I Was Kicked Out of the Guard for Having the Weakest Mana—If You Want Me Back Now, It's Not Too Late

"Sho. Quit the Guard."

"Huh?"

In a room at the Kita Ward Guard station, a remodeled police box in Tokyo.

Sho couldn't understand the cold words his childhood friend Shuichi had just thrown at him.

"W-why? Sure, I've mostly been doing desk work lately, but I'm still working hard. Really, I'm not lying! Why are you suddenly telling me to quit?"

"You can't do anything but desk work. You're useless. You aren't contributing."

Sho was dumbfounded by the merciless rejection.

Shuichi had never treated him so coldly before.

Tsuruya Shuichi and Yamagami Sho were best friends by anyone's standards—including their own.

Their houses stood next to each other, and Sho had been born one day after Shuichi. They played together at the same kindergarten, studied at the same elementary school, and sweated through the same club at the same middle school.

Whenever an upperclassman hit Shuichi, Sho hit him back.

They got beaten black and blue together, then walked home laughing with their arms around each other's shoulders.

When Sho was going to confess his feelings to a classmate, Shuichi had arranged everything for him.

The confession failed, and Sho was rejected, but they secretly took some of their parents' liquor from the refrigerator, drank the awful stuff together on the school roof, and cried. They got drunk on the alcohol—and even more drunk on themselves.

They had done everything together, good and bad.

Even after the Gremlin disaster that occurred on the day of their high school entrance ceremony, they enlisted together in the Kita Ward Guard and fought their way through countless battles. When they were together, it felt like they could do anything.

It was true that lately Sho had stopped going out to the front lines, just as Shuichi said.

He could no longer keep up with the standards demanded of the Guard.

The Kita Ward Guard was an anti-monster combat unit established under the leadership of the North Witch's biological father.

When the Gremlin disaster struck, the North Witch, the youngest member of the Witches' Assembly at twelve years old, had fought desperately against the monsters for the sake of the people, but she had lacked any sense of reality.

It was only natural. The North Witch had still been in sixth grade at the time. Drunk on the power that had suddenly awakened within her, she had acted as though she had become a magical girl, like a righteous champion who had leaped out of a television screen.

The wizard from Iruma exploited that opening and controlled her with puppet magic. The memory of gleefully attacking her fellow witches, along with her fear of the Blue Witch, who had tried to kill her without mercy, left the North Witch traumatized and unable to move for some time.

The Guard had given everything it had to lessen the burden on that young witch, even if only a little.

The North Witch managed to return to the front lines after about a month, thanks in part to her friends' support. But to reduce the burden on the witch, the Guard was now expected to possess even greater strength.

At first, the guards had been armed with wooden clubs and car-door shields, but eventually those were replaced with crossbows and crudely made metal spears and swords.

Sho and Shuichi had excellent aim and emerged as marksmen. Their perfectly coordinated alternating volleys were enough to completely defeat Class C-1 monsters.

But when magic began to spread, everything changed.

Swords and crossbows fell out of use, replaced by wands.

The Guard was no longer judged solely on stamina and physical strength. Mana capacity became an essential requirement as well.

Shuichi had enough mana to fire off twenty-four shots of "Fire!" in succession.

Sho, however, couldn't fire even once. He simply had too little mana.

Sho rapidly became a burden on the Guard.

It was commonly said that the ability of a combat unit was determined by its weakest member.

Modern warfare was founded on orderly coordination, and if even one person couldn't keep up with those around them, the formation fell apart.

In fact, Sho held everyone back. A crossbow had to be reloaded after each shot. Its rate of fire was nothing like magic's, making it impossible for him to coordinate with the others.

While his fellow guards who had learned magic were racking up Class B monster kills one after another, Sho could do no more than handle Class C monsters.

No matter how accurately he pronounced his incantations or how much he expanded his knowledge of monsters.

There was nothing he could do about his lack of mana.

Sho eventually became the unit's pack carrier. After a while, he was pulled back from the front lines, and every day became a matter of doing paperwork at the Guard station.

Sho was the one who felt most frustrated by his inability to fight. If magic was impossible, he would build his muscles, so he kept up his strength training and further honed his crossbow skills. He proposed improvements to the ward's monster sighting notification network, guided lost children, volunteered for night duty, and rushed to the scene of Class B monster appearances faster than anyone else, protecting ward residents until the main force arrived.

