There it was, the monster that we had been looking for.
It was currently wandering around on its lonesome, on a cliff underneath us. It was still not alerted to our presence.
Looking at it from a distance, it looked just like the mountain lions that we had faced before in this trip. The only thing that was different was the color of its skin. Like its name suggested, it was entirely chrome in color, from its head to its tail.
Hmm, wonder what it’s doing there…
“So, how about it? Want to test your strength against it? You got me and your mother to go to the rescue if anything goes wrong, so it should be fine. Though it would certainly hurt if you get bitten or clawed by it,” he said with a grin.
Dad, aren’t you being too carefree about this?
“I’ll go first,” Marina answered with a determined look, taking out her wand from her pocket. “I can hit it from here. Would that be fine?” she asked, looking up at him.
Father gave a glance towards Mother, who nodded in return, her staff at the ready.
“Alright. Should’ve figured you’d be skilled enough to just snipe it from here.”
Hey, isn’t that kinda unfair to the monster? Just charging a long and powerful spell before actually entering the fight. You can’t do that in the RPGs I used to play for sure.
Marina then took a few steps forward, before making her wand grow into its staff form. She then started a chant, using her right hand to hold her staff while her left began to shine.
And I knew very well what that chant was. It was her Master-level Earth spell, Crumbling Earth. She intended to just finish it in one blow indeed!
“O spirits of the Earth! Listen to my plea! Let those who stood on your soil be—”
Suddenly, her chanting was interrupted by a gasp. I, who had been looking at her, didn’t realize why immediately. I quickly returned my sight back at the lion.
Only to find that it wasn’t there anymore.
“It’s climbing! It’s climbing the cliff! Right towards us!” Marina shouted.
She quickly halted her current spell and summoned her owlbear instead, sending it down to fend off the lion. It roared at her command, barreling down the sheerness of the cliff without fear.
Only for the lion to jump on top of the owlbear, slicing its skin with its sharp claws before jumping once more, right towards Marina.
“I won’t let you! Rock Blast!”
She sent a rock flying right at it, no doubt intending to stop it from getting closer any further. However, with just a single slash of its claws, it shattered the small boulder entirely, not unimpeded in the slightest.
The horror on Marina’s face told it all. She did not expect this. Not in the slightest.
“Barrier!”
Just before its fangs could land on Marina, it crashed right onto Mother’s Barrier, sending it flying back down.
And then, Father stepped forward, and swung his greatsword towards the monster, sending a powerful wave that it immediately dodged. To my surprise however, instead of running back to fight Father, it instead retreated from the scene, after growling at him for a short while.
Was it really that scared of Father’s power?
I turned my attention back to Marina, who was still shaken by what just occurred. Her owlbear was nowhere to be found. Maybe it had retreated on its own, after being wounded by the lion.
Putting a hand on her shoulder, Father said, “Let that be a lesson to you, kiddo. Monsters, especially high-ranking ones, aren’t so dumb that they can’t detect the shift in mana flow on its surroundings. Your spell was quite the powerful one, right? No wonder it got detected immediately.”
“I see…” She replied, her expression looking as if she just failed an important exam. I felt she was totally the type to be bothered for days for that sort of thing.
“Don’t worry, Sis! I’ll avenge your loss!” I said with a smile, patting her on the back.
Oh, what am I saying? That lion was indeed an A-rank monster. Its power and speed were far different than any other monsters that we have faced so far. How would I defeat such a thing?
But after seeing Marina like that, I felt I just had to beat it to a pulp with my own strength.
—–
We then followed the beast after making sure that Marina was unharmed. Father believed that it shouldn’t have run off too far, trusting that this part of the mountain was its territory.
And sure enough, half an hour later, we found it again, sleeping underneath a jutting cliff that gave it a comfortable shade to rest under.
“Alright. Your turn now, my boy,” Father pushed me to the front with a grin. H-hey, you nearly saw your own daughter die to it yet you’re still this nonchalant?
I gulped. I still wasn’t sure how I should initiate the battle.
I probably shouldn’t use my summons. Technically, they couldn’t really die no matter what happens to them in combat, but making them get hurt terribly will cost the summoner their trust. So kinda like Pokemon in that sense.
And besides, what can they really do? The earth sprite might be able to generate mud to hinder its movement a little, but it wouldn’t be enough. With how strong its jumping capability and speed is, it could easily escape. It’s certainly faster than Sherry, that’s to be sure.
As for the high fairy, well, she probably would just go into a panic and not do anything worthwhile.
I felt bad insulting my summons like this, but it was my honest assessment of the situation.
Just attacking with a weaker spell might be able to take it by surprise, but it certainly wouldn’t finish it in one blow.
Is there a way for me to set up a defensive perimeter around myself beforehand so that I would be ready for it? Hmm, I don’t think so…
The only option left is for me to take to the skies using my wind spell, hoping that it can never jump high enough to get to me. But that would quickly get tiring. Not to mention that I still can’t cast two spells at the same time. I would fall down when I cast another spell.
