(READERS..... ASSEMBLE)
The next morning arrived with all the subtlety of a brick through a window. Specifically, Magna's voice through my door.
"WAKE UP, NEWBIES! TOUR TIME! YOU'VE SEEN THE MAIN HALL, BUT THIS CASTLE'S GOT MORE TWISTS AND TURNS THAN A NOBLE'S POLITICAL SCANDAL! RISE AND SHINE!"
I was already awake. I was always awake, ever since the sleep adaptation had eliminated my need for unconsciousness. The six hours I'd spent lying in my assigned bunk had been devoted to meditation, mana cycling, and careful analysis of the day's events. Sleep was for the weak. I was no longer weak.
Asta, on the other hand, had slept like the dead and was now bouncing out of his room with the energy of someone who had never heard the word "exhaustion." His new robe was still comically oversized, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and the hem dragging on the floor, but he wore it with the pride of a king wearing his coronation robes.
"I'm ready! I'm ready! Show me everything, Magna-senpai! I want to see the whole base! Every room! Every secret passage! Every—"
"Calm down, shorty!" Magna laughed, adjusting his sunglasses. "We'll get to all of it. Well, most of it. Some of the rooms are... let's call them 'hazardous.' You'll find out which ones when you accidentally wander into them and almost die."
"That sounds exciting!"
"It's really not. I almost lost an eyebrow last month. Took three days to grow back."
The tour began in the cafeteria, which was less a cafeteria and more a shrine to the culinary arts presided over by a small, round-faced goddess with a cotton candy cloud of hair. Charmy Pappitson was already hard at work when we arrived, her tiny form a blur of motion as she flipped pancakes, stirred pots, and somehow managed to eat an entire breakfast's worth of food while cooking breakfast for everyone else.
"Welcome! Welcome!" Charmy chirped, her eyes lighting up when she saw us. "The new recruits! Come, sit, eat! I've prepared a special welcoming breakfast! There's pancakes with mana beast berry syrup, scrambled cockatrice eggs, bacon from the Forest of Eternal Autumn—very rare, very delicious—and my personal specialty, the Cotton Cloud Delight Parfait!" She gestured grandly at a tower of whipped cream, fruit, and what appeared to be edible glitter that floated slightly above the plate. "Eat! Eat! A growing boy needs his nutrition!"
Asta needed no further encouragement. He was at the table before Charmy finished speaking, piling food onto his plate with the enthusiasm of someone who had never seen a meal he didn't want to befriend. "This is AMAZING! Charmy-senpai, you're the best cook in the entire kingdom! No, the entire world! No, the entire UNIVERSE!"
Charmy puffed up with pride. "Flattery will get you everywhere, little one. Especially if you keep eating my food with such enthusiasm." Her eyes shifted to me, and her expression became something more calculating. More appraising. "And you, tall one. You haven't touched anything. Is my food not to your liking?"
I gave a gentle smile. "It looks excellent. I was just admiring the presentation before I started."
"Hmm." Charmy's eyes narrowed, but her smile didn't waver. "A gentleman. Rare in this squad. Rarer still in someone your age." She floated a plate toward me with a wave of her cotton magic. "Eat. I insist. A man your size needs fuel, and I refuse to let anyone in my squad go hungry."
I ate. Not because I needed to—the mana absorption took care of my nutritional requirements—but because the persona required it. The food was, objectively, exceptional. Charmy's reputation as a culinary genius was well-earned.
"This is delicious," I said, and for once, the compliment wasn't entirely calculated. The flavors were genuinely remarkable.
Charmy's beam could have lit up the entire castle. "He complimented my food! He really complimented it! With that deep, mysterious voice and those tragic grey eyes! It's like something out of a romance novel! 'The Mysterious Giant and the Chef's Heart'—I can see it now!"
"Moving on!" Magna announced, grabbing Asta by the collar and dragging him away from the table before he could attempt a fourth helping. "Before Charmy adopts you both as her personal taste-testers. Trust me, you don't want that job. She'll feed you until you explode."
"That sounds like a great job!" Asta protested.
"You say that now. Wait until she starts experimenting with 'exotic ingredients.' I still have nightmares about the Mandrake Root Casserole."
The next stop was the bathhouse, a cavernous chamber of steaming water and ancient stone that had clearly been designed by someone with a dramatic sense of architecture. The central pool was large enough to swim in, fed by a natural hot spring that Magna claimed came from deep beneath the castle's foundations. The water was hot—almost scaldingly so—but my Fire Resistance and Pain Resistance made the temperature comfortably warm rather than uncomfortable.
