"Haaa…..haaaaa….." In the back of the Von hein residence Aldrich was cutting through multiple balls of magic that came flying towards him.
He cut through them with grace and movements so precise it looked like he was dancing. Aldrich was wielding a sword that was like a katana from his world. Aldrich was tired as he had been doing this for 5 hours straight though he would keep going he couldn't.
After all, today was the day he was going to leave. He kept his word and stayed in the Von hein residence for the rest of the month but today was the final day. The day he could finally go on his adventure. Aldrich had only gone to the dukedom and capital. He had never once gone outside of it.
But today? He'll finally get to experience it. Aldrich cut the dark orb and sheathed his katana. He got a towel that was on a tree stump and wiped himself down. He went inside the house or mansion since it couldn't really be called a house.
'Haaaa I really love that they have showers in this world. This is probably the only good thing those developers did.' Aldrich thought as he took a shower in his bathroom. This shower was just like the one on earth, only there were no pipes.
The shower head had water magic inscribed into it which as long as mana was supplied it could produce as much water as the person would need. Furthermore most commoners were able to get this shower as well due to nobles needing commoners needing to be clean for certain jobs and to make their nation look better.
Aldrich got out of the shower and got dressed in some clothes arranged by his maids. The clothes were a mixture between 16th century fashion and 21st century fashion. It was weird but Aldrich looked good in it so he didn't care.
The time was 9:45 am. Aldrich had woken up at 4:30 to start training early. His mother had always woken him up at that time so his body did it on its own. He couldn't rest if he didn't train for at least 2 hours a day or more.
'Mother was really merciless when I asked her to train me in swordsmanship, though it's not like I regret it.' Aldrich thought to himself as walked towards his father's office. Aldrich knocked on the door and his father said come in and Aldrich entered.
"Good morning, father."
"Good morning, Aldrich." Albert said as he was finishing some paperwork. Aldrich waited expectantly but his father kept looking at his paperwork. So Aldrich took it upon himself to bring up the fact that he was leaving today.
"Father, do you know what today is?" Aldrich said and Albert twitched. Albert started trembling slightly but he still ignored the event of today.
"N-no I do not Aldrich." Albert said in a trembling voice. Aldrich sighed to himself. His father had been doting on him the entire time he was at his home. Aldrich had only been gone for 4 months in the academy yet his father acted like he was gone for years.
"Father, I'm leaving today. I'm going to leave the dukedom." Aldrich decided to not spare his father and just told his father what he was going to do.
"NOOOOOOO!" Albert finally broke out in tears and clung to Aldrich. Aldrich knew this was coming but his father really didn't want him to leave. He forcibly pushed his father off of him and
"Father, I wish to do this. I already became an adventurer. Now I wish to adventure."
"Can't you stay a little bit longer?" Albert said in a sad tone but Aldrich didn't budge.
"Father."
"Mrgh. F-fine. Here's your Id." Albert got up begrudgingly and gave Aldrich an Id. It was his adventure license. Last week Aldrich had undergone the adventurer test and aced it. He got a perfect score on the written test and a perfect score on the combat test.
The written test was very basic, but the combative test was taken very seriously. After all, if they wanted to be adventurers they needed to be qualified. The guilds didn't want people who would just die from weak monsters.
The combat test was simple in how they tested it though. The first was magical aptitude and magical ability, the second was judging what weapon is best suited to you, and the final was fighting a rank A adventurer. Usually newcomers weren't able to defeat the training instructor but Aldrich was able to.
So he was placed at rank C for his beginning rank. Obviously he could've placed higher but the training instructor said he'll need experience fighting lower leveled monsters. Though Aldrich didn't need that kind of experience since he already had it thanks to his mother.
He had even fought a demon though it wasn't strong like the demons his mother and father fought that demon could take down a rank S adventurer. Aldrich was extremely powerful and the thing that would make other adventurers hate him was that he could still improve. In fact Aldrich improved during the fight with the training instructor.
He fixed his movements whenever the training instructor was close to hitting him, was getting faster, and his strikes became more powerful. Aldrich was then reminded of how much wasted potential the original Aldrich had.
In terms of magic his potential was equaled to his talent in swordsmanship. He had an affinity with all magic, something his father didn't have. The types of magic were ice, water, lightning, fire, dark, light, soul, creation, destruction, nature, space, wind, and time. 13 in total.
