Chapter 19: Farewell, Textbook

Chapter 19:
Farewell, Textbook

ANTICLIMACTICALLY, Gol’s broken arm was easy to reattach. I feared she couldn’t be healed from such damage, but after I stuck the missing limb to the stump, the two parts joined automatically. In roughly two minutes, she was completely restored.

“Gol, how does your body feel?” I asked. “Think you can move?”

In response, Gol opened and closed her fist. Most of her stiffness had disappeared. At this rate, she would be able to move normally in no time.

I touched my chest, relieved. Though if Gol showed signs of lingering symptoms, I would, of course, nurse her for the rest of my life.

In any case, that ancient Earth Dragon’s stone bullets were truly terrifying. Ignorant and uneducated as I was, I didn’t understand what exactly had caused Gol’s malfunction, only that the attacks had managed to gravely wound my typically unbeatable Gol. I could only imagine what would have happened if a living creature like myself were hit by that stone…

Honestly, I probably would have been turned into minced meat by the passing wind before I even touched the stone.

While I was thinking such useless things, I said to my partner, who didn’t look ready to walk yet, “Gol, be a good girl and wait here for a bit. I’m going to go check on Mister Speria.”

When I saw Mister Speria on top of the cliff, his clothes were even more torn than usual. He seemed to have collapsed on the ground now, so I was a bit worried. He had already reached a certain age, after all.

As I headed toward the cliff by myself, I heard a loud crash behind me. I turned to find that Gol had tripped and fallen on the floor in an attempt to follow me.

Ah, I get it. I’ll wait here with you until you can walk.

“Oof.” I sat down next to Gol and took another look at the destruction surrounding us.

It was…pretty bad. Once the ancient Earth Dragon fell, the Earth miasma began to diminish. However, the ravaged land didn’t miraculously return to normal or anything.

As you’d expect, our basket, the one Gol left on the ground when we first tried to hide, had been blown away without a trace. Even though the two of us worked so hard to create it… The clothes, food, and the Introduction to Spellcasting series I was reading had all passed into another life. How heartbreaking.

Oh, Introduction to Spellcrafting… My precious learning sessions with Emery-sensei… Eh, Zairein, you ask? Who’s that? Never heard of ’im.

In any case, the silver lining was that I still had the valuables inside my kit bag. Most important of all, we were safe and sound with our lives intact after fighting that monstrous Earth Dragon.

“However, we don’t have any food, so our journey ahead will get tough…” I muttered.

I wasn’t really thinking when I said that, and that was careless of me. Beside me, Gol suddenly hung her head. She surely felt responsible for leaving the basket behind.

“N-no. Hey, wait, Gol. You’re not bad,” I protested.

Gol had done absolutely nothing wrong. No matter how you looked at the situation, she had no choice but to leave it. In fact, the reason why Gol left the basket behind was to whisk me away from the danger zone.

Ah… Wait, that meant… How could this be? It was completely my fault…

***

As I guessed, it was Mister Speria sitting on top of the cliff. Though I called it a cliff, it wasn’t a natural formation. Rather, the monstrous power of the ancient Earth Dragon’s stone bullet had remade the land, creating an overhang.

When Gol and I approached, Mister Speria raised a hand and sent us a faint smile. From what I could tell, he was covered in scratches, but he had no serious wounds.

“Ah ha ha… What a terrifying fight. I’m glad the two of you are all right,” Mister Speria said as he weakly waved. He looked just like an overworked salaryman on the verge of collapse. He must have really pushed himself.

“We were saved thanks to your help… We barely escaped death.” I gave my own tired smile and waved back. I, too, had to look in bad shape.

Although, now that I could see him up close, I realized Mister Speria’s complexion was far worse than before; it was near ashen. And he was drenched in cold sweat. Worry flared. His condition was especially strange, as his external injuries didn’t look that bad.

I should suggest the man have his liver examined at a hospital.

“Um, Speria, you’re looking pretty pale. Are you all right…?”

“Ah, it’s because I used Storm Cannon. Truthfully, I’m about to faint. But I’m fine. I’ll be back to normal if I rest for a while.”

Guess that Wind spell really was impressive.

