It had already been three days since they had started walking the snowy path. The snow fell and stopped repeatedly, and before they knew it, it had piled up to around Kasian’s calves.
Every time he took a step, his feet sank deep into the snow, and he could definitely feel that his walking speed had slowed compared to usual.
“Uuuuugh, it’s cold….”
Kasian groaned at the stinging cold that swept through his entire body. Perhaps because it had been snowing just half a day ago, snow had piled up on his shoulders and backpack, making him feel even colder.
He cupped his hands together, which had been clutching his overcoat closed, and blew on them, but the white breath only seemed to make his hands feel colder.
He regretted having needlessly said he was fine when his master had asked if he was going to wear gloves earlier. But somehow, asking her to wait while he pulled out his gloves now felt like a blow to his pride.
On the other hand, his master walking several steps ahead looked completely unfazed. White breath puffed out with every exhale, but that was all.
And it was no wonder—his master was using magic right now.
“Th-that’s not fair. Only the Master gets to use magic, heh-choo!”
Not magic to create fire or shoot lightning, but a wondrous spell that simply warmed the body slightly. It didn’t seem to consume much mana, and because it looked easy to imitate, he had tried practicing it before.
But remembering the time when he had flailed in agony from the heat due to losing control, his master seemed like a monster for maintaining it so effortlessly.
Just how did she achieve such fine control?
But that didn’t mean this cold was unavoidable.
“This is also a form of training, so endure it.”
“T-t-training, m-my foot… I f-feel like I’m g-going to f-freeze to death….”
That was precisely the problem. His master was a madwoman who enjoyed inflicting pain on her disciple under the guise of training.
Seeing as she cast that spell on him when he was on the verge of freezing to death, there was no doubt she could cast it on others too, and was leaving him to shiver in the cold on purpose just to watch him suffer.
‘But if it’s warm, it’s fine…!’
His master was definitely a demon risen from hell to inflict pain, or perhaps a devil that enjoyed torture—so Kasian thought.
Was it three years ago? Even when he had first started learning magic, it had been like this.
What was it she had said?
Magic is creation, and creation is a continuous chain of suffering, so if you continuously inflict pain, your mastery of magic will rise…?
He still couldn’t forget when, along with such absurd words, his entire body had been electrocuted by pain-inflicting magic.
He had been incredibly excited to learn magic, but all his expectations and fantasies had been extinguished in an instant.
On top of that, if he had at least been able to learn the splendid magic he had been hoping for, he wouldn’t have felt so aggrieved, but in reality, he had only learned a ton of defensive magic and body strengthening magic. It had been just half a year since he started learning real magic worthy of the name.
In Kasian’s eyes, the reason she had taught him defensive magic first was so he could be beaten to his limits with magic, and the reason she had taught him body strengthening magic was clearly so he could stay intact even after being beaten for a long time.
‘You old witch…!’
He didn’t know how many years his master had lived, but since her appearance hadn’t changed at all since he was young, she had probably lived an incredibly long time—at least that much was certain.
He wasn’t sure, but maybe she had lived for about a thousand years.
To think that at her age, her idea of fun was watching her disciple suffer—she had a thoroughly rotten taste.
And so, trembling in the biting cold, he glared at his master’s back and walked for another half day.
The slope began to steepen. They had decided to go slightly around and cross the mountain because the coastal side was dangerous.
Pushing through frozen branches and vines within the piled snow was no easy task.
Especially because snow had piled up on frozen dirt and rocks, his feet slipped little by little with every step. Perhaps because his master’s stride was shorter than his own, he could keep up, but he still fell awkwardly several times.
Perhaps because his stamina was dropping, his breathing gradually grew ragged. He didn’t want to be found out, but the white breath he exhaled in rapid cycles was impossible to hide.
“Tired? Shall we rest for a moment?”
“Ah, no, I’m fine.”
It was a lie. He wanted to throw off the pack on his back and rest right away. But there was a reason he couldn’t say so.
It wasn’t particularly about pride. It was because he could clearly see that if he said he was struggling now, he would be tossed around later for lacking perseverance.
Kasian recalled the continuous all-day running he had done a few months ago, from sunrise to sunset without rest. It was a training he never wanted to do again so badly that he’d rather be electrocuted by magic.
Compared to doing that again, suffering a little now was a hundred times better.
With that thought, he gritted his teeth and moved his feet forward.
“Wait.”
His master suddenly stopped in her tracks. Kasian stopped as well.
“Why?”
“Something is coming.”
Hearing his master’s words, Kasian closed his mouth and focused on the sensations coming from his surroundings.
The sound of a few small mountain beasts treading through the snow in the distance. The faint sound of valley water that had not yet frozen.
And the presence of a large beast, faint but gradually growing stronger, rapidly approaching from this direction.
“……!!”
Kasian reflexively threw his backpack to the side and pulled out the staff he had kept strapped to it. He then turned around and immediately held the staff out with both hands.
A massive shock ran through both hands gripping the staff almost immediately.
Along with a loud *thud*, Kasian was pushed backward and tumbled several times across the snow. But he immediately rose, took his stance, and pointed his staff at the assailant before him.
*---Grrrrr….*
“Wh-what is that….”
What had appeared was a huge white tiger. But it was no ordinary tiger—it had a horn in the center of its head, and its body was large enough to be twice the size of a normal tiger.
