I Studied Mainly Textbooks!

Thanks to the new addition to the portable mana bank(?), the duo arrived at the city of Madlene in no time at all. Even after two successive teleports, Abel was feeling great.

Although he still had to raise his max mana pool, his recovery speed had nearly doubled thanks to the mana converted from Schrodinger"s prison.

"This is wonderful."
Contribute to society whilst expanding on his mana reserve.
This was killing two birds with one stone alright.

Abel secretly hoped for more black mages to appear near him. If they were planning harm to society and would no doubt wreak havoc sooner or later, he would rather have them appear earlier on and acquire more mana batteries in Schrodinger"s prison.

"You head on first, Sylvia. If they send you to a place like that next time, just abandon your religion!"
Although this was blasphemy for a girl who had been raised by the clergy of said faith, this statement actually highlighted Abel"s worries.

After self introductions, Abel found out that the girl"s name was Sylvia. She had a flowery name that much resembled her appearance.

"Thank you! I hope you find what you are looking for as well, Mr Abel and Ms Reina! May Lady Gaia"s protection be with you at all times."

Fwoosh
Sylvia turned to part and would go to the Church and tell them what she had experienced.
The Wheel of Fate had been put into motion.

"We should get going as well."
Abel entered the city of Nufer at the warp core.

The region of Nufer was considered the land with the thickest mana concentration on the continent.

Due to this fact, there were many materials for artifacts produced here. Nuferian peridots were one of them. From the inkling Abel felt, it didn"t seem to be a coincidence.

Swoosh.
When the warp core was filled with mana, Abel pressed the b.u.t.ton.

"The payment is the same but why is the quota increasing without end?"
"I heard that the shipments for the imperial family doubled."
"d.a.m.n those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds… they only know how to feed themselves. They never think about the hardships of the common people."

It was very crowded when they arrived, and as it was a famous mining city, most of the people around them were miners.

"Haa, where do I even begin?"

He couldn"t get a grasp on it at all. And it wasn"t like he could search through the entirety of this wide region, which contained five whole separate mining camps.

"Since this place is famous for its manastone mines, let"s visit the place with the thickest mana."
This was the best method he could think of.

"Good! Let"s go."
Reina seemed more energetic than usual.

They were able to pinpoint the location without much difficulty. The mana felt a lot thicker towards the North. However, there were no signs of life at all, completely devoid of people.

Abel and Reina arrived at the entrance of the forest. Only when they noticed the guidepost did they realize why there wasn"t anybody here.

A high concentration of mana meant that it was suitable as a habitat for monsters.

"Monsters, huh… we can"t turn back now. Reina, have you seen any real monsters before?"
Monsters were things he had only read about in textbooks.

"Yes."

"Really? When was that?"
Abel inquired quizzically 

"A lot of monsters appear in the mountain to the South of the fief. We have to go on expeditions to exterminate them every four years. I"ve been there since I was… 7, I think."

"What the…"

Even if she was a genius at the sword, bringing a 7 year-old girl on a monster expedition… that sounded very unusual for Perelman, who doted on his daughter very much.

However, Perelman"s education policy was that of tough love, the more he loved his daughter, the harsher her education would  be.

Though, it was good that Reina had experience hunting monsters.

"…Area Detection!"

As this was a large forest, it seemed that it would take quite a while to search its entirety. So he decided to begin from the entrance. He was already able to detect many colonies of monsters.

The 2nd volume said that he would be able to find the 3rd if he learnt white magic. So there ought to be some clues left nearby.

"There"s no way this is just a coincidence."

This was once where the World Tree was located, and this place was now famous for its concentration of mana. His White magic originated from the Eternal Elves, who were protectors of the World Tree, there should be a connection between the two, and Abel thought it was likely the reason for the unnatural concentration of mana here.

"I must search for a place that has an especially thick concentration of mana, or places with peculiar traits…."

