Ulvanieiro (2)
It came down to a hair’s breadth.
Amid the spray of blood, a jaguar charged forward.
“Tch.”
The beast didn’t slow, even with nothing more than a grazing wound.
Breaking free from the pit behind it, the jaguar tore ahead at a terrifying speed.
It was obvious where it was headed.
To the prey. To the cattle.
Even after its position had already been exposed, it showed no sign of giving up.
It moved so fast that the naked eye couldn’t keep up with it.
After the wind had already swept past, Shadow Light came stumbling after it a moment too late.
Shadow Spear.
No. It was too fast. Far too fast.
Trying to aim and land a hit like this was, in practice, nearly impossible.
What was more, the jaguar was small.
He needed some way to pin its feet down.
“Isolde!”
“Just show me where it is! We’re not the only ones out here.”
Trust your comrades.
Lawrence understood what Isolde meant and focused on Shadow Light.
Radiance lingered in the darkness.
Following the echo of that light, the Ulvanieiros tightened the noose.
“Drive it in!”
“Follow the light. It’s over there!”
They hadn’t seen it only because it was dark.
Before long, the Ulvanieiros who had come racing in with Cattledog had formed a ring around the jaguar and were herding it inward.
The roar of an injured beast rang out.
At the jaguar’s threat, the Ulvanieiros exchanged glances.
No matter how wildly it ran, there was nowhere left to escape.
When it tried to break through the encirclement, Cattledog moved first.
Three or four times, the jaguar was forced back by the dog’s growl.
At last, the strange, tense standoff settled into a wary distance.
The Ulvanieiros, having blocked off the retreat, whirled their ropes.
Snout and feet.
For a brief instant, the jaguar’s movements stopped cold, caught in the ropes.
“Finish it!”
Isolde’s turn wasn’t needed.
Seeing the jaguar pinned helplessly in place, Lawrence raised a hand.
“Shadow Spear.”
Shadows darker than the night itself took shape.
The shadow writhed like a flame.
It didn’t stop at holding its form.
Like a fire that would never go out, the darkness surged upward.
For this one moment, Shadow Spear looked less like magic than a living thing.
No. There was no time to marvel at it.
He aimed the spear of darkness at the bound jaguar.
Then, all at once, an odd sensation came over him.
The Shadow Spear, which had always answered the boy’s will, now felt as though it were calling to him.
Past the spearhead. Past the shaft.
His gaze settled on the grip.
A forceful call, almost like an impulse.
Was it telling him to grab it and throw?
That, then, would be a javelin throw.
But Lawrence gave up on the idea.
Not this time.
Trying to force a new method in magic without practice was reckless.
More than that, this was a real fight where mistakes weren’t allowed.
He could learn javelin-style casting after enough training. There was no need to rush.
Reading the caster’s intent, the Shadow Spear was launched.
Like flame cutting through darkness.
Leaving a long trail behind it, the Shadow Spear pierced the jaguar clean through.
Kararak!
An impossible sound rang out, one that no spear should ever make.
The beast struck by Shadow Spear was, quite literally, smashed to pieces.
No, that wasn’t an exaggeration.
In the light of Shadow Light, the jaguar was revealed in such a mangled state that it was hard to recognize it as an animal at all.
It looked as if it had been folded inward.
The spiral-shaped wound, twisting in on itself, resembled the mark he’d once seen on a goblin.
None of the Ulvanieiros moved to reclaim their ropes.
More precisely, they couldn’t. The rope caught in the Shadow Spear had been reduced to ash, leaving only the handles behind.
“I’m really sorry to say this, Lawrence.”
“You don’t need to say it. I know.”
“Don’t use that spell again. At least not against jaguars.”
“I’m sorry.”
Even Lawrence had nothing to say this time.
It was just like the Forest Spider.
The spell was so powerful that there was no way to recover the byproducts.
As always, money remained a serious problem.
* * *
Thanks to Lawrence’s performance, no one was hurt in the first attack.
Only one jaguar had been hunted down.
The one he’d killed with Shadow Spear.
After the situation was over, Valik said that.
Apparently, only three or four jaguars had shown themselves on the right.
None of them had directly attacked the cattle.
There was no need to even mention the left side.
Lawrence had searched the surroundings with Shadow Light, but he hadn’t found any other jaguars.
Honestly, all he could do was laugh in disbelief.
He’d thought there might be something like this, but these cunning beasts had launched a diversionary attack.