Typically people liked to rank them into two groups. Creation and destruction. Things like ice, light, nature, and space went into creation. While fire, dark, water, wind,and lightning went into destruction. Whilst time and soul were kinda lost in the rankings.
Time was the least understood of the magical elements. People theorized that whenever people used restoration magic which was from light magic it utilized time magic to restore the body instead of healing a body. Which would explain why high level light magic users could restore someone's lost arm or leg.
Soul magic was the same. But soul magic was harder to understand from a healing perspective. The soul was a complicated existence; one slight mess up might destroy a person's soul. That was why whenever people used soul magic it was to destroy a person's soul or force them to do their bidding.
Though all of them could destroy and create the magic institution categorized them in what the best use of that magic would be. By the way, Aldrich had the most affinity to water, lightning, space and ice. His strongest being water which is explainable considering he's a half a mermaid.
Even though water was his strongest he still had an amazing affinity with all magic. The way to measure affinity went as follows: feeble, shaky, weak, average, good, superb, excellent, amazing, ideal, divine and finally saint. Aldrich's lowest affinity was,ideal which was nature. His highest being saint with it being water and the rest divine.
Aldrich still remembers when he first took the aptitude test and him yelling loudly. He never took the aptitude test when he entered the academy for some reason even though every other student took it. So this was his first time ever seeing his affinities. Aldrich now thought that the reason he never figured out his affinities was due to the world.
His father never even bothered to do a test on him and his father was an absolute fiend when it came to doting on Aldrich. There was no way Albert wouldn't have ever not done an affinity test. So the only answer was the world forcing this event to never occur.
Albert was feeling very conflicted at the moment. He was sad his son was leaving but when he saw the big smile on his son's face he felt an indescribable happiness. Albert decided it was time to give him his present. Though it was 3 years too early Albert decided now would be the time.
"Aldrich, can you follow me?" Albert said in a serious tone.
"Yes?" Aldrich, surprised at his fathers tone, said yes questionly. The two of them left the office and headed down the stairs of the mansion. Aldrich thought they would be going outside but his father went behind the stairs and let mana flow through a painting on the wall. As the silver mana went inside the painting a wall opened up revealing stairs heading down.
"I didn't know there was a place like this." Aldrich said in amazement as he looked around while walking down the stairs.
"Your mother and I made this place to store our treasures from our adventures. We had a lot of assassins come for use because some of these treasures are extremely valuable." Albert said. It was true as well, there were countless jewels, weapons, even a dragon's horn, and a spirit was trapped as well. Though it was frozen in ice, Aldrich deduced it was a rabid spirit.
Considering that it was green it was a nature spirit. The Spirits of elements became rabid whenever the element they controlled was being destroyed. Though it happened rarely these tiny spirits could become dangerous, their attacks never hurt anyone physically but they focused on the soul.
One hit from the spirits' magic would completely erase the soul of an average human and demon. The reason Aldrich knew so much about spirits was because one of the main capture targets was a spirit. Mika swan was a spirit, his mother had lain with a human and had Been executed. Though Aldrich didn't really care about that right now as so many other treasures intrigued him.
Seeing his wonder filled gaze Albert smiled and told his son to come over to him. The two of them walked over to a box shaped like a coffin. It was very weird and Aldrich thought a vampire would pop out but his father let mana flow into the coffin and opened up revealing a sheath wrapped in cloth.
Albert slowly removed the cloth and it revealed the color of the sheath; it was an emerald green color while the hilt of the sword was white. Albert slowly picked up the sheath and held it with both hands and faced Aldrich.
"Here son. Your mother wanted to give this to you on your 18th birthday but seeing as she can no longer give it to you I shall do it in her stead. It's a little early but I believe your mother would also want it like this." Albert said, putting the sword in Aldrich's hands. Aldrich held the 40 inch long sheath staring at it in wonder.
"This is a wonderful sheath." Aldrich said in amazement. Aldrich thought if the sheath was this amazing he could only wonder what the sword inside was like. Albert was giving him expectant looks wanting Aldrich to unsheathe the sword so Aldrich put the sheath at his waist and removed the sword.
"This is more than I thought, it's so light and sharp!"
"Hahaha. You look so cut- happy with it Aldrich." Albert said something like a helpless father while Aldrich was voicing his surprise at the sword.
