Chapter 29 - 28 : Fatty Raphael’s

Chapter 29: Chapter 28 : Fatty Raphael’s

Chapter 28 : Fatty Raphael’s

Silva shouted:

"Watch out!"

The first two escorts blocked their ogres, but the third lifted a large rock and threw it at one of the carriages. The rock smashed into the side of the carriage, destroying part of its frame. The screams of those inside rose.

The fourth Titan Ogre rushed through the gap that opened between two carriages.

One of the escorts tried to stop it, but the beast knocked him to the ground with its shoulder before pushing past.

The candidates had considered the area a safe zone moments earlier, but now it held a beast that could shatter a carriage with a single blow.

Some of them started running in every direction.

"Don’t scatter!" Charles shouted. "Alliance members, stay with me!"

Not everyone listened to him.

The Titan Ogre raised its club and struck one of the carriages. Part of its roof caved in and the wood scattered across the ground.

Charles hurried over to Noah, carrying something in his hand.

It was a short weapon made of dark metal, and on one of its sides was a small hollow with a clear crystal set inside it, a blue light pulsing at its heart.

Magic Crystal.

Charles held the weapon out toward him.

"Take it."

Noah looked at him without reaching for it.

Charles raised an eyebrow.

"You’re refusing a magic weapon now?"

"Why should I accept it?"

Charles glanced at the Titan Ogre moving inside the circle before turning his eyes back to Noah.

"Because I won’t hit its eye from this distance while it’s moving like that."

Noah fell silent. "I hope this boy hasn’t noticed things he shouldn’t have."

Charles smiled.

"Simply put, you put two needles through an ogre’s eyes at the same time while it was trying to crush you. That makes your ability the best in the group. The weapon will work better in your hands."

Charles lifted the weapon a little.

"You’re talented, Noah. And you might become far stronger once we reach the Academy. If I can earn the goodwill of a talented person in exchange for a weapon I can buy another of, that’s a good deal for me."

Noah gave him a look, thinking about the situation.

Charles was not trying to make him a subordinate.

He was investing.

Plainly.

Noah, unfortunately, had been invested in. Even so, a faint smile showed on his face.

"You’re smarter than you look."

Charles laughed.

"And you’re more arrogant than you look."

Noah took the weapon from him.

It was a little heavier than he had expected.

Charles pointed at the crystal set into its side.

"Don’t waste the shots. Each one burns through part of the Magic Crystal, and I don’t like burning money for no reason."

Noah’s eyes paused for a moment on the crystal.

He knew magic crystals were a key currency for mages.Gold can be used for ordinary purposes, but the resources a mage needs to develop himself and purchase tools and techniques belong to an entirely different world.

And yet, throughout all the years he had lived in Lupton, he had received almost nothing of them.

The manor was rich enough to give him the life of a noble.

The best food.

Servants.

Cloth.

Gold.

But magical resources were strangely scarce.

Robert himself was a mid-grade mage, and one of the most talented of Charlemagne’s sons in his generation before his exile.

Why, then, did a house led by a mage like him lack the resources that mages needed more than anything else?

Noah had a thought.

Lupton’s lack of magical resources wasn’t just because of Robert’s isolation.

Maybe it was part of the isolation itself.

The Main House had not been content to push him away from the centers of power. They had placed him inside a house that could grant him enough gold and status to remain a noble, without granting him the resources that would let his strength keep growing.

Noah considered another way to hold him back, but he didn’t dwell on it. He raised the weapon and watched the Titan Ogre. Charles quickly explained how to fire it. A scream came from the other side.

"Noah!"

He stopped and turned.

The plump young man was running toward him.

His torn clothes and pale face showed he no longer had the same arrogance he had at the start of the journey.

Behind him, an ogre chased him at speed.

Raphael’s eyes landed on the weapon in Noah’s hands, and hope showed on his face

"Noah! Save me!"

Noah fixed his gaze on him while the sounds of battle went on around them.

----------------------------------------------

Noah held his gaze on Raphael for a moment. The plump young man was running toward him with every bit of strength he had left.

"You, boy of House Lupton! Save me!"

Noah lowered his eyes to the magic weapon Charles had given him.

This was the first time he had used something of this kind. He did not know the strength of its recoil, nor the speed at which it would fire its projectile, nor how much the wind between the mountain passes might throw it off course.

Even so, he was not without means.

He had never used a rifle in his past life or his current one, but the magic weapon worked in a similar way, and he understood, at least, how a gun functioned.

He carefully widened his mana sense over the area around him.

He carefully widened his mana sense over the area around him.

He didn’t know the wind’s speed , he had to know was where the gust came from, which side it pushed the air toward, and when it weakened for an instant.

The muzzle of the weapon rose.

Raphael saw it.

Some of the terror left his face at once.

"Hurry up!"

He kept running, seemingly convinced that the weapon was aimed at the Ogre chasing him.

However, Noah was not only looking at the beast behind him.