Sho had believed he was doing his best as a member of the Guard in his own way.

But his childhood friend Shuichi, who he thought understood him better than anyone, had thrown those cold words at him, leaving him too shocked to think.

The Guard captain also came over from the nap room with a cup of roasted brown rice tea, listened to the story, and nodded indifferently.

"Ah, yeah. That's right. Anyone can do what Yamagami does. We don't need an office specialist here. This is as good a time as any. Yamagami, you quit the Guard. It'd be a nuisance to have you lounging around forever, acting like some veteran just because you've been here a while."

"B-but I never meant to act like some veteran! Captain! My crossbow's accuracy has improved! I modified the winding mechanism and increased the reloading speed, too—"

"No matter what you say, Yamagami, you still can't use magic. You're not suited for the Guard. Having spirit without the ability is nothing but a nuisance. I'll give you enough time to pack your things, so get out. Go on. Quietly go work a field or something."

Even the captain he had thought he was close to had hurled such harsh words at him. With his soul drained away, Yamagami gathered the personal belongings he had kept at the station and left his workplace in a daze.

Even after falling behind and becoming unable to keep up with the fighting, he had believed he was supporting the Guard in his own way. He had thought they were comrades.

Even if they fought in different places and in different ways, he had believed he could get along with his comrades and his childhood friend.

But apparently, he had been the only one who thought so.

As Sho trudged along without knowing where he was going, biting his lip and refusing to let himself cry, he remembered that he had left his beloved crossbow at the station's firing range.

He wondered how he could possibly show his face after being suddenly told to get out, but that crossbow had been his partner through countless battles. He couldn't just leave it behind.

When Sho awkwardly trudged back to the Guard station, he heard Shuichi and the captain talking. His own name came up in the conversation he overheard, and Sho instinctively hid in a nearby thicket.

He assumed they were tearing him apart and decided to stay hidden until the two of them left, unwilling to hear it. But what he heard was unexpected.

"Wouldn't it have been better to let him down more gently? Did you see Yamagami's face? I've never seen him look so close to tears."

"Sho's stubborn. You know that too, Captain. That idiot charged into a Class B monster alone! It's true that he was only buying time, but that's exactly the sort of thing he does. He's a good guy who can't help but run off if you put a weapon in his hands."

"Yeah. I'm worried about that side of him too. Even when I put him in the rear and made him do paperwork, even when I ordered him not to fight, he never stopped training for battle. I suppose he's also competing with you since you're the ace of this unit."

"We've been together forever. If our positions were reversed, I'd do anything to stand shoulder to shoulder with Sho and hold my head high beside him. But unless I pushed him away like this, he'd end up dying someday. I don't want to force Sho out either. It's still far better than letting him do something reckless and die."

That was as far as Sho could stand to eavesdrop. His emotions overflowed, and he couldn't bear to hear any more.

Sho took off running. He ran through the streets at dusk, shouting out his joy and frustration. The people he passed stared at him in shock, but he felt as though he would come apart if he didn't spit out his emotions along with those cries.

After shouting and running until his lungs felt like they were being torn apart, Sho made a vow to the sinking sun.

So that he would never again make his childhood friend say such painful things, and so that he would never again make the captain worry about him.

He would gain strength worthy of the honorable Kita Ward Guard and return without fail!

A new life began, renewed by Sho's determination.

Whatever the circumstances, Sho had been fired from the Guard, so he moved to Minato Ward in search of work. Kita Ward did not use an assigned-labor system, so changing jobs was allowed.

Minato Ward had once been burned to the ground and was actively recruiting new residents. Sho's relocation was approved without difficulty, and he found work helping build a shipyard for the sea-route trade that had only recently begun.

Sho knew nothing about construction. But in a world where heavy machinery no longer worked, a young, broad-shouldered man with experience in the Guard was valued as labor, regardless.

While working hard at manual labor, Sho searched for a way to gain strength.

He gathered information in hopes that obtaining the legendary master craftsman 0933's wand, spoken of in rumors, might let him use magic. But according to one of Minato Ward's ritual magic practitioners, even a wand made by such a master couldn't overcome a fundamental lack of mana.