Dual-casting was a rare skill only few mages were capable of, as it meant splitting the flow of mana in your body into two and regulating it into different shapes simultaneously. It’s like trying to write with both hands at the same time, writing different words and letters. Even Marina couldn’t do it. Yet. Knowing her, she would certainly be able to do it eventually once she got older and more experienced in magic. I had trust in her genius-level talent after all.
Well, worth a try. I got Father and Mother as backup after all.
Taking a deep breath, I ran towards the beast, before boosting myself upwards with my wind spell. Once I was up a good distance away, I charged up Cold Blast, hoping that it would be able to slow it down with its frost. I couldn’t be too far away, as I might actually miss my target—not to mention the fact that the spell would get weaker the further it was from its target.
As expected, the moment I started concentrating for my Advanced-level spell, it woke up and saw me up in the sky. It immediately jumped, right as I was falling towards it.
Too late! Thanks to my training against Sherry, I finished just in time for it to be blasted point blank by my ice spell. I didn’t wait until it landed to the ground—I immediately boosted myself upwards once again, returning a safe distance away from it.
As expected, it wasn’t taken out by the spell. In fact, it looked even angrier than it already was. It looked up at me for a split second before it immediately jumped again.
Ha, too bad! I was too far high up for it to reach with its claws, even with its amazing jump height.
Like the clever beast that it was, it then decided to use the cliff it had been sleeping under to get to a higher spot. Of course, I already expected this as well. I had scanned the area beforehand and there wasn’t any other higher point around that it could climb on.
“Earthen Blast!”
As it ran away from me, I casted my Advanced-level Earth spell, exploding the ground it was climbing on, making it fall down to the ground yet again.
It then looked at me, growling. Yep, it’s positively angry, all right.
Wait, this growling… don’t tell me it’s going to run away just like with Father!
I was wrong. I was oh so very wrong.
Instead of running away, it suddenly let out a screech in my direction—so loud and ear-piercing that I had to cover my ears out of reflex.
M-my head! I-it’s like it’s splitting open! Aarghh!
It was enough to make me lose my focus entirely. I knew that I was falling down with no wind spell supporting me, but I couldn’t concentrate enough to recast the spell—not with the insane headache I had.
Of course, the lion took the opportunity it had given to itself. It jumped up and opened its mouth wide, intending to bite my leg off in one move most likely.
“Barrier!”
I didn’t know exactly what happened afterwards. Only that I heard a pained roar coming from the lion before I crashed down to the ground.
When I opened my eyes, Mother was standing above me, healing me with her magic. Immediately my headache disappeared as if it wasn’t there.
I looked around and saw Father looking over the lion. Or, to be more accurate, its corpse.
Father had cut it into two.
“Hugo! You’re alright?” Marina ran over to me, looking down with a worried expression.
“I’m fine. Just… got a killer headache. What was that anyway?”
“It’s an ability that the lion has,” Mother explained. “Deadly Screech. It hurts its target’s brain for a short while, enough for it to land the killing blow. You’ve been baited to think that it can’t attack you on the air.”
Seriously? A mindless monster like that can be that smart?
“Well, now it’s proven that you two are still nowhere near A-rank,” Father walked over with a grin. “These things… they’re stuff that you can only learn through experience. So take it easy, and make sure only to take quests that you’re sure you can handle. Don’t be like your idiot father who’s stupid enough to challenge an A-rank monster when he wasn’t ready.”
“Is that when you’re saved by Myrilla, Father?” I asked. I remembered her saying how she had saved him once.
“Yep!” He replied with a reminiscing smile. “Aah, I was such a fool back then… I went to the Demon Continent, thinking that I was a hotshot enough adventurer to challenge such a dangerous land. Only to nearly die after taking my very first quest there. If not for her saving your father’s behind, we wouldn’t be here now.”
So, Father was around our level back then? So Myrilla was already as strong as his current self? How strong is she now then?
As I thought about that however, I noticed a little smile on the corner of Marina’s lips.
…I think she’s a little bit happy that I too failed to win against the lion. Heh, you don’t want to lose to your little brother, don’t you, Sis?
Before we returned back, Father decided that it would be a good opportunity to teach us how to skin an animal, using the chrome-plated lion as our instrument of demonstration. He had done so with the lesser lions and wolves of course, but the chrome-plated lion was different enough that it would make for a good lesson, at least according to him.
“First of all, you don’t want to just cut a rare monster in two like this if you want the most optimum yield, as it would no doubt harm its bones and internal organs. Every body part of an A-rank monster like this one could fetch a pretty good price, especially at a relatively peaceful part of the world like this where A-rank monsters are rare,” he explained. “And you would need a special knife to cut and skin it apart, unless you have a swordsman in your party that is precise enough with his blade and is willing enough to use it for things like this. Normal knives wouldn’t be sharp enough.”
He then began to dissect it apart, using said special knife that was enhanced by magic to be sharper than normal. And just like all the times before this, I couldn’t help but notice how his cuts were quite messy. Huh, I wonder if Myrilla used to do this kind of stuff for him.
