Crystal Plains
The expedition named the newly discovered region the Crystal Plains. The crystal ore that grew here was extraordinarily hard, and the adventurers rejoiced at the chance to claim a brand-new material.
I looked around and let out a long breath.
Things I never would have noticed before now leaped into view. Senses that had transcended the human realm reacted to everything with razor sharpness. I could feel the flow of mana more keenly than ever, and from a person’s movements and breathing I could tell exactly how they had trained their body.
The breaths and motions of a hundred adventurers tangled together inside my head. Faint sword paths flickered into existence and vanished again; dozens of imaginary enemies appeared and disappeared in endless succession.
“Ceris? Aren’t you coming?”
“Ah—yes, I’m coming.”
I shook my head and answered Celion. Lost in the new sensations, I had let time slip by without even realizing the scouting mission had begun.
Even while moving with Celion, I could barely focus on the task. As I grew used to the body that had changed with time, every sense washed over me like a waking dream.
Is this how a dragon sees the world?
I gently stroked the wind that brushed past me. The way it scattered between my fingers gifted me a small spark of inspiration.
Maybe… I could ride the wind with my movements.
Even a light push against this heavy body would make me far faster than before.
The surroundings melted away as if dissolving. My mind locked onto the wind flowing before my eyes and cut off every other sensation. The concentration was startling even to me—but in a situation where I was working with others, it was a dangerous habit.
I frowned and scattered the gathered wind.
Our team—Celion’s team—had been assigned to search for traces of the monsters that lived here. On this barren plain where not a single blade of grass grew, I doubted any tracks would remain. Yet after poking around here and there, we finally spotted one.
At first I almost walked right past it, thinking it was just another massive crystal outcrop. I could hardly be blamed; multicolored crystal ore had grown thick across the creature’s back.
“What a bizarre sight…”
One of the teammates muttered under his breath. He was right—the monster looked truly strange. How on earth had it ended up carrying the same crystal that jutted from this land on its own back?
Then the monster began to move. The thing that had been crouching on the ground suddenly rose and lumbered toward a nearby pile of crystal ore.
We watched for a long while.
The monster approached slowly, opened its jaws wide, and without the slightest hesitation began to crunch the crystal. Crunch, crunch—the ore shattered and glittered in every color of the rainbow.
“Those teeth are incredibly hard…”
“Far beyond ordinary iron. Looks like excellent material.”
“So this crystal is the monster’s food…? It might not be simple mineral after all.”
They exchanged opinions in a short span of time. Once the conversation ended they nodded as one and drew their weapons.
The teammates looked to Celion’s face. The moment her order fell, they looked ready to charge the monster at once.
“Capture it alive if possible.”
The team leader’s permission was given. Instantly the nineteen members began to move with careful precision.
Lines of sight tangled dizzyingly. The paths of more than ten teammates sketched themselves before my eyes—and then became reality.
While I stood staring blankly at them, Celion spoke to me. Everyone else was moving; only I remained still, so of course I looked strange.
“Ceris?”
“Ah… yes.”
My answer came a beat late. I forced down the senses that were starting to run wild and managed an awkward smile.
“You feeling all right?”
“I’m fine. I was just curious how the seniors hunt monsters.”
“Hmm…”
That flimsy excuse would only go so far. I jumped down from Nightmare’s back and fell in behind the others.
At once I changed my breathing—as low and long as possible, so the capture target would never hear my breath.
The intervals varied, yet everyone maintained a similar breathing technique. That was why I had copied it after watching them.
The monster we were after resembled a turtle, but its limbs were long and its tail stretched far behind. The tail, completely sheathed in crystal, looked especially threatening.
In that strange tension the distance closed. Midway through chewing crystal, the monster turned its head. The teammates caught in its gaze froze as if turned to stone—yet to the monster, that stillness must have looked like a threat.
[KWOOOAAARGH!]
Forelegs raised high, the monster’s roar exploded. Realizing the ambush had failed, the teammates restored their breathing to normal and moved with explosive speed.
Five of them stepped forward with shields and swords to block its path; most of the rest drew their own weapons and formed a ring around it. Those farthest back pulled out thick ropes and began to whirl them.
[KWOOOAAARGH!]
The monster charged at the same instant the team moved. Ropes flew from every direction and wrapped its body—only for the creature to twist once and shear every rope clean through.
