Chapter 15

Fragment 2 Zack came to my house when I was six. His mother was my dad’s little sister, which made him my cousin. Since we were the same age and roughly the same height, he made for a good playmate. There was a good reason for him to stay with us—his parents were adventurers. His father was a warrior. Unlike the villagers from around here, my uncle’s face was gallant and manly, and his physique was incredibly toned without a speck of excess fat. I’d asked him to swing his sword for me on numerous occasions, and I was always wowed by how cleanly he moved. It made me think he was the strongest warrior in the entire world. Zack’s mother was a mage. I heard she was so clever, she’d taught herself magic. She’d left her books and magic tomes in our house once, and they were all worn from being read a million times. She once showed me her magic, and the spell she fired off into the sky was utterly beautiful. On the other hand, Zack was so ordinary that it made you wonder if he was really their son. He was honestly kind of clumsy. But he was weird in how he stuck with anything he wasn’t good at until he could do it, whether it was for play or something else. When I asked him why he did that, he said, “It’s our family motto to keep at things until you can do them.” Except it got tedious when he did that for our games, so I would stop him while things were still fun. Zack’s parents stayed at our place for a week, and then they went off to fight the Demon Lord’s army. From asking around, I heard that the Kingdom of Malika got invaded and a big battle was happening there. If the good guys won, things would be peaceful for a while. “A while? Not forever?” I asked my mom. “As long as the Demon Lord is around, we won’t have lasting peace. It’ll be very difficult. But even a short while of peace is worth fighting for, you know?” She had a sad look in her eyes. “Okay, then I’ll defeat the Demon Lord!” I said, thinking that would cheer her up. “Oh, really…?” An ambivalent expression crossed her face. “Ares, take care of Zack, would you?” Zack’s parents said to me before they set out. “Of course! Leave it to me!’ I was being asked a favor by two people I respected. Obviously, I was going to say yes. After that, Zack’s parents hugged him tenderly for a long time. Watching them, I got this vague feeling that I’d never see them again. The next day, I got my friends in the village together and started practicing swordplay with wooden sticks. “We’re gonna beat the Demon Lord!” I was serious about it, and my friends were on board. Zack included, of course. We were only waving wooden sticks around, but it felt like we were full-fledged adventurers. I wanted to be a warrior just like Zack’s father. I was going to show off to everyone the same sword skills he’d shown me. But then… “I’m bored, Ares. Let’s do something else,” one of my friends said about a month after we started training. The others agreed. “Yeah, Ares is too strong. It’s not fun anymore.” Over time, it seemed, the skill difference between us had grown too much for them to stay entertained. Sure, I did feel that there was a noticeable gap. I had improved the most—but maybe that was because the others weren’t even practicing. They just saw it as an extension of play. Zack was the only one who took it seriously. “Okay… Fine…,” I said. I stopped practicing with everyone except Zack. We lived in the village chief’s house, and my mother and father were both educated, so Zack and I were taught how to read and write as well. I picked it up immediately and devoured the books in the house. Zack learned how to read quite a while after that. In those books, there were stories about the Heroes. According to them, the Heroes couldn’t just use swords; they could wield attack magic as well as a mage could and healing magic as well as a priest. “Okay, I’m gonna learn magic!” To me, it was all simple. The Hero defeated the Demon Lord, so of course I had to learn magic. The magic tomes that Zack’s mother had used for her own studies were lying around, but they were too difficult for me to learn from, so I went to the village church. “You’d like me to teach you healing magic?” the priest asked me. This village’s priest was still young, and he had a gentle, frail air about him. “Yep! I wanna be the Hero!” “The Hero? Oh, I see. The Hero.” The priest gave it a bit of thought, then said, “Go get your father’s permission first, okay? Then I can show you the basics. You see, in this day and age, you’re only supposed to teach healing magic to aspiring priests.” His smile was tender and kind. I wasted no time getting home and telling Dad about it. “Healing magic? I thought that only the chosen people can use it…but, well, if the priest is willing to show you the ropes, then go ahead and give it a try.” My dad didn’t seem to think I was cut out for it. Still, I got his permission, so Zack and I went back to the church and received the priest’s training. That said, he only taught me the basic prayer and the attitude you were meant to take when praying. “First, you must sense God’s presence. If you become conscious of Him, then your prayers will naturally gain power.” According to the priest, those who became priests could sense God’s presence. To put it another way, people became priests because they sensed God. Since I’d never felt anything of the sort in my life, I settled for reciting prayers over and over. Zack did the same. As we were hard at work, a friend came over. “What are you doing?” he asked me. “Practicing healing spells.” “Healing spells? Are you gonna be a priest, Ares?” “I’m gonna be the Hero. Not a priest.” “Is praying gonna make you able to do healing spells?” “If I do it while sensing God, yeah.” “Oh, cool. Teach me, too.” “Why?” “Farmwork is a huge pain. It’d be cool to be a priest or someone who can sit around praying all day.” While I didn’t think much of this friend’s motive, I did tell him how to pray. After that, a bunch of my other friends came over, and we all got to praying. They had the same idea that being a priest was “respectable and easy.” We kept at it for a few days, but eventually, some of my friends dropped out. I wasn’t surprised; all we were doing was reciting the words of some easy prayers. It wasn’t very fun, and nothing happened, either. Only Zack and I were left at the end. To be honest, I wanted to quit as well, but Zack kept at it so seriously. It made me wonder if he was trying to learn healing magic so he could go to his parents. When I thought of it that way, I couldn’t bring myself to stop. Months later, word of the battle in Malika reached our