Mud Troll
Mud Troll
Magic came in two branches.
One was simply called magic. The other was wild magic.
The one named as though it were the default lived up to the label in its plainness, starting with how it was cast.
Ordinary magic had formulas.
Incantations and hand seals were used to shape those formulas, manifest them, and refine raw mana into a controlled effect.
If magic were cooking, standard spellcraft was a recipe.
The other kind—
Wild magic had no formulas.
It manifested in its most primal form, raw and unstructured. Magic that leaned excessively on the caster's five senses.
Where ordinary magic was calculated and logical, wild magic was almost entirely intuitive.
As a result, even those born with the gift often failed to wield it. Pouring in the same mana never produced the same efficiency as a proper spell.
Its mana economy was poor, its effective range limited, and complex layered effects were impossible.
But it was never shackled to incantations or hand seals.
The strength of wild magic lay in its overwhelming casting speed and the auxiliary utility that came from that simplicity.
For Aslan, who favored close-quarters combat, it was an almost ideal tool.
Feeling the mana course through his body, Aslan launched himself forward.
Shaaaak!
The white-furred troll thrust out a foreleg to meet him.
A hideous natural weapon, tipped with several knife-like claws.
Aslan watched the limb come and raised his blade.
Clang!
Claws struck steel and glanced off. The creature let out a short cry, staggering.
That attack was not something Aslan should have been able to block. The White-haired Chrome outweighed him several times over.
A downward blow with all that mass behind it was not meant to be received head-on. Normally, it would have to be evaded.
But Aslan received it. At the moment of impact, he used what little mana he possessed to reinforce his muscles and deflect.
The sudden spike in strength shoved the monster off-balance, and Aslan swung his sword.
Schwack!
The blade bit across the white-furred chest and kept going. A cut that looked shallow—barely more than the tip slicing in—tore away a shocking chunk of flesh.
Mana at work again. Aslan had poured power into the blade mid-swing, jacking up its weight.
As the sword pulled back, the chest-torn monster dropped its stance.
Graaagh!
The beast screamed and lunged. Aslan merely extended a hand.
Whump!
An intangible force erupted from his open palm.
Not a damaging strike—a shoving force. The concussive wave caught the troll full in the face and snapped its head back. It toppled.
Crack!
As it fell, Aslan brought his mace around. He didn't even need to increase the weight. The heavy head buried itself in the troll's temple.
The creature pitched sideways and crashed onto its back. Monster or not, nothing simply walked off a blow that scrambled the brain.
While the dazed beast keened, Aslan flicked the blood from his mace.
He had invested exactly one point of mana.
With just that, the fight had become effortless. Even the casting had felt effortless.
The sensation of working wild magic was deeply familiar. The mana tattoo helped, but after twelve years of wielding it, familiarity was expected.
Wild magic came as naturally as breathing. Complex spellcraft might still be beyond him for now, but this—
*This is viable.*
Aslan had fought just fine without magic. Having even a modest set of support techniques in hand created a dramatic difference in efficiency.
What remained to test lay beyond efficiency. Aslan watched the staggering troll's body gradually fade toward transparency and let out a low "hm."
This was why the White-haired Chrome was a nuisance. Its camouflage ability—rendering its own fur and hide transparent for ambushes or escape.
Under other circumstances, he would have pressed the attack before the invisibility even mattered. He didn't.
Instead, he closed his eyes. Took a slow breath and let his weapons hang loose.
Luck was an unusual stat.
It boosted critical-hit rate, evasion, drop rate—a strangely meta attribute.
Aslan's working theory was that the Luck stat manifested through something like a sixth sense. An instinctive precognition that warned of attacks and guided evasion, that nudged a blade toward a more vulnerable or lethal spot mid-swing, that pointed toward the container most likely to hold something valuable.
He had come to understand it as a stat that expanded the realm of intuition.
Finding the camouflaged White-haired Chrome would serve as a verification of that theory.
Inhaling low, Aslan abruptly dropped his stance and turned his head.
Sssssht!
