“Nom.”
“Wh-what! What are you eating right now!”
Crunch, crunch. A chilling sound echoed through the room. Van was horrified and reached out toward Rowy.
“Mmph.”
“Spit it out. Spit! Why are you chewing on a stone!”
Van’s fingers roughly scraped inside Rowy’s mouth. Rowy shook his head desperately, but he couldn’t escape Van’s hand.
“Mmph!”
Large fingers mercilessly stirred inside his mouth. Physiological tears fell in drops each time Rowy shook his head. Van, who had been frantically shoving his fingers in, was startled by those tears and withdrew his hand.
“Are you alri—I mean, why are you eating stones!”
Rowy began coughing as if something had gone down the wrong way. Van hastily offered water, but Rowy swatted it away. Van anxiously rubbed Rowy’s back until he calmed down.
“Ugh.”
“I’m sorry. I was just so surprised.”
Eyes brimming with tears glanced at Van resentfully. At that gaze, Van unconsciously knelt before Rowy and examined him.
“Are you alright? Magic stones—are those meant to be eaten? No, that can’t be right.”
“I didn’t eat a stone. I was trying to absorb mana.”
“……”
This was the first time he’d heard of absorbing mana by chewing magic stones. Even with no knowledge of magic, he could tell that statement was absurd. No, was he even a mage in the first place? Van surveyed Rowy with distrustful eyes.
Mages. Literally, those who use magic. The countless artifacts they created could be found here and there quite commonly. Even on the current stage, the auction was being conducted with a voice amplification artifact.
However, meeting an actual mage was never easy. Most of them were people who devoted their entire lives to research in the Magic Tower. Mages had no interest in anything besides magical research. Eyes gone bad from long research, stress-induced hair loss, a hunched back from lack of exercise—this was the image of mages.
But wasn’t the person before him far too distant from that? Eyes that looked like gems had been embedded directly into them, beautifully rippling silver-blond hair, and that captivating neckline he couldn’t take his eyes off of, the spine stretching straight along it, and below that, the pale and round…
‘Crazy.’
He must be going crazy. After going on about a child until just now. Van punched his own head. He hit it so hard that something made a bursting sound. However, whether a head burst right in front of him or not, all of Rowy’s attention was focused on one place.
Rowy’s gaze turned toward the remaining magic stones. Among the large and small magic stones, one the size of a fist caught his eye. Gulp. A tingling taste lingered in his mouth. Without realizing it, he swallowed his saliva. Seeing that, Van was horrified and grabbed Rowy’s hand.
“Don’t tell me you’re going to eat that big one too?!”
“Are you stupid? That won’t fit in my mouth.”
Rowy looked at Van pathetically. Well… it wouldn’t all fit in that small mouth. Filled up with just his fingers, panting, that reddened tongue burning hot… Van turned pale at the suddenly progressing imagination.
Since when was it? Since when did he become such a pervert? Something had been strange since he heard about bedroom slaves last time. He was sure he treated him like a younger sibling at first… No, he thought of him as a child until just now! This was all because of the master who kept clinging to him asking to have his clothes changed. Though he wondered if this was something to blame on others! Van shook his head and quickly dispelled the inappropriate thoughts.
“Ahem, just because it fits in your mouth doesn’t mean you should eat everything. In the first place, I’ve never heard of absorbing mana by eating magic stones.”
“I didn’t eat it because I wanted to either….”
Rowy replied blankly. It wasn’t like Rowy found chewing stones pleasant either. He had simply been trying to ingest mana. The cause of the headaches that had been gradually worsening since leaving the island was…
‘As I thought, it seems to be mana deficiency.’
Chewing the magic stone lessened his headache slightly from the absorbed mana. However, this was far from enough. Mana coming from outside did convert into internal mana, but there was too much loss during that process.
Mages are those who accumulate mana within their bodies through training. And they refine that mana into a usable state to complete magic. This is a more delicate and complex task than one might think, so ordinary mages would store mana in advance in their own magical tools and use magic. Then, with short incantations, or depending on the mage’s skill level, magic manifestation was possible even with silent casting.
