The Temptation of Magic
Dawn light slanted across the packed earth of the training ground.
Garen's wooden sword was as heavy as ever, and I took the hits as usual.
"Feet."
"Yes, sir."
"Too slow."
"...Yes, sir."
Crack!
The tips of our blades rebounded, and his wooden sword immediately rapped the back of my hand. For a second the sword nearly flew from my grip, but I clenched my teeth and held on.
"Faster."
"..."
"Relax your hands."
Every short correction landed, and my body answered before my mind did. Stance, wrist, tip of the blade. Moments were starting to appear where half the work happened on its own.
Of course, I still got hit.
Whenever I thought I was getting better—that I was doing well—Garen would cut that thought short by coming in even harder.
Thud!
"...Ghk."
"Focus."
"I am focusing...!"
By the time training ended, both my arms felt like lead. I wiped the sweat from my face and tried to catch my breath while Garen spoke, brief as always.
"You've improved."
"Hah... hah... Oh, so you finally noticed..."
"Don't get cocky."
"...I know."
I lowered my head and put the wooden sword away.
Tomorrow at this same hour, I'd be standing here again.
The moment I opened the guild doors, my eyes went straight to the reception desk.
It wasn't Luce.
"...Huh?"
The sound slipped out on its own.
The person looking up wasn't Luce. A middle-aged woman with her hair neatly tied up. Her presence was firmer than Luce's, but her manner carried years of experience.
"Are you here to register a request?"
Right. Today was Luce's day off.
"Ah... yes."
My answer came a beat late.
Beside me, Mari laughed without a sound.
"What, feeling empty without her?"
"Not at all. It's just a little awkward meeting someone new."
"It's written all over your face."
"Shut up."
Kaya quietly held back a smile.
Maela Bern.
I'd heard she was the longest-serving receptionist at the guild. I'd seen her flipping through ledgers behind Luce or handling the difficult registrations, but this was the first time I'd spoken to her myself. She didn't waste words, her hands were quick, and anyone could tell she was a professional.
"Northern forest perimeter patrol. Two sets of scouting traces and one Iron-Tusk sighting have been reported. Be careful out there."
Short and precise. No wonder she was the senior.
"Thank you."
"Safe travels."
Even her farewell had no fluff.
It was only Luce missing, and somehow the whole reception desk looked different.
A few similar days went by.
Mornings with Garen, then Kaya and Mari, the reception desk, the forest. Always in that order.
The requests were similar too.
Goblin clearances, outer patrols, the occasional cave.
Similar didn't mean boring.
The three of us had settled into a real rhythm. Kaya spotted the gaps, Mari opened the path, and I slipped into the space between. A short fight wasn't anything special anymore.
The speed we pressed with, the speed we finished with—both were much faster than before. All three of us could feel it. The things we were facing now weren't walls anymore.
Then one day it happened.
Two standard goblins and one warrior-type burst out of the brush. I took the warrior's head, and Mari's fire roasted the other two.
I thought it was over. I flicked the blood from my blade and started to catch my breath—
From low on the left, a shadow leapt up.
"Siyun!"
My body twisted before Kaya's voice even finished.
A rusted blade came in like it meant to dig into my lower abdomen.
Whoosh!
I slipped past it by a hair. The sensation of cloth being scraped stayed sharp on my skin.
I kicked the thing in the chest on pure reflex and drove my sword straight through.
Thud!
The goblin hit the ground with a hole through its skull.
For a moment my breath locked in my throat.
My heart was hammering. My hands were clenched white. The body was honest about these things.
...That was close.
One beat later and it might have been a real critical wound.
Roy came to mind unbidden.
Ah. So that's how he got hit.
The goblins weren't the problem. Complacency was.
Kaya reached me first.
"Siyun, are you okay?"
"...Yeah. It didn't land."
"That was dangerous."
Mari nudged the corpse with her toe without a word. Her face had gone hard.
"Almost got unlucky there."
I looked down at the thing sprawled on the ground. The tension still hadn't left my fingertips.
"I get now why Roy hyung got hurt so badly."
"Yeah. Letting your guard down is the most dangerous part."
I let out a slow breath.
The forest never only came at you from the front.
Even so, goblins weren't a match for us anymore.
Slaughter was the right word for it.
That feeling got sharper every time we returned to the guild for settlement.
The feeling of having grown.
Luce flipped through the ledger and read out our pay. Mana Stone bonuses stacked on top, and silver and copper coins spilled into our hands.
I dropped them into a leather pouch and gave it a little shake, and the coins rolled with a soft clink.
That sound was good.
Before, the first thing I'd felt was relief at surviving the day. Not anymore. Today we'd earned well, and that weight was stacking into something real.
Luce noticed.
"Is it that nice?"
"Ah, was it that obvious?"
