The Path of Magic
After Michael had marked me as her own and departed, I began to dabble without hesitation in a category of skills that the prospective heroes of other tutorials rarely had the chance to experience: Magic.
While Choi Yujin, Kim Chaerin, and the others were participating in the Agramad Siege, I started learning that very technique—one that maybe ten out of 105 people would ever bother to pick up. If I had learned it too early, I would have risked the suspicion of, "Isn't this bastard a regressor?" So, while I continued to accumulate mana through sex, I had tried my best not to use it. But now, things were different.
Once the angels became aware that "prospective hero Yu Siwoo had obtained Goddess Points in the arena"—regarding the incident where I collapsed Chekhov's Arena—there was no longer any need to hide my strength. Blood Magic.
Estiel wouldn't go into detail since it was a matter involving Goddess Points, but she must have recorded it in her report like this: She didn't explain the reason. To be precise, she did write down the reason, but other angels wouldn't be able to view it. Didn't Michael herself hammer it home before leaving, saying, "It is something even an Archangel cannot view"?
Setting aside the issue of access rights to Goddess Points, many angels would likely be targeting me just because my name had spread as the one who ruined the arena. I figured there would even be angels who would argue it was "unfair" because the heroes they supported or cheered for showed performance significantly inferior to mine. Fortunately, that wasn't the case. Whether they were all too distracted, or perhaps because it was a matter concerning Goddess Points, I faced no external interference in honing my Blood Magic.
All that remained was to learn magic in Lampades. Although it was a city without vampires, so I couldn't learn Blood Magic directly, I read and re-read the grimoires available in Lampades as much as possible, mastering a few essential spells. I was able to learn several spells that could be considered the most vital for my future life as a hero. Spells I had thought about until my final moments during my ten years of hero life, thinking, "If I had walked the path of a mage, I absolutely should have learned at least this much."
Listing them one by one would give me a headache, so starting with the two spells I obtained here in Lampades—
[Water Splash]
Splosh.
As soon as I stirred my mana, a magic circle unfolded above my palm, and water surged up from it like a fountain. You could say it was about the amount of water in a small 200ml plastic bottle. It was a much smaller amount than that, but I was extremely satisfied to see the moisture in the air rapidly coalesce through magic to take the form of water droplets.
"Senior. Is that water drinkable?"
"No. Not yet. I just gathered the moisture from the air, so it's dirty and impure."
Shin Yuhee, who was watching my magic from the side, frowned as she stared at the water droplet, which was the size of a small plastic bottle. The red thread was still looped around her wrist like a fishing line, but since it wasn't exactly tied tightly, she just treated it like a simple rubber band and watched the magic I was using.
"Ugh."
Perhaps thanks to her training with Ernette, her eyesight seemed to have improved quite a bit; although it looked transparent on the outside, she seemed to have immediately grasped the various residues remaining inside the droplet.
"Then that... it would be a bit difficult to wash your body with it, right?"
"That's why I have to combine it with other magic. For instance... something like this. [Purification]."
Whoosh.
As a soft golden light shimmered from the magic circle that floated above my other hand, the water droplet was instantly frosted with gold, and the water began to become cleaner than before in a single stroke.
"Purification magic... is it removing impurities?"
"It's not in a state of complete distilled water. It's changing it into water that a human can drink. Just about the level of bottled water."
"...Even in Chekhov's Arena, getting water was all about money. In the shower room, there was even a limit on the amount of water..."
"That's right. I think the place we're going to be dropped into is a place where it's really difficult to get water. Have you ever gone camping or anything?"
"No. But I've experienced Chekhov's Arena."
"...You might end up wandering in an environment where it's even more extremely difficult to get water than that place. So, rather than wandering around drinking strange liquids, it would be better to gather and purify the moisture in the air using mana like this."
The Demon King's army are people who don't hesitate to poison wells. Even if they have to drink the water drawn from that well themselves, they don't care about the means or methods to eliminate humans. They once waged a war of attrition against a certain hero, and their strategy at that time was to make them unable to drink a single drop of water, trying to kill them by dehydration. How did I overcome that crisis back then? All my canteens and such had been destroyed, and in the end, I would bury my face in the neck of a demonic beast and drink its blood like water to quench my thirst.
