Volume 1 Chapter 6: Forest Survival

Forest Survival

That day no other traveler came to the campsite and morning arrived like that. Even so when noon came, there was a possibility that a horse carriage of merchant or the like would stop by there to have lunch. The average adult would be on their guard when they saw an orphan, thinking that they might be a thief. The shrewd adult might use the chance to steal the belonging of the kid using this spot on the road where there wasn't any guard nearby. It would be better to think of Feld as a special exception and not trusted other adult so easily.

Even so I wouldn't progress just by hiding forever. That was why in order to survive I went around picking wild blackberries again while starting to diligently practice magic.

I could sense my own magic power now, so I could use Fire and Water even if they were still shoddy, but my usage of them still wasn't in a practical level and I also couldn't use other daily life magic. Light would be the most convenient magic to learn next, but I intentionally planned to learn Hard first.

Hard was a magic to harden the ground. It was commonly used in construction job to shorten construction time by hardening a mud wall so the workers could do other work while waiting for it to dry.......apparently.

I entered the forest, dug a ground that looked soft using a branch, grabbed a lump of soil in one hand, and then I was at a loss. What did it mean to 『harden』? When I clutched the soil inside my head, it looked like it had been solidified, but when I touched it, the lump easily crumbled. It could be called as 『hardened』 like this. After clutching and crumbling the soil several times, the soil turned yellow from its originally dry brown color. It wouldn't solidify even when I strongly clutched it.

「......Water.」

I chanted Water which also served as practice. Water dripped from my fingertip. Its amount had increased slightly compared to last night. The water drips were absorbed by the dry soil. It could solidify again with this. But this time it became mud because of too much water. A dry soil would become powdery like sand. To solidify something like that, you needed something like water to tie the soil grains together.

「......Hard......」

When I chanted while imagining the magic power tying the soil grains together, the earth lump inside my hand became hard while its shape was still the same.

「......I did it?」

Did I learn Hard with this? To check, I threw the lump to a nearby tree to see how hard it had become. Then the earth lump easily broke when it collided on the tree. The magic power dispersed and the lump returned to be a normal soil again.

I thought that I was able to use it but it wasn't perfect. The practice that woman's teacher made her was also to knead a lump of soil barehanded. But what was different? The soil that woman used had a color that seemed to be grey.

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I stopped the magic training for now and returned to the stream for a meal. I ate the blackberries as breakfast. Then using a wet cloth, I wiped my body and washed my sweat and the ash covering me because it would feel unpleasant if I left them any longer than that.

After the ash was washed off, my pink blond hair that was the same like Okaa-san was sparkling. I couldn't feel calm like this. Perhaps I shouldn't use only ash, I wonder if I can use the grey colored soil at the riverside as substitute......wait, this is? I found a soil layer with grey color at the ground near the riverside. I took a pinch of that soil and rubbed it with my fingers. Then the "knowledge" taught me what it was.

「Clay?」

I tried pouring magic power into it while chanting Hard. But the clay didn't really harden. It felt difficult to harden it compared to normal soil. Did I do something wrong? What was the difference between soil and clay? I was trying to fill the gap in the clay by pouring magic power but.......

「Ah, I see.」

From rubbing the clay between my fingers, I noticed that the clay was so fine it was as though there wasn't any gap at all between it. And then that woman's knowledge taught me that clay was made from particles that were even finer than normal soil.

「......Hard.」

This time I poured in magic power not to tie the particles together, I held the image of making the magic power permeate into the particle's gaps to fuse the particles together.

The clay became really hard. When I flicked it with my finger, it made a sound like porcelain. When I tried throwing the clay at a tree hard, the tree's trunk got scratched while the lump of clay didn't get a single dent. Furthermore the magic power didn't disperse even when it left my hand. The lump was still keeping the magic power and hardness.

So this was Hard....... Perhaps I wouldn't be able to learn it without that woman's "knowledge from previous life". After that I picked up that clay in order to ascertain how long the hardness would last.

