“Your surprise... It tells me that this is the first time you’re seeing a Regalia.”
A what? Is that the name of the sword?
“I have no words. How did you get through life without ever learning about Regalias? You must’ve lived in a very remote area...”
“You’re a little off base there...” Now that I thought about it, explaining exactly where I was from would be hard. I doubted it’d be easy to get people to accept that I’d actually come from two hundred years in the past. “But yeah, I guess I’ve never seen that before.”
“Then allow me to educate you about Regalias, in lieu of a handicap. They are magecraft-composition support items,” Barth said, as he swung the sword. “Thanks to this, I am able to generate magecraft at oppressive speeds.”
He threw another Wind Edge at me, which I lightly dodged while taking a good look at the sword in his hands. Next, I activated Body Fortification, enhancing my vision to inspect the blade properly. Oh, I see. So that’s how it is. Apparently, the sword he was using had a spell set in it. In other words, he didn’t have to compose the spell himself. All he had to do was pour mana into the item, and hey presto: the spell would activate.
“What do you think of this speed? Can you keep up, unarmed as you are?”
How do I put this...? It’s a very well-constructed toy. That was my only thought. To my eyes, it was nothing more than a cane that an elderly person might use to get around. Within the context of composing magecraft, there was absolutely no way that using a Regalia was the right thing to do. After all, the best part of being a mage was coming up with the most appropriate spell compositions for each and every battle.
“How do you like my power?!” Barth yelled, sending attack after attack at me.
But I didn’t feel intimidated in the least. I thought his attacks were slow, particularly because he was using a sword unsuited to his size. I easily dodged his attacks and put some distance between us. Still, he continued to throw Wind Edge after Wind Edge at me.
“How stupid...” I was getting bored of this.
“Wha—” As I slapped his next Wind Edge away with my bare hand, he started. “Y-You stopped my attack with your hand?!”
It had taken me a while, but I’d finally figured out what had been bothering me this whole time. Regalias were the missing piece to the puzzle of why the level of modern mages had fallen so far. It made sense to have invented them in the pursuit of convenience, but that had been their downfall. The instant they’d begun to rely on these items, it had made them so much weaker.
They must’ve believed that so long as they had Regalias, they didn’t have to compose spells themselves. In a world without true enemies like the demons, it was probably more than enough to have simple magecraft that was instantaneous. I found myself feeling kind of sad, though. Back in my time, toys like these magic tools would never have been used. These Regalias had taken the ability to think away from mages.
“You call this magecraft? Maybe if you want to make a pinwheel spin or something, I guess.”
“Y-You! That attitude...” Half crazed with fury, Barth continued firing the same magecraft at me.
Well, I had no choice. I suppose I owed him some thanks for helping me figure out this little mystery. I decided I’d reward his time with real magecraft.
“Wind Edge.”
Ultimately, I chose to use the same magecraft that he’d been firing at me. There was a flash, and in the next moment, my attack had pierced his, hitting him squarely and flinging him back into a brick wall, cracking it. Of course, I’d been sure to hold back slightly. I’d crafted the attack with the intention of showing him the large gap between our skills, but I made sure to lower its power. There was no way that someone who relied on Regalias to fight could learn to adapt and overcome an opponent in a battle. I walked over to Barth, who’d fallen to the ground. Just as I thought, he seemed to be just barely hanging onto consciousness, but he wasn’t hurt too badly.
“H-How did I...lose to a commoner like you?”
Oh, right. I almost forgot. The rules of this duel were that the loser had to surrender or be rendered unconscious.
“Are you about ready to surrender?”
“You filthy...Inferior Eyes brat! Who would ever surrender to you?!”
Good grief. He should’ve allotted some of that pride of his to other areas. If humans staked their pride on things that others had given them rather than things they’d built themselves, it was all over for them. That being said, I wasn’t an unreasonable guy. There was no need to keep up this farce. I’d end this “duel” here and now.
Just as I was about to show him mercy, though, he screamed as he was once again slammed into the brick wall, before once again falling to the ground. I looked and saw that a familiar person had apparently landed the kick that’d sealed Barth’s fate.
“Uh... Lilith? What are you doing?”
“My apologies, Master Abel. I saw some trash lying around that needed to be dealt with.”
Yeah, that’s not really what I’m asking about. Was she not employed by this older rich brat’s family as a maid? I got the feeling that attacking your employer was not the greatest of ideas.
Barth coughed painfully. “Lilith... Why did you—”
“Silence. Never speak again. I will not allow you to besmirch Master Abel’s name any further.”
Barth recoiled in fear as Lilith began emanating a killing aura. Hadn’t he just confessed to Lilith? Had his affection transformed into fear? This was going to scar him psychologically for the rest of his life.
“Master Abel, my deepest apologies. My poor observation is to blame for this situation.”
“No, don’t worry about it.”
“But from what I can glean, it seems that he’s said some incredibly rude things to you.”
“Yeah, but I don’t care about any of the eye insults. I’m used to it. Just let him off the hook.”
All the insults he’d hurled at me were nothing compared to what I was used to from the past. Back then, having Amber Eyes often meant people didn’t even treat you like a fellow human. Sure, the people of this time held those with Amber Eyes in contempt, but it didn’t go any farther than that.
“Hey, you.”
“Eek!”
“Show some gratitude for Master Abel’s magnanimity. Just this once, I will let this incident go and spare your life.”
I completely understood why Barth clammed up. It was probably a mystery to him as to why he, a noble, was in the position of having to be forgiven by someone else. But he knew that if it’d spell the end for him if he said anything more. He understood that Lilith wasn’t joking about killing him, so he held his tongue.
“Hic... Hic... Wahhh!”
Having realized there was no other action he could take, he began to bawl. Poor kid. He fell to the ground and began wailing in a most unseemly manner, tossing away any last shreds of pride he’d had.