Fuel for the Flame
The large monster collapsed.
It had been a death no beast could survive, not against a mage's firepower. Cheers erupted from the crowd. The monster hunters exhaled, faces drawn with exhaustion. Two deployments in a single day — they had every right to look spent.
I slipped quietly through their ranks. The small monsters I'd taken numbered five in all. I'd focused on the ones that had been going after people, and I hadn't crossed paths with any other hunters — the small ones had been scattering in every direction, which worked in my favor. Nobody knew how I'd actually killed them.
There was no need to get tangled up with the other hunters. Not right now.
The Instant Death Magic I possessed. There were things I needed to think through about this uncertain power, on my own terms. And there was one more thing I wanted to confirm.
My flame was burning stronger than before. On top of that, just as I'd sensed earlier, my body itself felt sharper, more capable. I put strength into my arm and stretched it out. That alone sent a vitality through me that hadn't been there before.
I'd gotten stronger. There was no question about it.
But I was a born weakling, wrecked by childhood illness. A handful of small monsters wasn't enough to put me even on par with an ordinary person. I needed more life force — the kind of strength it would take to function as a proper human being.
And related to that, another kind of fuel had surfaced in my mind.
Mana stones.
Why were mana stones traded at such steep prices among mages? Because mages consumed them to raise their mana. I'd been a monster hunter for five years, and in that time I'd picked up all kinds of talk about their kind. Apparently, mages possessed something called a Seed. More precisely, you needed a Seed to become a mage at all. The Seed was a vessel that held mana — the very origin of magic. Nurturing that Seed until it became a colossal tree that pierced the heavens was every mage's ultimate goal.
Mana stones were the fertilizer that grew those Seeds of magic. That was why mages scrambled over each other to buy up every monster stone they could find.
Stones that grew the Seed. My gaze fell to my arm. The Third Eye, closed peacefully for now. This thing might well be a monster parasitizing my body. But it wasn't doing me any immediate harm. It was simply gnawing away at my life force, steadily, without pause.
That was fine by me. Whether it was coexistence with a monster or whatever else — this was the strength I'd longed for since long ago. I'd wring every last drop of use out of it.
I gathered up the money I'd been saving. A few young monster hunters were out cleaning corpses off the streets. I passed them by. The coins clinked in my pocket — money I'd been putting away, coin by coin, telling myself I'd buy decent gear someday. But hanging onto it now would only mean watching it get seized to settle my debts. So I set my feet toward a mana stone shop.
Every quality stone got snapped up by mages. The poor-quality ones, though, made it to the open market. Even if you weren't a mage, they were used to craft useful tools. Of course, even those were astronomically expensive for ordinary people like us. But this wasn't a time to be picky.
I shoved the mana stone shop's door open.
"Welco—"
"Mana stones. You got mana stones?"
"Huh? Yes, of course. This is a mana stone shop."
The clerk looked bewildered, but registered that I was a customer, and handed me a catalog. Damn. The prices were enough to make my head spin. Of course they were — this was how the guild paid our wages, after all, by selling these things.
I picked the best one I could afford with the money I had. Mana stones held their value even if you resold them, so it was fine.
"Here's a Grade 7 mana stone."
"Thanks."
I took the stone and walked straight back outside. Once I'd slipped into an alley away from people's eyes, the dull-colored mana stone came into view.
A dull-colored stone of modest quality
It was a far cry from the one I'd seen that day. But it was a higher grade than the small monsters I'd absorbed.
Then, out of nowhere, pain lanced through my elbow. I lifted my arm to check, and my body locked up. A blue, gem-like thing was embedded in the joint. One of the symptoms of Mana Stone Sclerosis. Part of my skin had turned into mana stone.
Shit.
So the Mana Stone Sclerosis was still progressing, after all. The world swam in front of my eyes. The fact that I was living on borrowed time hit me all over again.
Then the eye carved into my wrist snapped open of its own accord. The sudden extra vision made me dizzy for a moment. But then my head whipped around. What filled the eye on my wrist was the mana stone — and the blue life force dwelling inside it.
With a trembling hand, I reached into the stone. My hand slipped in without the slightest resistance. Then I closed my fist around the life force held within.
"Ugh."
The warmth filling my hand felt like it was burning. But I didn't let go. Not for anything. The flame of life inside the mana stone began to shrink, and the moment it guttered out completely—
A dry crack. A dull tap.
