Ten seconds later, the light slowly faded. Only after the light vanished completely did Kaiser and Lucian blink.

“My vision is sparkly…….”

“Ugh, fuck, my eyes still hurt.”

Both rubbed their eyes, suffering from the aftermath of the magic.

Ria stood there blankly, then couldn’t hold back the surge of emotion and ran at Lucian.

[You did great, Lucian! It was the most perfect, the most enormous Light magic I’ve ever seen!]

“M-me, really?”

[Yes! This is absolutely not a level of Light that two circles can produce! Ah! How are your mana circles right now? Have they calmed down a bit?]

At Ria’s question, Lucian fumbled and checked his mana circles.

Two mana circles were spinning tautly. There was no overload, and they were quite stable.

“Yes, now I really am okay…….”

As the tension snapped loose, Lucian’s eyes slid shut.

Before Lucian could collapse to the floor, Kaiser caught him.

“Haa, for a little kid, you really did a hell of an initiation.”

Even while grumbling, Kaiser’s mouth curled upward.

[How is his condition?]

“Other than fatigue building up, he’s fine. He did take some internal damage, but I treated it, so it won’t be a problem.”

[It’s good it turned out fine, but I was worried mana runaway might happen. I told you—you should’ve put in an appropriate amount of mana.]

“I put in less than the amount I first intended. This bastard absorbs everything I put in—what else was I supposed to do?”

[Huh? Really?]

“Yeah. Normally, because of the repulsion, you can’t absorb about thirty percent of someone else’s mana, right? But this kid absorbed a hundred out of a hundred. All of it.”

Is that even possible? And it’s dragon mana, of all things?

“From what I can tell…… he has a gift. Otherwise, how could a novice who can barely sense mana flow make not a 1-circle, but a 2-circle on his first try?”

[True…… I was almost thinking of it as a gamble too.]

“And while making the circles earlier, his mana channels expanded drastically. With this, later he could reach even 4 circles without difficulty. It must have hurt a lot…….”

Ria opened her mouth when she saw how gentle his gaze was as he looked at Lucian.

[You said you’d be cruel, but you’re worrying about Lucian more than I am?]

“W-who said I’m worried! Just a mere human……!”

Kaiser went hng! and stood up, saying he’d done what he had to do. But even after going outside, he kept hovering by the doorway, stealing looks at Lucian.

Maybe the two of them making up is only a matter of time, she thought.

* * *

Lucian, who reached 2 circles in one shot, had to suffer a fever for a full two days from then on.

It was a kind of growing pain caused by adapting to the sudden changes in his body.

While Lucian was stuck in bed like that, Kaiser didn’t show his face in front of him even once.

Though he didn’t show it, Lucian kept lurking by the doorway, looking for Kaiser, and Kaiser also kept checking on Lucian’s condition through the window, the doorway, or eavesdropping.

Both of them were desperate to approach each other, and yet when they actually met, they acted like sworn enemies—seriously.

Even after Lucian recovered and resumed magic lessons and sword lessons, there was no sign of progress between the two.

Ria sat there sulkily, watching them.

Today’s training was for Kaiser to launch magic, and for Lucian to defend with magic that countered it.

Kaiser lit Fire in his left hand and threw it at Lucian. Lucian swallowed and cast a spell.

“……Aqua!”

“Too slow!”

He succeeded in producing Aqua, but the Fire reached Lucian faster.

“K-Kaiser is just too fast!”

“Fast, my ass! That was slow as hell. If this was real combat, you’d just be dead! Later, when you fight someone else, are you going to spew bullshit that they were too fast for you to see?!”

This situation kept repeating from a moment ago.

If Lucian did badly, Kaiser would bark and scold him, if he did okay, Kaiser would scold him asking what’s so okay about it, and if he did perfectly, Kaiser would nag him to keep working harder.

There wasn’t a single bit of praise.

She knows he doesn’t want a repeat of what happened in the basement, but isn’t this a little too spartan?

Ria couldn’t stand it and stepped in.

[Kaiser, how can he use yesterday’s magic right away? And on top of that, he’s not doing only that—he’s also doing swordsmanship in parallel.]

Right. This wasn’t simple magic training.