Sho was crushed. He had heard that even someone with mana as low as his could gather thirteen people and use a ritual implement to cast "Fire!" But that was no consolation.

Sho didn't simply want to use magic. He wanted to stand shoulder to shoulder with his best friend and fight beside him again as a member of the Guard.

The other possibility he looked into was magical beasts.

While working on the shipyard in Minato Ward, he often saw the beasts from the Hokkaido Magical Beast Farm that towed the trading ships entering the wharf.

The aquatic magical beasts, still rare even in Hokkaido and with not a single one yet in Tokyo, looked like the Loch Ness Monster with a shell of rock on its back and were about five meters long. They listened well to their beast tamers and were intelligent enough to move their long necks, carry cargo in their mouths, and help with transportation.

Steel Sheep and Fukuro Sparrows were also famous, and if he could tame Cannon Balsams, they would certainly make excellent defensive firepower.

But even there, Sho's lack of mana held him back.

Tamed monsters were called magical beasts, and implanting a Gremlin into one caused it to recognize you as a companion.

However, implanting a Gremlin forcibly reduced one's maximum mana.

When one's maximum mana reached zero, one turned to dust and vanished from the world.

Sho's mana wasn't even enough to endure having a Gremlin implanted in the weakest magical beast, the Fukuro Sparrow.

Sho had too little mana to become a mage. He couldn't become a beast tamer, either.

That left the Tohoku Hunting Association as his last hope.

Through a connection at the shipyard, Sho was sent to Sendai, the Tohoku Hunting Association's headquarters, to study.

He had heard that hunting was popular in Sendai. Hunting rifles were in circulation, and they even held hunting courses.

No matter how little mana he had, it had nothing to do with handling a gun, a purely physical weapon.

If he could switch from a crossbow to a hunting rifle, his combat power would increase dramatically.

Sho was a quick learner. With his well-built physique and studious nature, he obtained his hunting license after only three months of study.

This hunting license was entirely different from licenses in the previous era. Obtaining one required comprehensive mastery of hunting knowledge and techniques, including the manufacture of gunpowder, tracking prey, erasing traces, and reading the wind.

The instructor at the licensing center who had looked after Sho during his stay enthusiastically tried to persuade such a promising young man to remain in Sendai. But Sho intended to return to the Kita Ward Guard someday. It was a generous offer, but he firmly declined and returned to Tokyo amid their regrets.

After returning from his studies, Sho went back to work at the shipyard. His newly acquired knowledge was valued, and he was sometimes asked for advice on manufacturing guns and gunpowder at workshops in Minato Ward.

Sho's coworkers at the shipyard knew he wanted to return to the Guard. They asked whether he was finally going back now that he could use a gun, but Sho shook his head.

Among Class B monsters and higher, there were monsters such as ghosts that could only be harmed by magic attacks, and monsters such as slimes that were barely affected by physical attacks.

Learning to handle a gun had certainly made Sho stronger.

But to overcome the wall of Class B monsters, he still needed magic, no matter what.

Learning to handle a gun had made him realize that all over again.

Using magic required mana. And Sho had no mana.

Mana, mana, mana—everything required mana.

In an era when magical technology advanced year by year, someone without mana was no different from a bird without wings.

A ray of light appeared in Sho's hopeless situation when he was selected for a survey of mana reserves conducted by the Magic University.

That day, Sho happened to be shopping in Bunkyo Ward when someone on a street corner asked him to cooperate with the survey of mana reserves. He agreed, and the examination revealed that Sho possessed 0.2K of mana—the weakest level in humanity.

Sho was devastated by how absurdly weak he was.

The weakest in humanity! He had known his mana was low, but he had never imagined it was that low.

However, the student from the Department of Mutation Studies who had examined him could barely contain their excitement and begged Sho to cooperate with their research.

At first, Sho thought they were making fun of him and tried to refuse, but after hearing them out, he realized they were completely serious.

Being humanity's lowest-mana individual made him an ideal research subject for the university all by itself. They said that outliers held the clues to advancing research, and so on, but there were too many technical terms for him to understand much of it.

When Sho heard that the Department of Mutation Studies was researching how to mutate ordinary humans into witches and wizards, he ultimately agreed to cooperate.

Sho began visiting the Department of Mutation Studies laboratory at Tokyo Magic University once a week to assist with the research. He received fairly generous compensation and even underwent a suspicious magnetic irradiation experiment after signing a consent form and a living will.

