Teogonia: Volume 1 (Premium) Read online

  All this low-quality food is going to damage my health... This realization made him regret missing the chance to get some much-needed nourishment while prit was in season.

  His sense of hygiene was also beginning to differ from those around him, making it hard to ignore the mold on his rye bread. But when he tried to scrape away the mold with his fingernail, Manso punched him, saying, “Don’t waste your food!”

  If I don’t figure something out, I’m probably not going to get enough of this nutrition stuff. I could die... In any case, I’d love to be able to eat as much as they do...

  Kai looked jealously at the baron’s table.

  It was mostly the same food, but the servings of soup were bigger and full of potato, the boiled prit was piled so high it looked like it might spill from the table, there was roast rare winter bird (is that a mallard?) that had been preserved after a hunt, and a serving girl was pouring delicious-looking white liquid over soft, freshly baked bread. It was probably milk.

  There was an obvious “pecking order” to this society.

  Even at the baron’s table, a sort of hierarchy of status was visible in the arrangement of the seats. The baron sat in the center of the table, with the others arranged on either side of him forming two wings, clear for the soldiers to see.

  The baron’s wives sat beside him, and beyond them there were the children. The boys sat in the right wing starting with Olha, and the girls sat in the left wing starting with Lady White, or rather, Jose.

  The amount of food set before them gradually declined from the center to the end of the table, implying a decline in status. That said, their smallest helpings were still generous compared to anything given to an ordinary soldier.

  The amount in front of the baron looked like enough food for two, and it was always more than he could finish, but virtually no one minded that he enjoyed this luxury.

  In the borderlands, strength to defend one’s own kind was highly prized. The baron was the strongest warrior in the village, and the village was much safer if the baron could eat as much as he needed so that he’d never be distracted by his empty stomach. If the baron said it was right of him to extend this treatment towards his own family, towards useless children just because they were his flesh and blood, the villagers accepted that without argument, even if they secretly felt as though it was a wasteful extravagance. That was the extent to which the baron was revered by everyone, and the extent of the power he had over his villagers.

  Kai couldn’t help but growl as he watched the baron’s family shoveling prit into their mouths one piece after another.

  Then when he tried his soup, he found that it didn’t taste right somehow...

  “You’re going to eat everything. You got that?”

  “...”

  At some point, the moldy bits of bread that he’d broken off had been put into his soup.

  Do I really have to eat this?

  Kai gulped as he noticed those around him were looking at him with disapproval.

  **

  Daily life in this world wasn’t exactly what you’d call sophisticated. It was more like the life of rustic old folk who get up when the sun rises.

  As soon as there was daylight, it was time to get up. Then after working until sunset, it was time for dinner and then bed. As the saying goes, early to bed, early to rise.

  Each squad was allocated a cramped room in the barracks, where Kai lay on his side, unable to sleep a wink.

  The room was already filled with the sound of snoring. The stuffiness and the smell of other men were both immeasurable.

  The short rainy season had ended and it was now early summer, but fortunately, summers in the eastern borderlands were mild. In winter on the other hand, this was a punishing place to live... but now was no time to think about the harsher seasons.

  Kai wasn’t getting sleepy, so he decided to get up. He left the barracks and headed for an herb garden behind the castle where he could keep out of sight. The water from the well behind the castle was considered the best in the village, and so Kai decided to quench his thirst.

  Kai brought up the bucket filled with water, and drank from it until he was satisfied. Then he looked up at the twinkling stars and felt as though the night was still young.

  I guess I should just try it...

  Kai left the herb garden and hid himself in the shadow of a tool storage hut so that he’d be completely out of sight. It might seem strange to worry whether anyone is watching in the dead of night, but the threat of a night raid from demi-humans meant that lookouts remained seated on platforms around the castle through the night.

  Kai crouched in the darkness and let out a sigh.

  He knew exactly what was stopping him from sleeping. After gaining so much knowledge recently, there was obviously a lot he wanted to test, and his curiosity had him constantly worked up.

  This world feels so much like those “fantasy” worlds... I have to at least try it...

  Godstones are like magic stones, and we’re eating them to level up, and then there are superhumans protected by land gods.

  If this strange “rule set” is all based on some kind of magic... or some kind of spiritual energy... there should be a way to take that energy and use it in a pure form... This flimsy reasoning that he seemed to have come up with from out of nowhere had put him on edge.

  The real problem with Kai was that he still wasn’t old enough to be an adult. He was at that age where children easily get carried away with groundless delusions about how they might be “special” in some way.

  If I could use what you’d call magic...

  If he could do that, it would surely boost him beyond the level of a petty soldier.

  Kai began to take deep, slow breaths while focusing his attention on his body. He looked for some kind of alien sensation, something like a “shimmering” inside himself. He felt that strange powers from within would usually be carried in the blood or would come from some kind of unknown magical organ.