I also wanted to learn the daily life magic, but I could do magic training even at night. I looked at the sky and took out that handwritten medicinal herb dictionary from my luggage while the day was still bright. It didn't only contain various medicinal herbs, if it was something that could be used in medicine, even mushrooms and minerals were described in great detail with illustration attached.

But the me right now was unable to make the "knowledge" wholly mine despite having it. I had to learn to read by observing words letter by letter. For now it would be difficult to differentiate mushroom even if there was illustration of it, so I spent time searching for wild grass that seemed to be edible and then I searched for its description in the book. I read the writing letter by letter and ascertained the plant's safety.

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I collected plants and studied for a while before I suddenly realized the smell of bonfire that was drifting from far away.

......It was already noon. There must be a merchant carriage stopping by so they could have lunch. If you were unable to arrive at this place at this time, even with a carriage you would be unable to reach the town before evening.

I returned to a hollow near the stream where I placed my luggage while gathering dry branches. When I turned my focus toward the campsite, I strongly felt the smell of burning wood. Feld told me to feel the magic power of the surrounding and sniff the flow of wind and smell. I backed away one step at a time ascertained the smell. I felt the increase and decrease of the smell. When I compared the magic particle that I felt at the surrounding and the flow of that smell, I got the feeling that I could see the movement of the magic particle for just a bit.

「......Wind.」

I chanted and poured my magic power to match the movement of that smell and magic particle. Then the smell dispersed, although only slightly. I was doing training to feel the magic power of the wind, so I thought I would learn this quickly, but I managed to learn it easier than I expected. I planned to hide in the forest if a traveler came, but I changed my plan because I could use Hard now. I began to collect clay.

After that I was focusing on kneading the clay without thinking of anything else when the smell of burnt wood drifting my way vanished. It was unexpectedly fun toying with clay, but it wasn't like I was just playing around.

I finished preparing. I took the rabbit meat that was wrapped in leafs and a bit of food from my luggage, and also the dried woods and wild grasses that I collected from the forest before carefully heading toward the campsite. There wasn't a human presence remaining there anymore.

「Hard.」

I applied Hard on the crooked clay bowl that I prepared to harden it, then I used my knife to chop the rabbit meat and threw it there together with the wild grasses that I had cut, then I poured water from above using Water.

「......uu......」

I staggered slightly. I had used too much magic power today. I shouldn't enter a starving state if I used magic just one more time.

「Fire.」

I put the clay bowl beside the new bonfire and lit fire to it. Sparks crackled and smoke faintly rose from the dry leaves. It would be hard for me to use Fire one more time, so I breathed out while tossing in completely dry leaves bit by bit into the fire. I sighed in relieve seeing that fire was burning well.

My magic power status was 13. With this I had used daily life magic eight times today. It seemed that daily life magic consumed one point for each use, so my remaining magic power was five now. Perhaps this was the bottom line. I sensed the magic power amount that was remaining inside my body and engraved this sensation deeply into my memory.

I only placed the bowl beside the bonfire, so I thought that it would take time until the wild grasses were cooked completely. But clay that was hardened with Hard could only last for around one hour. I was wishing that the grasses would finish cooking before that while using the free time to start shaving a wooden branch that I picked to make a spoon.

After some time the wild grasses looked very well boiled......in appearance, so I used my spoon that looked like a crooked spatula and tried eating it together with the rabbit meat that was also boiled together.

This was......bad. The side that was close to the fire was cooked, but the other side was only half-cooked. The wild grasses' astringent taste also remained behind strongly. It was painful to eat this. I also put in dried meat that was preserved with salt, so the food had some taste, but it wasn't so effective in erasing the astringent and weird taste. I learned with my stomach that it was no good if I didn't strictly select the type of wild grass to be used in cooking.

This time I was experimenting with cooking for the first time in order to cook the foods that I had left for a whole day inside the forest. The foods were more or less preserved, but I was scared of eating them as they were without cooking them first. My cooking resulted in a failure, but I got a slightly better understanding of what I should do next time for better result, so I believe this was quite a worthwhile experience.