"This is the best part of the base," Magna declared, already stripping off his robe. "The hot spring. Natural. Magical. Hot enough to boil an egg, but you get used to it. Or you don't, and you just scream a lot. Either way, it's great for sore muscles after training."
We sank into the water, and even I had to admit—in the cold, clinical way that I admitted anything—that it was pleasant. The heat seeped into muscles that were perpetually tense from years of relentless training, and the mineral-rich water carried a faint, soothing mana signature.
Magna, lounging against the edge of the pool with his arms spread wide, let out a contented sigh. "So, Ouga. I gotta ask. What's your deal? You show up looking like a war god, you've got that weird wheel thing the captain mentioned, and you can deflect fireballs with your bare hands. What kind of training did you do to get a body like that?"
"Push-ups," I said.
"Push-ups."
"With boulders."
"Push-ups with boulders." Magna nodded slowly, as if this made perfect sense. "Right. Normal. Completely normal. And the rest? The muscles? The... everything?"
"Sprinting through dense jungle. Wrestling mana beasts. Carrying heavy loads for extended distances. The usual."
"The usual. He says 'the usual.' Like everyone spends their childhood wrestling mana beasts." Magna shook his head, but his grin was genuine. "You know, for a guy who looks like he could snap me in half with one hand, you're surprisingly chill. I was worried you'd be all brooding and mysterious, like Yuno or something."
"Wait, you know Yuno?" Asta perked up, water splashing everywhere as he sat up straight. "Yuno's my rival! He's got a four-leaf grimoire and he's super strong and he never smiles but he's actually a really good guy once you get past the whole 'ice prince' thing!"
"Easy, shorty, easy! I met him at the exam. Didn't talk to him, but everyone was buzzing about the four-leaf commoner. He went to the Golden Dawn, right?"
"Yeah! And I'm going to beat him! I'm going to get stronger than him and become the Wizard King!"
Magna laughed, reaching over to ruffle Asta's hair. "I like your spirit, kid. You're completely insane, but I like your spirit."
From the corner of the bathhouse, a shadow shifted. Gordon Agrippa was sitting in the dimmest part of the pool, his pale form barely visible through the steam, his voice a barely audible murmur. "...bathing together... this is nice... communal bathing promotes bonding... I've read about it... never experienced it... no one ever stays when I'm here... they always leave when they notice me..."
"We notice you, Gordon," I said.
The effect was immediate. Gordon's head snapped up, his eyes wide with shock and hope. "...you notice me? You really notice me? Ouga noticed me! He said my name! He's talking to me! This is—this is—"
"We're having a conversation," I said. "That's what squadmates do."
"...squadmates... he called me a squadmate... not a creep... not a weirdo... a squadmate..." Gordon's eyes were definitely watering now, though it was hard to tell with the steam. "...I've waited so long for this... years... years of being alone... and now someone finally talks to me..."
"What's he saying?" Asta asked, squinting in Gordon's direction. "I can see his lips moving but I can't hear anything!"
"Gordon's voice is quiet," I said. "He's saying he's happy to be bathing with us. He considers it bonding time."
"OH! That's great, Gordon-senpai! I'm happy to bathe with you too! We should do this every day! SQUAD BONDING!"
"...every day... he wants to do this every day... Asta called me senpai... I'm a senpai now..." Gordon looked like he might actually ascend to a higher plane of existence. "...this is the greatest moment of my life..."
Magna stared at me with an expression that was half amazement, half disbelief. "You can understand him? Nobody can understand him. I've been in this squad for years and I've never understood a single thing Gordon's said."
"His voice is quiet," I repeated. "Not silent. You just need to listen."
"Huh." Magna leaned back, his expression thoughtful. "You know, for a guy who looks like he eats nails for breakfast, you're kind of a softie, aren't you? First you watch out for Asta, now you're making Gordon cry happy tears. What's next, you going to help Finral get a girlfriend?"
"That's actually on my list."
"I was JOKING!"
"I wasn't."
The tour continued after we dried off, Magna leading us through the castle's labyrinthine corridors with the confidence of someone who had memorized every twist and turn through years of trial and error. The girls' bath was pointed out from a safe distance ("If you go in there, you'll trigger Vanessa's trap magic, and the last guy who did that spent a week as a frog"), the toilet was introduced via a door that Magna opened without knocking, and the beast room was revealed to be exactly what it sounded like.