Something fell from my elbow. I shifted my gaze slowly. There, crumbled on the ground, was something like a clod of dirt and stone. The Mana Stone Sclerosis symptom that had just manifested on my elbow. It had fallen away.
"Ha."
A hollow laugh slipped from my mouth. At the same time, I checked the life force of my soul. The flame was larger than before. No question. As long as I had mana stones, I could keep living.
And that wasn't all. Along with a surge of vigor in my muscles, my knees felt a little tight. For some reason, my field of view had risen slightly. I had the sense that I'd grown larger. As expected — the better the mana stone, the greater the effect.
Crunch.
The mana stone in my hand crumbled apart. The life force inside it was gone, so of course it would. I'd paid a steep price for it, and it vanished that easily. A sigh escaped me, but it was fine. I'd found a sure way to get stronger.
But there was a separate problem.
What now?
Mana stones were incredibly expensive. I could hunt small monsters the way I just had. But even approaching a large one was an ordeal. The flames blazing inside large monsters took a long time to snuff out. Not getting trampled to death before that happened would take a miracle. On the flip side, small monsters just didn't give enough.
I kept a constant watch on the total volume of my flame. Sure enough, the flame of life was still shrinking, bit by bit. The Mana Stone Sclerosis flaring up just now was proof of that.
At this rate, I'd have to take down at least ten small monsters every single day, no exceptions.
That many small ones weren't common, and other hunters would be going after them too. Which meant what I needed to target were medium monsters. But a medium monster wasn't something you could take down alone. Every now and then there was a hunter who could solo one, but those were the extreme minority. Hunting a medium monster took at least ten hunters. A single medium monster covered ten people's wages — and still left the guild turning a profit.
I didn't need to spell out how valuable mana stones were at this point. Which meant buying them was out of the question. I was a debtor now.
Not that I asked for this.
Looking back on it now, I'd essentially stolen a mana stone a mage had hunted. The one I'd seen that day was probably the monster parasitizing my body.
"What the hell are you, anyway?"
I muttered the question at the Third Eye. Naturally, no answer came. I hadn't wanted this, but it was already one with my body. If I wanted to stay alive, there was no other way.
I walked out of the alley and lifted my wrist. Through the vision coming in from the eye carved there, I could see the life force of the souls belonging to the people passing by on the street. Every person's soul was a transparent white. The sizes varied. The older they were, the smaller the flame. The younger, the larger.
Looking at those flames, a thought struck me. Could I absorb a person's life force too? Did I even need mana stones?
"Ha. I've lost it."
A hollow laugh slipped out before I could stop it. I'd well and truly lost my mind. Wanting to live was one thing. Stealing the lives of complete strangers to do it? Maybe the terminal diagnosis had knocked something loose. Even so — I was still a person. I wasn't going to become a beast.
In the end, there was only one way.
Hunt medium monsters.
Instant Death Magic worked on every monster. If I could snuff out their flame, I could kill anyone. That held true even if the opponent was a medium monster. Rather than chase small ones, I'd take down medium monsters and get stronger.
The moment I made the decision, my feet carried me straight to the monster hunter guild. The guild still had unfinished monster contracts posted — mostly beasts that had appeared in the outskirts of the city. I intended to test this Instant Death Magic against them.
The moment I opened the guild door, eyes gathered on me. A few hunters were sprawled out, faces worn. But small monsters were just another day for hunters, so most of them, work done for the day, were deep in a drinking bout. And what story would come up most at a drinking table like that? Whatever the most entertaining recent incident happened to be.
"Oh, it's Haren."
"The weakling who took down the troublemaker."
Laughter rippled among the hunters. The weakling Haren who'd beaten the troublemaker Trenba. The rumor had already spread through all of them. Trenba himself was nowhere in sight. Fine by me.
I walked up to the request board and pulled a few contracts related to outskirts monsters.
"Oho. Don't tell me you're going after medium monsters next, after Trenba?"
A busybody hunter called out. His face was flushed — he was drunk.
"Whoa, hold on. Hold on. You can't put a medium monster and Trenba in the same category. Want me to come along and help you hunt?"
His mouth was loaded with mockery. The other hunters burst into roaring laughter. To them, me beating Trenba had been a fluke, no doubt. So the hunters still saw me as a plaything.
"Sober up first, then talk."
But none of that mattered. There was only one thing that mattered to me. Take down a medium monster. Extend my life. Get stronger. Nothing but seeing my own justice through.
I tore the request slips free and turned around. Leaving the sneers and mockery of the hunters behind me, I set off down the road.