[Aria (Alicia)] [Race: Human Female] [Rank 1]
[Mana Capacity: 54/65] 13 Up [HP: 33/37]
[Strength: 3 (3.3)] [Endurance: 4 (4.4)] [Agility: 5 (5.5)] [Dexterity: 6]
[Stealth Lv.1] [Night Vision Lv.1]
[Utility Magic x6] [Light Magic Lv.1] [Non-Attribute Magic Lv.1]
[Mana Control Lv.1] [Detection Lv.1]
[Overall Combat Strength: 26 (During Body Enhancement: 28)]
It took me about ten days to finally learn 【Cure(Heal)】 and acquire 【Light Magic Lv.1】.
It feels like a long time, but ten days is generally quite fast. This is comparable to the speed at which a magician who has already learned other spells learns a new one. It’s definitely not the speed at which a child would learn from scratch.
But thanks to that, my rank also went from zero to 【Rank 1】.
The rank level is the same as the level of attribute magic and combat skills. This clears the minimum requirement for joining the Adventurer’s Guild, but I don’t plan to join right away.
That’s because, without at least a level 1 equivalent melee combat skill, a child like me could easily be preyed upon by other adventurers.
I’ve been continuing my melee combat training, but I still haven’t learned the skill.
Should I continue practicing melee combat more, or should I research the meaning of the word 【Cure(Heal)】 more to improve the accuracy of my magic? I also want to learn the other first-tier magic, 【Cure】, but my supplies are running low, so I decided to go to town for the first time in a while.
I was originally planning to gather things I could sell for money before going to town next, but I was too busy practicing magic and didn’t gather much.
The old man at the general store also told me to bring him a rabbit, but if I could hunt a rabbit, I would eat it myself, and my butchering skills were still poor, so the fur wasn’t in a sellable condition.
“…I have no choice.”
I’ll take the special wild plants I found during my three weeks of forest life.
Detoxification herbs that grow everywhere, which are household remedies, and insect repellent grass, which is relatively easy to find, won’t fetch much money. It’s not free, but filling a burlap sack with them and getting a few copper coins isn’t worth the effort of bringing them.
I’ve been studying the handwritten Herbal Compendium that that woman stole from her magic teacher.
At first, I had to pull words from my “knowledge” like looking up a dictionary, but now I can read it, albeit slowly.
Based on that knowledge, I found the “Magic Aroma Fruit.”
This is a fruit that grows on shrubs in areas with low Mana Particles. The pulp is 2-3mm, astringent, and not suitable for eating, but this fruit has the habit of storing Mana in the seed part to survive in harsh environments.
The seed part is used to make “Mana Potions” that restore Mana.
The Herbal Compendium also contains the basics of alchemy, and I myself plan to start alchemy someday, but I can’t do anything now because I don’t have the equipment.
I was lucky to find this. Only one tree was growing on a mountain cliff, and I was able to pick a few fruits, but it would be better to sell them than to keep them.
The reason is that only the seed part is used, so it can be stored for a long time, but it requires specialized processing. Also, the fruit part has no Mana and cannot be eaten, but it seems that the fruit part suppresses the diffusion of Mana, so it sells for a higher price than the seeds alone if the fruit is still intact. I want to sell it before the fruit spoils.
I finish my meal before leaving. I had hardly any of the dried vegetables or dried meat I bought last time left, but I simmer the last of the crumbled dried vegetables and dried meat and pour the soup, seasoned only with salt, into my stomach.
The dishes and pots are made by baking clay dishes hardened with the Utility Magic 【Harden(Hard)】. They’re not sellable, but I’ve been able to make something reasonably usable in the past few weeks.
The soup I made isn’t delicious, but putting something warm in my stomach makes me feel a little more energetic, and I’m resistant to simple meals anyway.
I take off my clothes and wash my body in the upstream stream that I’m using as a base.
I’m a street urchin, but I don’t like to look like one. I’ll be taken advantage of when buying and selling things, and street urchins who aren’t protected by the lord are easy targets for plunder.
That’s why I wash my clothes occasionally, but should I buy new clothes soon?
They were relatively decent used clothes, but they’re coming apart here and there from living in the forest. More than that, my body has grown rapidly due to the increase in Mana, and I feel like the hem has become shorter.
The hem of the poncho, which used to be above my knees, has become shorter to about halfway up my thighs. I don’t mind if people see inside, but if they find out I’m a girl before I acquire combat skills, it seems like I’ll have more trouble.
I don’t understand it well, but the “knowledge” says so, so I should be careful.
