Chapter 30
#30 Rookie Adventurer Bern (28) - Intrusion
When was it?
Blanca had once had this thought about Bern.
'Could he have learned magic somewhere?'
By nature, swordsmen don't know much about magic.
No, in truth, even mages can't really be said to know all that much about magic.
Unless they're mages who learned systematically under a professional institution or a major power, there are plenty of adventurers who teach themselves from a single grimoire and then call themselves mages.
In the first place, when there are plenty of cases where they can only use one spell to begin with, how could they claim to 'know' magic?
Blanca, at least, had learned directly from her mother, so among adventurers she was fairly well educated, but Bern knew so much about magic that even Blanca found him bizarre.
"This is something I happened to hear from a mage acquaintance."
Blanca did wonder what mage in the world would casually hand out such advanced knowledge to just an acquaintance, but she didn't press the matter.
After all, from the moment they first formed a party, hadn't they agreed not to ask where his power or knowledge came from?
Honestly, it was kind of cute that Bern, who seemed good at everything, would show a gap here of all places.
"Mana, in fact, has a very close relationship with a person's life."
...Well, even so, at this point she couldn't help worrying that Bern might have been tricked by some strange fortune-teller somewhere.
It sounded exactly like the sort of thing those people in that trade liked to go on about.
She did like Bern, but she wasn't blindly devoted to him—which, in fact, was why Bern liked her even more—so the mage answered as mildly as possible.
"Is that some kind of metaphor?"
"No, literally. Do you remember what I said before—that a mage who keeps using only ice-element spells gains mana specialized for ice spells?"
"Yes."
"Then you also remember that a mage who gains an intrinsic property related to ice will see the effectiveness of other elements drop sharply when using them. In fact, if they keep using other elements, even the efficiency of their main element can drop as well."
"Of course. That's why, unless it's a spell they've chosen as their main element, most mages don't even try to learn it. There's no point learning something you can't use."
"But isn't that a little strange?"
"Strange how?"
Tilting her head, Blanca watched as Bern rolled up his sleeve and explained.
"Let's compare it to the human body. A hulking brute who has bulked up his muscles and weight for brute force would have a hard time doing something like long-distance running. Sure, because he's trained his body, he'd still be better than the average person even in a field he's bad at, but the efficiency wouldn't be very good."
"Well, yes. I suppose that's because the direction he built his body in was different to begin with."
"Then if that brute did long-distance running once or twice, would his muscle and weight decrease enough to be noticeable?"
"That..."
Of course not.
Unless he ignored his main discipline for a long time and kept training only the other side, would his body change so easily from just once or twice?
Only then did Blanca realize what Bern was trying to say.
"So you're saying it's strange for the efficiency of a mage's specialized element to drop just because they used another element's magic once or twice? But that does happen in practice among mages."
"Yes, the problem is the cause. To put it bluntly, even if you use magic outside your main element a few times, it doesn't have a meaningful effect on mana itself. What really matters is the mage's own perception."
Like how she never questioned why apples fall downward, Bern was logically interpreting and explaining laws Blanca had until now simply taken for granted.
"Mana affects the material world, but at the same time it is power that is greatly influenced by the mind. The reason mages who use only one element day and night easily reach the 4th tier is because they themselves perceive that they're 'that kind of mage.' Consciousness, unconsciousness, everyday habits, the options they consider in battle—all of it is biased toward a particular element, so mana follows suit."
So, those who reach a high level as element mages usually have personalities similar to the image associated with that element.
Flame mages are fiery and aggressive, ice mages are calm and intellectual, and earth mages are taciturn and steadfast.
"Karina, was it? The former companion of Miss Blanca whom I met last time seems to have only recently reached the 4th tier, so the influence is probably still slight, but in time she'll likely grow more and more similar to the element she handles. Things change if you rise to a higher tier and break through your own limits and fixed notions, but even then it takes quite a lot of effort and time to completely shake off that influence."
Blanca stood there with her mouth hanging open.
She had never even imagined there could be such a correlation between elemental magic and a mage's personality.
If that were true, then if she abandoned other magic and kept drilling only flame magic, it would be easier to rise in rank but her personality would become fire-like as well, wouldn't it?
She asked in a trembling voice.
