In the end, I couldn’t reach the campsite that day, arriving only in the late afternoon of the next day.
The food I consumed was the remaining white bread and a piece of salty dried meat. Otherwise, I deceived my hunger with black berries that were everywhere.
According to my calculations, even if I cut back, I only had three days’ worth of food. Considering the journey to the next town, I needed to figure out some means of combat within two days.
Since no one uses the campsite during the day, there was no one else there but me.
I cautiously approached, touching the ashes from the bonfire with my hand. The ashes were fresh, but almost no heat remained. Probably used by the traveler I passed this morning. There were no signs of water being poured on it, so perhaps they didn’t use fire in the morning.
I was using a beast trail in the forest along the highway, so that traveler didn’t spot me. Was the beast trail I used a path that wolves used to attack people? But there were no fresh hairs or droppings, so I don’t think wolves really come out.
I wasn’t prepared to start a fire, so it would have been helpful if there were any embers left, but there’s no point in wishing for what I don’t have.
I grabbed a handful of ashes and sprinkled them on my head.
I cut off my long hair, but my pinkish-blonde hair is very noticeable. Hopefully, this will make me a little less conspicuous, making things a bit easier later.
After hiding my luggage in the shade of a nearby tree, I took only my knife and water bottle and first searched for a watering hole.
Thinking there should be one, I searched and found a stream flowing across the well-trodden road. Well, not exactly. Water was springing up in the lower forest, passing under the road.
Looking up, there was a stream a little further in, flowing into a crack in the rock, passing under the road, and then springing up again.
Basically, I think the water is cleaner upstream, but I decided it was still dangerous to drink without boiling it.
For now, I washed my hands with the stream water and wiped my body with a wet cloth. It’s not that I’m particularly clean, but it would be foolish to leave sweat and grime and have my presence revealed by the smell.
As for the water, I couldn’t prepare a fire because I couldn’t find a flint in that orphanage. In that orphanage, the older orphans used 【Utility Magic】 to start fires.
In this world, there is “Magic.” To be precise, what is generally used is called “Magic Arts.” The difference between the two is that “Magic” is primordial, something that has existed since ancient times, while “Magic Arts” is what has been academically analyzed and made available to a relatively large number of people.
For example, magic is like a carriage you made yourself from scratch, thinking about the parts yourself, and magic arts is like a commercially available carriage. It’s not even worth thinking about which one is easier to use.
That woman was a magician, and she had a lot of knowledge about that sort of thing. However, she was uneducated in anything other than what interested her, and there were suspicious parts here and there. …Troublesome.
Magic has six attributes: Light, Darkness, Earth, Water, Fire, and Wind, but to be precise, there is also Non-Attribute Magic, so you could say there are seven types.
People can use Magic Arts with an attribute that suits them if they have a certain amount of Mana.
There is no convenient tool to easily check which attribute you can use, so it takes a considerable amount of effort, and at that point, most commoners apparently give up on using Magic Arts.
That woman seemed to imagine that there was a convenient tool that could tell you your attribute just by holding your hand over it, and she was indignant at reality. …She only remembers the unnecessary knowledge well.
I intend to learn Magic Arts eventually, but what I need now is 【Utility Magic】.
Utility Magic is classified as Non-Attribute. With it, you can start fires and produce water, but it’s generally not well understood why it’s not attribute magic.
That woman’s master taught her something very important about the difference in the amount of Mana used, the causality that interferes with space as a result, and the origins of the world, but that woman wasn’t interested and didn’t remember much of it.
There are six types of Utility Magic, and many commoners can use them. But not everyone. Even those who can use it only know one or two, according to the “knowledge.”
Apparently, that woman was forced by her master to learn all six as a magician’s hobby.
【Light】 creates a light source about the size of a candle.
【Dark】 cancels out Light and blocks the light of a lamp.
【Harden(Hard)】 hardens the earth.
【Spark (Fire)】 starts a small fire.
【Water】 produces about a cup of water.
【Wind】 creates a breeze.
Of these six types, the most people remember is 【Light】, the second is 【Spark (Fire)】, and the third is 【Water】, but very few people remember the others. So, if you ask why they don’t learn all of them, it’s not that, but simply that it seems troublesome to learn them.
