Translator: Ranzan Editor: JackOFallTrades
A pitch-black night without a moon.
We were all in the forest, eating in front of a crackling campfire.
「…Shuria, stop trying to hide that you"re not eating your vegetables!」
「Gulp, what? 」「『Whaaaa?』」
She had taken a vegetable that looked like an eggplant from Minnalis" vegetable fry and was caught trying to give it to the cat 『Neko-san』to eat.
She had done a good job hiding it from Minnalis, but from my viewpoint I could see exactly what she was doing.
「Shuria? Again?!」
「Eek, well, I…I don"t like how slimy it feels! It"s not even like a vegetable! It"s like a devil fruit!」
Minnalis was visibly angry, but at the same time suppressing a laugh, while Shuria looked troubled and was pouting obstinately with her fists to her chin.
It seemed that since we banded together, we had never seen Shuria eat that eggplant-like vegetable before. It"s unique texture must be too much for her.
I mean, it"s not that I don"t know how she feels, but this is this and that is that.
「Geez, I told you before 『You can"t just shove food aside』too. Shuria, what you like and dislike eating…」
「Well then why doesn"t Kaito EAT BUGS THEN!?!」
「Minnalis, well, all people have a hard time eating bugs. Well, I guess people won"t die if they avoid one or two things.」
「Master…don"t say stupid things and let her off the hook.」
My wonderful reaction to the situation was met with Minnalis" freezing glare and words.
Yeah, enough to make your food cold.
「I told you that I won"t let you just get rid of food! Look, you can eat the vegetable with the meat, right?」
「ugh…chomp munch」
「See, now that"s a good girl.」
「I can"t, I can"t eat this, though!」
Minnalis wrapped the eggplant-looking thing with meat and stuck into Shuria"s face.
She patted Shuria"s head, and even while she resisted, Shuria chewed it without too much disgust.
(That reminds me, I used to feed the kids like that too.)
Looking at them, I thought about it.
My own sister had a lot of likes and dislikes, and that"s why I treated those kids that way.
(This time, I hope they grow up strong.)
We had been away from Dartlas for two weeks now.
From all the businesses I had stolen money from, I gave it back with a little extra, and then gave the rest of the gold and the sword back to the orphanage.
I also made sure with some extra money that no one in the slum would touch the orphanage.
To that degree all I could do is pray it would remain that way.
In order to fulfill my desire, I couldn"t just stay in town and watch over them, but had to just make my way with an irresponsible satisfaction.
(No real good done, but a false good. Just enough to comfort me.)
I would never forget.
But, I had to continue onwards. Well, there was no other road than that.
Crush, kill, conquer, there were still guys out there that had to be bulldozed.
「Ugh! It"s like worms crawling around in my mouth! I really is the devil"s fruit!」
While I was thinking and eating, I noticed the plates in front of Minnalis, Shuria, and I were empty.
A cold wind blew through with the sound of rustling leaves.
「Eek! It"s cold!」
Shuria took the cape with 『body warmth protection』that she kept for the cold and wrapped it around her.
Minnalis, who had come from a colder climate, and I, who was used to having my body subjected to bad environments, looked at the pained face of Shuria, who had only known warmer climates.
Minnalis and Shuria had other clothes with 『body warmth protection』ability, but nothing strong enough to compete with temperatures cold enough for it to snow.
「It"s gotten so cold these past few days. Well, we are far west, and tomorrow we"ll arrive at the magic capital Carbonheim. There"s a huge barrier that surrounds the city, so it has always nice weather there. But until we get there, it"s going to be tough.」
Yes, we went through the north to reach Giligal Empire, and after entering the imperial country over the boundary, we headed west from the imperial city, and towards the 『Magical School Congress / Carbonheim.』
As the name states, the country name and capital have the same name as the magical congress, Carbonheim, and was created by magicians of the beast and emperor"s country that had been enmeshed in a war.
Compared to other countries it was a small one with only 20% of the others, but it was known for having the greatest magic firepower in the whole continent.
The country was created right around the same time as the imperial country, and compared to the imperial country that ravenously tried to expand its borders, Carbonheim put its energies into maintaining the borders it had obtained.
As a result, each city had its own barrier, and the country had its own huge one.
They were barriers that were excellent at resisting physical and magical damage, so the humans that were unsuited to attack with magic were protected against by this barrier, and Carbonheim was easy to defend, and quite difficult to attack.
The imperial, emperor"s, and the beast"s countries were all close by, and none could defeat it because of that reason.
