Chapter 29

Insensitive but Efficient

  Vanessa was looking at the young Lord who had become her brother in name. Everything was new to Hans, and he felt like an innocent boy who knew nothing about the world, but one thing that was hammered into him from birth was getting whatever he wanted; it doesn't matter if it was by hook or crook and meeting this new sister who shared the same nature made that rule stronger.

  Sometimes he felt like his supposed father, who walked the life of a powerful person. It was not solely because he knew Rudolf would back him up no matter what, but he was capable and confident of pulling his weight and he was proving this in right front of Vanessa.

  He had never fought anyone other than Rudolf, so he was curious to know the difference between his grandfather and the others. For this, he asked Aldrich to spar with him which the head knight denied at first, but Hans was pestering him like there was no other day and finally, the knight humoured him.

  Vanessa was expecting to see new things from Hans not only because he was Samson’s child, but he was the sole user of wood mana. His existence was a surprise to the world itself and his mana property did not diminish the element of surprise, either.

  Aldrich kept denying Hans not because it was a waste of the time to fight a child, but because he instinctively knew that he had to be serious from the start and that could hurt his young Lord.

  Right from the start, Hans kept attacking Aldrich with SeedBullets from any direction possible. The attacks were quite fast, but it was not that difficult for Aldrich to deflect. Suddenly, he felt some tremors beneath him. He said to Hans while jumping back,

You have to do better, young Lord,

Hans sneered at him and shouted,

Got you.

SeedBullet

Hans was suppressing the speed of bullets to let Aldrich his guard off and he launched the projectile with top speed and precision, predicting where Aldrich would be. His opponent came in a drawn trajectory of Bullet and had no choice but to block.

  The loud impact of the bullet with the sword was not for only show. Aldrich didn't use any aura skills and the sword without any imbued aura was vibrating because of the clash. Aldrich was looking at Hans's face, which clearly meant that it was not over.

  Hans doesn't like that his SeedBullet was not working on someone other than Rudolf and on a person who was fighting him without even an aura. Even Rudolf had respected him by using the aura. He didn't want to use this, but his pride got the better of him as he shouted at Aldrich.

You will die if you don't take it seriously?

Mutilate

With a horrible shriek, a fast bullet was shot at the falling Aldrich and the feeling that Aldrich was trying to forget about Hans came all over him. He knew that it was an absolute death if he didn't use his aura.

The attack was unknown to him, so he used his aura skill.

Skill - AuraImage

Quickly, a clone of blue aura formed that pushed the main body away by sacrificing itself.

  Hans got to see a new skill. He was sure that moving in the air was not possible, but this was a difference between an experienced knight and a novice mage like him.

  The aura clone got hit with the conical bullet and all of them saw the rampage of crying seed that shredded the clone into countless parts. The attack was too fast and Aldrich was glad that he used the aura skill to avoid this attack. Being a dominion knight meant there were very few things that could intimidate you, but for some unknown reasons, his young Lord seems scary in his eyes.

  He turned to look at Hans, who was not expecting Aldrich to come out of this unharmed, but he forced him to use a satisfactory aura skill. The head knight landed on the ground, but he failed to sense something that was waiting for him because of how surprised he was by Hans’s attack in mid-air.

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  Where he had landed, a creeper sprung up, gripped Aldrich's body and threw it in a straight path towards the Hans. The trajectory was just above ground level, and on his path towards Hans, the vines kept spawning over and restraining his fast speed by ensnaring him over and over. When he finally reached to Hans, He was covered and coiled by orca vines to the point where only his head was visible and one of the sharpest blades on him was aiming at his throat.

Hans smirked at him and said,

You lost Mr head Knight.

  Rudolf stood up, clapping for his little boy, no matter how much they bicker, but the boy’s performance surpassed his imagination. Of course, if Aldrich had fought seriously and wanted to escape from this restraint it was very easy to do so, but he accepted his loss like a knight because doing this much to him was commendable enough.

  Vanessa was looking at this battle on the sidelines but she thought Hans was not even completely ten and his battle instincts were at their peak. He kept improving his attacks to exploit any loophole he found. He started weakly to make Aldrich lose his guard. This showed that he was used to fighting battles with stronger enemies. It might be Rudolf’s influence, but it was something that comes with experience or one has to be born with it.

She said to him,

Hans, you fight like a knight. That will get you killed.

  He was expecting some praise, at least from her, but Vanessa was outright criticising him. He thought his plan was perfect, but her next words surprised him.

A mage is suspicious by nature. They didn't even let their guard down after finishing the opponents for good. You tossed your opponent at yourself. If somehow he had avoided all of your restraints, then something bad might have happened to you.

  She was right, but it can't happen in a spar, so Hans did that to look cool in front of her but his act backfired on him. Her attitude was not of someone looking down on him, but it was filled with concern and a yearning to improve him.

She added,

A mage might have more destructive power than knights, but they will lose almost all the time if fought directly. So a mage has to be more cautious.

  Hans had read that knights came into existence to kill the Mages, but he didn't realise the win-to-lose ratio was this bad. He was unaware of the working of the world, so he carefully listened to her words and followed her out of the training grounds, leaving Rudolf, Aldrich and the spectating knights in training in awe.

Aldrich asked Rudolf,

I never knew a mage of wood mana can be this scary. Just how did you train him?

With a lot of beating. But the brat grew up on his own.

  From that day onwards, Hans started following her everywhere. They were eight years apart and looked like an elder sister guiding her foolish younger brother. Hans genuinely began to listen to her, and she kept treasuring him as an actual brother. Vanessa also knew how dangerous the upcoming days were for him, so she resolved to erase this naivety from him.

  She started to change him little by little into a person like Samson and in the next few days, she already had him wrapped around her fingers. He did everything that made her sister happy, and she used his affection to toughen him up.

  Hans was used to living in a world where strength meant everything, so she started by changing his mindset. Vanessa referenced a lot of incidents where the weak people won over the strong by using law, money and strategies. She was contrasting Hans's belief of "strength triumphs everything" and the boy had a hard time adjusting to this new philosophy.

  Her way of changing Hans’s mindset continued and when they got close, Hans asked her how she ended up like that (referring to her sick condition) but she replied what she told the mage tower associates that “she didn't remember much, she was doing graduation task and the next thing she knew was she got back in Concordia and the pain kept coming back”.

  Being around her all the time, Hans also had developed a habit of not taking everything told to him by others for the facts, that included her too. She was hiding something, and he felt it, but chose not to push her further because she did not seem comfortable remembering those things.

  Vanessa dedicated every moment of hers to teaching Hans all she knew about mages and knights and the current situation of the world. She wanted Hans to develop a cynical nature suited for his survival, so she focused her way of doing things to influence him.

  Rudolf already arranged various tutors to teach him about basic things like history and calculations but Hans only took Vanessa's tutelage seriously.

  And with three months of being under her influence, Hans had changed a lot. He already possessed confidence and charisma, but he had developed a ruthless level of rationality and determination to achieve whatever he set his mind to.

  Vanessa believed that people never change, they could hide their true nature behind a mask called maturity or growth, but deep down they are what they used to be, and she instilled this in Hans.

  Those thoughts heavily affected Hans to become relentless, dominant, and unforgiving. However, he also developed a particular skill in calling out others’ failures with a chilling degree of insensitivity, and this is where he started to run into trouble with others.

He started to believe,

Being insensitive is better than being inefficient.

***