After he finished, he told Marina to take out the jar. It was a magic jar called the Preserving Jar, enchanted so that the inside was always cold even without any ice placed inside. How convenient. It’s basically a magical portable refrigerator that doesn’t run off on batteries, though Mother said that it would eventually lose its coolness as time passed.
He then put in the dissected remains of the lion into it, telling us that it would fetch a good price in Aarom’s market. I like how he wasn’t grossed out in the slightest from touching all that bloody, gory stuff. I saw Mother and Marina flinching from the slight. Even I kept my distance as well. It showed just how much of an experienced adventurer he was.
Once finished, Marina stored it back inside her Dimensional Container. She too made sure that Father washed his hands after all that with her water spell.
And then, it was time for us to return back home.
————-
For the rest of the summer, I continued my training with Marina. Or should I say, our training, as after her defeat at the hand of the chrome lion, she had begun to think up ways to overcome her weakness.
I, on the other hand, still aimed to reach Master-level. I felt I could’ve won if I had a stronger spell to use against it, something that could really deal damage. At Marina’s advice, she told me to focus on Wind, as she believed I had a talent at the element. She couldn’t use wind spells the way I had been using it, to move and fly around like that.
And so I did, focusing on control over power, as there was a certain concept for a wind spell I was interested in. For Master-level and above, you didn’t really have set spells written on books. You had to improvise and invent the next stage on your own.
“So, how would you know if the spell you had invented belonged to Master-level?” I asked.
“Well, there’s no exact measurement to it, but a Master-level spell would either have exceptional power or exceptional area of effect. Let’s take an example. Say, Rainfall. You remember what it does, Hugo?”
“It makes it rain, right?” I answered. I still remembered her demonstrating it to me.
“Correct. To be exact, it manipulates the moisture in the air to form rainclouds, so it’s a hybrid spell that combines Water and Wind. Do you remember how much the rainclouds covered?
“Just a small area. Around 50 meters in diameter at most.”
“Exactly. Then I will bring up to you the spell ‘Rainstorm’. It’s the Master-level version of it. Can you guess how much it covers in diameter?”
“Umm, a lot? Much more?” I took a wild guess.
“Indeed! It can cover a much wider idea, to the point that Master-level Water mages are in high demand to farmers in drought. I don’t even know how wide it covers since when one of my teachers used it, I couldn’t see anything else other than the dark skies above me.”
“Wow, that sounds amazing, Sis! Would you be able to do it one day?”
“Well, I sure hope I could.” She smiled, patting my head. “If you don’t get it before me first, that is,” she added with a chuckle.
Another goal for me to reach, I suppose, though I really prefer offensive spells instead. Turning the sky dark and making it rain might be cool but it can’t do anything against monsters, can it?
“Now that I thought about it, ‘Rainstorm’ is pretty standardized for a Master-level spell. If you know how to manipulate water and wind well enough, and if you know how rainclouds work, you can perform it just fine. And they taught the latter in the Academy. A not-so-smart water mage might think that you would have to produce all the water falling down yourself, but a smart one would realize that you just need to trigger a chain reaction in the atmosphere, saving yourself a considerable amount of mana while at the same time keeping up the spell for much longer.”
Suddenly, she paused in her explanation.
“…Hold on, that method on how to produce a better Rainstorm—that was developed by Selendia Brine, one of the Council mages! It was one of her inventions back when she was younger! Even then, she was already a genius at Water spells. And now, every Master-level water mage follows her theorem to cast Rainstorm.”
“Are all the Council mages geniuses like her?” I asked, out of curiosity.
“Hmm… well, if they can reach Grandmaster-level, that already makes them geniuses beyond geniuses. I don’t know much about them, really, other than the common knowledge. It’s not like I go to the library to read their biographies.”
“Why not, Sis? You don’t find them interesting?”
She paused again, before sighing. “As you already know, a friend of mine is a granddaughter of one. And judging by what she told me about him, and the rest of the Council, they’re… well, how do I put it? Selfish?”
“Selfish?”
“They only care about themselves—their influence and their magic. They certainly didn’t care about their family the way Father and Mother did. They expected their offsprings to continue their reign of glory, and that led to them treating their sons and daughters harshly.”
So, basically, the usual asshole nobles you often find in fantasy stories, only with a dash of magic superiority added in, I thought with a grim look.
“Though I’ve met one of their daughters who certainly didn’t mind the treatment, since she seemed to be a bonafide genius, just like her mother. Oh, I haven’t told you about her yet, have I? I think I omitted her in my letter to you about Sherry’s visit.”
It was there that I knew about Elunmidis Brine, the daughter of Selendis Brine. The bubble genius, whose trick actually managed to fool Marina, though not Myrilla, being the far experienced mage.
“Producing bubbles itself is already a hybrid spell, since you need water and wind combined. And she could do it so quickly and stealthily, while still having them be far tougher than the average bubble. I suppose you can call her the bubble genius. I wouldn’t be surprised if she one day writes a magic theory book about how to use bubble magic more effectively, just like her mother, advancing the study of magic once more.”
Bubble genius, huh? Don’t tell me that she’s going to be Marina’s future rival?!
Don’t worry, Sis! I’ll cheer for you all the way to the end!