"Captain Yami's hobby," Magna explained, gesturing at the collection of caged mana beasts that filled the chamber. "He catches them on missions and brings them back here. Some of them are for training. Some of them are for eating. Some of them..." He paused, watching as Asta approached one of the cages with a chunk of meat in his hand. "Some of them are for learning important life lessons about not sticking your hand into cages."
The beast—a wolf-like creature with scales instead of fur—lunged forward and clamped its jaws around Asta's head.
"AAAAAGH! IT'S EATING MY HEAD! MAGNA-SENPAI, IT'S EATING MY HEAD!"
"And there's the lesson!" Magna laughed, making no move to help. "Don't worry, it doesn't have teeth! It gums its prey to death! Very slowly! Over the course of several hours!"
"THAT'S NOT REASSURING!"
I reached over and pried the beast's jaws apart, freeing Asta's head. The creature whimpered and retreated to the back of its cage. Asta, his hair now standing straight up from a combination of saliva and terror, looked up at me with wide eyes.
"Thanks, Ouga! I thought I was going to be gummed to death!"
"Don't put your hand in cages."
"I WON'T! I DEFINITELY WON'T! I'VE LEARNED MY LESSON!"
The library was next—a dusty chamber filled with books that looked like they hadn't been touched in decades—followed by what Magna called the "play room" but what was clearly a torture chamber that someone had tried to redecorate with colorful curtains. "We don't go in there," Magna said, slamming the door shut. "We never go in there."
"Then why is it called the play room?!"
"Because 'torture chamber' was bad for morale."
"What kind of squad is this?!"
"The best kind!"
The tour was winding down when we turned a corner and nearly collided with a girl who had apparently been waiting for us. She was young—fifteen, like the rest of the new recruits—with silver hair that fell in elegant waves past her shoulders, pink eyes that held the particular arrogance of someone born into privilege, and a posture that screamed "I am better than you" even while standing perfectly still. Her robe was the same Black Bulls black as ours, but she wore it with the disdain of someone who considered it a temporary inconvenience rather than an honor.
"Hmph." The girl looked us up and down—first Asta, then me—and her expression of disdain deepened. "So you're the new recruits. The magicless commoner and the giant freak. I heard about you from the servants. They said the captain had finally lost his mind and recruited circus attractions."
"HEY!" Asta's voice echoed through the corridor. "What's your problem?! We're not circus attractions! I'm Asta, and I'm going to be the Wizard King! And Ouga's not a freak, he's just tall!"
"Tall." The girl's pink eyes traveled up my frame—six foot three inches of muscle, the wheel rotating behind my head, grey eyes that held no warmth—and something flickered in her expression. "Yes. Tall. That's certainly one word for it." She tossed her silver hair over her shoulder with a practiced flick. "I am Noelle Silva. Of the royal House Silva. And I am only in this squad because the captain insisted. I have no intention of associating with commoners, peasants, or whatever you two are supposed to be."
"House Silva?" Asta's brow furrowed. "Like the captain of the Silver Eagles? The really scary guy with the braid?"
"Nozel Silva is my eldest brother." Noelle's voice was sharp, but there was something brittle beneath the sharpness. Something that sounded almost like pain. "Not that it's any of your business. My family connections are irrelevant to my presence here. I am here to train and nothing more."
Magna, who had been watching the exchange with growing irritation, stepped forward. "Alright, listen here, princess. I don't care what house you're from. In the Black Bulls, we respect the robe. This robe." He tugged at his own jacket for emphasis. "The robe you're wearing right now. The robe that means you're part of this squad, whether you like it or not."
Noelle looked down at her robe as if noticing it for the first time. "This? This is just a uniform. It doesn't mean anything."
"It means EVERYTHING!" Magna's voice rose, his sunglasses glinting dangerously. "The Black Bulls robe is a symbol of our squad! Our pride! Our—"
"Pride?" Noelle laughed, and it was not a kind laugh. "What pride? The Black Bulls are the laughingstock of the Magic Knights. Everyone knows it. We're the squad of rejects and failures. The captain's a foreigner who can't be bothered to do paperwork. The members are degenerates and weirdos. The base is a crumbling ruin. What exactly am I supposed to be proud of?"
"Why you—!" Magna's grimoire was already opening, flames licking at his fingertips. "You want to say that again, princess?! You want to see what this 'degenerate' can do?!"
"What, you'll challenge me to a duel like you did with them?" Noelle gestured dismissively at Asta and me. "Fine. If you want to be humiliated by a royal, I'm happy to oblige."
"THAT'S IT!"
