The swift river flowed on. She would not halt her urgent course merely because two people had died on one small stretch of her bank.
To a river that had surged along for countless years, their deaths were merely two of the innumerable, insignificant incidents that had taken place along its shores.
Kozmo's corpse still bobbed gently in the water at Leo's feet.
The black clouds in his Soul Sea left Leo dizzy and unsteady. He shook his head, but the discomfort showed no sign of easing.
Perhaps the black clouds would disappear only after he completed the Intimidation ritual.
Once he had adjusted to the sensation somewhat, Leo freed Kozmo's toes, which had dug deep into the silt during his convulsions, then shoved the body toward the middle of the river.
Clad in his gray-blue cadet uniform, Kozmo floated facedown toward the riverbed, his white hair fanning out around him. The swift current soon swept him away and out of Leo's sight.
Leo hurried over to retrieve the round shield and longsword Kozmo had removed. He returned to the bank and hurled both far out into the river.
The iron shield and sword struck the bottom with a thunk, producing a muffled splash.
A drowning man would try to shed anything heavy, so it made perfect sense for the metal weapons to lie somewhere along the riverbed.
Leo went to the bushes and pulled out several stiff branches, fashioning them into a crude broom. He used a Cipher spell to loosen the earth on the riverbank, then started at the farthest point and swept away footprints and other traces as he backed toward the water.
By the time he had retreated into the river, he could see no major flaws in the scene before him. He casually tossed the makeshift broom into the current as well.
Drawing the dagger from his ankle, he patiently cut the parchment scroll into pieces no larger than a fingernail, then scattered them into the river in several batches.
The dark green writing on the parchment had already vanished, but Leo decided to destroy the scroll anyway.
Once everything was done, he leaned back and let the current carry him onward, floating faceup.
After becoming a D-grade Cipher Mage, Leo's abilities had improved considerably.
For example, he could use a spell to reduce a material's density to thirty percent of its original value. This was known as the Featherlight spell, and it made the round shield and longsword on his back much lighter.
He had heard that a high-grade Featherlight spell could easily move any rock on a mountain capable of rolling.
Leo had no idea how long he drifted before finding another stretch of riverbank and climbing ashore.
Kneeling on all fours at the water's edge, he saw his own face for the first time in the river's reflection.
During his seventeen years in the Soul Sea, Leo had been able to see many things. The one thing he had never seen was his own appearance.
Black hair. Light brown eyes. A high-bridged nose and a strong, angular face.
At least he still had black hair. That pleased him immensely.
He took off his clothes and wrung the water from them as he considered his present situation.
The matter with Kozmo had come to an end for now. He would wait and adapt to whatever happened next.
In this era, which resembled the late Middle Ages, what interested Leo most was Superstring Magic, the system of supernatural abilities unique to this world.
Since he still had time, he was eager to try out his Cipher spells.
Watching the body's former owner use them from within the Soul Sea had been one thing. Casting them with his own hands was something else entirely.
Cipher spells relied heavily on weapons, primarily altering their attack power by changing their mass.
Leo gave the longsword an experimental swing. It was the standard-issue sword supplied by the Military Academy: a warrior's cruciform longsword three feet (0.9 meters) long, with a round cast-iron pommel, a wooden grip, and a cross-shaped guard. It was completely unadorned and weighed three pounds (1.3 kilograms).
Finding a boulder by the riverbank, Leo swung the sword down at it.
Without magic, the three-pound iron sword knocked only one or two chips, each a few centimeters wide, from the stone. Even that took all his strength and left his wrist numb.
Chopping at hard stone with a sword could also easily damage the blade.
Leo was now a D-grade, second-tier Cipher Mage. He could cast E-grade spells ninety times and D-grade spells twenty times.
Mages clearly possessed greater combat power and destructive ability, but the limit on how many spells they could cast meant that even the strongest mage could be worn down and killed by sheer numbers.
That was why mages feared being surrounded, especially by large numbers of enemies.
Now he also understood why they willingly joined the army. The count, who commanded the largest army, was obviously the most powerful man in Blackport County. Nothing good could come from opposing him.
Leo decided to test the power of an E-grade Cipher spell first.
As he cast it, mana flooded the longsword and doubled its apparent density. In other words, its weight doubled, turning it into a six-pound (2.7-kilogram) sword.
Holding the longsword, Leo found himself somewhat puzzled. The principles underlying Cipher spells were unknown, yet their abilities and effects came to a mage as naturally as instinct.
Filling an iron sword with Cipher mana could make it either lighter or heavier.
On the microscopic level, density depended on molecular mass and the gaps between molecules. The density of the iron itself did not change. What changed was the Cipher mana infused into it.
Just how Cipher spells worked on the microscopic level remained a mystery, and the people of this era had no means to study it.
Leo swung with all his might, knocking a palm-sized chunk from the boulder.
That was the effect of the E-grade 2x Critical Strike spell. It was far more effective than an ordinary person's sword blow.
Leo examined the blade. Under the effect of the Cipher mana, its strength had also increased significantly.
That reinforcement allowed him to swing more decisively without fear of damaging the weapon itself.
