It had now been three days since I’d taken on a commission with Rafi and entered the Shadow Forest.
I found out why Rafi had become the Great Mage’s disciple.
At the same time, I found out why she hadn’t even been able to catch a single starving orc.
“Aaaaaaah!! Sir Evan, help me!!”
Rafi screamed as she ran away. Clutching her staff to her chest as she fled, she glanced back over her shoulder.
“Kekekekek—!!”
A monster resembling a wild dog—a kobold—was drooling all over itself.
It came walking forward, dragging a broad blade along the ground.
The kobold smacked its lips as it looked at Rafi.
“Hieeeek—! Sir Evan! Hurry!! Don’t just stand there watching!!”
After making eye contact with the kobold, Rafi called out to me, who was watching from behind.
“Do your best, Rafi. You can do it. You’re a blue-grade with high potential, aren’t you?”
“Eeeeeek—!”
The Great Mage’s disciple was running away because she couldn’t catch a single kobold.
It was truly fascinating.
After confirming that I wasn’t budging, Rafi stamped her feet in frustration.
“Kieeeek—!”
Maybe the kobold had heard me too, because it raised its momentum even higher.
“Sir Evan, if something goes wrong, don’t blame me!!”
Rafi turned around and faced the kobold.
She pointed the staff she had been clutching at it. The blue crystal embedded at the end of the staff shone brightly.
Crackle—!
Blue currents began to ripple from Rafi’s body.
Starting from her heart, where her Circle was located, the blue current raced along Rafi’s body toward the staff.
Its destination was the blue crystal at the staff’s tip.
As lightning-attribute mana was injected into it, the blue light in the crystal grew deeper, and it spewed lightning.
Crackle, crackle—!!
“Kieek!!?”
The kobold panicked.
The lightning Rafi manifested grew in size and radiance.
The amount of blue, rippling light was dazzling. Rafi’s hair and clothes fluttered in the violently flowing mana.
Between the fluttering strands of blue hair, Rafi’s eyes shone.
The lightning that had been spreading in every direction condensed into a single point. Proof that the formula had been completed successfully.
With a confident expression, Rafi thrust her staff toward the kobold with all her might.
“Pierce through!!”
Lightning Bolt.
Kwaaaang—!!
A blinding blue flash and the roar of thunder burst through the Shadow Forest.
“Kieeeeeek—!!!”
When the flash caused by Rafi’s lightning vanished...
The kobold was standing perfectly fine.
“...Kiek?”
The confused kobold blinked and groped at its own body. There wasn’t a single wound anywhere.
“...I’m doomed.”
Rafi’s lightning magic had struck somewhere other than the kobold.
A hole had opened in the enormous tree to the kobold’s left.
With burn marks and a huge torn-through hole, the tree toppled over.
Thud—!
“The power of the magic is definitely impressive.”
Although it had missed, Rafi’s lightning magic was quite impressive.
Considering she had completed the formula in such a short instant, its destructive power was top-notch.
As expected, it was one of the two attributes that represented destructive power.
If one were to choose the most powerful destructive forces among elemental types, it would be flame and lightning.
The lightning attribute was full of romance.
Pouring out overwhelming firepower explosively in a single instant could undoubtedly be called the flower of magic.
However, most mages used fire magic.
It had been that way when I played the game, Star of Adenia. Even now that it had become reality, there were few mages who used the lightning series.
Because most things the lightning attribute could do were perfectly possible with fire magic as well.
No matter how romantic lightning magic might be...
Handling lightning was difficult.
First of all, even getting started was a wall. Aptitude for the lightning attribute was fairly rare.
And even if you did get started, that wasn’t the end of it. The more you learned lightning magic, the more damned troublesome an attribute it became.
Lightning-attribute mana demanded an excessively high level of concentration from its user.
You had to construct the formula and pour out mana in a single instant.
The power of the formula was hard to control as well.
The lightning attribute didn’t amplify its firepower gradually; there were sections where its power surged excessively at certain points.
You had to accurately grasp that ever-changing instant every time.
Only then could you use the lightning formula you wanted.
Conversely, fire magic was the exact opposite of lightning magic.
Getting started was easy. Fire had the image of destruction, so mages had no particular difficulty manifesting its formulas.
And compared to other attributes, fire magic was easy to control with mana.
The more mana you burned, the more honestly its firepower rose.
Adjusting the power of the formula was simple too.
Since the firepower increased at a steady rate, a mage only needed to adjust their mana accordingly.
Lightning magic, whose destructive power could be substituted, but whose difficulty was disgustingly high.
Even so, lightning magic had romance. I mean, using lightning is cool.