"Then, the reason the efficiency of my main element drops when I learn magic of other elements is..."
"To put it simply, it's because your focus gets broken. Like a thief who gets guilty for no reason, you unconsciously start thinking that using another element will affect your original element. In severe cases, it can affect you even if you only memorize the spell in your head without actually casting it."
Bern explained that a proper mage who reached the 4th tier did the opposite, not through some shortcut.
Rather than being dragged along by the nature of mana, a person's ideology, personality, abilities, combat style, and so on instead manifest as the nature of their mana.
"So if you meet someone whose mana nature is nasty, I'd advise being careful. People like that usually have problems in their personality or in the methods they use."
***
The moment the guild master transformed into a death knight, the adventurers all tried to flee at once.
They judged that continuing the fight any longer would not give them a chance of victory, so they planned to retreat first and try to regroup.
That in itself was a strategically reasonable option, but the problem was the purple mist spread by the lich.
At first, the adventurers thought it was merely mist mixed with a paralyzing poison and tried to break through while suppressing their breathing, only to soon realize the mist's true effect and shiver in fear.
Only a very slight gap, less than 1 meter, had opened up between them, and already they could no longer see the comrades standing right beside them.
No, not just their forms—their voices too.
"Is anyone there!? Answer me!!"
In the silence where not even an echo returned, Blanca gritted her teeth.
'It wasn't just ordinary mist. T-this purple mist itself was the lich's mana!'
If it were named, it would be 『Layered Mist (迷霧重重)』
The purple mist, layered over and over again, restricts the opponent's senses and carries every spell used by the lich in the form of particles.
『A spell that numbs the body』 『A spell that causes hallucinations』 『A spell that steals body heat』
Individually, they are weakening and curse-type spells that amount to little.
However, when they mix freely and invade the body in the form of mist, their effect becomes nothing short of dramatic.
The victims flee, fearing enemies that could appear from anywhere at any time, and soon can no longer withstand the mist accumulating in their bodies and collapse on the spot.
And the lich then reanimates those who fall as undead, as if gathering ears of grain.
A form of mana that doesn't mean much against a few strong opponents, but shows devastating efficiency when dealing with large numbers of weak ones.
"Cough, hack!"
Feeling as if something toxic kept seeping into her body, Blanca shuddered.
Because she was using body enhancement and healing magic in tandem, she was still able to maintain her combat power even in the mist, but there was no telling how long she could keep this up.
After making up her mind, she formed a huge fireball in her hand.
Kwaaaang!
『The spell that burns rock』 slammed into the ground Blanca had just crossed with both feet, blasting away the mist with its heat and shockwave.
Enduring the searing heat she felt on her skin through sheer grit, she fired another fireball into the space where the mist had been pushed back and her field of vision opened up.
Once again, the mist was pushed back a little, and her field of vision widened a little more.
It was an atrociously inefficient method, but if she wanted to secure visibility while minimizing the risk of attacking allies, there was no other way.
And at last, the results showed.
"Don't come any closer! I said don't come!!"
"Agh! Aaagh! Noona! Hyung! Please save me!!"
Karina, who had apparently thrown elegance to the wind, was wearing a fierce expression and unleashing indiscriminate blizzards to keep the undead at bay.
And Renya, caught up in Karina's magic, was crouched on the ground and screaming while white sleet pelted his head.
Seeing that desperate yet somehow deflating sight, Blanca's eye twitched involuntarily.
Bern, whom she'd searched high and low for, still wasn't showing himself—so why were only those kinds of people catching her eye?
Feeling resentment all over again, Blanca still couldn't leave the first ally she had found alone, so she shot a fireball, turned the undead to ash, and approached them.
"Karina! Renya! Snap out of it, right now!!"
"Don't come!! ...Huh?"
"N-noona! Where did you go? I, Renya, was worried you might have come to harm and thought my heart would sicken!"
After securing the dazed Karina and the Renya who couldn't stop rambling for even a moment, Blanca kept moving while illuminating the way by the same method she had just used.
Karina said urgently,
"You know where the exit is!?"
"I wouldn't be able to find it even if I did."
Blanca said coldly.