The sword was a katana that was colored emerald green with silver intertwined. The sword was incredibly sharp as if it could cut through the toughest ore in the world as if it was butter. Furthermore the sword had magic circles that allowed it to have mana flow through it.
Wishing to test it Aldrich saw a block of Shoitium which was the toughest ore in this world. Aldrich assumed a stance and cut the block cleanly in half. Even cutting the ground it was resting on.
"Wow!" Aldrich voiced. Albert seemed to take a mental image at the pure surprise on Aldrich's face then asked what Aldrich thought of it.
"So, do you like it?"
"Do I like it? Of course I do! Thank you father!" Aldrich said, giving his father a wide smile. Albert again took a mental image preserving that memory forever. While resisting the urge to go hug his son he told the story of the katana.
"I'm glad you do after all it was your mothers."
"It was mothers?"
"Yes. She used it all the time. After all, I was the one who made it for her. She called it Darya."
"You made Darya?!"
"What's with the surprise?! You know I'm quite well versed in creating magic."
"Oh, yeah. Sorry I just never saw you creating swords. You never had an interest whenever mother was teaching me so I thought you didn't care."
"Hmph. It's because your mother won the bet of what we'd teach you first. I wanted to teach you magic first."
"Hmm? What was the bet?"
"Hahh?! Oh, Uhm, it was nothing. You'll find out when you're older, maybe in 10 years, no maybe 20, actually just don't worry about it." Albert immediately became flustered and started spouting weird sentences at least that's how Aldrich saw it.
"Wait father, when did you create Darya?"
"Hmm? Ah, I created it when I was 17. Your mother was 20 at the time. Why do you ask?" Albert said, wondering why Aldrich brought it up.
"17." Aldrich repeated. When he played the game with his sister a katana never showed up. Not even Aldrich wielded one. When Aldrich first saw a katana he was confused at first but then thought since a Japanese developing team made this game they naturally put in a katana since they were Japanese making it so that the katana was created on the birthday of the princess.
When Aldrich read books about swords it was said that the Katana was created on the same day her highness was born.
The year for this world was 1529, Alice was currently 16 which would mean his father had created a katana before it was being produced.
"Father, may I ask why you created a sword like this?"
"Ah that. I remember thinking it was weird too, but your mother kept saying that it must be created like this. She was insisting on it."
"….." Aldrich froze after that.
'No way. There's no way mother was also a '
"Anyways! Let's go, Aldrich. I think it would be better if you got to practice using the sword against some actual swords." Snapping Aldrich out of his daze, Albert pushed Aldrich from behind to exit the basement as Aldrich decided to call it.
"Eh? Uhm father can you, no please stop pushing! Why are you so strong all of a sudden?!!" Aldrich tried to get his father to stop pushing him but his father had used body enhancement to strengthen his body with mana and pushed Aldrich back to the top. After that Albert had summoned a dragon and leviathan and started cheering for Aldrich to win.
Aldrich after a grueling battle scolded his father and went to sleep as he was too tired to leave. He woke up bright and early the next day and now he was at the front with a sobbing father and his butlers and maids giving him a goodbye. Aldrich was like his mother as he did not like armor.
Mermaids and mermen felt more comfortable in light clothing even some deciding to complete nude but most simply wore swimsuits since they lived primarily near the ocean. They loved all kinds of temperatures whether it was hot or cold they were able to thrive unless it was the desert. A desert was the natural enemy of mermaids and mermen.
"It's only good bye for 3 days father. I will see you soon. I love you father."
"*sniff, you better come back in 3 days son. I love you too." Albert finally separated himself from Aldrich. Aldrich had made it a habit whenever he left his father to say he loved him. After all, he didn't know when he would get one back. He wasn't able to say it to his mother before she died so he always reminded his father.
Aldrich smiled and said goodbye to the maids and butlers and teleported to the border of the dukedom. He showed his verification as the duke's son and the guards let him through immediately. As soon as he stepped out it felt like the air changed as he saw the plains of grass that stretched out. This was plains that surrounded the dukedom.
"Finally, I get to explore this world. I can experience those stories my mother told me about!" Aldrich said with clear excitement in his voice. He knew adventures weren't all sun shines and rainbows but he still couldn't help himself from being happy. This was his life and unlike the last one where he was forced to constantly work to sustain a life for him and his sister he would enjoy this one.