And so Carbonheim, which had declared itself neutral, after creating a school to 『create new magic』created a place for the superior magicians of the continent to sharpen their magical skill.
Therefore, there was a ma.s.sive dungeon located below the school, and the reason we changed our direction to there was due to that dungeon.
「Because this dessert was made with a little ricol fruit, let"s cook and eat it. Cooked ricol keeps you from getting sick.」
「! Shuria"s eating two of them!」
「Okay, okay, just…if you eat too much, your stomach will hurt!」
Even with a little sigh, Minnalis taking out four of these small ricol fruits, each the size of a small orange, was kind enough for Shuria.
We stuck them on a stick used for cooking, and cooked the ricol over the fire as we watched the fire crackle and snap.
「Okay, let me check our plan after we arrive at Carbonheim one more time.」
At first we were going to go to the imperial city and check out the soldiers and dancers, but we would have to put that off for later.
The chief of the magic school too had a lot of loans he hadn"t paid and was starting to become a nuisance.
To be honest, there wasn"t anything we were upset about or hated him for. Maybe because we didn"t know him well enough for him to betray us. No, compared to the others I really didn"t feel much for him.
Either way, he wasn"t someone that I wanted revenge against.
…even so, he"s still going to make up for the things he owed me in the first world.
In order for us to get a stepping stone to progress, we have to use this country.
If he wasn"t going to pay for it one way, then we"d have to take it.
(Well, if that makes us hated then I guess they"re just going to have to hate us.)
Is what I thought about as the conversation continued.
「Anyway, we"ll get in acting like students. We won"t be there that long, so it will take a little money, but it should be hard for a basic cla.s.s. There are a lot of adventurers and magicians coming to learn there, after all」
And I continued…
「However, it would cause problems if you stayed there. I want you to go to the 『Advanced Cla.s.s』that teaches the basic magic cla.s.ses.」
The advanced cla.s.s hadn"t only cleared the basic cla.s.s, but since it was a cla.s.s where they did more than the standard magical learning, it was learning for pure magicians.
If the basic cla.s.s was how to use magic, the advanced cla.s.s was how the workings of magic occured.
Above the advanced cla.s.s there was the special advanced, super advanced, and divine advanced cla.s.s, all of which made you sign a contract as it was the magic that protected the country, but up until that it wasn"t necessary.
「Well, while that"s going on, I"m going to attack the dungeon myself. First, I"ll get the experience, and I can try out all this equipment. So then maybe I can suppress this curse of the holy woman. There are other things I want to do, so it will probably take three weeks. During that time, just learn all you can, okay?」
「What?! You"re just going to leave us here? Ouch!」
「I don"t want to, don"t just get rid of us!」
「…no, I told you this before. Why are you crying about this?」
The two looked sad and attempted to look sad together, and then when they were called out on it, straightened their faces out.
「We felt like secretly protesting.」
「It"s our secret protest.」
「Nonono, where"s the secret in all this?」
I sighed while they opened their mouths again.
「…well, you made fun of us when we asked where we were going.」
「Even though we knew, we didn"t want this to happen.」
They both sighed and looked down.
If you think about how the country was formed it was obvious, because the weight of magic there was huge.
Also, thinking about my own magical ability was nonsense.
My magical operation style meant I couldn"t use any strong magic myself.
Because of the spirit blade I didn"t have one problem, but since I couldn"t use any easy magic there was nothing I could use well.
Of course, a normal adventurer could do well with the absolute minimum, but on the other hand that"s all they have.
「…even so, I can"t use magic, so I can"t be taught it. I"m going to mess up anyway since with my style I don"t even know the basics. Since Minnalis hasn"t been given 『magic path』of『magical techniques』, and Shuria is basically done being a 『magical puppet.』 Just go and study magic!」
Yeah, because that was the problem.
Even if I were to come up with a new magical idea using the knowledge I had from my original world, in order to make it a reality I still couldn"t put it together.
There was no way I could understand magic as I couldn"t change to someone who could use magical power in the first place.
That"s why Minnalis, who didn"t understand the organization of magic well, could still generate magical force with a high ability.
Shuria as well was good with outside magic, so even though it was impossible for her to learn the holy magic hidden in the church she still could learn cursing magic.
「So, when we arrive in this town, you girls can"t use any of your natural abilities.」
「「Whaaaa?」」
「Don"t say『Whaaa?』to me. You use your magic so often you get drunk on it. You just start using it too easily. You have to learn the basics of magic and be more effective at changing magic styles.」
I continued chiding them after they gave me reluctant looks.
