Tondemo Isekai - Idle Talk 13 - Three Heroes: Entering the Kingdom of Malbert
Added 2021-01-19 08:54:06 +0000 UTCIt’s been almost two weeks since they had fled the Kingdom of Reijseger. They were currently following an animal trail within an otherwise featureless forest.
Rio, who had lost her left hand, [1] was now able to adapt to the loss and could move quite well without it. In fact, it was really helpful to have her around.
“Stone Bullet!”
While Rio providing cover, I buried the Orcs with Earth Magic.
“Since they are Orcs, we can sell them, right?” said Kanon as she touched the one of Orc’s foot and stored them into her [Item Box]. [2]
“Kaito, have you levelled up again?” Rio asked, after studying the effects of my attack.
“Aa, I get that feeling too. [Status Open]!” I looked through my own status eagerly.
[Name] Kaito Saitou
[Age] 17
[Job] A Hero from another world
[Level] 18
[Health Points] 1235
[Magic Power] 1195
[Attack Power] 1207
[Defense Power] 1174
[Agility] 1162
[Skills] Appraisal | Item Box | Holy Swordsmanship | Fire Magic | Water Magic | Earth Magic | Wind Magic | Light Magic | Thunder Magic | Ice Magic | Recovery Magic
I have gone up one level compared to just a few days ago. “It’s true, I’ve levelled up!”
“That’s amazing!”
“Incredible, Kaito the strongest among us three.”
Kanon was currently at Level 17 with an Attack Power of over 1000 [3], whereas Rio was at Level 16 with only her Magic Power breaking past 1000.
[4] Nevertheless, I must give credit where credit is due. That’s the job of a good leader. “Rio, please let me say this. It’s thanks to you that we're able to level up so much these past two weeks.”
“Yes, thanks to you,” said Kanon with a smile. “Because of Rio, I can now cast all kinds of magic, including Ice and Thunder Magic which I haven’t even been taught yet.”
“Oh no, it’s just something I read in the book…” said Rio shyly.
But really, [5] it was thanks to Rio’s experimentation and diligence in studying her spellbooks that led to this great breakthrough. Kanon and I barely read the books, relying on our knight companion to advise us on everything.
No, it should be said that even if we did read it, we might not even have progressed much. [5] Kanon and I were so used to being spoon-fed information that we might still have been in the same dire situation as before…
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[6] Two weeks ago…
It was the 5th day of our escape and we had been making our way through the woods towards the Kingdom of Malbert. The country that Reijseger planned to wage war against.
By then, Rio’s condition had stabilized enough that she could travel just as quickly as us. Though she had lost her left hand, she had recovered to the point where she could move without hindrance. Naturally, this would not have happened if not for Kanon and Rio’s Healing and Recovery Magic. [7] Though it was not enough to regrow a hand, it was good enough to stabilize her condition and get her moving quickly.
Monsters came out to attack us and we slay them with all the spells we learnt back at Reijseger. [7] If nothing else, those knights taught us plenty of ways to fight monsters. Since I know that monsters could be sold for money, I diligently collected all the fallen bodies and put them away in my [Item Box]. They will be an important source of funds later at the Kingdom of Malbert.
The next monsters that jumped in our way were Goblins. These were easily defeated with Wind Magic.
“Invisible Blade of Wind, Slice the Enemy, Wind Cutter!” the Wind Magic easily sliced through our enemy.
There, easy enough. As we were busy collecting the fallen bodies, Rio suddenly spoke up, “Hey, you know I’m really interested in magic right? So I’ve been reading through some magic books.”
“Oh yeah, I’m interested in magic too, but those books are way too thick,” I said.
“Rio’s really good at studying,” Kanon said encouragingly.
“A-anyway, I just want to say that I found something interesting. Do you know that the chants used in magic spells differ from country to country as well as from different magic schools of thought?”
“Oh?" Kanon looked surprised at this.
I, too, was surprised to hear this. [8] To be fair, being able to cast magic was already something quite amazing, I had not realised that there would be other ways of casting or chanting.
“I wanted to verify this, so I studied different spellbooks. I found that chanting is just something that helps the spell caster to picture what they want to achieve with their spells. If a spell caster could do this right away, they can skip most of the chants. Anyway, I believe as Japanese used to anime and movies, our imaginations are stronger than the people of this world.”