Once their comrade had fallen early, they must have given up and run.
“I heard the story, but they’re even craftier than I expected.”
“That’s how those things survive. Their mothers did. Their mothers before them did. And the mothers before those, too, lived in this swamp. It’s a way of life carved into their instincts.”
Still, it wasn’t as if they’d gained nothing.
In that one real battle, he confirmed the power of the Shadow Spear enhanced by Shadow Light, and he also learned that against a jaguar, it was too much magic.
In a way, that was a relief.
The Shadow Spear used together with Shadow Light came with a heavy burden on the body, just as he had felt with Shadow before.
For one thing, the amount of mana it devoured was no joke.
Still, even after one cast, he hadn’t felt any chest pain or had those bugs crawling through his head, but the soreness around his chest was enough to make him think three or four uses was the limit at best.
If he pushed the power even further, that limit would come even sooner.
It wasn’t good news.
If he wanted to secure light, he had no choice but to cast Shadow Light.
And once Shadow Light was up, Shadow and Shadow Spear would be strengthened whether Lawrence wanted them to be or not.
He didn’t know whether he could control that through training.
It was one of those things you simply couldn’t know until you tried.
For now, he’d practice when he could and focus on using Fire Tail for this request.
“Excuse me, mage.”
He broke off his thoughts.
An Ulvanieiro approached Lawrence, who was resting by the wagon.
“I’m sorry to keep asking, but would you mind setting up a light orb in our camp?”
His name was Astin, if Lawrence remembered correctly.
“Right now?”
“If you’re busy, I can come back when it’s more convenient.”
“Hmm… no, that’s fine. Let’s go now. I’ve finished practicing, anyway.”
Besides, he was a little hungry.
If he went with them, maybe he could get something to eat.
After a short walk, Lawrence joined the cluster of Ulvanieiros gathered together.
Having finished their work for the day, they were preparing a late supper.
“Oh, you came. We’ve been waiting just for you.”
“Thank you again, mage.”
Expectant eyes turned toward Lawrence.
Seeing those bright, childlike expressions made him snort softly.
“Shadow Light.”
The orb of light the Ulvanieiros wanted floated up into the air.
A chorus of admiration rose around him.
“Just having this light orb would make traveling so much easier. Goodness, I never thought there’d be anything more convenient than lamael and kaizle.”
“I told you. It’s exactly the kind of ability every Ulvanieiro wants. Mage, if you ever get tired of mercenary work, why not work with us?”
“If you want to hire me, you’ll need a great deal of money.”
In other words, they’d need to be nobles.
“Money is the one thing we Ulvanieiros have the least connection to. No choice, then. I’m afraid hiring the mage will have to wait until next time.”
“We can’t offer the kind of pay you want, but we can at least treat you to dinner. What do you say? Want to join us?”
“I’d be grateful to. It’s a feast compared to dried meat.”
Lawrence sat down and received a bowl from Astin.
Dinner was a stew of dried meat and boiled fruit.
As the old woman had said, handling fire in the swamp was dangerous.
Whenever fire was used, it was usually only for meals like this.
Even then, they used a peculiar method, kindling the flame deep inside a mound of earth so that neither smoke nor light leaked out.
It was the hard-earned wisdom of life in a swamp full of bugs and poisonous insects.
Still, even that was only used because cooking required it.
It wasn’t for warding off the darkness.
Kaizle only lasted two days at most once removed from its box, so it had to be saved for important moments.
And since you couldn’t smoke lamael while eating, the usual dinner meant lifting a fork in the company of darkness.
But unexpectedly, Shadow Light solved that problem.
As if to say that a flame kindled by hand and a spell were two different things entirely.
Not a single insect or poisonous pest came near the light of Shadow Light.
That was why the Ulvanieiros looked for Lawrence every time it was mealtime.
Magic simply had a convenience no one could match.
At first, Shadow Light lasted only thirty minutes.
By the time four days had passed since they began the request, one casting could keep it going for well over two hours.
As expected, the more you used something, the more skill improved.
Shadow Light didn’t come cheap in mana, either, but because he rarely needed to use attack spells while working this request, it never brought on a headache.
This was a different situation from when he’d handled escort work alone.
Since he was taking the request on with other mercenaries, there were always people present who could step into battle.
In other words, dangerous moments where he would need to use Fire Tail simply hadn’t come.
The jaguars were mostly dropped from a distance.
And even when they got close, they prioritized the cattle over people, so they didn’t recklessly attack.
