Elven Liquor (2)
Elven Liquor.
A miraculous draught that, with a single sip, could shatter the limits of the mana one had been born with.
An exclusive elven art, conceived long ago by their ancestors for the prosperity of their race and handed down through the generations.
Yet as far as Ilia knew, it was this very Elven Liquor that had doomed the forest elves to ruin.
How bitterly ironic that was.
Ilia had always thought so. That was why she had resolved to cast off this heavy burden at the first opportunity that came her way.
I never imagined that day would be today.
Her eyes met those of the boy still mid-incantation. Ilia smiled brightly; Roy hurriedly averted his gaze as if the whole thing were somehow absurd.
What's with that ajumma? Wait—grandmother? She's got to be over a hundred. The way she's looking at me is weird… Don't tell me she's after me next, after the baron? Ugh, creepy. I need to be careful.
He let his imagination run wild for a moment.
More importantly, this spell…
Roy was astonished to realize that every word of the incantation he was memorizing was cast in the elven tongue.
So that was why. The reason I never heard of it back then…
In his previous life Roy had never once heard of Dragon's Breath—or Elven Liquor. Perhaps because it had been the exclusive secret of the elves who hid themselves away in the forests.
Then what on earth happened in the meantime for it to become so widely known?
In the roughly nine hundred to a thousand years between his death and reincarnation, what could possibly have occurred for even the baron, Geren, and ordinary commoners to all know about Dragon's Breath? The question burned in him.
Roy spoke to the witch who had been smiling at him the whole time.
"Um…"
"What is it? Is there a difficult part?"
"No. I've already memorized it all."
"……!"
"No way…"
Lily, who had been chanting beside him, immediately crumpled into a pout at the news that Roy had finished before her. She had barely managed half.
Lily was frantic.
A boy younger than herself had already finished the entire incantation, while she herself had barely reached the halfway mark. Was there anything more humiliating?
She had never once, in all her life, lost to anyone. Of course she was climbing the walls.
Anxiety scrambled her thoughts; even the lines she had already learned refused to come. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes.
While Lily scrambled through the chant, Roy and the witch exchanged words. Finishing first did not mean he could simply skip ahead to the next step, after all.
"So the water from that place really is that effective."
Roy asked the witch how she had produced the intermediate-grade mana solution. The secret, it turned out, lay in the mana spring Lily had fallen into. Its waters produced an effect similar to monster blood.
"Not quite. Matching the concentration you want still takes several rounds of refinement. Still easier than hunting down ogre blood, I suppose."
"The herbs make sense—Illusion Grass is everywhere around here. But how did you get the mana stones?"
"The quality of the Illusion Grass is high enough that even lower-grade stones will neutralize properly. You still need stones from at least an orc giant, a troll, or a two-headed hound. And any shortfall in mana I have to pour in myself during the brewing. It takes longer than you'd think. How does your master make it?"
"Four years ago we brought down an ogre and collected a huge amount of its blood."
"You're still using that? Ogre blood spoils in a fortnight at best."
"Which is why we stayed up all night turning it into solution on the spot. I thought my back was going to snap."
"Boy. Weren't you seven then?"
"That was Master. I only helped from the side."
"I see…"
Roy was genuinely pleased to have found someone he could actually talk shop with. It left him a little unguarded. It had absolutely nothing to do with Ilia's beauty—so the boy insisted to himself.
"So the denser the mana concentration the closer you get to the heart of a mana vein, then?"
"That's right. I'm surprised a child like you knows so much about mana veins. Humans can walk right up to one and feel nothing. Don't tell me you aren't human?"
"Does that mean you can sense them because you aren't human, Witch?"
"……"
"Ah—sorry. That was a slip of the tongue."
Ilia looked straight into Roy's eyes. From his side it felt as if she were trying to read something out of his pupils with the weight of all her years.
"You already knew, didn't you? Quite the little fox for someone so young."
"A mage's life depends on reading the room."
"How did you know?"
"Well… anyone would get suspicious if you walk around with that strange thing pulled over your head. Covering just the ears would look better, don't you think?"
"That isn't what I meant. How did you know I was an elf? I could have been a beastfolk."
