The Guardians' Throne - The First Magic Swordsman

            After having their dinner, Zaos put Milliendra to sleep, and then Aleni began to prepare to study the terrain around the castle. He had learned her lesson, so Zaos was certain that she wouldn't do anything stupid.

"Before I go, how are we going to decide who will invade the castle?" Aleni asked. 

"The last time you did it, so it is my turn now," Zaos said.

"I have better skills to do that kind of work," Aleni said.

"This is this and that is that," Zaos shrugged. "Anyway, I have this feeling that it will be better if I go this time. While I am not as good as you, I have some skills that will help with the task."

            Usually, Aleni would complain since she still felt restless while living like an average person. At the same time, she got used to her new life. She lost all her youth thanks to her training, so she also felt that not putting those skills at us would be too much of a waste. She would put some of them in now, but it wasn't enough.

"If something happens, use the rings," Zaos said before Aleni left.

            When Aleni left, Zaos opened the magic book while thinking that she really had become a team player in the last few years… their team was pretty small, though. Regardless, Zaos checked the book once again for some spells that might come in handy for interrogations, but it wasn't the first time he had done something like that and didn't get a result. There were many skills in the magic book, but he barely felt the urge to learn some of them… aside from three spells, the magic book only worked for Zaos to learn the ancient language.

"I have gotten rusty… two years without making any breakthrough when it comes to magic…" Zaos said and then signed.

          The idea of developing his own type of magic was more and looking less insane. If he has to face the demon god one day, that would also come in handy, but… Zaos had zero ideas on how to start. Zaos had tried to make some improvements with his use of magic with his voice, but he didn't accomplish anything either. Aside from using incantations and drawing symbols to Skip the incantation and alerting the enemy… What other ways of magic can be used? The magic stones weren't a different way to use mana since they still relied on ancient language symbols.

"I guess the only thing I can try is that… Use my mana directly," Zaos said. "It was hard to learn that with the magic stones, but if I try hard enough and do something else…"

          It didn't take long for Zaos to learn that it would be much harder than he had imagined. Transmitting his mana to an empty magic stone was easy because he saw and felt the target, but trying to use his mana in any other way wasn't that simple…

              Zaos had an idea when he recalled the gloves that he made for Milliendra. Even though he couldn't use his left arm properly when he used the glove, he recovered some of his sense of touch, probably because he could feel the mana of the magic stone enveloping the glove, and that followed his will. What if he covers his left arm with his own mana?

              Zaos tried that, and he didn't get a response. Something didn't feel right… it was probably because he was trying to move his arm by controlling the mana inside it. That shouldn't be possible since he lost the movements because his mana there had been drained... He had to make the mana flow to the outside and then control it. After doing some image training, Zaos pulled it off. It wasn't much, but he could control his fingers. After a couple of hours, Zaos got good enough to even swing Guardian's Heart with his left hand. He was pretty slow, though. He also was using too much mana.

"Ah... I got sidetracked," Zaos said. "I will help my left arm with a magic tool, this training is for me to be able to use magic without the ancient language and symbols."

          When Zaos was about to do that, he noticed that Aleni was approaching. Two hours after midnight had passed, so he lost the notion of time while he was trying something new. Regardless, he could always experiment with it later. He could tell by feeling Aleni's aura that something had happened… or she noticed something weird. Like a spider, Aleni climbed the wall and then jumped over the open window.

"... We might have a problem," Aleni said after a long sigh.

"What is it?" Zaos asked.

"I didn't notice anything weird with the guards outside the castle, but something feels creepy about the castle itself," Aleni explained. "I didn't get too close to confirm it… but it reminded me of the feeling that I had when I was captured."

              Zaos furrowed his eyebrows… demons inside the castle? That was just too weird… there was no way someone inside wouldn't notice it. However, he considered one thing… What if the entire war had been planned by demons? That country attacked the Sairus kingdom pretty soon, after all. Not to mention, no guard or army had been mobilized to wipe out the bandits armed with magic weapons.

"Let's say that your feeling is correct… why the guy that I killed wasn't working with the demons here?" Zaos asked. 

"Maybe he was trying to get his hands on that region because it would be easier to back the army with the magic weapons and magic stones from that region," Aleni replied.

          It made sense, but Zaos felt that something was missing. Unfortunately, he couldn't quite tell what it was. In any case, if he could capture a demon or two to interrogate them, it was fine.. The problem was how he would be able to do so many things by himself.

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