For all these reasons, a Cipher Mage was known as a “weapon-wielding thug.” Any weapon in the hands of a Cipher Mage could unleash far greater power.
After a few practice swings through the air, Leo found the six-pound sword somewhat heavy. His arm was already beginning to strain.
Following a short rest, he prepared to test a D-grade Cipher spell.
Mana poured into the longsword, increasing its weight to four times the original: a full twelve pounds (5.4 kilograms).
A sword that heavy was even more strenuous to swing.
Suddenly annoyed with himself, Leo released the Cipher mana from the blade. He had just remembered that this was not the technique the instructor had taught them in class.
First, he had to use the Featherlight spell to lighten the longsword, allowing him to swing it at tremendous speed.
Then, just before the blade struck its target, he had to use the Critical Strike spell to increase its weight in an instant.
Greater speed, greater strength, and greater weight combined to produce a much more powerful critical strike.
Cipher Mages always used their spells in combination when wielding weapons. They never relied on just one.
The E-grade Featherlight spell could reduce an object's weight to fifty percent of its original weight, while the D-grade version could reduce it to thirty percent.
Leo cast the D-grade Featherlight spell on the longsword, reducing its weight to 0.9 pounds (0.4 kilograms). At that weight, he could swing it much faster.
With the Featherlight spell active, he slashed hard at the boulder. Unfortunately, he was still unfamiliar with the technique and increased the sword's weight too late. The featherlight blade merely left a pale mark on the boulder's surface and sent a few tiny stone chips flying.
In a real fight, that would have been useless.
Worse, a conspicuous nick had appeared in the blade. Leo was not distressed. Standard-issue longswords could be exchanged freely at the Military Academy armory, and the count's blacksmiths sharpened and repaired the weapons every week.
After several more attempts, Leo finally grasped the trick.
It was better to cast the 4x Critical Strike spell a little early than a little late.
Only after he had become thoroughly proficient should he try to push the timing to its limit.
When a twelve-pound iron sword struck stone at tremendous speed, the results were excellent.
Once Leo had developed a feel for the technique, he combined the Featherlight spell with the 4x Critical Strike spell and hacked a chunk the size of an iron cooking pot from the boulder.
If he brought that strike down on a person, it would likely hack through the enemy's armor with ease.
Using the Featherlight spell in combination with the 4x Critical Strike spell would require extensive training to develop muscle memory. Otherwise, he would never be able to execute the technique in actual combat.
His allotment of D-grade spells certainly did not last long. Twenty D-grade casts had been used up after only a little practice. It seemed he would have to learn to budget them carefully.
Leo raised the cruciform longsword. No further nicks had appeared on its blade. Increasing its density had also increased its strength considerably.
On reflection, a longsword three feet long and no more than three inches (eight centimeters) wide was ill suited to a brute-force spell like Critical Strike.
If possible, he ought to find a heavy, thick-spined sword. A warhammer might be even more suitable.
An ordinary warhammer already weighed twelve pounds (5.4 kilograms). After a 4x Critical Strike, it could deliver the impact of forty-eight pounds (22 kilograms).
Now that was a weapon for a real man.
His curiosity satisfied, Leo removed his round shield and longsword and lay on his back on the riverbank.
The overcast sky gradually cleared, and the light shining down on the bank brought him a measure of comfort.
With his eyes half closed and nothing else to do, Leo stared blankly upward, just as he had in the spire's attic.
It was how he had learned to protect himself through countless lonely days.
Then the distinctive clatter of an iron chain brought the light back into his eyes.
His left hand went to the round shield and his right to the longsword, ready to explode into action at any moment.
His gaze snapped toward the source of the sound. Once he saw who had come, however, Leo stopped himself.
An excessive defensive reaction would have been abnormal too.
Major Willy Belloc, a field-training instructor at the Military Academy, leaped down from the woods.
Major Willy's face was covered in scruffy stubble that looked at least two weeks overdue for a trim.
His hair stuck up wildly atop his head. Every strand seemed to have an opinion of its own and pointed in a different direction.
An extinguished cigarette hung from his lips. When Major Willy saw only one cadet on the riverbank, his expression darkened.
Behind him trailed an iron chain he was reeling in, tipped with a ten-centimeter-long, diamond-shaped iron dart.
The chain dart seemed alive in Instructor Willy's hands. Once retrieved, it coiled around his forearm, with the chain wrapping securely over the dart's edges so that it would not hinder his movements.
A C-grade Form Mage, with the power to alter the shape of matter...
Leo tore his gaze from the chain dart and resumed staring blankly at the sky.
The river had split the forest, leaving a gap dozens of meters wide in its canopy.
Though Major Willy had already guessed what had happened, he still asked, “Leo East, where is Kozmo Enwei?”
Leo closed his eyes and said sorrowfully, “Major Willy, I lost my best... companion here...”
He did not even know whether Kozmo had truly been the original Leo's friend, but companion should be accurate enough.
Leo and Kozmo had both gone missing, so Major Willy assumed Leo was talking about Kozmo.
But Leo meant the boy whose life had ended forever at seventeen.
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