"By the way, what about the other team?"
With preparations finished, Kuon and Kanon walked toward the city gate alongside their two new team members.
The journey to the village of Notarn would be made on horseback. Accounting for rest stops along the way, they should arrive by nightfall. Vierra already understood the situation, but she was still curious about the team they would be working alongside. Kuon hadn't said anything about them yet.
Kuon closed his eyes and tightened his tie as he kept walking, then opened them when he answered. "I don't know much about them either, but it's a mixed team of men and women, all Czanktian. I've heard they're experienced, and I hope that's true."
In truth, Kuon hadn't even seen them at all. He hadn't been interested in digging deeper, and had only asked for the information he needed from the UAA office staff.
Looking at the team's track record, there shouldn't be any problems if they had to work together. And even if there were, he could still handle it himself.
Once they reached the gate, Kuon immediately directed his gaze toward the team that had gathered. Five people in total, three men and two women, all Czanktian. They seemed to have been waiting for a while, because upon seeing Kuon's group, they finally let out a collective breath.
'A large man with a sword and an axe….'
Having spotted the person matching the description the UAA staff had given him, Kuon walked straight over. over. The man seemed to have the same idea.
They shook hands immediately, and Kuon opened the conversation right away. "My apologies for the delay. Did you wait long?"
Kuon's formal manner of speaking made the man pause for a moment, but he quickly composed himself and gave a slight shake of his head. "Not at all. Are you Kuon…."
He seemed to be struggling to pronounce the name, so Kuon decided to help. "Kuon de Ataraxia? Yes, that's me."
"Ahh, right. I'm Humarc, and these are my team members."
The man—Humarc—turned and gestured to everyone waiting behind him. Kuon only glanced at them briefly, then smiled when greeting them. The others, perhaps still not used to it, could only nod in response.
"I'd like to take the time to get to know all of you, but I believe we don't have much time right now. So… shall we head out immediately?"
"Ahh, of course." Humarc nodded several times as Kuon walked back to where his team was waiting.
"… Should I compliment you? You really did put a lot of pressure on them back there."
Laughing softly, Vierra nudged Kuon as he rejoined them. She fully understood what Humarc and his team must have felt when faced with Kuon. Anyone would get the sense that someone like Kuon simply didn't belong in a place and situation like this, so the awkwardness was ultimately unavoidable.
Kuon glanced at Vierra briefly, then scoffed. "And I should probably compliment you for managing to act normally around me earlier."
Though he hadn't said it outright, Kuon's assessment of Vierra was 'someone thick-skinned who doesn't hesitate when socializing'. What might have sounded like sarcasm was in fact a compliment. Kuon was genuinely grateful that Vierra's presence wouldn't make things awkward.
The horses they would be using were rentals, already arranged by the UAA when they took this mission. The horses were already 'parked' by the roadside, calmly chewing grass as Kuon and his team approached.
Three in total, and that number made Vierra hesitate. "Aren't there four of us?"
"You want Kanon to ride alone? I didn't realize you were so cruel, Miss Yvina."
"Wait—that's not what I meant! I'm sorry, Kanon!"
Vierra's face flushed slightly as she turned to Kanon in a panic. Kanon, for her part, only let out a small laugh. "Hehe, it's fine. Kuon, you're too mischievous—don't tease Vierra."
The atmosphere seemed to lighten as Kuon formed a faint thin smile on his face. Already mounted on his horse, he extended his hand to Kanon and helped her up.
"Ughh…."
Vierra was still grumbling as she mounted her own horse. But her face immediately returned to normal when she heard soft laughter beside her. She turned and looked at Felix with displeasure. "What?" she said, her face still faintly flushed.
"Nothing, nothing. It's just… I'm glad everyone seems to be getting along now."
Felix smiled and tightened his grip on the reins. His demeanor only made Vierra exhale with weary resignation. "Felix, you should also work on that antisocial problem of yours. Try talking to Kuon and Kanon yourself—don't always rely on me, or you'll never grow."
At that rebuke, Felix could only smile wryly. "I'll try. I'm glad Kuon and Miss d'Nearnt turned out to be fairly approachable. But… I'm still a little intimidated by Kuon—he seems too extraordinary for someone like me."
Vierra's owl ears twitched once as she heard it. She exhaled again for what felt like the hundredth time. "There it is—your inferiority complex. I hope you can work on it before this team is disbanded."
"… I'll try."
Their horses kept moving as the light conversation continued. Vierra looked ahead to where Kuon was focused on steering the horse, while Kanon sat before him, casually leaning back against his chest. The atmosphere was so calm and unguarded, as though they had long grown used to each other's presence.
'Well, anyone would hesitate to slip into a world with an atmosphere like that….'
Vierra found herself smiling without realizing it, thinking about what kind of 'mischief' she could pull on them later.
***
They arrived at the village of Notarn just as the sky began to darken, exactly as expected.
