Chapter 7

"Hey, big brother."

A familiar voice that seemed to seep into his heart, warmed by the heat.

Turning abruptly at the sound, he saw the girl they had come to rescue standing there. But her hair color was different. Her hair, which had been brown just a moment ago, had now changed to a clear blue.

"What do you want, girl?"

"Huh? I thought you'd be more surprised by this situation."

The girl, touching her hair, said with a look of surprise. Indeed, he was a bit surprised. He couldn't deny that. She was supposed to be with Real, so when did she move over here?

"But, I don't get a bad vibe from you."

"Why? It's because of me that you're in this situation, you know?"

The situation should have been tense. Yet, he continued the conversation with the girl—no, the young girl.

"You didn't have any ill intentions, right?"

After saying the words, a question arose.

"Is it even your fault?"

"Yes, it is."

Her affirmation was without a hint of remorse.

"Everything that brought you to this place is my doing. The result of what I tried to achieve."

"Hah, what can a little girl like you do...?"

He laughed through his nose, but deep down, he had a strange certainty.

This girl—this 'something' in the form of a girl—was the root cause of this situation.

Looking to the side, he saw the giant up close and Real in the distance. Both were motionless, as if time had stopped.

"Your mind is currently accelerated to more than a hundred times its normal speed. You can relax."

She said it so casually. There was no way he could relax. This was like a near-death experience. If this started moving, he would surely die, right?

"Right. You would definitely die."

She said it so casually with her cute face!

Just as he was about to lose it, the girl whispered.

"......Do you want a power like mine?"

Saying that, she took a step to the side.

Behind her appeared a spear, shining with silver. This was the one he had bumped into when he rolled.

"Hey, you don't mean a legendary weapon, do you?"

"I don't know. It's just a 'wedge' that humans worship. But, in human terms, it could indeed be called a legendary weapon."

"Hey, cut the jokes, little girl. To be honest, I'm a seventeen-year-old loser known as 'the three nothings'—no talent, no ability, no success."

Saying it made him feel sad, but it was the truth.

To the point where it felt like he was cursed by God.

He was a complete failure, lacking any talent.

As a baby, it took him longer to stand on his two feet. It took him twice as long to learn to speak as others. He was slow at running, weak, and always lagged behind others in everything he tried.

This didn't change even when he was summoned to another world.

The reason he fled from that scheming princess was ultimately because of this.

As I mentioned earlier, in this world, 'magic' is a common skill. The 'magic power' that forms the basis of magic is contained within the 'all things' of this world.

Even I, who was supposed to be summoned as a hero from another world, should not have been an exception. In fact, it was expected that I would possess a vast amount of magic power, befitting a hero.

However, when the court magician measured my magic power, the result was shocking—though I was rather resigned to it—'zero.' Even ordinary commoners had ten or twenty, but mine was always 'zero.'

—So, I became useless.

"Really, to summon someone for your own convenience and then discard them as soon as you find out they're useless, what kind of tyrant are you? What do you think people are? Insects?"

As he said it, he became incredibly angry. He had to make that scheming princess (and her cronies) regret it.

"Do you feel anger?"

"Of course. I never forget a grudge, and I always seek revenge for the source of my grudge."

Whether the other person was a noble or a royal, it didn't matter. It had always been like this, and it wouldn't change.

Revenge is doubled. It's a basic principle, right?

"Right. That's why I chose you."

The girl slipped her hand into his and guided him.

"No matter how much humiliation you endure, your soul never fades. A pure color that no one can taint."

"Hey, wait a minute...?"

"An outcast, shunned by God, yet a solitary king, unbound by anyone in this world."

Guided by her, he touched the silver spear.

"Come on, child of 'Kanna.' Take this spear."

"Whoa—"

"It's up to you. Good luck, big brother♪"

With a final, radiant smile, her face faded from his mind.

His thoughts exploded.

The intense pain that shot through his hand when he touched the spear was instantaneous.