The wild grasses soup tasted worse than even the salt soup the orphanage's old hag created, but it wasn't poisonous so I ate it all. Thinking again, both tasted bad so it wasn't really any different. But it had been bothering me that I was eating nothing but meat lately, so eating wild grasses somehow calmed me down.

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Like that I finished the meal that was unkind to my stomach and tongue. I gathered some new ashes and wrapped them in a leaf before returning to the forest. There I started training with knife which didn't use magic power.

Originally I should secure some food, but setting aside wild grass or blackberry, I didn't have any method to secure meat. That was why other than practicing knife forms I also practiced with 『knife throwing』 at the same time.

Originally it was inefficient to practice multiple things while you still hadn't obtained skill that memorized your state of ability acquisition, but the me right now had very scarce amount of methods in order to "survive", so I wanted to have a trump card no matter what it was.

First before I forgot it, I repetitively and carefully traced back the knife forms that I was taught yesterday. Feld said that skill acquisition would be quick as long as I was able to at least use the forms, but I couldn't be that optimistic, so I was thinking to repeat the forms that were taught to me many times to quicken my skill acquisition as quickly as possible.

In the first place skill wasn't something that could be obtained easily. If skill could grow quickly like weed in the field just from training for several days, even civilian should be able to obtain a lot of combat skills before they grew into adult.

Then, how great a 『skill level 1』 actually was? Although that woman was ill-informed about close quarter combat, her "knowledge" at least knew about the common sense.

For example if you asked how great 『sword skill level 1』 actually was, a child who went to a swordsmanship dojo in a town for several years would finally be able to learn it when they were around twelve or thirteen years old.

To become level 2 from that, they would need be diligent in doing practical combat training and obtaining the ability to work in occupation of fighting where they put their life at risk. Becoming level 3 would put someone at the level of career soldier or knight who had done their duty for more than ten years. When someone reached this level, they would be able to call themselves a 『warrior』 and no one would be able to refute it.

But this level was a domain that the average people could arrive at by doing their work normally. To go even further than that, it was said that they would have to go through training that demanded them to make sacrifice with their private life, and they also needed to have talent in that field.

Ordinarily there was nobody below 10 years old who had level 1 skill, and there was also nobody who became level 3 at around 20 years old. That was why for a small child like me to obtain skill, I couldn't just simply train frantically. It was necessary for me to train my forms perfectly and accurately to a degree that was impossible for a kid.

I sharpened my mind and repeated my revised forms accurately over and over.

A child had unexpectedly high degree of focus. A normal child tended to get bored quickly, so they couldn't continue it for long, but I "understood" that this was a necessity for me to survive, so my focus was unwavering.

「......Fuu.」

I continued the short sword skill training for around two hours. Then I felt fatigue welled up inside my body and sighed.

I should replenish my water when I became able to use Water during the morning. When I pondered about the remaining amount of magic power that I could use today, the necessary information surfaced in my head from the "knowledge".

Even if I consumed my magic power, in this world that was teeming with magic particle, my magic power would recover for about ten percent in one hour. If I was sleeping, it seemed I would recover twenty percent. In that case even if I consumed my magic power until the very limit, it would fully recover if I took five hours of sleep.

The last time I used magic power might be around two hours ago, so I who had the magic power capacity of 13 should have recovered around 2 or 3 magic power.

First I'd wash my hand in the stream, threw the water that smell like leather from my water flask, then chanted Water to fill the water flask bit by bit while paying attention to my remaining magic power amount. With my current training, the amount of water I could produce with 1 magic power was only around a single cup. Thinking that I might be able to do a bit more, I used Water once more and my head turned dizzy.

But, with this I became convinced that ten percent of my magic power recovered in one hour. It seemed that magic power would increase bit by bit after obtaining sorcery skill and using magic power, but the magic power that I could use right now was too small that my training couldn't progress as I wanted it to.

