Volume 1 Chapter 3: Encounter

Encounter

In the end, I was able to reach the campsite that was my destination at the afternoon the next day.

My food stock had decreased. My remaining foods were only a white pan and a piece of salty dried meat. In my calculation, my foods would only last for three days even if I scrimped on them. Thinking of the distance until the neighboring town, I would need two more days, and I also had to devise some kind of fighting method.

There wasn't anybody at the campsite. I approached while being on guard against the surrounding, then I touched the remaining ash of bonfire there with my hand. The ash was new but there wasn't any heat remaining from it. I didn't have anything to lit fire, so it would help if there was any live coal or the like remaining here, but it was pointless to ask for something that didn't exist.

I grabbed a handful of the bonfire's ash and smeared it on my head. I had cut my long hair, but my pinkish blonde hair was very conspicuous. It would be a bit easier for me if my hair didn't attract attention by doing this.

I hid my luggage in a shade of tree near the campsite before searching for a watering place with only a knife and flash in hands. I tried searching because I thought that there would definitely be one, and I found a watering hole welling up from under the road that had been hardened from the steps of the passerby.

Fundamentally river water should be cleaner at the upstream, even so I judged that it was dangerous to drink the water without even boiling it first. I wet a cloth and only wiped my body. It wasn't like I was fussy about cleanliness but, it would be stupid if I ignored my sweat and grim and got discovered because of my smell.

I couldn't prepare water and also fire. This was because in that orphanage, the older orphans used [daily life magic] to start fire. I never saw any flint in the orphanage.

There was 『magic』 in this world. And what was generally used was called 『sorcery』.

The difference between the two was that 『magic』 was something primitive that had existed since the past. Magic that had been academically analyzed and turned into something that could be used by relatively a lot more people was called 『sorcery』. For example, a carriage that you created from zero starting from its blueprint would be 『magic』 while the carriage that was sold in the market would be like 『sorcery』, something like that. There was no question which one of them would be easier to learn until you could use it.

It seemed that woman was a sorcerer and she had a lot of knowledge in that field, but she was lazy in learning things that were outside her scope of interest. There were a lot of dubious parts in her knowledge. ......Troublesome.

Magic had six type of elements which were light, darkness, earth, water, fire, and wind. However, to be more precise there was also non elemental magic that had no element at all, so it could also be said that there was seven types. Human could use sorcery with the element that suited them if they had a certain amount of magic power. There was no convenient technique or tool to investigate which element they could use, so it would take quite some time to investigate. It seemed that the majority of commoners gave up in using sorcery at that stage.

It seemed that woman imagined that there would be convenient tool where one could understand their element just by holding their hand over it, then she felt indignation when she learned that reality wasn't as sweet as that. ......It was only unnecessary knowledge that she was remembering well.

One day I also planned to learn sorcery, but what I needed right now was 『daily life magic』. Daily life magic was classified as non elemental. You could make fire or create water with that, but it wasn't really generally understood why it wasn't classified as elemental magic then.

That woman's teacher taught her important things that seemed to be related with the world's root, like the difference in the amount of magic power used, or principle of causality that interfered with space, and the like, and yet that woman didn't really remember them because she was disinterested with the topic.

There were six types of daily life magic and even most commoners were able to use them if they were adult. But not all of them. Even people who could use daily life magic could only use one or two. That was what the "knowledge" told me, but that woman's teacher made her to at least learn all six types to be an accomplished sorcerer.

.

Creating a light source that was as bright as a candle, [Light]

Erasing Light and blocking off lamp's light, [Dark]

Solidifying earth element object and hardening it for an hour, [Hard]

Making small fire on a fingertip, [Fire]

Creating a water that filled a glass, [Water]

Making breeze to the direction you chose, [Wind]

.

Among these six types, the one that was learned the most was Light. The second most was Fire, then the third most was Water, but there was almost nobody who learned the other three. That was why if you asked whether it was impossible to learn all of them, that wasn't the case. It was simply that learning all of them was troublesome. ......But, weren't these magic the basic of the six elemental magic?

