Chapter 276: My First Undead
After lunch, we made our way through the canyon again, and just as Schieber-san mentioned, the trail gradually became worse, being full of rocky terrain or cliffs with an unchanging scenery. Moreover, the path was confusing enough that you could get lost Without a guide.
We encountered more monsters beasts along the way too. Only small ones appeared, so it wasn’t hard get them to leave, but regardless, we couldn’t put our guard down. Even a moment of carelessness could be fatal even if the monsters were weak. Not to mention, poor footing could lead to a series of unfortunate events.
…That being said, it’s exhausting to always be on your toes, so I kept myself only moderately alert, but before long, I smelled something rotten accompanied by a strange presence.
“This smell…” [Ryouma]
!!
“Ah, there must an undead up ahead. Most likely, a zombie.” [Schieber]
Indeed, just as Schieber predicted, 20 seconds later, a rotting human corpse slowly emerged from the end of the meandering, dead-end road.
From what I know, the undead of this world prefer the night or places away from sunlight, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t function in the sun. They moved as fast as a normal adult would walk, so they weren’t particularly threatening. Or at least, compared to other monster beasts, since you can get away just by running from them. They do look horrible and smell just as bad, though.
“Let’s start by reviewing the nature of the undead, shall we?” [Schieber]
Schieber-san ran up to the zombie and drew a stroke with his halberd diagonally across the zombie from its shoulder before split it in half from its torso to cleanly divide it into three parts.
“I didn’t use magic and just attacked physically with my weapon. This approach is ineffective, as the zombie will regenerate right away and attack once again.” [Schieber]
The body of the zombies that had been divided and fallen to the ground crawled back together and began to regenerate.
“Undead generally possess powerful regenerative abilities, so just physical attacks, particularly cutting weapons, will prove ineffective. Now, it’s not impossible to beat them physically, and if you really have to, the fastest way would be to use a blunt weapon and thoroughly crush them. However, an approach like that may not work for some undead, so a magical attack is still the preferred way. It is the most effective and simplest way to deal with the undead.” [Schieber]
The zombie from earlier had regenerated completely and was approaching us again. Schieber-san unleashed a Wind Cutter to split it in half from the waist, and just like earlier, it began to regenerate again, but it did so a slower rate this time.
“As you can see, if you defeat them with magic, they’ll regenerate much slower. It’s said that the reason for this is because the undead are only able to move because of dark-attribute mana, and attacking them with a spell, disperses that mana. Different elements and attacks produce different results, but the most effective of all is light magic. You mentioned that you could use light magic, right? When the zombie finishes regenerating, try hitting it with a light ball.” [Schieber]
I did as I was told and shot a light ball at the regenerated zombie.
“Light Ball!” [Ryouma]
“Ahh, ahhhhh!” [Zombie]
A ball of light appeared in my hand and shot out in a straight line for the zombie. The light landed on its chest and not only penetrated it but also destroyed the surrounding flesh and bone in a gruesome manner. The zombie screamed in pain, but its wounds showed no signs of regenerating like before. Before long, it stopped moving and collapsed.
“Remilie.” [Schieber]
“The speed and power of your Light Ball is more than sufficient. The foundations are all there, but if you don’t get a good hit, you might not be able to finish it off completely, so as much as possible, you should aim for the chest or the head like you did just now. Otherwise, expect to need two or three shots.” [Remilie]
“Alright. By the way, I noticed that using Light Ball on the undead made the body disappear… I’ve been told that the undead come from people that have died, but normal corpses don’t disappear with a Light Ball, do they?” [Ryouma]
“Yes. Normal corpses won’t disappear with light magic. It is believed that corpses undergo physical changes when they become undead, but no one knows for sure. Also, not all undead come from corpses, and they can spontaneously arise even without a corpse. There’s a lot of things not known about them.” [Remilie]
“One theory has it that the body of the undead itself is made up of dark-attribute mana, but it’s hard to say for sure since there are many different types of undead, like the ones that have been transformed or inhabited by an old legendary object.” [Schieber]
While the questions surrounding undead were clarified one after another, another zombie came along. When I tried to use a spell on it magic again, Remilie-san stopped me.
“You used chantless casting during the spar yesterday, right? Can you show it to me again? Any element will do, just show me what you’re used to.” [Remilie]
“Alright” [Ryouma]
In that case, I’ll use the wind. As soon as I thought that, I wrapped both of my hands in wind magic, and in the next instant, I unleashed a ma.s.s of compressed air from my two fists, crushing the head and sternum of the zombie.
