“Since you went to bed much earlier than usual, you might wake up in the middle of the night. I said I’d take care of you, so I had you sleep over here.”
“Mm.”
“Is it okay if we talk?”
“Mm.”
“Anyway, I’m just totally confused and panicking. What was that earlier? You stopped the rabbit like it was nothing.”
“The Blessing’s ‘Light.'”
“No, even before, you said that, but—there’s no way the Blessing could stop a Wild Rabbit that far away in an instant.”
“It can.”
“Huh? How?”
“Light, make it thin.”
“What?”
“When thin, it gets stronger.”
“Really?”
“Also, light reaches far. Doesn’t bend.”
“Well, now that you say it, that makes sense. It’s not like fire or water that gets blown away by strong winds.”
“It doesn’t get weaker.”
“Yeah, I guess, something like that.”
Returning to an upright position, my brother let out a deep breath.
He glanced up at the ceiling, tracing his memories from earlier in the day.
“Still, though…that rabbit was basically knocked out cold, wasn’t it? Can the Blessing really have that much power? I mean, sure, it happened right before my eyes, but even seeing it, I can’t believe it.”
It’s not a mistake.
Roughly speaking, if you gather the same amount of light into a thin beam, the power at the point of impact increases.
‘Memory’ gave me the image of a ‘Lens,’ and apparently, with the right method, you could start a fire with sunlight.
The Blessing’s ‘Light’ is limited in total amount, but you can make it as thin as you want by controlling it.
But I don’t think this is something people in this world—or even in the world of ‘Memory’—would normally come up with.
In this world, for starters, I doubt ‘Lens’ even exists, so nobody would ever think that focusing light could make it strong enough to start a fire.
At best, someone might think that using the Blessing to light up a room or as a searchlight, the latter would be brighter.
Even if they consider brightness, I doubt anyone here has the knowledge to think about heat or any other physical effects.
And in the world of ‘Memory,’ when trying to increase the power of light, people would first think of making the light source stronger, not narrowing a weak light, even if they understood the principle.
In fact, when I wondered, “What would happen if I kept narrowing the Blessing’s ‘Light’ like this?” and tried to consult ‘Memory,’ I didn’t get a good answer right away.
After some time, the image of a ‘Lens’ finally came back to me, but beyond that, the idea of thinning out light probably doesn’t even exist.
I only learned that narrowing the Blessing as much as possible could scorch wood after secretly experimenting a few times.
When talking with my brother, we vaguely phrase it as “knocking out the rabbit,” but in truth, I was aiming for the eyes, so those Wild Rabbits are probably all blind in one eye now.
But I don’t want to explain that in detail to my brother.
After all—
“But this is a secret.”
“A secret? Again? Still, this is a huge discovery, isn’t it? Even if we don’t tell everyone you did it, if we spread the word, it could be amazing. Using those with the Blessing of Light, we could wipe out all the Wild Rabbits—”
“Secret.”
“Why?”
“Too dangerous.”
“Huh?”
“It can kill people.”
“Ah…”
It’s just too dangerous.
With an ordinary ability that a quarter of the world’s population has, you could easily knock someone out from a distance.
You could blind them.
And if you made the beam even thinner, you could probably pierce animal skin and kill instantly.
Just like with today’s Wild Rabbit, as long as the target is not being extremely cautious and completely defending themselves, you could pull it off even from a considerable distance.
The level of danger is on a whole other scale compared to regular weapons.
We could turn a quarter of the population into a group of killers.
It’s simply too terrifying.
Whether they’re knights or ordinary people, those with the Blessing of Light have always felt looked down upon.
But if even a hint of this effect spreads, there will definitely be people who get carried away and run wild.
This is absolutely something that must never, ever be revealed—not even a trace.
Even just what we’ve discussed, my brother seemed to get how dangerous it was.
“I get it. You can knock out someone that far away and then just finish them off. It’s way too dangerous.”
“Mm.”
“Sigh…well, if it’s a secret, it can’t be helped. So, from now on, we’ll have to say our Wild Rabbit hunts succeed because of my archery skills, just like today.”
“Mm.”
“We’ll have to do it ourselves, just the two of us—can’t trust this to anyone else.”
“Do your best.”
“I’m the one doing all the heavy lifting, huh. But you need to be careful not to get too tired from using the Blessing, too.”
“Mm.”
“Wonder how many more times we can go hunting before the snow comes. If we could get around a hundred rabbits, it’d help everyone for winter, and it might reduce Wild Rabbit damage next year.”
“…Let’s do our best.”
“Yeah.”
The next day, during morning study time, when my brother talked about using the Blessing of Light to help grow vegetables, Vessel-sensei’s eyes went wide in surprise.
“What? Does the Blessing of Light have such an effect?”
“Yes. It’s not fully confirmed yet, but with Rinus’s experiments, I think we’ll have definite results soon.”
“If that’s true, it’s amazing. It could be published as an academic paper.”
“After we watch how things go over this winter, if it really proves valuable, I’d like to ask Sensei to write the paper.”
“Oh. Well, yes, I’d be delighted if I could co-author a paper with Lord Wolf. Since it’s my first time, I’d like to guide a student through writing as well.”
“I don’t know if it’s really my thing, but sure, let’s discuss it when the time comes.”
Still excited, Sensei didn’t even go home in the afternoon and instead headed to the cultivation shed with my brother.
Bettina, who’d been listening and was overjoyed since morning, carried me along as she followed.
Since the weather wasn’t good for hunting that day, my brother, Sensei, Ahim, and Rinus spent the whole time discussing experiment methods and such.
The next day was clear and sunny, so we decided to go hunting in the afternoon.
Along with Dimo and Ahim, we brought another boy around our age, and of course, my brother carried me on his back.
Just as before, only my brother could actually hunt.
Dimo acted as chaperone and guide, and also brought his bow in hopes of maybe getting a shot.
After last time, we’d realized that the number of Wild Rabbits we could bring back depended on how many people could carry them, so we added another boy just for transporting them.
Dimo and the two boys each brought quite large backpacks for carrying the catch.
Just like before, my brother kept shooting arrows at Wild Rabbits one after another.
After all, as long as the Wild Rabbits kept showing themselves at the usual distance, well out of bow range, my ‘Light’ could hit them as much as I wanted.
The one thing I had to be careful about was making sure the three boys with us didn’t realize I was using ‘Light.’
As long as there were several Wild Rabbits in view, it wasn’t too hard.
I just picked targets the others weren’t watching and signaled to my brother, and that’s how it all went down.
Rabbit after rabbit was taken down—by the end of the day, we’d caught over fifty.
The boys were excited, shouting, “Amazing, amazing!” the whole time.