If Kaiser threw a stone, Lucian had to knock it away with his sword, and if Kaiser used magic, Lucian had to instantly use opposing magic in response.

He’s only eight, and it hasn’t even been a week since he formed his mana circles—there’s no way he can pull that off immediately.

“Then when is he supposed to learn it all? You’re saying he can just dabble in magic, dabble in swordsmanship, and that’s enough as long as he achieves something? Like you say, if it was enough to just know the basics, then dogs and cows would all be strong already! Take this level of skill into the human world! Obviously he won’t last long before he dies!”

[No, I’m saying we should go a little easier.]

“Ria, you clearly said you were leaving the education to me. If you keep butting in any more, I’m not doing it.”

[Ugh, that damn old-man bastard…….]

He’s a hatchling—why is he so rigid? Is it that hard to be a little more flexible?

“Ria, it’s fine. I can do it.”

[But, Lucian…….]

“Do you think I can’t even do this? I’m going to make that nose of his flat, so Ria just watch.”

The moment he stopped calling Kaiser hyung, Kaiser’s eyebrow twitched.

Even at the birthday party, they were calling each other brothers and laughing heh heh ho ho, but now they were glaring at each other like they wanted to eat each other alive.

“Full of confidence, are you? Out of fifty times, you only succeeded five.”

“Now I’m used to it, so I can do it faster. Why? Do you think I can’t even do that?”

“Fine—let’s see how long that confidence lasts.”

Kaiser started the lesson again, speeding up a little more. Lucian fumbled at first, but soon clenched his teeth and showed intense concentration.

[Ooh?]

He must have really ground his teeth, because Lucian gradually began gaining the upper hand.

Kaiser, perhaps surprised, lifted one eyebrow. Then he wiped away the humor from his face and began to take it seriously.

“Now we go like real combat. I won’t warn you what I’m going to send out, and I’ll attack while moving. You match it and try to defend in the most optimized way.”

When Lucian nodded, Kaiser, who had been standing in place through the whole training, finally moved.

With eyes full of spirit, Kaiser grinned and began muttering something.

As I watched, wondering what it was, I felt the ground tremble slightly and jerked my head up.

[Lucian! The ground! There’s something underground!]

Lucian moved back. Then a hole formed where he had been, and flames shot up.

[Hey! What if you get hurt at this rate!]

When Ria shouted, Kaiser clicked his tongue.

“I clearly said we’re going like real combat, didn’t I? I didn’t use any magic above 1 circle. I just applied it.”

[You, seriously……!]

“Applying is allowed, right?”

Lucian, who had been staring blankly at the hole Kaiser dug, lifted the corners of his mouth.

“Wind!”

Lucian used the hole Kaiser dug against him. Kaiser calmly avoided the hole. But that wasn’t Lucian’s goal.

The wind that passed straight through the hole kicked up dust, blocking their vision.

“Hoh?”

The idea is good. But this blocks not only my vision, but Lucian’s too. How is he going to counterattack from here?

Tap-tadak-

A presence circled around, and the dust began to settle little by little.

Boo-woong-

Faintly, in the left direction, he could see the dust clearing faster along with the sound of wind.

Kaiser was about to move to avoid the attack, but his feet wouldn’t budge, so he looked down.

“At some point…….”

The earth had risen up, binding his feet, and to make it sturdier, it had been frozen solid with ice.

He’d made a basic mistake, giving his feet away while distracted by the dust and Lucian’s approach.

“Ha, haha…… this is fun……!”

Kaiser let out a short laugh, eyes flashing. Then he raised his left arm to block the incoming attack from the left.

Lucian swung his sword down and attacked Kaiser, and Kaiser blocked it with his arm.

When the dust cleared completely, Lucian and Kaiser were revealed, glaring at each other.

[That’s enough!]

At the shout, both looked toward Ria.

[This time, Lucian wins. Right, Kaiser?]

“……Well, hiding the vision and drawing attention elsewhere to bind my feet was impressive.”

Kaiser glanced down at Lucian.

“Let’s say you win this one.”

Lucian’s face lit up.

“Ria! I won! I finally won!”