The result was unconsciousness and several days of difficulty walking. Sho was lucky enough to recover without aftereffects, but there was a wheelchair-bound professor in the Department of Mutation Studies, as well as people whose eyeballs were constantly twitching. He declined any further experiments after that.

Of course he wanted to become stronger. He would do everything he could for that. But if he entrusted his body to mad scientists' research, even a dozen lives wouldn't be enough.

As a research participant, Sho became well versed in the work of the Department of Mutation Studies. He learned the technical terms and even became friends with the students.

But whenever he made a new friend, he was reminded of Shuichi all over again. No matter how many friends he made, he was forced to admit that Shuichi was still the person he clicked with best.

If he returned to Kita Ward, bowed his head, and begged, Shuichi would probably take him back as a comrade, albeit reluctantly.

But Sho would rather die than make such a pathetic gesture and accept that kind of pity.

Precisely because they were best friends, he wanted them to be equals. It had always been that way. They could no longer stand as equals, but he would definitely gain the power he needed and return to the Guard with his head held high.

It would be just right if they begged him to come back, saying they couldn't go on without him.

Sho cooperated with the university's research and accumulated knowledge. Then, that knowledge finally bore fruit.

The Arataki Group raid in May left a deep scar on Tokyo.

But thanks to it, the Department of Mutation Studies advanced its research by leaps and bounds and produced the culmination of its work.

The invention of a mana training method.

Sho had originally been a research participant in the Department of Mutation Studies, so he benefited from the training method even before it was officially announced.

Sho's mana reserves, the lowest in humanity at 0.2K, grew larger every day.

While the other test subjects developed magical illnesses after increasing their mana by only 1–2K and became unable to continue training, Sho continued increasing his mana at a healthy pace without developing any side effects.

His pitiful 0.2K of mana reached humanity's standard value of 1.0K.

After one month, it surpassed 5.0K, the minimum level for admission to the Magic University.

After three months, it reached 18K, allowing him to use the Ice Spear spell—the hallmark of a first-rate mage—with ease.

Even then, Sho's growth did not stop. There was no sign of him reaching his limit at all.

The professors of the Department of Mutation Studies recorded Sho's astonishing growth with amazement.

Even the Witch of the Passing Flame, the younger sister of the Witch of the Inherited Flame and the human with the greatest mana reserves, had reached her growth limit after gaining 20K. Yet even after Sho's mana had grown by 25K, he continued to improve.

In all of Tokyo, no one but Yamagami Sho—not counting witches and wizards—was increasing their mana so steadily.

How far would he grow? Sho himself didn't know.

The professors of the Department of Mutation Studies were fascinated by Sho, who was making a singular, almost anomalous march of mana growth all by himself. Since he had also acquired a fair understanding of mutation studies, they invited him to join the department, but after much thought, Sho declined.

As a researcher in the Department of Mutation Studies, he might have been able to become even stronger than he was. But he would also have responsibilities as a researcher. He couldn't simply leave and go to the Guard. Besides, he was a little hesitant to join a department filled with so many oddballs and eccentrics, whose sense of ethics was somewhat unusual.

The invitation from the Department of Mutation Studies instead strengthened Sho's resolve to return home.

He had become a person of enough distinction to be wanted by the department's professors.

At last, he had gained the strength worthy of the elite Kita Ward Guard. Being pampered in a greenhouse laboratory didn't suit him.

When Sho told the Department of Mutation Studies that he was returning to the Guard, the associate professors and junior staff tried to hold him back. They wrapped their words in euphemisms, but it was clear they were worried that their valuable research sample might die in battle, and Sho could only smile wryly.

What surprised him was that the professor approved of his departure.

The wheelchair-bound professor of the Department of Mutation Studies expressed profound gratitude for Sho's immense contributions to the research, silenced the complaints from the associate professors and junior staff, and gave him two presents.

One was the Sage's Wand.

It was a precious item, with only two in the world. It was a compact version of a coffin-shaped mana training device, and with the Sage's Wand, mana training could be done anywhere, anytime.

The professor asked Sho to continue training whenever his work allowed and report the results at least once a year. Sho readily agreed. He would certainly be grateful if he could increase his mana even further.

