It was a rare day off—and with that, a rare visit to the city. As rigorous as the training was at Rosewood Academy, its students still deserved to enjoy some free time at least once a week, and Earnest was enjoying this weekly reward by walking alone through the city.
It would’ve been nice to go shopping with the girls or maybe have lunch at a restaurant somewhere. But wandering around alone, with no particular destination in mind, was really enjoyable. Truly, she thought there was no greater luxury in life than having the freedom to waste time. She had escaped from her usual packed training schedule, and now she was using just two hours that she’d allotted strictly for her own relaxation.
In the distance, she saw a crowd of people.
That looks interesting. Let’s go check it out.
Earnest headed over without thinking too much about it.
“Grorrrrrrrh…”
There was a huge, roaring beast.
“What’s that…?”
It was a monster about ten feet tall that looked like a cross between a person and a wolf—a very strange form to take. It was roaring at the heavens in a district on the outskirts of town mainly populated by blacksmith forges.
“Have you ever seen a magic beast, little lady?” a local craftsman asked her, his thick arms no doubt built up at the forge.
“Oh? You called me ‘little lady’?”
“…Ah, yeah, I bet you townsfolk have never seen one. They must be pretty rare, huh?”
“N-no, I’ve seen them,” Earnest hastily replied. How many magic beasts were enrolled in her school at the moment? There were at least a few. But the Overlord was half-demon, Cú rarely went around in her dragon form, and Ein and Zwei, despite their abnormal size, were basically just birds, really.
Now that she thought about it, Earnest realized that she had never seen a real, stereotypical, “genuine” magic beast. Until now, that is.
“This one is a…lycan, right?”
Earnest recalled what she had read in a book somewhere. These were magic beasts that took the basic form of a wolf but with humanoid limbs. Their height varied, but they usually clocked in at between ten and fifteen feet tall, and they could weigh anywhere from several hundred pounds all the way up to a ton. Despite their size, they were extremely nimble and fast, making them suited for high-speed combat.
Yep. There could be no mistake.
“Hmm! You know your stuff, little lady.”
Being called “little lady” by this beefy blacksmith made Earnest feel strangely self-conscious. For a moment, she considered introducing herself as the Empress, head student at Rosewood Academy, but in the end, she decided to stick with her passerby little-lady persona.
“What’s going on with that magic beast? Why’s he roaring like that? And what’s he doing in the middle of the city?”
“Oh, they come here all the time. They do business with the forges here.”
“All the time? Really?”
That was news to Earnest. She had never heard in school that magic beasts came into cities, even in the outskirts like this. She saw them as creatures(?) that normally inhabited the wilderness or the underground world known as the demon realm.
She added the question mark to “creatures” because it still wasn’t certain if magic beasts should be classified among regular creatures or not. The definition of a “creature” was something that was born, lived, reproduced, left offspring, and then died. Magic beasts were generated rather than born. They suddenly appeared in mature form from deep underground, wherever a certain concentration of the matter known as miasma had concentrated itself. Some of them did reproduce, like the egg-laying dragons and the Nightwalkers that bred with humans to leave hybrid offspring, but those were rare exceptions. In general, magic beasts simply appeared.
When newly spawned, these magic beasts might be large in size, but they possessed zero intelligence. All they did was fight and eat, and they were basically immortal. They had no lifespan the way people defined it; their ability to heal physical damage was so great that they were all but invincible. The only way they met their end was if they were eaten. But even then, scientists had debated for years over whether this was equivalent to “death” in normal creatures.
One theory suggested that eliminated magic beasts returned to miasma, got circulated around underground, and were reborn again later, inheriting the characteristics of whoever defeated them—in other words, those who were stronger than them. The idea that they took the form of their vanquishers in their next lives made sense, given that all magic beasts sought out strength above all else.
So defeated magic beasts got reborn in a new form. But the ones that won, and won, and kept on winning, eventually changed as well. Through all that fighting, winning, and eating, they began to gain intelligence. Those that became strong enough began to wonder how can I fight better so I win even more? That was about the time they learned language and began speaking. Humans acquired wisdom and language first and then learned how to fight, but magic beasts did it the other way around. They got strong first, then gained intelligence.
“That one, though,” the man said, looking at the lycan before them, “he’s still in the early stages, I’d say.”
“The early stages?”