Then was there no way to quicken the magic power's recovery? ......Let's think about it later.

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I drank water and recuperated my willpower, then next I trained in knife throwing.

In knife throwing, there was the method of throwing it straight and throwing it with rotation. To hit a close target it was better to use straight throw while rotating throw was used to target a slightly further target......apparently. Knife throwing's distance limit was ten meters even if you used body strengthening. It would be more efficient to use bow normally to aim further than that.

First I tried to target a tree trunk that was two meters away. The way to hold the knife wasn't different whether you threw it straight or with rotation. The only difference was in the way you swung your arm and the timing to let go, so I tried throwing the knife straight.

*Bam*

「............」

The knife hit the ground without even hitting the tree. I tried to throw using my elbow and below, but what should I do so that the knife could fly straight? Well, the only thing I could do was practice, but after repeating it many times, I understood that a seven years old child's muscle power was just insufficient for this.

Change of plan. I gave up in knife throwing for now and tried stone throwing. I was fixated to knife throwing because that action required and . I could practice both of them at the same time with that.

Stone throwing only required skill so even I should be able to use it. As I pondered of how I should throw the stone, the knowledge of a throwing weapon called slingshot surfaced in my mind. It seemed it could be easily made if you just have string and cloth or leather.

Change of plan again. It seemed that even a child could produce relatively high damage with slingshot, so I decided to make it. It seemed that woman also hunted rabbit with that when she was a child, so I also understood the way to make it.

I noticed that I didn't have string as I made that slingshot. Should I cut a cloth thinly to be used as replacement? Would it have enough resilience? I would also need a part for the slingshot to hang on my fingers so I felt that using string would be better but......as I rummaged through my luggage while thinking that, the hair that I cut off came out. I kept it because I thought that perhaps I would be able to sell it, but it had a length of around 30 cm, so perhaps I would be able to use it as string replacement if I intertwined them together.

First I tried braiding them together by tying up the ends of several hairs together. The result was really twisted. They would come apart when I strongly pulled them. After that I kept trying many times before I finally became able to neatly tie them together. It was already evening at that point. ......Let's go picking some berries.

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It had become really dark when I finished picking up blackberries, so I hurriedly returned to the usual tree where I slept.

I guessed that my magic power should have recovered slightly too. I dried some of the wild grasses that I picked during the morning on a rock near the stream. They had withered quite much, so I bundled them together and used Fire to lit them up slightly.

It was written in that book that this grass repelled insect, so I tried using it. I didn't know whether this was the right way of using it, but I placed it below the tree and surrounded it with rocks. A fire this weak shouldn't catch any attention at all so I believed that it would be fine.

I climbed on the tree and it still hadn't gotten completely dark, so I created the slingshot before eating only blackberries as my dinner. Inside the forest that had grown dark, I could see the light of bonfire from the direction of the campsite, but of course this time I didn't go to check the place. I slowed my breathing and hid my presence. ......But I got slightly curious and turned my focus toward the campsite. Could I use this as training to feel the magic particle in the air and detect presence like Feld told me?

I focused my eyes toward the direction of the campsite and sharpened my senses to feel the magic particle at the surrounding. As I strained my eyes to sense the magic particle, I got a feeling as though there was something.

Did I become able to sense the presence of small animal? Or perhaps there was 『fairy』 or 『spirit』 like what I heard from fairy tale?

It was as though such thinking became a stimulation that pushed a certain "knowledge" to surface in my head.

It seemed that it was said that the magic particle in this world was created from the spirits. In that case then perhaps there were really small spirits around here......but, eh? There were several types of fairy based on their element. If magic particle was converted when they touched some kind of elemental object just like I assumed, was it the spirit that was the source of the converted magic particle? In that case which spirit created the magic particle that was teeming in this forest?

