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“I have something to show you, Rodeo.”

“Oohh, someone’s confident. Could it be that you can use that now?”

“Fufu, I see, so you know about it, huh?”

 

A short while after Herbert reconciled with his Father.

Herbert has been continuing his swordsmanship-only training as well as his combined-sword-and-magic training with Rodeo.

 

Thanks to Herbert’s reconciliation with his Father, he has managed to avert being sent off to a remote place for the time being. Moreover, he and his mother were now back to being able to converse casually. Maybe it was because they haven’t had contact in so long, but Herbert’s facial expressions were getting brighter by the day.

Nowadays, Herbert was showing his cheerful side to people other than Kevin. Today as well, Herbert was in a cheerful mood. As for why…it was because he finally learned to use a certain spacetime magic spell that he had been practicing for a while.

 

Firstly, he formed a sphere of mana with practiced ease. Thanks to his continuous use of Delay and Accelerate, he could now form these spheres in no time. Herbert then poured some additional mana…and focused his mind into it while his eyes were closed.

Delay and Accelerate were spells that meddled with time. Meanwhile, this spell that Herbert had been practicing for some time now was one that could be said to manipulate space.

Its name was…

 

“Dimension!”

 

Dimension was an intermediate-level spacetime magic spell. It might have taken him a while to cast it, but the fact of the matter was he succeeded. So far, Herbert’s success rate to cast the spell was around 50%. Somehow though, he managed to cast it in the first try this time just now.

Forgetting to wipe the sweat on his forehead, Herbert turned toward Rodeo. Rodeo’s reaction wasn’t what Herbert expected…Rodeo looked quite puzzled.

 

“Young master…what the heck is this magic?”

“Ahh, sorry, I got so carried away I forgot to explain what it is. This is an intermediate-level spacetime spell called Dimension. To put it simply, it’s a spell that converts the space within this mana sphere into a subspace.”

“A sub…space…?”

“Yeah, it’s a pretty difficult concept. It took a while before it made sense to me too.”

 

Dimension was a spell that created a subspace.

But what was a subspace to begin with? Much like what “sub” might suggest, it was a fabricated space contained within what we perceived as the regular space.

In order to comprehend this fully, total spatial awareness needed for the mastery of Delay and Accelerate was key.

 

Dimension made an area of effect—in this example Herbert’s sphere of mana—become separate from the regular space and then remake it into something else.

That was the gist of it.

It took Herbert a while before he could understand this very novel concept. If not for his future self’s thoughtful explanations, he most certainly would not have understood it anytime soon. If anything, it made him wonder how his 20-years-into-the-future-self even reached this far all by himself.

 

It had actually taken Herbert much longer to figure out the theory behind it than putting it into practice. As such, Herbert had spent more time inside studying than outside. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that Herbert’s current excitement was mostly because he was now free from studying, at least for the meantime.

 

“Haa, I see. Subspaces, huh…”

 

What benefit was there in making the inside of the mana sphere a subspace, Rodeo’s face seemed to ask even without uttering a single word. To which, Herbert shook his head while clicking his tongue, much like what a teacher would do when admonishing their student.

 

“This is an amazing spell, you know. Just try to think of the possibilities.”

“I guess. Well, if you can direct an attack into that subspace, would it serve as something like a perfect defense? Although, wouldn’t delay pretty much accomplish that?”

 

Delay and Accelerate were not capable of affecting whatever the caster wanted. In fact, it was limited to 2 things: the caster themselves and the caster’s attacks including their spells. Even if something else were to enter the mana sphere, their speed wouldn’t be affected one bit. Because of that, using Delay to slow down an enemy’s attack just wasn’t a possible means of defending oneself.

 

As for Rodeo’s assumption about a subspace as a means of defense, it was partially correct.

 

“I won’t say that it’s a perfect defense, but it can definitely be used as one. The inside of this subspace is actually much larger than what it seems to our eyes, so for example…”

 

Herbert said so and then launched a Fire Arrow into the mana sphere.

It did come out on the other end, but it took quite a while. But then again, compared to a Fire Arrow affected by Delay, it traveled through the sphere slightly faster.

 

“The subspace is vast, so it can be used as a pseudo-Delay.”

“I see. But unlike Delay, it can affect an enemy’s attacks, right?”

“Attacks will at least enter the sphere. However, once a living creature enters it, Dimension will be canceled. And while spells can be affected like you saw, the mana consumption to maintain Dimension will rise once the incoming spell is inside the sphere. I’d say I can do it only once.”

“It’s so finicky……doesn’t it make it less useful than those other two spells of yours?”

 

As long as it was a nonliving thing, like an enemy’s sword or spells, it could enter the subspace created by Dimension. However, as soon as the hand which held the handle of a sword were to also enter the subspace, the whole spell would be canceled. As such, choosing when to use Dimension was vital.

Also, it was possible to rotate the mana sphere around so that the magic it held would come out toward the enemy. If it didn’t had costs attached to it, it would definitely be vying for the best counter there was.

Unfortunately, even an unorthodox magic like spacetime magic wasn’t so powerful as that. When Herbert was practicing it with Marlon, he discovered that returning just one intermediate level spell nearly consumed all of his mana.

He could imagine using Dimension as a counter to catch his enemy off-guard, but even then, it would only be a one-time thing.

 

Considering all that, Dimension was an awfully hard spell to use for combat. Thankfully, it was a very useful spell outside of combat.

 

“This subspace can be used as a storage though.”

“Considering the inside’s so much larger than it looks, that makes sense. But how about the weight of the things inside?”

“To phrase it like Marlon would, his sword that I put in the subspace felt a tiny bit lighter. I didn’t feel much of a difference in weight when I put things in, but I did notice that it took more mana to maintain the sphere the more things there were inside.”

 

Many things could be stored within a subspace created by Dimension. Storing a new object inside consumed a lot of mana, but leaving those objects there didn’t cost nearly as much mana in the short term.

 

“Interestingly though, once an object is stored, it’s as if the flow of time is slowed downed for them. For example, a freshly cooked meal will be kept hot even after some time has passed for us.”

“And…why is that?”

“My guess is that once a subspace is separated from regular space, the properties within eventually change.”

 

At first, there wasn’t much of a difference in the passage of time between regular space and a given subspace, but as long as that subspace was maintained, the passage of time within soon becomes distorted.

This made the subspace convenient for storage.

 

Moving the mana sphere made the flow of time change again, but for Herbert who had been making and maintaining these spheres in his spare time ever since he received the letter, maintaining a mana sphere for a long period of time wasn’t an issue.

 

“Well, it certainly seems useful for an adventurer, but…how is it useful to you, young master?”

“At the moment, you’re right, it’s not really useful to me. But soon enough, I’ll have need of it.”

“Soon enough…?”

 

Herbert still hasn’t told anyone that he had knowledge of future events. The only one that knew of the letter from the future was Kevin, and Kevin promised to keep that information between them.

Herbert had several reasons to refrain from unnecessarily telling others that. Those reasons also led to him working so hard to learn Dimension. But even if he were to be honest about things, no one would probably believe in him anyway. And so, he decided that, for now, he would keep to himself the need to obtain a certain highly fresh ingredient…an ingredient that would be used to make the cure for the ailment that Kevin would soon succumb to.

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