Chapter 13 - Job Hunting (3)

Only four years remained before the original story began. It had now been one year and one month since Alon had sent all the Five Great Sins out of the orphanage to live independently.

'What is Seollang doing these days?'

Reading another letter from Yutia, as he always did, Alon suddenly found himself wondering about Seollang. Yutia's letters always included news of herself and the other Five Great Sins, but about two months after they had set out on their own, all mention of Seollang had ceased.

'... Surely she hasn't died out there?'

After considering that for a moment, Alon firmly shook his head. An earlier letter from Yutia had confirmed that Seollang had reached the desert nation. If she had followed his instructions, there was no way she could have died far from home.

The gift Alon had given her would make her an excellent Baba Yaga—a gladiator in Coloni, where the strong could obtain everything.

'It was even in the item description. That should be right, shouldn't it?'

The developers loved stuffing item descriptions with all sorts of miscellaneous worldbuilding details, so Alon had inspected every item individually. He recalled the line in the description of the item Seollang would obtain.

'If the Sin of Greed had obtained this, they would have become a great wolfkin rather than falling into corruption and becoming a Sin... Was that it?'

Of course, when Alon had used it, its only effect had been to increase his critical-hit chance by twenty percent. Still, it definitely had that impressive backstory, which was why he had told Seollang where to find it. He had also included the location of some hidden treasure, just in case the item description really amounted to nothing special.

Yet he had now gone nine months without hearing any news of her.

'... Should I have just played it safe and given her treasure?'

Alon briefly entertained the thought, then shook his head. He had sent Seollang to Coloni in the first place because the narration had gone on about her talent as a fighter. Besides, unless he could support her for the rest of her life, learning to live independently was an essential step.

'No. I can only rest easy if she can support herself.'

And so...

'... Considering Deus's absurd talent, Seollang couldn't possibly have died out there either... What on earth is going on?'

While Alon pondered Seollang's whereabouts with a puzzled expression, a girl emerged from the depths of a desert cave in southern Coloni, the desert nation at the eastern edge of the continent.

“Whew.”

The girl looked grubby. Dirt and dust clung all over her body, and her hair had grown long enough to cover her tail. Despite her appearance, however, Seollang wore a broad smile.

“Finally dooone!”

Stretching in relief, she looked down at the gloves on her hands. Adorned with golden claws, they were the gift the Great Moon had bestowed upon her: the Essence of the Golden Mane Tribe.

'How did the Great Moon know where this was?'

Now that she had emerged from the trial, curiosity welled up inside her. She tilted her head, gazing down at the gloves in genuine bewilderment.

It was only natural. The Essence of the Golden Mane Tribe was an object spoken of in legends passed down among her people, the Golden Mane Tribe, since ancient times. It truly deserved to be called legendary. Hundreds of years ago, it had allowed the Golden Mane Tribe to become kings of the beastfolk and granted them the authority to bestow power upon their own people.

Of course, she had heard most of those tales from her mother when she was very young, while her mother was still alive. As Seollang grew older, she had come to assume that those old stories contained a fair amount of exaggeration.

But now, having been instantly drawn into an inner world the moment she put on the Essence, completed every test, and emerged again, she understood. Not a single word of those seemingly absurd folk tales had been false.

Power flowed softly through her. As she drew on just a little of it, her golden eyes began to glow faintly in the dark cave. Nor was that all. Her hair and tail began shining too, as though they held light within them—just like the Golden Mane Tribe in the ancient stories her mother had told her as a child.

Smiling at her power, she once again thought of the Great Moon. She had far more than one or two questions.

But she soon put those questions aside. She knew she was not particularly clever, and that she could never presume to work out how the Great Moon had known all this. Above all, she understood one simple, clear fact.

The Great Moon was the benefactor who had saved her as she lay dying from experiments performed on her living body. He had also given her the strength to take revenge on the Black Dragon, who had killed her parents. She owed him a debt she had to repay.

As she sustained her power, vivid blue electricity briefly crackled around her. Watching it, Seollang recalled the Great Moon's command, then shook her head. However slow-witted she might be, she knew he intended more than for her simply to become a gladiator.

As she considered this, her gaze naturally fell on the gloves—the gloves with the authority to bestow power upon the Golden Mane Tribe.

“!”

Only then, looking at them, did Seollang grasp the Great Moon's intent.

'Become a famous gladiator, gather the Golden Mane Tribe scattered throughout the country, and restore our people. And—'

She grinned.

'—use that power to kill the Black Dragon.'

Seollang smiled at an answer anyone could see was absolutely perfect.

CRACKLE!

Blue sparks flew in every direction in response to her emotions, but she paid them no mind. Instead, she walked toward the exit of the dark cave with a broad smile. As she stepped outside, a moon hung above her—a blue moon bathing the entire desert in blue light.

And then, she spoke the words she had repeated so often that they had become a habit.

“Everything for him.”

“Let's begin.”

