Astrania-1337
The dry bread was tougher than I'd expected, and the jerky saltier.
I sat roughly against a tree root and chewed the bread. More vivid than the crumbling taste in my mouth was the gray sensation still lingering at my fingertips.
Roy chewed his jerky in silence, scanning the depths of the forest.
Mari kept glancing at my fingertips even after a sip of water, and Kaya kept checking on me even while holding her bread.
"Are you sure you're okay?"
"Come on, I told you I'm fine."
"You used both at the same time earlier."
"Hmm... maybe that's why. Weirdly enough, I feel even better."
Kaya's brow furrowed just a little.
That was when it happened.
The wind stopped.
At first I thought it was nothing. Forests go quiet sometimes. But this wasn't that.
The leaves stopped. The insect sounds cut off. Even the birdsong from far away vanished in an instant.
The forest hadn't gone quiet.
It was holding its breath.
Roy slowly set down his jerky.
"Get ready."
Mari swallowed a short curse and loosened her fingers. Kaya set down her bread at once and gathered Holy Power at her fingertips.
Black shadows emerged one by one from between the trees.
Four in front.
Three on the left.
Three on the right.
Two circling low behind us.
Twelve in total.
The Blackfangs had already surrounded us.
"Stick together."
Roy's voice dropped low.
"Mari, left. Kaya, rear. Siyun."
"Yes."
"Don't charge out first. Let's check your magic a bit more."
Mari stepped half a pace closer to me as if she'd been waiting.
"Don't kill them. Bind them."
"Bind them?"
"Just their movement. Don't force power in—press it down. Like folding something thin."
Easy to say. But strangely, it felt possible.
I slowly raised my left hand.
The forest's mana gathered at my fingertips. The Celestial Heart spun quietly at the center, and the circles oriented outside it.
One of the Blackfangs in front leapt low.
I watched where its forepaws would land.
Now.
Ice surged up.
Crack!
Its ankles wrapped in ice and its body slammed face-first into the ground.
But the magic flared larger than needed. I'd meant to bind only the ankles, yet it dragged up soil and hardened into a small ice chunk.
Mari said immediately,
"Too much."
"Ah."
"Don't smash mana in—press it. Thinly. Only where you need it."
"Thinly..."
I drew a short breath.
A second one dug in from the left.
This time I looked more precisely.
Its ankle. Below the anklebone. The point of purchase. Only there.
Ice wound low like a snake. The moment the Blackfang tried to leap, its foot locked. Its body twisted in midair and tumbled sideways.
Roy didn't miss the opening.
His sword swept low, and the Blackfang's neck split open.
Mari's mouth stopped for just a moment.
"......Did you just fix that right away?"
"You told me to do it that way."
"Saying it doesn't mean it just works, you know?"
"...But it did?"
"..."
She said that, but Mari's eyes were seeing something else entirely.
My fingertips. Where the ice had risen. The direction the mana had flowed.
She was analyzing every scrap of it with an irritated face.
Meanwhile, two more dug in from the right at once.
Mari flicked her fingertips short.
Two small fireballs shot out. Not big flames.
They burst right in front of the beasts' eyes.
Bang!
The Blackfangs squinted against the sudden light and lost speed.
In that instant, I pressed my fingertips to the ground.
Low, sharp ice spikes rose under their feet.
One staggered as its foot was pierced. The other misstepped and tumbled forward.
Roy was already moving. Aura flowed from his sword tip. No flash. Just quietly, the two fell one after another.
Then Kaya's voice burst from behind.
"Close your eyes!"
I narrowed my eyes on reflex.
In that instant, white light tore through the forest.
Holy Power erupted from Kaya's fingertips. Like a flashbang.
It was bright. Not hot, but a light that whitened even the insides of my eyelids.
The two Blackfangs circling behind staggered.
Roy and Mari turned their heads with familiarity. I read their movements just before the light faded.
Blinded, they dodge.
To dodge, they jump.
To jump, they plant their feet.
I froze the spots they would land first.
Shhhhhcrack!
Low, sharp ice spikes shattered the soil and surged up.