"Ugh—"

It was a fleeting moment. But the shock of the impact through his body's core made his thoughts feel stretched out. The heat in his head was dozens of times more intense than when he crammed for final exams.

He thought his blood vessels would burst. Before that, he thought his heart would stop from the shock.

"Hey, little girl, what are you doing, ending the story like that?"

He endured the wavering vision, like a bout of anemia.

He understood that something had flowed into him the moment he touched the silver spear. It was something he could only describe as 'something.' The heat in his head was due to the overwhelming amount of information forced into it.

He remembered the conversation with the girl, but the end was a bit hazy.

"Was she talking about being a solitary king or something?"

From there, it was vague. She seemed to be saying something important.

"......What?"

A shadow covered his vision. Something was looming above him?

Lifting his gaze, he saw the ice giant raising a massive sword.

………………………………………………………………………….

"Oh, crap."

In a detached manner, he muttered, and the next moment,

The giant ice sword was swung down at him.

Before he could confirm his death, a voice whispered.

"You should know how to do it."

Guided by the voice—no, guiding himself—he chanted.

He had an intuition that he could do it.

"Freeze."

The ice blade touched his forehead and stopped abruptly. The giant didn't stop on its own. He had stopped it. He was certain of that.

To be precise, he had 'frozen' all the joints of the giant. Most of it was made of ice. For 'the current him,' it was no longer a marvel.

He shed the cold-weather gear he had been wearing. The cold-weather gear was now unnecessary. The freezing air was no longer his enemy.

Before he could question it, he was already moving.

Even with its joints frozen, the giant struggled to move.

Then, he would just crush it.

He touched the giant ice sword with his bare hands, ignoring the temperature that would normally cause frostbite.

"Here, take this, woah!"

With a little force, the ice sword broke off from the handle. It wasn't superhuman strength. He had just weakened the water molecule bonds around the handle.

Most of the blade was in his hand. As it was, it would be hard to use.

He imagined.

"How about an axe?"

The broad blade cracked and deformed, forming a massive axe in his hand. The handle was about his height, and the blade was as long as his upper body.

The ice giant, unable to move, extended new ice from the broken handle, trying to create a new weapon.

But before it could.

"Shatter!"

He leaped straight up and delivered a full-force downward swing from a stationary position. The axe was sucked into the top of the golem's headless body, and a sound like shattering glass echoed, replacing a scream.

"What the—"

After it was over, he was surprised by the massive axe in his hand. What had he done? How had he crushed that golem? And what was this ice axe?

"Kanna!"

Confused, Real ran over to him.

"Hey, are you okay?"

"I'm okay, I guess."

"That's a relief. I was worried for a moment."

Exhaling in relief, Real looked at the remains of the shattered golem.

"Still, I'm surprised. I didn't know you could use magic. You said you couldn't, were you hiding it?"

"——No, that's not it."

The word 'magic' made him instinctively deny it.

"This isn't magic. It's something more alien and fundamental."

The exact words didn't come to mind, perhaps because he still lacked knowledge of this world. Despite not understanding the concept of magic, he had a strange certainty.

"If I were to use human terms, it might be called 'spirit magic'?"

A third voice. Turning, he saw a beautiful woman with long blue hair where the spear had been. Her feminine and soft appearance was out of place in this freezing land.

He instinctively recognized her as the girl.

At the same time, he knew she wasn't human.

"......I didn't sense your presence at all."

Ignoring the breathless Real, he asked the blue-haired woman.

"How much of this was staged?"

"Oh? That's an unexpected first question. I thought you'd pile on the grievances and resentments?"

"I want to clarify the responsibility for everything, including that."

The woman laughed like a tinkling bell.

As you might have noticed, there's a reason I haven't used the protagonist's name in kanji. I think those with a keen eye can guess why.

As the protagonist confesses in the text, he possesses no innate abilities that could be called 'talent.' However, this becomes a crucial keyword later on.