Nufer was the region with the highest concentration of mana, and this forest had the highest concentration of mana in Nufer and was a habitat for monsters. Following the previous chain of logic, he decided to search for the area with the highest concentration of mana in the forest.

"……!"

When he scanned for a while, he did indeed find a place that seemed to fit the bill. Not only was the concentration of mana thicker than other places, there was a faint presence of white mana as well. This place fulfilled all the criteria. However…

Unlike other parts of the forest, only one monster lived here.

"That thing looks dangerous…"

Although he was unable to tell the exact shape of it, just from the general outline, it was likely over 3 meters tall.

"Reina! Stay here because it may get dangerous. I"ll be right back."
Even though Reina had experience hunting monsters and was incredibly adept at using the sword, he was still worried.

"No! Let"s go together! Abel, you don"t have any hunting experience."
Likewise, even though Abel was incredibly good at using magic, Reina thought that he was still lacking in real battles.

Both of them were worried about each other.

"Fine… We"re going to teleport straight to the middle of the forest.There is only one monster waiting for us, but it"s frickin" huge so watch out. Fall back if you can"t handle it."
Abel warned her sternly as this concerned their safety, and that he was unable to dissuade her.

Although they would have had to clear a path through several colonies of monsters if they walked, it was possible to skip straight to the boss room(?) with a single teleport.

"…Teleport!"

Swoosh.
Abel and Reina were directly moved towards the habitat of the boss monster. After seeing the grandeur of the boss monster though, their jaws loosened in shock.

"WHAAAAAAT the h.e.l.l is THAT!"

My word! He initially estimated that it was over 3 meters tall, but it actually seemed to be over 5 meters tall. It looked like an ogre of sorts, but an ogre of that size would qualify to be introduced in the "Monthly Monster" magazine.

What was more peculiar was that it possessed four arms, and he had never read anything like this in monster encyclopedias before.

"I heard about monsters with two heads, but this hyung has four arms!"

It was the apex predator in Nuferian Forest, the Quattro Arm Ogre.

As the top of the food chain, it had strength to confront all the other monsters in the forest combined. Though, for some reason, it always kept to itself and did not exit the central region. It was as though it was protecting something.

Due to its overwhelming presence, other monsters didn"t dare tread into the vicinity.

"Graaaaaar!"
At the same time the ogre locked eyes with Abel, it let out a booming roar.
Abel nearly p.i.s.sed himself in fear.

Then his legs started shaking. The very first monster he met in his life was a boss-tier one.

However, in the ogre"s eyes, this little human was no different from a bug or insect.

Crunch!
The ogre uprooted an entire tree like picking up a fallen branch.

It then proceeded to swing that hunk of wood.

Fwoosh.
Reina seemed to have caught its eye more than Abel did, and the tree was flung towards Reina.

Ttap.
Reina moved sideways with light steps. Although it approached quickly, she was able to evade it easily because it was such a straightforward attack.

At the same time she dodged the attack, Reina retaliated and injected loads of sword energy into the blade. The sword energy steamed up from the sword"s surface.

Swish!
Reina slashed towards the elbow of the arm that was holding the tree.

Although the ogre"s skin was tougher than the tendons of cows and its bones st.u.r.dier than steel, nothing mattered in front of sword energy.

Thud.
The ogre"s forearm fell onto the ground. Now it was a triple-armed ogre.

Graaarh!
The ogre cried out toward the skies in pain.

Then, the cut off fore-arm started regenerating!

"What the! Is that a troll?"
Abel fell onto the soil in shock and he couldn"t believe his eyes.

Who created this horrible mish-mash?

An ogre, with four arms, and a troll"s regenerative capabilities? Even if a swordmaster was here, it wouldn"t lose out by much!

Worried that Reina would encounter danger at this rate, Abel calmed himself down..

"…Distortion Cutter!"
He immediately distorted s.p.a.ce to slice off the ogre"s head.

Thud
The ogre"s severed head fell down from the top of its 5 meter body.

"The head shouldn"t be able to regenerate."
This was a weakness of trolls. However!

