"Was that backhand really necessary…"
Massaging his ribs with a grimace across his face, Aaron stared into the distance, watching the furry Rudiger carry Eleanor back to the house.
"You weren't going to allow me to knock her out."
Masaru's response to the boy's question was cold and deliberate, not leaving anything up to interpretation.
"How was I supposed to know that it was for her own well-being? What if you just decided that she'd make a nice wall mount or something?"
Throwing his hand up in annoyance, the boy's crude joke received a chuckle from the swordsman.
"I was once a prominent assassin with hundreds of kills to my name. Why would I only start making mounts now?"
For the first time, Aaron heard the man tell a joke, albeit one in poor taste.
I mustn't forget that he isn't the same as Cam. Regardless of whether he's weaker or stronger than her, he has lived many more years than she has, while also having been forced into the underworld from a young age.
Taking a moment to collect his thoughts, he spoke up again.
"In the future, you could avoid such incidents by simply explaining the first time… Instead of saying 'I need to knock her out, move aside,' you could simply say, 'If I don't knock her out, the power of the miracle won't fade, and her core will overload.' Isn't that nicer?"
The man's black eyes stayed on his young apprentices for a long period of time before he scoffed.
"Perhaps you should've become a teacher like Santoro. I'm certain many students would be interested to learn from one who wields not only a Ghostship, but the half-formed essence of a deity as a pet."
Aaron's head instantly succumbed to intense pain; the feeling of the barriers that had been dormant for days awakening, sending his core into a frenzy.
"Y-you…"
He couldn't even stutter out the words as he collapsed down onto one knee, the raw agony coursing through him comparable to when he felt the gaze of Cauron Thorn's deity on him.
"This is extremely fascinating…"
Masaru examined the strained expression on the boy's face, seemingly looking for something that was beneath the flesh.
"There seems to be some sort of mutated Knowledge Barrier within your mind. Furthermore, instead of merely erasing the knowledge from you when it is said aloud, it'll inflict you with horrific headaches as if it is trying to fight off an infection."
From his back, the swordsman removed his pitch-black sword that echoed with the spirit of the God of Space.
Slowly, disregarding the pain in Aaron's eyes, he moved the blade's point to the child's left temple, pressing in enough to draw blood.
Before another second could pass, every searing nerve ending within the blond-haired boy's body ceased to function.
A soothing numbness overwhelmed him, granting a release from the agonizing barriers and memory seal.
"H-how did you do this? Nobody has ever—"
The black-haired man cut him off while retracting the tip of his sword from his head.
"There is a difference between the Kings who harness divinity as if it were a gift, and I who use the fragmented spirit of a primordial force when it comes to the affliction you suffer from. When they try to interfere with your state, they trigger barriers that even a god could hardly penetrate without direct effort. I, however, synchronized with that force and made it believe that I was simply a part of it."
Aaron's eyes widened at the explanation, his awe at the man's nonchalance leaving him stationary.
"You did that before… Right…?"
Thinking back to the first time he met the man back during the meeting of Marshals on Blackport Ridge, he remembered that spine-chilling emotion that had overcome him.
At the time, it had seemed as if the man had looked through his very essence, and that deity within him had ignored him completely.
Now, as he described something that was just a slightly more complicated example, he could finally understand what had happened.
Masaru himself nodded and continued on.
"Indeed. That is also when I first discovered your uniqueness. I could sense the presence of a spirit nearly to the level of myself within your blade, while the feeling of eyes watching my every move also appeared to me."
Aaron quickly felt Penelope stir awake and mumble something quietly before falling back into her slumber.
『On… His… Level…? How dare…』
Before she could finish, she was shushed and ushered back to sleep by the other force lurking in the deepest regions of the boy's mind.
The swordsman seemed to notice the boy's reaction to her voice, posing a question of his own.
"Your blade speaks to you, does it not?"
The blond-haired boy had long since given up on trying to deceive the man who had already discovered almost all of his secrets, answering him honestly in the following seconds.
"Yes."
He nodded again, as if expecting the response.
"My own blade does the same; however, listening to it would drive you and me into insanity before we could learn anything of use. As it is only a minuscule fraction of the Divine Authority of the God of Space, the consciousness is split, and the already potent words of the primordial one are fragmented further."
Aaron had already known for quite some time that what inhabited Masaru's sword was horrific, and for it to be one of the primordial gods, that was certainly terrifying in of itself.
I wonder if he would find it rude if I told him to seal his sword's lips so it doesn't nearly kill me again…
Deciding to hold his tongue, he thought back to what the man had said carefully.
"You deduced I was a Ghostship wielder from the appearance of Mr. Crab?"
Masaru furrowed his brow at the mention of the small crustacean.
"You've named a being that is the shattered remains of a god, Mr. Crab? Have you no respect for the deities at all?"
His words made the boy frown and crane his neck to the side as if mishearing something.
"The shattered remains of a god? That crab?"
It was such an absurd statement that he nearly burst out in laughter, the only thing keeping him from doing so being the expression on the black-haired man's face.
"You truly didn't know? That thing is the amalgamation of fractured godhood itself. It has likely forged its form out of the remains of countless deities, albeit only a fraction of their power."
Aaron's pupils dilated, and his breathing stopped.
Looking into the man's eyes as if to search for deceit, he saw nothing of the sort; rather, only resolve and surprise.
"I-Is he a deity then?"
Fearful of the revenge of the crustacean that he had thrown, threatened, and ignored for months, he could only silently pray to the Old Man for his impression to be incorrect.
"Since you have addressed him as a man, I shall do the same."
Masaru paused after taking note of the gender of the animal, then continued.
"Currently, he is nowhere close to the level of a deity, with a majority of his power likely sealed within that Ghostship of yours. Regardless of that, I suspect that he is not what you'd typically consider to be a deity, but instead is a jack of all trades. At his strongest, he might be equal to a god in strength, but he himself would never be considered one without a singular concentrated Divine Authority."
Exhaling at the explanation, Aaron thanked the Old Man—someone who, unbeknownst to the boy, was completely sealed—for not allowing him to make an enemy out of a true deity so quickly.
Still, I should try not to make him any more displeased than he already is. Even if he's not just as simple as a personification of the Ghostship, he is still the one in charge of whether it floats or sinks…
Shuddering at the thought of being drowned by the crustacean for another bad joke, he looked up at the exiled Marshal with a shaky demeanor.
"What does all this mean for my training, then? You know my capabilities and timeframe, I assume, and therefore, I must expect you've already planned something."
There was a twitch on the man's lips, his expression returning to that of a mentor, instead of an observer.
"You're correct. I've devised a perfectly designed list of regimens that you will follow for the next thirty or so days until the date that Camilla—"
The blond boy cut him off.
"Actually… The timeframe has shrunk."
Masaru frowned, subconsciously reworking parts of the schedule before he had even learned how long.
"How much by? It might be tight if it is a week, but otherwise…"
As he looked down at the child's face, he could only wish that what he was seeing was false.
Bearing a guilty expression, Aaron spoke in nothing but a whisper.
"If I don't leave the Southern Continent within three weeks, I'll die."