The troll's foreleg sliced past between his shoulder and neck. The wickedly curved claws swept through empty air, and Aslan felt the corner of his mouth curl upward.
A presence, faint as a whisper, had brushed past his awareness. The moment that dim sensation sharpened and thrust inward, he turned his head—and the attack slipped past.
Aslan hooked his arm around the troll's passing forelimb.
He reinforced his muscles with mana. The crushing weight bore down from his right arm through his entire upper body, but he could throw it.
"Hup!"
Breath clenched, Aslan seized the limb and hurled.
Boom!
The massive body slammed into the ground. The pinned monster shrieked. Still holding the foreleg, Aslan raised the mace.
Crunch!
The metal head smashed down and pulped an eye. Before the shriek had finished leaving its throat, the mace was falling again.
Bang. Bang. Bang. Crack!
He struck, and struck, and struck. With every blow, the creature's other foreleg twitched uncontrollably. The mace head let out a sudden sharp *tok*—and snapped.
A solid-metal mace, and it broke. Aslan released the pinned limb and gripped the broken haft in both hands, jagged end pointing down.
Crrrrk!
The splintered shaft punched through the eye socket, through the brain. The troll went limp without even a whimper.
Aslan watched transparent fur bleed slowly back to white, then red, and straightened.
Under normal circumstances, this would have been a grinding fight—nonstop pressure, possibly even consuming one of the spells sealed inside the tattoo.
But access to modest mana reserves and the ability to use wild magic had made it easy. A trivial opponent now.
Sliding his longsword into his belt, Aslan felt the certainty settle in.
He would be able to fight the priests to come on equal terms.
With that conviction, he gave a nod to the companions staring at him from behind, surprise written across their faces.
"For now, let's move."
No one argued.
They made their way out into the rain.
*
With a grating rattle, chains wound tight, and the iron gate began to rise.
It rose too slowly. Even with three men straining at the pulleys, anyone standing before that gate would have to wait an eternity before passing through.
How far would the Master of Combat get while they waited?
The impatience itched.
The lord finally shouted, "Put your backs into it! The Warrior Monk is waiting!"
His pressure made no difference. The guards hauling at the pulleys could only sweat and glance sideways—because the Warrior Monk, standing nearly three meters tall, had turned his glittering gaze on them.
The monk calculated the odds while staring at the gate and ran out of patience.
"Pardon me."
He seized the gate. The groaning pulleys stopped dead.
Grrrk. Grrk-grrrk.
Then he forced the gate upward with raw strength. Three guards who hadn't let go in time yelped and tangled together, toppling over.
The gate slid fully open, revealing the dark mine tunnel beyond.
"Do be careful."
The one who had opened it offered the mild reproach and stepped inside. The lord and spilled guards scrambled after him.
The Warrior Monk rested the butt of his large spear on the ground and canted his shield to clear the narrow passage.
"Should we bring torches—?"
"No need. My night eyes are sharp."
The monk's compound eyes gleamed with a dark luster. Looking at them, the lord swallowed and tried flattery.
"Ah, as expected of the War God's foremost blade! This paltry darkness is—"
"Not the foremost."
The monk answered offhand and advanced into the earthen tunnel. The lord and guards struggled to match his pace.
"There are many above me in the order, and the one called the Sword of the War God stands apart. I am merely an old man who narrowly avoided being seated last."
The words sounded like humility, but a faint undertone ran beneath them.
The lord knew the source of that sentiment and swallowed, his gaze drifting toward the bundle tied at the monk's waist.
A lumpen sack layered with the overlapping contours of heads.
Most of the heads inside belonged to warriors nowhere near mastery—let alone the rank of grandmaster.
A Warrior Monk who obsessively collected heads, seeking merit and advancement.
The oldest Warrior Monk still living.
People feared him and called him by name.
'The Collector...'
The aging monk advanced, knocking his spear against the stone floor with steady thuds.
He stopped before a heap of corpses.
Mud trolls—heads shattered, limbs severed.
The Collector studied them in silence, then reached out with the butt of his spear and turned one of the bodies.