Pshhhh.
As though to reject every notion of common sense, the head was growing back at a rapid rate.

"What the f*ck! …s.p.a.ce Switch!"
Abel panicked and cast a spell before the Ogre could regrow the entirety of its head.

"What if I attack the entirety of its body?"

Abel switched the location 50m below them with the ogre"s body.

A lump of mud fell down where the ogre was. Now, the Ogre was buried underground.

"Phew, that scared me… WIth this it should be… whoaaa?"
It was only a moment after he had let out a breath of relief.

Rumble.
The ground suddenly started shaking violently.

Boom!
Then, the ogre burst out from the ground. It had dug itself out of 50 meters of dirt. It had an unbelievable amount of strength.

"Don"t waste your mana and look for its weak points! I"ll distract it!"
Reina judged that normal attacks would be futile since the ogre had unbelievable physical power.

Then, she started rushing towards where the ogre jumped out of.

To be honest, she was very afraid as well. Fighting an ordinary ogre would be difficult enough – she would only be able to hold out for a few minutes against a freakish ogre like this.
Despite that, she believed in Abel and his strange magic.

"Dammit!"
This wasn"t something they had antic.i.p.ated when they decided to travel.

He would uncover the location of Yggdrasil, get the book and leave.
It was supposed to be a simple journey.

However, their lives were on the line. If he didn"t have a solution to this, Reina"s life might be endangered soon.

"…Area Detection!"
Abel"s mana infiltrated inside the Ogre"s body, scanning and looking for a weakness.

When he finished the scan, the organs within had a normal(?) layout. However.

"The heart!"

Unbelievably, he could feel traces of white mana from the heart. The heart pumped out mana continuously. This was the source of its regenerative power.

"No way, did Thrandriel do this on purpose?"

From the traces of white mana, this didn"t seem to be a simple mutation caused by thick mana.

"But I can"t attack it!"

The ogre"s movements were too fast. Although he could use spatial displacement or spatial slicing to cut the heart, the coordinates were changing too quickly for him to input properly.

Clang-
"Urgh! Quickly!"

Reina shouted urgently while deflecting the ogre"s fist. Although she was deflecting most of the force from the attacks, her hands were getting numb due to the sheer power.

"What do I do? Dammit I should have listened to Kyle. Wait… Kyle?"

He suddenly remembered Kyle"s face. When his thoughts travelled there, he remembered about the artifact that Kyle gave him when he had enrolled in the academy.

-if you are met with danger, take it off and throw it at the source.

The bracelet he was wearing for four years now would finally be put to good use.

"Haah!"
Abel threw the bracelet he was wearing at the ogre.
It was when the ogre was tenaciously attacking Reina with all of its four arms.

Clack,clack,clack! Viiin-
The flying bracelet separated into parts and recombined like the robots from the Transformers movie, forming a droplet-shaped barrier.

Buuoooong-
The barrier entrapped the ogre.
It was as though the ogre was trapped in a soap bubble.

Boom Boom!
"Graaaargh!"
The ogre struggled around inside the barrier.

Crack.
Although the shield was extremely durable, it started cracking every time the ogre"s fist hit it.

"Now!"

He had to attack now when the ogre was unable to move.

Abel casted while looking at a huge rock.

"…s.p.a.ce Switch!"

Swoosh.
The ogre"s gigantic heart appeared where the rock once laid.

Thump- thump-
It remained beating and didn"t seem like it would stop anytime soon.

The ogre that now had a boulder for its heart grew visibly weaker as the seconds pa.s.sed.
Abel remained fraught with tension as he gulped, if this hadn"t worked, nothing would.
Thud-
Much to the pair"s relief, it finally collapsed onto the ground with its eyes flipped around.

"Dammit Thrandriel! I"ll come for you if there"s nothing much to see at the end!"
Roared Abel towards the sky after killing the ogre.

From the insane difficulty, there would be out-of-this-world rewards as well. There simply had to be.