“Air Hammer, huh. Moreover, two spells were cast almost simultaneously.” [Schieber]
“This too has sufficient power and speed. It doesn’t lose out even when compared to the light ball earlier.” [Remilie]
“Ryouma-kun has always been good at magic, but I see you’ve gotten even better.” {Reinbach]
Based on the feedback, it seems safe to a.s.sume that I didn’t do badly, but Remilie-san appeared somewhat troubled.
“Is there a problem?” [Ryouma]
“There’s nothing wrong with your spells, but I’m not sure how to approach teaching you… I was thinking I would have to start with the basics, but you seem good enough there already. You learned all on your own, right?” [Remilie]
“Yes, you could tell?” [Ryouma]
“I did use to be a royal court magician, you know. Magicians that have studied professionally be it in the academy, in the military, or by apprenticing under a master have all received systematic instruction right from the beginning, so they’re – for better or worse – stale and nothing sticks out in the way they use their magic. You have the foundations down in that you use the right amount of mana and can convert the attributes properly, but you do pretty much whatever you want when it comes to how you visualize your spells, right? I have no complaints with how you performed your chantless cast, but your spell felt less like ‘shoot the enemy’ and more like ‘crush the enemy with a fist of wind’.” [Remilie]
Wow. So a specialist can understand that much? Or am I just that easy to understand? I don’t know which it is, but Remilie-san is right.
It’s only been recently that I’ve become able to use chantless casting. The reason for it is actually the slime magic that I came up with at the end of the year. I didn’t notice it at first, but while I was controlling the a.s.similated slimes by sending visualizations of a spell through the familiar contract, I wasn’t actually chanting anything.
When I realized that, I copied the feeling of slime magic and conceived visualizations that allowed me to use magic more naturally, and the result was a huge success. I’ve been training to be able to use chantless casting for a long time now, but it was only after coming up with more natural visualizations that the success rate and power of my spells dramatically increased.
It was also because of that that my chantless casting ended up mixing with my martial arts. Like for example, a spell like the Air Hammer that compresses air and attacks with it is cast with a fist thrust. The earth needle that I used in the spar yesterday was used with a low stance kick.
“Usually it takes years of repet.i.tive training and real-life battles with the same magic to gradually get a feel for chantless casting, but you figured it out by combining your martial arts and your slime magic? It feels somewhat similar to the magic sword technique used by the knights. If you were a student, the curriculum would be more or less decided, so I’d just have to take your proficiency into consideration, but… You’re not, so I’m a bit at a loss.” [Remilie]
“Remilie-sama, I believe in Ryouma-sama’s case, the most efficient way to proceed is to show him your spells and have him experiment on his own. Ryouma-sama has always been devising and using his own spells, so I’m sure it would be fastest to just explain to him your spells and have him figure things out on his own.” [Sebasu]
“That’s how he learned the intermediate dimension spells when Sebasu-san taught him dimension magic.” [Reinbach]
“In that case, let’s do just that. If it doesn’t work out, we’ll think of something else.” [Remilie]
By the time the adults were able to figure out how to teach me, the sound of something crawling the earth resounded and more zombies appeared.
“Hmm… There’s more?” [Schieber]
“Schieber-san, is something strange?” [Ryouma]
“They might have reacted to the sound of battle earlier, but it’s a bit much for three zombies to appear in such a short time this close to the main road.” [Schieber]
“The monsters have been increasing in number lately, so perhaps the undead around here have also been multiplying.” [Ryouma]
“I say they’re just perfect for Ryouma’s training. Let me show you what an intermediate spell is like.” [Remilie]
Reilly joined the conversation and suddenly pointed her wand at the zombies and cast a spell.
“Exorcism!” [Remilie]
A ball of light the size of a basketball seemed to emerge from the tip of her wand and launched itself toward the zombie. However, the ball of light did not penetrate the zombie and instead bounced off and enveloped the zombie’s body, annihilating it entirely.
“As you can see, this magic wraps the target in light magic. It can annihilate an undead on the level of a zombie, but it can also be used to capture fast moving targets or higher variant undead, so it’s a good spell to learn. It costs about 1500 points of mana to use, so it’s a waste to use it repeatedly against weak monsters like zombies and skeletons. Normally, you’d use light ball instead and just use it in critical moments. Fire magic is also very effective against the undead, and sometimes it is more efficient to set bigger hordes on fire instead, but that depends on the situation. You’ll just have to figure it out from experience.” [Remilie]
It was in that way that I learned how to deal with the undead and was able to practice on the zombies and skeletons that appeared along the way.