NOVEL NEXT Book 6: Chapter 3
Journey
Thurs Continent also had four seasons. Even when spring ended and summer approached, at Melun Confederation at the north the short spring would have only just arrived. But at Claydale Kingdom that was located at the south, the weather would be sunny even at the territory of Baron Seylace at the north that people would get sweaty.
Deep inside a forest in such region, a single woman wearing a well-worn simple robe was plucking vegetables and herbs that were planted in the garden and put them into her basket. Then she stood up and lifted up both her arms to stretch her body that was stiff from crouching for a long time.
「Nn~~……」
Her flowing silver hair twinkled from the sunlight when she stretched up her body like that. That woman who looked like she was still in her late thirty had skin that was glossy black like obsidian.
.
Dark elf. A race that lived at the far west of this Thurs continent. They had long lifespan like forest elf. A beautiful demihuman race that could even be called fairy.
They were few in number, but it was said that they had existed in this continent before even Crus people who were the indigenous people of human race. They had some interaction with Cruz people and other races. But……the “holy church” of Melsenia people that migrated to this continent a thousand years ago debased the dark elves as messenger of the evil god to make a common enemy in order to avoid a conflict with Cruz people. All the races ended up persecuting them and from that grudge, they ended up calling themselves as [Evil Race], the enemy of mankind.
But, even the reason to fight would change after a thousand years passed. At the beginning they fought in order to clear up their grudge against all the races that were their enemy, but now their hostility was directed more toward the holy church rather than mankind on the whole. In order to whittle down the holy church’s power, the evil race sometimes went into war with human nations in their attempt to collapse the framework called nation.
Serjura became feared and called [War Demon] in such war not only by human but also by evil race. She became fed up by her life, and more than that she didn’t want her young little sister to end up like her, so she faked her death, left the evil race army, and hid herself in this land.
Serjura returned from her garden and added the leaf vegetable she had just harvested into the stew that she had prepared. She took her meal and then she created potion in order to sell to a peddler who was one of her few acquaintances.
In the middle of such routine that was the same everyday, recently there were more things that she had to do. When night came and she judged that she wouldn’t need to use a lot of mana anymore for the rest of the day, Serjura performed the “experiment” that had become her new daily routine.
「──Iron Rose──」
Along with that “activation word”, Serjura’s silver hair fluttered up as though there was wind blowing.
.
▼Serjura Race：Dark Elf♀・Rank 5
【Magic Power：387／425】【Stamina：215／250】
【Overall Combat Strength：2006（With special body strengthening:3786）】
【Battle Skill：Iron Rose/ Limit 38 Second】
.
「……kuh」
Her magic power was decreasing rapidly. Serjura deactivated Iron Rose and let out a tired sigh. Then she unconsciously grumbled.
「I can’t believe that surly disciple can use something like this properly……」
Her beloved disciple Aria once returned here one year ago. She heard from her the fundamental of [Iron Rose], the Battle Skill that got its name from a dungeon spirit.
It was a Battle Skill so anyone could use it as long as they fulfilled the condition. In fact Serjura too could activate it though it took her time.
But, the condition was to convert the magic particle inside one’s body into pure mana without any element in it. It was a troublesome condition. Even Serjura only became able to purify the mana to a certain degree using her level 5 magic power control, and she was still forced to consume more than ten times of mana than Aria when using the skill.
She couldn’t use it properly like that. She hypothesized that the cause was the mana’s purity, but most likely that wasn’t all. She considered that her hair color not changing like with Aria was also one of the factors, so Serjura wrote the experiment result on a paper for the sake of her disciple who was always reckless all the time.
Just like how Serjura passed down the magic that she composed to her surly disciple, Aria also taught the magic that she created to her master.
There was no danger when using the dark magic [Feel] and [Pain], but magic that used the shadow inside the body like [Storage] didn’t exist before this, so the difficulty of learning it was high and it was unknown what kind of effect it would have to human body. So Serjura also used Storage with her own body to research it.
It was then──
「……Someone’s here.」
Serjura who was doing sorcery research on the living room’s table suddenly lifted up her face.
She erased the [Light] inside the room with [Dark] and took out a hatchet from her own Storage while standing up.
There was someone outside. But, it wasn’t a human’s presence. Serjura realized that she couldn’t feel any hostility from that presence and rested her hatchet on her shoulder while heading to the entrance. There she whipped open the door.
「As expected from a mythical beast, so courteous. ……Are you alone?」
.
<──Right──>
.
The feeler shaped whiskers growing from the ears sparked. It made the owner’s silhouette that was lurking in the darkness flashed for an instant.
There a huge mythical beast Coeurl was standing quietly. It had jet black fur that was blending with the forest’s darkness and a figure that looked like a black panther.
The mythical beast Coeurl──Nero who was accompanying Aria everywhere. It had come to this place just once together with Aria, but at that time Serjura was wary toward the mythical beast, while Nero too wouldn’t approach near her.
The mythical beast Coeurl was an existence that was superior to human and wouldn’t open its heart to one. Why was it here? This Coeurl opened its heart to only one person, Aria who gave it the name Nero. Serjura thought it strange that she didn’t see Aria together with it, even so she got a bad premonition and attempted to open communication with Nero while keeping some distance open between them.
「And? What’s your business here? What happened with my surly disciple?」
Sparks lit up in the darkness as though to answer Serjura’s questioning words.