At most, humans were just a threat.
The jaguars’ hungry eyes never strayed from their prey.
As a result, Lawrence’s role had become almost fixed.
He would find the jaguars hiding in the swamp’s thick darkness before anyone else did.
With Shadow Light, even that difficult scouting was just barely possible.
He didn’t need to pinpoint the exact location.
Simply driving back the darkness that draped the surroundings was enough to startle the jaguars.
Thanks to that, even if he didn’t learn much else, his skill with Shadow Light grew by the day.
“It’s coming from behind!”
“Follow the light!”
“There are two behind us. Not one!”
But Shadow Light was not perfect.
Leaving the spell suspended in place, as long as mana allowed, was possible. But the Shadow Light Lawrence directly controlled and moved had a limit of one.
In other words, he could only chase after one jaguar at a time.
“Hmm… three on our side, then.”
“Can’t be helped. Still, the damage is less than usual.”
Like a drizzle soaking through cloth, losses accumulated little by little.
Still, the left side, where Lawrence was stationed, suffered the least.
“This job is a pain in the ass. If we keep taking losses like this every time, we won’t even be able to put food on our tables.”
“No wonder the young ones leave for other villages. It’s hellishly hard work, and there’s no money in it.”
It was only natural that a sigh would escape the Ulvanieiro’s lips.
The calf the jaguars had failed to drag away became nothing more than a single late meal.
“Tastes like honey.”
“It’s delicious.”
It wasn’t seasoned with anything except salt, and yet the beef was so good it made his eyes widen.
Seeing Lawrence’s reaction, the Ulvanieiro laughed with obvious satisfaction.
“Of course it tastes good. That’s why we’ve got regulars who come looking for our cattle. Do you think nobles would come all this way just to buy beef if there wasn’t a reason? They all have their reasons.”
“Still, if it’s always like this… making a living must be hard.”
For all he knew, it must cost a fortune.
He’d heard they had four silver-plate mercenaries hired.
Mercenary pay varied wildly depending on rank.
And if they’d hired four silver-plate mercenaries, not one, then the state of their finances was obviously dire.
“It’s not always because we think so highly of silver-plate skill. Honestly, when jaguars are the only thing showing up, it’s like using a butcher’s knife to kill a chicken.”
Lawrence agreed silently.
Jaguars were certainly dangerous, but compared to other monsters, they didn’t seem especially threatening.
If they fought head-on, bronze-plate mercenaries should be able to handle them.
“So this is buying trust with money. Mercenaries at silver-plate level at least won’t be blinded by a few coins and kill the client or run off. The effort and suffering it takes to get that far can’t even begin to compare with wood or bronze.”
“Trust?”
“Exactly. Mercenaries are like moths drawn to flame. If the payout on a request is unusual, everyone’s eyes go funny. That doesn’t mean every low-rank mercenary is like that, but when you get to silver plate, it means you’ve racked up a lot of results.”
“In simple terms, they’ve handled a lot of dependable jobs. That’s why there are so many people looking for silver-plate mercenaries. It’s not just skill—they’re mercenaries you can trust with your life.”
So that was why the mercenaries here in the swamp were different from those in Horos Forest.
It must have come down to rank.
Or rather, to the attitude they brought to the job.
If that was the case, then the mercenaries who’d chased Lawrence in Spider Forest had probably been bronze-plate or wood-plate.
Was that the reason he’d survived against the mercenaries he’d thought were veterans?
“Once this request is over, Lawrence will be bronze plate, too.”
After hearing the story, Isolde said that.
“Bronze plate is easier to get than I expected.”
“No. No, it’s not. That’s only because you’re a mage. Bronze plate has way more people than silver plate. No matter what, what guild would leave a mage stuck at wood plate? And this request isn’t exactly easy, either.”
“Still, it’s better than a subjugation request where your life’s on the line, isn’t it?”
“Absolutely not.”
She answered at once.
“You can’t wash properly or eat properly. You can’t even rest. You repeat that for almost two months straight. It turns you into a wreck. We’ll reach the ranch tomorrow, though. Haaah. I don’t know. Once you see it with your own eyes, you’ll understand why I’m telling you this.”
It would have been a lie to say it wasn’t hard.
For days now, they’d walked and slept soaked in sweat.
Even when they rested in the wagon, it wasn’t real rest.
At night especially, they had to take turns standing watch because of the attacks.
They had to stay on alert, never knowing when a jaguar might appear.
