Chapter 74: Reincarnation Cheat
“…Well…”
At that, I could only nod in agreement with General Newsbeck’s words. There wasn’t much else to say.
Truth be told, I was just as surprised myself. I hadn’t expected it to go that smoothly.
“Honestly… more than anything, I don’t understand how you can simply observe a spell and then reproduce it. It makes no sense.”
“It’s not that difficult. You just watch the flow of mana and imitate it—that’s all there is to it. Of course, figuring out what each part of the structure actually means, and then improving on it in your own way—that part’s harder. But flight magic, in particular, is just a layered combination of several commonly used techniques. So… it was fairly easy.”
Ever since I was a child, I had made a habit of observing the magic of others.
By studying the flow of mana—how it moved, how it formed—I learned to understand the structure of spells. Reproducing them became something I excelled at.
That said, since you can’t use magic of an attribute different from your own, I had always assumed this “talent” of mine was ultimately useless. A decorative skill at best.
And yet, here we were.
I never imagined a time would come when non-attribute magic—once seen as merely supplementary—would take center stage instead of raw, destructive elemental spells.
The world really does have a way of turning expectations upside down.
“…Hm?”
At my words, General Newsbeck suddenly tilted her head, her brow furrowing as if something had just struck her as deeply odd.
“Did I say something strange?”
“…N-no, you did. From the way you were speaking just now… it sounded as though you can actually see the flow of mana, Brigadier Willard.”
“…What?”
“…Hm? Wait—when you say ‘flow of mana’… is that the right term? In any case… are you saying you can see mana?”
“Uh… yes? I can.”
If I couldn’t, I would have died long ago—back on my very first battlefield.
It was by spotting the tiny distortions—the gaps in the anti-magic barrier created when enemy soldiers died—that I managed to survive. By identifying those fleeting blank spaces and casting blood-generation magic within them, I barely clung to life.
Without that sight, I would have been nothing more than another corpse.
“…What did you just say…? H-how does it look to you?”
“Wait—General Newsbeck… you can’t see it?”
“I can’t. And it’s not just me. I’ve never heard of anyone who can.”
“No way…”
Her answer left me speechless.
“I’m not joking. More importantly… you really never realized that?”
“No… no, wait—! Damn it… I’ve been deceived by Shia-neesama…!”
Before she lost both her arms on the battlefield, my elder sister—Shia—was the kind of person who refused to admit she was inferior to her younger brother in any way.
“She told me she could see mana too… so I believed her all this time.”
That must have been it.
When I told her I could see mana, she simply claimed the same—refusing to be outdone, even in that.
“…Shia? You mean Shia Willard? I’ve never heard anything about her being able to see mana.”
“Right… of course. I see now. It makes sense. If you could see it, you would’ve taken countermeasures together with the General as a matter of course. Honestly, General Newsbeck, your defenses have been far too sloppy.”
“Sloppy—!? W-what are you suddenly talking about!? Mine is perfectly new! There’s nothing sloppy about it! …Or at least, there shouldn’t be!”
“No, that’s my line…”
What on earth was she talking about all of a sudden?
“New”? Where had that even come from?
Well… it wasn’t exactly rare for General Newsbeck to veer off into bizarre territory mid-conversation. Best to just ignore it.
“General Newsbeck, you leak far too much mana from your body. I can tell even from a distance.”
“Ah… I see. Well, that’s… a bit embarrassing. Wait—mana actually leaks from people? If that’s the case, wouldn’t ambushes be completely pointless?”
“They are, yes. If you can see mana, you can also see magic. Even something invisible like an anti-magic barrier becomes perfectly visible.”
“…Isn’t that a bit unfair?”
“It really is. I just assumed everyone was like that… but now that I think about it—what was the point of all my precautions until now…?”
I had believed everything Shia-neesama told me.
She said that the ability to see mana varied in skill level—that some people were simply less perceptive than others.
And I believed her completely.
“When setting up ambushes, I always made sure to order the anti-magic barriers turned off. I was constantly worried that the mana leaking from individuals would give us away. Even when deciding the timing of attacks, I would act slightly earlier, assuming the enemy could see what I was doing…”
Shia had told me that while I could perceive even the faintest traces of mana from dozens of meters away, an ordinary soldier could only barely detect it at close range.
…But thinking about it now, that too had probably been her way of looking out for me.
If I had believed that no one could perceive mana at all, I might never have considered ambush tactics in the first place—and that would have been a fatal flaw for a commander.
So she lied—just enough to keep me functional, without letting me realize the full extent of my advantage.
“…And to think I even trained to completely eliminate the mana leaking from my own body…”
What, exactly, had all that effort been for?
…Still.
So I did have a reincarnation cheat all along, huh…?
Why did it take me this long to realize it?