Old Badger had always told me to become a proper adventurer. He’d also said I could quit if I wanted to. I figured what he’d really meant was that I shouldn’t spend my life just gathering herbs.
It was better to have more skills. If I could do a variety of things, I’d have a better chance of making a living. Even herb collecting might have bad years, like a poor harvest on a farm. If that ever happened, I’d need other ways to support myself.
And that detection spell was incredibly useful. Even though Old Badger had shown me where the mana pools were on a map, we’d still had a tough time finding one yesterday. If the other mana pools were hidden too, the hints I’d gotten from him wouldn’t be enough. I would need a way to track them down myself.
Besides, if all I had to do was knock over a stick, maybe learning magic wouldn’t be that hard. The circle Liluetta had drawn in the dirt didn’t seem that complicated either. If that’s all there is to magic, maybe I really can do it.
“That’s why I want you to teach me magic.”
After we’d finished gathering herbs and made it back to town safe and sound, I’d parted ways with the two utterly exhausted girls before heading to the adventurer’s guild for dinner. I found Sheya and wasted no time in making my request.
She made a face like I’d just asked her to do something incredibly tedious. “I don’t recommend learning it.”
“Why not?” I asked. “Magic is super useful. Isn’t it supposed to be all-powerful?”
Sheya shook her head. “Magic is not all-powerful.”
Liluetta had told me that magic could do anything. But from Sheya’s perspective, that didn’t seem to be the case.
“Magic is the means of using magical energy to produce various effects.”
The guild was as lively as ever, filled with adventurers laughing, talking, and clanking their cups together over dinner. It was a noisy, bustling scene. But even with all the commotion, Sheya’s soft voice slipped into my ears.
She’s not casting a spell. But if someone told me that making her voice sound so clear was a type of magic, I would probably believe them.
“In other words,” Sheya continued, “magical spells cannot achieve what magical energy is incapable of.”
“What can’t magical energy do?” I asked.
“Here, take this.” Sheya took a salt-grilled fish from her dinner plate and placed it on mine.
A pile of grilled fish small enough to be eaten whole—head, bones, and all—was heaped on Sheya’s plate, and she had a cup of what was probably alcohol beside it. Seafood and alcohol were two of her favorite things. I had black bread and vegetable-scrap soup. Since today’s earnings had been good, I’d splurged a little and added some cheese.
“Oh, thanks,” I said.
Sheya pointed to my plate. “This is something magic cannot do.”
Uh...
“Adding food to a plate.”
Okay, I guess magic can’t fill someone’s stomach. Message received. If there were things magic couldn’t do, then it wasn’t truly all-powerful. That made sense.
“Those who only understand magic in theory claim that magic is all-powerful. Most magic users are like that.”
Was Sheya saying that Liluetta believed in books too much? Sheya did seem to have more experience as a mage, but...
“But magic can do a lot of things, and it’s really useful, right?” I asked. Even if magic wasn’t all-powerful, Sheya couldn’t deny that.
She let out a small, thoughtful hum. “Magic is dangerous.”
I frowned. “I wouldn’t fire magic bullets at people or anything.”
“The danger is to the user,” Sheya said.
What does she mean by that?
As I tilted my head in thought, Sheya took a bite of her fish and washed it down with a sip of alcohol.
“If you use it carelessly and mess up, you could get hurt?” I ventured.
Sheya nodded in response. “Magic is difficult to control.”
Well, that made sense too. Waine had said that beginners who try to swing a sword without proper control might end up chopping their own legs off. Magic probably had similar risks. Maybe it really was difficult after all. Both Sheya and Liluetta were amazing for being able to use it.
“So you think I shouldn’t try it?” I asked.
Not being able to use that detection spell would be a shame. If it was dangerous to handle, though, I would need to come up with a new plan. Mana pools were hidden and hard to find, but Old Badger had found them on his own. That proved it was possible to track them down without magic. I felt like I should be able to find them by myself too.
“Mmm.” Sheya folded her arms. A crease formed between her brows as she closed her eyes and fell deep into thought.
What is she thinking so hard about?
“I still don’t recommend it.” After a moment of hesitation, she opened her eyes and looked at me with reluctance written all over her face. “But I can teach you the basics.”
✦ ✦ ✦
When I walked into the adventurer’s guild at night, I found a familiar mage with a pointy hat slumped over a table and clutching her head.
“Uh, what are you doing, Sheya?” I asked.
“Chikka.”
“Yeah, it’s me, Chikka. So what’s wrong? Got something on your mind?”
“Regret.”
Sheya was an extreme slacker who almost never said more than a few words, because just talking was a real hassle for her. Normally, our conversation would’ve ended here.
But she kept going. Guess she actually wanted someone to listen.
“The kid asked me to teach him magic.”
“And?”
“It’s a pain.” Sheya grimaced, twisting her otherwise refined features.
Even as a halfling, I could tell she was a beauty as far as humans were concerned. But her personality was kinda rotten.
“Magic is dangerous. I can’t teach it haphazardly.”
Well, at least she had that much common sense. “But you didn’t turn him down?” I asked.
“I tend to keep my promises.”
Oh, a promise. So that was why she had to go through with it, even though she thought it was annoying.
Sheya didn’t say who she’d made that promise to. That meant she didn’t feel the need to say it, so I was pretty sure she’d been talking about Old Badger. In gramps’s final moments, he’d left the kid in our care.
Well, that didn’t mean we had to do everything for him. That wasn’t the adventurer’s way. Even now, Waine was training tiny in combat behind the guild, which was a weirdly thoughtful move for that idiot. That level of guidance—teaching him how to survive on his own—was probably just right.
If the kid wanted to learn magic, teaching him wasn’t a bad idea. It might even be more useful than fighting. In this town, mages still faced some lingering prejudice. That could make his life difficult. But if he ever went to the capital, magic would open a lot of doors for him.
On the other hand, getting too involved would be a mistake. Adventurers weren’t the kind of people who could properly guide a child anyway.
“Speaking of tiny,” I said, “I heard an interesting rumor about one of the new recruits in his party.”
Maybe it was because of that promise, or maybe it was something else. But Sheya, who normally wouldn’t even react to idle gossip, looked my way.
“That little one? She’s Liluetta Magnan,” I told her.
“The sea salt Magnan?” Sheya was quick on the uptake. As a local, she probably knew the name well.
“Yep. The granddaughter of the head of the sea salt guild, which controls the town’s salt pans. You could say she’s the princess of salt.”