When I woke up this morning, I found that our number of hobgoblins had increased by four, bringing the grand total to twelve. Among the newbies, one had the potential to be a mage, and another had the aptitude to become a cleric.
I have been the one healing any major injuries until now, so having another cleric was honestly a huge relief. In cases where we might have a large number of injured at once, I might not be able to treat everyone in time. Thus, I established a new medical unit called Prayer, with Hobji, the hobgoblin cleric, as its captain. At the moment, Hobji was the only member of the new medical unit, but I had high hopes that others might follow his lead and also become clerics.
You might be thinking, “Isn’t the number of hobgoblins a bit low?” but my count was accurate with Gobmi, Gobei, Hobsato, and the five slaves/subordinates, which made eight. Adding the four new hobgoblins brought the total to twelve—simple math.
Hobsei, whom I didn’t mention by name just now, had also evolved upon waking up today. According to her, it was something that hadn’t happened in years. The species Hobsei evolved into was known as a Half-Spell Lord, which is part of the Demon Lord lineage. Unlike the usual route from hobgoblin to Ogre, this is a rare path where mage-type monsters can specialize in magic.
It suited Hobsei, who has always excelled in magic. Becoming a species that played to her strengths was a great benefit. While her physical abilities were going to be significantly lower compared to those of other Demon Lords, magic is primarily a long-range technique meant to overpower enemies from a distance anyway, so this specialization won’t be a problem for her.
Hobsei now appeared almost human, except for two small horns on her forehead. She’s the only Half-Spell Lord I’ve seen, so there might be individual differences from creature to creature, but her apparent age seemed to be in her early to late twenties. She was more of an intellectual beauty, like the alchemist, both of whom would look great in a suit.
Her features now included pale, almost lifeless skin, intelligent green eyes with a slight upward tilt at the corners, and a round sapphire-like gem about three centimeters in diameter embedded between her horns. She has long gray hair that reaches her waist and distinctive black tattoos on her forearms, similar to mine but still subtly different. Her height seemed to be around one hundred and eighty centimeters.
According to her, the tattoos on her arms aren’t actually supposed to be there, and she doesn’t know why they appeared. However, she says she feels a surge of power coming from them, so she doesn’t mind it. When I asked if she had any Divine Protection like Gobkichi, she said she didn’t possess anything of the sort.
Whew, the whole thing was a big mystery. I hoped it would eventually be explained.
Gobjii chimed in that if a race name has “Half” before it, it means that its overall specs are inferior to the full species—in this case, the Spell Lord. I already suspected as much just by the name. Think of it as the relationship between a hobgoblin and an Ogre. It signified the step before becoming a full-fledged species. Apparently, if Hobsei Existence Evolved again, she’d officially become a Spell Lord.
After all that explaining, I wanted to check how much Hobsei’s abilities had improved since becoming a Half-Spell Lord, so we went outside where she could demonstrate her magic. It was impressive—no, it was astonishing.
Among the spells Hobsei could use, there was one classified as second-tier Flame magic called Shal Dai Dilou, the Infernal Storm.
Since I have mentioned first-tier spells a few times, this is probably a good opportunity to explain the tier system in more detail. Magic is generally ranked from the lowest first tier to the highest tenth tier based on activation difficulty, destructive power, spell release level restrictions, and so on. The gods supposedly set these ten ranks. As you might have noticed from abilities like “Blessing of the Demigod of Something-or-Other,” there exist beings in this world that stand a level above us. There are even places in the world where you can meet these gods, called Sanctuaries.
Let’s put the gods aside for now and return to the magic. The second-tier Flame spell, Shal Dai Dilou, the Infernal Storm that Hobsei used, was second from the bottom in a ten-tier ranking system. But it would be a mistake to assume that meant it was simple and weak. Even first-tier spells can easily kill multiple people at once; a single fireball from the first-tier Flame magic Shal Ro, the Flaming Disaster, can reduce several humans to ash.
By the way, the third-tier Lightning magic that hit me in the face before was powerful enough to obliterate monsters as strong as Ogres under normal circumstances. I didn’t get vaporized because my abilities drastically reduced the spell’s power, but it still hurt a lot.
Moreover, if you can handle fifth-tier magic, it’s said you can burn down an entire town on your own. To reach that level would indeed make someone a one-man monster army. Redhead Shorty said she’d heard of a few individuals who could do the same or even more, though only through stories.
I wonder what kind of abilities I could gain by eating such people? The high wizard adventurer I killed and ate could only use up to third-tier magic, so just imagining it got me all excited. Whether I’d ever have such an opportunity is uncertain, but there’s no harm in dreaming.
Returning to Shal Dai Dilou, the Infernal Storm, the spell Hobsei once used was a destruction spell with a wide area of effect that fired ten-centimeter fireballs in a volley of five shots. Before, Hobsei had needed considerable concentration and a long incantation time to activate it. Once used, she couldn’t cast magic properly for several days due to the severe adverse side effects.