Meeting the Elf
The wind exploded outward with a dull puff, but I didn’t bother paying it any attention.
“I think I’m finally starting to get the feel for it.”
It had already been a full week of training. After countless detonations, I had begun to grasp it—just a little.
“Please teach me for the sake of your juniors.”
“I’d really prefer there be no juniors at all, if possible.”
I was treating her regression as a kind of insurance policy, but still, it would be best if everything ended with me.
“…The core is external projection of force.”
“What exactly does that entail?”
“Hmm… In the case of Thunder Step, it ultimately came down to internal tuning. Like this.”
I stamped the ground. A thunderous roar erupted, and right after, a shockwave burst from the tip of my fist. A simplified application of Far Thunder.
“At first glance the form looks like force projection, but the root is inside me. You stomp the ground with powerful force, convert the impact and rebound into energy, draw it up through your upper body, and fire it from your fist. If you don’t need it to be that strong, you don’t even have to stomp.”
I simply swung my fist. Another shockwave flew out and snapped a tree branch far in the distance.
“…I’ll admit it’s more mysterious than mana.”
“Mana is the truly incredible one. This is a technique any human can perform.”
The training period had been long, yet the ability was clearly something built into the human body.
“Anyway, from what you’re saying, it isn’t simply the idea of pushing power outward.”
“Correct. Watch this.”
I swung my hand in front of her. An ordinary swing with neither Ure nor full strength behind it. The result was equally ordinary.
Whoooosh. The air was shoved along the arc of the swing, then rushed back in to fill the vacuum. A simple, localized application of air pressure.
“Did you see it?”
“I saw it.”
“You get it now?”
“Get what?”
“No, I mean—”
Whoooosh.
“This.”
“……………”
Diana’s eyes were beginning to narrow dangerously. Ever since we destroyed the Evil God fragment in Altea, she seemed to be gradually dropping her innocent act.
“Sorry. It was half a joke.”
“…And the other half was completely serious?”
“Well…”
I shrugged and swung my hand once more. This time I attached an explanation.
“I swung my hand and pushed the air out. Fresh air immediately rushed back into the empty space. That’s what created the sound.”
“Please keep explaining.”
“So… my action doesn’t end with me simply moving. The outside world reacts to my movement.”
The reaction was complicated, yet at the same time extremely mechanical. Do A and B occurs. Countless laws and variables intertwine to produce C, D, E, and F, but the fundamental premise—that one input yields one output—remains identical.
Therefore the person who created the wind gesture must have realized this: if you could fully comprehend and utilize every law and variable, then the moment you introduced the element “1” into the world, the interlocking rules would transmit it perfectly.
The range of your understanding would become the range of your reach.
“…That is external projection of force…”
This is probably the foundation.
If Standing Body was the art of contemplating one’s inner self, then True Hand was the art of observing the world outside.
“…The problem is I still can’t get any real sense of it.”
“Haven’t you already realized quite a lot?”
“This is still just the surrounding circumstances.”
I shrugged again and continued.
“Don’t you think it’s strange? How sharp does a martial artist’s mind need to be to understand all those rules?”
“True. If they knew all of it as scholarly knowledge, the original successor who passed down the technique would have already uncovered every law in the world.”
“Exactly. Of course even the successor didn’t know every single rule and law. They were martial artists, not scholars.”
They had simply internalized certain things through instinct and experience. Just as almost any machine can be used without knowing how it works inside.
“So right now I’m basically an eighty-year-old picking up a smartphone for the first time.”
I knew it was a machine, but everything else was a black box.
“…I think I understand the feeling. Elders really are weak when it comes to new technology.”
“And I think I know why, too.”
“For someone who claims he can’t grasp it, you seem to have realized quite a bit.”
“That’s… Can you reinterpret what I just said like this?”
I took a slow breath before continuing.
