Crackle—!
Sparks burst forth, briefly lighting the dark campsite before vanishing.
“Sob... I hate this... I want to go home now. I miss Professor.”
Rafi was on her knees, crying.
I had taught her the battle mage style of fighting, and now she was whining that it was too hard.
“You’re crying that much just because you fought monsters up close a few times?”
“A few times!? A few times!! A few times, you say!!!!”
Rafi sprang to her feet, apparently furious. Unable to contain herself, she flailed her arms up and down.
“Sir Evan, you said I wouldn’t get any practice like this and dragged monsters over here!!”
Well, I did that because Rafi had talent as a battle mage.
After we dealt with the orc, I told Rafi to try it on her own, and she had picked it up rather well.
The way she used her body was still clumsy.
Even so, each time she continued fighting, Rafi’s movements improved noticeably.
She held her staff too short, couldn’t put proper strength into it, and her motions were full of awkwardness.
But Rafi dodged every single monster attack.
Because while she was shouting for someone to save her, her eyes were always watching the monster.
In terms of insight alone, her eyes were comparable to those of the Sword Saint, a specialist in close combat.
“And!! At the end, you threw me in and told me to fight two monsters at once!! I really almost died!!”
“Calm down. You survived in the end.”
“Eeeeeek—!!”
Rafi picked up a stone and threw it at me. I tilted my head slightly and dodged.
“Too slow, kid.”
“Aaaaaaaargh—!!!!”
I played along with Rafi for a bit.
“Think positively, Rafi. If we’ve hunted this many monsters, doesn’t that mean you can return to the academy?”
“...”
Rafi fell silent.
“No... Professor said I’d have to reach at least red rank for the promotion exam assignment to be safely considered passed...”
“Hmm. We’ve caught quite a few monsters over the past three days, but the Adventurers’ Guild still won’t treat you as red rank?”
Rafi and I had been carrying out subjugation requests in the Shadow Forest for three days.
We accepted whatever requests we could get and secured around fourteen monsters, but was that still not enough to reach red rank?
“Most of them were lower white or lower blue requests. Even if I fill the quota, I might only reach upper blue at best.”
Lower and upper blue? So even the adventurer ranks divided by color had subdivisions.
“Then right now, Rafi, you’re lower blue?”
“Middle blue...”
So they were divided into lower, middle, and upper.
“... But what’s the problem? You can just take another request. If we do this a few more times, you’ll reach red rank.”
Did she really think she would reach red rank in one go?
No matter how you looked at it, Rafi, trying to get a free ride that badly was shameless.
“Mm... It’s not that...”
Rafi shook her head at my words. She hesitated, as though it was difficult to bring up.
Rather than urge her on, I waited for Rafi to speak.
“... Even if I reach red rank right now because Sir Evan helps me, what am I supposed to do when it’s time for my third-year promotion...? Haa...”
Rafi was thinking more seriously than I expected.
Even though she was always foolishly praising me as amazing or going around saying she would become a great archmage in the future.
Deep down, she had been carrying this worry.
“It’s already been two months since I left the academy, but my magic skills are the same as ever.”
Crackle—!
The campfire popped, casting shadows across Rafi’s face.
“There were rumors I heard when I left the academy. Rumors that an incompetent disciple was blocking Professor Ariel’s path.”
“...”
“At first, I laughed them off. But even after coming to Rimhold, I couldn’t properly complete a single request... and my skills are still useless... so... so...”
She couldn’t even get the words out properly.
Rafi’s words were not neatly organized.
The worries inside her spilled out as if she were forcing them up, unassembled and raw.
“Lately, I’ve been having nightmares... Dreams where Professor Ariel calls me pathetic and casts me out...”
“...”
“But do you know what’s funny? Every time I woke up from the dream, I felt relieved inside.”
“...”
“I thought, thank goodness. Thank goodness a useless mage like me isn’t blocking Professor’s path anymore.”
Rafi buried her face in her knees and hugged herself.
Only now did I understand why she went around the city saying she would become a future archmage.
It was something a child with low self-esteem told herself so she wouldn’t crumble.
“I see.”
“... Isn’t your reaction a little too cold...? I thought you’d say something comforting.”
“Hmm. Something like, ‘Rafi, you’re the archmage of the future, so don’t give up’?”
“Pfft— What is that?”
Maybe my words were stupid, but the gloomy air around Rafi lifted a little.
It hadn’t been meant as comfort, yet somehow Rafi smiled, if only a little.
