Chapter 36
Otoko Aruji - Chapter 36: A New Shadow


 

We somehow we"re able to get back to Bakkudo Village by night. Everyone was in a good mood because we were able to bring back a considerable amount of game. Even though it was just a few hours ago we all thought we were going to die how convenient. Thanks to the bright atmosphere I was also able to completely organize my feelings on the way home. I was made to think about a variety of things but that is well, something that will become an issue from here on out, it"s not something to worry about right now.

 

Since it was completely dark by the time we returned, they got worried and were on the verge of forming a search party. Normally nothing big like a search party would happen. It"s dangerous at night after all, and if they were killed by a monster it"s possible that a second disaster could happen where the search party takes damage. This time it seems that since Mill and I, the lords children were included a search team was specially put together.

 

It"s not like there"s a method of contact, and facing off against two Horned Bears, despite the fact that the two adults fell into a Panic state we all were able to return unharmed, so we weren"t scolded. . The place we were attacked at is a place that has been used for hunting for a while as well, it"s not like we jumped into danger so it wouldn"t feel good to be scolded. In the first place, other than Mill and I, everyone else is an adult. Kerry isn"t of adult age yet but right before at 14 after all. Isn"t it fine to consider him an adult?

 

Our parents know about Mill and my magic power so they weren"t actually all that worried but even they were surprised by the result of two Horned Bears. That night we were told once again about how dangerous the Horned Bear is. It seems that after all that Roar is famous as being considerably dangerous but normally they don"t usually roar that often and when my parents fought against one in the past they never heard it. What does that mean, so we just had insanely bad luck?

 

 

 

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The wedding banquet for Myun was gaudily performed the next day, there were many partic.i.p.ants. I"m sure Dangle used up quite a bit of his savings, there was a considerable amount of different types of food. The Horned Bear"s diaphragm, stomach meat, and liver were considerably popular. I also tried eating it and it certainly was delicious. Yeah, it"s different from brand cows but a different type of deliciousness. More splendid than delicious.

 

The wedding banquet proceeded without problems and ended at night. In the end Myun came to where I was and thanked me for a bit then smiled happily. Yeah, it"s fine as long as you"re happy. Give birth to a lot of energetic kids with Bosch.

 

 

 

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Thus, two years were about to pa.s.s. I turn 10 years old and my level goes up once more to 7. My MP has exceeded 7000 and finally stopped growing. I"ve gone hunting at night countless times since then but never encountered any monsters as dangerous as the Horned Bear. It"s partially because I was alone and putting priority on only hunting in places where I could completely and safely do it. I eliminate all of the corpses using fire magic.

 

The number of farming horses has increased to eight, and it helps not only for cultivating new land but also for normal farming. Also, we increased the

number of rubber trees in the newly cultivated land by about 200 and still plan to put work into increasing them. Among the first of these new trees about 100 or so of them should be capable of producing sap within two or three years. Improvement of rubber products is slow but ongoing. Recently, it"s not just me but Taylor, Myun, Enbert, and Diane that are thinking up various things and we"ve increased the number of products.

 

It goes without saying that sandals, boots and cushions are being improved, but the protector is also easier to use and the design is getting better. In addition, it"s still a small amount but rubber boats, lifebuoys, bands, rubber bands, etc. have also been developed and are being produced. My best work so far is the rubber balloon I made using the same method as condoms. It can be made with just a little bit of leftover latex and I casually made it thinking that it could be a toy for children but I don"t know who did it first, someone came up with the idea of putting sweet bean jelly inside it. Even though I call it sweet bean jelly it"s different from the type in j.a.pan, in the village it"s a confectionery made by turning bean crops into a bean paste, smoothing it with water, and then letting it harden outside. If you were to ask me, it"s not very good, but there"s no other way to call it than sweet bean jelly. In the village it"s called Yomo but I call it sweet bean jelly. If you pack that into a small balloon and then open a hole with a toothpick it becomes an amusing food that slides out. Or rather it"s sweet jelly bean b.a.l.l.s itself. Importing this to the capital has become considerably profitable.

 

An especially big invention that was made wasn"t created by me but by Diane. I don"t know if it was a mistake or carelessness but it seems rubber with lots of air bubbles was made was made by spilling some carbonated water into latex, in other words sponge or rather urethane foam. Obviously, it"s not even worth comparing to real sponge or urethane foam but instead of using natural carbonated water I made artificial carbonated water using magic, and used that as a base to increase the number of bubbles. Thanks to that we were able to make something far more shock resistant than the sheets made from raw rubber.

 

Now we"re also using it inside the protectors and as soles for sandals and boots. Also, since urethane is a synthetic substance, I don"t think it exists, but anyone can make sponges just by taking them from the ocean so they aren"t uncommon. Since natural sponges are commonly used for washing bodies and dishes, they are already being sold everywhere. By putting air into these natural sponges we were able to make even better cushions.

 

By the way, making this artificial carbonated water requires a change of thinking, and when I was able to do it my way of thinking about magic changed greatly. In the first place carbonated water can easily be made by saturating carbon acid gas which is carbon dioxide in water. In my previous life I bought a soda siphon and made carbonated water so I should have known it well, but I couldn"t remember it.

