Chapter 212: Chapter 212
Inside the house, Alfia returned to her seat by the window as if she had not just spent the last hour turning Rayleigh into a practical lesson.
Rayleigh checked the inner seals first.
The barrier around the bedroom, the concealment tag near the side wall, the suppression mark tied to the silver blade Alfia kept close, all of them remained stable.
He took a little longer with the last one, because Gif Blessing was not something he could afford to treat casually.
The sealed power inside that blade was the reason Alfia could live without her old Skill gnawing at her constantly, and even if the seal showed no sign of loosening, he still checked it every day.
Alfia watched him from the chair.
"You are more cautious than before."
Rayleigh finished the inspection and let the glow fade from his fingers. "Because my life keeps adding things that explode if I get lazy."
"That is a good habit."
"I would prefer fewer reasons to practice it."
She picked her book back up. "Then stop collecting dangerous people."
The silence that followed was calm enough to be insulting.
Rayleigh eventually sighed and went to make tea, because arguing with her after losing a spar was bad for his dignity.
When he returned with two cups, Alfia accepted hers without comment, and that small, ordinary action softened the room more than either of them was likely to admit.
For a while, neither spoke.
The house was peaceful, but that peace existed because of rules.
No mention of Alfia outside these walls.
No careless purchases, no open windows during training, no mistakes with the seals.
Rayleigh had become used to those habits, which was exactly why Alfia’s earlier warning stayed in his mind.
Comfort made people sloppy if they mistook it for safety.
After a long quiet, he said, "Ais is going to need more than a sword."
Alfia’s eyes remained on the page. "Most children do."
"She’s not really a child anymore."
"In matters of pain, many adults are children."
Rayleigh smiled faintly. "That sounded almost gentle."
"It was not."
"Sure."
Alfia ignored him, which was probably her way of showing mercy.
He leaned back and stared at the ceiling, thinking about everything.
He could already tell waiting would be the hardest part.
Writing formulas, drawing the structure, shaping the core, finding a way to bind the remaining will into a new vessel, all of that was work he understood.
Letting the wielder heal enough to receive it was slower and more troublesome.
Which meant it was probably right.
Alfia set the book down after a while and looked at him directly. "Don’t write tonight."
Rayleigh blinked. "I didn’t say I was going to."
"You were thinking about it."
"That is an unfair accusation based on knowing me too well."
"You will make poor notes while tired, then become annoyed tomorrow when you cannot understand them."
Rayleigh paused.
That sounded painfully likely.
He stood with exaggerated dignity, careful not to reveal how much his shoulder objected.
"Fine. I will sleep like a responsible person, which I hope everyone appreciates because it may not happen again soon."
Alfia lifted her book again. "Make it useful."
Rayleigh smiled faintly.
From her, that was enough.
...
The next morning, Rayleigh arrived at Dian Cecht Familia’s clinic with revised notes, a sealed case of spiritual measurement tools, and the faint ache of Alfia’s training settled into his shoulders like a bad memory.
Airmid noticed before he said a word.
She was waiting in a private treatment room with Ais and Riveria.
Welf stood near the window, clearly trying to look like he belonged there while also avoiding every medical tool in the room.
The moment Rayleigh set his case down, Airmid’s gaze moved over his posture, his right arm, and the slight delay in the way he lowered the handle.
Her expression became gentle in the way healers became gentle right before they said something unpleasant.
"You trained too hard."
Rayleigh glanced at Welf before answering, because the boy was already trying not to smile.
"I trained exactly as hard as the person training me allowed, which means the blame should be shared."
Airmid stepped closer and checked his arm without asking for permission, though her touch remained careful.
"If you say something like that in front of a healer, the healer will assume you had enough awareness to know better and simply did it anyway."
Riveria looked at him with calm approval, as if Airmid had just said something she had wanted to say to adventurers for years.
Rayleigh accepted the small potion Airmid handed him and drank it obediently. "You know, I came here as part of the treatment team."
"And now you are doing your part by not becoming another patient," Airmid replied, already turning back toward Ais.
That was Airmid’s voice at its best: polite, soft, and impossible to argue with unless someone wanted to look like an idiot.
Ais sat on the examination bed, hands resting in her lap.
Her expression was calm, but Rayleigh could see the effort behind it.
Riveria stood beside her, close enough to intervene if necessary and far enough to let Ais answer for herself.
Before Airmid could begin, Ais looked at Rayleigh.
"I didn’t try Shunpo."
There was no pride in her voice, but there was something steadier than yesterday.
