Blank Bracelet (Part 1)
The Blank Bracelet. It was truly an absurd thing. No matter how I looked at it, this was an incredible artifact. A bracelet that could permanently maintain any support magic cast upon it. An item that let you swap in whatever spell you needed whenever you wanted. Most people probably wouldn’t think it was all that special. In a party with a magician, it would be utterly useless. Without one, you couldn’t freely change the magic anyway. So your average adventurer would only ever use half its potential at best. And on top of that, it cost 585,000 marcas. No one in their right mind would buy it at that price. Absolutely no one.
Of course, the bracelet did have clear advantages. Rare spells, or high-grade magic that only advanced magicians could use. Being able to store those at will was definitely a strong point. That was probably why it had been created in the first place. But when I used it, the story changed completely. An item that could hold a single Grade 13 support spell indefinitely. So I poured the Strength spell into the bracelet and handed it to Ar.
“Ar. Try this on.”
Ar took the bracelet and slipped it onto her wrist. She gave her hand a little shake, as if it felt cumbersome. She didn’t seem to like it much. I took it back, adjusted it to fit more snugly, and fastened it again. Ar stared at my hands the entire time, then swallowed once.
“How does it feel?”
She shook her hand again, then nodded.
“Good? The Strength effect is on it too, you know.”
Another nod. Perfect. That meant Ar would now be under a constant Strength buff. Which meant…
“Hard Skin.”
The moment I cast the spell, Ar’s brows furrowed slightly. I grabbed her arm. She flinched. When I pressed firmly, her normally soft limb felt rock-hard.
“There we go. I like it. You can hold two spells now. You should be able to take down even higher-grade magic beasts without much trouble.”
Ar had already taken down Grade 6 beasts with just Berserker. With this, Grade 7 should be manageable. Well then. Things had turned out nicely. I’d planned to hold off on Grade 7 hunts until I learned Meditation, but there was no point hesitating now. Besides, I only had about 110,000 marcas left. We’d have to go sooner or later.
“Looks like we’re heading back to the Belota Mountains. Time to hunt some magic beasts. I need to test this properly.”
Ar nodded, but her face clearly showed disappointment.
“We’ll come back once we’ve earned more money. Don’t look so sad.”
She was probably upset about leaving those sweet desserts behind. I couldn’t blame her. She had enjoyed them that much.
“Besides, they sell desserts in Hapim too. They might not be as fancy as the ones here, but they won’t be terrible.”
At that, Ar’s expression brightened completely. She really was simple. A lump of flour loaded with sugar was all it took to swing her mood like that.
With that settled, we left for Hapim again. We still had money, so I decided to splurge on a more expensive carriage. Why hold back? We were heading out to earn more anyway. The ride was comfortable enough that I could sit and read my magic tome. The journey was long. I didn’t want to waste the time. After all, time was the most precious thing in the world. What could possibly matter more?
I still couldn’t quite grasp Meditation. How had the ancient magicians learned it? Then again, that was probably why there had been so few of them back then. These days we shoved an orb in someone’s face to check their talent, and if there was any potential we used elixirs and every other method available to turn them into a magician immediately. It hadn’t been like that before. You had to sense mana and learn to handle it first. It wasn’t manufactured the way it is now.
Anyway, we reached Hapim without any particular gains. The moment we arrived, I took Ar straight to a dessert shop. Her eyes sparkled with anticipation. Fortunately, the dessert shop in Hapim wasn’t bad at all. It made sense. Plenty of high-ranking magic beast hunters and adventurers passed through here.
After resting for a day, we set out for the Belota Mountains at dawn. When I held out my arms, Ar slipped into them without hesitation. Honestly, I didn’t need to carry her. I could have just put Haste into the Blank Bracelet on her wrist. Then I could have cast Haste on myself and run alongside her. It would have been a little faster. But I didn’t. I simply held out my arms shamelessly, and Ar nestled against me obediently. I ran like that until we had passed nearly all the areas where Grade 4 beasts appeared, then set her down.
“Let’s skip the Grade 6 habitats if we can. I bought an extra bag, but we can fill it on the way back. Grade 7 takes priority.”