Not one.
Spikes carpeted every path they were likely to take.
One Blackfang staggered sideways as its foot was stabbed; the other leapt and lost its landing, falling over.
Kaya didn't miss the opening.
A thin, sharp white light stretched from her fingertips. The light of Holy Power pierced the staggered Blackfang's side.
The second one fell to Roy's blade before Kaya could even use Holy Power again.
The two remaining in front dug in at once.
While I froze one with my left hand, my right-hand sword struck the other's flank. Gray light burst short and it fell.
The Blackfang bound by magic was Roy's.
The last one burst from the underbrush.
Mari flicked a short flame to block its vision, and I froze the ground under its feet.
When it staggered, Roy's Aura severed its nape.
The Blackfang fell without a sound.
All twelve.
I'd thought there were a lot, but it didn't take long.
When the last one fell, silence settled over the forest again.
This time it wasn't the silence of held breath. It was the silence the dead had made.
Roy shook off his sword. His breathing wasn't disordered, but his shoulders looked a little heavier. Mari frowned with her hands lowered, and Kaya clenched and unclenched her fingertips once.
I felt nothing. That was what felt strange.
"But..."
All three looked at me.
"You all look pretty worn out."
Mari made an incredulous face.
"Of course we do. We just fought."
"That's true, but..."
I looked down at my hands.
"Aura, magic, and Holy Power—are the ways you use them all different? And recovering them too?"
Roy nodded.
"They're different. Not completely the same. Aura is power you store inside your body and draw out. It's similar to muscle. Use too much and it gets heavy; use it all up and your body stops listening."
He lightly tapped his sword hilt.
"Recovery isn't anything special. Eat well, sleep well, catch your breath, and don't let your body cool down. There's no quick way to refill Aura."
Mari continued after him.
"...Mages handle magic power through circles. You can pull in ambient mana, but weaving it into formulas and shaping it ultimately depends on your own circles."
She said that much and glanced at me.
"Use too much and the circles overheat. Headaches, dulled sensation in your fingertips, tangled magic flow. To recover, you have to meditate and sort the flow first. Proper sleep is needed too."
She crossed her arms.
"So it's not like just pouring water into a jug to fill magic power. If it were that simple, why would mages study?"
Kaya spoke a beat late.
"Holy Power... flows inside the body, but it's heavily influenced by heart and faith. If your faith or heart wavers, the flow of Holy Power wavers with it."
Kaya paused as if choosing her words, catching her breath.
"If you overdo it, the heart wears out before the body. To recover, you pray, catch your breath, and settle your mind."
I listened to the three of them and nodded.
They really were different.
Swordsman, mage, priest.
The way they used power, and the way they recovered it, all different.
But I...
"For me... even when I use Aura or magic, I barely feel anything being depleted."
Mari's eyes narrowed at once.
"...What?"
"To be precise, it does wear down. But the moment an empty space forms, ambient mana rushes right in. The mana in the forest comes into me, and from there it feels like it converts into Aura or magic."
For a moment no one spoke.
Roy muttered low.
"...Then your standard for exhaustion is different from ours."
Mari's eyes rather sparkled. Not in a good way.
"Looks like there'll be a lot more to experiment with."
Kaya was different.
"We still don't know if that really puts no burden on your body at all."
"Come on, that's what I'm checking."
"You can't collapse while checking."
"I'm not gonna collapse~"
"...I'm not joking."
When Kaya said that, I shut my mouth for no good reason.
Until the sun slanted low, we scoured the forest.
Blackfangs kept coming out.
Two, four, another three.
The trail kept going, and the leather pouch grew steadily heavier.
The more I fought, the faster my body responded.
Gray Aura wrapped my sword naturally. At my left fingertips, the magic I pictured in my head took form exactly as imagined.
It was going well.
Really, too well.
Around the time the sun had almost sunk beneath the forest shadows.
In the moment Roy turned, a single black shadow slid low.
It was different from the others. Far faster.
A shadow flowing as if stuck to the ground drove straight for Roy's side.
