The forest was pitch black, as if no light could enter. The darkness spread out before me like spilled ink. This wasn’t a problem for me, though. I had no need of aimlessly walking about. Body Fortification allowed me to focus mana into parts of my body and strengthen them. For example, by focusing mana into my eyes, I could see things far into the distance with ease.
If I strengthened particular parts of my eyes, I could even see the body heat of concealed humans or magic beasts. I scanned the area, detecting a small heat source. That has to be Ted. Not too far from him was another heat source—most likely the magic beast.
I dispelled my eye fortification and leapt into the forest, landing right by him. “Ted.”
“A-Abel?!”
He’d curled into a ball and had been crying. I hadn’t noticed until now, but it seemed he was in a shallow ditch. Ah, I see. He must’ve fallen down here and hurt himself. Then on top of that, he had no idea where he was. Fortunately, he’d only sustained a scratch. From the looks of things, he hadn’t been attacked by the magic beast.
“Let’s go.”
“Yeah,” Ted agreed, wiping his tears while getting to his feet.
Right as he did, however, the sound of trees snapping filled the air. Good grief. The timing of this couldn’t get any worse. A monster that looked like a pure-white bear swiped a tree out of its way as it jumped out at us. A kamui. It had a tail like a scorpion’s on its back that was functionally like a third arm. Though it wasn’t venomous, it could easily rip an adult into pieces.
“A-Ahhh! I-It’s a magic beast!”
“Don’t scream. You’re only gonna spur it on.”
Well, I guess it’s too late for that. The beast got on all fours and charged right at us. I grabbed Ted and jumped to the side. Its third arm barely grazed my nose.
“W-Wow! W-We’re flying!!!”
“Ted, can you be quiet?”
The kamui stood up and flailed its arms, gouging the ground and ripping trees out, roots and all. Of course, there was no way that I’d be hit by such slow attacks. I shifted around behind the beast.
“Twin Fireball.” I purposely fired this spell at either side of the creature to light up its surroundings and frighten it.
“Give it up. I’ll have to kill you for real if you keep going,” I said, looking it straight in the eyes.
Neither wild animals nor magic beasts could understand our words. But they did understand differences in power. The kamui growled deeply. Hm, I’m surprised. You really want to keep fighting? Animal instinct should have kicked in, making it go into self-preservation mode, but...
Observing the kamui more closely, I saw an arrow sticking out of its thick leg. It was the same kind of decorative arrow that was used to hunt foxes. I see. So this is why it’s so on edge. I let go of Ted and slowly approached the beast. I kept my tone stern and made sure not to break eye contact. If I did, it might do something erratic.
“It’s okay. I’m not gonna kill you. Just let me get close to you,” I said, slowly moving closer.
“A-Abel!” Ted called out, making the kamui tremble a little.
Looking deep into its eyes, I tried to calm the beast down. “Ted, do not say another word and stay right where you are. Do not move a muscle.”
I touched the kamui as it continued to growl. It could bite me at any second, but honestly, with my Body Fortification, it wouldn’t even break the skin.
“I’ll make the pain go away with Heal.”
Numbing the area first, I pulled out the arrow. Blood began to flow, but I immediately stopped it with Heal. After not even a minute, I was finished.
“How’s that? Better?”
There probably wasn’t much point in asking, but it’d stopped growling. Instead, it was now moving its nose close to my face.
“You wanna thank me? There’s no need.”
I lightly pet the kamui’s face, eliciting a soft noise from it before it stood up and ran off into the forest. After watching it disappear, I turned to Ted.
“Okay—let’s go home, Ted.”
He was looking at me, his jaw slack. What’s there to be so impressed by? I put Ted on my back to carry him before descending the mountainside.
✦ ✦ ✦
The next day, I met with Evans and Lilith. His eyes widened as I explained what’d happened. He began insisting that I should receive a public commendation, but I told him I really didn’t want to stand out. So he discarded that idea and instead agreed to smooth things over so no one would suspect anything.
Now back in my room, I yawned and shut my book. I was a little sleepy, which was most likely due to having limited mana because of how young my body was. It already cost a good deal of mana to use healing magecraft. Using it on a kamui, which was many times bigger than a human, had been extremely costly.
Suddenly, the door swung open. Can I please just have a little peace and quiet? But Ted seemed different today.
“Hey, Abel, about yesterday... Thanks.”
“No need to thank me. It was advantageous for me to help you.” I returned my eyes to my book.
“Hey! How about, as a reward for yesterday, I give you special permission to teach me magecraft?”
“Uh...huh?!” What in the world is he saying? Why should I teach him magecraft? There’s nothing in it for me whatsoever. Reward? This feels much more like a punishment. “Hard pass. Sounds like a pain and a half.”
“What?! H-Hey! Th-This is me we’re talking about!”
“I can’t change the fact that I don’t want to.” I shoved Ted out of my room and locked the door.
“Hey! Abel! Come on! Please teach me!”
After that, I began teaching him magecraft every now and then. Though I’d refused at first, it was annoying to have to refuse him over and over again, so before I knew it, I ended up teaching him magecraft. And just like that, he gradually became my student, although it was only later down the road that it’d become official.