<──Moon──>
<──Dark──>
<──Fight──>
<──Magic──>
<──Move──>
「W-wait a second.」
Serjura stopped Nero who was barraging her with thoughts that tried to convey something to her. She pressed her fingers on her forehead to endure the pain.
Coeurl could generate weak electricity from its feelers to disturb sorcery or conveyed its thought. But, it was said that Coeurl came from another world. Its language system was too different that Serjura couldn’t understand its meaning when it conveyed too much all at once. She also felt headache because of the electric signal.
(That surly disciple, I can’t believe she can have “conversation” with this……)
The last time they came, it was also Aria who translated everything that Nero thought. Serjura felt that it would be difficult to interact with Nero without that Aria mediating between them, but she felt something like “anxiety” from Nero. She sighed and glared at the huge beast before her.
「……Tell me from the start.」
After that she listened to Nero’s hard to understand explanation before she finally managed to understand what it wanted to say when the morning sun was about to rise.
「……That surly disciple, fought evil race vampires, and got teleported with sorcery together with the princess?」
<──Right──>
When the situation was summarized shortly, that was all that she got. Partly it was also because Nero wasn’t actually witnessing the scene in person, but the mythical beast Nero explained the flow of mana that it detected in that fight to Serjura, and she finally grasped the situation after spending a tremendous effort.
「That surly disciple got caught in teleportation. But, your senses felt something not right with the Teleport……. Most likely they slightly shifted away from the evil race country. That girl too is a practitioner who can use space type magic, so it’s likely that she resisted the teleportation but……from the past incidents, the chance is high that their teleport destination went off course.」
Serjura hypothesized the evil race’s action as a former evil race soldier herself.
She remembered that the treasure warehouse of evil race country definitely had magic tool that could use Teleport. There was no rank 6 dark sorcerer even in Serjura’s memory, so most likely they used that item.
It would be a different story if it was someone who excelled in space sorcery, but anyone else would likely cause problem with the teleportation if they couldn’t clearly imagine the destination even if they used magic tool to invoke the sorcery.
「……They would either fall at the desert, or Carlfan Empire. And? What do you want by telling me this?」
<──On──>
「…………」
Nero showed its back to her and lowered its stance. Serjura turned speechless seeing that.
A mythical beast would never allow human to ride their back. Nero accepted Aria alone as its comrade and allowed her to get on its back, but even that should be something impossible usually. Subduing mythical beast into submission was impossible.
Furthermore Nero was saying that in order to go save Aria……in order to increase the chance to find Aria, it would allow even Serjura to get on its back.
「…………」
『…………』
The two glared at each other silently. Why was Nero going this far for Aria? But, Serjura noticed that she herself wouldn’t be able to explain it with word if she applied that question to herself. Her expression loosened into a self-depreciating smile.
Serjura was also concerned with Aria like Nero. She believed that if it was Aria then she would return back safely while protecting the princess, but at the same time she realized that a part of herself was worrying for Aria like she was her daughter.
In that moment, it felt like there was something connecting together between Serjura and Nern.
Their reason differed. But their objective was the same.
「I get it. Let’s go.」
.
Like that the dark elf and the mythical beast Coeurl departed to the west region.
They followed their heart.
***
「Elena, can you still go on?」
「……Yes, I’m still alright, Aria.」
Elena and I rested until evening. Then we began moving when the temperature had lowered down enough.
The magic stone in Elena’s heart had became smaller and her body became robust, even so her stamina was still below an ordinarily healthy person. Right now rather than spending the time to make preparation here for crossing the desert, we thought that we should head toward the settlement while avoiding the ruins while we still had food and stamina in reserve.
First we were heading toward the settlement that we predicted was located at the south of Resvel. There was a good chance that there were adventurers aiming to gather material and treasure in the ruins. This was a gamble that we couldn’t avoid, but it would be better than running around blindly.
In the geographical information that Elena remembered, there was Carlfan Empire south of Resvel, but it should take a month to walk to there, so we could only think that travelling directly there would be reckless.
.
『GIIII!!』
A beetle monster that was one meter long suddenly appeared. Elena stopped its movement with water magic, while I rushed and thrusted my knife into the gap of its carapace, cutting off its head.
It was a rank 2 monster but we couldn’t let our guard down against an enemy that we faced for the first time. Insect monster would still be alive for a while even after its head was cut off, but the threat should be gone for now with this.
Originally we should dismantle the body now to obtain material and magic stone, but right now we were prioritizing to keep moving. We were focusing only on going forward.
Elena had become optimistic after deciding our destination. She also looked at me for direction when fighting, not simply standing around as target to be protected. Even if this was just her acting tough…….
If I was alone I could survive even if I had to eat monster’s corpse. But that wasn’t the case for Elena. Because she herself also understood that she was starting to struggle desperately in order to survive.
「Let’s go.」
「Yes.」
I could see a bit of exhaustion in Elena’s face.
Elena was strong……but frail.
She must hated being weak and a burden who needed someone else to offer their hand to her. I understood that even while I offered my hand to her who was walking behind me. Elena too smiled slightly while lifting her hand toward me. Then we started walking while holding hand through the desert under the starry sky that didn’t have a single cloud everywhere.
We moved throughout the night and rested in a rock’s shadow during the day. Sometimes we hunted monster and ate their meat. We kept travelling like that and four days after we started, we finally discovered a small town from above a rocky place.