Chapter 29: Cleaning the Mud from His Boots

When Ren returned to the baron’s mansion from the Adventurer’s Guild, he entered through the back gate near the kitchen. After delivering the horn rabbit meat to the cook at the kitchen’s back entrance, he went to the foot-washing station set up beside the front entrance to clean the mud from his boots. He scraped off the dried, caked-on mud with a brush, then wiped them with a damp, tightly wrung cloth.

(Come to think of it… these boots might be getting a bit tight…)

He remembered that these hand-me-down boots from Royce, his second-eldest brother who was one year older, had been quite loose when he first received them. They would probably become too tight to wear soon. He wondered if he would receive another pair of hand-me-downs. While worrying about this and cleaning the mud from his boots, a voice called out from behind him.

“Ren, where have you been?”

It was his younger brother, Lewis. Arms crossed, standing imposingly with one eyebrow raised, he glared at Ren.

“…Training. I went for a run…” 

“Training? Hmph! You don’t even have a running skill. It’s pointless. Pointless!”

Lewis thrust his right hand forward and began muttering.

“…Earth, scatter…”

Thud-thud-thud

“Ah—”

Earth scattered up from the ground near Ren, falling around his feet at the washing station. The boots that Ren had just wiped clean with the cloth were now dirty with soil again.

“Haha! How about that! I can move earth in an instant. Unlike you, I don’t need to waste time scrubbing mud off my boots with a brush!”

Ren stared at his feet, listening to Lewis’s mocking voice.

“…Lewis, that’s amazing!” 

“Huh?” 

“If you can clean mud off with magic, you don’t need to brush or wipe with a cloth. That’s incredible!”

“…”

Ren looked up at Lewis, his eyes sparkling. Lewis flushed red, bewildered.

“W-what?! Complimenting me won’t get you anything!” 

“I really thought it was amazing that you can move earth.” 

“I-I don’t get it! What’s with you?! Geez!”

Lewis turned and ran off. After watching him enter the house through the front entrance, Ren looked down at his feet. Slowly, he gathered mana and concentrated it at his fingertips.

“…Earth… move… um… away from my boots…”

He muttered improvised words that could hardly be called a spell. As he concentrated and repeated them, around the third attempt, the soil on top of Ren’s boots moved.

“Like iron sand!… Iron sand?”

He somehow understood his own words to mean that iron powder was mixed in with the sand, though he wasn’t quite sure why he had thought of that. The source of the unexpected words mattered less than the fact that Ren had been able to move earth with magic.

“Move. Come on, a little more…”

He crouched down and held his hand near his boots, concentrating. It seemed more effective than doing it while standing.

It took considerable time to remove all the caked-on mud from his boots. He knew it would have been much faster to simply brush and wipe them as usual.

“If I keep practicing, I might get faster…”

The satisfaction of being able to use earth magic filled Ren’s heart. He wanted to practice more so he could clean the dirt off his boots in an instant.