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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 10
Chapter Title: Special Reading
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After Loan's first reading, the shelter was overwhelmed by a flood of guests. The crowd was nearly double the usual number of attendees.
In just one day, rumors had spawned more rumors and spread like wildfire. Some were as absurd as saying an angel read novels at the shelter.
Lady Carolyn, the suspected source of the rumors, boldly made a demand to the shelter staff.
"Loan will be the main reader today, won't he? No, that's not right. If possible, please let him read alone. Having other, lesser voices mixed in would ruin the mood."
The vice director went to Loan and explained the awkward situation.
"This is what's happened. Do you think you can do it?"
Her tone was gentle.
But Loan understood it as a command to get it done, no matter what.
Loan answered with a bright smile.
"Yes. I'll do my best. Please don't worry."
"You're such a good child."
Loan was only doing as he was told, but performing a sponsored reading solo was unprecedented.
Among the children, who had been nothing but admiring until yesterday, other emotions began to sprout.
It was understandable, as the reading group members' greatest hope was to be adopted into a good home through a special reading.
They had to show their faces and open their mouths to get a chance.
Loan had essentially monopolized the opportunity meant for the other nineteen children.
That evening.
The vice director gathered everyone to announce the special reader, and the children all stared at the face of the one they expected to be chosen.
Their gazes were filled with anxiety, envy, and jealousy.
However.
"This special reading… will be for Theo. Everyone, please congratulate him."
Contrary to the children's expectations, Theo was called, not Loan.
Theo was just as bewildered.
With a dazed expression, he pointed a finger at his own chest. Only after seeing the vice director's bright smile and hearing the children's celebratory applause several times did he finally rejoice.
"Congratulations. It's a shame you're leaving."
Loan said it with sincerity.
He was a good kid who had helped him adjust to life in the main building.
Although they hadn't shared the kind of connection that would make them friends, Loan would remember Theo as a kind and good-natured child.
"Thanks, Loan. You're a great reader, so you'll be going to a good place soon."
Dressed in very fine clothes, Theo headed to the annex for the special reading late at night. From there, he would be leaving for a good home.
The children in each room pressed against the windows, waving continuously.
Theo, knowing they would be there, constantly looked back and waved his arm widely.
When the trees blocked Theo from sight, the children went to sleep with expressions of both disappointment and envy.
The day after Theo left, many guests came again.
More than the day before.
It was so crowded that it was difficult for everyone to enter the reception hall at once.
The vice director sought out Loan again.
"Loan, it seems we'll have to split the reading into morning and afternoon sessions today. What should we do?"
"So I'll be reading twice in one day?"
"It won't be easy physically, but what can we do? Everyone wants to hear you read."
"Ah, I'm truly grateful. I'm just happy that everyone enjoys it. But..."
Loan suddenly put on a sorrowful expression, making the vice director's heart sink.
"Hmm? Is something worrying you? Go on, tell me."
In a very cautious tone, Loan gazed at the vice director and asked.
"Then, would it be possible to go outside for some fresh air during the break? The emotional toll after reading one piece is quite draining. I'm worried I might ruin the afternoon reading."
What ulterior motive, what lie, could possibly be hidden behind those words and that expression?
The vice director felt so guilty she wondered if she had asked too much of him.
"Ah… of course, that makes sense. Yes. You may do that."
After finishing the morning reading, Loan received special permission from the vice director and stepped outside for the first time since entering the main building.
There was a condition that he couldn't leave the main building's backyard, but that was enough.
The languid spring sunlight he welcomed with his whole body for the first time in a while, the fragrant breeze blowing at random, and the gently shimmering mana.
Loan stood still for a moment, regulating his breathing and circulating with the world.
He may have moved many to tears with his morning reading, but he himself was not tired in the slightest.
It was just an excuse for the vice director. He simply wanted to continue his training in an open space.
'First, without using mana.'
He moved his body based on what he had read in books.
After creating a suitable tension in his muscles and joints through stretching, he continued with some light bodyweight exercises.
As he did so, he visualized his own body in his mind and superimposed the flow of mana, observed with a third eye, onto it in real-time.
The paths through which mana flowed had now been considerably detailed, using his blood vessels as a guide.
Things he had realized from Blake, understood from books, and confirmed with his own body.
'Now, if I unify my movements with the flow of mana…'
By moving his bones, joints, and muscles to perform specific actions, he made the waves of mana connect naturally.
What had once been separate gradually became one.
Mana melted into the acts of extending his arms, clenching his fists, lifting his legs, or jumping.
'What's important is not thought, but will.'
He recited the realization once more.
Merely moving his body could be done with just a thought, but to make mana move with it required a strong will.
Naturally, to assimilate the flow of mana into a continuous series of movements as smoothly as flowing water, it had to be supported by equally rapid thought and willpower.
"Hoo..."
The mana surged, circulating in a grand loop from the very top to the very bottom, extending and rushing to where it was needed.
He repeated the process over and over until it became natural.
'Everything else is fine. The problem, as always, is the mana's density.'
He had realized long ago that dense mana meant a large amount of accumulated mana.
The problem was that it simply wouldn't fill up, no matter what he did.
'Is the problem with my body, the vessel?'
He didn't know if he needed to make the vessel larger or stronger.
Or if it would become possible with age, or by training his body and increasing his stamina.
Considering the progress he'd made since learning mana breathing, it was nearly impossible to reach a state equal to Blake, his benchmark, in a short period.
In other words, he concluded that he couldn't compete in terms of the amount of mana accumulated in his body.
'Let's not be impatient. I still know the weaknesses of others.'
He had no choice but to rely on what he'd realized while recalling the Union pursuit incident.