Ar nodded and boldly took the lead. With Grade 13 Strength magic active, she was practically a walking weapon of war even without Berserker. So passing through Grade 6 territory didn’t scare her much. At worst we’d only encounter one if we cut straight through its territory. We’d have to be really unlucky to meet two where territories overlapped. We moved quickly. Luckily we didn’t run into any Grade 6 beasts and continued deeper into the mountains until we finally encountered a Grade 7.
“Truka…”
A snake-like magic beast as thick as a man’s torso. Its habits were similar to a real snake. The good news was that it had no venom. The bad news was that it was disgustingly fast and strong. Its scales were also incredibly tough, making it difficult to deal with. A Grade 7 beast like this usually required a knight capable of using sword aura, or a magician of Grade 7 or higher casting appropriate spells. It was the kind of opponent that was hard to face alone. That was also why it fetched such a high price.
“Think you can handle it?”
I lightly stoked Ar’s competitive spirit. Her eyes sharpened and she nodded fiercely, fists clenched tight.
“All right. Go!”
Ar shot forward the instant I gave the order. At the same time, my Berserker magic wrapped around her. With a sharp hiss, the Truka whipped its tail at her. Ar twisted in midair, dodged the strike, then used the tail as a springboard to leap even higher. Wow. Was that movement even possible? The Truka’s serpentine body made it incredibly flexible. It avoided Ar’s transformed hand and opened its jaws wide, striking at her side. Its speed was hard to follow with the naked eye. Yet Ar dodged it by a hair’s breadth. At the same moment, she drove her hand straight into the Truka’s head.
Maybe the beast had let its guard down. It might have trusted its tough scales. Or perhaps it had judged that such a small opponent with those slender arms couldn’t do much damage. That was a mistake. Ar’s claws pierced straight through the Truka’s skull, sinking in up to two finger joints.
The Truka let out a terrible scream. Being Grade 7, it didn’t die in one blow. But it was clearly badly wounded. If she had pulled her hand free and retreated, the beast would have thrashed in agony and died within a few torch-lengths. A skilled party would have backed off and whittled away its stamina from a distance. But Ar was under Berserker. There was no retreating. She kept attacking relentlessly. The Truka, with no intention of dying quietly, thrashed wildly despite the grievous wound to its head. It lunged, bit, and swept its tail, but Ar dodged everything or used its own body as footing to keep targeting the head.
Interesting. Did she instinctively know attacking the body was pointless? Even in a berserk state she wasn’t attacking randomly. She was obsessively focused on the head. She had done the same last time too. It seemed that even under Berserker, beastpeople moved according to instinct. That instinct apparently took precedence over blind rage.
Ar took one solid hit from the tail. She used the impact to spin and charge right back in. Finally, moving into its blind spot, her claws sank into the open wound on the Truka’s head once more. Or were they fingernails? Claws? It was hard to tell. The scream that followed was horrific. It sounded like the beast was announcing its death to every magic beast in the entire Belota Mountains. Not that it actually would, of course. The Truka’s tail lost all strength and slammed into the ground with a heavy thud. It was clearly dead. Only then did I release Ar’s Berserker.
“Haa… haa…”
Ar breathed hard. The fight had been intense. I walked over, patted her back gently, and spoke softly.
“Well done. Are you okay where it hit you? Your left shoulder.”
Only then did Ar glance at her shoulder. She moved it experimentally and nodded. But I caught the slight wince. It must hurt.
“Hold still.”
I touched her left shoulder. She grimaced and let out a short sound.
“Ugh…”
“See? You’re not okay at all.”
I dug through my bag and pulled out a potion. A mid-grade recovery potion made with holy water and infused with a priest’s blessing. One thousand marcas each. Expensive, but not overwhelmingly effective. I sprayed about half of it on her shoulder, then held out the rest.
“Drink the rest.”
Ar made a face like she really didn’t want to. Did she know what potions tasted like? Had she drunk one before? She clearly knew how awful they were. She showed open reluctance, but eventually gave in to me. She drank it with a deep frown, then stuck her tongue out with a disgusted expression.
“Keep an eye on our surroundings for a bit. I’ll store this in the bag.”
I stuffed the Truka’s corpse into the bag. I wondered how much it would sell for. I was eager to find out the market price. While I was thinking, I noticed Ar pulling a handkerchief from her pocket to wipe her hands. How did she keep that thing pure white? When did she even wash it? Magic beast blood shouldn’t come out that cleanly or quickly. I really needed to learn the Clean spell. It wasn’t that difficult to pick up, after all.