"Hmmm. Hmmmm."
Humming low, he flipped the corpse, tracing the wound surfaces. At length, he spoke.
"Admirable work. From an unstable stance, right after a completed swing, he cut the collapsing monster's throat. A stroke worthy of a master's sword."
The lord could see none of that in the dark, but satisfaction rippled quietly through the Collector's voice.
"It is the Master of Combat, then. To my knowledge, only two living swordsmen can make a cut like this: the Master of the Sword and the Master of Combat. The Master of the Sword is in the Kingdom of Bida, so it must be Lord Aslan."
The Collector's mandibles clicked together, and he added, almost wistfully:
"Had you held him here, I might have offered him. But to lose a devout believer like you in the attempt would be my own failing. I cannot fault you."
The lord, who had been dreading a reprimand, exhaled and let a thread of hope seep back into his ashen face.
The Collector paid him no further mind. He drew back his spear and pressed on.
Every corpse they came across after that received a detailed appraisal—how efficiently it had been killed, how the death had been delivered.
The grim review stretched on until the tunnel opened into a broad chamber.
"Hmm?"
A chamber empty of corpses. The mine passages stretched away to either side, giving the place an oddly sterile, artificial feel.
The Collector stopped in the middle of the space, walked to its center, and knelt on one knee.
"They camped here. No fire. Seven or eight hours of rest, perhaps?"
Ignoring the sideways looks that asked how he could possibly know, the monk swept his compound eyes around the chamber.
Even on an insectoid face, the discomfort was readable.
"...Something troublesome lingers. An aura I have seen before."
He narrowed his eyes—an almost human gesture—and scanned the darkness. To the lord, it was simply a giant insect turning its head. He swallowed dryly.
The Collector saw an energy like finely ground rainbow powder drifting through the air.
It was somehow familiar, faint, yet intensely vivid.
The aura circled the campsite before stretching toward the tunnel ahead.
It reminded him of the presence he sensed when encountering another god's priest.
But it was a different shape from any priest he had ever met. Not uncanny in the same way. Familiar, as though it originated from the world itself.
The old monk, alive since the era when the gods first ascended to godhood, opened his eyes wide and murmured:
"...No. Could it be?"
After a long, still study, the Warrior Monk sprang upright, and the watching guards and lord nearly jumped out of their skins.
They received no soothing words. The Collector extended his spear and traced the path the aura had traveled.
'...This is the aura of an Ancient God.'
He hunched lower, reading the traces, then moved forward. The bewildered party followed.
The tunnel brightened as they advanced—the light increasing naturally as stone gave way to hints of sky. Grass tufts began to appear, and daylight filtered in. Through the shafts of light, the signs of the outdoors were unmistakable, and so was—
"...Ho."
A singular monster.
A mud troll with white fur. Dead, the broken haft of a mace still embedded in its skull.
The aura bypassed the corpse and led to the wide-open exit.
"...Does the Master of Combat keep companions?"
"Ah—yes. Four prisoners..."
Four.
The number hardly mattered. The monk was certain now.
The Master of Combat had fled Olpasbet in the company of something carrying the aura of an Ancient God.
Click-click-click-click.
The monk's mandibles scraped together as he laughed, a chilling sound.
"Thank you for the guidance."
Still grinding his jaw plates in mirth, the Warrior Monk leaped without further ceremony. He crashed through the tangled vines and launched himself through the hole in the cavern ceiling.
Under a clearing sky, wild animals bolted at the sudden appearance of the giant figure.
Ignoring the fleeing beasts, the Collector rummaged through his bundle, selected the head in the best condition, and offered it.
The crown of the skull caved inward and vanished into the air, and a will rang through the monk's mind.
At his master's bidding, the Warrior Monk knelt and spoke.
"Rejoice, O War God, Teacher of All. I have found a last descendant of the Ancient Gods."
The War God did not answer.
The Collector pressed his brow lower and added:
"Grant this unworthy one the strength to offer up that head."
Only then did the War God laugh, pleased.