Iris and Calvus are both frauds in their own right. Iris was born with a lost magic, giving her an extreme head start in life, but it seems she squandered it as she lost to a hobo who is canonically a savant meaning a lack of any particularly strong skills. Iris with a lost magic lost to someone who just started learning to use a base magic. No wonder her father left her lmao.
On the other hand we have Calvus. He also had a head start both being born with aether magic and inheriting a portion of his grandfather’s curse. Unfortunately for this Nepo baby, he’s a dumbass and went savant which ultimately led to his downfall at the hands of the same homeless guy that beat Iris. Bro really saved himself for the death curse for nothing , should’ve taken the cloud curse when he had the chance. Best I can say for him is that he’s got one good move that could end a fight if the player can’t aim or dodge for shit.
So the question is, between these two frauds who is the most fraudulent?
both can blow stuff up, so I wouldn’t say they are too fraudy
but Iris does do a better job at blowing things up (see the prison escape scene) so I think she’d be the least fraudulent
calvus can only destroy his carpet and floor with his abilities, so I think he’s the most fraudulent out of the two
(seriously, he’s not even good enough to make the curse fragment do damage, it just knocks a homeless guy around a bit)
we just remembered how to use our magic as we already had it before also our character is a special case since he seems to be stronger than the average wizard hence why Iris lost
Again he learned aether magic but his grandfather’s power is correct
Calvus, since he’s the ruler of a massive kingdom, and it’s his duty to protect and fight for it. Being one of the weakest order members and probably one of the weakest kingdom rulers he’s terrible at his job losing to the first one who supposedly knows how to fight and even losing a good portion of soldiers
I think MC is able to fight this way despite memory loss is due to muscle memory and reflexes. Despite memory loss, a person can still retain specific skills they learned despite losing memories of learning said skill.
Oh, this aint a fiction thing, there was an actual case of this happening irl. It was a case I had to study for Psychology class so ye. (Though, it was pretty much a basics class, so no, I dont know a lot personally)
This is why I have a theory that MC mightve actually been a skilled fighter at some point before they were captured. Considering they were someone who supposedly takes pride in using their powers for the greater good, it would make sense if they were in some occupation where they had to use their powers to serve something in the past. Again, just a personal theory tho
Thats definitely possible, I’m just going off the fact the MC at sailor’s lodge says they don’t remember anything before they met Morden for the sake of this argument
In all seriousness, thinking about it more now, you do have a bit of a point. They might have retained their skills, doesnt mean they’ll remember they even have said skill lol, so the “level 1” thing makes sense. They’re trying to figure themselves out
However, while MC is mostly just trying to figure out what they can do, when they do figure it out, they’ll find they’re extremely good at it because they already learned it in some way (like what I said above), so they’re quick on the spot in the middle of a fight. It explains their explosive “growth” and being able to handle fights all too well.
I guess thats how Iris and eventually Calvus got stomped lol