Magna's fireball wasn't aimed—it was a warning shot, a burst of flame meant to startle rather than injure. But Noelle reacted with the reflexes of someone trained from birth in magical combat. Her grimoire, a elegant silver tome, snapped open, and a sphere of water materialized in front of her—too large, too powerful, completely out of proportion to the threat. The water sphere launched forward with the force of a cannonball, missing Magna entirely and slamming into Asta with enough force to send him crashing through the nearest wall.
"ASTA!" Magna's anger vanished in an instant, replaced by genuine concern. "Kid, are you okay?!"
Asta emerged from the rubble, coughing and sputtering, his robe soaked and his hair full of plaster dust. "I'm okay! I'm okay! That was... that was really strong! Like, really really strong!"
Noelle's face was pale, but her expression remained defiant. "That was your fault for getting in the way. I was aiming at the commoner with the sunglasses."
"You missed!" Magna shouted. "You missed by a mile! What kind of royal can't even control her own magic?!"
The words hit Noelle like a physical blow. Her composure cracked, just for an instant, and I saw something in her pink eyes that the arrogance had been hiding. Shame. Genuine, bone-deep shame. "I... I can control my magic. I just... the spell was larger than I intended. It's a common mistake. It could happen to anyone."
"Common mistake, my—"
"Magna." I spoke quietly, but my voice carried. "Let it go."
"But she—"
"Let it go."
Magna looked at me, then at Noelle, then back at me. Something in my expression—or perhaps the lack of expression—made him reconsider whatever he'd been about to say. He closed his grimoire with a snap and took a step back. "Fine. Fine, whatever. But she still needs to prove she's worthy of the robe. Everyone does. That's the rule."
Noelle's chin lifted, her arrogance returning like a shield. "I don't need to prove anything to you. This robe doesn't have any value to me. I'm a Silva. I don't need validation from commoners."
She turned and walked away, her silver hair swaying with each step, her posture perfect, her mask firmly in place. But I had seen beneath it, just for a moment. Noelle Silva was not arrogant. She was afraid. Afraid of her own magic. Afraid of her family's judgment. Afraid that the things her siblings had told her—that she was useless, that she couldn't control her power, that she would never be a real Magic Knight—might be true.
Her mana was Stage 0. I had sensed it the moment she cast her spell—an immense reservoir of power that dwarfed even Yuno's reserves. But raw power without control was worse than useless. It was destructive. Dangerous. The kind of power that hurt the people around you whether you meant to or not.
I watched her go, and I filed her away as another potential asset. A royal with a damaged psyche and more mana than she knew what to do with. She would need allies. She would need validation. And when she was ready to accept it, I would be there to provide it.
I smiled. "She's interesting."
"Interesting?!" Magna sputtered. "She's a nightmare! A royal nightmare with no respect for the squad! What is she even doing here?!"
"Training," I said. "The same as us."
---
The sun was setting over the jungle beyond the Black Bulls' base, painting the sky in shades of orange and purple. Noelle Silva stood alone in a clearing she had found an hour's walk from the castle, her grimoire open in her trembling hands, her target—a large boulder covered in scorch marks and water damage—mocking her from twenty paces away.
"Water Creation Magic: Aqua Lance."
The spell formed above her palm—a spear of compressed water, its tip sharp enough to pierce steel. She aimed it at the boulder, just as her tutors had taught her, just as her siblings had demonstrated a thousand times. She released it.
The lance veered wildly to the left and obliterated a tree.
"No!" Noelle's voice cracked with frustration. "No, no, no! Why can't I do this?! It's a simple spell! The simplest spell in the Silva arsenal! Even Solid could do this when he was six years old!" She summoned another lance, aimed, fired. The spell spiraled into the sky and disappeared. "Why?! I have the mana! I have the training! I have the bloodline! So why can't I hit a STUPID ROCK?!"
She sank to her knees, her grimoire falling to the grass beside her, her silver hair falling around her face like a curtain of shame. Her siblings' voices echoed in her memory—Nozel's cold dismissal, Solid's mocking laughter, Nebra's cruel jabs. "Useless." "Can't control anything." "A disgrace to the Silva name." "Why did mother have to die giving birth to YOU?"
"I'm not useless," she whispered, but the words felt hollow. "I'm not. I'm a Silva. I'm a royal. I have more mana than anyone in this squad. I should be the strongest. I should be..."
She should be a lot of things. But she wasn't. She was a failure who couldn't hit a stationary target at point-blank range. She was a joke. Her siblings were right about her.
Noelle Silva pressed her forehead to the grass and cried, and the jungle offered no comfort.
(Author note: an extra chapter for exceeding my expactaions. Next target is 500 PS in a month. That will give me some breathe time.✌️)