Even commoner could use this daily life magic, because of that no magical analysis was ever performed to simplify them. It seemed that normally you could learn them accidentally after watching them performed several times.

As the basic of sorcery, you needed to 『chant』 for using elemental sorcery, but daily life magic that was non elemental magic could be used simply by using the 『invocation word』 that consisted of only a single syllable as long as you could imagine it properly.

That woman was made by her teacher to learn them despite her reluctance, so she remembered the training method clearly. But, I stumbled in the stage before that. It seemed that you first had to sense the magic power inside yourself in order to do that training method, but I couldn't really feel my own magic power.

「......Can't be helped.」

For now, I tried searching for things related to magic power inside that woman's "knowledge".

First as a premise, all living creatures in this world possessed 『magic power』 without exception. That was because there was 『magic particle』 that was the foundation of this world. Magic particle filled not only the air, but even the water and the earth. There were various theories like it magic particle existed thanks to the spirits or the souls were creating it, but in short, it seemed that by breathing, drinking water, eating the blessing of earth or animal meat, magic particle was accumulating in the body.

What turned that accumulated magic particle into a state that could be used as energy was magic power. When someone had a certain amount of magic power, it seemed that 『magic stone』 that could produce magic power on its own would be formed inside the body, but I set aside that matter for the time being.

In other words there was also magic power existing inside me without any doubt. But perhaps because magic particle was also filling my surrounding, I didn't understand which was my own magic power.

Magic stone was formed from magic particle through blood as the intermediary. In that case magic power should also be flowing inside the blood. I placed my finger on my wrist and felt my blood vein. *Thump, thump*......I felt my blood flowing. I closed my eyes and focused to sense the magic power that should be flowing inside my blood. Faintly......there was something──

「............No good huh.」

The result, that faint sensation, I didn't understand whether it was really magic power or just my imagination.

It was pointless even if I was feeling impatience, but I had no leeway to be leisurely so my concentration was straying. But there were a lot of things that I had to do, so for now I searched for a safe place to hide my luggage while studying the surrounding's terrain. I also picked some black berries while repeating drawing the image of absorbing a lot of magic particle through breathing.

But in the end, I was unable to sense magic power. Perhaps there was a need for me to change my way of thinking. It was difficult to sense water in air, but it was easy to do so in rain. That was why I guessed that it would be faster to have someone pour a lot of magic power on me so that I could directly sense it, but such method wasn't realistic for me while I was avoiding people like this.

I went upstream the small river for a bit and found a crack between rocks. I hid myself there and washed the berries in the small river. I ate them while sorting in my head what other things I had to do other than learning magic. I should train to be able to use knife. That woman was a sorcerer, but she also had 『short sword skill』 which was a skill to handle short sword.

.

Let's have rehearsal about 『skill』 that I had been putting off.

Skill referred to the skill or technique that human possessed. It wasn't really anything special. That woman thought of skill as special ability(cheat), but the world wasn't such an easy place. As usual, she arbitrarily felt indignation when she learned that. Special ability really existed after a fashion, like the 『divine protection(gift)』 from spirit, but that was different from skill.

That woman's teacher said that skill was the 『printing』 of ordinary ability. It seemed that when you consciously performed an action many times over, that action would react with the magic power inside the body and a phenomenon where that action was 『printed』 into the soul would occur. Such phenomenon was generally called skill in this world to describe it in an easier to understand way.

That was why even without possessing the skill, you would be able to do the same thing. However by printing it into the soul as skill, it would become harder for the skill to fail and you wouldn't be able to forget the skill.

For example, it was said that when training in swordsmanship, you would need to train for three days to regain what you lost from skipping a day of practice. But with skill you couldn't forget the technique that you learned, so the training efficiency became better and it became easier to master even more technique. Even when your health was in a bad state or when you were flustered, you could still subconsciously do the action that you could do consciously, so skill made it easier for the people in every kind of field. But skill wasn't something that could be obtained easily, and even more training was required in order to raise the 『skill level』.