Roy decided this was a good moment to score a few points. He was already receiving precious instruction; a little repayment couldn't hurt.
"Because the moment you see a face that dazzlingly beautiful, no matter how odd the thing covering it, you simply know it's an elf. I suspected it from the first time we met. In every story ever written, elves are the very emblem of purity and beauty."
"……"
"……"
Ilia fell silent. So did Lily behind them, who had been muttering the chant under her breath. Roy glanced back and forth between the two women, wondering what he had done wrong.
The witch stared at him with wide eyes for a long moment before her mouth finally opened, a beat late.
"You take after Clive in that regard. No—you're even worse."
"What? Don't tell me Father also—"
"Heh. You're headed for the Knight Academy soon, aren't you? Any number of noble young ladies are going to lose sleep over you."
"That's a compliment, right?"
"It's a warning. What will you do if some high-ranking noble daughter who looks like a goblin or an orc decides she simply must have you and throws a tantrum?"
"Excuse me?"
Roy vowed then and there never again to let his tongue run free.
Behind him, Lily sat with her back turned, face and even the tips of her ears flushed scarlet, pretending to recite the spell.
Roy and Lily each took a small stick and stirred the empty air.
Memorizing the chant was one thing; neither of them had any practical experience, so they could hardly be trusted with the actual brewing. Both accepted the arrangement without complaint. Considering the value of the materials they had gathered, it was only sensible. If a mistake ruined the batch, the person who would explode loudest would be Roy himself.
The witch demonstrated while focusing every scrap of her attention. The pale mana solution mixed with water began to bubble gently in the pot. One by one the already-processed ingredients plopped into the simmering liquid.
"There—everything's in. Next, take the unicorn horn and…"
She closed her right hand around the unicorn's golden horn and plunged its sharp tip into the boiling pot, stirring in slow, deliberate circles.
"Um…"
"Hm?"
"Before you begin the chant, may I summon a spirit?"
"A spirit?"
"Yes. It shouldn't cause any trouble. I won't call the whole thing—just the eyes."
"Call the eyes?"
"With a spirit's eyes I can read the flow of mana. I want a clear look at what's happening inside the pot while you chant."
"Hmm. Very well. This brew is for you to drink anyway. I trust you won't try anything foolish."
Roy did not activate the Gold Eyes at once. He had no idea how it would look to the witch. He planned to call them only after the chant began.
"Watch carefully. These materials aren't something you can gather every day, so even a single practice run is hard to come by. Memorize everything at once while you have the chance."
"Yes."
"Yes, Witch!"
The witch began her incantation. Roy immediately triggered the Gold Eyes.
So this place is part of a mana vein as well.
The density of mana here, where the witch's house stood, was markedly higher than ordinary ground. Compared to the eastern forest Roy had visited it was the difference between a stream and the ocean, yet it was still more than enough to count as the outer fringe of a vast mana vein.
He shifted his gaze at once to the witch and the pot boiling before her.
Mana inside her body swirled and poured toward her right hand. As he had seen in the forest, the unicorn horn—itself a mass of astonishing mana density—mixed with the witch's power and traced a precise pattern. The influence of the chant she was speaking, no doubt.
Into the pot, already nothing less than a colossal knot of mana, her power was drawn without end.
Not something just anyone could copy.
This was the first magic the witch had used since waking that morning. The quantity of mana Roy had first sensed when he opened the Gold Eyes was therefore nearly the full measure of her capacity.
More than me… I only just managed to outpace the baron, and now this. The world really is wide.
It was startling. Anyone who possessed a secret technique of that caliber probably needed mana on that scale. That much power, plus a lifespan several times longer than a human's—Roy found himself suddenly, fiercely envious of the witch.
But if he drank the liquor now taking shape?
Then there was no telling what might become possible.
He watched every motion of her hands, determined not to miss a single step, determined to burn the entire process into memory.
Once I know the method…
He might gather materials from another mana vein and brew a fresh batch of Dragon's Breath. Or, using the elven chant itself, he might create an original version of Dragon's Breath that belonged to him alone.
This is getting exciting. If things go well, I might even surpass the mana of the royal bloodline itself…
That was still a distant future. The road would not be easy.
Still—having hope at all is something.