We were in a forest so was it earth spirit? Or water? Right now it was night so perhaps it was the darkness spirit that generated the magic particle. When I pondered that, strangely I got the feeling like darkness spirits were overflowing inside the forest. There was moonlight tonight so I could at least see the outlines of objects around me, but perhaps because my thought reached such place, a particularly darker spot inside the forest entered my eyes. Was that spot looked even darker because of the bonfire's light entering my sight?

......Was that really the case? As I got curious by that, the darkness looked as though it was different when the rest of the place. If that was the power of darkness spirit──magic particle of dark element, what was the other parts? The tree parts looked especially different, so was it magic particle of water or earth element over there?

If darkness had 『blackish color』, what color water and earth had? In my imagination I pictured that water had 『bluish color』 while earth was 『yellowish』. Then light was 『whitish』 while fire was 『reddish』, as for wind......what kind of color it had? Perhaps the remaining color, faint 『green』 was its color.

As I was thinking such thing, I imagined that the magic particle around the tree was 『yellow』 and 『blue』 and strained my eyes. Strangely a pattern with yellow and blue mixed together appeared over the tree trunk. And then it felt like I could see red color around the light of the bonfire that was far away.

「......Strange.」

I faintly felt green color from the breeze that was shaking the tree leaves. When I strongly held the image of "color" in my mind, the inside of the forest that was only filled with pitch black darkness instantly felt like it was colored all over. Perhaps it was just my imagination. It might be a hallucination that my mind was showing me at this time. But if this was really happening for real.......

I took a deep breath to take in air along with the magic particles at the surrounding that I could see. When I matched the "color" of my own magic power with the magic particle I inhaled, my existence that was standing out from my surrounding until then felt like it was suddenly melting into the forest.

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The next morning I woke up together with the morning sun again. There should be people still staying at the campsite. When I focused my sight to there, it felt like I could see red color. It was harder to distinguish the color in the day rather than night, but my perception that was seeing elemental magic particle as "color" last night was still persisting. It seemed this wasn't my imagination. It looked like my brain was really "perceiving" magic particle as something that had color.

But Feld and also that woman's teacher said to 『feel』 the magic particle. Then perhaps 『seeing』 was abnormal. Currently my limit in sensing magic particle at my surrounding was several meters, but with 『seeing』 then I could detect magic particle until a bit further away.

I got the hunch that this would become my "weapon". If I trained this sense to feel magic particle a bit more, the range I could see magic particle with my eyes might widen. Let's strongly focus on this perception right now and trained to be able to look at the colors clearly.

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I focused on 『seeing』 the "color" of magic particle and 『feeling』 it with my senses while starting to do my daily routine of picking wild grasses and blackberries. My food situation was really dire. My dried meat and cheese would run out tomorrow, so I perhaps I should head to the town soon.

Midway I stopped by at the upstream of the small river and washed the blackberries and ate them before washing my face too. I rinsed my mouth thoroughly and rubbed my teeth with a stalk of medicinal herb that I had shaved. It was like a habit that my parents always told me to do when they were alive.

At the end I replenished the water in the flask with Water while pondering about the last thing that I was able to do last night. I became able to see the colors of magic particles, then by focusing on the surrounding colors and inhaling them as particles, and matching the color of my magic power with them, it felt like my presence was melting into the forest. If that wasn't just my imagination then it would be very advantageous for stealth.

「............」

When I strained my eyes while keeping in mind that magic particle had color, the surrounding scenery got faintly colored and even places that I couldn't see became "visible". I recalled the sensation from yesterday while absorbing magic particle through my breathing. Then I dyed the transparent non-elemental magic power inside me with the same "colors" of my surrounding.

Even though my surrounding was overflowing with elemental magic particles, why was it my own magic particle was colorless? I would enter a starving state when using too much magic power was because the organism of this world was absorbing magic particle as one of their nourishments too. In that case did the body only absorbed the magic particle's elemental attribute as nutrient?

I stopped thinking that for now and checked whether I was successful in my camouflage. I observed the surrounding magic particle while absorbing each of the earth's yellow, the water's blue, the wind's green, and the darkness's black in small amount, but in exchange I absorbed a lot of the light's white.