"Pfft... a little."
She smiled and tapped the ledger once with her finger. Her eyes moved slowly over the three of us.
"What do you all do on your days off?"
Kaya spoke first.
"I help out at the sanctuary a bit, or read."
"That sounds just like you, Kaya."
Mari folded her arms and said flatly,
"I just rest."
"Is that all?"
"Yeah. That's all."
Luce laughed softly.
"That sounds just like you, Mari."
Then her gaze landed on me.
"What about you, Siyun?"
"Me? Well... I help at the healing sanctuary a little, maintain my gear, take walks, that kind of thing?"
Luce's eyes widened slightly.
"You rest more productively than I expected."
"Uh... do I?"
Mari snorted.
"That one can't sit still."
"I can so."
Kaya smiled too.
"She's not wrong, though."
Luce said with a laugh,
"I like browsing the general store or the bakery. Sometimes I walk somewhere quiet for a bit."
"Oh."
A smile escaped me without meaning to.
"That sounds so very Luce."
"What does?"
"Like you rest in a neat, tidy way, I guess?"
Luce paused a beat, then laughed.
"That's the first time I've heard that."
"It's a compliment~"
Beside me, Mari gave a short snort of laughter.
Luce turned another page of the ledger and added lightly,
"If our days off line up next time, I'll show you somewhere good to eat."
The second the words left her mouth, her eyes dropped back to the ledger.
I pretended not to notice and smiled.
"I'll look forward to it."
Mari narrowed her eyes. Kaya just smiled without a word.
The moment we stepped out of the guild, Mari shot me a sideways look.
"What. Why that face again."
"What face."
I grinned and looked at her.
"Something bugging you, Miss Mari?"
Mari snapped,
"...Shut up."
Kaya laughed without a sound.
My steps felt strangely light.
Every time I stopped by the healing sanctuary, Roy's condition was clearly different.
When I opened the door, he was standing by the window, slowly rolling his shoulders.
Arms stretching forward and back, wrists flexing as he pushed his fingers toward the ceiling—a routine worn deep into the body.
The moment I saw it, a thought popped out unbidden.
Damn... the man's built like a mountain.
It was a whole different dimension from when he'd been lying down. Roy on his feet and moving was simply overwhelming. Shoulders, forearms, the way the muscle turned.
"You're here."
He said it while still rolling his shoulder.
"Yes! Hyung, you're looking so much better."
"Yeah."
"Does that mean you're almost ready to come back?"
"Don't rush it."
"But hyung, you're moving just fine right now."
Only then did Roy drop his arm and give a short snort of a laugh.
"Moving and fighting aren't the same thing."
"Well... that's fair."
I grinned.
"Still. A four-man party with Roy hyung... honestly, I'm looking forward to it."
The corner of his mouth lifted.
"Soon enough."
That one line was enough.
Time kept moving after that.
Mornings with Garen, afternoons in the forest, evenings with coins. That was a day.
Bresen wasn't a strange town anymore. It was just the place I lived.
But somewhere in the middle of that familiarity, something started catching my eye more and more.
Magic.
Mari's magic, specifically.
At first I only thought it was cool.
When she floated a light in a dark cave, when she herded goblins with flame, when she sealed a passage with a wall of fire, when she cleaned the whole mess up with a single ember.
After watching it enough times, my gaze kept drifting that way.
In the middle of a fight. On the walk back. Even while we settled our pay.
Even with my eyes closed, the fire stayed behind my lids.
I haven't class-changed yet. Doesn't that mean I can learn magic too? Ah, but I already decided to learn Aura... damn it!
I'd considered Holy Power as well, but that was different. It was a power close to faith—you didn't just shout "I believe!" and have it plug straight in.
In the end it was Aura or magic.
The sword was something the body remembered. Getting hit and enduring, enduring and fixing your stance, driving it into yourself little by little.
The kind of power you stacked up by taking Garen's hits every morning.
But magic—
Click.
And it just came out.
Flame bloomed at the fingertips, sealed the path, changed the whole shape of a fight. It was a different dimension from the sword.
One day, on the way back from the forest, Mari floated a small flame on her fingertip and lightly scorched the edge of a bush.
A goblin startled and burst out—and I stared at the flame longer than at the goblin.
Mari glanced at me.
"What."
"...Huh? What?"
"Why are you zoning out staring at that."
"Just... magic."
"Lame."
She said it and flicked her fingers.
Whoosh!
The flame vanished in an instant.
That brief scene wouldn't leave my head.
That night, lying in my room, it still circled through my mind.
The sword was good. I wanted to learn Aura too. But now magic as well...
That sensation of the world changing at a single fingertip.
Light, flame, the flow of a fight.
I genuinely longed for it.
I stared blankly at the ceiling and let out a slow breath.
...I'm screwed. I want to click too.