Forest Keeper (Part 1)
It was a meal like any other.
Yerna on her strictly vegetarian elven diet, Luke eating the same salad with an extra side of canned tuna—that was the usual arrangement.
"Haa…"
Today, however, Luke could tell that something was off about Yerna's mood.
Sure enough, once she had chewed and swallowed every last bite of the food in front of her, Yerna spoke.
"Lu, I have something to say."
As though he had already expected it, Luke set his fork down without a sound, his touch delicate, and met her gaze.
"What is it?"
"These past few weeks when you were alone… what did you do?"
"Well… the same as always."
He studied class magic; once that had progressed far enough, he read books to grasp the broader shape of the age. When Rua came by, they talked and played at what they called training. In between, he finished whatever household chores he was capable of—laundry, dishes—for Yerna's sake.
"Haa, right? Nothing special, huh?"
Yerna let out a heavy sigh, her face saying she had known as much all along.
Worried by the look of her, Luke asked,
"Indeed so. But you— is something the matter?"
"Th-this month's mana bill…"
Yerna pressed a hand to her forehead and answered in a near-wail.
"It came out to three million gil! Hiiing… what do I do…"
"…Three million?"
Three million gil.
Luke immediately began converting the sum into units he could actually feel.
His bus fare was five hundred gil, so that would buy six thousand rides. The tuna cans he often ate cost about sixteen hundred gil each, so roughly nineteen hundred of those. The clothes he was wearing ran anywhere from ten to thirty thousand gil a set, so somewhere between a hundred and three hundred outfits.
The calculations finished in an instant. Luke gave a small nod and thought,
That is quite an enormous sum of money.
Fortunately, Luke was one of the rare mages whose sense of money remained relatively normal—honed by years of serving as headmaster of an academy while still an archmage. Most mages never even kept ledgers.
Even so, one part of it made no sense to him.
"But what exactly is a mana bill? Do they put a price on mana itself?"
"Well of course they do. Nothing in this world is free."
"…?"
Mana filled the world. Pricing something as common as air—he could not begin to understand how this age had come to such a state.
"Is mana not present everywhere? Why put a price on it?"
"Ah. Luke, you're still little, so you wouldn't know."
Yerna made a pained sound, fretting over how to explain the idea of "putting a price on mana" to a child.
Mana.
Mana was, by nature, a resource that existed everywhere. Yet its density always varied, and as human population density rose, mana consumption had grown to unprecedented levels.
In Luke's era, magic itself had been so rare that only the chosen classes ever so much as glimpsed it; circulating mana had never been a pressing concern. After class magic appeared, however, magic spread to everyone, and the distribution of mana suddenly became vital.
Many approaches had been tried since then. From the inhumane notion of brewing mana potions and feeding them to mages in order to transfer mana, to buying and selling mana through rechargeable mana stones, to simply founding cities inside forests already rich in the stuff.
In the end, the method humanity chose and refined was this: cultivate World Trees, build cities in rings around those forests, and at the center raise facilities that "produced" mana. That mana was then refined and piped into every household.
Thus so many people could all enjoy magic without ever exhausting the supply. And if that was so, how could one not put a price on the "service" and "technology" that made it possible?
"…"
But spinning out such a long explanation would never get through to a child. So Yerna averted her eyes and answered simply,
"I'll explain later."
"…"
Luke looked at her with open dissatisfaction. Being treated like a child had left even his curiosity unsatisfied. Still, he did not believe she was teasing him on purpose. He rubbed the crease between his brows, smoothing the frown, and replied,
"Well, I understand. I shall hear of it later, then. But why did it come to as much as three million gil? Is mana truly that expensive?"
Even the notion of putting a price on pure mana—neither potion nor mana stone—was hard enough to grasp. That it could reach three million gil… was that not sheer extortion?
"No. Normally it didn't even come to thirty thousand a month…"
Yerna let out a long breath and pressed her forehead again.
"Just in case, I asked Mr. Gerard. He said in cases like this you should suspect a mana leak. So I called a repairman for now."
"Is that so."
"Which brings me to it, Lu. It looks like we'll have to leave the house empty for a few days."
Because the house had to be vacated, Luke was deposited in the women's quarters of Yerna's workplace—Luke Forest.
"You understand, right, Luke? The forest is dangerous, so you must never come out carelessly. Monsters might appear."
"I understand."
When Luke nodded, Yerna gave his head a single pat and went out on patrol.
"Hmm. Monsters, is it."
A forest this rich in mana always harbored monsters. With density this high, the ones that appeared might not stop at mere small species. Large ones could show up from time to time as well.
