Chapter 20
#20 Newbie Adventurer Bern (18) - Tension
There were many differences between the adventurer life Bern had imagined and reality, but if he had to pick the biggest one, it would be that travel took far more time than he had expected.
Back when he was a 1st-rank adventurer, most of his jobs were just little errands within the city, so travel time was only a matter of a few dozen minutes on foot. But goblin extermination, a 2nd-rank request, took more than a full day just to get there, and 3rd-rank requests often took several days even if they hired a carriage and rode in it.
That meant the time spent actually completing the request was far less than the time spent getting to the destination and coming back.
And Bern was a man who never forgot the saying that time was money.
On the road to Frensia.
With the horse and carriage borrowed from the Adventurer Guild parked to one side, he stood face-to-face with Blanca.
“Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
A mock battle repeated every morning and evening during the journey.
Blanca, who now looked quite accustomed to gripping a sword, looked at Bern with her sky-blue eyes.
A gaze filled with such intense determination that it seemed she would not miss a single one of his movements.
Pleased with that, Bern kicked off the ground with all his strength.
However, unlike usual, his body turned toward the rear instead of the front.
Clatter.
The leather pouch hanging at Bern's waist.
Inside it, pebbles of various sizes showed off a variety of shapes and colors.
Bern grabbed a few pebbles in his hand, then flicked his thumb and shot them at Blanca.
But Blanca had already used two spells.
『A spell that makes the body a little stronger』 『A spell that makes reactions a little faster』
On top of the enhancement spells she already possessed, there was another spell she had newly purchased with the money earned from requests.
While the former affected strength, durability, and agility, the latter was a spell that enhanced the senses, such as visual acuity and reflex speed.
What would have looked to an ordinary person like nothing more than a flash was calmly deflected by Blanca's sword, bolstered by magic.
Blanca recalled what Bern had taught her all this time.
“Most body-enhancement spells are often treated as inferior to the physical enhancement of martial artists. If you directly reinforce the body with mana, you can strengthen everything—strength, senses, and so on—according to your will. But mages’ spells are fragmented by area, and their mana efficiency is said to be worse.”
“However, after I compared them myself... that is, after getting advice from another mage and checking for myself, I found that spells have a clear advantage of their own. And that is that they can always produce a certain effect.”
“The martial path is multiplication. [Base ability * enhancement rate = final result]. The mage’s path is addition. [Base ability + spell rank = final result].”
“That’s why martial artists are greatly affected by their natural physical ability. It’s hard for a frail woman to beat a sturdy young man in raw physical ability. But with spells, it might be possible. Spells simply boost the body by a fixed amount.”
“On top of that, unlike martial artists who have to constantly worry about detailed enhancement ratios, spells keep their effect active until the duration expires once cast. There’s no need to waste effort worrying about how much mana to use on which part of the body.”
“So for body-enhancement spells, it’s best to learn as many different kinds as possible. Once activated, their effects persist.”
Thwack! Tap-tap! Rat-a-tat!
A barrage of stones kept flying at Blanca as if to leave her no time to breathe.
Blanca deflected the stones with her sword again and again, or rolled her body aside to evade them, but even so, she couldn't deal with them perfectly and let some attacks through.
Thud!
One to her left shin, one to her right shoulder.
The power was enough to risk breaking bones, but her body, strengthened by spells, suppressed the damage to little more than a few bruises.
Clenching her teeth at the faint pain, Blanca rushed toward Bern with all her might.
Bern kept up the stone attacks as if to pin her down, but the closer Blanca got, the more that momentum began to wane.
“It’s not absolute, but as a mage’s spells rise in rank, their attack range and firepower tend to increase. That’s why the more powerful the spell, the harder it is to use against close-range enemies. Lower-rank spells are usually launched as projectiles, which also makes them tricky to use against nearby foes. You can’t get a proper firing angle.”
“Think of the body and magic as separate action resources. You must be able to evade with your body while attacking with spells, and swing a sword while healing yourself with recovery magic. That is how you can fight against higher-rank mages.”
Blanca began swinging her sword at Bern while simultaneously unleashing a barrage of low-grade fire spells at him.
Because the distance was far too close, Blanca herself could feel the scorching heat, and she took hits here and there from counterattacks flying back at her, but she endured as best she could by trusting in her strengthened body.
『A spell that heals light injuries』 was used to close the openings, while her sword kept the enemy in check; once the wounds were healed, she unleashed her attack spells again.
A tactic so reckless it bordered on thoughtless, far too brutal for a woman as delicate-looking as Blanca to use.
And yet Blanca felt no dissatisfaction at all.
Partly because she could feel her skill rising rapidly after changing tactics as Bern had advised, but even more because she could tell this tactic had been tailored specifically for her by Bern.
Sword, attack spell, healing spell.
Unlike the past, when she could use everything but nothing worked together and whatever she did was half-baked, now all the functions she possessed were meshing together like a puzzle and doing their respective jobs in this tactic.
‘How much effort did he have to put into coming up with a tactic like this?’
When she asked how he had thought of something like this, Bern modestly said it wasn't that impressive, but Blanca didn't believe him.
What could a pure swordsman like Bern possibly know about magic?
He must have researched many things, agonized over them, and after much deliberation finished this result solely for Blanca.
And yet he handed it over so casually, as if it were just something he had thought of on a whim, and Blanca had to struggle to suppress the 'something' welling up inside her.
“We'll stop here for today. Good work. I can feel how much your skills have improved.”
After the mock battle ended, Bern held out a hand to Blanca, who had collapsed onto the ground, gasping for breath.