Now, let’s depart. Around the time the sun begins to set, I carry my backpack and leave the campsite.
In my current position, the soldiers patrolling the streets are the most troublesome. I’d be in trouble if I were protected just because I’m a child, and I’m not confident that I could escape from bad soldiers. But at night, I still have the Night Vision skill, even though I’m only level 1, so I should be able to manage.
It was a skill I acquired by seeing Mana in colors, but its accuracy has definitely improved during these three weeks of forest life. Soldiers are troublesome, but they eliminate dangerous wolves and other things, so the night is safer for me.
I use Body Enhancement and start walking down the street without a sound. At the same time as training to erase my presence by matching the Mana Particles around me, I’m also training to move without making a sound. What I realized after trying it is that it’s not enough to just move slowly and quietly to eliminate sound. Muscle strength is also important.
If you use the muscle strength of your legs and whole body to cushion the impact, the sound will naturally become smaller. And if you move along the flow of the surrounding Mana Particles, your presence will blend in even more with the surroundings.
I didn’t use Body Enhancement to increase my speed, but instead moved faster than usual towards the town, killing the impact and erasing the sound.
“…Phew.”
From that campsite to the town is half a day by normal carriage, and if you walk, you leave early in the morning and arrive at night.
Last time, I left in the morning and arrived in the middle of the night, close to dawn the next day, but this time, thanks to the increased amount of Mana and the ability to sustain Body Enhancement, I was able to leave at night and arrive around the same time as last time.
Even so, I was quite tired, so I decided to sleep in the surrounding forest until morning to recover my Mana and HP. I think I’ll be able to move right away if I use 【Cure(Heal)】, but if it’s true that recovering with magic makes it harder to gain stamina, as Feld said, then I should avoid using it as much as possible while training.
I took a nap in a tree, woke up at the three chimes at eight in the morning, and infiltrated the town’s slums from my usual spot.
I erase my presence so as to match the surrounding Mana Particles, and I also erase my footsteps by walking without putting my heels down.
Thanks to acquiring the 【Stealth Skill】 and 【Detection Skill】, I’m less likely to be noticed by the residents of the slums. But even though I have “knowledge,” I have little actual experience, so I can’t let my guard down.
“…………”
I feel some kind of “presence.”
What is it…? I don’t know. It’s not an easy-to-understand presence like Feld’s, which is like a gush. To be exact, it’s a little different from a presence… I should call it a “sense of discomfort”?
It’s not that something “is” there, but that something that’s always there “isn’t” there. That’s the kind of discomfort it is.
…Am I just imagining things? Thinking that, I quicken my pace a little and leave the slums. It doesn’t feel very good, so I’ll leave town as soon as I’m done shopping.
“You’ve come again… ‘Ash-covered’.”
“…………”
When I go through the door of the general store, the old man who owns the store gives me a sharp look.
“More preserved food?”
“Yeah, is there anything… that lasts a long time and is nutritious?”
“Nutritious? You’re a kid, but you know strange words. I don’t know about that, but if you want something that fills you up, I have nuts.”
The store owner frowns annoyedly, but brings a small burlap sack from the back.
“It’s packed with random nuts. One small silver coin.”
“…They’re burnt?”
They’re already roasted to make them last longer, but there are a lot of strangely burnt and broken ones.
“I told you, this is that kind of store. If you want something decent, go to a decent store.”
It’s probably the leftovers from the stalls and street vendors, the parts that don’t sell.
They look bad and taste bad. That’s why they don’t sell them “on the surface,” but if they’re going to throw them away, they sell them at a throwaway price. And there are people like me who will buy them if they’re cheap enough.
“…Give me a little extra.”
“I’ll give you a bonus if you buy a little more. Is there anything else?”
“Can you buy things like this?”
When I take the Magic Aroma Fruit out of my backpack, the store owner’s eyes widen slightly, and then he glares at me again.
“…Where did you get that?”
“Deep in the forest. There are no landmarks, so I can’t explain.”
“…I see.”
What did he see in me to be convinced? The shopkeeper, understanding that it wasn’t stolen, stared intently at the Magic Aroma Fruit before appearing to consider something.
“Do you know what this is?”
“Of course.”
“…The quality isn’t bad, but they’re uneven. They seem to have been sitting for a while, so they’re starting to spoil. Considering the time it’ll take to find a buyer… I can’t buy them at the regular price, you know?”
“No problem. This is ‘that kind of shop,’ after all.”
When I said that, the old man of the shop smiled faintly.