…But isn’t this the basis of the ‘Six Attribute Magic’?
The key to this Utility Magic is that it’s called ‘Magic’ and not ‘Magic Arts’. Because it’s magic that even commoners can use, it hasn’t been analyzed as Magic Arts, and those who can use it learn it by watching people who use it many times, through accidental “luck.”
So, to learn it on purpose, you need to watch it many times and learn it with your skin and senses.
Also, as a basic point, attribute magic requires the chanting of spells, while Non-Attribute Magic can be activated with only a single syllable.
Therefore, Utility Magic, being Non-Attribute, is thought to be easy to use because it doesn’t require spells. In reality, I think Magic Arts, which has been analyzed, is easier to use.
That woman was forced to learn it by her master, so she remembered the training methods well.
But I stumbled at the previous stage. To do that training method, you need to feel the Mana inside you, but I couldn’t really understand my own Mana.
For now, I’ll search for information about Mana in that woman’s “knowledge.”
First of all, as a premise, all living things in this world have “Mana” without exception. That’s because there are “Mana Particles,” which are the basis for it, in that world.
Mana Particles fill not only the atmosphere but also water and soil, and there are various theories about whether it’s thanks to the spirits or created by souls, but in short, by breathing, drinking water, and eating the blessings of the earth and the meat of animals, the body comes to accumulate Mana Particles.
The state in which the accumulated Mana Particles can be used as energy is Mana, and if you have a certain amount of Mana, a “Magic Stone” that generates Mana on its own is created in the body, but let’s put that aside for now.
In short, Mana must exist within me as well. But perhaps because Mana Particles fill the surroundings, I can’t distinguish my own Mana.
I think it’s similar to feeling the amount of oxygen in your body.
…I’m becoming too theoretical because I gained useless knowledge. But I’m not confident enough to be conceited that I can learn everything by instinct, and I don’t have the余裕 to take my time.
Yeah… I don’t know the amount of oxygen, but I know the amount of water. According to that woman’s knowledge, the water content of children is about 70%.
I put my fingers on my wrist and feel the pulse. Tokun… Tokun… the blood is flowing.
Magic Stones are generated with Mana Particles using blood as a medium. Then Mana should be flowing in this blood too. I close my eyes and concentrate on trying to feel the flow of blood where Mana should be, and faintly… something…
As a result, I didn’t even know if what I faintly felt was Mana or just my imagination.
I can’t help but be impatient, but I can’t afford to be. But I can’t just do this, so I grasped the surrounding terrain while searching for a place to hide my luggage, collected black berries, and repeated the image of obtaining a lot of Mana through breathing.
In the end, I couldn’t feel Mana. I may need to change my way of thinking. It’s difficult to feel the moisture in the air, but I can tell when it’s raining. So, I thought it would be faster to have someone hit me with a large amount of Mana, but that’s not realistic for me, who is avoiding people. I hid myself in a gap in the rocks that I found a little upstream, and thought while carrying the berries I washed in the stream to my mouth.
I tried to organize what I should do besides magic.
I should become able to use the knife. That woman was a magician, but she had the skill to handle daggers – 【Dagger Skill】.
Let’s review 【Skill】 a little here.
Skills are abilities that humans have, and they are not particularly amazing.
That woman thought that 【Skill】 was a special ability (cheat), and she seemed to think that if she had it, she could do whatever she wanted, but the world is not that easy, and as usual, she was indignant on her own.
It’s not a special ability, but there seems to be 【Divine Protection】, but that’s different from Skill.
That woman’s master said that Skill is a “burn-in” of general skills.
When people consciously repeat an action many times, it seems that the phenomenon of “burn-in” occurs when it merges with the Mana in the body and is “burned” into the “soul.”
What is called 【Skill】 is a way of easily verbalizing that.
So, you can do the same thing even without a Skill. It’s just that actions burned into your soul become less prone to failure and harder to forget.
For example, they say if you take a day off from Swordsmanship, it takes three days to recover. But techniques learned with a [Skill] aren’t forgotten, so training becomes more efficient, and it’s easier to learn even more techniques.