I couldn't completely became the same with my surrounding. Rather than because of the rate of the particles that I absorbed, it was more because of my magic power control that was too immature to fine tune that rate of absorption. Furthermore just by moving a little, the rate of magic particles at the surrounding would change, so I would need to fine tune the magic power again each time. ......I had to use this continuously the whole time while in stealth?

Feld also said to read the flow of the surrounding magic particles and match yourself with that while during covert action. The flow of magic particle......perhaps he was telling me to match the density of the magic particle and to match the elements unconsciously.

It was extremely troublesome......but well, there was no other choice but to do it.

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I trained in matching the color of magic power while resuming my gathering of the wild grasses. I learned a lesson the hard way yesterday with the edible wild plant, so what I picked today was mainly the medicinal herbs that looked like they could be used as medicine.

The medicinal herb that was used in the average household as household medicine was growing relatively anywhere. It seemed the herb could suppress the propagation of bacteria in wound, when eaten it could heal stomach ache from light food poisoning, and it was a type of antidote that had disinfection effect.

It was then, a green snake suddenly appeared from a nearby bush. Green snake was a meek snake that wouldn't attack a prey that was bigger than a wild mouse. Even so it would attack if there was danger. If it bit me, I would get paralyzed and unable to move for one hour.

It would be alright if it was in human settlement, but I didn't want to get paralyzed in this kind of place.

「............」

But, the green snake didn't notice me who was right beside it. It didn't realize I was here because I was matching my magic power with the surrounding? In that woman's "knowledge", it seemed that snake was able to sense a living creature's body heat. In that case was it possible to trick even heat detection by matching your magic power with the surrounding? No, perhaps the snake of this world wasn't detecting a creature's heat but their magic power instead. Either way, I was honestly happy that I was able to perform camouflage in a level that could deceive wild animal in such short time.

I pulled out my knife while matching my movement with the flow of wind around me. Without pause I swung down the blade at the green snake's head. The green snake struggled and tried to entangle me. In respond I slowly stabbed deeply without panic, after that I severed its head and bled it out by wringing it in order to eat it later.

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At afternoon I practiced with my knife and the slingshot that I just created. With my knife, I was only tracing the short sword skill's forms accurately. Sometimes I would also use Body Strengthening while being careful with my remaining magic power amount. Fundamentally it took a lot of time to obtain close quarter combat level 1 because the person hadn't learned Body Strengthening and martial art which were the basic of moving your body. That was why if I practiced while also mixing Body Strengthening with it, I predicted that my acquisition of the skill would be faster compared to other kids.

For the slingshot, I practiced throwing stones that I picked from the stream to a tree trunk over and over. At first the stone wouldn't fly straight, but my accuracy improved somewhat after continuing for an hour. Even so my limit was at 3 meter if I wanted to be able to hit my target properly, so even more practice was required in order to improve my hit rate.

「......Eh?」

But then, I noticed a mysterious phenomenon. When doing the slingshot practice, I was also doing the training of pouring magic power to my whole body at the same time, then suddenly it felt like my hit rate increased.

Was I unconsciously performing Body Strengthening......but did Body Strengthening have such effect? Even when I investigated my knowledge, I didn't find any memory like that. I poured magic power to my whole body once more and shot the slingshot. There my magic power was flowing to the slingshot, or more accurately only to the string that was made from my hair, although only slightly.

Even after it was cut from me, my hair still had my magic power slightly remaining in it. It reacted to my magic power and adapted so that the magic power flowed into it. I who was able to perceive my own magic power poured it along the flow of my blood. I thought that Body Strengthening was magic power flowing on its own through the blood flow, but perhaps it was my will that was moving the magic power itself.

In that case, there was a possibility that I was unconsciously moving the hair string as an extension of my body and it slightly compensated for my accuracy. If I poured my magic power while perceiving the slingshot as an extension of my body, then perhaps my accuracy would increase even more.