...There's no need to talk about such desperate things.
"Shin Yuhee. You, can you go without washing?"
"No way."
So, I think it's enough to talk about it to a reasonable degree.
"Even when I was in the arena, I wanted to take a shower at least once a day. When I had some leeway later, I would wash it off with cold water right after sweating a bit..."
"And now?"
"I wash it off with hot water right away in the morning and evening. ...Ah."
She seemed to have thought of something.
"Come to think of it, it was really the worst when I was going around catching Orcs in the Orc colony."
"In what sense?"
"Everyone seemed to have given up on washing..."
It was truly unfortunate, but the Orc colony stage didn't have a good environment for people to wash their bodies. In the Agramad Siege, there would be public shower facilities for soldiers inside the castle, but where would there be a facility in a rural village being attacked by Orcs where you could wash your body properly? Unless you drew water from a well yourself and poured a bucket over your head, it would have been difficult to wash. Furthermore, 88 people had gathered in the base village, and there must have been a shortage of water to eat and drink, so could they have washed properly?
"Senior. Thinking about it, I think I lived cleaner than I thought thanks to you, Senior."
"Right? You and I were probably the only two out of 108 who lived hygienically."
"...We're not normal, right? We're unusual, right? They're the universal ones, right?"
"Of course. So isn't it good to learn magic like this?"
I caressed the water droplet with both hands and reached out toward Shin Yuhee.
"With this magic, even in the middle of nowhere, you'll at least be able to wash like this."
"Ugh..."
"Stay still. I'm practicing right now, too."
As soon as I swept across her face as if applying moisture cream, Shin Yuhee recoiled in disgust, but soon, as if she had no choice, she obediently tilted her head at the touch of my hands washing her.
"How is it?"
"Certainly... it definitely feels like I've washed my face."
Is it because she's just turned 20? Rather than feeling shy about showing her bare face to me, the look of surprise at the fact that she had washed her face with the power of magic was evident.
"Senior. This magic, couldn't we apply it later?"
"In what way?"
"Like spreading it over the whole body and peeling it off to wipe off the dirt on the body...?"
"That's a good idea. Still, if I'm going to use magic anyway, it would be a method to make a stream of water flow over the whole body to wash it off."
Although I couldn't learn it directly, and this magic doesn't exist here in Lampades, there is a magic that I benefited from usefully.
"Anyway, if you wash your body like this—"
"Wouldn't it be comfortable to wash your body after having sex?"
"......."
"Uh, Senior?"
"Certainly, that is true."
I dispelled the magic and burst the water droplet. Soon, the water droplet flowed down as a liquid with a 'pop' sound.
"Senior...."
Shin Yuhee narrowed her eyes at the stream of water flowing down between her cleavage, but I immediately lowered my head toward the water pooled in her cleavage.
Slurp.
I swallowed a mouthful of water, a little less than a sip. Shin Yuhee, who had been watching me quietly, quietly stuck out her tongue, and I immediately lifted my head and kissed Shin Yuhee.
Lick, lick.
Rather than a kiss, what should I call it, it was close to an exchange of saliva. A process of exchange where I drink the water I created with magic from Shin Yuhee's cleavage, and Shin Yuhee receives it through her mouth through me and tastes it.
"...It just feels like water."
"That's right."
"Still, if there's water like this, I think it would be helpful for wiping off things that have become dirty."
Lick.
Shin Yuhee put her tongue on my collarbone, then licked straight up from my neck.
"Dust will get on it."
"I don't feel it? Hehehe."
Smack.
One more kiss. Shin Yuhee stands on tiptoe and kisses me. She tidies up her disheveled hair with her hands, and instantly lets down the hair she had tied in a ponytail.
"Senior."
"Yeah."
"Whether or not you can wash your whole body with this magic... I guess you'll only know once you've sweated, right?"
"Look here, Ms. Shin Yuhee. Do you know how much water is used when taking a shower once? With this amount of water, it's not enough."
"Then well, we can just try an experiment and then go wash."
Shin Yuhee licked her lips with her tongue and pointed up and down at the dancer's outfit she was wearing.
"While we're experimenting, shall we check if the clothes can be washed too?"
For the sake of magic research. I immediately pounced on Shin Yuhee.