“Six in total, huh? Then I’ll give you two silver coins for the lot. Go somewhere else if you don’t like it.”
“That’s fine.”
It was probably less than half the usual price. If I took them to a proper shop, they’d probably see me coming and offer even less.
Besides, this old shopkeeper might have a mean look and no charm, and he wasn’t soft on kids, but I felt he was honest when it came to business.
I also bought beans, dried meat, and a small amount of salt and rock candy, which were a bit expensive, and still received one silver coin in change from the shopkeeper.
Dried vegetables seemed cheaper at the stalls, but as I was wondering what to do, the door of the shop behind me opened and a small shadow darted in.
“Kids, come in quietly!”
I could tell the two shadows that had barged in flinched when the shopkeeper roared. Kids? I thought, and as I turned around, one of them called out before I could even get a good look.
“Ah! Aria!”
They were a street urchin brother and sister I’d met in this slum, and when the younger sister, Shuri, shouted my name, she forgot all about being scolded and hugged me.
The older brother, Jill, darted his eyes around at me, Shuri, and the old shopkeeper in a flustered manner, before fixing his gaze on me as if to escape the old man’s sharp glare.
“A-Aria, where have you been?”
“Outside, you know?”
They weren’t really my companions or friends. They weren’t even residents of the town in the first place. As I unpeeled Shuri from me and answered curtly, Jill hesitated and closed his mouth, before suddenly remembering something and pulling something out of his burlap sack.
“I can go outside too, you know! I came to sell a rabbit I hunted outside today!”
“…Wouldn’t it be better to eat it yourselves?”
It seemed they’d hunted a rabbit outside of town, but maybe it took them a while to catch it, because the rabbit’s fur was tattered and it hadn’t been bled. When I casually glanced at the shopkeeper, the old man sighed wearily as he looked at the rabbit.
“Aria, have you gotten taller?”
Shuri, who had been watching me and Jill’s exchange intently, chimed in.
I’d had a feeling, since I’d been experiencing ‘growing pains’ from the increase in my Mana, but Shuri’s eye level, which had been almost the same as mine when we first met, was now slightly lower.
“By the way, why were you in such a hurry earlier?”
I didn’t really want to explain about Mana, so I changed the subject, and Jill latched onto it as if he’d been waiting for it.
“That’s right! There was some weird old guy. He stared at me and Shuri, then frowned. He was kind of creepy, so we ran away.”
“Heeh…”
A weird old guy? Feld, maybe? As I was thinking such rude things, the old shopkeeper, who had been listening to the story, spoke up.
“Lately, they say they’ve been seeing unfamiliar men around here. Rumor has it their build and movements are like thieves. Kids, don’t get kidnapped.”
“…………(nod)”
Thieves, huh… troublesome. The current me is several times more troublesome than a washed-up warrior.
Thieves aren’t just ordinary burglars or thugs; they have skills for stealing. They probably have combat skills too. They’re managed by a criminal organization like the mafia called the ‘Thieves’ Guild,’ and while they don’t do anything flashy that would involve the country, they’re just in it for the money, so you never know what they might do.
That feeling of a “presence” I felt when I came might have been that man.
If that wasn’t just my imagination, and he really was there, I felt like he was a master far beyond my reach.
…I should get out of town quickly.
I hadn’t finished my shopping, but I couldn’t risk danger, so I left the shop and headed straight for the hole in the wall surrounding the town.
As I was moving, using Stealth to shake off the brother and sister who were trying to follow me again, I noticed the “presence” I’d felt when I came, just before reaching the exit.
To be precise, there was no presence. But there was so little presence that it felt strange, and if you understood that there was a ‘master thief’ there, it led to the idea that it might be a [Stealth Skill].
I quietly scanned my surroundings, noticing an unnatural ‘color’ of Mana Particles.
I would have missed it if I’d only been looking with my naked eyes. Even if I only sensed the Mana Particles, I wouldn’t have noticed it because it blended in with the surroundings.
But the color of the Mana Particles looked like a “human shape,” and when I stopped my gaze there, the human-shaped Mana Particles suddenly swelled up.
(Body Enhancement!?)
I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t directly felt Feld’s Body Enhancement. No, it was almost by chance that I thought of it. The moment I thought of it, I almost unconsciously jumped to the side, and in that instant, a steel blade was stabbed into the ground where I had been.
“Hoh…”
A man appeared, revealing a human presence as if he had released his Stealth, and gave me a lewd smile as I dodged his throwing knife.
“This might be a little fun.”
Who is the thief who suddenly attacked?
Next time: Battle with the Thief.