First Disciple

Rudeus knelt down on the slightly damp grass. He concealed himself behind shrubbery, letting the leaves and foliage break up his silhouette. Gazing through the vegetation, he eyed a wild deer.

It was a stag, with mighty horns and a robust body that radiated vitality.

The boy gathered his mana, and without hesitation released it. The mana was quickly emitted out of his extended hand that poked through the shrubbery, materializing into an arrow made of cutting wind.

With another mental command, the Wind Arrow shot through the air soundlessly, before piercing the left side of its torso, through its heart.

The stag immediately squealed in pain and terror, raising its front legs while blood rapidly gushed out of its assuredly fatal wound. With its immense vitality and desire to live, the stag would no doubt be able to struggle for a minute or two more before succumbing to its wound.

However, to prevent it from running away, Rudeus had already activated another incantation-less spell – Quagmire.

The stag's rear legs sunk into the now liquefied earth, trapping its body despite its relentless and desperate struggle for life.

It's pained cries continued, carrying the stag's anguish and instinctual craving to live. However, a second silent Wind Arrow penetrated through the same wound. This time, it's heart was crushed instantly. The haemorrhagic shock ended the animal's misery, with one final death moan being let out before the stag fell to its side motionlessly.

Seeing the fallen stag, Rudeus released the Quagmire spell that had held the stag in place. He approached the carcass and knelt down beside it.

Rudeus laid a hand on the stag, and could almost feel the life drain out of the beast. What had been a strong, vigorous deer just moments ago now lay dead.

With utmost reverence and gratitude, Rudeus uttered a short prayer for the stag under his breath.

The boy then filled his muscles with mana and proceeded to lift the large deer carcass, enormous in comparison to Rudeus' small, five year old body, on to his shoulders. The stag weighed approximately 200kg, but with his Mana Reinforcement, Rudeus could manage the weight with relative ease.

Ever since his previous, all-out, no holds-barred spar with Paul, the older Greyrat now trusted Rudeus enough to let him go out to hunt by himself. With his swordsmanship and magic, common beasts posed no threat to the child.

Even if he somehow encountered a monster, Rudeus had the confidence to at least be able to escape with his life using his magic. Not even Paul could move as fast as Rudeus when the boy used all his spells in conjunction with sprinting as fast as he could. With magic propelling his steps, each hunt took a lot less time than if he had been on horseback.

Hunting, for Rudeus, had quickly become one of his favourite hobbies. Though he also kept the principles of hunting etched in his mind – hunt only what I need.

Rudeus greatly respected nature and its boundless life. While he had fun tracking, chasing and cornering his prey, he never found joy with the actual act of taking their lives.

He revered the animals living within this forest. They were beautiful, pure existences that lived freely and without the worries and burdens of humanity. The deer that gave Rudeus its life so that he could consume its flesh and live on, the forest that raised the stag and the land it grazed on… All of these he felt grateful to.

Rudeus felt that he did not take away the life of this deer and all the other animals he had hunted before. He did not take them, he received them. As a gift from Mother Nature and her generous bounties. So the last thing he could do was be thankful for their sacrifice.

The boy carried the body of the stag out of the forest. Though its weight would have been crushing for any other child his age, Rudeus only sweated a little, and mostly due to the pressure of constantly having to push mana into his body. If his focus fell for even a second, 200 kilograms of pure muscle and bone would come down on his still weak physique.

As Rudeus approached Buena village with his bounty, the other villagers looked up and greeted the child. They had long since grown used to the sight of a five year old boy dragging or carrying back his prey from the forest.

At first, when they saw Rudeus carrying a boar that was twice his size, they had been shocked beyond belief. Now, they just thought 'Oh, that's just Rudeus. He is strong, as expected of Paul's son.'

Rudeus was halfway back to his home when he suddenly heard childish shouting.

"Get lost, demon!"

"Eat this!"

"You get 10 points if you manage to hit the head!"

'…A demon in Buena village? Of course not.'

Rudeus looked over to where the voices had been emanating from and found three mud-covered kids throwing mud at a small child in the middle of the field.

He recognized the three kids too. They were children he sometimes played with.

As an adult, albeit in the body of a child, he found bullying to be an irritating thing. And because he was an adult, though he looked like a small boy, Rudeus still thought he had some responsibility to stop them.

He approached the trio with a frown.

