The road to the capital was long, winding, and smelled like horse dung and wet moss.

  Perfect thinking weather.

  Asta walked five paces ahead, swinging his arms like they were bdes, occasionally shouting, “I’m gonna CRUSH that entrance exam!” loud enough to scare birds out of trees.

  Yuno walked five paces behind him, hands in his pockets, silent as a bde sheathed in snow.

  Me? I stayed in the middle. Quiet. Watching.

  Not because I didn’t have anything to say—oh, I had plenty. But I’d never walked with people before. Not like this. Not as equals.

  Not as... something approaching friends.

  ‘We’ll see how long that sts.’

  Three days on foot. That’s how long it would take from Hage to the capital if you didn’t have a horse, a carriage, or any mana constructs to ride.

  We had feet.

  On the first day, Asta did most of the talking. Or shouting. Or narrating, really.

  “And THEN—BAM! I dodged that chain spell and WHAM, right in the gut!” he said, throwing imaginary punches at the air as we followed the dirt path.

  “You also screamed,” I added, without looking up from my grimoire.

  “Battle cry,” Asta said proudly.

  Yuno gave a faint snort. Asta ignored it.

  I kept reading.

  My grimoire wasn’t fshy. No glowing pages. No shifting sigils. Just diagrams. Lines. Spell structures drawn like scientific models—dense, complex, and strangely elegant. It felt... familiar. Like reading technical manuals back in my old life.

  Even with low mana, I could understand it. That was my edge.

  The second day, something shifted.

  We were camped near a shallow creek. Asta was poking at the fire with a stick, humming to himself, while Yuno sharpened a small dagger by the edge of the tree line.

  I was sketching new formations into a worn notebook—doodles of root designs, potential trap triggers, spell nodes optimized for low-output flow.

  Asta suddenly stood and grinned. “Wanna see something cool?”

  “I assume it doesn’t involve shouting?” I said.

  “NOPE!”

  He held out his grimoire—and in a fre of bck light, a massive, battered greatsword appeared in his hand. Too big for someone his size. Jagged. Dark.

  It hit the ground with a thud.

  Yuno looked up briefly. “The sword again?”

  “YES!” Asta shouted. “Isn’t it awesome?! Look how HUGE it is! I still don’t know how I swing it so well!”

  I stood up slowly, walking over, genuinely intrigued.

  “Let me see that,” I said.

  He lifted it without effort. That in itself was impressive. Even with my old life’s understanding of leverage and bone structure, that bde looked impossible for someone with no magic.

  But he spun it once over his shoulder like it was made of paper.

  “No mana. No enchantments,” I muttered. “But it negates magic?”

  “Yeah! If someone throws a spell at me—BAM!—this thing just slices through it!”

  I knelt beside it, running my hand just above the edge. “There’s no mana emission at all. It’s absorbing the surrounding field. Anti-magic... a phenomenon that shouldn’t exist naturally. It’s not just a tool—it’s a paradox.”

  Asta blinked. “A... para-what?”

  “It breaks the ws of magical theory,” I crified. “This is beyond rare. It’s an evolutionary dead-end of mana function. And yet... it responds to you.”

  Asta scratched his head. “That good?”

  “It’s fascinating.”

  Yuno walked over quietly. “He’s right. It’s not normal.”

  I sat back, flipping open my grimoire. “This world is built around mana compatibility. Affinity. Flow. But your sword exists outside of all that. I wonder...” I scribbled notes. “Can it redirect spells too? Or does it only nullify? Could it be tied to the grimoire’s structure? Or is it bonded to you as an individual?”

  Asta stared bnkly. “Uhh... I hit stuff with it.”

  I sighed. “Of course you do.”

  But something in me felt alive—engaged. This was the kind of puzzle I’d lived for in my past life. Systems. Exceptions. Theories. And now I was walking with one.

  By the third day, we were close.

  The capital shimmered on the horizon like a gemstone stuck in the mud—towers rising, fgs snapping in the breeze, market noise spilling over the walls.

  “I’ve never been to the capital,” Asta said, eyes wide.

  Yuno didn’t respond.

  I squinted. “Big pce. Lot of power. Lot of expectations.”

  As we approached the city gates, Asta suddenly shouted, “LET’S LOOK AROUND!”

  Yuno frowned. “We should go straight to the exam site.”

  “We’ve still got hours,” I said. “And walking in half-starved and sleep-deprived isn’t exactly smart.”

  Yuno raised an eyebrow. “You want to explore?”

  “I want food, Yuno.”

  Asta threw his fist into the air. “YES! Victory food! Let’s go!”

  The capital was bigger than I expected.

  Crowded. Loud. Alive.

  Streets lined with stalls selling grilled meat skewers, sweet rice cakes, magical trinkets that lit up when touched. Kids ran between carts. Nobles rode on floating ptforms above the street like they couldn’t stand to touch the dirt.

  It stank of perfume, sweat, and smoke.

  I kind of loved it.

  Asta dragged us through alleyways, bouncing between food stalls. He stopped to gawk at a Magic Knight poster—Yami, I think. Then another for Fuegoleon, posed dramatically with a lion in fmes behind him.

  “WHOA. Do you think they’re as strong as they look?” Asta asked.

  “I think they’re better at posing,” I said, biting into a fried dumpling.

  Yuno, of course, ignored us both.

  Eventually, we found a small diner tucked between a potion shop and a mana-thread boutique.

  A sign above the door read “The Dusty Clover”. Inside, it smelled like baked bread and meat stew.

  Perfect.

  We sat at a corner table. Asta was already halfway through a bowl of noodles before I even ordered. Yuno sipped tea with the kind of precision that felt rehearsed. I leaned back, watching them both.

  “Tomorrow’s the exam,” I said, finally breaking the quiet.

  “Yep!” Asta said through a mouthful of rice. “Gonna ace it!”

  “You don’t have any spells.”

  “I have the sword.”

  Yuno spoke. “What about you, Vriksha? What’s your pn?”

  I smiled. “Use what I have. Adapt.”

  “Low mana,” Yuno said bluntly.

  “Efficient mana,” I corrected. “I’ve designed spells for root traps, sensory detection, and mana disruption. Nothing fshy—but effective. Minimal output, maximum control.”

  Asta leaned in. “So like, you trap people?”

  “Among other things.”

  “Awesome.”

  We fell into silence again. Comfortable this time.

  In that moment, something felt... right.

  Not just the food. Or the city. Or the looming promise of the exam.

  It was the feeling of possibility.

  For the first time, I wasn’t outside looking in. I was sitting at the table. A part of something.

  Later, as the sun dipped low and the streets turned golden, we stepped out of the diner.

  Asta stretched. “Let’s go crush this thing.”

  Yuno nodded once. “We’ll see who does better.”

  I smiled faintly, gripping the spine of my grimoire. “Try not to trip over your own pride.”

  They both gnced at me.

  “What?”

  Asta grinned. “You’re kinda sharp, y’know that?”

  “Part of the charm.”

  Yuno gave a half-smirk. “He’s not wrong.”

  We turned toward the distant spires of the exam arena, our shadows stretching long behind us.

  Tomorrow, everything would change.