I activated the light spell, and a warm orange glow at the tip of my wand illuminated my room. I had grown quite accustomed to casting this spell. It was relatively simple magia because light was easy to visualize, and there was no need for complex spell formations because its function was so straightforward.
However, maintaining the spell and keeping the brightness steady were rather difficult feats. My light flickered unevenly, its intensity rising and falling like waves in the sea, and I knew it would vanish entirely the moment I let my focus slip. A seasoned mage would be able to stabilize the glow effortlessly and handle other spells at the same time, but...
“This is exhausting.” I let out a long sigh and sat down on my bed.
Never in my life did I think my first task as an adventurer would be climbing a mountain. And I had certainly not expected it to be this tiring. And yet, here I was, doing it two days in a row. The fact that I would be going again tomorrow made me feel like giving up already. But those purple flowers would stop blooming soon, so making a third climb was nonnegotiable. Besides, I was doing this to build my stamina. I needed to stick with it.
Kiri had no problem with all the hiking, and he was smaller than me. Surely that meant any other adventurer could handle it as well. In other words, his level of endurance was the minimum required for adventuring. The only problem here was my own lack of stamina.
“Kiri is actually pretty amazing,” I murmured, and I thought back to when we had parted ways earlier today. Even after a round trip up and down the mountain and walking all the way back to town, he still seemed fine. Of course, he looked a little tired, but his steps remained steady at the end of the day. That was impressive enough to leave me at a loss for words, especially since Yune and I were barely able to stay on our feet.
But I could not praise Kiri without reserve. After all, he was the kind of person who would run away from a slime.
“In fact,” I mused, “perhaps he isn’t even worth praising in the first place.”
Running away from a slime was simply unacceptable. It felt wrong to call someone like that amazing. Monster extermination was one of the most important duties of an adventurer. In fact, it was probably the main thing townspeople expected from us.
Evil creatures threatened travelers on the roads, sunk ships at sea, and destroyed valuable resources like farmland and buildings. Sometimes, they even formed hordes and attacked entire villages or towns.
I once saw someone attacked by a monster near the salt pans. The blood had drained from my face when I’d noticed how the man’s legs and right arm had been bent in unnatural directions as he collapsed. A healer from the church had been summoned immediately, but I never found out if that worker survived.
Protecting people from those kinds of threats and bringing peace and security to everyday lives was part of an adventurer’s duty. Of course, I could understand running away from a massive, terrifying monster. But a slime? If you were too afraid to fight something like that, how could you ever fulfill your duties and meet the townspeople’s expectations?
“When I think about it that way, he’s a mere apprentice adventurer. Just a trainee, at best.”
True adventurers ventured into harsh, treacherous terrain for days, perhaps even weeks. They journeyed into unexplored lands where no one had ever set foot before. We were dealing with a simple one-day trip up and down a mountain. The endurance required for that was the bare minimum for adventuring. Kiri wasn’t weak, but as an adventurer, he wasn’t anything special.
“And yet, I haven’t even reached the level of a mere apprentice.” The magical light flickered, disturbed by my unfocused thoughts. “I don’t like this,” I muttered, biting my lower lip.
Admitting it was infuriating, but maybe the words of that foolish-looking man at the adventurer’s guild weren’t entirely wrong. Maybe Kiri really was ahead of me. I wasn’t even at the bare minimum. Being able to use magia was useless if I didn’t have the stamina to reach my destination. Besides, I only knew basic, low-level spells.
“I have to do better,” I told myself.
Honestly, I just wanted to go to sleep. After climbing that mountain two days in a row, exhaustion weighed down my body. I longed to just collapse onto my bed and let it take me into a deep slumber.
But that wasn’t an option—not after realizing how weak I still was. I gripped my wand and began to chant. This was training to sustain one light spell while casting another.
The moment I created the second light, the first one vanished. I failed again.
Magical energy surged chaotically inside me, and pain crackled through my torso. I clutched at my chest and felt my body writhe from the backlash.
This is normal. Magia is not easy. The only way to improve is to do it again and again, over and over, until it works. As long as there’s still magic in me.
The path ahead was long, but I had no choice except to move forward. I would rest when my magic was completely drained. Time was limited, and I still had so much to do.
“Time is limited, and there’s still so much to do, huh...” I whispered.
I sighed. If only the path ahead were a little shorter, I could reach my goals a little faster. I had to hurry, because I couldn’t spend all my time on adventures. Soon, I would have to focus on my responsibilities as a member of the Magnan family. Compared to climbing mountains and magia training, that felt far more exhausting.