“No problems so far, Allen?”
“No one’s starting any trouble so far. People seem about half serious and half just curious, and the curious ones have said that they just came to check things out, but they think what we’ve been talking about might actually be pretty useful.”
Kuntz and Haruto had returned to their own homes, so it was just Ann, Sara, and Allen in the townhouse now.
“That’s good,” Elm said with some relief.
Allen gave him a dubious look. “If you’re worried, why not just come watch? You were going into the dungeon in Hydrangea; why aren’t you here?”
Right, Elm was supposed to be an active Hunter. What on earth did he do all day?
“Well, I haven’t shown my face in the capital in a long time. I’ve been going around greeting people, that sort of thing. Not to mention...” Elm smiled wryly. “It sounds like it’s gonna cause a fuss if I let Konrad catch sight of me. I don’t want him pushing some weird job on me if I can help it.”
“Can’t deny that.”
Sara and Allen both grimaced, having experienced that very thing themselves.
“I’ll start going to the dungeon once Ann’s settled into her work.”
“I’m sorry for all this,” Ann said, bowing her head.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ve spent all this time not worrying about family stuff at all. I’m happy just to be of any use to my family at this point.”
Back in Hydrangea, Elm had lived a rather carefree life in the Wolveriés’ mansion, and that didn’t seem too different here. He’d wanted Sara to come along to be Ann’s conversation partner, but Sara thought they’d probably do fine on their own as well. Elm was a wandering Hunter, so he didn’t stay in one place for long. Sara initially thought that might mean he wasn’t very fond of people, but looking back on what she knew of him at this point, she realized that wasn’t true at all. They’d spent almost a year in relatively close proximity, yet Sara hadn’t tried to learn about Elm as a person at all. She felt a little bad about that now.
Ann’s work continued without issue until the tenth day, and they were almost done with the training Rod had asked them to do as well.
Of course, it was strange that it had started as a small-scale class for Hunters who were just starting out and had turned into a big workshop for a mix of rookie and veteran Hunters.
Sara’s group had been leading the mana manipulation training at first, but eventually some Hunters who had once been knights stepped up to lead those lessons instead. Sara didn’t know if they were just nostalgic about their time with the knights or if the young people’s attempts at teaching the subject frustrated them, but it was a big help since there were so many people participating by the end.
Hunters who specialized in physical strengthening helped with sparring and casters demonstrated magic that Kuntz wasn’t good at. At first, the younger Hunters who were a year or two into their careers participated hesitantly, but by the end, there were so many people down in the underground training room that some people probably didn’t even know who these lessons had started for.
Even at the end, the star of the show was the magic demonstrations they did at the end of the day. Sara had been in charge of them for the first three days, then Kuntz had taken over for the next three.
“Show us some cool Invited magic!”
There was some heckling, like that, but it most likely came from Hunters who weren’t casters. All the Hunters who primarily used magic were frighteningly serious as they watched Kuntz step forward.
“Uhh, I seem to be getting some attention for it, but my magic isn’t really anything new,” he started. “I used the Invited Sara’s barrier as reference. Do you mind, Sara?”
“Nope.”
If they were starting with the origin of Kuntz’s shield, then Sara would have to help out after all. She rose and stood at a slight distance from Kuntz.
“Sara’s barrier provides her with absolute defense. It repels all attacks and magic. Even from a wyvern.”
It was embarrassing that people kept saying that, but Sara tried to maintain a neutral expression.
“Sara, your barrier.”
“Yep. Barrier.”
Sara formed her barrier at around an arm’s length around her. Then she grinned and nodded when the Hunters started murmuring to each other about how they couldn’t see anything.
“I don’t think you can see anything, so I’ll give it a color. I’ll make it brown like Kuntz’s shield.”
She gave it a light brown color so that she could still faintly be seen behind it. Some impressed cries went up and a veteran Hunter raised his hand.
“Can I hit it to see if it really repels attacks?”
“Sure. But if you’ve got confidence in your strength, please hold back. Most monsters who attack me seriously die when their strikes are reflected back at them. Even wyverns.”
There were some cries of doubt at that, but the Hunter stepped forward and threw a light punch at her before stepping back in surprise.
“What the heck?”
What unfolded after that was a rather unflattering scene in which the Hunter hit and kicked her without restraint, all things one should not be doing to a young lady, but Sara just stood there quietly, and eventually, the Hunter sank to his knees, his shoulders heaving.
“You should drink a potion,” she suggested lightly. She felt a little bad for the guy, but it was like he’d just been hit and kicked a bunch himself.
“What the heck is this? The more serious I get, the worse the backlash is, and none of my attacks reach you at all.”
From the stunned Hunters in the crowd, a caster hesitantly stepped forward and asked if he could verify the results with magic as well.
“For your safety, I recommend a weak wind attack only.”
The caster took Kuntz’s advice and shot some weak wind at Sara, which returned to the crowd of Hunters. He should have just given up there, but the Hunter got frustrated and kept upping the power of his attacks, sending stronger and stronger winds back at the rest of the Hunters. By the end, their hair was all messed up.
“It really is the ultimate defense,” someone muttered and the caster fell to his knees, out of mana.
“We haven’t even started the lesson yet. Do you want to buy a mana potion? I’m an apothecary, by the way.” Sara sold the caster a mana potion, smiling wryly.
Running out of mana in the dungeon meant death, so there weren’t any casters who would be so reckless enough to do so on the job. That was why not many of them walked around with mana potions either, and they didn’t contribute much to the Apothecary Guild’s profits. Still, Sara couldn’t just give it away for free. She had to make sure her skills were valued.
“Rosa’s vice guildmaster, Vince, taught me that this is a type of shield magic. I’m an Invited, so I can keep it up forever, but normal casters will run out of mana right away if they do the same thing I do. That’s where Kuntz’s shield magic comes in.”
She switched places with Kuntz. They hadn’t planned any of this, but they were able to coordinate because they’d traveled all the way here from Gardenia and understood each other better now. The thought made Sara happy.
“I don’t have a ton of mana, but I don’t have too little either. I’ve got just enough for the guildmaster of Rosa to call me average. That’s why I need to use my mana efficiently and without waste. I would never be able to put a shield up in all directions at once like Sara.”
Kuntz started talking and the Hunters who had been stunned by Sara’s abnormality started paying attention again. After all, this was coming from a normal caster.