I see, so it’s to help us picture the result of our magic?
Well, that seems to make sense. We’re definitely the generation of Japanese who grew up on anime, so it made sense that our imaginations are better than most. I tried to recall some of the spell casting and fantasy anime I’ve watched when Rio said-
“Anyway, I’ve been experimenting, Look…” [9] She breathed in deeply and extended her right hand. She narrowed her eyes, “Wind Cutter!”
Swish!
The tall waving grasses suddenly broke off, [10] as though a huge, invisible scythe had just swept over them.
“I- incredible!”
“Rio, that’s amazing!”
Rio blushed at our gushing. She tried to cover it up by talking more, “A-anyway, I tried experimenting a few ways. But casting spells without any chants would result in weaker spells. The timing is also tricky. It works best when I try to imagine the result, then chant the name of the spell.” She smiled, some of the sharp cleverness back in her eyes. “Why don’t you try it too?”
“Yoshya! Let’s try it now! Kanon!”
“Yes, I must practice until I can rid myself of this weird chuunibyou-ish [12] chant!”
“Ahahaha, you’re right. It certainly is very chuunibyou-ish.”
“I had a hard time keeping a straight face when everyone kept chanting those words like a bunch of delusional middle schoolers,” Kanon sneered.
“Fufu, Kanon is such a meanie,” Rio laughed.
“I’d rather have Rio as a teacher anytime. We’re going to try now, let us know if we’re doing it right, okay?” I said happily, [13] we’ve been experiencing one good thing after another after getting out of Reijseger.
“Yes, please guide us,” Kanon said, also feeling buoyant.
“Un, I understand.”
We spent the rest of the day practising this new chanting technique. By the end of the day, both Kanon and I could cast spells just by the chanting the name, like Rio.
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It felt good to cast magic without having to do the whole chant. Like Kanon said, it was kind of chuunibyou-ish and awkward, not to mention it takes up a lot of time to remember the proper wording before saying it out loud. [8] Which is fine if you have the upper hand and plenty of time. Shortening the chant by a couple of seconds might not seem much, but when you’re pressed for time and trying not to be killed, an extra 2 or 3 seconds could mean the difference between life and death.
I could really feel the difference in terms of efficiency as we travelled through the forest. Monsters don’t wait for you to finish your chants. Like Rio, I tried wordless casting, just because it seems cool. However, it was a bad decision because I couldn’t control the timing well and monsters were able to escape.
In the end, it was best to just chant the spell name and aim.
After a while, we grew ambitious. If casting a spell only requires imagination and not a specific chant to activate the spell. What would happen if I chant the names of Ice Magic and Thunder Magic?
[13] There was nothing to lose and nobody to stop us. So we experimented as we like, pushing things as far as our imaginations could stretch. After all, we were all blessed with the skills for Fire Magic, Water Magic, Wind Magic, Earth Magic, as well as Ice Magic, Thunder Magic and Recovery Magic. Also, thanks to Rio we have the names for the basic spells of these magic.
Of the three of us, Rio practised the hardest. According to her, since she could not use a sword or a spear properly with a missing left hand, it made sense for her to power up her magic as much as possible. She was putting most of her focus on Buff, Debuff and Holy Magic Spells
Neither I nor Kanon could imagine what a Buff or Debuff Magic would look like, therefore we couldn’t do it. [8] Rio said that she imagined that we’re in a game and used that to fuel her vision for these power-up spells. While Buff and Debuff were not quite as flashy or interesting as other kinds of magic spells, Kanon and I soon learned how useful they were.
Any spells that increase our physical or defensive abilities would result in immediate sharpness of movements. The enemies appeared to move in slow motion when Debuff magic was applied to us. It made us even more efficient when it came to defeating monsters.
There was a lot of trial and error and we found out that the effects of these Buffs only lasted up to 10 minutes. However, 10 minutes was a long time in a battle and the magic that Rio specializes in made her a powerful support ally for our team. The Holy Magic, in particular, triggered a faint light around Rio whenever she cast it.
According to what Rio had studied, Holy Magic was most powerful against undead monsters. [3] There were no undead monsters for us to test this theory on, but I do feel that Holy Magic was also more effective against regular monsters compared to regular magic.