Modern magic focused on how much refined mana one could handle, or how efficiently. Therefore, most mages transferred as much as possible to their magical tools rather than leaving mana in their bodies.
Rowy was the same. As an excellent mage, Rowy had a total of five magical tools. Two bracelets, two rings, and one necklace. However, currently, Rowy had left all his magical tools on the island.
As a high-ranking mage, Rowy had stored the maximum amount of mana in his magical tools and still had more internal mana remaining than ordinary mages. Therefore, he didn’t notice anything strange at first. However, after leaving the island, as time passed, Rowy belatedly realized that something was going wrong. The cause was… mana deficiency.
‘This is the first time I’ve been short on mana, so I had no idea.’
What reason would Rowy, who was called a genius mage, have to experience mana depletion?
‘So when you run out of mana, your head hurts….’
While Rowy was having dazed thoughts, he reached for the magic stones again. Seeing that, Van grabbed his arm with an expression that said he was dying to stop him.
‘I don’t want to eat them either.’
Rowy, who had pouted his lips, shook off Van’s hand. If he had used force, Rowy wouldn’t have been able to budge, but since Rowy said he had a reason, it seemed he was letting it slide. Currently, Rowy didn’t even have enough mana to process magic stones, so aside from the brutish method of putting unprocessed magic stones in his mouth, there was no way to ingest the mana from magic stones.
“……”
Rowy, who had been about to put the magic stone in his mouth again, saw Van’s trembling eyes and instead picked up a processed magic stone. Processed magic stones allowed mana absorption without having to chew them. Of course, the amount of mana was far less than unprocessed magic stones.
The magic stone in Rowy’s hand briefly emitted light before quickly dying to black. It was literally a brutish method. With no efficiency at all. But for now, this was the best option. Surely, having even a small amount of mana enter his body brought vitality. If he chewed and swallowed all the small magic stones and extracted mana from that large magic stone…
‘Even then, it won’t amount to much.’
It wouldn’t be a fundamental solution.
‘As expected, I should return to the island early tomorrow.’
Of course, even after returning, he’d have to think about what to do… Rowy’s eyes glowed red as he forcibly crammed external mana into his body.
* * *
“The next auction item—you’ve been waiting! It’s the Holy Sword Ignis!”
At that moment, at the voice coming from the stage, Rowy and Van’s heads turned toward the window. A sword wrapped in black cloth was displayed on the stage. People’s gazes gathered toward the stage.
“For customers from the Empire, the Elysion Temple must be unfamiliar! After all, there are many Solanis believers!”
Solanis was an order based in the Empire, and among the Empire’s nobles, there was a tradition of stopping by the Solanis temple to pray when the new year came. At such times, nobles would invariably offer generous donations, so Solanis had become wealthy along with the Empire’s prosperity.
With such an abundant source of funds, Solanis spread and spread, and currently, it was the most powerful temple on the continent. Rowy had actually just now learned for the first time that there were other orders besides Solanis.
“Elysion is a small order based in the neighboring country of Marzen. Since the Main Temple is used as a tourist site, if you’re in the area, you might stop by once!”
At those words, Rowy recalled Marzen, which he had crossed two years ago to come to Seraphila. However, he had no memory of the temple at all.
“Of course, you might be disappointed when you actually see it. It doesn’t have the splendor of the Solanis temples in the Empire. That’s because Elysion offers different tributes to their god instead of gold.”
The host deliberately looked around the audience for a few seconds before continuing.
“Specifically… demon blood.”
Low exclamations burst out. The host added gestures, speaking as if performing.
“The Elysion Order has only one goal, specifically… demon extermination! Elysion Temple is a temple established solely with the goal of demon annihilation!”
‘Demon extermination?’
“This small order’s pride is precisely their Holy Knights. Those raised from childhood for the Great Demon War—each one’s martial prowess is said to match Imperial Knights. And the sword permitted only to that Holy Knight Commander is… this sword!”
Flash—the spotlight turned on.
“The sword said to burn demons to death with holy flames! The only earthly weapon capable of killing demons! The Holy Sword Ignis!”
The host dramatically swept away the cloth. Immersed, Rowy unconsciously leaned forward.