My body moved before I could think.
Left hand rose.
An ice spear formed.
Ambient mana was sucked in all at once. Too much. But before I could stop, the spear flew.
Crack!
The ice spear pierced the Blackfang's head.
In that moment, blue-white light burst from the spear tip.
Cracklecrackcrack—!
The space ahead froze solid.
Grass blades turned to blade-like frost, and blue ice flowers rose over tree roots. The soil surface cracked white, and sharp rime sprang up all at once over the Blackfang's fur.
That wasn't the end.
Three Blackfangs that had been stealthily approaching from beyond the underbrush froze solid just like that. Their forelegs wouldn't bend, as if frozen to the bone.
In mid-leap posture, fangs bared, mid-twist to the side.
All three stopped as if taxidermied in ice.
Crack—
A fissure opened across the chest of the nearest one.
Crack, cracck—
The crack spread along the ribs, and the three crumbled in turn.
Because the ice had dug in too deep, living bodies shattered as they were.
Cold slapped my face.
Shit... this is a bit much.
It had spread too far.
"Baek Siyun, rein it in!"
Mari's shout stabbed my ear.
I seized the Celestial Heart.
The more I tried to stop it, the more it pushed out larger. So I did the opposite. Turned the direction, pressed it down, reduced it, drew it back in.
Rotate.
Compress.
Recover.
The spreading cold snapped direction and pressed inward. Frost flowers tried to bloom once more and stopped.
"Hwaaah..."
I exhaled the breath I'd held too long.
Belatedly my heart thudded hard.
Roy was looking at me.
"Was that intentional just now."
"...No."
"Then you'll need to be more careful."
Roy's words were short, and so they lingered longer.
Mari looked down at the frozen ground and said low.
"You tried to kill one and froze four solid. In a way I've never seen."
She lightly tapped one of the shattered ice statues with her toe.
"If the output spiked this much... when you get a proper grip on it, how far can you go."
Kaya's voice was cold.
"Next time it could catch us too."
I couldn't laugh.
"......Sorry."
Collecting the mana stones finished quietly.
The Celestial Heart still pinpointed mana stone locations clearly. Touch the sword tip and I knew right away where to cut.
But I wasn't excited like at noon. The sensation left in my fingertips made me think of danger before convenience.
Roy tied the mana stone pouch.
"Let's wrap it up here for today."
No one objected.
When we returned to Bresen, the sun had already set.
Lamps were lit inside the guild. Adventurers chattered in low voices, and inside the reception desk Luce was organizing the ledgers.
We untied the mana stone pouch and set them one by one on the reception desk.
Thud. Thud. Thud...
The heavy sounds continued for a while.
Luce looked at the mana stones and her eyes widened a little.
"...You handled all of these today?"
Mari stood leaning against the wall with a tired face.
"Haa... the most annoying part is that only that guy is fine."
"I'm a bit tired mentally too, you know."
"Then get tired physically too."
"Don't wanna."
Luce lowered her eyes once and flipped through the ledger.
The settlement didn't take long. The Blackfang mana stones were sorted one by one, and the quest completion stamp was pressed.
"Thirty-four Blackfang mana stones. Including the base reward, total is twenty-two silver and four copper. That's five silver and seven copper per person."
Five silver and seven copper.
Thinking of it as a day's earnings, it was an absurd amount.
Inside my pouch were also the coins I'd been saving little by little.
Together, eighteen silver and seven copper.
Luce held out the settlement slip and coins.
"Good work."
The three went out of the guild first.
Only Luce and I remained for a moment.
Even after closing the ledger, Luce didn't raise her head right away. Under the lamp, the tips of her ears were a little red.
Playfulness rose for no reason and I winked one eye short.
Luce's hand stopped.
"......You'll get caught doing that."
Her voice was small.
I swallowed a laugh and said,
"Good work, Luce."
Luce's gaze brushed me once, then fell back to the ledger.
"...Good work, Siyun."
A voice so small it was almost inaudible. For just a moment, it wasn't polite speech.
What lingered longest that day was, in the end, that small phrase.