That said, if an undead appeared, Rio would be the best person to neutralize the threat.
“Kaito, Rio, look! The forest has ended!” Kanon called out to us. She was on point today and was the first to spot it. “There’s a road! And people!”
Indeed, I followed the road with my eyes and saw that it lead to something that looked like a farmstead across the road. [8] There was a farmer there, hoeing his land. Kanon was so excited that it looked like she was going to pop out of the forest any second.
“Hold it!” I grabbed her arm.
“What’s wrong, Kaito?” she looked hurt, but she has trusted me until now and did not try to pull away.
I looked down at her armour with the emblem of the Kingdom of Reijseger printed on the breastplate. “Aren’t you forgetting something?
“Oh, you’re right. We can’t go out like this.”
We went back into the forest and changed out of our incriminating armour and dirty undershirts. [8] Being in the forest for a long time has already made us insensitive to each other’s various state of undress. I’ve bought some standard clothes and leather armour in preparation for our escape, so we changed into that. Kanon lent Rio some of her clothes and I handed her some extra armour I had gotten in a fit of optimism that Rio would escape with us. I’m glad I did that.
It seems that Kanon had the same thought too. She took out a magic user’s robes and put it on Rio over her leather armour. [13] It hid the missing hand nicely. Fitting too since Rio seemed destined to be our most powerful magic-user.
“Yosh, we’re a little more decent now.”
“What should we do about the armour?” asked Kanon.
Selling it would bring us some good money, but with the incriminating Reijseger crest, it was unlikely that anyone would be willing to buy it.
“I think it’s a bad idea to try and sell this,” I said.
“You’re right,” said Rio resolutely. “It might be worth a lot, but it will only bring us trouble.”
“It’s a shame, but let’s bury it here,” I dug a hole with Earth Magic and threw the armour as well as the clothes I wore to get here. So did Kanon and Rio. It was kind of cathartic to toss away the evidence of things that tied us to that horrible country. Then, with a wave of my hand, I bury the whole lot.
“Alright, let’s go.”
Kanon and Rio nodded.
We made our way down the road and walked to where the farmers who were working tirelessly under the sun.
I called out to some of them, “Hello, excuse me!”
“Hm? What do you want?”
“I’m sorry, but could you tell me what is this place called?”
“Oh? Are you guys Adventurers?”
“Yes, it’s our first time coming to this country and we’re a bit lost,”
“What the- are you low ranking Adventurers? You guys gotta be careful, ya know?”
“We recently became Adventurers…”
“Well, well, this is the Village of Rampartz. We’re a border village of the Malbert. If you follow along this road, you will see the entrance to the kingdom. Do you have a guild card? If you show your card, they’ll let you in.
“Many thanks,”
We began walking in the direction pointed out by the farmer.
“Yes! Yess! We made it, we’re finally at Malbert!”
“Yeah, we’re finally here,”
“Un…”
I wanted to cheer like them too, but I thought I should play it cool and not appear too excited. We were still within sight of those farmers and somehow, paranoia filled me even as the happiness of getting into Malbert safely.
[Gumihou: …uh, good luck?]
[1] Creative Licence: Gumihou uses more ‘descriptive’ language here.
[2] Structural Change: Combine 1 paragraph and 1 dialogue.
[3] Structural Change: Combine 2 paragraphs
[4] Change Sentence: Switched out a redundant sentence with something else that added to character’s introspection.
[5] Structural Change: Combine 3 paragraphs
[6] Structural Change: Changed long introspective ‘I can still recall the time two weeks ago when Rio first…blah, blah whatever we already know this get on with it already’ to ‘Two weeks ago…”
[7] Structural Change + Additional Details: Combine 2 paragraphs and added details for texture
[8] Structural Change: Combine 3 paragraphs and add details
[9] Structural Change: Combine 2 paragraphs and 1 dialogue sentence
[10] Addition Information for Dramatic Purpose: Come on, give this kind of sentences some love.
[11] Replace Unnaturally Meandering Dialogue: Original ‘Since I’ve worked out how to do it, I’m sure that I can help Kaito and Kanon to learn it too’
[12] Chuunibyou – Self-deluded person who thinks they have special powers, or are somehow more special than others around them. Generally manifested during the second year of middle school.
[13] Additional Details for more Texture
