The Fruxiger Hunt
Crunch— crunch—
A livestock barn lay shattered under some tremendous force. Five monsters, the ones presumed to have wrecked it, were tearing into the carcasses of the dead animals.
Each stood over two meters tall, with three razor-sharp claws on every limb, a chitinous shell, no eyes or nose, and a face whose lower half was nothing but a maw packed with jagged teeth.
"Fruk?"
One of them, happily stripping soft, easy meat far more convenient than anything found in the mountains, seemed to sense something. It lifted a face plastered with blood, flesh, and scraps of viscera.
"Now!"
Clang-clang-clang-clang-clang-clang-clang!!
The mercenaries who had been closing in slowly, surrounding the monsters, broke into a run and began hammering the hunks of metal they carried with wild abandon.
"Prararararak!"
The sound was far sharper than ordinary noise. The monsters clamped their palms over the holes at their temples—what passed for ears—and writhed in agony.
At the same moment the ground twisted, and thick brown roots erupted upward, wrapping around the creatures.
Lacking eyes and noses, the monsters had other senses developed to compensate. They noticed the disturbance in the earth and scattered in a frantic scramble.
But two of them, still reeling from the ear-splitting metal racket, reacted too late and were tangled fast in the roots.
The trapped monsters conjured green flames in their palms and began tearing the roots free.
"All units, charge!"
"Keep hammering! Focus only on your own role!"
For all their vicious appearance, these monsters would turn and flee without a second glance the moment they sensed an enemy force that vastly outnumbered them.
So the mercenaries who had been waiting at a distance, ready to let the metal-bearers get as close as possible, surged forward at Lillian and Frederick's command.
"Fruka! Fruka!!"
The monsters felt the vibration of the Wolf Mercenary Corps charging in and tried to bolt for the mountains in a panic—
Thud! Clatter-rattle-rattle!
—but bones dropped from the sky and formed a massive barrier, sealing off their escape.
The mercenaries finished the root-bound monsters first, then closed ranks and rushed the remaining ones.
A few kept hammering metal to torment the creatures' hearing while the rest stuck strictly to their assigned roles of attack and defense.
When the close-combat fighters pressed in and the monsters' resistance grew fierce, the spear-wielders did not stab so much as shove, driving the beasts back.
"Prakaaaah!"
Their chitinous shells cracked open and blue blood began to flow. Realizing that half-measures would only get them killed, the monsters lunged in with raw aggression.
Green flames roared to life in their hands as they launched a furious assault.
Crack-sizzle!
Just as they tried to seize the offensive with that venomous fire, arrows rained down from above, burying themselves in heads, shoulders, and backs.
"Frrrrrrrrruk!!"
Turned into porcupines by the lightning-aspected arrows, the monsters convulsed and went briefly rigid under the electric shock.
"Out of the way!"
Lillian and Frederick seized the opening, swinging mana-charged blades in a single fluid motion that took the monsters' heads clean off—and with that, the subjugation was complete.
"Yes!"
"We did it!"
"Strip the Fruxigers! Be especially careful with the hands—don't damage them!"
Frederick issued the order to the mercenaries celebrating their relatively clean victory over such troublesome monsters.
A mercenary's victory was not finished until the spoils had been recovered.
"If we'd fought five Fruxigers the ordinary way, twenty or thirty of us would be dead by now."
"No kidding. Now I get why every major mercenary corps always keeps a mage on the roster."
Fruxigers were strong enough in their own right, but not so strong that sheer numbers couldn't overwhelm them the way they just had.
The problem came when they were cornered or driven into a frenzy—then those green flames appeared.
Fire laced with venom. A single scratch from those claws meant simultaneous poisoning and burns, a death of pure agony.
Burns were external wounds; potions could handle them somehow. The poison, though—if it wasn't purged within a day, the victim would cough up blood and die.
Even with the Fruxigers' weaknesses and numerical superiority fully exploited, two factors had made this fight so clean.
The mercenaries who had newly learned the Mana Road, and Kaisent, who had fully settled into his place as the corps' mage.
"Kaisent! Make this box cold!"
"Yes, coming!"
At Frederick's call, Kaisent—who had been keeping watch from the treetops with the other archers—came scampering over.
He placed a metal object imbued with cold-attribute magic inside the iron box to chill it, then stored the Fruxiger hands within.
Those hands, which vented venomous flame, were Expert-rank crystal materials and sold for a handsome price.
"Hahahaha! Did you see that?! I slammed that Fruxiger right in the gut like this—!"
