..."
The world spread out below him like a miniature model. He had seen it often while flying with Bije's help, but this felt different. It was the freedom of flying on his own, without anyone's help.
Just then, Bije, flying alongside him, pecked Turan's head. Through the soul tether, he could feel the bird's anxiety. Did Bije think he would become useless now that Turan could fly himself?
"Don't worry. You're still much faster than me. And even if you get slower, I won't abandon you."
Reassuring him, Turan stopped his own flight and grabbed Bije's legs, letting the bird take over. Certainly, in terms of speed and mana efficiency, this was far superior.
Watching Bije flap his wings vigorously in a good mood, Turan impulsively manipulated the wind to create an airflow beneath the bird's wings. He felt his body suddenly accelerate.
"Whoa."
Bije chirped in surprise, but being a creature of the air, he instantly read the wind Turan created and rode it. Even without consuming much mana, their flight speed increased significantly.
It reminded him of when he used to blow wind into the sails of a boat to increase its speed. If he ever had to board a ship again, it would be quite fun to drive a single sailboat as if it were flying.
*
Because he had spent so much time practicing flight, the sun had already set by the time he arrived. No one noticed Turan flying over Kalamaf. As he opened a window at the top of City Hall and climbed inside, he heard someone calling him urgently.
"Protector!"
He had sensed a presence before entering; it was Daruk, the head of the city's civil servants.
"Have you been waiting here all this time?"
"I have."
Turan had clearly stated it would take a few days, so what was this foolishness? Before he could even scold him, Daruk cried out in shock upon seeing Turan's appearance.
The clothes Asiz had made were torn in various places, and they were stained with the blood of both Turan and the dwarves—a total mess.
"Oh no, are you injured? I must call a doctor immediately—"
"It's nothing serious, don't worry about it."
Since the healers had exhausted most of their strength on the severely wounded, a few of his minor injuries hadn't been treated, but they would heal after a night's sleep. It wasn't as if he would die from an infection like a commoner.
However, unlike his usual submissive self, Daruk shook his head firmly.
"The Protector is the guardian deity and father of this city! We cannot take even a small scratch lightly! If you refuse treatment, then you might as well strike off this old man's head instead!"
He hadn't even acted this way when Turan mentioned handing over the city's sovereignty. In the end, Turan had to have his wounds examined before he could even wash up.
"U-Uh—it is an honor to meet you, Protector..."
The doctor, summoned in the middle of the night, was so nervous his hands were trembling. He inspected Turan's bare torso and noted that only two wounds, one on the back and one on the flank, needed stitching. Both were from dwarven spears.
However, as he took a needle and thread from his bag, a surprising fact was revealed. The needle would not penetrate the noble's flesh.
It was only natural. A needle wouldn't work on a body that didn't even get a scratch when burly pirates thrust swords and spears at it.
"Nngh, ugh... why won't it go in...?"
"That's enough. These wounds will heal by tomorrow anyway. They've already stopped bleeding."
Eventually, the doctor finished the treatment by applying some herbal juices. As he packed his bags to leave, Daruk approached him and threatened him in a low voice.
"Naturally, the fact that the city's Protector was injured must not be known. If word gets out, you and your family will not be safe."
"Y-Yes... I will keep it in mind..."
Turan hadn't realized it because Daruk was always bowing to him, but seeing him intimidate the doctor, he now carried the aura of a man in power. Then again, among commoners, there was no one with a higher rank than him.
After the doctor left, Turan put on a fresh shirt and spoke to Daruk.
"By the way, I should tell you in advance. The threat from the west is gone."
Because he said it in passing, as if announcing that the sun would rise tomorrow, Daruk didn't seem to understand at first. He asked, "Pardon?" before his eyes widened in shock.
"W-What do you mean...?"
"The Arabion army will withdraw soon, and the west will become a masterless land. There will be a few who want to expand there."
Just as the Baltas family had once ruled both Orem and Murei, when the land was vast but nobles were few, families tended to stretch their reach. Of course, expanding to a region this far away would essentially mean becoming a separate family.
"Did the Protector eliminate the threat in the west alongside the Arabion army?"
It was a natural conclusion to draw, given that he had vanished and returned covered in wounds.
"Yes."
"Ah, this city owes you yet another debt..."
"Don't go talking about it. It wouldn't be good if rumors spread that I'm too deeply involved with Arabion."
The Zahar family was currently preoccupied with investigating Perga's death, but it was better for both sides if there were no misunderstandings about Arabion reaching into the Gray Zone.
"Anyway, start letting the others know. This city is safe now and will be managed by another family soon."
"Understood."
Unlike before, Daruk nodded heavily.
*
As expected, by the next day, Turan's wounds had already healed, leaving only small scars. He could have used the power of the Healer bloodline stored in a holy relic to erase them, but he didn't. It wasn't his face, and it felt like a waste to use it on small scars on his flank.
When the news spread that the threat from the west was gone and that Kalamaf's sovereignty would soon be transferred, the city's people showed various reactions.
Those who had moved in after the city stabilized welcomed the news, thinking it would be better to be managed by a proper family. However, the citizens who had been saved during the period of collapse wept and begged in front of City Hall, imploring Turan to continue ruling them.
Since it was uncomfortable to watch them, Turan flew every day to a rocky mountain overlooking the city to develop his newly acquired Storm bloodline powers.
He tested various techniques, such as flying more skillfully or wrapping wind around his body to momentarily increase his running speed. He also tried things like the sound-dampening barrier Meisa had shown. Some things didn't work as well as he expected, but many were quite useful.
Next, he researched ways to use the power of wind for offense. The simplest method was to crush a body with the impact of a push, as he had done when killing the bandits. He also tested giving the wind cutting power by mixing in coarse sand to create a vortex, or firing compressed air and then detonating it.
However, after practicing those techniques, his conclusion was that there was a reason the Arabion nobles focused so heavily on lightning magic.
'The offensive side is more lackluster than I thought.'
Perhaps because he was forcing a power that wasn't inherently aggressive into an offensive role, both the mana efficiency and the destructive power were low. At best, it was only useful for suppressing those much weaker than himself.
It was actually better to just throw a stone with his sling—a method he was intimately familiar with.
Wondering if there was a way to increase his attack power, Turan threw a stone with his sling as a warm-up. He needed to maintain his proficiency to use magic more efficiently as well. The stone he threw with all his might tore through the air with a thunderous boom—
"Ah."
Suddenly, a natural law he had learned from the Librarian came to mind.
First, wind is a flow created by the movement of the air that fills this world. Second, the thunderous boom made when an object moves quickly is caused by the tearing of the air...
Loading another stone and spinning it, Turan recalled the time he had steered a ship in the North Sea. Wasn't the trick to moving a ship easily not trying to move the ship itself, but rather parting the water that blocked its path?
'Create a path in front, and as the stone passes through, feel the air in front of it parting to the left and right...'
The moment he let fly, Turan realized his hypothesis was correct.
Instead of a thunderous boom, the stone flew with silent, terrifying speed, punching a hole straight through the massive cliffside.
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