Gossip: The Three Heroes ~Entering the Kingdom of Marveil~

Since we ran away from Reijseger, two weeks had passed while we traveled a path with no road through the forest. Rio, who had lost her left arm, was now able to move normally. Actually, Rio’s been a big help.

“Stone Bullet!!”

We killed three orcs that we encountered.

“They’re orcs, so we can sell them, right?” Kanon said, touching the orc corpses. The orcs she touched were stored in her Item Box.

“Did the power of your magic go up again, Kaito?” asked Rio.

“Yeah. I think so, too. Status Open.” I checked my own status.

【Name】 Kaito Saitou

【Age】 17

【Job】 Hero from Another World

【Level】 18

【HP】 1235

【MP】 1195

【Attack】 1207

【Defense】 1174

【Agility】 1162

【Skills】 Appraisal, Item Box, Holy Sword Arts, Fire magic, Water magic, Earth magic, Wind magic, Light magic, Lightning magic, Ice magic, Healing magic

I’ve leveled up once since the last time I checked. “My level went up — I’m 18 now.”

“That’s awesome!”

“Really! You’re the strongest out of all of us, Kaito.”

Kanon was level 17, and her only stats over 1000 were MP and Attack. Rio was level 16, and she only had her MP over 1000. But, it could be said that we were only able to level like this over the past two weeks thanks to Rio.

“It’s because of Rio that we gained so many levels like this.”

Kanon agreed. “It’s thanks to Rio that we’ve become able to use all sorts of magic, after all. We’re able to use Ice and Lightning magic now too, even though we weren’t taught how.”

“That’s not true. I just said what I thought......” Rio said embarrassed.

But it really was thanks to Rio. She was the one who fervently pored through magic tomes and everything. Neither I nor Kanon bothered to read books. And even if we did, we might not have made the same connections. Both Kanon and I swallowed what we were taught whole, after all. If Rio didn’t mention it to us, we would have just thought that that was the way things were. I only figured it out when Rio said to me, “I don’t think you need those incantations to use magic.”

◇　◇　◇　◇　◇

It happened five days after we started to move towards Marveil through the forest. That was around when Rio’s condition stabilized, and she’d recovered until she was able to move around normally, even without her left arm. This was also thanks to the powers of Kanon and Rio’s Healing magic.

Since we were in a forest, we saw a lot of monsters. We knew that we could sell their corpses, so we stored them all as we defeated them, since they’d be valuable sources of money once we made it to Marveil.

It was just when we’d finished defeating a goblin that appeared that day.

“O invisible blade of wind, cut mine enemy apart! Wind Cutter!!”

For a single goblin, one Wind Cutter was more than enough.

“Hey, you know, I was interested in magic, so I read some books on magic, right?” Rio started.

“Oh, yeah you did. I saw you reading some thick book before, huh?”

“Yeah,” Kanon agreed, “I was interested in magic too, but I never could get the motivation to open a book that thick.”

“Well, I figured it out when I was reading, but actually the incantations for magic are different depending on where you learn them or who you learn from,” Rio explained.

“What? Really?” Kanon was surprised at what Rio said.

So was I. We just thought that that was how magic was. We never even considered that there could be different incantations.

“So you know, I figured it out by reading a lot of books, but isn’t it just that incantations are there to help fix the image of the magic in your mind, and if you can imagine it properly, you don’t actually need the incantation? We’re Japanese. We’ve seen a lot of anime and movies and stuff, so we should be better at that stuff than these people.”

I see. Image, huh? That actually sounds possible. And I totally get that it’s easier for us to imagine with all the anime and movies we watch.

“So I tested it out. Look......” Rio said, before nervously taking a deep breath. And......

“Wind Cutter!”

*Zzshh*

The weeds in front of me were cut and thrown into the air.

“W-Woah!”

“Wow, Rio! That’s awesome!”

Rio started acting all shy and embarrassed. “I tried a lot of different things, but if you activate magic without saying anything, it gets weaker and harder to time. So fixing the image in your head and saying the name of the magic to shoot it works well. I became able to do it, so I think it’s definitely possible for the two of you as well.”

“Okay! Kanon and I will start practicing it now.”

“Yes. I’ll practice as much as I need if it means I don’t need to be spouting those cringey lines anymore.”

“Ahahaha! Cringey? Well, it’s true, I guess.”

“Everyone keeps saying those lines all seriously, I’ve lost count of how many times I almost burst out laughing.”

“Heheh... Oh you.”

“Can you oversee our practice, Rio? And if you see something we can do better, don’t hesitate to tell us.”