The ancient Earth Dragon’s stone bullet had overpowered Gol’s strongest punch with its mass, and that last shot had been especially huge. Yet Mister Speria’s Wind spell managed to push it back a few centimeters, even if only for a moment. I realized then that he might actually be an exceptionally skilled spellcaster.

“But I’m really glad you’re safe,” I said. “I was convinced that you were blown away by that first shot…”

Yeah, I really was glad he was fine. I was relieved from the bottom of my heart.

That weak smile of his returned. “At that moment, I used a high-speed launch type of spell to perform an emergency escape in the opposite direction of Goretaru. Well…it was reckless, which is why I’m in this state. That landing was rough.”

So that was why he was covered in scratches and his clothes were further torn. Honestly, his clothes were already tattered. If they were ruined further, he wouldn’t look that much different.

Mister Speria had been straining to smile, but his expression suddenly shadowed. “After that, I was overcome with a deathly fear. I hid behind the rocks the whole time. I really am shameful.” He turned away, unable to look me in the eyes. “I should have provided backup sooner. It was unforgivable to abandon you like that.”

I frowned. What are you saying, Mister? I thought you were a smart guy, but I guess I was wrong. Kinda dumb, really.

I brought my face close to Mister Speria, who was slumped over. “If you had a spell that allowed you to move at high speeds, you could have run away while we had the dragon’s attention. Right?”

The utterly exhausted spellcaster stared blankly up at me. I extended my hand to him where he sat on the ground.

“But…you came to our rescue. You are a brave soul whom I respect.”

There were only two kinds of people in the world who would throw down their own life for the sake of others. One was brave warriors who didn’t fear death. The other was proud, cultured people.

“Thank you very much, Master Speria.”

His eyes flared open and fixed on my face. A multitude of emotions raced behind them, like the surface of a lake rife with hidden currents. What exactly was this person thinking and feeling in his deepest depths? I didn’t feel equipped to speculate.

A silence hung between us. But Master Speria soon returned to his usual cheerful calm and scratched his head in embarrassment. Then he firmly grabbed my right hand. “You got me… I really can’t do anything wrong to you.”

I knew it from the very beginning. My teacher is an excellent, cultured person. He’d never do anything horrid to me.

***

“Hmm. To do that with Create Pebble…”

“Honestly, I had no idea what was happening.”

I asked Master Speria about the change in the size of my Create Pebble creation during the fight in hopes of learning how to properly cast the spell. If I could understand the reason for the misfire and devise a countermeasure, I hoped I could make actual use of it in the future. My teacher was a skilled spellcaster and scholar, so I was sure he would have the answers.

Also, his complexion was improving. He looked thoughtful as he said, “Usually, you see, the size of an object that a spell creates is fixed. No matter how much mana you imbue it with, that aspect won’t change. Though, the mass or density of the object might increase based on an influx of mana.”

“Huh, really? That’s one of the principles?”

“Hmph, yes…” Master Speria nodded to himself. “It’ll be easier for you to understand if I use Goretaru as an example. You must have imbued a vast amount of mana in her form upon her creation. However, that didn’t result in a particularly enormous golem, right? If you want to create a large golem, you have to weave an additional technique into your spell.”

Aha. It was easier to grasp with Gol as the case study. As a beginner, I had purposefully imbued a random amount of mana each time I cast the Create Golem spell, yet the sizes of the test golems and Gol’s first form were all tidily below two meters. But since I created Gol using that high-quality stone pillar, I had gone all-out.

“Well, I think in Goretaru’s case, improving her post-creation mana circulation is more important than strengthening her base. Though saying that, I’m no expert in this field, so…ah, I’m getting off topic.” Master Speria lightly cleared his throat and fixed his slipping glasses. “In short, a large-scale spell requires corresponding advanced techniques. If you created something based on the beginner textbook version of the spell, then it should be a beginner-textbook size. That’s a fundamental tenet in all spellcrafting.”

But then why did the pebble I created when I read the now-deceased introductory book on “discerning attributes” turn into such an abnormally large monster rock? When I asked, Master Speria had an answer for that, too.

“It’s possibly because you used a spell circle for beginners.”