While everyone stared in shock, it lunged and swung its crystal-armored tail at the shield-bearers.
KWAANG—!
The heavy blow sent a shield-bearer skidding backward. Yet he planted his feet on the barren plain and held firm.
“Attack!”
I never knew whose signal it was. At that single word every weapon swung toward the monster.
Swords and spears, the occasional axe or blunt weapon, hammered its back. The hard crystal seemed to protect it, yet the assault of nearly twenty adventurers proved too much; the ore shattered and fell away.
[KREEEEE!]
The monster screamed in agony, but the team showed no mercy. They smashed the sharp crystals on the fallen creature and wound rope around it until it was bound tight.
Suddenly my eyes met the monster’s huge ones. It shed round, mournful tears and trembled.
“Mm…”
I swallowed a small sound. Complicated feelings rose inside me—pity.
I frowned and looked away from its gaze. An adventurer feeling pity for a monster… I must have been a little mentally exhausted.
In that moment I noticed Dorban and Noel wearing expressions much like mine. Both of them, too, were staring at the monster with complicated eyes.
Having captured the creature, Celion’s team returned to where the main force waited. Another team that had gone out in a different direction had already arrived; they, too, seemed to have brought a monster back alive.
“Oh, your team captured one as well. Excellent research material.”
The scholars who studied monsters brightened at the sight of our catch. After a short interval the remaining teams began to return one after another. Some brought live specimens; those who could not dragged corpses instead.
Every monster they brought shared one trait: multicolored, glittering crystal ore clung thickly all over their bodies.
I was intensely curious about their strange ecology, but an adventurer’s work ended here. Extracting more precise information was the scholars’ job.
That evening I slipped out of the base camp and found a quiet spot to sit. If I was going to fight the monsters that would appear from now on, using mana was inevitable.
Yet the moment I used mana, scales began to sprout on the backs of my hands and my body started to leave humanity behind. I could not risk using it in front of others.
They might even try to capture and study me if they saw what I had become. I shook my head, banishing the ominous future.
A method. I had to find a method somehow—one that let me use mana without my body changing.
I began to move the mana gathered in my heart, slowly, carefully.
The next morning every team, including Celion’s, had to leave the main force to scout much farther than before. Many adventurers looked exhausted from the early start, but the team leaders were firm.
Celion was no exception. Still, thanks to Nightmare I could drape myself across his back and snatch a little sleep.
The deeper we went into the Crystal Plains, the larger the crystal ore grew. The once-brilliant multicolored gleam had dulled, and the hardness had increased even further.
While I rode along in a daze, my sharpened hearing caught the sound of insect wings. A high, thin vibration in the air drew steadily closer.
I turned my head toward the sound and spotted a gigantic insect. With long, outstretched wings and a thin, elongated body, it looked exactly like a dragonfly.
Yet it was incomparably larger than any ordinary dragonfly, and the area around its tail was formed of hard crystal ore.
The crystal dragonfly flew straight at me as if I were its sole target. Its speed was tremendous, and its many legs spread wide as though ready to embrace me.
I watched it blankly for a heartbeat, then drew my sword from behind my back and swung. The blade path that unfolded from my hand moved at a steady pace, tracing the shape of a star; its tip aimed for the dragonfly’s head.
Immediately afterward I released transparent mana.
The night before, after long research, I had finally discovered a way to use mana without my body changing: release the mana inside me so quickly that it never had time to transform my flesh.
Because the mana was expelled before any change in nature or control could occur, its color was transparent and its range extremely short.
But for now that was enough. There was a world of difference between using mana and not using it at all.
The transparent mana that shot from the tip of my sword crushed the dragonfly’s head.
Unable to correct its flight path, the dragonfly with the crumpled head sailed past me and slammed into the ground.
KWAJIK—!
The body that fell measured roughly a meter long. At that size it could easily have scooped up a small child and taken to the sky.
Which was probably why it had targeted me—the smallest of the group.
“What is that…?”
The teammates, late to notice the crystal dragonfly’s approach, finally reacted. They drew swords and began scanning the surroundings, but that single insect was the only one that came.
I jumped down from Nightmare’s back, picked up the still-twitching dragonfly, and loaded it onto Nightmare’s back.