By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 6 - Chapter 17

Chapter 4 Episode 17: The Leader Saw It 1

~Roche’s Side~

“Uh, so yeah, the matches start at 3 p.m. It’ll happen in the plains over there, and Ryoma’s going to make seats to watch the fights from. Just look for those when you’re trying to find where to go. You’re not forced to watch, though. I’m sure some of you haven’t finished your jobs yet, so you can focus on that if you choose. If you have finished your jobs, though, feel free to watch. It’s all up to you. That’s all, dismissed!”

After the morning meeting, some students immediately went off, while some stayed around to talk for a while.

“Roche, do you have a moment?”

“What do you need, Lucas?”

“I made a chart of all the match-ups. Does this look fine to you?”

Lucas handed me a document that listed pairs of combatants and their weapons.

“Man, your handwriting is always so tiny. So with ten people, we’ve got five fights... Looks fine to me. We can follow this order too.”

“Then I’ll tell the participants when their turns are.”

“Thanks. By the way, what do you think of the group this time around?”

“Their skills are still lacking, but there are a lot of enthusiastic students. And maybe it’s because Ryoma’s here, but having a kid their age or younger working as a teacher like the adults seems to be making a lot of them self-conscious.”

“Probably. A lot of adventurers are cocky, and seeing Ryoma would have to humble them.”

“Is that why you let them all know about Ryoma at the carriages on the first day?”

“That was more because it’d be tough to do his job if they thought less of him for his age. He doesn’t really seem like one to assert himself much, either. Though he’s definitely got the skills.”

Looking at his base, I knew how skilled he had to be with earth magic, plus how much magical energy he needed to build it. You could find an adult with the same skill if you searched for them, but locating another kid Ryoma’s age who could do that would be a challenge. And if it had to be someone who would end up with plenty of magical energy left to spare after they built it, there’d be far fewer of those people. He was well above average for his age, and yet he still seemed to have room to grow.

“Hey, Lucas, you heard how Ryoma said he’s still working on his magic? His real talent’s with close combat; same as us, apparently.”

“What? But he’s using a bow in his match today.”

“Yeah, I asked him to use a bow. I heard he’s good with plenty of weapons. Don’t know how skilled he is, but he sounded confident, so probably more skilled than with magic.”

“It’s terrifying to think he’s still got growing to do.”

“That’s why I’m worried.”

“About what?”

“You know what the guildmaster told me before this meetup, right? About how he’s having Ryoma join and he wants me to look after him?”

“I heard that, yeah.”

“Now that I think about it, maybe he was implying something there.” He was strong and had plenty of camping experience; he was calm and collected. I was told all of that. “I thought the guildmaster was just saying that as a formality, but now that I’m seeing Ryoma myself, I feel like he was telling me something. Ryoma still doesn’t really have allies. He’s joined temporary parties for jobs a few times, but that’s it.”

“What, so you’re supposed to put together a party for Ryoma? Sure, they’re all new to adventuring, and he doesn’t have that much more experience at the job than the other kids, but he’s so much more skilled. He has to know that.”

I fully understood what Lucas meant. Any party was going to have differences in the strength of its members, but too much of a difference could easily lead to problems down the line. That tendency was even worse with young people.

“I can’t get behind pairing Ryoma up with the students here, either. The guildmaster probably feels the same way, so he must have meant something else. Maybe it’s more just that we should convince Ryoma to want to join a party.”

“You sure you’re not overthinking things? He hasn’t even been registered with the guild for a year. Doing jobs on your own can be dangerous, but he used to live in the forest by himself. I don’t think we need to be leading him around in such a roundabout way. Or is there some other reason for this?”

“I don’t know either.” So he said, but I had a feeling that there was another reason. “But he saved my friends’ lives, so I want to help him out if I can. That’s not a job I’ve officially taken, though, so my work here takes priority. If the guildmaster’s not being clear with me, he’s probably got his reasons. Unless he just forgot to say something.”

“You’re not wrong.”

In any case, I needed to get my job done.

■ ■ ■

That afternoon, I went to ask Ryoma about seating for the fights.

“How does this look?” he asked.

“This should be plenty.”

Just lining up some chairs would have been enough, but Ryoma set up three rows of chairs large enough to recline in, and they were at different elevations so that the viewers in the back wouldn’t be blocked by the heads of those in the front. Not only that, but they were reinforced by leveling out and hardening the ground beneath them to create a foundation they sat on. There were also railings to prevent falling from the seats and, to make for safer viewing, there was a barrier against any stray arrows or magic. Much of this wasn’t even requested, but Ryoma looked satisfied with his work, so I didn’t bring it up.