"Hey. What are you doing?" Rudeus spoke, his voice neither too loud nor too soft. He intended to talk them down. Though he was strong enough to crush their bones without much, they were still children after all.

The three bullies, noticed Rudeus' approach and stopped throwing mud balls.

They flinched at the sight of the massive deer resting on Rudeus' shoulders. Even children as young as them could recognize the size and weight of such a creature, and similarly they could also understand how strong Rudeus was to be able to carry it and walk around like it was nothing.

It was only because Rudeus was such an affable and good natured child who often played with these kids that they did not view him as a freak or a monster despite his immense strength.

Since Rudeus occasionally played the rudimentary soccer he had taught the village children while not cheating with Mana Reinforcement, the other children had a good impression of Rudeus, while being fully aware that the Greyrat boy could control his strength and was just a kid like them.

Otherwise, he might have been the one being bullied instead of this unknown child.

"O-oh, it's Rudeus! Just came back from hunting? You want to join us? We're fighting a demon!" One of them explained.

"Hm? A demon? Where?" Rudeus asked, feigning perplexity.

Soma, the boy who spoke previously, pointed at the young child curled up protectively around a basket.

"There's the demon! Can't you see? It has green hair! So it's a demon!"

Rudeus leaned towards the bullied victim exaggeratedly, "Huh? How is he a demon? You guys blind?"

He then made an expression of understanding, "Ohh, I understand! You guys must be playing 'Heroes and Demons' right? I see, I see. But isn't it unfair that there is only one person on the demon side while there's three on the heroes' side? Hmm…why don't I join the demon side too? Three on two will be fairer, right?"

Rudeus then let go of the stag on his shoulders, letting it land heavily on the muddy ground with a loud thud and splash. He cracked his neck and rotated his shoulder while grinning at the three kids with slight savagery in his eyes.

Soma and his bully friends gulped at the sight, paying closer attention at the massive stag Rudeus had just unloaded. They looked at each other before looking back at Rudeus while laughing nervously.

"Oh, uh, that's alright... 'Heroes and Demons' wasn't that fun anyways. Let's- let's play another day, Rudeus."

The Greyrat feigned an expression of disappointment, "Whaaattt… I just got here! Well, never mind then, I'll just play with him instead then."

"R-right. See you next time Rudeus."

The three kids then ran off hurriedly, glad to have escaped a fight with someone as strong as Rudeus.

Rudeus was well known in Buena village as 'The Strongest Five Year Old In The World'. Though it was only a friendly nickname given by several of the villagers, it still resounded deeply in the hearts of the children of the village.

To them, Rudeus was already seen as the 'boss' of the village's children. Even the ten year old kids would not dare to step on his toes. Besides, Soma and the others also considered Rudeus as a friend. Hence, while they were willing to bully the kid when they thought no one else was watching, doing so in front of Rudeus was a line they did not want to cross.

Rudeus watched the three of them scamper off and sighed. The cruelty of children could be attributed to their undeveloped brains. Empathy had not yet been understood by them. When they grew up and looked back on their actions, they would also understand what they did was wrong.

He then turned to the quivering child still kneeling on the muddy ground and seemingly unaware that the abuse had already ceased.

"Hey, are you alright?" Rudeus asked. Now that the other kids were gone, he no longer put up the charade of pretending that he didn't know what was going on.

The child looked up slowly, revealing verdant green hair that was also matted with mud.

"I-I'm okay..." The child responded weakly, picking herself from the ground at the same time.

When the child raised their head, Rudeus could now see that the child he had mistaken to be a boy was instead a delicate little girl that looked more like a doll than a person. She had porcelain-like pale skin and green hair that was slightly longer than his own brown tuft.

'Mm? Her ears...' Rudeus noticed that the girl had pointed ears similar to those 'Elves' he had seen before in fantasy movies like Lord of the Rings.

'Soma and those brats were actually bullying a girl? Even for children that's a bit much... Okay, next time I play soccer with them I'll teach them what a double hat-trick is!' He always held back his actual skills with the ball when playing with the village children, since it would be too ridiculous to be competing so seriously against children. But now he thought they might benefit from being humbled a little.

The girl's hair and clothes were covered in mud, while she herself was also trembling like a newborn fawn. But a little mud never hurt anyone, Rudeus concluded.

"If you are okay then I'll get going now." Rudeus bent down and hoisted the stag carcass over his shoulders once more. Since the deer had laid in the mud for awhile, the entire right side of its body was caked in mud.