“Yeah, it’s been nothin’ but ‘groooar, groooar’ the whole time, y’know?”
“Oh, you’re right.”
Grorrrrrrrh…
It roared again.
“If I had to guess, this one’s decided to find a bunch of humans and get a weapon or somethin’. He’s probably smart enough to see that as a way to get stronger.”
“Huh,” Earnest said vaguely as she stood there, watching the magic beast roar away. “Doesn’t look too intelligent to me.”
“Well, that’s because he’s still in the process of becoming intelligent. He can’t speak too well just yet.”
“W-w-w-we-weapon…”
The magic beast chose that moment to speak its first word to the onlookers.
“He can speak!”
“Yeah, but that’s the only word he’s said so far. ‘Weapon.’ And what’re we supposed to do about that, huh? We don’t even know what kind of weapon he wants.”
The magic beast began to stir, spreading its arms wide and moving them around. It was trying to convey some sort of idea. Several of the blacksmiths dealing with it copied the gesture, spreading their arms and moving them around in an attempt at interaction, but the connection still wasn’t quite being made.
“Wait, are you actually gonna give a weapon to a magic beast?”
“Well, we’re blacksmiths, after all. If someone’s willing to use the weapons we make ’round here, we ain’t about to say no to them, man or beast.”
“What, for free…?”
Earnest couldn’t imagine that magic beasts went around with money. If it was about to produce a coin purse from somewhere, it’d be a pretty comedic sight.
The weapons made in this blacksmith district were one of the major exports for the kingdom—superb magical gear, brimming with magical force. They supplied Rosewood Academy with their training gear as well. They couldn’t just be giving that stuff away, right?
“Ha-ha-ha! Oh, the guy can pay us once he’s able to, y’know?”
The blacksmith seemed to find her question humorous.
“If you can use our weapons well and get stronger and more intelligent as a result—well, you can pay us back once you’re successful enough in life to afford it, we say. And maybe we won’t see the money—maybe it’ll be our kids or our grandkids—but as long as they repay us in some way, what’s the issue?”
It was said that magic beasts that reached the level of “spirit beast” had intelligence superior to even that of mankind. Some of these spirit beasts were also known to protect the human race. During the last great war with the Overlord, a lot of them fought on the human side—magic beasts, spirit beasts, even divine beasts. Earnest now thought she kind of understood why they sided with them.
Now a group of craftsmen approached the lycan, bearing a rather large object in their hands. It was a club, it looked like—but a really big one. Upon receiving it, the magic beast raised it high above its head and roared. It was expressing its joy at receiving the item, no doubt…but maybe not? Something about its roar was harsh and dissonant.
“Oh, were we wrong?”
“‘Wrong’? What did you get wrong?”
“Well, I’d tell you if I knew, but I don’t. I guess the guy just didn’t want a club, is all.”
“Oh?”
Grorrrrrrrh…
That tremendous roar again. Earnest looked at it again. The magic beast was stamping its feet, making loud booming sounds as it did. It must have not liked the weapon it was given at all, judging by the roars and flailing about. The whole to-hell-with-this-crap atmosphere was palpable.
Grorrrrrrrh…
It threw the club away like a spoiled child, flinging its arms around wildly. The weapon flew through the air, destroying a house, and with every swing of this little brat’s arm, one or two more houses were blown apart.
Whoa, whoa, whoa!
The magic beast roared and ran down the street, crushing the houses on both sides.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!
Earnest stood there in a daze. The blacksmith had run away, but she wasn’t going anywhere. And now the magic beast was coming straight for her.
“Hey! Lady! Look out! You gotta run!”
Suddenly, Earnest came to her senses, remembering who she was. She took out Asmodeus, turning it ninety degrees just in case. Then she took her stance, using the flat side of her blade instead of the edge. Her target was the magic beast coming at her.
“If you’re a dog, then…sit! Sit!”
She struck it, just as Blade had done when he disciplined that dragon baby long ago. She beat it, smashed it knocked it down with all the force she had…and with one blow, she defeated it.
“Phew.”
Usually, this sort of thing was the job of the Capital Defense Force. The locals were lucky that Earnest happened to be around. The damage was limited to just a few houses, and fortunately, it looked like nobody had been caught inside. The residents must have evacuated in advance, fearing the worst-case scenario.