'By the time Blake reached the shelter carrying me, he was barely walking. His mana density had become no different from an ordinary person's.'
He had continuously consumed his stored mana without recovering, which led to that state.
Since the pursuing Union members had ended up in a similar state around the same time, it was safe to assume there was a common weakness in mana usage.
There was a difference in the amount of accumulated mana, but if he could continuously draw upon external mana, he could gain an advantage in the long run.
Fortunately, Loan was already aiming for that kind of training.
And his thoughts moved on to another horizon.
'Couldn't I use external mana itself as if it were my own? Then I wouldn't need to be so fixated on mana density.'
To do that, he first needed to be able to imbue his will into the mana outside his body.
'I can imbue sound into mana. I even pushed mana away with sound. Then it should be possible to give it weight or form, right?'
Loan picked a small blade of grass, placed it on his palm, and focused his mind.
Just as he had projected sound out of his mouth while circulating mana through his entire body, he tried to radiate it directly through his skin.
Soon, minuscule particles of mana, each one too small to be gauged by the eye, floated up like a mist above Loan's palm.
They filled the space around the blade of grass, colliding and mixing with its inherent mana, and began to repel each other.
For a moment, the force keeping the blade of grass settled on his palm was stronger, but soon.
Sssss-
With an extremely faint tremor, the blade of grass began to float.
Loan quickened the circulation of his mana, trying to make the blade of grass itself respond to his will.
Loan devoted himself solely to this for the entire time he had until the afternoon schedule.
After the afternoon reading, the vice director gathered the children.
It was time to announce the special reader.
Surely it would be Loan this time.
The children looked back and forth between the vice director's lips and Loan's eyes, waiting to confirm the obvious result.
But Loan's name was not called.
"This special reading is for Lily. Everyone, please congratulate her."
Lily was so busy sneaking glances at Loan that she didn't even hear her own name being called right away.
"Lily, congratulations. Stay healthy and well out there."
Only after hearing Loan's words did Lily realize she was leaving the shelter.
"..."
Lily hesitated, as if wanting to say something.
Then she tried to plant a surprise kiss on Loan's cheek, but he quickly pulled back, causing her to nearly topple forward.
If Loan hadn't caught her, she would have fallen.
Embarrassed, Lily left the spot on the verge of tears.
'What's with her…'
As Lily walked away, envious sighs from the other children seeped into Loan's ears.
"I'm so jealous."
"Lily's good, but it's strange that Loan wasn't chosen this time either."
"The director won't let him go. Don't you know the story of the goose that lays golden eggs?"
"Ah, because he's a moneymaker... I guess she might be doing it on purpose."
"I think he'll never get to leave at this rate. Well, Loan seems satisfied with it, though."
"Yeah. If you look closely, it seems like he enjoys being at the shelter, right?"
Thanks to his keen hearing, he overheard them, but it was nothing new.
Just as the children surmised, the shelter and Loan were in a symbiotic relationship for their mutual benefit.
It was only a matter of who would break that relationship first.
'It certainly seems like it would be better to leave the shelter. I've read all the books in the library, too.'
He didn't really know what a "good home" was.
But judging from what the other children had said, he would at least have more opportunities to train with mana outside.
'I could read new books and experience a wider world. I might even find a clue about accumulating mana…'
Wondering when that day would come, Loan gazed out the window for a while.
* * *
The next day.
After making many people laugh and cry with his solo morning reading, Loan went out to the main building's backyard to have some time to himself.
"Hoo..."
He levitated a pencil stub about a hand's breadth above his palm and spun it around.
This was the result of practicing late into the night.
By circulating a thin film of mana expelled through his breath, he could now interfere with the flow of surrounding mana and influence the mana contained within external objects.
However, the power was still extremely faint.
Loan pondered how he could control external mana more arbitrarily and forcefully.
As he focused so intently that his head grew hot.
"Hm?"
Loan sensed an unfamiliar movement of mana and stared intently in that direction.
A moment later, a man precariously climbed over the high wall next to the main building. A fresh, crimson streak was left on the wall where he had slipped.
'Ah… that person is.'
Harry.
He was one of the dormitory supervisors. Loan didn't know him well since he wasn't in charge of his section, but he remembered his face and name.
But back then, he hadn't been in a state where he only had one arm.
Loan ran toward Harry without thinking. The man's mana was fading. He needed help.
At the same time.
Someone burst out of the main building and ran in the same direction.
'Egger?'
The giant figure, who had looked wondrous just climbing up and down the stairs, overtook Loan at an incredible speed.
Egger, who reached Harry first, held out a hand toward Loan.
"That's enough from you. Don't worry about it and go back to the main building."
Loan stopped in his tracks and simply nodded without a word.
Still, he strained his sensitive hearing toward them, but they moved away too quickly for him to overhear their whispers.
Only the surprised words Egger uttered at the beginning of their conversation remained in Loan's ears.
"...The Union?"
Furthermore, the events that followed bewildered not only Loan but many of the other children.
During lunchtime, just before the afternoon reading.
The director and vice director had gone somewhere, leaving the patrons unattended, and were nowhere to be seen.
To the patrons expressing their displeasure at the treatment, Amy, who entered the dining hall a moment later, spoke.
"The afternoon sponsored reading has been canceled. We ask that you return home immediately."
Her attitude was curt, despite it being a unilateral announcement.
Though it was baffling, her presence was quite intimidating, so no one dared to openly express their complaints.
The children tilted their heads in confusion as they watched the visiting patrons and guests being all but chased away.
It was that unprecedented.
Amy, who had been the center of attention, now turned to the children and said.
"Loan. It's a special reading. Get ready."