When I first opened my eyes inside the prequel game, I’d tried to go down the Thunder God route too.
For one thing, the route itself had a high ceiling.
But at the time, I couldn’t obtain the hidden trait needed for the lightning attribute, so I’d given up.
And Rafi was using such romantic yet difficult lightning magic without any difficulty at all.
It was proof that Rafi becoming the Great Mage’s disciple hadn’t been pure luck.
Her mana control was excellent, and her concentration when completing and constructing formulas wasn’t bad either.
On top of that, perhaps because she was overflowing with aptitude for the lightning attribute, the amount of mana used in her formulas seemed low.
But Rafi had one very major problem.
Her magic’s accuracy was horrifically awful.
I had watched Rafi use magic over the past three days.
If Rafi cast magic ten times, it would barely hit once.
And that one hit had been pure coincidence too. Normally, it should have missed, but the monster got scared, dodged, and ended up getting hit.
Her accuracy was so abysmal it was almost fascinating, as if she’d been cursed.
“Hiiik..! Sir Evan! Help me!! I really used up all my mana this time!! I can’t move!!”
Perhaps Rafi had used up all her mana, because she couldn’t move.
The kobold didn’t miss that opportunity. Drooling like a beast, it lunged at Rafi.
“Kekekekek—!!!”
The kobold drew back the arm holding its sword. It bent its knees, then leaped up in an instant.
“I’ll set up camp this time, so!! Kyaaak!!”
I had been about to move anyway, but for Rafi to offer to prepare camp on her own—how admirable.
You’ve really grown up, haven’t you?
“You promised, right?”
Swick—!
“...Kiek?”
The kobold’s head slid off and fell.
The kobold’s head, fallen to the ground, had an expression as if it had no idea what had just been done to it.
“...Wow.. Sir Evan. You’re amazing!! I couldn’t see your sword at all..! Is this what a red-grade adventurer is like!?”
Rafi praised me.
Still, there was a slight sense of regret.
Normally, because of the Swiftness trait, I could have dealt with it even faster.
To reach this speed now, I needed to go through bothersome preparation with little mana tricks.
“Rafi, over the past three days, I’ve found the solution to your problem.”
“Huh..? Was there a problem somewhere?”
“...”
This kid didn’t think her magic’s low accuracy was a problem.
“Show me your staff for a moment.”
“What..!? No! Absolutely not! Even if it’s you, Sir Evan, I can’t show you a mage’s other self, their staff!”
I raised my fist.
“Hehe.. But Sir Evan, you’re the person who saved my life, so I’ll show you specially!”
I received the staff from Rafi.
Perhaps it was made of special wood, because the moment I gripped it, my mana’s stability and flow improved.
“Did you get this staff from the Great Mage?”
“Yep-! Professor Ariel lent it to me for the subjugation commission!”
The material of the staff was good too. But more than anything, the blue crystal at its tip looked special.
If I had the Appraisal skill, I’d know right away. But with the status window restricted, there was nothing I could do.
I had no choice but to figure it out physically.
I flicked the crystal with a finger imbued with mana.
Ting—!
The mana contained inside the crystal resonated with my mana. Through the spreading mana, I read the crystal’s interior.
A function to assist formula construction, mana amplification, increased construction speed... and so on, it contained all sorts of functions.
On top of that, the crystal even prevented mana backflow.
At this level, it was probably an upper-tier item even among unique-grade items.
“Sir Evan, is there something wrong with the staff?”
The problem was that there was nothing wrong.
“I checked just in case, but it’s nothing.”
I returned the staff to Rafi.
I’d thought that perhaps, as part of Rafi’s education, the Great Mage had installed a function that interfered with formula composition at the last step.
But the Great Mage had simply been full of affection for Rafi.
In other words, Rafi’s terrible accuracy was purely Rafi’s own problem.
“Rafi, don’t you want to increase your magic’s hit rate?”
“Uh.. I want to, but I have bad luck, you see. Hehe.”
What does bad luck have to do with accuracy?
“I even bought several lucky charms from Mount Rimhold this time, but they were completely useless. Sigh..”
Rafi took a strange finger-sized charm out of her pocket.
“...”
There looked to be well over ten lucky charms.
“Anyway, want me to teach you how to increase your magic’s accuracy?”
“There was a way to do that!? Yes!! I want to learn right now! They never taught me that at the Academy. Sir Evan, you’re amazing!”
Rafi was so happy she bounced in place.
“There are still a few subjugation commissions left. I’ll teach you while we hunt the remaining monsters.”
“Yes!!! Let’s go right now!!”
