Twelve

I stood silently upon the grassy field eyeing my target. It stood roughly thirty feet away from me, held aloft by a thick wooden stake that had been hammered into the dirt. My target was a facsimile of a person; it was roughly human-shaped and made of a burlap-like cloth filled with fine-grained sand. It was a practice dummy used by the kingdom’s forces to train both their spearmen and archers. The cloth had been enchanted to glow in the area where damage had been dealt, thus it was easy for both the instructor and trainee to see the results of their efforts.

Usually, these training dummies would be dressed in cheap clothing or armor, to simulate what bandits and enemy infantry would be wearing. My dummy, on the other hand, wore full plate. Sure, it was an old set of armor and rusted in some places, but it definitely had more protection than your average soldier on the battlefield would have had. I needed the dummy to be tough since it needed to survive what I could put it through.

Griselda stood several meters behind me, as did several members of my new staff. That’s right, I had a staff now. A few days after the incident with Prince Callion, I was informed by Griselda that I was to be kicked out of the castle. She used more polite terms, of course. Said that I would be “moved to more appropriate accommodations for one of my station.” I guess they wanted to separate me and Callion so that there wouldn’t be a repeat of the incident. That in of itself I wouldn’t have minded, but the move meant that I wouldn’t see Ghaldor as much. I also wouldn’t be able to teach the princess and her friends anymore, though I heard that the queen wasn’t very happy when she heard about the secret lessons so I doubt I would have been able to keep teaching them even if I hadn’t been shipped off.

My new residence turned out to be this huge estate that was located right outside the capital city. It consisted of several hundred acres of land plus a large manor house, which was fully staffed with servants. I now had a butler, dozens of maids and porters, some stewards, and even two dogs! (Named Stew and Rikah.) The estate even had a small contingent of soldiers who were tasked with keeping me safe.

Thankfully, Griselda had been allowed to come with me, so I wouldn’t have to be alone in a new house with a bunch of strangers. It had been quite overwhelming having to move everything from my little castle room all the way to this gigantic mansion. I would have been completely lost if it wasn’t for my personal maid whose mere presence kept me in a calm state.

“I’m ready,” I told Griselda and the others. “Be sure to stay where you are no matter what happens. Although I’m pretty sure I have some idea of what I’m capable of, something might still go wrong. So for your own safety, please keep away from me.”

“Of course, My Lady.” I saw Griselda nod, along with the other staff members.

That was good enough for me. I turned my full attention back to the target dummy. Although it looked perfectly still to the naked eye, I was able to perceive movement. All around the dummy, I could detect motion. I wasn’t seeing it, exactly, since the forces I was observing were invisible. But I could sense them deeply, in an almost instinctual manner.

The movement flowing around the dummy I recognized as the motion of the air. It didn’t flow uniformly but moved in various separate speeds and directions. It was almost like how water would behave, with various currents swirling and overlapping each other. I could also sense smaller movements within the air, as there were numerous tiny particles of dust, dirt, pollen, and other debris floating around. Nothing moving, no matter how small, could escape my notice. I could even scrutinize the pull of gravity upon the dummy, which was constantly pushing the object downwards towards the center of the planet.

I picked up a small stone from the ground. I tossed it up and down in my hand, trying to get a feel of it. I then looked towards the dummy. Mentally, I calculated the distance between us, factored in the weight and size of the stone, added in air resistance as well as the rotation of the planet, along with a myriad of other different variables that I somehow subconsciously knew about. The math took less than a microsecond to process. With the data now in my head, I pulled back my arm, then threw the stone as hard as I could towards the training dummy.

Of course, aiming wasn’t necessary. Neither was putting all that power into the throw. No, I had already calculated the necessary information. I could have tossed the stone clumsily behind me, and it would still have shot towards the dummy at supersonic speeds. And that’s exactly what it did. There was an ear-splitting crack in the air as the stone rocketed past the sound barrier. Traveling forwards with the velocity of a bullet, the stone tore through the dummy, easily penetrating the old steel plate of its armor.

