Chapter 57 - Shadow

Once I had a general idea of how to use Elisia, I immediately conveyed these details to Siren and asked her to make it like this.

"Okay. I got it. Then should I erase her memories too?"

"Memories?"

"About being kidnapped and such things. If we leave them as is, there could be problems like information leaks."

Hearing this, I told her to return Elisia to her state before the kidnapping and smiled.

I wonder how Elisia will react when she learns the truth later.

Thinking it would be quite interesting, I told her to do so.

"How long do you think it will take?"

"About 3 days?"

I thought it would take at least a month, but hearing it would only take 3 days, I could once again feel Siren's overwhelming talent.

I patted Siren's head to show my gratitude.

Siren shook her head left and right like an excited cat and said to me, "I'll finish it in two days."

At those words, I waved my hands in alarm.

She was obviously planning to work through the night.

I patted Siren's back to calm her down and said, "Take it slow, take it slow."

As it was such an important task, the faster she finished it, the better it would be…

But Siren's health was more important than that, so I asked her to take it as slow as possible, but…

"I'll do it quickly."

Siren declared she would do it even faster, burning with enthusiasm.

Thinking this wouldn't do, I put Daisy on Siren's head and said, "This won't do. Take a few days off."

"...?"

From the artificial sun experiment to nursing me and decoding the old book.

She must have done all these things alone, so there was a high possibility she hadn't slept properly for two days.

So thinking it would be better to let her rest first, I laid her down on the bed.

Siren shook her face left and right as if she was really okay and tried to get up, but I made Siren lie down again, covered her with a blanket, and said, "There's no need to rush. I need to take time to train separately anyway."

In addition to needing to learn what was written in the old book, I also needed to train to rise to mid-grade Expert, so I said there was no need to rush anything.

Siren blinked her eyes and said to me, "But isn't it better to send Elisia to the North quickly?"

"Forget it. Rest."

"Myeong!"

I shook my head to mean absolutely not and did some light stretching.

I didn't know if it was because I moved after two days, but my whole body felt somewhat stiff.

Deciding to loosen up my body lightly first, I decided to go outside.

***

Heading to the training ground, I saw Loraine and Dasoon having a rough sparring session.

Seeing this, I was somewhat excited at the thought of sparring after a long time, when a somewhat subdued voice came from behind.

"Little one, you're not planning to train, are you?"

Sister Lilia, with bandages wrapped around various parts of her body, looked at me with a voice that seemed to say "surely not," and I smiled awkwardly at Sister Lilia, then asked her, just in case, "Aren't you here to train too, Sister?"

Seeming to have hit the nail on the head, Sister Lilia smiled awkwardly and slightly avoided my eyes.

Then, as if realizing it wouldn't do, she pushed me out of the training ground and said, "Anyway, you'll get sick if you overdo it, so rest a bit more."

"If you rest, I'll go rest too."

"Uh, okay?"

At my words, Sister Lilia paused for a moment, then smiled awkwardly and said to me, "...Then shall we just loosen up our bodies a bit and go? They say it's not good to not move your body at all."

Her reaction was somewhat funny, so I smiled slightly.

I thought Sister Lilia's actions were somewhat similar to what I do to Siren, and nodded.

***

After focusing on sparring for about an hour, I immediately returned to the lodgings and picked up the old book.

I wanted to focus more on sparring, but I judged it would be better to rest more because my body was creaking more than I thought.

Anyway, understanding the contents of the old book is also important.

As I was looking through it along with the translation Siren had given me, I could discover some very interesting contents.

Combat methods using shadows.

This meant exactly what it said.

The old book contained methods of fighting using shadows.

Hiding one's body in shadows.

Entering into shadows, then emerging from the opponent's shadow to assassinate them.

Or using the enemies' shadows to bind their movements.

In game terms, it contained techniques closer to utility skills than attack skills.

...This is really good?

If I were to express my combat style directly, it could be described as a “bomb relying on Daisy's power”.