Rayleigh’s face softened. "Good. That matters."
Ais lowered her gaze. "I wanted to. During meditation, it felt clearer for a moment. I thought if I moved closer, maybe I could hear him, but I stayed still."
Riveria’s hand settled lightly on her shoulder, and the small movement carried more relief than her face showed.
Airmid wrote it down carefully. "That is the correct kind of progress. The feeling appearing is not failure. The important part is that your body did not move before your mind chose to move."
Ais nodded.
The examination that followed was slow, but better than the first one.
Airmid asked about the pressure in Ais’s chest, the coldness in her fingers, the pull behind her eyes, and whether she felt any delay between thought and movement after meditation.
Ais answered in simple words, pausing whenever she needed to, and nobody rushed her.
Rayleigh added his own observations once she finished: the residue had become slightly less jagged, the reaction to Reiatsu was weaker than before, and the backlash in her body had not worsened overnight.
Airmid compared the notes and gave the plan.
For the next week, Ais would continue only supervised meditation.
No Shunpo, no active pulling on the bond, no technique practice connected to Gonryōmaru’s echo.
If dizziness returned or her senses lagged even once, the session would stop immediately.
Ais accepted the restrictions quietly, though Rayleigh could tell she did not like them.
That was fine.
She did not need to like them. She only needed to obey them long enough to survive the part of herself that wanted to rush ahead.
Welf had been silent through most of the examination, but after Airmid finished speaking, his eyes moved to the sealed case Rayleigh had brought from the forge.
"So the sword comes later," he said.
Rayleigh nodded. "Later. If I start with the blade now, I’ll end up building from memory and guilt instead of the bond that actually survived."
Welf’s jaw tightened at the word "guilt."
He looked down at his hands, and for once, his voice came out without the usual sharp defense.
"People hear Crozzo and decide what the weapon is before it exists. Magic Sword, battlefield, fire, disaster. I hated that so much I started doing the same thing backward. I decided what I would never make before I asked what else my hands could do."
The room stayed quiet.
Welf looked embarrassed by his own honesty, but he continued anyway, forcing the words out like they were heavier than they should be.
"If you need help with the soul part, I’m useless. I know that. But if your.. sword needs a vessel, real steel with weight and balance, I can help there. I want to see what it’s like to make a weapon for one person instead of for everyone’s fear."
Rayleigh looked at him for a while.
Then he smiled, not teasing him this time. "That’s exactly why I want you there."
Welf looked away fast, his ears faintly red.
Airmid watched them with quiet warmth, while Riveria’s gaze softened in understanding. Ais looked at Welf, then gave him a small nod.
For Welf, that nod seemed to matter.
By the time the meeting ended, the path ahead had become clearer.
...
As Ais left with Riveria, she paused at the door and looked back.
"Thank you for waiting."
Rayleigh understood what she meant.
She knew he could begin the work. She also knew he was choosing not to, because rushing would hurt her.
"I’m not good at it," he said with a tired smile, "so don’t make me regret learning."
Ais nodded seriously. "I won’t."
Riveria gave him a calm look that carried both gratitude and warning. "We will make sure she keeps that promise."
Rayleigh almost said something sarcastic, then decided the moment did not need it.
He only nodded.
...
Rayleigh returned home before sunset for once.
Alfia was seated near the window again, reading in the same position as the night before.
The room was quiet, the seals remained clean, and her silver blade rested where it should, its presence steady beneath the concealment measures.
Rayleigh checked it with one glance rather than making a show of it.
She noticed anyway.
"Well?"
Rayleigh set Benihime down and sat across from her. "Ais didn’t force the bond. Airmid confirmed the symptoms are stable. Welf offered to help with the vessel when the time comes, and I managed not to start forging anything even though my hands were being extremely unreasonable."
Alfia turned a page. "Then you learned."
"Painfully."
"That is often the best way."
"I’m surrounded by terrible people!"
"You chose most of them."
Rayleigh leaned back and laughed under his breath.
The ache in his shoulder pulled a little, but even that felt less irritating than it had in the morning.
For a while, he simply sat there and let the quiet settle.
The day had not fixed anything completely, yet it had moved the right pieces into place.
Alfia looked up from her book after a while. "Sleep early."
Rayleigh closed his eyes. "That sounds less like advice and more like an order."
"It is both."
"How ... efficient."
"Yes."
He smiled faintly, too tired to argue.
After the last few days, obedience might be the most difficult technique he had practiced, but he was starting to see the value in it.
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