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 Chapter 12: Before Dawn "Do you know why I was faster than that man and faster than you too?" "Nuh-uh." "Well, that's because..." Because of the mysterious man's surprise attack, half the mercenaries had joined in on the interrogation. The remaining half were supposed to sleep inside the mercenaries' tent, for the safety of the battlefield-scavenger kids but only Kanata, the one who'd actually tried to deal with the sudden trouble himself, ended up waiting alongside Griare for the interrogation to finish. Griare leaned her face in close to Kanata's and spoke to him in a low murmur. "Um, so it's about concentrating mana in whatever part you specifically want to reinforce...?" "That's right. Just now, I concentrated it in both legs to boost my speed. It's easy to say but hard to actually do. If you're not used to extremely reinforced muscle strength, you will lose your balance. If your mana manipulation isn...

 Chapter 11: Sword in the Night Wind "There we go..." Night fell with the tense atmosphere still hanging in the air and the battlefield-scavenger kids drifted off to sleep. Maybe it was just a feeling but they were sitting closer together than usual. Normally they kept a certain distance from each other so no one could steal their shares in the confusion. But with everything that had happened earlier, that clearly wasn't a priority tonight. Maybe because of today's trouble, none of what the battlefield scavengers had picked up was being collected except for the obviously valuable stuff: jewels, ornaments, things like that. And that, in turn, made it clear to the kids just how tense things really were. Roa, who always slept near Kanata anyway, was even closer than usual tonight. Maybe it was because she'd been in real danger on the battlefield today, feeling shaken but she was sleeping right beside him. Kanata, meanwhile, was wrapped up in the new sleeping bag he...

 Chapter 10: An Ominous Turn As Kanata and Roa stood frozen, two men came out of the tent as if being chased out: a knight in armor and a man who looked like his squire. Uval came out of the tent right behind them, his face twisted with fury and closed in on the knight. "Just 'cause we ain't mages, you thought we wouldn't know?! That was third-tier Amplification Magic, wasn't it!? Don't you even know that's not a spell you fire off at a spot where your own allies might be standin'?!" "My apologies. I was only just assigned here myself and I had no idea it was this kind of—" "You said it yourself, didn't you... 'get under my command.' So you get us under your command, guide us right in and then use us as target practice for that pig mage? Explain it to me, Sir Knight!? 'Successfully guided target number one~! Target number two~!' Hey... how much were you plannin' to get paid per target you guided in!? Huh!?...

 Chapter 9: On the Way Back After the Battle "Eh, so since that night...?" "Yeah, that's right..." With the fighting quieted down, Kanata explained everything that had happened so far to Roa as they walked to rejoin the mercenary company. How, same as always, while he was tracing the pattern inside a piece of Rubbish, words had suddenly started appearing in his head. How Griare had found out and had been teaching him to control his mana ever since. And so on. Roa took the pattern-marked stone Kanata showed her and studied it carefully. It was the same stone he'd copied the pattern onto in charcoal on the night he burned his sleeping bag. "This is the pattern that was inside the Rubbish...? Is this a picture? Or letters?" "Well, technically it's just part of it. When I put the patterns from a bunch of different pieces of Rubbish together, it came out lookin' like this...  I think they are probably letters but I can't read 'em....

 Chapter 8: Impulse Five days later, the Karejasu Mercenary Company moved out mixed among Danres's knights and threw themselves back into the fires of war. Though there was only ten of them, but since every single one was a magic swordsman, their strength was the real deal. Mixed among the knights nominally under Danres's command (though he was a commander in name only), they fought to reclaim the front line that the enemy mage had pushed them back from a few days earlier. And of course, the battlefield-scavenger kids had come out to the battlefield too. "The mage's coming out faster than last time! Kanata! Keep your head down!" "Yeah!" The new battle site was a village of stone buildings lined up near a river in Danres's territory. The terrain was flat but the border was close by. Even though the upstream side hadn't been seized yet, the river itself was a serious obstacle to advancing. Naturally, the bridge that used to span it had been brought...

 Chapter 7: The Night Before the Mercenary Company's Departure "This employer's in an awful hurry, isn't he... having just arrived and moving out again the day after tomorrow. Doesn't seem very noble-like, if you ask me." "Word is somebody even higher up is coming from the capital to inspect things. Probably 'cause this war started over somethin' stupid and it's been draggin' on way longer than it should." The inn's dining hall at night looked just like a tavern with the members of the Karejasu Mercenary Company drinking like there was no tomorrow. Counting Uval the captain, nine other scruffy men kept their tankards from ever running dry. But the talk was all business and none of them looked like they were enjoying a pleasant buzz. "Captain, this employer... Viscount Danres, right? You talked with him today. He's trustworthy, right?" When one of the mercenaries asked, Uval, who was drinking more than any of them, he...