To put it positively, it could be said that the power was very high, but to put it somewhat negatively, it could be described as a fool with no backup, just pure power, so I was feeling the need to improve this combat style a bit when...

I discovered techniques that could fill in the mobility and flexibility I lack.

I couldn't help but find it very interesting and delightful.

I decided to delve into this and raised the corner of my mouth as I started analyzing the old book.

To use shadows, you first need to tame the shadow...

What on earth does this mean?

I was frowning, not understanding what it meant at all, when suddenly the sight of a shadow flickering to avoid sunlight caught my eye.

Perhaps I need to enter into the shadow?

With nothing else coming to mind, I pushed my body into the shadow and sat still, but…

"Myeong!? Cold."

Daisy, who was on Siren's head, hurriedly came down and clung to me.

Saying that places full of shadows were cold and we should go to a place full of sunlight, she started pulling me towards a sunny spot.

"...Hmm."

I had no choice but to come out to the sunny spot and shook my head.

No matter how I think about it, this isn't the right way.

...If one could tame shadows just by cramming one’s body into them, people who stayed in dark places should have been able to use shadow abilities long ago, but I had never heard or seen such cases, so I had to find another method, not this crude one.

So while I was pondering what method there might be, suddenly the sight of Siren eating fruit caught my eye.

The moment I saw this, I could understand what the “tame” written in the old book meant.

It means to give mana.

Realizing it meant to push mana into the shadow to dominate it, I laughed hollowly.

If you're going to write it, write it intuitively. Why make it so convoluted?

Well, if I had to guess, it might be because it's a technique that shouldn't be known to others, but I still thought it was too much and sighed.

...Anyway, let's try experimenting.

I looked at the shadow created by the sunlight and tried to calmly push mana into the shadow, but perhaps because shadows didn’t have a physical form, it was difficult to push into the shadow, and even if I managed to push it in somehow, the moment the shadow moved, it returned to its original state as if what I had pushed in was an “illusion”.

I expected it to be difficult, but it's even harder than I thought.

The difficulty was extreme, so I couldn't even get a grasp on how to do it.

As I was trying to keep pushing in mana and pondering, suddenly a thought bloomed in my mind.

It definitely said to tame.

If so, instead of forcibly injecting mana, wouldn't it work to make the shadow absorb mana in a softer way?

The moment this idea came up, I decided to try covering the shadow with mana and calmly emitted mana.

***

After being absorbed in taming shadows for quite a while, Siren, who had been lying still, got up and seemed to remember something, telling me one thing.

"Come to think of it, there were remnants of black magic left in Elisia's body."

"...Black magic?"

"Yeah. Judging by how high the infiltration rate is, it seems she's been subjected to black magic continuously while in the North."

The moment I heard this, I was reminded of what Dasoon had said in the past.

It was a question of whether the black mages had done something to Elisia.

To be honest, at that time it wasn't a very important factor no matter what it was, so I just passed over it.

But now that I was thinking of using Elisia to mess up the North, I judged it would be good to address these issues.

"What kind of black magic? Mind control or something like that?"

"No, not that, it seems to be hallucinations and auditory hallucinations. Along with mental weakening."

The moment I heard this, all sorts of thoughts bloomed in my mind.

The thought that perhaps Elisia's trauma in the original work was a trauma intentionally created by the North.

As such speculations were arising in my mind, Siren asked me a question, "What should we do? Should we remove it?"

"...Remove it for now."

For Elisia to greatly damage the North, she needed to rise as high as possible, so I told her to do so and raised the corner of my mouth.

We might be able to create an interesting situation using this.

The hallucinations and auditory hallucinations that tormented her so much were actually the North's doing?

I wonder what kind of judgment Elisia would make when she learned this fact?

I smiled thinking I wanted to see her reaction, then quickly pulled myself together.

Anyway, the important thing is learning the shadow technique.

Deciding to focus all my attention on the shadow technique now, I started practicing covering shadows with mana with all my might.

***

After about a week had passed like this, Siren came to tell me that she had finished all of Elisia's training.