「You know you get drunk on your own magic, right?」
Getting drunk on magic limits your reasoning skills but strengthens your ability.
The condition is just like being drunk on liquor, but the way of getting drunk is different.
With me it"s just like that rush you get when you stay up really late, but then you suddenly get sluggish and can"t take it.
Those two are kind of the same, they show off things people shouldn"t see.
Even though I dodge I"d still like them to see it from my position.
「Well…」
「I guess…」
They both looked away.
「But, won"t you go too, master? 『What about this?』『How about this?』you always say when you kill something, while you use up all your magic. You still haven"t even tried…」
「Uh…well…」
This time I was avoiding their gaze.
It seems they both remembered a bit too much.
「And now we have worse enemies! The people you want revenge on are close to war and the magical beasts are on the prowl. If you just fight using your skill it will be too much so we all have to get stronger. Okay, it"s decided!」
And just then there was a sound like WHOOOOOSH.
It was the sound of the ricol juice overflowing and getting all over the fire.
「You think it"s burned?」
「Hm, we spent too much time on this conversation, so it may be so. If we cook it any more, it will lose its flavor.」
「Well, then I"ll have the largest one!」
Shuria went woosh and grabbed the largest ricol fruit.
「Come on Shuria! Be careful! You"re going to get burned.」
「I"m fin…OW! Hothothothot! Waaaah…」
「I knew this would happen, that"s why I told you…」
Minnalis sighed and used her ice magic to pa.s.s Shuria some cold water.
「Owwwth, that"s much cooler….ah, a little more….」
Shuria put her hands over her cheeks as to quickly cool mix in her mouth.
Just like always, when there"s no one to revenge, Shuria always does dumb things.
Looking at her appearance, she seemed like a maiden that some lover would worry over, but she made herself look like that on purpose.
Well, each person has their own disposition, and since I"m kind of the reason she"s like this, I"ll stop thinking about it. Yeah.
「We need to feed the KuuCoo-egg too, you know.」
And upon saying that I took a moving box from my bag out and then a large case from that.
Inside the case, surrounded with gla.s.s walls much like a square aquarium, was some dried gra.s.s and Koo, who had turned back into an egg.
I put the case on the ground and the egg began to rattle back and forth.
Of course, the KuuCoo-egg was an egg, but still KuuCoo-chan.
Even since KuuCoo-chan attained that shape, it still had an appet.i.te. Well, instead of food, it wanted magic.
Since it didn"t have a mouth it couldn"t eat, but if you held it in your hand, it would suck all the magic emanating from you that it could out of you. Because of that, if you fed it a lot of magic it would get full, the egg would shake, and it would stop absorbing magic.
This is what consisted of its "diet," so we tried to give it three daily meals of magic just like the meals we had.
Anyway, KuuCoo-egg was the name that Minnalis came up for it.
「Hm, okay, it"s my turn! Hot! Hot!」
Fwip, Shuria jumped up excitedly with some hot ricol fruit still in her mouth, and stood before the case.
It was just as always. Shuria was the first one and the one given the duty of feeding KuuCoo.
「Okay! I got some tasty magic for you!」
She took off the lid of the case, and prepared to channel the magic tenderly just as a mother might nurse a baby.
Well, except….
「…it doesn"t look very interested.」
「Your magic"s just getting all over the place.」
「Wah!」
…And just like usual, it didn"t absorb Shuria"s magic at all.
「Uuughh….what"s wrong? Why don"t you like my magic?!」
「Well, you did your best, Shuria.」
Minnalis tried to comfort Shuria, whose eyes were welling up in tears.
「『Rattle Rattle』」
「Okay, no need to fuss.」
I took the egg from Shuria and it began to rattle happily. I began to feed it my magic until it had all it needed. Until something happened suddenly.
Crack!
「「「WHAT THE?!」」」
In my hand, the egg began to crack.
Crick, crack!!
「Oh! Wait! Now…now what?! What should we do?!」
The sounds continued loudly as the egg cracked, and I looked around to the other two.
「C…calm down, master! Put it back in the case.」
「Slowly! You don"t want to hurt it.」
「S, sure.」
Minnalis and Shuria advised me, as I calmed down a bit, and put the egg back in the case.
And at that moment.
CRAAAAAAAAAACK!
「「「Wah?!!!」」」
The cracking sounds of an egg cracking that had broken its limit rang out along with the sight of the egg splitting in two.
Editor"s note: Ku-chan is now Kuu-chan in case if it got confusing. And kuu seems better when it stands alone versus ku..