 Chapter 6: At Least She Watched Over Him Until It Was Done That night, careful not to wake the other battlefield-scavenger kids sharing his room, Kanata slipped quietly out and made his way around to the back of the inn. The backyard was strung with the mercenary company's laundry and bedsheets, thick enough that it was hard to see what was going on back there from outside. It was even harder at night. Incidentally, the laundry was done by Kanata, the punishment he'd taken on in Roa's place. "「Select」." Now that he was out in the backyard, Kanata spoke the same words he'd chanted a few days ago, the ones that came right in his mind for the spell that burned his sleeping bag. Sure enough, the same spell that had burned his sleeping bag rose appeared in his mind again. If he chanted it, he'd probably be able to cast the spell again, just like he had a few days ago. ...But that wasn't what he was after tonight. "Why didn't I realize it before......

 Chapter 5: A Desire Wells Up "Man... it's just nonstop fighting around here, huh, Kanata..." "Yeah..." The day after Griare gave him a task to work on, Kanata had gone into town looking for a new sleeping bag. He'd finally made it back to town but apparently the lord's orders meant they'd be back in battle again before long. As a battlefield scavenger, that had meant good business. He had to keep at it just to survive. But even so, the fear never really left him. Roa, walking beside him with her head down, was especially sick of a war that just wouldn't end. "Make way! The lord's procession is passing through!!" Kanata and Roa turned towards the shout that was coming from the main street. They cut through a side path and came out onto the bustling main street, where a portly man on horseback rode leisurely past, surrounded by knights and dressed in clothes so lavish even the two of them could tell at a glance they were expensive. T...

 Chapter 4: Everyone's First Step Is Slow Two days later, sooner than he'd expected, Griare summoned Kanata again. After days of being called in like this, the other battlefield scavengers had taken to giving him pitying looks but Kanata couldn't stop grinning. If it meant someone was finally going to teach him about mana, losing a little break time was nothing to complain about. On the stairs leading to Griare's room, he was so caught up daydreaming about becoming a mage that he nearly missed a step. That was how excited he was. "Alright, hold out a finger. I'm going to cut it a little." "Hiiiiiiiiii!? Whyyyy!?" The instant he stepped into the room, the quiet hiss of a blade being drawn drained the blood from Kanata's face. He'd come to learn how to control his mana and yet here was a veteran swordswoman drawing her blade, seemingly about to take off one of his fingers for reasons Kanata couldn't fathom. If he hadn't already used...

 Chapter 3: The Traditional Posture "Huh? Where's Kanata?" The next day, the Karejasu Mercenary Company returned to town alongside the lord's army they'd joined up with. They dropped their gear at the inn serving as their temporary base and free time followed... even the battlefield-scavenger children were granted a brief rest. But Kanata was nowhere to be found so Roa restlessly looked around the inn's dining area. "Kanata? He got called away a bit ago." "Bet he did something stupid again. He gets weirdly stubborn whenever it's about that hobby of his." "Ohh... come on..." Told this by the other battlefield-scavenger kids, who'd gotten a head start stuffing their faces with bread in the dining area, Roa's shoulders drooped a little. She'd been planning to invite him into town to buy a new sleeping bag since he'd mentioned last night that his had gone up in flames, but of all things, he'd been called away e...

 Chapter 2: Traces That Connect "Today's one is... here, it's like this... Heh. What a weird shape..." The night had deepened and Kanata lay wrapped in a sleeping bag stitched together from scraps of cloth while writing something onto a stone with a piece of charcoal. Relying on the crackling light of the campfire nearby, he peered closely at the Rubbish he'd picked up that day. Kanata's hobby of collecting Rubbish had started two years ago, the same time when he began battlefield scavenging. His father was long gone and his whereabouts unknown. His mother had gone into town to shop one day and died shielding a noble's child, right in front of him. The people of his old village were all good, decent folk but naturally none of them had been wealthy enough to keep an orphaned child around for long. A little over a year later, Kanata found his way to the Karejasu Mercenary Company. He was eight years old at the time. It wasn't as though he'd been drag...