And now here I was, quietly sitting by the campfire with my pursuer.
“Sorry, lad,” the man said. “You were so quick I mistook you for a kobold and chased you down.” Kobolds were low-level monsters that looked like bipedal dogs. I’d never thought I could’ve been mistaken for one.
This man was apparently an adventurer. His thought process was that a monster on the loose near the roads would’ve been dangerous for travelers, and so he’d given chase. And since I’d kept trying to throw him off my tail, he’d turned relentless in his pursuit.
“Now, this ain’t an apology or anything, but go on, eat up,” he said, offering me the snake he’d been roasting earlier, skinned and chopped. I’d never had snake before, but I remembered someone at the orphanage mentioning that the older boys who couldn’t deal with the meager food would venture out into the forest and catch snakes to eat.
There were a lot of green snakes in this area, and they only had a mildly paralytic venom. They wouldn’t attack larger animals unless threatened. A typical girl might’ve been grossed out by the thought of eating a snake, but I wasn’t, and the grilled-meat aroma was tempting, so I took a bite. The meat was quite juicy, and a mild taste spread through my mouth.
Frankly, it was bland, not particularly tasty, but between an empty stomach and a history of not having had much access to good food, I practically inhaled it. The man gave me water to wash it down with, and after drinking it, I finally felt like a person again.
He watched me eat, waiting silently for me to finish before speaking. “So, lad. What’s a kid doing at a place like this? Where are your folks?”
I didn’t respond.
The man must’ve mistaken me for a boy due to my hair, which I’d cut short. He had a rough look to him, but deep down he was kindhearted. Soft, perhaps, was a better term.
Noticing my silence, and possibly assuming I was an orphaned street urchin, he let out a small sigh and changed the subject. “Does that still hurt?”
I shook my head slightly in response. The man had Level 1 in Light Mastery and had used the spell Cure on me. A faint bruise remained between my chest and left shoulder, though. It hurt when touched, but it wasn’t anything unbearable.
A brief explanation of Light Mastery: at Level 1, one could use the spells “Cure” and “Restore.” While Cure could replenish one’s vitality, all it did was close wounds, not completely ease pain. Restore, meanwhile, would fully mend one’s injuries, but it had to be used at close range, it took time to fully work, and it actually depleted one’s vitality.
Used promptly enough, Cure could completely heal a cut without leaving any scarring. Since it had a wider range and took effect faster, it was the most commonly used form of healing sorcery. Restore was used in cases such as that of an unmarried young woman sustaining a severe injury that would’ve otherwise left a scar. Due to the complexity of the spell’s structure, even those with an aptitude for light-based sorcery tended not to go out of their way to learn it. If the man had used Restore, my bruise would’ve cleared up completely in no time, but he’d said he didn’t know how to cast it.
I could sense his growing impatience as I gathered my thoughts in silence, but I still couldn’t fully trust him. Shifting my gaze downward, I looked at my knife, broken by the pommel of his greatsword.
“Oh, my bad,” he said. “I ruined your knife, huh? But that one ain’t good for combat, not really. Might be something for a noblewoman to use for self-defense. The blade’s sharp but flimsy. Even trying to cut through a rabbit bone would’ve chipped it.”
Though he was mouthing off excuses for having broken my knife, I didn’t really blame him. Yes, it was inconvenient, but I’d been the one who’d run away for no reason, and it was better to have a broken knife than a fractured bone the man’s Cure spell wouldn’t have been able to handle. It could’ve been worse.
Seeing me shake my head without complaint, he seemed to grow restless. From his waist, he produced a knife, still in its sheath, and handed it to me.
“Use this instead,” he offered. “It’s a bit big for a child, but I use it to take monsters apart, so it’s pretty sturdy.”
Silently, I took the blade and pulled it from its sheath. Though it looked a bit aged, it had been carefully sharpened. It was sturdier than my previous knife, which would make it more challenging to get a deep stab in, but it wouldn’t chip against bone, at least. And it was no simple iron knife—it was refined forged steel, making it relatively expensive. That he’d just casually offer it to a street urchin suggested he was indeed far too soft, and it made me feel silly for having kept my guard up.