In truth, I really had nothing to say to Rafi.
Even after hearing her worries, I didn’t feel much.
All I thought was, so that’s how it is.
Rafi’s worries were the kind one could have only in this peaceful era.
My time was different from Rafi’s.
Rafi was a person of a peaceful age, fifty years after the Abyss had fallen.
And I was a person from a timeline where I had barely prevented the ending from turning into dark fantasy.
If Rafi had lived fifty years ago, I would have told her to shut up, pick up her staff, and get ready to fight.
I still wasn’t used to the fact that a five-day vacation had turned into fifty years passing.
Still, time had passed, so I would have to adapt to this peaceful world.
As the first step in adapting, I decided to say something comforting to Rafi.
“It’s all right, Rafi. The Archmage has no intention of casting you out.”
“How can you be so sure of that, Sir Evan...?”
“Secret.”
“Eek—! Don’t joke around!!! I finally worked up the courage to tell you how I really feel, and you—!!”
The gloomy Rafi began getting angry again.
As expected, being noisy suited Rafi best.
“You really don’t need to worry.”
Just looking at the staff the Archmage had given Rafi was enough to tell she cherished her.
More than anything, while Rafi’s eyes were one thing, her sensitivity to the lightning attribute was abnormally high.
There was no master anywhere who would cast out a mage with that kind of talent.
She probably took it for granted herself.
But closing in and continuously unleashing lightning magic was an abnormal realm.
To do what Rafi did, one needed something special.
Either the trait of a Thunder God, assimilation with a lightning spirit, or perhaps having eaten the heart of a phantom beast like a Heavenly Thunder Bird.
In any case, Rafi was a child with a special talent.
To the point that worrying about being cast out was practically deception.
It was something she had to realize on her own.
Telling Rafi this would be poison instead.
To think she was worrying about being cast out while effortlessly using such wonderfully romantic lightning magic.
I was absolutely not refusing to tell her because I found it annoying.
“Still, after telling you, Sir Evan, I feel kind of better.”
“I’m glad it helped.”
...! ...!
A sound came from beyond the underbrush.
Panting breaths and rough footsteps. When I focused on my sense of smell, I even caught the sharp reek of blood.
“Sir Evan, how are we deciding tonight’s watch order? Rock-paper-scissors again?”
“Rafi. Pick up your staff.”
I took out my iron axe.
At my movement, Rafi also got to her feet and aimed her staff.
“Sir Evan... is something coming...? The guild said there aren’t any nocturnal monsters in this direction.”
“It’s not a monster.”
Rustle—!!
“Save me... Please save me!!!”
A woman covered in blood stumbled out of the bushes.
Even though the stave of her bow was broken, she did not let it go. She clutched her bleeding left arm and wept.
“You’re...!?”
“Ahh...! Mage...! You’re the mage, thank goodness, sob...”
She was one of the ragtag adventurers who had made a bet with us in the Adventurers’ Guild building.
***
The woman, who introduced herself as Anna, explained what had happened.
Her words were incoherent, and at times parts of her explanation skipped ahead.
To summarize, the ragtag party had been carrying out a subjugation request in the Shadow Forest when they were attacked.
“... A monster... a monster... There’s a monster... That monster... it ate our leader... Haaah—!”
Anna curled in on herself and trembled.
“It’s safe here because Sir Evan is here, so it’s okay. Calm down. Take deep breaths.”
“Ahh... Thank you. Mage... Ahh...”
Kindhearted Rafi was comforting her.
“Then are you the only survivor, Anna?”
“... Yes... yes... Everyone was eaten— Ugh—!”
Just recalling it seemed too much for Anna, and she retched.
“Sir Evan, what should we do? Should we go find that monster now?”
“I don’t know. That doesn’t sound like a very good idea.”
The Shadow Forest was a place where light barely reached even during the day, and at night an eerie darkness settled over it.
If we moved hastily, there was a risk we would be the ones getting eaten.
“Still, just in case, maybe we should do a light search around the area.”
“Ahh!! No... No!! No!!”
Anna suddenly had a fit. She tugged at Rafi’s clothes beside her.
“Why are you suddenly acting like this!?”
Anna only kept repeating that we couldn’t.
She was hiding something.
“You said your name was Anna. Is this related to ‘that thing’?”
“...!! How do you know... about that!?”
“Sir Evan, what is ‘that thing’?”
I don’t know.
I had just guessed.
I only knew because I had secretly overheard the ragtag parties talking in the Adventurers’ Guild.