“But you’re fighting too, you know. You sure you should’ve used that much magical energy, Ryoma?” Even if he wasn’t out of energy, this must have exhausted him to some extent. I thought it might have an impact on his fighting, but he still had energy to spare, much like after he built that house of his. “Crazy how you can build something like this and still be fine. You’ve got a ton of magical energy.”

“Thank you. In a competition of magical energy, I’m confident that I wouldn’t lose so easily.” He was usually a pretty reserved guy, so he must have seriously had a load.

“Oh, yeah. Ryoma, I was wondering something. Why’d you want to become an adventurer?” Now that I thought about it, I didn’t know much about him. I’d heard about him from my allies and the guildmaster, but I’d only met him myself recently. “Some want money, some want fame, but you’re different, aren’t you? If you just wanted money, you’ve got your laundromat. Plus, considering you’ve got all this magical energy and can even use barrier spells, even your young age wouldn’t prevent you from working as a magician for any number of places. You don’t have to risk your life being an adventurer, so I’m kind of curious, is all. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“I don’t mind telling you, but I don’t have much of a reason. Back when I registered, I guess you could say that becoming an adventurer was the goal in itself. I was confident in the skills I picked up from living in the forest, so I thought it’d be a convenient way for me to move up in the world. And maybe it’s clichéd, but I sort of yearned to be an adventurer. My grandparents used to be adventurers, after all. Oh, and I like how much freedom this job provides.”

“I see.”

Yearning was a common reason for young people; it made sense considering his age. He was a bit more of a realist in some of what he said, but that could hardly be considered a flaw.

“Roche, may I ask a question of you?”

“Can’t promise I’ll know the answer, but go ahead.”

“When you said there were a lot of places where I could be a magician, you made it sound like barrier magic was particularly important. Does it have a big influence on job opportunities?”

“What? You know barrier magic, and yet you didn’t know that?”

“I know that it’s difficult magic to learn, more so than most. But I’m ashamed to admit that I lived outside society for so long, I’m ignorant about a few things.”

“Well, simply put, it demands more skill than the elemental magic we typically use. When magical energy leaves the body, it disappears. You know that, right?” He nodded. I figured he’d know the basics. “But the caster can control the energy and keep it from disappearing. These are the fundamentals when it comes to magic, but you don’t have to think about it too much when you use elemental magic; you can just expel the magical energy and use it before it disappears. It won’t be as powerful otherwise, so you’d need to do better than that to be a proper mage, but that’s another story.”

Barrier magic involved creating walls against assorted objects by using magical energy, usually for defensive purposes. While offensive magic only needed to function for an instant, barriers were best projected for as long as possible.

“So you have to keep your magical energy from disappearing and hold it in place. You need great control of your magical energy as a minimum requirement for using barrier magic. You’d need to at least be able to use mid-level elemental spells to meet that minimum requirement. But strictly speaking, skill with elemental magic and skill with magical energy control are two separate things. Just being able to use mid-level spells doesn’t necessarily mean you can use barrier magic. How’d you learn it?”

“My grandmother taught me.”

“If she could use barrier magic, she was a pretty rare sort of adventurer.”

“Seems like it would be useful for camping and whatnot, though.”

“It would be, but the threshold for learning it is high. You had someone who could teach you, but if you hadn’t, you’d have had to go looking for a mentor. Then you’d have needed to train under them until you got competent with barrier magic, which takes time. And barrier magicians are always in demand from the rich, so you’d usually be hired along with your mentor. Even if that wasn’t the case, there’d be plenty of people hiring elsewhere. So most people who learn barrier magic don’t bother to become adventurers; they have easier ways to make a living. You can already use barrier magic, and even if you’re inexperienced with it, you’ve got plenty of potential, considering your age. So if you really look for a mentor, I think you’d find one with relatively little work. And either way, your ability to use barrier magic shows that your control over magical energy is above average. You should be able to land a pretty good magic-related job if you look for one. That’s about all I know about that, though. If you want to learn more, go ask Lucy or Mimir. I just did some research on this so I could answer questions for students, but magic is what those two specialize in.”

“Thank you, that was very helpful!”

He got really bright-eyed for some reason. Some of what I said was pretty common knowledge, but it didn’t seem like he was just pretending not to already know these things to be nice. Speaking of which, he looked at me the same way when I answered his questions before. I thought he was calm and knowledgeable for his age, but he was oddly lacking in some areas in a worrisome way. Maybe this was what the guildmaster wanted to tell me?