"Hey! If you've got breath to brag, help strip these things!"
A few of the mercenaries were swaggering, flushed with how much stronger the Mana Road had made them.
Watching them, Frederick and Lillian exchanged a look and nodded.
It's about time.
It can't be helped. Sooner or later it was going to happen.
Two weeks had passed since the Halrot Kingdom's civil war ended in the Second Prince's victory.
With the eyes that had been fixed on the war now free to look elsewhere, the Wolf Mercenary Corps had rapidly gained renown.
Outside of special circumstances like civil wars, mercenaries spent far more time fighting monsters than men.
In particular, producing this world's most vital resource—Prana Crystals—required the corpses of countless monsters.
Crafting them was never a guaranteed success, and consuming a crystal did not automatically raise one's rank.
So the world was always short of crystals, and mercenaries were indispensable for supplying the raw materials.
In that climate, a corps that fielded an outstanding mage and a large number of mercenaries trained in the Mana Road was exactly what people hunting for the next big story after the civil war wanted to hear about.
"Confirmed. Fruxiger hands."
Lillian's party had come to the Alchemists' Guild in the city to sell them.
Normally Frederick or Lillian would have come with a few porters, but today Kaisent was with them.
The guild alchemist handed over a pouch heavy with gold coins, and the transaction was done.
Outside again, Lillian looked at Kaisent and began a conversation with her eyes alone.
Any harvest?
No. Not even a crack a bug could slip through.
Of course not. An alchemist's crystal refinement is the most closely guarded secret there is.
Kaisent had wanted to learn how crystals were made, so he had followed Lillian and tried to send insects into the guild's interior.
But they had clearly been hit with this kind of spying before; he found no way for a bug to get inside.
I really wanted to know how they make those crystals…
If they could produce crystals themselves, Lillian would be able to expand the corps dramatically.
For Kaisent, who hungered for every scrap of knowledge he could get, the method of crafting Prana Crystals was the most tantalizing secret of all.
"Ow!"
Just then a man whose face and upper body were hidden by a rough robe collided with Kaisent.
"Ah—s-sorry."
The man had a boy with him, smaller than Kaisent, and after a hurried apology the two moved off at a rapid clip.
A small gust of wind shifted the boy's covering and briefly revealed his face.
In the eyes of that boy his own age—who seemed to be following blindly, not knowing what else to do—Kaisent saw pure terror.
"What was that? Looked like they were being chased."
"Want us to grab them, Captain?"
The mercenaries eyed the pair, who clearly did not want anyone noticing them, and asked whether to pounce.
"Idiots. Why stick your nose into something that doesn't pay? Look at the clothes—otherworlders from twenty-first-century Earth. You want to get mixed up with twenty-first-century types who are on the run?"
"Ah…"
"Yeah, that's…"
Lillian's scolding, after she had spotted jeans and a jacket under the robes, shut the mercenaries up at once.
Otherworlders from twenty-first-century Earth were the sort of people you were better off not getting involved with, for any number of reasons.
That man had guns strapped to his back and waist.
A twenty-first-century Earthling, armed with firearms, moving like a fugitive.
It wasn't the disorientation of a new environment so much as the urgency of someone fleeing something terrifying.
Having confirmed the gun barrels poking out from under the robe, Kaisent found himself staring after the direction they had vanished—struck by the image of people running even though they carried guns.
"Oh."
Something else caught his eye: a shop whose sign advertised various magic items for sale.
"Wolf. Wolf. Can I stop in there for just a minute?"
"A magic item shop? In a town this small you won't find much worth buying."
"I still want to look."
Any other mercenary would have been told to go alone and been ignored.
But Kaisent absorbed knowledge of every kind with effortless ease. Even a backwater magic item shop might give him something he could grow from.
"The rest of you head back first."
"Honestly. Captain's always soft on Kaisent."
"Jealous? Then try being cute like him. Though even a legendary rejuvenation potion probably couldn't fix that face."
"You fucking Kenneth-level ass-kisser."
"Hey! Kaisent! If the Captain starts eyeing your ass, chop his dick off and run to another corps!"
"If you lot hit the tavern first, I'll start by chopping your dicks off. Consider yourselves warned."
Lillian and the mercenaries who had spent years together traded the barbs without real malice and parted ways.
The two of them headed for the magic item shop.
Ting~
"Come on in."
The door opened with a chime even though there was no bell—announcing that this was a place that dealt in magic items.
Inside, a half-elf mage with a bored expression stood among several decorative suits of armor holding swords.