Upon arrival, Kuon and Humarc immediately headed to the village chief's house for further confirmation regarding their mission there, but… it seemed that didn't go well.
Only the team representatives had gone in, while their members had to wait outside. Vierra and Felix, sitting with bored expressions, noticed Kanon's face slowly shifting to unease.
"What's wrong?"
From outside, Kanon might have only appeared to be closing her eyes as that uncomfortable expression emerged. Seeing it like that, people might first think she was having a bad dream in a short nap. But the reality was she was checking her own stream.
Kanon opened her eyes again, unsure how to put it. She also needed to prepare an answer for how she could know what was happening inside.
As Kanon was trying to piece her words together, they saw Kuon and Humarc come back out. Kuon immediately approached his team members who gathered around him, and understood the situation at once upon seeing the uneasy expression on Kanon's face.
"What were you discussing inside?"
Though it was very faint, Kanon could see a hint of irritation forming on Kuon's face as he tried to answer. "The situation here may be somewhat different from what we were told by the UAA, so I want all of you to be ready for a fight."
The core of their mission was surveillance and area defense. By that logic, they would fight monsters when the time came. Kuon had already confirmed this when he reviewed the history of Black Tide activity around this village.
If his estimate was right and the UAA's information was accurate, there shouldn't be any fighting until the final days. But that was precisely where the problem lay.
Kanon and Felix tilted their heads in confusion as they tried to follow Kuon's vague explanation. Vierra, on the other hand, nodded with a serious face at once. The owl ears atop her head visibly twitched once. From how she was reacting, she had probably just heard the conversation happening in the other team, Kuon thought as he glanced toward Humarc who was now discussing with his own team.
Both teams had already divided their respective patrol areas, and it was in that manner that Kuon's team arrived at this situation.
It was the first night, so Kuon divided the guard schedule into two rotations: Felix and Vierra would take the first four hours, while Kuon and Kanon would take the following four. This was the rotation they would maintain until morning.
***
There were no issues during the first four hours of guard duty. With that, Felix and Vierra could head straight into their respective tents and rest until their next shift arrived.
It was now midnight. Kanon, still looking drowsy, crawled out of her tent feeling her way around, unable to see anything.
During the day, she could still make out the shadows and faint outlines she normally used as reference points for moving around. But in a night full of darkness, her vision was completely paralyzed. Even her ability to see Aether flows wasn't much use in a situation like this.
Darkness was a situation that left her helpless. That was why she had never tried to get out of bed at night. But fortunately, this time she had Kuon by her side.
The moment Kanon heard the sharp sound of the chimes at Kuon's belt, she immediately moved toward the sound. Whether by coincidence or not, the chimes always seemed to ring whenever Kanon was struggling with navigation.
Kuon was currently sitting on a large log positioned facing the campfire. And thanks to the campfire casting a faint glow into Kanon's vision, she was able to reach where Kuon was sitting smoothly without either of them needing to say a word.
Kanon sat down beside Kuon, leaving a fairly wide gap between them, and stared blankly at the campfire.
She had just woken up, so her mind wasn't fully running yet. But gradually, her thoughts came back online and she grew more aware of everything around her, including Kuon who was likely running experiments alone in the silence.
"What are you working on with that?"
Kanon finally couldn't hold herself back from asking. Her eyes were focused on the object in Kuon's hands, which kept receiving a flow of Aether from him.
Kuon hesitated slightly before answering, but quickly swept the unhelpful thoughts from his head and replied. "Just a small experiment… do you know about transmutation? I'm trying to carry it out right now."
"Transmutation… I may have heard it before, but I don't know what it is."
"Simply put… it's the process of changing one element into another. Normally it's a term from chemistry and physics, but I'm trying to apply its theory to metallurgical technique… I mean, metal."
"You mean you're trying to change that metal into a different metal?"
Kanon had heard something similar from a fairy tale someone had read to her in the past, about a young wizard who possessed alchemical powers. But in that fairy tale, the wizard was able to create gold out of nothing.
When Kanon told Kuon about it, Kuon could only smile faintly and give her a slight nod. "More or less. In artificial elemental transmutation on Earth, a nuclear reaction is required to make it happen, but I might be able to work around that with magic here."
"… Is that even possible?"
Kanon voiced her doubt after thinking for a moment. She closed her eyes and scanned the string of comments showing their interest in what Kuon had just said. Naturally, Kuon had no way of knowing that.
"In theory, I should be able to. But the practice is another matter. So far, my method of controlling metal with magic is to break its structure down to the atomic level and reconstruct it. All of that follows logical processes like melting and hardening, everything occurring on a conceptual level carried out by Aether in accordance with my thoughts. Using the same process, I'm thinking of altering its atomic sequence. If that works, I could genuinely transform one metal into another… sorry, is this difficult to follow?"
