Becoming a Swordmaster by Reading Chapter 53

Clatter, clatter.

As soon as the morning's regular training ended, the soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Platoon hurriedly ate lunch.

"Alright, hurry up and gather for the meal!"

"You there! Don't cut in line!"

"Give me one more piece of bread."

"No way! It's one per person!"

Roden was also eating among the soldiers.

However, Roden seemed to be lost in thought, barely eating.

Chevalier, who was eating next to him, noticed this and spoke up.

"Is the food not to your liking today?"

At his words, Roden belatedly came to his senses and replied.

"Huh? No. It's the same thing I eat every day, what's there to dislike all of a sudden?"

Roden replied as he dipped his rye bread deep into the lamb stew.

The stew's broth soaked well into the rye bread, making its taste rich and soft.

"The lamb stew is seasoned just right. Is this the 2nd Squad's work?"

"The 2nd Squad's stew is always perfect. Not just lamb, but beef, pork, chicken, and duck too."

Lunch and dinner duty rotated between the squads each week.

So, there was bound to be some variation in taste from week to week, and while it was generally edible, the 2nd Squad's cooking skills were the best.

This was because Terne, the 2nd Squad Leader, was a former cook.

It was just the way of the military for people with all sorts of different skills to gather.

'But the most useful of all is having cooking experience. Just as the 2nd Squad Leader is proving himself.'

For that reason, there were never any leftovers during the week when the 2nd Squad was in charge of meals.

Though leftovers were never allowed on the battlefield anyway.

In that way, Roden quickly finished his bread and stew and was once again lost in thought.

The reason Roden was lost in thought was none other than this.

He had been researching ways to increase the soldiers' survival rate for a week now.

During that time, Roden had done his best to implement enchantment magic.

As a result, he confirmed that enchantment magic could be cast with an Aurasong.

As a test, he sang an Aurasong and carved a magic formula onto a piece of wood, and he was able to successfully enchant it.

However, just because he could bestow enchantment magic on an object didn't mean all the problems were solved.

There was still the matter of the Mana Stone, the energy source needed to complete the enchantment magic.

He hadn't been able to find a resource to replace this Mana Stone.

Also, carving the defensive magic formula onto the shields was more difficult than he thought.

Enchantment magic didn't take effect by simply drawing the formula on the shield; it had to be directly carved.

In other words, he had to physically sculpt the magic formula onto the object.

But, of course, Roden had never once in his life tried sculpting.

It wasn't as if he could have someone else do the carving for him either.

The aura had to seep in at every moment during the carving process.

In the end, the caster of the enchantment magic had to do the carving himself.

This situation gave Roden a great deal of trouble.

'Come to think of it, enchantment magic has always had a high barrier to entry. That's why not many mages learned it.'

Certainly, high-ranking mages of the 4th Circle or higher didn't show much interest in enchantment magic.

Only mages who felt a wall at the 3rd Circle and remained there for a long time learned enchantment magic.

This was because even if their level was low, if they could learn enchantment magic, they would have no problem making a living for the rest of their lives.

But among the 3rd Circle mages who sought to learn enchantment magic, the number who succeeded in mastering it was extremely small.

The reason was none other than this.

There weren't many mages with enough dexterity to carve the magic formulas themselves.

Even mages with decent dexterity had to spend years honing their carving skills to enchant 3rd Circle magic.

'Carving was certainly harder than I thought. Even when I tried carving the magic formula on a piece of wood as a test, I struggled alone for days, breaking out in a cold sweat.'

Just thinking about that time made his back feel damp even now.

Because of that, Roden couldn't bring himself to even attempt to enchant the defensive magic onto the shields.

'Should I rethink it from the beginning and find another way?'

Just as Roden's worries deepened.

'Huh?'

A soldier caught Roden's eye as he sat resting after lunch.

Roden shot up from his seat and approached the soldier.

"What's that? What are you doing right now?"

At Roden's question, the soldier belatedly looked up.

"Are you... talking to me, sir?"

"Yes. Antonio. I'm asking you."

Antonio tilted his head in confusion and looked back and forth between the carving knife and the piece of wood he was holding.

Then he answered.

"I-I was just a little bored, so I was carving wood. It's been a hobby of mine since I was a child. Is it against the rules to carve in the army?"