"To serve as a Forest Keeper in a place like this… Yerna must be quite a strong one."
Luke found himself regarding her with fresh respect. He perched on the edge of the bed that seemed to be the one she used on duty and began reading the book she had handed him—The Mana Distribution Industry and Its History of Transitions—when footsteps outside the door put him on mild alert.
"Yerna, hey. Are you inside?"
A man's voice. One of her fellow Forest Keepers?
Luke's ears twitched as he focused on the speaker, quietly rotating the circle he kept banked in his heart.
A moment later the man outside spoke again.
"Hmm. No way she'd leave with the light on."
Words that did not need to be spoken aloud. Which meant they were meant for whoever was inside—a threat and a question both.
Put plainly: You in there. Answer.
Luke cast the highest-grade shield he could currently maintain over his entire body, bracing for whatever might come. It was still only first-circle, yet the mana that formed it was ten times the ordinary amount. Most physical force would never reach him. Satisfied of that, he approached the door and spoke.
"I am Luke Irushi, currently residing under the same roof as Yerna. But who might you be, the one speaking now?"
"…Living together with Yerna, you say."
The man's voice cooled and hardened. Luke felt something in it at once.
Bang!
The hinges shattered. The door exploded into flying fragments.
Luke instantly poured mana into the shield he had prepared and steadied his stance; neither the splinters nor the wreckage of the door could harm him in the slightest.
He swept the red-haired man who had just smashed through with Mana Sight.
Oh. Similar to the Strength Enhancement Auxiliary Magic Gerard used before, yet with further improved output. Subtle differences in the formula as well, but what mainly separates the level is that staff, I suppose.
A robust man with red hair. He settled into a combat stance, wound tight with tension.
"This mana quantity… as I thought, a monster?"
"That cannot be. Did I not say I am residing at Yerna's house?"
"As far as I know, Yerna is single. There's no way a kid like you would be there."
He thrust out the hand that gripped an iron staff shaped like a gauntlet and shouted,
"Ahat, Bion!"
In that fleeting instant Luke watched the magic take form and arrange itself, and grasped it at once.
Something fired in a straight line. This is another array I've never seen before.
Luke smiled brightly as he read the method of ejection. Whether magic or swordsmanship, the most important thing in a duel was not getting hit. Therefore, when reading a spell, grasping its direction of casting and the nature of its discharge mattered most; he suppressed the urge to examine it more closely still.
A straight-line discharge was simple to answer.
Mana Bolt.
Luke gave a light flick of the hand. Will and mana leaked from the circle in his chest and manifested in the world as the most basic first-circle spell: Mana Bolt.
It bloomed gently along the path of the man's magic and scattered the spell at his fingertips.
Crack!
The blue orb of light took the hit in the man's place and vanished. In that same instant Luke analyzed the phenomenon that had occurred upon the Mana Bolt once more.
Hmm. A moderate mix of electricity, mana sustain, and rigidity sustain. If struck, the weak current and the rigidity sustain would lock the muscles solid. A type of binding magic, is it?
The red-haired man, whose own spell had been canceled by a first-circle Mana Bolt, stared in disbelief and cried,
"Impossible—without even a chant?!"
He raised his guard still higher and charged at Luke.
"Looks like a rather dangerous monster despite appearances!"
Luke decided he had no choice but to subdue him.
"You seem to be Yerna's colleague, but excuse me."
Light.
Snap.
Luke flicked his fingers. An overwhelming volume of light burst before the man's eyes.
"Uwaah!"
Light too intense to take in at once stabbed into his eyes; stinging pain stole his vision.
Grease.
Almost simultaneously another first-circle spell, Grease, dropped the friction coefficient of his shoe soles to something near zero.
Ordinarily it would have done no more than slick the surface with oil—but the caster was an archmage who had once seen the very end of magic.
Sliiiide!
From the man's perspective the floor had suddenly become a sheet of ice. He kept the posture of a charge and simply skidded, unable to find his center.
"Uwaaargh—!"
Crash-thud!
He slid all the way into the wall; his leg caught the table, and he went down in a spectacular wreck of furniture.
"Kyaak!"
"Eek!"
Luke flinched at the noise the man's body had made. Even at a glance it looked like a terribly painful fall. Of course it would, if one's eyes were useless and the floor turned to ice without warning.
"Ugh…"
As the man tried to rise, Luke stepped close and laid a hand on his forehead. At the touch the man forced his barely working eyes wide open.
"Shit—for me to go down this emptily…!"
"I am truly sorry to you. So cool your head a bit for a moment.
Spark.
Zap—!
A faint current drilled into his skull. His body jerked once, and he fainted.