Kuon hadn't talked about anything metallurgy-related in a long time, so he had inevitably gotten caught up in it and explained everything. But it was clear that might have been a little much for Kanon, who was now wearing a puzzled face.
"It's alright, I enjoyed hearing it. So, have you made any progress?"
"Unfortunately not. I've actually hit a wall right now, and I'm fairly certain the root of the problem is 'magic control'. On that note, I wanted to ask—how have you been using your magic up until now?"
"This… you might be surprised to hear it, but… I don't formulate anything in my head when I use magic at all. If anything, it's more like I manifest the magic I imagine, and my Aether helps bring it into being."
Kanon then added, "At first I couldn't use magic at all, even though I could see Aether directly. It felt like my magic only awakened when I realized I had been kidnapped at that camp."
"Everything also happened suddenly, and I may have done it without realizing."
At that moment, even though she had thoughts of ending her life there, her will to live—backed by her survival instinct—seemed to do everything it could to keep Kanon alive. If she had to describe the sensation she felt then, perhaps it would be…
"It's as though I unconsciously channeled my own Aether, and it followed a will I wasn't even aware of."
That was why Kanon's way of using magic before she learned magic control felt inexplicable—because she truly had only been using it on pure instinct. Only recently, since learning how to control it, could she use it with more conscious awareness.
Kuon tried to process that answer, while Kanon, worried her explanation hadn't been good enough, tried to give an example.
Her gaze fell to Kuon's hands—specifically on the object receiving a supply of Aether from him. A moment later, the piece of metal was enveloped in a thin layer of frost, before finally freezing completely into a thick block of ice.
"Just now, I used magic consciously—starting from moving my Aether, to performing elemental manipulation on it. I've been able to do this since I learned how to control magic. Before that, I could only do it roughly without being able to control it directly—everything was handled by Aether following my will without letting my conscious mind intervene."
"But perhaps the biggest difference in how our magic works is that I also use the Aether around me, and not just my own Aether."
Kuon gave an immediate nod. "That's why your magic tends to have effects over a wide area…."
The method Kanon used was more or less similar to what many people in this world used, except she had applied it in her own way—since she had never had anyone to teach her from the start, she had filled the gaps in her knowledge with whatever worked best for her.
Right now, what Kanon was focusing her training on was input-output control of her magic. Because with her current method, she had no real control over the amount of Aether she used, meaning she could easily overuse her magic uncontrollably—especially given her extraordinarily large Aether capacity.
Kuon winced, laughing softly with a sour face for having asked the wrong person. His own method wasn't so different, but their understanding and way of applying it were vastly different. Unlike Kanon, who had the distinct advantage of being able to see Aether flows, Kuon could only sense Aether vaguely. On top of that, the magic they each used was quite different at a fundamental level.
Kanon used elemental magic, which fell under the organic-type. Beyond that, she could use it even at an instinctual level. Kuon, meanwhile, used specific magic like material manipulation, which fell under the 'chemical' type. And unlike Kanon, he still had to perform detailed calculations to use his magic.
In short, Kanon was too much of a genius to teach anyone. Her talent was something natural—something even Kuon hadn't yet been able to fully understand.
But from Kanon's explanation, he finally understood—it wasn't a lack of talent, but the fact that the method itself simply didn't suit him. Activating magic with his current method gave Kuon a flaw because the activation sequence wasn't suited to him.
"In that case… I may need to develop a different method…."
Kuon exhaled as he crushed the block of ice in his hand with grip strength alone.
But for now, he would have to be patient and keep using the current method, even if it was extremely wasteful and inefficient for him. He also still had to find other forms of application for his miracle manipulation ability.
"Oh right, Vierra is a Magician, isn't she? Do you think we could ask for her help?"
The moment Kuon brought up the idea of asking Vierra for help, a flash of displeasure crossed Kanon's face.
"… What?"
Kuon asked, a puzzled look in his eyes. Kanon, meanwhile, exhaled a long sigh as though she had just done something mentally and physically exhausting.
"Nothing. It's just that it feels a little hurtful after I explained everything at such length, and now you're looking for another teacher. I'm sorry if my method doesn't suit you."
Kuon was briefly speechless, his face tired as he puzzled over how to handle Kanon and her ever-shifting moods. In the end, silence settled over them again.
After a while, Kuon finally gave in and wrapped up his experiment early, then rose from his seat. "I'll do a quick patrol—can you keep watch here on your own?"
Kanon was briefly puzzled, then remembered the tense atmosphere when Kuon and Humarc had come out of the village chief's house earlier.
She nodded and began spreading her Aether, ready to use magic at any moment.
"Good. I'll be back soon. Keep watching this place."
Kuon left the camp and began patrolling along the predetermined route. And midway through his patrol, he encountered that figure again.
"I'm fairly certain this is my patrol zone. What are you doing here, Humarc?"
The large man—Humarc—turned around at once. Panic colored his face when he saw Kuon standing calmly in place.