GMWB 86

Thud, thud!

Kicked away, Noah rolled across the training platform twice in a pitifully limp heap. Like a small pebble a child had casually kicked.

And once more — thud!

After rolling, he finally fell off the platform and slammed into the training hall wall.

“Are you coming to your senses now?”

Captain Adbello asked the motionless Noah, who seemed wedged into the wall. Something twitched and trembled out of the pale dust.

It was Noah’s arm. It meant he was okay.

In fact, Noah had no serious injuries. He was just covered in dust from head to toe, had some shallow scrapes from the fall, and was sprinkled with fragments — not a drop of blood.

“…How embarrassing.”

Quick to own his mistake, Noah groaned and hauled himself up.

Unbeknownst to most, the two powers come from the same source. But the superiority of one power lay in aura.

Aura was a force stronger than magic.

It made sense.

Magic expresses the latent source power within the body through rituals and incantations.

People called that mana.

Aura, on the other hand, was the body’s source forged and honed sharply and roughly through training. In short, it’s the act of turning yourself into a weapon.

Academia hadn’t proven that source power yet; it was still treated as hypothesis. But Captain Adbello had been convinced thanks to the Pieta family.

“Right now, you’re the only one besides me who can handle aura,” Adbello said.

“There are only two ways someone can use aura. One, they awaken aura first instead of mana through brutal training—”

“And two, descendants of the Pieta family.”

“The former can be considered gone. After the tower’s explosion, the world advanced tremendously in a hundred years.”

Weapons capable of instantly killing without life-risking training began appearing. The prime example was guns.

“Clumsily swinging swords and thrusting spears in training became relics of an old age.”

“……”

“So at present, the only person who can wield aura is you, Noah.”

Do you understand what that means?

Gloria asked.

“……”

Noah didn’t answer. But it was easy enough to guess what she meant.

Noah’s true identity had been declared “missing.”

Most thought the last Pieta bloodline had died in the war; the truth was he’d been living in hiding under Adbello’s protection.

But they could not hide forever.

Noah had bled and crossed into the kingdom, entered the navy, and hidden everything for a reason.

“It’s time to reveal your identity, little by little,” Gloria said on his behalf.

The one who sparked the war seven years ago was hiding somewhere in the kingdom.

That person was connected to the annihilation of the Pieta family — the family’s mortal enemy that Noah had vowed, thousands upon thousands of times, to kill.

“A while ago—”

And finally.

“…We found traces of him.”

The blue aura coiling around the mace in Noah’s hand scraped the floor mercilessly as if it were rampaging.

Like fingernails scratching the earth in helpless, pent-up rage.

The surging aura calmed shortly thereafter.

That evening.

“Ouch, my body—”

Gloria, back from work, collapsed onto her bedroom bed with Bis supporting her.

“Helping train my granddaughter almost killed me, really…!”

“You say you won’t go—”

Reto, who’d been muttering to himself outside, dashed away.

Gloria, who’d heard everything, had tried to grab his neck with magic.

“Grandma, are you hurt? What can I do?”

“Stick a patch on it. My whole body aches….”

“Master, before that, shouldn’t we help loosen your muscles with warm water?”

“Let’s do that. I’ll help you bathe.”

As drew the bathwater and dissolved bath salts containing ingredients good for muscle soreness.

With Bis’s help, Gloria eased into the tub.

“Training?”

Reto, who had fled earlier, asked Noah in the meantime.

“Learning the family’s secret art,” Noah replied, using the lie he and Gloria had prearranged.

It wasn’t entirely a lie.

The “family” Noah mentioned was the Pieta family. Converting mana into aura was a technique taught only to legitimate heirs who carried the blood.

“Tough, huh.”

Reto accepted Noah’s falsehood without fuss.

“No wonder Grandma took you to that training ground. It wasn’t just some labor, huh.”

Instead, he seemed interested. What kind of training could make that eccentric captain groan in pain like that?

“Would it be greedy if I said I want to try too?”

A samurai’s curiosity stirred.

“Want to try?”

“…Can I?”

Since it was a family secret?

Noah’s seemingly willing acceptance surprised Reto. He was a bit flustered but sincere — he really did want to try.

“Swordsmanship? Or hand-to-hand?”

“Both, I guess.”

Aura strengthens both the body and weapons.

“Hmm…”

Noah paused to think.

“What about Femina?”

“Shouldn’t we give it to the kid?”

“Even so, if it’s that kid, he’d wag his tail and follow you even if you sold the country, right?”

On the first day of training, Gloria had suggested giving Femina — the other half of the married pair of swords — to Reto quickly.