The servants who had been watching me all let out shocked gasps at what they had just witnessed. The dummy, which now had a small hole in the middle of its chest plate, began to glow green where the stone had pierced it. There was an equally bright glow in the back where the projectile had exited. The servants began to murmur softly to one another, each of them exchanging wonder at what they were seeing.

Well, that was phase one of my experiment done with. I now had a pretty good idea of what this power actually was. I just needed to run a couple of more tests to see whether my theory was correct or not.

I looked back over at the dummy. The glow at its chest had slowly dimmed until it ceased altogether. Aside from the hole in its chest armor, the dummy seemed to still be in serviceable shape. I doubted that it would remain that way after I was done with it. I observed the training aid, then began my calculations.

I raised my right foot, then stomped it down onto the dirt. The ground under me shattered as the force I applied to it became amplified. It then shot forwards, traveling through the ground towards the dummy. The earth ruptured as it went, cracking and sending shards of dirt, rock, and grass upwards in messy chunks. The surge of destruction quickly accelerated before it slammed into the dummy, causing a loud explosion to erupt at the point of impact. The servants behind me screamed at the cacophony, some even falling onto their rears on the grassy ground. Pieces of the poor dummy rained down from the sky, clumps of twisted steel and ripped up cloth crashing loudly onto the grass.

This proved it. My theory was right, I now knew exactly what my power was: vector manipulation. My brain could calculate the necessary information and allow me to control the vectors of anything I physically came into contact with. This included the wind, electricity, heat, gravity, among other things. This was definitely an extremely powerful ability. Powerful, and very, very familiar.

Several years back, I had watched an anime tv show called A Certain Magical Index. One of the antagonists of the show was a guy named Accelerator. He was a powerful psychic that, you guessed it, could manipulate and transform vectors. With this power, he could make localized earthquakes by stomping his feet; he could kick a rock and make it move as fast as a bullet; he could even reverse the flow of a person’s blood by touching an open wound. Yeah, he was kind of a psychopath, but I heard he got better later on in the show. Sadly, I only watched one season of Magical Index, so I can’t personally attest to how Accelerator turned out. Although the show had some pretty cool moments in it, I didn’t really find it all that entertaining to watch. So I dropped it.

How the heck did I end up with Accelerator’s powers? It was all fiction, it wasn’t real. Was it the magic? Could the magic that gave me my new body also make Accelerator’s powers real and then give it to me? Is that how all Hero powers worked? All the books I’ve read about them say that each Hero has powers unique to themselves. But were their powers all based on fictional ones, or was it just me? I was an anomaly, after all, being summoned by a fake chalice and not one of the god-made ones.

I bit my lip as I began to think. I idly noticed that some of the servants had begun to clean up by going around and picking up the discarded pieces of the training dummy that had littered the field. Griselda had stayed back, still standing behind me and silently observing.

I looked down and saw the cracked ground underneath me. My eyes followed the trail of broken earth all the way to where it ended in a large crater thirty feet away. This got me to thinking. Vector manipulation was only one aspect of Accelerator’s power. I remember that, in the show, his powers had two parts to it: one that was active, the other passive. The active part was vector manipulation, which allowed him to consciously control the vectors around him. This was the offensive portion of his power. The defensive, passive portion was the part that made Accelerator truly dangerous. In the show, he had a type of barrier surrounding him that reflected or even redirected harmful vectors away from him. This was all done subconsciously, with his brain automatically performing the calculations needed to protect him. This made Accelerator all but invincible since pretty much nothing could get through his redirection barrier. Not even bullets, fire, or explosions could harm him.

I began to wonder. Did I have this redirection barrier? If it was subconscious, how would I know if it was on? I guess that I would have to perform another test. Thankfully this one would be simpler than the others. Also, quite painful if I was wrong about all this.