  The obvious candidate for that kind of source of mysterious power was the round bone inside his body — the mysterious godstone that held the experience points belonging to Kai.

  He could guess from his physical sensations where it was inside his body. He knew that his own godstone was somewhere near his heart because that area got hot every time he “leveled up.”

  If the feeling of leveling up was his power of existence as a living creature increasing... then what people like Olha and the baron had, had to be something like a passive skill that further increased their physical abilities, caused by having a helpful god, a being on a higher plane of existence, within their bodies.

  It was highly likely that a magical or spiritual power existed in this world. It didn’t feel at all weird to call that “magic.”

  Burn!

  The first thing he tried was “fire magic.” The reason was simple: fire magic is cool.

  As the mental image became clearer, he began to feel heat from the godstone deep in his chest. At first, he absentmindedly thought of it as a nice warm feeling, but then realized his heart was beginning to beat violently as the warmth grew.

  What the...? This is crazy.

  It felt as though the godstone was collecting up every bit of his life force to grant him a “wish.” Is my godstone forcefully collecting up the energy it needs to create magic?!

  Finding it difficult to breathe, Kai curled himself up and began gasping for air.

  Then after a few moments, the tip of his right index finger that had been the subject of his mental image began to feel extremely hot. It became so hot that Kai held his right index finger away from himself as if afraid of it.

  Then a moment later, he heard a sound...poh.

  As if suddenly brought into reality from some unknown other world, a faint flickering light from somewhere far beyond appeared at the tip of Kai’s finger in the form of the natural phenomenon known as fire.

  It was a small light source, like a flame made by a tiny candle
.

  Kai crouched down and stared at the flame, but instead of feeling happy, he started to fear for his life. His body was getting cold as if all of his heat was being absorbed into this “flame.”

  “Oh, crap.”

  Unless he put a stop to his “fire magic,” it was going to be the death of him.

  He shook his arm wildly, but the flame didn’t go out. He tried stubbing out the flame on the ground, but it didn’t go out.

  He expected that it would be possible to extinguish the flame if he could define the act of putting it out in terms of magic, but this was an emergency and he had no time to stop and think.

  Then Kai remembered something.

  The water! There was well water for putting out the flame.

  Use water on fire. It was a thought too simple to even be called an idea, but it was the only thing he could think of. He climbed to his feet and rushed over to the well.

  He had to pull up the bucket with the flame still on his finger, but he didn’t have time to worry about that. Then he plunged his finger into the water he’d collected.

  A hissing sound started the moment his finger entered the water.

  It hasn’t gone out?!

  To his horror, the magic flame continued to burn under the water.

  The inside of the bucket glowed the color of the flame, and the light it cast on Kai caused him to be seen.

  “Who’s there?!”

  It was a high-pitched, clear voice.

  Kai held the bucket close to himself in an attempt to hide it as he looked over his shoulder in the direction of the voice.

  Behind him stood Jose wiping sweat from her brow with her hand... Lady White thrust her training staff into the ground and left it standing in the dirt.

  She must have come to the well to quench her thirst. Water from a well was always cooler and more refreshing than water stored in a pot.

  “That bucket... it’s glowing?”

  Kai’s “magic” was suddenly on the verge of being exposed.

  5

  The flame at the tip of his finger didn’t go out.

  Lady White was moving closer.

  It didn’t help when the water in the bucket started to boil up and bubble. The water around the flame was rapidly heating up, and the heat rising from it felt like enough to cause burns.

  “What’s inside that bucket?”

  Lady White suddenly came running over as if she’d guessed that Kai was up to something.

  Kai wasn’t ready to show this strange thing about himself to others just yet, and he was desperately trying to think of a way to stop it from happening.

  Go out, go out, please go out.

  “I recognize your face. That bucket...”

  The “fire magic” at the tip of his finger wasn’t stopping. Though he was wishing for the fire to “go out,” he felt as though that wasn’t quite the right way of stopping the flame. If the flame could continue to burn underwater, then any ideas involving “oxygen” didn’t apply.

  Then what would work? “Disenchantment” magic? Or could the action of some other magic “overwrite” this one? But in that case, what other type of magic would cancel out this one?

  Kai had been completely uneducated until just a few days ago, and these questions were too complicated for him to answer quickly. Situations in which fires go out came into his mind one after another, and then he found a mental image that felt like it was the one.

  Closing... a floodgate.

  Kai tried to picture the flow of life force being drained from his body being cut off, like closing a waterway. Even the village had waterways that drew water from streams to direct it toward farmland, and the flow of water could be controlled by gates that opened and closed.

  Kai was hunched over the bucket in an attempt to hide it, but Lady White grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him backwards. At that very moment, the fire magic stopped providing fuel to the flame.