Noah had hesitated at the time. He worried about how Reto would react once he learned Noah’s secret.

He didn’t doubt Reto’s love for him, but he wanted to consider variables.

However, after Gloria told him she’d found traces of his nemesis today, he made up his mind.

“I’ll prepare it.”

Handing Femina to Reto, Noah decided to reveal his secret.

It wouldn’t take long.

The next day.

House Adbello issued a public notice to their southern jurisdiction.

Due to a recent attempted child abduction incident in the Sharp territory, they ordered increased vigilance for public safety and children’s protection.

[This was overdue.]

Genius, who called the Bello mansion, said to Noah through the receiver.

[The south is so peaceful, sometimes you need to instill tension like this. Otherwise, when something real happens, they won’t respond properly.]

Take care. See you later.

Genius hung up after offering sincere regards and affection.

“Your mother?”

Gloria glanced at Noah, who had returned.

“She said she sent the notice. Patrols by police and guards will likely be strengthened starting tomorrow.”

“In that case, we’ll get started too.”

There were five people gathered at the dining table.

Gloria and Bis. Noah and Reto.

Lastly, As.

It was a bit odd that As, not military, participated, but no one paid it any mind.

Even Reto didn’t feel out of place.

They all acted as if it were natural.

“These were materials from Marquis Oceanus.”

As soon as she heard Albus’s orders from the capital, she’d identified the spies’ information, their movements, and predicted their next steps.

She brought that information to the Bello mansion at dawn.

“There are five spies to capture.”

Five photos lay on the table, each face turned away as if unaware they’d been photographed.

Plain faces and ordinary attire.

No one would suspect these were spies — they looked like people you see anywhere.

“Estimated to have come through the Finichi district last autumn.”

“We should also discuss Major Kirko’s report.”

Reto recalled Major Kirko’s report about scouting the Finger Pirates’ hideout.

A coastal cave carved into the cliff of a small uninhabited island — the pirates’ hideout.

The Eighth Component Detachment sent by Major Kirko had found suspicious traces there while searching the cave.

Bags of snacks distributed in the kingdom.

“Sika Rius probably obtained food supplies while distributing drugs with Fred Relli. But we found one significant piece of evidence.”

“What was it?”

Gloria asked — though she already knew — for Noah and As’s sake.

“Handmade sweets sold only in a certain northern territory.”

The so-called ‘yellow clusters.’

Puffed yellow confections made by adding baking soda to sugar, then tossed with tiny crunchy biscuit pieces the size of fingernails.

“One of the famous northern souvenirs. To get it you must buy it in the pastry shops in that territory.”

“What was the territory called?”

“Innos territory.”

“Innos…”

Bis moved his finger quickly across the northern map he had spread out and stopped in front of a mountain range.

“Noah, does Innos lie along the spies’ route?”

Keeping his eyes on the map, Bis asked. Noah hurriedly opened the report. He soon found the portion detailing the spies’ routes.

“They traveled along the Boreal mountain range.”

“So it’s the mountains right behind Innos territory.”

That confirmed Fred Relli’s testimony that the spies introduced the Finger Pirates to Sika Rius: it was true.

“The one who introduced the pirate network that exports their drugs to the Empire is a spy.”

Reto recalled the information he’d heard from Laxo.

At that moment Noah said, “The spies already know the sea routes to cross into the Empire.”

Finding a northern-only snack in the pirates’ coastal cave on that tiny island meant the spies knew how to contact pirates like Sika Rius.

“Are they trying to go through the pirates?”

“That would be difficult.”

Gloria was certain.

They had recently eradicated the Finger group perfectly, and the Eighth Component Detachment that Major Kirko sent had also arrested nearby pirates and transported them.

Any remaining pirates would be lying low for a while, so even if the spies hired them, they couldn’t move easily.

But as Noah said, the spies did know the sea routes.

“Even without pirates, if you have enough money, there are many ways into the Empire.”

So they had to catch them on land.

“Looks like Marquis Oceanus also learned what those scoundrels did in the kingdom.”

Aitra traced the spies’ movements and confirmed the sequence of incidents that occurred in those regions.

“Following the routes and timeline, two crimes recurred in each territory.”

Vehicle theft and pickpocketing.

Two seemingly unrelated crimes, but from these they could deduce what the spies had been doing.

“Transporting cash and forging IDs.”

“They carry cash on them….”

As spoke for the first time.

That meant the spies’ movement would be limited. Until they found a safe way into the Empire, they wouldn’t move easily.

“…Wooooaaah!”

At that moment —