Volume 2: Assassins from Abroad
Chapter 1: Special Training- The Sixth Sense
It’s been a little over a month since I exorcised Raikou-douji.
I turned six.
I finally turned six years old.
I say “finally,” but there is nothing special about turning six.
I had a birthday party with my family of four and received a cake and birthday present.
The birthday present was a silver necklace made from the treasure of Raikou-douji.
In my previous life, I thought that any man who wore a necklace was my enemy, but I never expected that I would be wearing it. You never know what life has in store for you.
By the way, my father told me the reason why I got the necklace at my birthday party.
“If it were other exorcists, they would have worn it as an earring or a ring…. You’re still very young. Piercings are out of the question, and rings won’t fit on your fingers. That’s why I thought a necklace would be better.”
Well, now that you put it that way, I feel like a necklace is the only way to go.
Even if I can’t help wearing a ring on my finger, I’m afraid of piercings because they’re painful. No, I’m only six years old to begin with, and getting a piercing at six years old is not a quintessential choice. It’s not an option.
So, I’m training hard with the yellow shimmering treasure of Raikou-douji, literally on my chest.
With Renji-san.
“Itsuki-kun. Behind you.”
“Yes…!?”
With a “buff” sound, I was sent flying by a cushion that jumped from behind me and fell forward.
The place I fell down was covered with a thick mat, and I felt the texture of the mat with my whole body. It was so soft.
By the way, I’m in the training room of the Shimotsuki family.
“Didn’t you understand just now?”
“I don’t understand! I couldn’t see it at all….”
I got up from the mat and told Renji-san that.
I couldn’t see at all, not because of the cushion flying behind me. My eyes are now blindfolded.
“Yeah, you can’t see at all. That’s what the training is for. But some monsters take away the five senses. So the only way to fight them is to sharpen the senses of the guiding thread silvate.”
“They take away your five senses, but they don’t take away the sense of guiding thread silvate?”
“That’s the sixth sense.”
What? This was my sixth sense!?
By sixth sense, I mean a paranormal sense.
It’s that feeling that you had a strange feeling and took a different road than usual and avoided an accident, or that you had a dream about a distant relative and he or she died at the same time.
However, I don’t have a good impression of the word “sixth sense” because in my previous life, there was a lot of noise on TV about a suspicious-looking psychic. It smells like something occult, doesn’t it?
No, I guess there is nothing occult in the world where magic and fairy tales are historical facts.
“Well, you’ll have to go one more time. Try putting the guiding thread silvate around you like a barrier, and sharpen your senses.”
With that, Renji-san’s footsteps disappeared.
Why am I doing this training with Renji-san and not my father?
The reason is simple.
Because my house was destroyed.
The house where I spent six years of my life was half destroyed by an attack of Raikou-douji and now my father and the rest of my family are looking for a demolition company to rebuild it. I don’t even want to think about how much money will be lost, but my father told me, “Don’t worry about that”.
Incidentally, my mother seems to be longing for an island kitchen, and is excited about the new house. Though I think it is too early for her.
“You see…”
While I was thinking about that, a cushion came flying at me from the right side, and I was too late to deal with it and fell down on the mat again.
It was no good. I have no idea what guiding thread silvate feels like.
“It’s unusual for you to have such a hard time, Itsuki-kun.”
“…”
Yes. I have already done this training for over 5 hours.
But there is a reason why I want to acquire this sixth sense, whether it takes me 5 hours or 50 hours.
It was my father who told me that I should start training to become more sensitive to the guiding thread silvate and to sharpen my perception of it, rather than with my eyesight.
He said that the weak sensation of the guiding thread silvate could be dropped into the unconscious, and that it could be used as an automatic reflex to move the body when fighting a monster.
Simply put, it is said to be able to move on its own when it feels like it’s in trouble. It goes without saying how this will be useful in a fight with a monster.
After all, monsters are not only fast, but some of them strike by surprise.
For example, the one I fought in the forest who dropped acorns on me. I was only able to deal with them after I saw that the acorn was wrapped around a thread of silvate, and if I had noticed it later, I would have died.
But by enhancing the senses of this silvate, they say, I’ll be able to move intuitively before I see the enemy’s magic, instead of avoiding it after I see it.