And the ones they did meet sometimes wouldn’t attack at all, just trail after them silently like mice, which made it impossible to ever truly relax.
“How about the rainy season? From what I’ve heard, it sounds a little better than the dry season.”
“It’s about the same in difficulty. Still, it’s not as hot as it is now. When it rains, the temperature drops a bit, one way or another. But then there are more strange snakes and things like that than bugs. You’d do well to be careful too. No matter how good your magic is, I doubt it’ll drive away snakes.”
Isolde picked at the sleep crust in her eyes.
As she flicked it away with her finger as if it were filthy, Lawrence shook his head.
Now he understood why the others treated her so casually.
Call her a woman if you wanted, but she was as rough-and-ready as any man.
If she ever had someone she liked, there was no way they’d be a woman like Isolde.
He didn’t know much else, but that much was certain.
* * *
From that day on, Lawrence threw himself into practicing Shadow Spear.
Under Shadow Light, Shadow Spear felt almost like a different spell entirely.
Power. Duration. Mana.
Even its shape seemed different.
It was like using a brand-new kind of magic.
“……”
Just where the hell did it go…?
Seeing the direction in which Shadow Spear had flown, he let out a sigh.
It was harder than he’d expected.
Launching a shadow spear in line with his will was fine.
That was the method he had always used, and after countless repetitions it had become completely familiar.
But javelin throwing was a different story.
Lawrence took hold of Shadow Spear again.
The shadow spear that would rip enemies to pieces answered its master’s will.
The hilt drawing in toward his hand.
A stable grip.
So far, so good.
The problem was what came next.
Clutching Shadow Spear, he stared at the tree he’d chosen as his target.
The distance wasn’t great.
At most, about a hundred meters.
If it were the usual way he handled Shadow Spear, there was no way he’d miss.
How long had he even maintained it before the pain started rising in his chest?
Don’t waver.
After taking a short breath, Lawrence hurled Shadow Spear.
And once again, it shot off in some absurd direction.
“This is seriously driving me crazy.”
It didn’t even make it to the tree he’d aimed for.
The Shadow Spear dropped before it, leaving only the trace of a spinning spiral carved into the ground.
It was entirely different from the Shadow Spear he already knew.
He would have to start from the beginning again—control, aim, everything.
Back when he’d first learned Shadow Spear from the red eyes, it hadn’t been this difficult.
It had taken nearly a month of practice before he could use it, but even then he’d been able to hit a goblin in the side.
It was only after facing the Forest Spider in Spider Forest that his accuracy began to improve noticeably.
So in the end, real combat was necessary after all?
When life and death hung in the balance, concentration changed completely.
To be blunt, if a Forest Spider were standing in front of him right now, he wouldn’t be able to tolerate even the smallest mistake.
Miss, and you die.
Fail to hit it, and you die.
It made sense that urgency and desperation would sharpen along with fear.
He looked around.
The cattle were grazing lazily, utterly unconcerned.
The Ulvanieiros, too, were lounging on their horses and chatting idly.
There was still time to spare.
He could probably afford one more round of practice.
He focused again on Shadow Spear.
Now that he had glimpsed what the spell could become, he couldn’t give up here.
More than anything, they were only at the swamp’s edge.
If he wanted to survive the unknown dangers ahead, he needed to sharpen his skills even further.
“Shadow Spear.”
Within the darkness, shadow gathered itself into shape.
The form emerged in an instant.
Shadow Spear shimmered like a flame.
And yet, even that was enough to make the pain in his chest much sharper than before.
There was nothing for it.
This was already the third time.
Within such a short span, he had cast Shadow Spear three times.
The fourth or fifth cast would surely be his limit.
As long as it didn’t progress to a headache, it wasn’t the worst outcome.
The jaguars wouldn’t appear immediately, so for now he should keep watch while minding his condition as much as possible.
This time, he aimed for a tree a little closer than before.
Roughly fifty meters.
Half the distance of the first target.
He didn’t take long to aim.
The longer he maintained it, the more the pain increased in proportion.
This time, he didn’t miss.
The Shadow Spear pierced the dead tree and then swallowed the ground beneath it as well.
Its power was overwhelming.
If he could handle this freely, it would be a trump card in the truest sense.
“We’re setting off soon. Check whether any cattle have wandered off.”
Just then, Muphola’s order came.
Lawrence gathered himself and headed back toward the wagon.
From here on out, it was time to work.