Skill had level according to the person's proficiency level and technical experience. There was a technique to investigate someone's skill and verbalized them. It also quantify the skill into 『skill level』 to make it easier to understand.

It wasn't easy to raise your skill level. Far from that, even just learning the skill itself was generally difficult. Learning skill level 1 wasn't so easy that it could be done just from memorizing martial art form. You couldn't obtain skill unless you repeatedly performed the correct movement accurately over and over.

In that woman's case, because she only did it grudgingly, it took her until three years to obtain short sword skill level 1. In contrast, she obtained fire sorcery skill in just several months. Rather than a matter of talent, wasn't it simply being a matter of her preference of like and dislike?

That woman was a『rank 2』 sorcerer. By rank 2 it meant that she had 『two levels』 in skill that was related to combat. That woman's skills were fire sorcery and water sorcery level 2 and short sword skill level 1 I think? She also had other skills but they were just general skills so the memory about them was hazy.

An owner of skill level 1 was a beginner but wasn't an amateur. It seemed that in the common sense of this world, reaching level 2 meant that person had finally became fully fledged in that field. Becoming level 3 would make that person called an expert in that field and such person would even be hired by noble for their expertise. When one became level 4, they would get invitation from nobles and even countries, and becoming a level 5 would make people respect you and came to you for teaching. They were typically called as 『master』 in that field.

But there was still a level above that. People in level 6 had surpassed the framework of human. Such people would be the head royal sorcerer or knight order instructor of a major nation and they would have title like 『sword saint』 for example. They were an unreachable existence above the clouds.

According to an uncertain information, skill level could reach until 10, and it seemed when you reached such level, you wouldn't be 『human』 anymore and became something like 『demigod』 or something. Though that was just a fairy tale.

It looked like that woman felt dissatisfied because skill wasn't a special ability(cheat), but I was relieved that skill wasn't 『cheap power bestowed by god(other person)』 like that woman dreamed of.

Because, if that was the case then that didn't that mean that such uncertain existence like 『god』 was having complete control over yourself?

A special ability(cheat) that was easily bestowed might also get easily erased by the whim of the existence that granted it to you in the first place. Such anxiety would constantly reside in my heart.

That was why I had no interest to something like a powerful weapon that was only one of its kind in the world. Because Something like strength that would be gone if it was snatched away from you couldn't be said as your own 『true strength』.

The surrounding was growing slightly dark while I was thinking that. I wasn't feeling really hungry from eating berry, but I had gotten really worried by the remaining amount of water in my flask. The berries were rehydrating me, but it wasn't enough with just that, so if I was unable to learn the daily life magic, my only choice would be to drink the river water even knowing of the risk from it.

Even so it wasn't something that could be learned that quickly, so I decided to consider about the magic power more after it got dark and tried to practice with knife as much as possible before night came.

I tried practicing from the knife handling form that I found in that woman's memory about short sword skill. It seemed that since I stabbed that woman, I was able to at least subconsciously hold the knife properly.

「......-!」

I took a form where only one side of my body was facing to the front to reduce the surface of my body that could be attacked while thrusting the knife forward with one hand.

But it was slow. Even though this was my first time using the knife properly, my movement was too sloppy. There were various forms that I could try but stopped that. First I'd practice just this thrust.

I repeated the thrusting form over and over until the sun set and I couldn't see my surrounding clearly because of the darkness. I sighed. I had been concentrating too much until the surrounding had been enveloped in darkness when I realized. There was only the sound of water flowing nearby that echoed inside my ears extremely clearly.

I guess I'll practice to sense magic power just for a bit before going to sleep. As I thought that, I caught glimpses of scarlet light blinking inside the darkness far away.

There was someone at the campsite? I still wasn't planning to come into contact with other person, but if it was bandit or the like over there, it would be better for me to get away from here quickly.

Thinking that, I secretly tried peeking at the campsite from a bush without making any sound. I could see the back of a man grilling a skewered meat near the bonfire there. That back was so large that I unconsciously stared intently to it, then that man suddenly raised his voice.

「Who's there!? Come out-!」