“Thanks, mister,” I murmured.
“I’m only twenty, you know,” he pointed out.
I’d thought him to be at least thirty, but he was surprisingly young. Now that I took a closer look, I could see that his skin appeared youthful, and the ruggedness probably came from his stubble. He wasn’t bad looking, and his somewhat sullen expression had a certain charm to it that drew an involuntary smile from me.
“Oh hey, there’s a smile,” he said. “That’s much better on a kid.” He ruffled my hair roughly and I swatted his hand away as my smile faded back into a frown.
I stared up at him intently. “Hey, will you teach me how to use aether?”
“Uh, what? That’s kinda sudden.”
“Learning practical magic would really help me.”
“Uh, I dunno. I mean, I didn’t really learn it from anyone else.”
He went on to explain that upon using practical magic, he’d felt something different “course” through him, which had helped him understand what aether was. Meaning my learning process had been backwards.
I pondered the matter quietly. At this rate, learning practical magic would take far too long and be too difficult. In which case, as I’d thought, it’d be quicker to just sense a large amount of aether from someone else.
“Hey, can you use a lot of aether?” I asked.
“Hmm,” he mused. “My sorcery ain’t anything special, but I do use a ton of aether for Boost.”
“Can you do that now?”
“I can, but... Oh, whatever. Just stand back. It’s dangerous.”
“Uh, okay.”
Dangerous? Boost was a technique used by fighters to enhance their physical abilities by channeling aether throughout their bodies. Why would that be dangerous? I didn’t fully understand, but nevertheless, I took a few steps back.
A surge of energy emanated from him, causing the fire’s flames to flare up and sway intensely.
“Wow...” I murmured.
So this was Boost. Even just by watching, I could feel how overwhelmingly powerful it was. Drawn to it, I impulsively stepped closer and reached for his arm. The man’s eyes snapped open in surprise, and the moment I touched him, I felt a sharp jolt and was sent tumbling backwards.
“Lad!” he exclaimed, rushing over in a panic. I wasn’t injured, but my hand was still tingling. As I sat there in a daze, he began to scold me. “I told you to stay back! It wouldn’t have affected someone who can already use aether, but a kid like you who’s not used to it gets a huge shock!”
“Yeah,” I mumbled. “That startled me.” It’d been surprising and somewhat painful, but not incapacitating or anything. With a bit of a grimace, I pushed myself to my feet and flexed my tingling fingers as he gave me an exasperated look.
But that’d been—no, this, right now, was aether. I could feel a power coursing through my veins, similar to what I’d felt when I’d touched the man. That seemed to confirm my hypothesis that blood was rife with aether. As that woman’s knowledge suggested, when I focused on the blood flowing through the veins and capillaries all throughout my body, the hazy aether spreading within me did indeed become more pronounced. With every heartbeat, blood and aether gathered in my heart and grew slightly stronger, and I felt a slight warmth as it circulated throughout my body once more.
“Wait. Lad, is that Boost?!” the man said. “Wait, no, it ain’t perfect, but...”
Apparently, by making aether flow alongside my bloodstream, I had managed to use a sort of facsimile of Boost. With this, I could learn practical magic, and perhaps even elemental sorcery.
As I excitedly continued making aether circulate within me, I suddenly felt dizzy. The man caught my arm to keep me from collapsing. “Hey, you should stop that,” he cautioned. “Using Boost gradually consumes your aether. You’ll fall over at this rate.”
“Okay...” I murmured. The woman had known Dagger Mastery, but that skill hadn’t allowed her to use Boost, so my knowledge of how it worked was limited. I nodded obediently at him, and he let out a tired sigh for some reason. “Um, mister?”
“I ain’t no ‘mister,’” he grumbled. “Call me Feld.” After a brief moment’s pause, he continued, “Well, whatever. Won’t matter if I’m a day late getting back.”
The man—that is, Feld—stood up and loomed over me with a smile fierce enough to make an ordinary child cry.
“You better be ready, kid,” he said. “Tomorrow I’m drilling the basics into you. All day.”
Uh, what?