There was just a problem.
“Now it’s up.”
A cushion falls from above and lands on my head with a whimper.
“Don’t you get it?”
“…… I have no idea.”
My sense of the guiding thread silvate is too weak.
“Itsuki-kun, you have true eyes don’t you? You can see the thread silvates.”
“Yes, I can see it.”
“That may be the reason. Maybe you have been relying on your eyesight so much that your sensation of the guide thread silvate is weak.”
“I see.”
I nodded deeply at Renji-san’s words.
I have been fighting with my eyes on the thread of silvate when training with my father and when fighting monsters. It was a strategy that I was able to use because I had true eyes and it was too advantageous when fighting against those who couldn’t see.
However, if it is said that my other senses were dulled because I was relying on it, I have no choice but to agree.
One of the clients of the printing company I worked for was an elderly president who had something to say to the young. But he said that young people can’t read maps.
He said young people who have become accustomed to using smart phones cannot grasp their current location or think about how to get to their destination even if they are handed a paper map. It is absolutely deplorable.
At the time, I thought, I have a smart phone, so I don’t need a paper map…. This is very similar to my current situation.
I was so dependent on convenient things that I couldn’t handle something inconvenient if it was suddenly handed to me.
“You don’t have to be in such a hurry, Itsuki-kun. You are only five years old and kids your age are practicing shijutsu all the time, and no one is practicing using magic. No one has ever trained you to feel the sensation of the guiding thread silvate.”
“I’m six years old now.”
“Oh, that’s right, you’ll be in elementary school in April.”
Renji-san let out a sigh and said, ‘You can take off your blindfold,’ and I took off my blindfold.
“It’s time to take a break. It’s tiring to sharpen your senses.”
“Yes!”
I took off the blindfold and exhaled deeply.
My body is not nearly as tired as I thought it would be, but the mental fatigue is starting to set in.
As I was taking deep breaths and sending fresh air into my lungs, a bad-boy looking Renji-san spoke to me.
“Hey, Itsuki-kun.”
“Yes?”
“Just a little…. Just for a minute is fine, can you show me your lightning magic….?”
“Huh?”
It was the first time I was asked to do such a thing, I unintentionally let out a strange voice.
It’s a strange request to be asked to show magic. And it’s unusual for Renji-san to make such a request. I wonder what’s wrong?
Perhaps he could see that I was asking for a “why,” he continued quietly.
“You see, lightning can be created by ‘trait change,’ but you can’t handle it freely, right? That’s why I’m interested in what it can do…”
Renji-san spoke to me with an excited look on his face.
Oh, men are always boys, no matter how old they are.
I thought to myself, Of course I know how that feels.
I want to see cool things no matter how old I am.
“Just a little bit…!”
As soon as I was completely exhausted, I immediately poured magic power into Raikou-douji’s treasure.
The next moment, the sound of “resonance” echoed, and my magic power became identical to that of Raikou-douji’s.
The next moment, BajI! With a sound, lightning covered my whole body.
“It’s really lightning… It’s like lightning is flowing all over your body, doesn’t it hurt?”
“It doesn’t hurt at all.”
“I see. That’s magic isn’t it…. So, what kind of magic is this?”
“It’s body enhancement.”
“What?”
“It’s lightning that strengthens reflexes, muscles, and so on.”
“Hmm…..? All the way with lightning?”
Of course, there are advantages to doing it with lightning that ordinary physical strengthening does not have.
I wonder if Renji-san would notice.
As I was thinking that, Renji-san clapped his hand.
“Ah! That’s what you mean!”
Apparently, Renji-san had already noticed.
He’s a genius.
“That body enhancement only requires one “guiding thread silvate”?”
“That’s right! In ordinary body strengthening, you wrap it around each leg and arm, but this is a whole-body enhancement with just one thread.”
“I see. That’s good!”
This is a magic that doesn’t yet have a name.
What name should I give it?
“But then again, Itsuki-kun, as you also immediately took possession of the treasure… perhaps lightning magic was on your mind?”
“Yes! This is very convenient.”
I said, “Wahaha,” and Renji-san and I laughed at each other.
I pretended I didn’t see Aya-chan’s looking at us with a kind of “Why are you getting so excited about that” Men are like that.