"This is mist so thick that even adventurers with plenty of dungeon-clearing experience, if they tried to retreat while conserving enough stamina, would get lost and wander around. There's almost no chance that we, who've already entered deep into the dungeon, can reach the exit safely. In the worst case, the exit could be blocked, or an ambush could be waiting."
Karina asked back with an anxious face.
"Then what are you planning to do?"
"We need to bring down the lich."
Karina grimaced.
"Don't be stupid! We couldn't beat it when everyone rushed it all at once, and now that we're all scattered, you want to take it on with this many people!?"
"Because we're scattered, it has meaning."
Blanca said firmly.
"We did take a painful counterattack at the end, but that doesn't mean everything we did while clearing the dungeon was meaningless. The lich's forces have been reduced dramatically, and the few remaining troops it has were sent to hold the adventurers down. What's more, it has already died once. There's no way it didn't suffer losses."
The guild master had not simply died for nothing.
It might be a little strange to use such an expression for a lich, who is already undead, but the guild master had certainly killed the lich once.
Though the lich had revived by using a spare life and turned the tables on him, if that spare life were a method that could be made so easily, the lich wouldn't have been that angry at the guild master in the first place.
"When it thinks it's the hunter. When it mistakenly believes the adventurers are all losing morale and fleeing. That's when we need to hit it. That way we have even a little better chance of surviving. Is there anything wrong with what I'm saying?"
"...I can't say there isn't, but I can't think of any other way either."
"I-I'll follow you and put my trust in you, Noona!"
Karina pouted but voiced her agreement, and Renya looked as though he wanted to run away right then and there, but perhaps because he sensed that staying beside Blanca gave him the highest chance of survival, he followed behind her in restless unease.
Throughout the dungeon, surviving adventurers were fighting the undead as Karina had been, but because of the mist's effects, all of them were deathly pale.
After rescuing two more adventurers and bringing them into the fold, when she finally spotted the third shadow,
Blanca struck with maximum firepower without the slightest hesitation.
Kwaaaang!
The lich, having blocked the attack with a wall made of bone, let something like a smile appear on its skull-like face as it said,
"—Oh? I was looking for you anyway, so you've saved me some trouble. What a good child."
"Enough already. Die!!"
Blanca didn't bother exchanging long words with the lich and immediately dashed forward with her sword drawn.
As expected, there was only one death knight guarding the lich.
That death knight tried to block Blanca's path, but before it could even swing its sword, a huge icicle fired by Karina shot toward it.
The knight blocked the icicle by swinging its sword, but Blanca did not miss the opening that created.
Ignoring the death knight, she charged straight at the lich.
Behind her, she could feel Renya and the rescued adventurers battling the death knight.
The lich fired black blades made of mana to block Blanca's advance, but Blanca, whose skill had been honed through repeated sparring matches with Bern, dodged or deflected the blades and reached the lich in the blink of an eye.
The moment her blade was about to finally reach the lich,
seeing the lich's eyes looking down at her with something like enjoyment, Blanca realized something was wrong.
Clang!
A blade that suddenly intruded from the side knocked the sword from Blanca's hand.
The worn knight's sword was flung to the ground.
The jet-black sword that came for her heart after disarming her seemed to move in slow motion to Blanca.
Ah, why had she made that mistake?
The nature of mana is the nature of that individual's life.
Someone whose mental image is one of toying with prey by nibbling away at them little by little could hardly have failed to account for the prey's last struggle.
In the end, Blanca realized at last that she had only been making plausible excuses because she didn't want to run away and wanted to somehow catch that lich.
She didn't have time for any last words.
And so Blanca tried to repeat, if only in her mind, the words that would not become sound.
'I'm sorry. Mother. And Bern.'
"─I trust you weren't about to say something like 'I'm sorry for giving up on life,' Miss Blanca."
BOOM!
The death knight that had been trying to pierce her heart flew backward as if it had been struck by a carriage.
Blanca stared with wide eyes at the man who had appeared before her.
Red hair swaying in the wind.
His normally neat leather armor was so tattered it could be called rags, and his body was covered in dust and soot from whatever he'd been doing.
And yet his expression was, as always, calm and composed.
In the lich's ever-calm eyes, annoyance and puzzlement had appeared.
It asked.
"…What are you? How are you here after falling into a teleportation trap?"
Bern answered.
"Well."