“Yeah, please.”

“Okay, got it.”

After that, Kanon and I spent the entire day practicing, and we learned to use magic by only saying its name, just like Rio.

◇　◇　◇　◇　◇

It really was a good thing that we’d learned to use magic without incantations, since having to say those incantations ate up time. It was only two or three seconds, so someone might think that it wasn’t much, but in a pinch, it could be the difference between life and death. We felt that difference really keenly while we were traveling in the forest.

Monsters don’t wait, after all.

We’d tried using magic without saying anything, but it was just as Rio told us: the magic’s power was weaker, and most importantly, it was hard to grasp the timing of the magic, making it harder to actually hit the monsters.

Just as she’d advised, it was best to just shout the magic’s name. Once we started activating magic by calling out the spell’s name, we managed to get the hang of things. And since we were just imagining the magic, I wondered if we could use magic we hadn’t ‘learned’ yet, and got everyone to try Ice and Lightning magic too. When we did, it actually worked!

After testing a lot of ideas while moving through the forest, the three of us became basically able to not only perform all four basic elements of magic, but also Ice, Lightning, and Healing magic as well.

Especially Rio: claiming that it was because she didn’t think she could use a sword or spear anymore due to the loss of her left arm, she trained extra hard in the use of magic. Thanks to that, she even figured out how to use the buffing and debuffing spells from Holy magic. Neither Kanon nor I had even thought of buffing or debuffing, but apparently Rio had because of her experience with video games.

I was pretty impressed that she managed to learn all that through practice. Kanon and I also personally experienced how nice it was to have that magic. Having a physical ability boost or defense boost cast on you markedly improved your movements, and on the other hand, having those same aspects debuffed would cause a monster’s movements to dull and makes them much easier to defeat.

After a lot of testing, we found that the spells had a time limit of around ten minutes, and Rio’s magic became a strong ally. But Rio, having obtained Holy magic, started to glow faintly whenever she cast it. It seemed that Holy magic was really effective against the undead, but there were none in the area. Since the magic was clearly cast though, it should work.

Rio will just have to do her best if any undead show up.

“Kaito! Rio! Over there! We’re out of the forest!” Kanon was the first one to notice that we had reached the end of the forest. “It’s a road, I can see a road! And people!”

Ahead of us, a road stretched along beyond the edge of the forest. On the other side of that road, we could see farmers working their fields. Kanon, excited at what she saw, started to dash off.

“Wait a second!” I called out to Kanon to stop her.

“What, Kaito?”

“We have to change clothes,” I said, and Kanon looked down at herself.

“Oh, right. This would be......”

We were wearing the same plate mail as knights from the Reijseger Kingdom. Plate mail that had the crest of the Kingdom of Reijseger firmly engraved on it. The clothes we were wearing under it were also littered with holes and really dirty due to our little jaunt through the forest.

We changed into the clothes and armor we’d prepared beforehand. Rio borrowed clothes from Kanon to change into. I had managed to buy some leather armor in town without being caught somehow, as did Kanon. She apparently had got a set of robes too, which she gave to Rio to wear.

“Okay, this should be a bit better.”

“What do we do with this plate mail?” Kanon asked. It’d probably sell for a lot, but it has the crest of Reijseger on it, so I don’t know if we’d be able to...

“Yeah, it’d probably be bad if we tried to sell this, huh?”

“Probably. It seems expensive, but it’s got the crest on it, so they’d probably ask where we got it.”

So Rio thinks so too, huh?

“It’s kind of a waste, but let’s bury it here.”

Digging a hole with Earth magic, we first threw in the clothes we’d been wearing up until now and burned them. After that, we dumped our plate mail and buried it.

“Well then, let’s go,” I said, and both Rio and Kanon nodded in response.

We left the forest, and called out to the farmers. “Excuuusee uusss!”

“Hm? What’s up?”

“Where are we?”

“Huh? You all adventurers?”

“Yes. This is our first time in this country, so we’re a little lost.”

“Oh, so your rank is low. You gotta watch out for that kind o’ stuff, you know?”

“We just started, so......”

“Well, whatever. This’s Lamperts. We’s a town on the border of Marveil. You can see the entrance if you go a little further up the road there. Do y’all have a guild card? You can get in if ya show it.”

“Thanks.” We walked in the direction he pointed us towards.

“Great! Everything’s going good. We managed to get into Marveil.”

“Yes. We did it!”

“Yeah!”

I wanted to yell out and celebrate, but it wouldn’t be good to draw suspicion from the farmers, so I held it in. We bit down on our excitement at having succeeded at running to Marveil.