Even when you’re feeling unwell or panicked, you can perform actions you were consciously doing unconsciously, which makes combat much easier.
However, Skills aren’t easy to obtain, and raising their [Skill Level] requires even more training.
It’s not as simple as reaching Skill Level 1 just by memorizing a form; you have to repeat accurate movements over and over again to acquire a Skill.
In that woman’s case, it took her nearly three years to obtain [Dagger Skill Level 1] because she did it unwillingly. On the other hand, she acquired [Fire Magic Skill] in a few months, but that wasn’t talent; it was simply a difference in preference, wasn’t it?
That woman was a [Rank 2] Magician.
Rank 2 means that she had combat-related [Skills] at [Level 2]. That woman’s Skills were Fire Magic and Water Magic at 2, and Dagger at 1, I think? There were others, but they were general skills, so my memory is vague.
Skill Level 1 means you’re a beginner but not an amateur. It seems like the common knowledge in this world is that you’re not considered a full-fledged adult until you reach Level 2.
At Skill Level 3, you feel like a pro, and you can get hired by nobles and such. At Level 4, nobles and the country come to scout you, and at Level 5, you become a master or are respected, and generally, you’re called a ‘Master.’
However, there’s even more above that, and at Level 6, you’re someone who transcends the framework of humans, like the head court magician of a great nation or the instructor of a Knight Order, a ‘Sword Saint,’ someone high above the clouds.
According to unconfirmed information, Skill Levels go up to 10, and if you reach that point, you become a ‘Demigod’ and are no longer “human.” But that’s just a fairy tale legend.
That woman seemed to be constantly dissatisfied that Skills weren’t special abilities (cheats), but I’m relieved that [Skills] aren’t the kind of ‘easy power given by God’ that she thought they were.
Because that means you’re being controlled (..) by an uncertain existence called ‘God,’ right?
Easily granted special abilities (cheats) always carry the anxiety that they might easily disappear at the whim of the existence that granted them.
That’s why I’m not interested in powerful weapons that are one of a kind in the world. Strength that you lose if it’s taken away can’t be called your own “strength.”
As I was thinking about such things, it started to get dark. I wasn’t hungry because I had been eating berries. But the water in my canteen was getting quite low.
I’m replenishing my fluids with berries, but that alone isn’t enough, so if I can’t learn Utility Magic, I’ll have to risk drinking water from the stream.
I’ll think about Mana after it gets dark, but I thought I’d practice with the Knife a little before it gets dark.
I’ll start with the Knife stance using the [Dagger Skill] from that woman’s knowledge. Apparently, I’ve been able to grip it properly unconsciously since I stabbed that woman.
“…………”
I try to thrust the Knife with one hand, half-turned to reduce the area exposed to attacks.
Slow. Even if it’s the first time I’m using it properly, it’s far too clumsy. I’ll stop trying to do various forms all at once and just practice this thrust for now.
I repeated the thrust form several times, and when the sun went down and I couldn’t see anything properly, I exhaled.
Had I been concentrating quite a bit? The surroundings were completely enveloped in darkness, and only the sound of the water flowing nearby echoed strangely in my ears.
Should I practice feeling Mana a little and then go to sleep? As I was thinking that, I saw flickering scarlet lights in the distance.
Are there people at the Campsite? I don’t intend to make contact with people yet, but if it’s bandits or something, I should leave here. Thinking that, I quietly peeked at the Campsite from the bushes, and as I was looking at the back of a large man wearing black leather armor roasting meat on a skewer near the bonfire, the man suddenly raised his voice.
“Who’s there!? Come out!”
Here is a map of the Searth Continent where Alicia lives, and the great nation of Claydale, which is the setting for the story.
Please imagine the size of the continent to be about the size of Australia.
Historically, the Claydale Kingdom is the result of merging two nations.
The protagonist’s current location is the Horace Barony, a dependent of the Taurus County in the north. It looks small, but it’s about half the size of the 23 wards of Tokyo.
The small divided sections are the territories of nobles.
Even among nobles, knights and baronets do not rule over territories but rather govern towns and villages under nobles of the rank of Baron or higher. There are also nobles who do not govern any land, only owning a mansion.
Next time: The identity of that man