Seeing this, Rudeus frowned. 'Such beautiful fur was dirtied because of those brats... I'll teach them despair from a triple hat-trick!'

He sighed and emitted his mana to form a large orb of water. Instead of letting it loose in the form of a water bullet, Rudeus instead controlled the water carefully to rinse the mud from the deer's fur. In a few short moments, the deer's fur was now cleaner though it was still wet.

Rudeus then proceeded to use Melded Magic, combining Fire and Wind magic, to form a hair-dryer like effect which rapidly dried the deer's fur.

Satisfied, Rudeus turned to the little girl to say goodbye only to notice her staring at him with wide eyes and mouth agape in amazement.

The girl noticed his gaze, "H-how did you do that? And the deer... how are you carrying it like that?"

"Magic." He simply replied, a little impatient since he wanted to get the deer back home and skin it for dinner. That was his usual modus operandi - after hunting, he would skin and butcher his prey before giving the meat to his mother and Lilia. Sometimes he would help them with the cooking as well, though he usually went right back to training.

Seeing her dirty clothes and hair, Rudeus sighed again. Thinking that the girl wanted him to do the same for her, he materialized a ball of water to form above her head and then poured its volume over her muddied figure.

"Eep!" She yelped in surprise at the sudden downpour.

"Stay still." He instructed, to which she obeyed without questioning.

The water washed away most of the mud and Rudeus then dried her off with the hair-dryer Melded Magic.

Seeing that she was now clean, Rudeus made to leave.

"See ya. Oh, and don't worry about Soma and the rest coming to find trouble with you again. I'll, ahem, I'll talk to them." Rudeus spoke, his eyes glinting at the thought of showing those brats a quadruple hattrick.

As he turned away without waiting for a response, the girl's shy voice emanated from behind him.

"W-wait!"

Rudeus turned back, with an eyebrow raised.

"What?"

The girl jumped a little at his terse response.

"Umm... C-could you..." She stammered out her words, as though afraid of what he would say in response.

Rudeus was feeling impatient, but did not feel comfortable just cutting off the girl who looked like she was trying to muster up all her courage to voice out the remainder of her sentence.

The girl took a deep breath before closing her eyes and forcing out what she wanted to say in one go, "Please! Teach me how to be as strong as you!"

The girl still had her eyes tightly closed after functionally shouting her request at Rudeus, afraid to even see what his facial expression would look like.

'...Huh?' Rudeus blinked. 'Teach? She wants me to teach her magic? Pfft, no way, what a waste of time.'

But then he took on a ponderous expression.

'Wait. There might be some merits to teaching her. Since I'm the only person who can use incantation-less magic, by extension, I'm also the only person who can perform my Magic Sword style. Magic Sword style will one day be as well known as the three sword styles or even surpass it, so how can it have only one practitioner!?'

'Most importantly, I need to find out if I'm the only person who can use silent spellcasting or if it's something others can learn too. Neither Roxy nor Zenith could use magic without incantations, so it's possible that I am the only person in this world who can cast spells silently... If that's the case it would be horrible! I would be the only person who can show off my Magic Sword style!

'But it might also be that adults and their mana circulation are already too used to casting spells with incantations. Which could mean that only children can learn to cast spells without incantations. Though I still need to confirm this theory.'

The girl slowly opened her eyes after an extended period of silence, only to see Rudeus looking at her contemplatively.

"Umm, did- did you hear me?" She asked quietly.

Rudeus nodded, "I heard you. I'm thinking. Now shush."

The girl cast her eyes downwards, while gripping the handle of her basket anxiously.

After another extended period of silence, Rudeus finally made a decision.

"Okay. I'll teach you."

The girl swung her head up excitedly, gazing back at him with a mixture of disbelief and eagerness.

"R-really!?"

"My teacher mentioned once before that learning by teaching others is extremely effective. Something about reinforcing my knowledge. So, yes, I'll teach you."

'Besides, if I want my Magic Sword style to be famous in the future, I will need to start accepting disciples...' Rudeus added inwardly.

The girl beamed, her body tensing up with barely restrained glee, "Thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

He smiled, "Don't thank me yet. If you complain about my training then I'll stop teaching you, got it?"

She nodded fervently, "I won't complain. Ever. I promise!"

Rudeus laughed, "Very well then, I'll keep you to your word."

"Hmm," He mused, "My first disciple. I hope you won't disappoint me."