“They say a truly powerful swordsman can subdue the world with his will alone. Mages who have transcended their realm can manifest their inner world. Archers, thieves, spirit mages—each has a different name, yet all reach a stage where their power interacts with the world itself.”
“Uh… hold on…”
It looked like Diana was beginning to catch on, but I kept speaking.
“Some draw natural mana into their bodies to accumulate it. Others spread their own mana to sense their surroundings. Do all those people truly understand the rules between mana and the world before they use them?”
“That’s…”
“Right. They just use it because they can.”
In the end, it was that simple.
“Here, too, mana is the issue.”
The mana sensitivity I had spent so long cultivating was exactly the aptitude this technique demanded.
The projection art was a primitive skill. That didn’t mean it had zero connection to mana. Compared to modern systems it was inefficient or even absent, but the opposite was also true: it wasn’t a technique completely unrelated to mana.
“In short, this projection art… is a primitive form of mana manipulation.”
“…………”
That was precisely where I was stuck. My body, which contained more mana than anything else in this world, simply couldn’t perceive those delicate nuances.
“Um, Helio…”
“Please help me!”
A voice rang out. Beyond the trail, someone was calling for help from inside the forest.
“Just to be sure, I’ll ask.”
“It’s my first time.”
After confirming with Diana, I sprinted toward the sound.
“Grrarff! Grrarff!”
“Kyaaak! I don’t want to get bitten again!”
A wolf was chasing a fleeing elf.
Puff.
“Yelp!”
It was only a single beast. Even an incomplete wind gesture was enough to kill it instantly.
The situation itself ended lightly, but the real shock—for both Diana and me—came afterward.
“I-I’m alive… Thank you so much!”
“…It really wasn’t that strong.”
“It was a serious crisis for me!”
The elf smiled brightly as she thanked us. Her expression was pure sunshine.
“Wow…”
“Don’t say it.”
“But—”
“There is no ‘but.’”
“You were the one enjoying my forearms earlier.”
The elf lowered her head, and her chest—her breasts, to be precise—jiggled heavily. They were enormously, outrageously large.
“…You really didn’t know?”
“…No. This is the first time I’ve seen them here.”
And that was such irrefutable proof that I understood immediately.
“My name is Elfride Elun.”
The healer who surpassed even the Saintess. The undisputed number one.
“I’m an adventurer!”
She was the fire-starting elf.
In truth, it made no sense for a traveler to be chased by a mere wolf. The empire might rule the continent, but the wilderness outside the villages was still dangerous. Anyone who traveled for a living would have at least basic self-defense skills. In a world where mana existed and superhumans walked the earth, an ordinary traveler should have been able to drive off a single wolf without trouble.
“Ehehe… I wouldn’t have died, but it still hurts.”
Yet for her, it was possible.
“You must possess a special ability.”
“Yes! I have a unique trait!”
Elfride beamed, proud as could be. There wasn’t the slightest hint of wariness in her attitude, but then again, for her that was perfectly natural.
“Ta-da!”
Flames bloomed at her fingertips. I had no idea what kind of ancestor she descended from, but this was the most widespread unique ability in the world—Ignition.
Because so many people possessed it, countermeasures had been developed long ago. Besides, it only created small flames rather than massive infernos, so its offensive power was considered mediocre. If anyone was asked to name the most famous yet weakest ability, they would all pick Ignition.
But Elfride refused to be limited by that evaluation. Instead of obsessing over destructive power, she focused on the nature of fire itself. And eventually she achieved a single, miraculous result.
She fused recovery magic with her unique ability.
The healing flames possessed the contagious and persistent qualities of fire. They never went out. They burned people forever while healing them. When it came purely to treating others, not even the Saintess could compare to Elfride.
And because the same healing applied to her own body as well—
“Hehe. If you hadn’t helped me, I would’ve had to let myself get eaten a few more times before I could run away.”
“You recovered almost instantly.”
“That’s the kind of ability it is!”
She would never die.