The other was the latest wand made by 0933.

The new wand, equipped with the new Kvant-style magic compression ring, had been announced on New Year's Day in 2030 and sold to several famous mages around the country.

The professor from the Department of Mutation Studies had been one of the lucky people to obtain a wand by 0933, said to cost as much as a house.

And yet the professor offered to give that hard-won wand to Sho.

When Sho was too embarrassed to accept it, the wheelchair-bound professor grinned mischievously and said,

"Oh, it's an experiment, just an experiment. I'm like this, you see, so I can't exactly go rampaging around with a wand. Please use it and send me combat data from actual battles."

...If that's the case, then I'll accept it."

Sensing the concern hidden behind the professor's words, Sho bowed deeply and accepted the two wands.

Combat data involving wands would be useless to the Department of Mutation Studies, as opposed to the Department of Combat Studies.

The professor had only said that to make it easier for Sho to accept the wand without hesitation.

Returning to the Guard would not sever his ties with the laboratory. Even so, they would probably grow somewhat distant. Sho waved to the wistful members of the Department of Mutation Studies, bidding them a temporary farewell.

After explaining the situation to his supervisor at the Minato Ward shipyard and moving out of the company dormitory, Sho returned to Kita Ward with his few belongings on his back.

Kita Ward had not changed since the day he had vowed to return. Even the setting sun, sinking toward the horizon, was the same as it had been that day.

He walked along the familiar roads and arrived at the Guard station. No one was there, but from behind the building came a shriek like a beaver's.

When Sho entered the firing range behind the station, he found Shuichi alone, running around with a wand in hand and sweating through his training as he fired "Fire!"

A mischievous impulse came over Sho. He quietly chanted Abundance Magic and activated the wand's mana compression.

He pointed the tip of the wand at the target Shuichi was aiming at and chanted the North Witch's specialty spell.

"Shatter!"

The spell, which should have fired a white orb of light, was compressed into a white bullet.

The sharply fired magical bullet punched straight through the center of the target with a satisfying crack.

This spell was less powerful than Ice Spear, had a slower projectile speed, and consumed more mana.

It was fair to call it an inferior version, but it had one advantage.

Its incantation was shorter than Ice Spear's.

The North Witch could freely control the trajectory of the white orb of light through mana control, but Sho couldn't perform anything like that. In exchange, he could compress it to increase its speed and density. It would be more than adequate in actual combat.

Shuichi, who had been training alone, turned around in surprise at the sudden interruption.

When he saw Sho waving with the wand balanced on his shoulder, his face broke into a grin and he ran over. But halfway there, he suddenly stopped, looking awkward.

"Hey, Shuichi. I'm back—and I'm a mage now."

"That magic just now... You did it?"

"Yeah. You know about mana training, right? Thanks to that, my mana surpassed yours."

"What? Come on, seriously? Then—"

"Then what?"

When Sho urged the faltering Shuichi to continue, Shuichi opened and closed his mouth several times, then suddenly dropped into a full prostration.

"Please! Come back to the Guard! I have no right to say this after driving you out like that, but I want you to come back. Won't you join the Guard again? The Guard without you, Sho... It's boring. We need you."

"Get up, Shuichi. I know. Actually, after you and the captain talked that day, I heard the whole thing."

Sho gripped Shuichi's hand tightly and pulled him to his feet.

Feeling the hard hand covered in calluses, he understood.

Shuichi had been training relentlessly, too.

From Shuichi's face, Sho could tell that his own days of training had come through as well.

Understanding each other without words, the two of them laughed and bumped their fists together.

They had been best friends since the day they were born. No words were necessary.

Shuichi called off his shooting practice and changed into his street clothes. His shift was over.

Sho found his wooden name tag still on the station's attendance board and felt his emotions well up, but he did not cry.

He moved his tag from "On Leave" to "Off Duty," then the two of them set off down the darkening road.

Side by side, shoulders squared and heads held high.

"Hey, remember? When we were in middle school, we secretly drank liquor together on the roof."

"How could I forget? Ha! This time we're both adults. And it isn't bitter liquor over a broken heart. It's celebratory liquor."

"You bet. I'm glad you came back! We're drinking until morning, best friend!"

And so Sho and Shuichi set off into the night with their arms around each other's shoulders, laughing together.