His face was full of nothing but pure goodwill and admiration, so much so that it was hard to believe it was directed at the woman who had just been swinging a sword and hurling fire at him without mercy.
The way he seemed to be genuinely happy that Blanca's skills were improving, as if it were his own accomplishment.
Unable to bear that utterly pure gaze, Blanca lowered her eyes without realizing it.
“No, Bern, you're the one who worked hard. It must have been difficult for you to fight with unfamiliar tactics, with a swordsman filling the mage's role.”
“Well, not exactly. It's something I've done quite a lot in my own way.”
Blanca let out a dry laugh.
This man, who always seemed perfect, only ever made such awkward, clumsy excuses in moments like this.
He wasn't even a mage himself, so there was no way he'd often have to keep a distance the way a mage did.
“Big brother! Big sis! That was truly an amazing match! Ah, it's a shame I'm the only one watching, but at the same time it feels like I'm being treated to something incredible, so this is quite the complicated feeling!”
“Renya, shouldn't you be starting extra training soon as well?”
“Oh no, everything you've taught me so far has been enough! I carry luggage when needed, scout when necessary, and run errands in the city. At this rate, I'll be pulling my weight! Hahaha!”
Glancing at the side profile of Bern chatting cheerfully with the overexcited Renya, Blanca fell into yet another worry she had long since lost count of.
‘How am I supposed to repay him?’
With a ring beyond compare, he had solved her chronic mana shortage.
He had made her a proper adventurer again, when otherwise she would have spent her whole life chained to the Guild repaying a debt.
He had come up with a special tactic that only she, once dismissed as talented but useless, could use, and he was helping with her training too.
He had given her so much, and she had given back almost nothing.
Bern said that simply being together as an adventuring companion was enough, but no matter how she thought about it, she couldn't believe that counted as proper repayment.
She had even considered repaying him with her body, but after having been turned down by Bern that many times already, she didn't think he would accept something like that now.
Because of his noble character, he probably found anything that seemed like it was trying to exploit the other person's sense of obligation distasteful.
Or maybe he thought Blanca herself was trying to cling to him out of desperation to save her mother.
In fact, since she really had acted with that intention in the past, she couldn't even refute it.
‘In the end, the chance will have to come later.’
Someday, after the lich had been subjugated.
Once she had freed her mother from that enemy's grasp, and there was nothing left to make her hesitate or hold back.
Then, truly and purely, she would be able to convey these feelings to him.
***
After several days on the road, Bern's group arrived in Frensia.
However, what awaited them was not a welcome, but an outright tirade.
“3rd-rank? To send a mere 3rd-rank party on a request that even 4th-rank adventurers failed to complete!? Does the Adventurer Guild think I’m a joke!? And they still expect to take my money while handling business like this!? You worthless maggots!!”
Bern and the others' expressions shifted subtly at the Frensia lord's crude tirade.
The knight standing behind him stiffened and echoed the lord's words.
“My lord's words are correct! This is an insult to my lord and to Frensia, so the Guild must be made to answer for it!”
“Sir Gudrun. Your intentions are the same as mine!”
At the ominous turn of events, the bespectacled middle-aged man who had identified himself as the treasurer hurriedly tried to dissuade the lord, sweating profusely.
“P-please wait, my lord. These adventurers here may only be 3rd-rank for now, but their skill is on par with 4th-rank adventurers. For the Eastern Branch, we sent the best hand we possibly could, so there certainly wasn't any intention to insult you, my lord.”
“If you’re going to send people on par with 4th-rank adventurers, then surely it would have been normal to send 4th-rank adventurers from the start, wouldn’t it?”
“The Eastern Branch's 4th-rank adventuring party is only the Alses party that was originally stationed here. Even if we wanted to send one, there simply wasn't any other party available.”
“Hah, compared to how they usually strut around, this Guild isn't anything special either. Still, I suppose commoners can't amount to much no matter how impressive they are.”
“Y-your lordship.”
The treasurer's gaze kept darting restlessly between the lord and Bern's group.
While Renya's usually carefree expression turned flat and Blanca's eyes grew sharp, Bern just stood there blankly, and Lucidra, within the shadows, asked him a question.
[Hey, these guys asked the Adventurer Guild for help because they couldn't solve that missing-person case themselves, right?]
'That's right.'
[Then why are they acting so high and mighty when they're the ones who asked for help?]
'They may not think of it as asking for help.'
[What?]
'Have you ever seen a client who paid money to hire mercenaries then worry about the mercenaries' feelings? If anything, because they paid money, they only pressure them to do the job properly. The lord in front of us is similar. Since he's already paid the request fee, he treats the Guild and the adventurers sent by the Guild as his subordinates.'
Even the party they had originally commissioned had given up and said they couldn't solve it themselves, and now the party that had come later was supposedly a lower rank than that.
It wasn't hard to understand why the lord was showing such open dissatisfaction.
But.
That was only from the lord's point of view, and Bern, who had simply come after the Guild brokered the request, had no reason to put up with being insulted for no cause.
“Hmm. It seems my lord has quite a few complaints about us.”
The lord's face twisted into a scowl.
Before even considering Bern's words, his gaze seemed to say, Who are you to speak out of turn without permission?
Bern smiled brightly at him.
“Well, if the client dislikes us, what can we do? We'll be heading back now, so please resolve the problem yourselves. Under normal circumstances, I'd want to bill you for the time and money wasted by this pointless trip, but I'll let that slide. From the looks of it, this domain is such a mess that you can't even offer a guest a cup of tea, so how could I prey on the needy?”