village. Our country’s forces, led by General Müller, fought hard and succeeded in driving off the Demon Lord’s army, but they were too slow to arrive. The Kingdom of Malika had already fallen. Not a single one of the mercenaries who had volunteered on the front lines survived. On the night we heard what had happened, Mom and Dad said to Zack and me, “Zack is one of us from now on.” Zack nodded silently. Later that night, I heard him crying quietly in bed. As I listened to his faint sobbing in the next room, I offered a prayer to his parents. Up until that point, I hadn’t understood the meaning of the prayer’s words one bit. I’d just been reciting them without really feeling them. The first time I prayed for someone else’s sake, a dim light grew in my clasped hands. Having succeeded in creating my first divine miracle, however slight it was, I went to the church the next morning and showed the priest my accomplishment. “Amazing. To be perfectly honest, I thought you wouldn’t be able to do it. That is indeed a divine miracle.” The priest praised me as he patted me on the head. “However…I’m sorry to say this, but it doesn’t feel all that strong. Even if you do learn how to use healing magic, I suspect you’ll only be able to master the basic spells. Are you still willing to continue?” I nodded without hesitation. After a few more months of instruction from the priest, I was able to use simple healing magic. Zack took the lessons along with me, but unfortunately, he was never able to manifest a divine miracle. The fact that I could use healing magic spread like wildfire across the village. Well, to be more precise, my grandfather, who was the village chief at the time, bragged about it to everyone he met. According to Dad, my grandfather had been just as boastful when Zack’s mother learned magic. Thanks to my reputation, the villagers came to me whenever they had small injuries. It was opportunistic of them, sure, but I was grateful to practice my healing magic. Just as the priest warned me, though, I hit my ceiling quickly. I could only use the most rudimentary of spells; no higher miracles manifested for me. Honestly, I got the impression that this was going to be completely useless, so I decided to learn attack magic instead. Another reason for this was because I thought that Zack was getting nowhere with healing magic. I figured he’d be better off with attack magic, seeing as his mother had been a mage. When I told him as much, he replied, “Okay, if you say so. I’ll come with.” There was some reluctance in his voice, which made me think he was still a little attached to healing magic, but together, we got into studying attack magic. We started off by learning to read the ancient script, which was necessary for understanding the magic tomes. The books that Zack’s mother had used were still around, so the both of us put our all into our studies. It was the talk of town that we were studying attack magic. Hearing the rumors, my friends once again asked if they could learn it along with me. Apparently, they thought, People who can use magic get a lot of respect. But since they couldn’t even read or write, they had to start with learning basic literacy before they could get into the ancient language. Then, and only then, could they read the magic tomes. Daunted by this long road, my friends quickly folded. My magic studies continued for a long time. This was partly because it was so difficult, but I also had my sword training and chores to do around the house. Since I was squeezing in my studies between other tasks, I didn’t have much to show for my efforts straight away. I successfully cast my first spell when I was twelve. It’d taken over five years. If Zack hadn’t been there studying alongside me, I would never have made it that far. Sadly, though, Zack was never able to use magic himself. It was around this time that the Demon Lord’s army started another invasion, and the monsters became more numerous and aggressive. Even the villages formed their own defense groups, and the people took up arms. Zack and I were no exceptions, but since I’d been training with the sword the whole time, I was a lot better at it than the adults. I was even able to take down the monsters that occasionally appeared near the village. Thanks to this and my abilities with attack and healing magic, people treated me like some kind of genius. My grandfather went around telling people that I was “Hero material.” But I didn’t agree. I knew Zack’s parents. My sword skills couldn’t match up to Zack’s father, nor would my spells put a dent on those of Zack’s mother. My healing magic wasn’t as good as the priest’s, either. Basically, I was mediocre at everything. I had no idea how I was meant to beat the Demon Lord with my second-rate abilities. And then the worst possible thing happened: A Prophet appeared in town. “A Hero will emerge from this village and defeat the Demon Lord,” they declared before a crowd of villagers. Everyone turned to me. Stop it! Don’t look at me with those eyes! I wanted to shout. There was no way I could defeat the Demon Lord. I was trembling, and my knees threatened to give out beneath me. When I turned my gaze to Zack for help, he was staring straight at the Prophet. Zack was the only one who didn’t expect someone else to do it all for him. It seemed to me as if he was trying to bring out his own Hero potential. Come to think of it, he never once gave up on learning swordplay or magic, even if he wasn’t as good at those things as I was. Seeing him, I felt a sense of calm return to me. In the end, I was propped up as the Hero, and I silently accepted the call. I talked things through with my parents and decided that my first stop would be the capital, where I would enroll in Falm Academy. Fortunately, my parents were levelheaded about everything, and they knew I couldn’t beat the Demon Lord straight away. In fact, they seemed to doubt I was the Hero at all, but they couldn’t just say so while all the villagers were in a fervor. My grandfather was even ready to hold a banquet. From that day on, I stopped doing chores and poured everything into my sword and magic training. I took the initiative to slay monsters. I was like a desperate madman, struggling to the death. I couldn’t help but worry about the future, but fortunately, Zack was always with me. Even if he never excelled at anything, he was always doing his best right there at my side. Seeing him cheered me on. I had no idea whether I could become the Hero, but I got the feeling that it didn’t just take sword skills or magic to be the one. Somehow, Zack felt like the perfect fit.