/
Chapter 22 – Lord Selim freezes the bear dad
I wake up with the sunrise.
I’m in my room.
“What happened?”
“Selim-sama! Thank goodness you are awake.”
I hear Mari’s voice. She seemed to be waiting in the corner of the room, and immediately rushed over to me when I woke up.
“During a fight with His Grace, you suddenly collapsed and didn’t wake up for a whole day.”
I see. Did I faint after running out of mana and have slept that long?
“I will bring you breakfast. His Grace ordered that you come to the training grounds after eating.”
I really don’t want to go.
After breakfast, when I headed to the training ground, which was a large empty lot in the castle, Father was standing there alone in the center.
I feel like I can see something like an aura of fighting spirit from him.
How eager is he?
“Yesterday’s blunder. If I hadn’t forgiven you, you would have died.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll give you a second chance. See how merciful I am.”
Merciful…
“Let’s begin.”
Father launches himself at me holding his sword. When I blocked him using a barrier, he jumped up and shot fire spells at me.
“Body Strengthening.”
Dodge, dodge… my mana would run out if I received all his attacks using my barrier. I must dodge what can be dodged.
“Don’t run away!
It seems that while I was busy dealing with the fireballs that flew at me, Father was preparing for the ultimate spell in parallel. A gigantic red-black mass of flames appeared.
“Take this!”
Wait. According to my position and Father’s position, he should be able to see the castle behind me. If I dodge, his spell will head toward the castle. There are many officials and servants working in the castle.
It’s unavoidable.
“Ice Wall Barrier!“
I caught a mass of flames in the barrier. What a huge amount of energy. Enveloping the flames with an ice barrier, I canceled out that energy.
The flame was extinguished.
“Well, it seems that you have become so skilled.”
From Father’s point of view, I was surrounded by cold air.
The ground under Father’s feet froze. The ground of the training ground froze. Father’s body froze.
“What the hell are you doing! If there was a single mistake, the castle would’ve collapsed and created a huge accident!”
I yelled at Father.
My frozen father became like an ice sculpture, but he’s not dead. He should be able to escape as long as he uses his mana.
After a while, the ice cracked, and Father came out.
“Selim, you’ve gotten stronger.”
It seems that Father was satisfied. The aura of fighting spirit around him disappeared.
“A few weeks ago, a messenger came from the church. He said that you had the talent for healing magic, so he wanted to take you to the church.”
“What the hell?”
What is the church thinking? Do they seriously think they can take away the eldest son of a Duke?
“Of course I refused. Their attitude wasn’t pleasant, so I chased them away with intimidation. However, they were very persistent. When you didn’t return yesterday, I doubted the church before anything else. I almost went to send the church a fireball.”
That is… he planned on releasing that ultimate spell to the church? Though I somehow feel that if it’s the church…
Before I knew it, the city’s church luckily saved their lives.
“So, can you really use healing magic?”
“If it’s a minor injury, I can heal it.”
If I answer “yes” to the question of whether I can use a healing spell, the <System> will react and deduct 50 experience points for lying. Because what I can use is <Skill>, not a magic spell. I’m getting used to talking in caution about that.
“Did you escape from the castle to heal the people in the city?”
“Exactly.”
“It’s hypocrisy. For diseases that can be cured with healing magic, if you use Body Strengthening, you can heal yourself. Were you self-satisfying yourself by curing weak people who couldn’t even do that?”
“In order to gain proficiency in healing, I have to do it many times. By doing so, I will eventually be able to heal serious injuries that cannot be healed by Body Strengthening.”
“You mean the regeneration of missing limbs and defects? There are plenty of warriors who lose their arms and legs and can no longer fight, but… There are currently no users of such advanced spells in this Kingdom, right?”
“I am the eldest son of the Duke Household.”
“Hmm. You seem confident.”
It’s bluffing, but seeing that the <System> didn’t react to it saying that I lied, it might be possible eventually. After all, it seems that every 10 levels, I can learn a new <Skill>.
“Very well, do as you wish. There’s no point in tying you up with the thoughts of the tutors and people in the castle who are weaker than you.”
Apparently, the negotiations were successful because we fought with all of my might. Now I can move even more freely.
＊　＊　＊
Being recognized by my father gave me more freedom. It became easier for me to change things like the tutor’s schedule. In that case, I would like to cut down on the current learning time and learn about pharmacy and medicine anew.
“It’s dangerous to use <Healing Skill> without any medical knowledge.”
Laura’s treatment yesterday made me keenly aware of that.
The <Healing Skill> is done automatically by the <System>, so I’m just providing magic without doing anything. However, it is not good to use <Skill> without knowing anything at all.
“I was able to use <Basic Healing> because I have the experience of healing my own wounds using Body Strengthening. However, <Immunity Manipulation>, that was terrible.”
It didn’t even occur to me to cool the patient until Amanda brought a water pillow. I should study medicine as soon as possible.
“But tentatively, it’s the church that specializes in this field.”
It’s impossible, and I would absolutely hate to have a teacher that is a member of that church. I should ask someone in the castle if they have any connections and whether they can invite someone knowledgeable in that field as a tutor.
“Also, I’ll order all the books I can get. If it’s a pharmacist, there are people who are practicing their profession without being a member of the church, so maybe I’ll find a pharmacist’s tutor as well.”