Those armors have mana in them. They're not ordinary decorations.
Just as Kaisent suspected, the armors were effectively the shop's security.
"Whoa, cool."
He scampered over like a clueless child and touched one.
"Careful, kid. Those are security golems. Hit them with more force than necessary and they'll activate."
"Yes, sir~"
Answering the half-elf proprietor's warning with pure innocence, Kaisent began examining the armor's interior.
Mana circuits etched inside, and a mana orb that looks like an engine. If I hold on too long he'll get suspicious…
He activated his bio-device—synced to his eyes and brain, visible only to him, and not magic, so no one else's gaze was a concern.
Then, on a three-dimensional sketchpad that responded to thought alone, he copied every mana circuit carved into the armor, saved it, and let go.
Elapsed time: 4.7 seconds.
Judging by the clothes, a mercenary. His kid, maybe?
The half-elf proprietor tilted his head at the mismatched pair—an innocent-looking Kaisent and Lillian, who radiated the rough air of a hardened mercenary.
Kaisent went on checking one magic item after another, recording everything he could get his hands on.
It might seem useless now, but someday it could matter.
As things stand, I can't use most of these myself.
Nearly every magic item was inscribed with its own unique mana circuit—a magic array.
Kaisent did not know how to etch those circuits, nor how to craft the mana orbs that served as their fuel.
Conversely, once he learned those things, he would be able to use every magic item here.
"Hm? What's this?"
As he went from item to item, touching and examining, Kaisent found a row of translucent boxes.
Names were written in front of each—every one of them the name of a spell.
"Those are boxes with magic scrolls inside. Unroll one and the spell activates."
The simple activation method meant customers were not allowed to handle them freely; the translucent boxes let you look but not touch.
The shopkeeper could open them from behind the counter.
Wait. With these, couldn't I learn magic easily?
Magic books in this world were expensive beyond imagination.
Learning a single spell cost several gold coins at minimum; specialized grimoires ran to dozens or hundreds.
And the higher the level, the steeper the markup—buy even one low-level magic book with the Wolf Mercenary Corps' funds and you would start fretting over the mercenaries' weekly pay.
Scrolls are still magic, so they're still expensive. But compared to buying actual grimoires…
Having never seen anyone use a scroll before, Kaisent had only just discovered they existed—and a new possibility opened before him.
If it's Kaisent, it might actually work!
Lillian saw the same possibility.
Years of living without much thought for magic had left her mind stiff; she had only realized it once they were standing in the shop.
The two of them locked eyes for a moment, conversed without words, and reached a silent agreement.
"A Repair Magic scroll? A spell that fixes things?"
"That's right. But there are limits. It only works on cracked objects, and each casting restores one cracked section."
Repair Magic was a classic money-maker for low-level mages.
Being able to fix a cracked weapon with no tools at all was a major advantage.
There was also Mage Hand—a transparent, remotely controlled hand that could move nearby objects.
Electric Grasp, a self-defense attack spell that generated electricity in the palm.
And Mage Armor, which formed a barrier in the shape of a suit of armor.
All of them would be a great help in combat and in keeping a mercenary corps running.
"A Messenger Magic scroll? A spell that sends whatever you want to say to someone else."
Kaisent asked the shopkeeper what Messenger Magic was.
At first the man had written them off as browsers and ignored them; once they started buying scrolls, he reclassified them as paying customers and turned polite.
"Messenger Magic? Do we really need that?"
It was the spell murim folk commonly called Sound Transmission—Message Magic.
In the murim, mages were rare or nonexistent, so martial artists often handled mage-like work themselves.
The plum-blossom fragrance that rose from the swords of the Mount Hua Sect, midair stepping, form-shifting displacement—those were examples.
Knights of Zelsdad and other fantasy worlds treated such things as "magic," limiting their own imagination and potential, and so could not use them.
"Well… for when you need to pass along something important you can't say out loud, it seems useful…"
"…Ah. Ahem. One Messenger Magic scroll as well."
Only then grasping what Kaisent was getting at, Lillian bought a Messenger Magic scroll too.
Every long-range attack spell is expensive. This much will do.
Every spell Kaisent purchased was low-level.
Lillian said they could buy more expensive and varied scrolls if he wanted, but Kaisent shook his head.
If I lean on Lillian, it's simple. But then Frederick would start to suspect.
He did not want Frederick's suspicion yet.
Not until he was stronger than Lillian—strong enough to claim her as his own without hesitation.