If he hadn’t instinctively cast body strengthening magic, his arm bones would have broken cleanly from the blow without it being strange at all.
“What do you mean, what? It’s a magic beast. It’s not like you’ve never seen one before, right?”
“No, I mean, that’s true, but….”
It wasn’t common to see a hostile magic beast right in front of him like this. Moreover, most of them hadn’t been large magic beasts like this one.
“If you can’t handle it, I’ll do it.”
“Ah, no. I can do it.”
It had been only three months since Kasian had declared that he would handle attacks from demons or magic beasts himself from now on.
Whether from the cold or from fear, his limbs trembled, but Kasian held it in and stepped forward slightly.
He didn’t know its name, but it was a horned tiger magic beast. Naturally, it was his first time facing one, but observing it up close like this, he could tell. It was by no means an opponent he couldn’t defeat.
Especially with large magic beasts like this, their weakness was clear. It was a common weakness shared by all magic beasts.
‘If I smash its head, it’ll die!’
Honestly, even Kasian thought it was impossible to smash such a magic beast’s head with magic he had learned for only about half a year. But his staff was a blunt weapon made to serve as a medium for casting magic while simultaneously being suited for striking.
Fighting it head-on would be too much, but if he drew its attention with magic and then quickly closed the distance amidst the confusion to smash its head with focused force, he could win.
“Huu….”
Kasian closed his eyes for a brief moment, then opened them to compose himself and immediately released the mana within his body to cast a spell.
A faint blue lightning coiled at the tip of his staff before soon being fired rapidly toward the tiger.
He wasn’t sure, but according to his master, the spell was called 【Arc Discharge】.
*Crackle!!*
The tiger quickly tried to twist its body to dodge, but the spell was not one that could be avoided by moving.
As the blue lightning began to course through its entire body, the tiger twisted its whole body in pain, trying to resist the spell.
Kasian didn’t miss this huge opening and immediately pumped mana throughout his entire body, coating himself in body strengthening magic as he charged forward.
And he swung his staff with all his might, striking down near the horn, around the top of the tiger’s head.
*---Roooar!!*
With a single blow, the top of the tiger’s head caved in slightly, and the horn broke off. The staff had also bent a little, but that was unavoidable.
But it wasn’t dead yet. Kasian tried to strike down once more with his staff to finish it off.
However, as the tiger thrashed in pain, its front paw aimed squarely at Kasian’s head, and Kasian quickly took a defensive posture with his staff.
*Clang!!*
Along with a clear, ringing sound, the staff struck by the tiger’s front paw broke cleanly in two and flew far away. At the same time, Kasian lost his balance and slipped, but luckily managed to barely avoid the front paw.
But whether due to the excitement of battle, instead of fear from nearly dying, Kasian’s head was filled only with the thought that he had to kill the tiger in front of him quickly.
Within the slowed perceived time, Kasian precisely dove into the opening created by the tiger’s slightly off-balance posture.
The half-remaining staff accurately struck the same spot that had been caved in earlier.
*Thud!!*
Blood gushed from its head as its eyes rolled back, and it collapsed right on the spot.
“Hah… hah… hah….”
Kasian caught his breath raggedly as he looked at the tiger, and when it didn’t get up, he was overcome by the excitement of victory.
“I-I did it!”
Kasian smiled widely, turning away from the tiger to shout at his master.
“What did I tell you! I said I could do it, didn—”
That was when. The moment Kasian turned his back, the tiger, which had been lying there bleeding, suddenly raised its body and lunged at Kasian from above.
Kasian realized immediately that the tiger was pouncing on him, but his body stiffened from the sudden fear, and the fact that his body wouldn’t move at will only amplified his terror.
And just before the tiger’s front paw could strike Kasian.
A thin blue light flew in from behind and precisely pierced the tiger’s forehead between its eyes. The tiger couldn’t even let out a death cry and died instantly, falling to the ground.
Kasian couldn’t even breathe for a moment, then slumped down to the spot and barely let out his breath.
“Hah, hah, I-I thought I was going to die….”
Having experienced a sudden drop from the fear of death to the relief of survival in an instant, Kasian calmed his racing heart while sitting down. But immediately, a thin yet colder-than-the-tiger’s-roar voice came from behind him.
“You let your guard down because you thought you’d won, didn’t you?”
Kasian couldn’t deny it. He had mistakenly thought it was completely dead and had recklessly turned around to boast without even checking if it was truly dead. If his master hadn’t been there, both of them would have been found as corpses in the mountains.
“……Yes.”
“You would have died if I hadn’t helped.”
“……Yeah.”
“Then you know very well what I’m going to say now, don’t you?”
Kasian squeezed his eyes shut. It was true that he had nearly died from carelessness, and it was true that he had survived thanks to his master. But he wanted to cover his ears and pretend not to hear because he could see all too clearly what would come next.
“Look forward to special training after we get down. And until we get down, carry my backpack too.”
“No, that’s not fair….”
Kasian felt dizzy at the thought that while he was glad to be alive, he was now as good as dead.
◇
For another two days, he suffered while carrying his master’s load under the guise of training.
Finally, a fairly large city stretching long along the coast came into view before his eyes. Looking down from the heights, white snow had piled on every roof, creating quite a picturesque scene.
Kasian offered a prayer of thanks in his heart to a patron deity he didn’t even believe in, overwhelmed with relief that he could finally rest a little now.