I didn’t know the exact name or identity of “that thing.”
But even this much was enough.
“... It wasn’t me... I didn’t agree to it...”
“Miss Anna! You have to tell us if we’re going to help you! What is ‘that thing’?”
I simply looked at Anna without saying anything.
“...”
Anna avoided my gaze. Her pupils darted this way and that, and her hands and feet were trembling.
Sometimes, silence and imagination made the best questions.
It was probably playing out on its own inside Anna’s head.
All I had to do was wait until Anna’s mouth opened by itself.
Anna squeezed her eyes shut. Her lips moved, then stopped, repeating the motion.
“... I thought ‘that thing’ was just an ordinary stone. It was something we received as a bonus along with money after accepting a mage’s request.”
Anna opened her mouth.
“You got it from a mage, and you didn’t even check it...?”
“We couldn’t... check it. To request an appraisal... we would have had to pour in a week’s worth of money for the party.”
“What? Even so—”
I raised a hand to stop Rafi from speaking.
With a gesture meaning we should hear her out first, I motioned for Anna to continue.
“... So we just thought of it as a keepsake, like a lucky charm. But... after we obtained that stone, everything began going smoothly.”
Good fortune kept coming to us one after another.
There was a request we wanted to take. Normally, we were farther down the order, but by luck, the party ahead of us gave up.
While we carried out subjugation requests, luck kept looking after us.
We could aim for vital points more easily, and monsters kept losing their balance and falling over.
When we returned after completing requests, our bodies would be completely drained, but after only a short sleep, all our stamina would recover.
More than anything, the leader who held the stone awakened to mana.
The leader was delighted and shared the stone with the other party members.
And with each passing day, every party member who carried the stone awakened to mana.
“Good heavens!! That’s impossible. You can’t awaken to mana like that! Even I barely managed it with my family’s help!!”
“I... don’t really know either... I just thought we were lucky...”
Rafi, who had been listening from the side, shouted.
Even I found this absurd.
On Earth, bracelets made of things like germanium were complete lies, but in Adenia, there were similar items.
Artifacts that helped one’s talent blossom already existed in several forms.
But such artifacts were unbelievably rare.
There was no reason to give such precious items to a bunch of nobodies.
An ordinary stone. A mage. An item given as a bonus.
Three keywords.
I could roughly see it.
This was a method used by spellcasters fifty years ago.
Wandering spellcasters would sometimes pull this kind of nonsense.
They would use naive young people as lab rats and struggle to prove their own research.
So, being the kind person I was, I had made their bodies and heads greet each other.
Perhaps I should send them a new recruit this time, so they wouldn’t be lonely.
“But... Miss Anna. I understand that ‘that thing’ isn’t an ordinary stone. But what does that have to do with you saying you didn’t agree, and with the monster attack?”
“...”
Just as Rafi said, what was the monster attack about?
“... To win the bet, we went to find that mage again.”
“Are you insane!? You went back to a mage who gave you such a suspicious object?”
“But!! We had no choice!! You said you would join our party, and now you say you won’t!!”
Anna glared at Rafi with bloodshot eyes.
“That mage!! When we went to the place he told us about, there was a horrible monster!! Everyone was deceived by the mage and eaten by the monster!!”
Anna kept shouting at Rafi. She stood up, pointed at Rafi with her hand, and approached.
“If not for you!! If you had joined our party like you first said, nothing so horrible would have happened to us!! How could—!”
Slap—!!
Oh.
Rafi slapped Anna across the cheek.
“Wh... why...”
Anna looked bewildered, as if she had never imagined Rafi would actually slap her.
“Be quiet. I never said I would join your party. You misunderstood on your own, and now you can’t blame me for it.”
Slap—!
She hit her once more.
She struck the opposite cheek, as if balancing things out. Good job, Rafi.
“You were the ones who went to find that mage again. Don’t shift the blame onto someone else. This is the result you brought upon yourselves.”
At the little mage’s words, Anna lowered her head.
“I... I’m sorry...”
A silence heavy enough to weigh down the campsite settled over us.
Perhaps still angry, Rafi moved away from Anna and sat near me.
Anna rolled her eyes around, gauging our reactions.
Did I have to sort this out?
“For now, we know the whole story, and there’s the threat of that monster. Let’s spend the night here. We’ll take watch in pairs. Agreed?”
Rafi and Anna nodded.
“Good. I’m fine without sleep for about a day, so only you two need to take turns. Who wants to go first?”