[Congrats, Lucian. To think you’d decide to bind his feet in such a short moment. How did you come up with that?]

“Winning head-on is hard, and if he runs around, I’d have a hard time catching him, so I thought I should bind his feet first. And since he dug a hole, I kicked up dust with loose dirt.”

[Next time the same method won’t work. When it comes to that, can you still do well?]

“Of course! Kaiser isn’t my match anymore, you know?”

Ah. He got too smug.

Kaiser, who heard Lucian’s words clearly, trembled.

“What? Not your match? If we’re being precise, you didn’t even win. If I’d blasted you with breath, you’d have died on the spot! On the spot!”

“Heh, then Ria would have blocked it in the middle. And you blocked with your arm because you were too late to counter with magic, wasn’t that it?”

“Fine. Let’s go again. I’ll press you flat so you can never get smug again!”

“Why would I? I’m tired now. I used almost all my mana, so I can’t anymore.”

When Lucian cockily turned his head away, Kaiser looked like he was about to fall over backward, clutching the back of his head and trembling.

Kaiser let out a kyaak! and started snapping at Lucian, and Lucian didn’t yield and snapped back.

“Coward!”

“Tightwad!”

“You idiot who can’t even read runes!”

“Then you’re a super idiot for losing to that idiot!”

Grrrgh!

A childish war of words, fitting their mental ages, went back and forth. When they couldn’t settle who was better, they both turned to Ria with blazing eyes.

“Ria! Who’s better, in Ria’s eyes? Obviously I’m the best, right? You said I’m a genius who made 2 circles in one go!”

“Hah! You’re not actually going to raise that snot-nosed kid’s hand, are you? You know it too! If I hadn’t gone easy on him, you know what kind of state he’d be in!”

“Ria!”

“Ria!”

[Uwaaaagh! Shut up! You’re both the same, so be quiet!]

When Ria shrieked, both Lucian and Kaiser flinched.

[You two really are the same, okay? Kaiser, you! He can say something like that because he’s smug. You’re not being adult at all, nitpicking and arguing back like that!]

“No, I’m saying he’s talking nonsense, so…….”

[And Lucian, you too! Kaiser teaches harshly, but it’s an education you could never learn anywhere else. You should be grateful to Kaiser—how can you keep teasing him?!]

“I’m just saying it because Kaiser teases me first…….”

[How long are you two going to keep acting awkward like this! You idiots who were calling each other hyung and dongsaeng and getting along so well!]

Under Ria’s fury, both tucked their tails and went quiet. But only for a moment—then a grumble was heard.

“……I’m wronged. What did I do wrong?”

[What?]

“R-right! I didn’t do anything wrong!”

Both stuck their lips out, insisting they didn’t do anything wrong. Something like magma boiled up inside her.

Ria grabbed Kaiser and Lucian by the backs of their necks.

“W-what is this! Let go!”

“Ria?”

[Are you two not going to shut up? I’ll starve you, you know!]

Ria dragged them to a small room in the mansion.

Then she shoved both of them inside and locked the door.

“You’re not opening this?”

“Open it, Ria!”

[No. I’m not opening it until you two make up. Fight it out or make up, do whatever you want.]

“Hey! How can you do this!”

Bang-!

Kaiser stomped and kicked the door hard. Ria pushed her face through the door.

Startled, Kaiser and Lucian stumbled back.

[Know that you’re absolutely not coming out until you make up.]

With that, she pulled her face back out of the door and cast a barrier spell over the room.

Kaiser shouted that this is ridiculous, but once the barrier completed, it went quiet at once.

[Hmph, try it a hundred times. Like you can break the barrier.]

With Kaiser there too, she intertwined a high-level formula again and again. Rather than breaking the barrier, it’ll be far easier to just make up with Lucian, won’t it?

[Sheesh, adult dragon my ass. He’s still the same mental age as Lucian.]

She’d thought Lucian was entirely mature too, but once you scratched at him, he showed a childish side.

It’s good for a child to be childlike, but when there are two of them, it feels like her skull is going to crack.

[If I come back around dinner, it’ll be fine, right?]

Ria stretched and left the room with a light heart.

Whether they fight or make up, it’s not her business anymore.