Translator: KurehaDurant
I was flying through the air, following the leyline looking for a place which might have a problem. This time around, it was surprisingly in a large forest near a village.
Since I haven"t had any good relations with people in this world, I wasn"t sure about choosing a place near a village. However, there was an unnatural amount of magic flowing into this area that if I didn"t do something now, the forest would have been taken over by magic and that never ends well.
Magic is like a mild drug. When a large amount of magic flows into a certain area, the land becomes rich with magic. As a result, the animals and plants in the area become more susceptible to becoming a spirit. There"s no problem in that. However, once the land reaches its capacity, the excess magic seeps into animals and plants in the area which makes them aggressive.
At this point, they are now pretty much species known as gargoyles. Gargoyles feed on magic and they suck the magic out of others to consume it.
They crash their own core, immortal as long as they don"t run out of the magic intake, and they constantly try to suck up more magic from the ground.
On the other hand, neighbours are something similar to phenomena and have a stable magic within themselves. So they"re very different from gargoyles who constantly needs to take in magic from other sources.
Anyway, once Gargoyles is strong enough to consume both eidolon and magic, they gain greater consciousness which allows them to shapeshift. It usually ends up being a mayhem when the two gargoyles of that level fight. Then, they start to learn how to use magic as they get into more fights.
With the plants, they try to absorb magic through the ground so they will pull in more magic from outside the forest. As a result, there will be more magic flowing into the area than usual, which results in excess magic being released from the ground, creating more gargoyles, and that is how the endless loop which I call magic overtake is created. Fixing up a land that has gotten used to magic overtake is a torture.
Last time I was fixing a place at the state of magic overtake, I first fixed the leyline that"s been worn out from a large amount of magic being used from all over the forest. Then ripped out and fought off individual gargoyles, stomping or flinging them off somewhere far away. Making sure there"s a good distance between each one of them. Doing all of that while trying to fix up the magical cycle, and realising it would have been way easier if I just burnt the whole place down in the first place is something I don"t want to go through again.
G.o.d d.a.m.n it! I will finish fixing this area as soon as possible and move away from this stupid village as soon as possible!!
I shared half of my consciousness to the land to speed up my work. By doing this, you increase your ability to mend leyline. However, only half of your consciousness is active so you only vaguely know what"s going on in real life. Well, there aren"t many things out there which could even leave a scratch on me, a dragon. Also while I"m at this state I automatically attack anything which attacks me so there shouldn"t be any problem.
As expected, while I was making a path for the magic to flow out in my half-awake state, a large group of humans came by a couple of times and started attacking me. Of course, I shooshed them off without a problem.
These villagers seem to have a decent amount of knowledge about magic. Yet for me, they only feel like a bunch of kids poking me with their tiny fingers. That doesn"t change the fact that those pokes are intolerable. I"m currently adjusting this part of leyline which is as hard as a steel so I want to be as focused as I could possibly be. But those irritating magic fireb.a.l.l.s are distracting me.
Give me a break!
I"m going to leave this place behind soon, I should just ignore them. I want to ignore them.
Then, as if they heard my wish they stopped attacking me. Now I could fully focus on correcting this cycle. A forest just before magic overtake won"t be easy on me. Still, I managed to finish the mountain area fairly quickly. Finally getting my full conscious back after being in a half-awake state for a couple of years, I stretched my arms out and thought about taking a quick fly around for a break as I took a look around my surrounding. As expected, around myself, a place which was once surrounded by trees has now become a small clearing. The trees have been knocked down, with the ground which I was sitting on as the centre. Well, at least I didn"t burn the whole place down. I thought, to make myself feel better. However, when I remembered that they were just a group of misunderstood, innocent people, who were probably badly injured afterwards, or even killed, I drowned myself in guilt once again.
Then, I noticed an army marching towards me.
I swear humans are only species that move in a group and make clinking sound of metal b.u.mping into each other.
But something was off. I saw a group of fully equipped soldiers marching through the forest which was normal. Yet this time, along with the soldiers was a worn out horse cart with a cover over it. Once they reached the clearing, they just left the cart on the spot and went back the way they came.
What the h.e.l.l are they trying to do?
Staring at the soldiers" back in confusion, I was even more confused when I saw what was under the cover.
….. Bagworms?
And a person wrapped up completely in with white cloth strapped with a leather belt.
*******
The cloth and the belt weren"t the only things which were retraining this human from moving. Multiple layers of spells have been cast upon the person to restrain their movement as well. On top of that, the cloth which covered the figure"s head had a pentagram drawn onto it so the person could not perform any form of magecraft.
It"s been over 300 years since I was reincarnated to this world but I still have my morals from when I was a human. However, at this sight, it pa.s.sed through the feeling of uneasiness or disgust, and I, for some reason started to admire their work in keeping this human from moving.
That"s a lot of effort put into making sure this person doesn"t run away. Although, they did just abandon them in the middle of the forest.
Welp, finders keepers.
I applied some magic onto the cloth in an attempt to take off the cloth wrapping the human"s head so I could take a look at their face. I must have applied a little too much.
Snap!!
With that, all the spell which was cast upon this person came undone and all the cloth and belt got torn up into million pieces.
Sigh, I"m hopeless at any fine magecraft that doesn"t involve in fixing leyline.
Thankfully, the person behind the cloth was wearing a separate piece of clothing so there was no awkward moment. Suddenly, the person woke up, looking at the ripped up pieces of cloth annoyingly. The person behind the cloth was a boy. He looked very malnourished but his features were very… elegant. When he saw me standing in front him, he opened his round, cloudy blue eyes wide and as he froze on the spot, a pair of pale blue iris which reminded me of a sky on a foggy day stared at me.
His hair was an unusual colour. The root of his hair was beige with a hint of white but as you follow through the gentle wave of his hair, it changes to salmon pink and then dark pink towards the tip. Such a beautiful colour yet it"s unfortunate that it"s been roughly cut near to his chin.
Moreover, I have never met any human being who possess this much amount of magic.
Hair and skin colours are very easily influenced by the amount of magic which the individual possesses.
With me, the red wings and the black scales represents lava, fire, night and shadow. It is rare for humans to express colours as vivid as we do. However, this boy, his hair colour changes halfway through probably due to the amount of magic he possesses is large and his hair was probably cut off to let out some of his magic.
Still, the level of magic which he possesses is equivalent to a newborn spirit. I wonder how much magic he would have if he grew his hair.
So… now what? I want to know what"s happening but all I can do is sympathise with them. Well, he"s not attacking me, and I hope he understands that I mean no harm. Either way…
⌈Can you stop staring at me, I"m getting embarra.s.sed.⌋
The words just slipped out of my mouth. He hasn"t broken his eye contact since waking up. He didn"t even blink once. I have been attacked or people ran away the moment they saw me but this was new.
Oh well, it"s not like he would have understood what I just said.
⌈Apologies. Me, dragon, talk, came⌋
It wasn"t fluent but he definitely apologised in a language which I could understand. Couple hundred years after being reincarnated into a dragon, I finally managed to converse with a human.