  Despite her small frame and thin arms, Lady White had fearsome strength. This was no doubt the result of her being under the protection of another of her house’s gods. Whatever the cause, her incredible strength and her ladylike appearance were completely mismatched. Alongside the baron and his eldest son Olha, Lady White was one of House Moloch’s three guardian bearers.

  Kai fell backwards and turned a somersault. The bucket he’d held in his hands flew into the air, spilling water all around him.

  Just as Kai’s right hand was finally revealed from the bucket... the flame of the fire magic that had been burning at the tip of his index finger had been reduced to a dim blue flickering that soon vanished with a puff of air. Kai didn’t think she’d seen it, but it was too close to call.

  Then Kai landed hard on his back, causing the pain in his healing bones to come back with a sudden intensity. The shock made him scream.

  “Gyaaaaah!!”

  Lady White froze in place, startled by Kai’s loud outburst.

  Kai quickly put a hand over his mouth, but it was too late. He’d already made enough noise to set off shouting here and there in the castle as people inside wondered what was happening. In panic, Kai tried to flee the scene.

  “Wait,” Lady White called after him.

  But Kai didn’t even look back; he focused on making his escape as he held his aching wounds. But then a thin arm grabbed him from behind with unreasonable strength.

  “Did I not just tell you to wait?!”

  Lady White gripped his collar tight, and despite being about the same size as Kai, she was able to lift him up like a miao picking up its kittens by the scruff of the neck. After helplessly flailing around in midair at first, he soon realized that the relationship of power between males and females that he was used to had just been turned on its head, and he resigned himself to his fate.

  What followed was chaos as every sleeping soldier was awakened and told that demi-humans were attempting a night raid on the castle, and even the baron himself was called from his chambers. By the time it became clear that it was all a misunderstanding, there was no way for Kai to avoid being lectured and punished by a good number of furious adults.

  Discipline in the borderlands was generally administered in the form of an immediate physical punishment.

  **

  “...”

  “I’m really sorry.”

  Excessive punishment wasn’t seen as a problem in this village, and discipline was carried out through real violence. The only mercy shown to Kai was that they didn’t touch the areas where his bones had been broken, and now half a day later, he had been left tied to a pillar in a punishment room with his face badly swollen and streaming with tears.

  Once they were angry, the older men of the village were no joke, and they had no qualms over slapping a wounded boy full force. They took the idea of beating some sense into someone quite literally.

  Kai couldn’t manage much more than an incoherent mumble as Lady White took his hand and studied his face. “Are you sure you’re all right?” she asked, sounding genuinely apologetic.

  It was clear from looking at him that he wasn’t all right.

  Lady White must have felt that she was at least partially responsible. For the daughter of a baron to apologize to a low-ranking foot soldier suggested she was actually a very caring person.

  “Now about that flame I saw...”

  Her only flaw was that she tended to be incredibly persistent.

  “I see. So you have the makings of a channeler.”

  Kai had accepted the fact that his secret was out, and had given her a full confession, only leaving out the part about having memories of a past life.

  He’d felt that his own explanation sounded like he’d made it up on the spot when he talked about having nothing to do because of his injuries, accidentally making fire while messing around, and then deciding to practice it so he could surprise everyone later. Kai had looked nervous as if he expected Lady White to call him a liar, but she simply accepted his explanation without seeming to notice. />
  Kai felt she’d accepted it all a little too easily, but he reasoned that this “Lady” had never learned to distrust people and decided to just think himself lucky.

  The main thing on his mind now was the word “channeler” that he’d heard Lady White use.

  It seemed to be about the same thing as what Kai imagined a mage to be. According to Lady White, there were a few guardian bearers in the center of the country who wielded this mysterious power.

  “Those techniques are dangerous. Make a mistake while using them and you could burn your own life force away and die. Father has even forbidden me from using them. Even in the capital, it’s only used by a few special families, and they keep their arts secret. You might have some potential, but I think it would be best if you never used that skill ever again. An ordinary little boy like you could very easily use up all the spiritual energy in his body in no time at all.”

  Kai knew that much from experience already, so he didn’t try to argue.

  Someone who used up all of their spiritual energy would drastically weaken their grip on life, and in practice this often meant they’d die of a heart attack. Kai’s hand unconsciously went to his chest.

  “Let’s keep this whole thing between us. You won’t go telling everyone you know, will you? A lot of boys your age dream about having some kind of “special power,” and I just know someone would die trying it.”

  “...Mhm.”

  “They say that the amount of spiritual energy that most people start with will take no longer to burn up than a single candle. If someone like you keeps a flame going for too long, your heart will stop and you’ll die.”

  “...Mhm.”

  “I’ve even heard of guardian bearers using it wrongly and bringing death on themselves. I implore you not to carelessly share this knowledge with anyone else.”