 

Previously I had talked about how important image is when using magic but that"s exactly the case. If elemental magic is used alone, an amount of element corresponding to the level of elemental magic used is created. I have been creating dirt and water with this until now. After that I make use of it using void magic, fire magic, and wind magic. Generally, there"s no problem with this at all. However, haven"t I already been using both fire and water magic at the same time? That"s right, I was making hot water and ice. This is still well within the normal boundaries of use. However, in reality this is not using both at the same time. In the case of hot water, first water is created then with no time difference fire magic is used to heat it up. Obviously ice is done the same. After that I use void magic in a short period of time to shape it, add to the duration, or fire it off.

 

Until now, I never thought of using another magic at completely the same time nor did I think of attempting it. That"s because it was already plenty, and there was nothing I was troubled with. Of course, a big part of that is because of how Sharl taught me about it. Sharl never said "with no time difference" but rather "use them together" but since the result was the same and there were no problems, I had no need to think of "simultaneously use different magic together". I was able to think of this because trying to make carbonated water didn"t work well. Obviously, just the same as until now I tried creating the water, after that I used wind magic to make air, then used void magic to filter out carbon dioxide and tried to melt that into the water. Though, no matter how much I tried I couldn"t succeed at it so that became the trigger for me to change my fundamental thinking about magic.

 

Why am I not able to do it? It"s because if I can"t put carbon dioxide into an airtight container with the water then I can"t saturate it. Since the sealed container itself can be made with a gla.s.s bottle and a rubber stopper, making it is no problem. There"s no problem with making water inside of it as well. Even if you fill an airtight container to near full with water the cap won"t fly off from air pressure. The air in the bottle seems to go somewhere for the same volume of water created. I don"t understand the principle but it"s magic so it can"t be helped. There"s no other choice than to think air is being converted to water. When making dirt it"s probably converting the air in the same s.p.a.ce to dirt as well. It"s strange that when converting something as thin as air which is 1/1,000 or 1/10,000 the volume of a solid or liquid it doesn"t increase in amount, I"m sure it"s not converting the molecules of the air into the same amount of molecules so it"s probably pointless to think about it.

 

However, it seems that the air created with wind magic is somewhat different. The air created by using wind magic is clearly generated in a compressed state. If that wasn"t the case there would be no difference in pressure, so even if you use wind magic the wind wouldn"t blow violently.

 

Well let"s put aside the volume of wind magic for now. In other words, in order to make carbonated water, then you have to make air at the same time as you make water and use void magic to filter out only the carbon dioxide and melt that in. Although, if you had the proper facilities you could make them separately... It may take some time but it may be possible to make facilities just to make carbonated water but if you consider the cost it costs it just seems idiotic, so I want to make do with magic.

 

In the end I"m sure some type of facility or tool will be needed but for now I want to test if I can "completely simultaneously" use magic. If I can do this then I can improve the efficiency on many things. For example when I"m making iron, until now I"ve been making the dirt, filtering it out, then eliminating the excess dirt. If I could do this then I can create just the iron from the start. Of course, if you use a trick with filtering magic it"s possible to take just the components you want from dirt directly into your hand. Also, you"ll be able to suddenly freeze something in battle. Or at least this is how thought of it.

 

I"ll try giving it my best at using water magic, wind magic, and void magic simultaneously. I"m sure it won"t go very well since I have to simultaneously concentrate on multiple using multiple magics. I tried out doing everything I could think of to be able to use magic simultaneously. I thought it might be a problem of getting used to it so I try drawing with my right hand while writing with my left, in the end I was rubbing my knee with my right hand, hitting my other knee with my left hand, and switching out the process with both hands every second, I was doing considerably idiotic looking training such as that. However, I couldn"t do it no matter how much I tried.

 

One time, I was using a log that was left along the path in the village as a bench while doing my idiotic training as usual when Sharl walked by and talked to me.

 

"Al, what in the world are you doing?"

 

It"s a tone of voice that"s suspicious of me doing stupid things. It"s not surprising.

 

"Ah, No, that is...It is a training to use different magic at the same time..."

 

There was no better way of putting it and it was embarra.s.sing so I answered honestly.

 

After hearing my answer Sharl broke into laughter and asked the reason. Since I had no choice, I honestly responded that it"s to make carbonated water and she finally understood. Although it is impossible to use magic completely simultaneous, it seems there is a trick to it. First off you use void magic to create a mana field then create water and wind inside of that field but that"s different from using them simultaneously. I point that out and she gets angry not to interrupt the story.

 

Since that"s only obvious I obediently listen. It seems there are still some times when I can"t control my emotions. Though this time it wasn"t so much controlling my emotions as controlling my curiosity to be more exact. Come to think of it, G.o.d said I would quickly be able to control my emotions but didn"t say anything about anything else. I wonder if there"s a portion that is being influenced by my body after all. It can"t be helped. I"m sure there"s no other way to deal it other than training to control it or just growing.