Beneath the blue moon, the Golden Mane Tribe—hailed five hundred years ago as great beastfolk and kings of all beastfolk—began preparing for their revival.

With golden eyes.

####

Ever since returning from the ball a year ago, Alon had found pleasure in studying the phrases and devoted a great deal of time to them. In the game, reciting phrases merely consumed turns, increasing magic attack power by ten to twenty percent with each turn spent. Here, however, the phrases altered the properties of magic, just as he had expected.

Take, for example, Refraction, Repulsion, Blue Light, and Linear Diffraction, the phrases he had used at the place he visited several months ago to obtain Constraint.

Refraction increased the imperfections in a completed spell, spreading its area of effect. Repulsion crushed the spell's form, causing the fired projectile to shift. Blue Light strengthened magic cast in parallel, such as lightning magic. Finally, Linear Diffraction gave the spell itself penetration—in other words, a critical hit.

Of course, these interpretations were based solely on information gathered through six months of experimentation, so he could not be certain how accurate they were. But each phrase definitely bestowed a different property. He had also discovered a few of the phrases' particular rules.

'You can't repeat the same phrase, or use a phrase that doesn't suit the spell, and you can't use five or more phrases in total. Breaking any of these three rules causes the spell to fail to manifest or weakens it.'

There seemed to be several other rules, but he had yet to work them out. He had plenty of time to study magic, but could actually cast it only once a day.

'... It would be nice if there were a book about these phrases.'

According to the lore, the phrases Alon used were the forgotten phrases of Babiloia, knowledge regarded in this world much like an out-of-place artifact. Even the locations he knew only contained inscriptions of the phrases, without any explanation of their rules or effects.

In other words, he had to gain knowledge through firsthand trial and error, but he did not find that troublesome. His talent was at least sufficient to make studying the phrases enjoyable and immerse him in the exploration of magic.

So today, too, he went straight to the training grounds after finishing his conversation with Evan and cast his magic as usual.

“Whew.”

His hands deftly formed the Fist of Wisdom seal. Mana gathered at the same time, shaping the second-tier spell he had been experimenting with for roughly two months: Chain Lightning.

At Alon's direction, the mana arranged in parallel formed a round sphere. He deliberately removed a specific point from it, creating an imbalance.

CRACKLE.

The spell was complete. Shaped from Alon's meager supply of mana, it emitted a feeble light.

Its only improvement over two months ago was that the crackling caused by the mana imbalance was a little better realized, perhaps because he had grown accustomed to lightning magic. To put it kindly, the spell was more refined. To put it unkindly, it was a useless spell whose only merit was refinement.

But reciting the phrases gave that useless spell a purpose.

“Fixation.”

The moment he recited the phrase, the lightning manifested before him froze in its crackling state, as though time had stopped.

“Compression.”

At his next murmur, the sphere shrank from the size of a large marble to a small one, still frozen in place.

“Collapse.”

CRACK!

At the next phrase, the spell, which had been shaped like a small marble until a moment ago, lost its spherical form. What remained before him was pure lightning. Fragments of mana manifested before Alon, like thousands of irregular dotted lines gathered together.

And then...

“Fleeting Full Bloom.”

Alon murmured the final phrase and released the Fist of Wisdom seal—

CRACKLE!

—and a colossal tree of thunder manifested before him.

The blue tree formed in a blaze brighter than the midday sun, then held its shape, displaying its splendor. It looked as though a lightning strike had been frozen in place.

Alon nodded.

'... So the order of the phrases changes how the spell manifests, too.'

He nodded in satisfaction, recalling how yesterday's spell had vanished with anticlimactic ease when he used Collapse first instead of Fixation.

'Does that mean even an incompatible phrase can be used if another phrase precedes it?'

Pleased to have gained new information, Alon nodded while watching the tree of thunder gradually fade.

'... Though I doubt I'll have any use for it.'

Unlike what he had hoped, it did not seem usable as an offensive spell. Murmuring to himself, he turned away, disappointed by his now-empty mana reservoir. His body permitted him to cast magic only once a day.

And the moment he turned...

“?”

Alon saw Kalia, the young lady of House Xenonia and one of the people he absolutely did not want to befriend, standing right there in House Pallatio's training grounds, staring at him in astonishment.

Apparently so shocked by what she had seen, she stood with her mouth hanging open—a truly rare sight for someone who usually exuded such a noble air.

“I-impossible...?”

At the voice that followed, he missed his chance to ask why she was here and looked elsewhere.

“An Origin?”

There stood an unfamiliar middle-aged man holding an antique staff. Like Kalia, he stared at Alon in utter astonishment, his mouth agape.

And...

“?”

Alon, too, was bewildered as he looked at the pair.

'Why are these two here...??'

But hearing the man mention Origin—the unique magic said to be usable only by mages who had reached the seventh tier—Alon realized one thing.

He had become the subject of an utterly outrageous misunderstanding.