***
“No, no!! You didn’t say it would be like this—! Kyaaak!! The sword... the sword passed over my head!! I’m going to die!! Professorrrr!!”
The orc’s sword swung diagonally. I pushed Rafi’s head down.
A few strands of Rafi’s blue hair were cut.
Whoops, I almost got hit too.
“Be careful, Rafi. Still, you shouldn’t stop composing the formula.”
I was holding Rafi’s body from behind and controlling her.
To be precise, I was holding her so she couldn’t run away.
“Hiiieeek..!! Its tusks are shining!! It’s definitely going to eat me!! Sir Evan, stop!! I don’t want this!!!”
The power and range of the lightning magic Rafi used were quite impressive, even by my standards.
But since she couldn’t hit with her magic, it only ended up being a waste of mana.
My solution here was simple.
If she couldn’t hit with magic from long range, then she just needed to hit with it from close range, right?
“Hiiieeek—! It’s coming again!! This time from below!!!”
“Oh. You can see that?”
I discovered Rafi’s hidden talent.
Despite being a crybaby and screaming like a coward, Rafi didn’t even close her eyes. She kept her gaze focused on the orc.
Insight that confirmed the movement of muscles and even determined the direction of attacks.
If judged purely by the insight of her eyes, Rafi possessed a natural-born warrior’s talent.
If she’d had the physical talent as well, Rafi might have been able to reach the pinnacle of knighthood—the Sword Saint.
But unlike her eyes, the kid’s muscles were stiff.
She was so excessively tense that she could barely move.
I flowed mana into Rafi’s body. I made her relax and guided her movements.
“Calm down. Take a deep breath. We can see that orc’s movements, so all we have to do is respond.”
The orc, one head taller than the others, roared. It had probably absorbed plenty of the life mana spread throughout the Shadow Forest.
“Kwoooooo!!!”
The orc’s sword surged upward from below.
I had harassed it by throwing rocks to make it excited, but I hadn’t expected it to get this angry.
The orc charged in, furious.
Against an opponent with a large build, retreating backward was a bad move.
Because of the difference in weight class, even retreating had to be done decisively.
And even if you successfully dodged the attack, that was a problem too.
The difference in reach and weight class was absolute, so the initiative would always belong to the orc.
The moment you backed away, a vicious cycle would unfold where you had to keep dodging.
“If you want to win, you need to go beyond dodging attacks and counterattack as well. Keep that in mind.”
So rather than dodging backward, you had to dig in.
“Kyaaaaaak—! I’m going to die! I’m dying!! I haven’t even written a will for the professor!”
“Calm down, Rafi. Move your body the way I guide you.”
I made her lower the staff she was clutching in panic.
The basic stance of spearmanship.
Extend the hands forward and put strength into the waist. Lightly relax below the knees, but firmly anchor the feet to the ground.
“This brings back old memories.”
“Is that important right now!?”
I remembered when I had taught Heize weapon arts.
It was nostalgic.
Even when I had her hold the Death Scythe, the weapon that had been hers, Heize had simply looked at me instead.
Despite being silent, her eyes were full of emotion, as if asking why I was giving it to her.
When I urged her to try using it, only then did Heize attempt to use the scythe.
But Heize went beyond merely being unable to use a scythe.
The very way she moved her body was all wrong.
How would Heize, who had been imprisoned since birth, ever have handled a weapon?
Naturally, I had been treating Heize like the Nether King, the boss version of herself.
It was a gap in perception.
Heize at the time had simply been a crybaby, timid elf.
I had laughed my fill. I called myself an idiot and apologized to Heize.
Then, just like how I was moving Rafi now, I stuck close to Heize and taught her.
In the game, she had always been a being who silently scattered death.
Seeing her ears turn red as she moved stiffly was quite amusing.
“Sir Evan!! Hey!! When are we dodging—eek!!!”
While I had been recalling old memories, the orc’s sword had already approached to within a palm’s span.
Still plenty of room.
“Now.”
From behind Rafi, I wrapped her body in my arms and dug into the orc’s embrace.
“Kyaaaaaak—!!”
Ignoring Rafi’s scream, I drew out the rotation of her body.
We rotated outward. At the same time, I transmitted the direction of the force into the staff.
Whoosh—!
The staff’s crystal cut across with the sound of wind, slicing up through the orc’s ankle.
“Kwaaaaaang-!!”
Blood scattered, and the orc screamed.
“Rafi, you should use magic, right?”
“Y-yes!!!?”
“If you don’t use it now, I’ll make you dodge again. This time, a little more—”
Kwaaaaang-!!
Before I could even finish speaking, a blue flash spread out.
If nothing else, her formula construction speed was fast.