I felt like this could be used as a new "weapon" for me. I began creating a "new weapon" using my severed hairs while the day was still bright. And then──

「......This might be usable.」

Under the evening sun, I tried using the newly created item. It was only barely usable......the premise was that my opponent didn't have their guard up against me, but considering that my fighting method had increased with this, let's move to the next stage and headed to the neighboring town.

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I replenished the water and sorted my luggage before the day was over. I stuffed the minimum amount of luggage and half of my money into the bag of that woman who attacked me, then the next morning, I departed at the same time when the sky was getting brighter.

From this campsite until the neighboring town, an adult would usually arrive around evening if they departed from early morning. Then a child like me should need around fifty percent longer to arrive at the city. That assumption shouldn't be too far from the actual answer wasn't it?

I trained to sense the "color" of magic particle while walking. Sometimes I also mixed body strengthening in it. I could only rely on my body clock and the angle of the sun to know the passage of time, so I was especially careful to not overuse my magic power.

Even so if it was something that I could do then I'd do it as much as possible. I also used this time to practice with the remaining daily life magic that I hadn't trained until now, Light and Dark.

Light was a magic to lit a light that was as bright as a candle, while Dark's effect was to block light. It could also extinguish the effect of Light. The reason I put off learning these two was because I didn't understand the principle behind them, unlike the others.

If it was water then I just needed to imagine gathering water vapor from the air. After I became aware of the particles' "colors", I became able to produce a lot of water by focusing to gather water element magic particle. Then perhaps I could do the same by gathering light's white magic particle to use the magic.

「Light.」

A small light was lit on my hand after I chanted. The light was so small that I wouldn't notice it was there if I wasn't already aware of it. The light vanished the moment I lost focus.

Was it no good by simply gathering light element?

If the Light succeeded, then the light should continue to shine for around thirty minutes. Come to think of it, it felt like the Light that I saw in the orphanage was attached to other object. I severed my magic power from myself. That magic power would get consumed bit by bit to maintain the magic itself......if I consumed it as fuel like how oxygen served that role for fire.......

「......Light.」

As a test I tried applying Light at the tip of my knife. A dazzling light spread out.

「D-Dark!」

I hurriedly gathered the darkness magic particles and threw it on the light. The Light's light and the darkness offset each other and vanished.

The strong light just now, was it because of my image of it burning with fuel? I got the feeling that the magic power I cut off wasn't dispersing but burning up in the blink of eye. I wouldn't be able to use this properly without training. But I was able to use Dark immediately so let's be satisfied with this.

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I would enter the forest when there was carriage or traveler passing by and waited until they passed through. While waiting I picked some berries and used small fire to roast my last dried meat and cheese to fill my stomach. My remaining foods were only the blackberries and wild grasses that I picked from the forest. I still couldn't hunt rabbit using my slingshot. I could also search for snake, but I prioritized going to the city.

Evening came and the sun was starting to set. While I was worrying whether to use Light and kept advancing or lurk in the forest to wait until morning arrived, I suddenly noticed a change in myself.

「......I can see in the night.」

It was just two days. But as the result of using that time to strengthen my "perception" that magic particles had the color of elements, I became able to differentiate the plants, ground, and sky based on their element, although it was only faintly.

When I focused even deeper, I felt like I could even see the position of animals that didn't have any element. I could sense clearly for around a radius of fifteen meters I guess. But I could walk even at night if I could sense that much.

I entered into the forest first and searched 『blue』 water element and picked blackberries that contained a lot of that element. Let's continue walking as long as my stamina permitted for today. The fatigue that I was feeling was still faint, perhaps because of my frequent usage of body strengthening.

After I finished with my small meal and break, I matched my magic particle's size and color with the surrounding magic particles to erase my presence while walking through the road. After that I took several breaks in between while advancing through the road at night. When it was late at night, the large wall of the neighboring town that I saw for the first time finally entered my sight.