A Small Fragment of Darkness (3)
This is... pretty bad. I sighed as I gazed down at the ruined village.
"Grrr..."
Wild dogs tearing into lifeless corpses. Or rather, monsters, judging by the flickers of fire leaking from their fur.
A small pioneer village in the mountains, home to about thirty people, had become a den for these burning wild dogs—or fire hounds, for short. There were only about ten of them, but that alone would have been a horrific threat to humans.
I let out a small sigh and casually sliced off the neck of the largest fire hound, the one too engrossed in its meal to notice.
The moment one of their pack's heads went flying, the others lifted their snouts and started scanning the surroundings—but none spotted me lurking out of sight.
I placed a hand on the decapitated fire hound's corpse and stirred its insides with my mana. Sure enough, I found a tiny, pebble-like crystal near its heart and extracted it with mana.
A dark crimson stone, like congealed blood. A stone found inside mana-wielding monsters like this one. A mana stone, they called it.
I turned the stone this way and that, then pulled the black diamond from my pocket and held it up to it.
But nothing happened.
"A dud, huh."
I'd figured the biggest one might be it, but no such luck.
With another small sigh, I scanned the area again. The fire hounds, alerted by their comrade's missing head, were tense and ready to bolt at any moment.
Let's see... In that case...
Just gut 'em all and find out.
I snapped my fingers lightly, and mana blades sliced through the fire hounds' necks in unison.
Wait, one survived?
It must have sensed the danger—it was already fleeing.
"Dodging that? Looks like you're the one."
I muttered to myself, eyed the fire hound already scampering far off, snapped my fingers again—and it slammed into the ground like an invisible hand had crushed it flat.
Boom!!
Hm... A bit too hard? It's totally pancaked.
Sighing, I approached the blood-smeared mess that used to be the fire hound, infused it with mana to search for the tiny mana stone. Luckily, it hadn't shattered.
I'd worried I'd crushed it too hard, but it was fine.
I brushed off the blood with mana and held the mana stone to the black diamond. This time, it hit the jackpot—a minuscule wisp of darkness leaked from the stone and flowed into the diamond.
A fragment of darkness so small you wouldn't notice without focusing intently.
Hmm. Good thing it wasn't a wasted trip.
I rummaged through the other fire hounds' corpses for their mana stones and checked for more fragments, but... the rest were all duds.
Well, finding one is better than nothing. Duds are the norm anyway.
I pocketed the black diamond and mana stones, tucked them away, and started walking.
For now... maybe head to a human city.
Monsters posed a massive crisis for humans, but they were also an opportunity.
Monster meat, hides, teeth, and bones proliferated faster than other creatures, providing humans with all sorts of resources.
And the most valuable by far? The crystallized mana from monsters: mana stones.
These dark crimson stones had once been discarded unknown, but now their uses were well-known.
If you gripped a mana stone fragment and focused hard, even those unable to wield mana could use it. Of course, it only drew from the stone's limited mana, so nothing grand—but you could fire off a small fireball or conjure a faint light to banish darkness.
And so, mana stones became a hot new resource for humans.
Though to me, it looked like a massive waste of the stone's mana.
Assuming a mana stone held 10,000 units, humans seemed to use maybe 1% of it.
With the mana from that fire hound stone I just extracted, I could've summoned a house-sized fireball. Humans? Maybe fist-sized at best.
Eh, can't expect much from their brute-force methods.
Even with such inefficiency, humans were hooked on mana stones. Naturally, so was I—but for different reasons.
Very rarely, a mana stone from an exceptional monster would yield a tiny fragment of darkness.
Erebos's fragment, of course.
Which is why I was stuck hunting down monsters I wouldn't normally bother with...
So damn annoying. Seriously.
Should I outsource it? Or buy up mana stones at a premium and just check them?
The annoying part? Monsters infused with Erebos's fragments were always standout specimens—elite monsters, through and through.
Too tough for current human strength to handle.
That fire hound leader dodged my mana blade once, after all. Probably had danger sense or even future sight. Smart, too.
Humans wouldn't have stood a chance.
So here I was, wandering around smacking down anything that seemed particularly strong and checking their mana stones.
So damn annoying. Seriously.
Ahem. Anyway, back to mana stones.
Humans started using them for all sorts of things: lanterns to light the night, fires for warmth, crop boosters, water purifiers, you name it.
Other races weren't much different.
Starting with beastkin, who lived closest to humans.
Beastkin used mana stones to amp up their physical prowess—strength, senses, durability. Full-on body enhancement magic.
Humans could do it too, but the baseline physical gap meant less efficiency. Minor detail.
Dwarves? They went nuts for mana stones.
Even a plain iron sword gained special powers with one: spewing fire, freezing on slash, shocking on contact, that sort of thing.
And there were three main ways to imbue them.
First: permanent infusion. Weak compared to the others, but lasted until the item broke. Like a dimly glowing lantern or subtly warm cushion. Scaled with stone size, but otherwise, no real perks beyond permanence.
Second: temporary infusion. Strong power, no user strain, but consumed the stone. Slots built into items to burn mana for effects. Obvious downside: eats stones.
Third: user-mana draw. Weaker than temporary, but no stone consumption. Refillable as your mana recovered over time. Downsides: useless if depleted, and overusing without mana could kill you.
Anyway, that's how dwarves used them.
Elves treated mana stones like mana potions, absorbing the power to refill their own reserves.
One worry: what if they suck up an Erebos fragment by accident? Eh, Yggdrasil can handle any mess.
Lizardmen... sadly lacked mana affinity, so no direct use.
They gifted them to spirit friends instead, boosting rapport. Spirits absorb mana stones to grow a bit.
Lucky! At least they're not useless.
Giants? They probably don't even know mana stones exist. Extracting one from a monster is impossible when you're house-sized yourself.
They do hunt massive monsters occasionally... Wonder what those stones are like. Gotta visit the giants next time.
And so, the races adapted to the sudden monster surge, harnessing this new resource: mana stones.
Who used them best? Instinctive mana users among humans: magicians.