Ah, the spell circles! For a second there, I forgot they even existed! And I did recall using a spell circle from the introductory book when I was discerning my attributes.

“Discerning your attributes is, more or less, an experiment to understand which attributes you have an aptitude for. As such, it’s necessary for people who have poor conversion rates within their given attributes—frankly speaking, those who don’t have much talent—to rely on something that ensures they can cast a normal spell. Once they have a handle on their specific aptitudes, they can conduct a more thorough examination.”

So it was an assessment, huh? Yet I only matched with the Earth attribute, even using such an accommodating exam. Why is that?

“That was why Master Zairein incorporated a technique for enlarging creations into the spell circle in his introductory book.”

“I see. So that’s why Create Pebble made something that large…”

I thought that was the end of this lesson, but Master Speria shook his head with a troubled look. “No, that wouldn’t usually happen regardless.”

“Oh? Is that so?”

“Yes, it’s frankly impossible. All you can really expect from that introductory spell circle is an increase in the base success rate. There’s no other effect to the additional technique. Specifically, it raises the scale of a spell by a degree of about ten percent. It certainly isn’t the sort of alteration that could increase a spell’s effect by one hundred percent. Which is all to say, the theory underlying that spell circle is highly advanced with meticulous calculations. Though, as you’ve seen, the circle itself is quite simplified.”

Master Speria suddenly paused. Then, as if he had noticed something, he stared pointedly at my face. “But if a person possessed an unconventional aggregate amount of mana, as well as a mana conversion rate that exceeded the highest-known limit…such an explosive incident could occur. And, right, this is just hypothetical, but…” He paused before continuing. “It might also happen if you were the legendary evil king intent on destroying this world…?”

My words stuck in my throat. I’d been found out. No doubt about it, I’d been discovered. He had figured out that I was the Sorcerer King.

Well, of course he had. I’d used sorcery to make that flashy spear attack. And as if I were showing off, I’d fired an army’s worth of spears after I lost my temper at my impotence against that ancient Earth Dragon. That whole time, I was being watched…

Master Speria had likely long since concluded that the NTR I used, for which he provided backup, was a form of sorcery. I could no longer make excuses.

To think that I would be arrested by Master Speria for the crime of attempting to destroy the world…

I have no choice. I’ll have Gol serve as my defense attorney. While she may not be able to provide proof of my innocence, she can at least destroy the prison bars for me.

Master Speria regarded my silence and let out a strained laugh. Then he lightly slapped my shoulder as if giving a warning to a bad student. “Listen, Nemaki. I probably don’t need to say this, since you’re smart, but…you must not perform that move you used against the ancient Earth Dragon in front of anyone else.”

“Yes, I understand. I’ll be careful… Thank you very much.”

My teacher silently nodded with a smile. “Okay, let’s stop talking about that disturbing old legend. We’ll rest here around a fire until our mana recovers.”

“Right. I’m pretty tired, too.”

As soon as I agreed, Master Speria rummaged through his bag and brought out something that looked like charcoal. He was always so well prepared. Still, that shoulder bag was full of so many things that it felt like it had to be magic.

Master Speria piled some dirt on the ground and placed the charcoal in the center. “All right. Now we just need to light the fire.”

Oho, starting a fire. However, Fire spellcaster Speria, you’ve run out of mana, no? Thus, you cannot use Fire spells now.

Lighting a fire on top of charcoal could be quite a laborious task. It was on another level of difficulty over lighting a fireplace. He he, was it time for my partner to shine?

Go, Gol! Observe my Earth attribute’s speedy fire-starting! Be amazed and bow before me! Now that you’ve run out of mana, you’ve become worthless, the completely weak and incompetent Fire attribute!

“Heh, you’ve run out of mana, right, Master Speria? Leave this to me. My Gol will start the fi—”

“Hm? It’s fine. Fire spells are very efficient. Ignite.” He raised his right hand with a warm smile and set the charcoal on fire as he spoke.

The fire lit beautifully.

“Wha…?!”

It was done in the blink of an eye.

The Sorcerer King who won against the ancient Earth Dragon was now trembling at his defeat by a beginner Fire spell. As I lowered my head with tears in my eyes, Gol, sitting behind me, gently stroked my back.