 

Anyway, you make mana field using void magic and simultaneously use water and wind magic but what you need to remember here is the small magic Cantrip, Reservation. It"s not actually using small magic Cantrip"s Reservation but a similar void magic. For example you use that Reservation void magic to use water magic and then use wind magic yourself. After that it"s a matter of matching up your timing and using wind magic at the same timing as the water magic from Reservation. I see, reservation. It was completely out of my mind.

 

It took a reasonable amount of practice but I was quickly able to get used to using magic simultaneously with reservation. I was worried that when concentrating on one magic to reserve it might get caught up with the concentration on another magic but the fact that you can forcefully concentrate on it means you don"t have to pay attention to anything else. If you just concentrate on the magic you"re using yourself then you won"t fail with the magic you use after that, since you"re forcefully concentrating on it through reservation the magic you use prior won"t fail.

 

With this I was able to simultaneously use water magic, wind magic, and void magic and was able to create carbonated water with magic. There are several people in the village who can simultaneously use water and wind magic so there shouldn"t be any problem from here on out either.

 

The use of reservation to simultaneously use magic considerably expanded my horizons. It"s a change of the way of thinking.

 

 

 

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I finished up just swinging the sword for my sword training when I hit 10 years old and started focusing on forms and training matches. Since my ability points are higher for my age I thought I would easily be able to compete with Mill and the squires but I was naive. Though I was certainly praised for the power which I swing the sword, my speed at evading, and my endurance to keep going, the parts which are directly related to physical ability but I still have a lot to learn when it comes to using the sword for defense and technique at switching to counterattack. Even if I do training matches it"s pathetic because I can"t even win once.

 

This is proof my abilities completely don"t match up with my technique. It"s necessary to practice a lot and quickly raise my technique. It was like that where I couldn"t win at all with the sword but I didn"t lose to anyone when using bayonet combat with the spear I remodeled. I can even win against father half of the time and make it a draw the other. Practicing with the sword is important but this style matches me better after all. In the first place, I made it modeling after the gun and bayonet so I"m sure this weird shaped weapon didn"t exist until now, there were spears but no short spears as short as this, and I"m sure it"s the first time anyone has seen a smiting blow using the gun-stock or magazine. I"m sure father is just amazing for being able to react to it seeing it the first time and the squires and Mill aren"t inferior.

 

Most likely the month after next Fan will be returning home. I want to hear various stories of the city when my older brother comes home. Also, I want to try a training match with Fan using my bayonet grappling and see what my current ability is like against an active duty knight. At the very least, how it compares to normal knights, if it"s completely no good, if it"s capable of rivaling them, in other words I want to know if in a few years when I become an adult and leave the house will I be able to reasonably avoid danger.

 

Hegard was considerably surprised by bayonet grappling and praised me quite a bit but as far as I can tell from his expression it felt more like a father proud of his son"s growth. Also, even if he used to be an adventurer it was quite a while in the past. I"m sure he doesn"t know the current skill of the knights well, it"s a harsh way of putting it but, he"s just a country guy after all.

 

While thinking about such things I continue in my daily practice and spend my days practicing magic and improving and creating rubber products. It was a beginning of spring as such when an event that would shake this peaceful and carefree Bakkudo Village occurred.

 

The corpses of a total of six people who went to gather rubber, including five serfs and one squire member, were found cruelly torn to pieces.

 

 

 

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When investigating the corpses it seems that that it was done by a monster or large meat eating beast equal to that. That seems to be the case because I didn"t see the corpses directly myself. Though even if I were to see them I don"t have that kind of knowledge so I wouldn"t know. If I see the wound I could tell if it was cut with a sword or if it was torn to pieces by fangs but they were torn apart in too cruel of a way that they wouldn"t show me.

 

In response to this, when going to gather rubber you must have at least four members of the squire and one person from the Lord"s family including me accompanying. Also, the people who are gathering should be equipped as well. Even if I say equipped, I don"t mean with a weapon but a simple version of the protector I made with rubber. An amateur who hasn"t trained with a weapon is dangerous just swinging it around, it wouldn"t be a joke if they ended up hitting one of the guards accompanying them.

 

Since everyone in our family other than Hegard can use magic, it"s thought that the two of us children would be fine when it comes to battle. Putting myself aside, Mill is already 14 years old, one step before becoming an adult, it was decided that we wouldn"t be killed very easily. In the case we"re attacked by a monster then one of the squires will run to request reinforcements, the remaining three squires will take it on while Sharl, Mill, or I back them up with magic. Also, if it seems like we"re no match for the enemy then we quickly retreat and earn time while waiting for reinforcements, is what was roughly decided on.

 

Since I no longer need to use all my time to exhaust my MP, I have plenty of time now for sword and grappling training and they have been a good change of pace, I had no reason to refuse. I"m sure it"s somewhat dangerous, but I"ve continued hunting at night here and there for a while, it"s certain I"ve become dull to feeling it"s dangerous. Also, I wanted to try out the new magic I created through practice in live combat as well.

 

One day when I was accompanying them to gather sap from the rubber tree I was secretly hoping for a monster to appear.

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