Antonio, being a new recruit, asked a ridiculous question.

But for Antonio, such a question was inevitable.

He was just carving, but Roden had approached him and asked what he was doing.

Roden, realizing a step too late how the situation must have looked, reassured Antonio.

"Ah, ah. Antonio, I'm not blaming you for carving. Actually, I've recently become interested in carving myself. And then a new recruit happens to be carving. That's what surprised me.

The coincidence of it."

"...You're interested in carving, Platoon Leader?"

"Yeah. Is there a problem with that?"

"No, that's not it. It's just unexpected. But what should I do? What I'm doing isn't just carving wood, it's carving letters or pictures into the wood."

Indeed, ordinary carving would be imagined and referred to as shaping wood into the form of animals or plants.

But as he just said, Antonio wasn't carving wood to create a shape.

He was carving letters or pictures into the piece of wood.

Perhaps because of that, the type of carving knife Antonio was using was vastly different from what was commonly known.

He was using a carving knife with a rounded or triangular tip.

Roden examined the carving knife closely and smiled.

"No. What I want to learn is the art of carving letters or pictures into wood. So, could you teach me that?"

***

And so, Roden learned the art of carving from Antonio every evening.

It was certainly good to learn from an expert.

His skills improved much faster than when he practiced carving on his own.

In particular, the two types of carving knives Antonio used were a great help in improving Roden's skills.

Antonio's carving knives were something Roden hadn't seen even in the Mage Tower 100 years ago.

Even mages who specialized in enchantment magic carved magic formulas with what were commonly called paring knives or spear knives.

But Antonio was using rounded knives and triangular knives, which were more specialized for carving letters and pictures.

Roden couldn't help but be curious about the origin of these carving knives.

So he asked, and an unexpected answer came back.

"I designed these carving knives myself. To carve letters with a paring knife or a spear knife, you have to jab the knife at least twice per stroke, but I thought it would be possible to carve letters in one stroke with a knife of this shape. And it turned out this knife was also much more convenient for carving pictures."

"How did you ever come up with such an idea?"

"I was lucky. There happened to be a skilled blacksmith in my town who could realize my imagination. One day when I was dead drunk, I first asked him to make this knife for me, but he couldn't finish it as quickly as I thought and struggled with it for days. Something about the steel cracking or losing its strength during the quenching process."

"Then is that the only one of those knives you have?"

"No. I asked him to make one of each as a spare, so I have them."

"Good. Then sell them to me. I'll give you a steel brooch in exchange."

"Are you serious?"

"Yes. I'm serious."

And so, Roden, who had obtained the rounded and triangular knives, improved by leaps and bounds day by day.

It was a moment that made him realize just how good the performance of the carving knives Antonio had designed was.

At the same time, Roden's innate dexterity wasn't bad either.

His horsemanship, his singing skills.

At this point, he thought that Ernst must have been a very versatile friend.

After briefly organizing his thoughts, Roden asked Antonio, who was instructing him in the art of carving.

"I want to carve letters on a shield. How much practice will I need?"

Antonio thought for a moment before answering.

"Even though shields are oiled, making it difficult to carve letters, your skills are improving quickly, so I don't think it will take long. What kind of letters are you going to carve?"

Roden wrote the magic formula he wanted to carve on the ground and showed it to Antonio.

The letters continued on and on across the ground, and Antonio's calm expression turned pale.

How much time had passed?

Antonio looked at the letters that filled the inside of the barracks and barely managed to open his mouth to answer.

"...To carve this amount of text onto a single shield, it will take quite a bit more practice than I thought. You'll have to reduce the size of the letters themselves tremendously to be able to carve them."

"So how long do you think it will take?"

"You'll have to work hard for at least a month."

Roden nodded.

A month wasn't bad.

This war was unlikely to end in just a month anyway.

'I thought it would take years, but the triangular and rounded knives must be really good. By the way, if it's a month, does that mean I can only carve letters on the shields after the next transport operation?'

In any case, to complete the enchantment magic, he had to find an energy source to replace the Mana Stone.

Because of that, the month didn't feel that tedious.

***

A few days later.

Roden left for an operation as part of Transport Unit 2.

It was the first transport operation with the new recruits.