I looked around on the ground until I found another stone. I picked it up and hefted it. Unlike the first one I used, this one was larger and heavier: about the size of my fist and weighing four pounds. I looked around and saw that my staff was still busy cleaning the field of debris. Except for Griselda, of course. But she wouldn’t interfere; I told her not to.

I tossed the rock up into the air and caught it in my hand. Yep, it was definitely heavy. I tossed it again, then caught it. I performed the action a third time. Not only was I testing the weight, but I was also psyching myself up for what I had to do next. Over and over I tossed the stone up. Higher and higher it went. It was at about the sixth or seventh toss that I was satisfied at the height the stone had reached. I caught the stone once more, then tossed it up again. Unlike the last few times, I made no move to catch it. Instead, I moved myself directly under it. The falling stone would definitely conk me on the head, at least it would if I was wrong about this barrier thing.

Right before the rock hit, I shut my eyes and cringed. I waited wearily for the sudden pain of the impact, but to my relief, it did not come. I quickly opened my eyes and saw that the stone had bounced back up into the air and landed several meters away, almost hitting a porter who was picking up the mangled remains of the training dummy’s helmet.

It worked! I had a redirection barrier!

“My Lady!” I heard Griselda shout. I looked behind me to see her striding forwards, her face twisted into a scowl. “Why did you do that? You could have been seriously injured!”

“Calm down, Griselda,” I told her. “I’m perfectly fine. I just had to test something.”

“By giving yourself a concussion?” She asked with a frown.

I smiled. “Nah, I had that under control. You saw it. That rock didn’t even touch me.”

“I suppose I must concede on that point,” said the maid, though she didn’t look very happy about it. “What did you do, though? I saw the stone fall on top of you, but it suddenly reversed direction and shot away from you.”

“Ah, it’s all part of my power,” I told her, though I wasn’t really sure just how to explain the intricacies to her. Did people in this world even know what vectors were? I decided to keep it simple. “Whatever tries to hit me will just bounce back.”

“I see,” she said. “Like with Prince Callion.”

“Something like that,” I replied, though that wasn’t really the truth. With the prince, I had knowingly and consciously done what I did to him. I had defended myself, true. But I had done so with the intent to injure him. Not to the extent that he was, of course. But I did want to hurt him. I knew I should have felt guilty about it; the kid did lose his arm, after all. Yet, for some reason, I couldn’t feel anything other than grim satisfaction at the prince’s fate. Was that wrong?

“Well, with what I have just seen today, I do believe you have nothing to fear during your debut,” Griselda told me.

I had to agree with her. In about five days’ time, the kingdom would finally introduce me to the world. With my powers now discovered, the king’s court felt that the time was right to announce that the kingdom of Duncan had summoned its own Hero. A grand celebration would be held in the capital, Vilgur. All of the kingdom’s most esteemed families were invited, and so were members of the public. The ceremony would be held in the city’s grand arena, which was a colosseum-like structure that could hold over two thousand spectators. There, in front of all those people, I would put on a display of my powers. It would be the perfect time to make a name for myself, to set myself up as Duncan’s first summoned Hero.

It’ll be so much fun!

“Are you through with your tests, My Lady?” Griselda asked.

“Oh, uh, yes! I am.” I looked over at the field and the mess I had made of it. “Um, should we help clean up?”

“No need. You have servants to do that for you now, My Lady.”

I guess she was right. Still, I couldn’t help but feel as if I was taking advantage of them. All of my life I have had others looking out for me, cleaning up after me, and taking care of me. Now that I was fully capable of looking after myself, I found that I was still relying on others to do the simplest of things for me. I wonder if there would ever be a time in my life where I would get to look after myself for a change?

“We should return to the manor,” Griselda said. She looked up at the sky to note the position of the sun. “It looks about close to lunchtime. I’m sure the chef is dying to show off his talents for you in the kitchen. He’s probably preparing something truly scrumptious.”

My mouth watered upon hearing that.

Okay. Just this once, I can live with others preparing a meal for me.

Just this once.