Nozomanu Fushi no Boukensha (LN) - Volume 7 - Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Laura, Head of the Latuule Family 

On the outskirts of Maalt, there was a grand and ancient mansion with a gigantic garden. Those who saw the head of that mansion for the first time were often surprised. That was because she looked like a sickly girl around twelve or thirteen years old. She mostly wore old-fashioned black or white dresses. Her family had held a substantial amount of influence in Maalt for ages, and as members of these old families often were, most would presumably perceive her as quite gloomy. However, few people ever actually got to meet her. 

Her name was Laura Latuule, by the way. And because I’m talking about myself, that’s also my name. 

“Why?! Why won’t you help?!” 

In the parlor of my mansion stood a boy. He was shouting at me. My servant, Isaac, was standing behind me, staring at the boy much like I was. 

“I’m afraid I don’t know what to tell you,” I said. “I’ll do what I’m able. Isaac.” 

When I addressed Isaac, he handed me a bottle of red fluid. It was a medicine produced from dragon blood blossoms. This medicine was extremely difficult to preserve, and the flowers had to be freshly harvested for it to work, so it wasn’t easy to get my hands on. But luckily I had met an adventurer who would bring me some dragon blood blossoms periodically. He was away from Maalt for the moment, but I had a magic item that slowed down time for certain objects to some degree. The medicine I already had would be enough for a while. 

I accepted the dragon blood blossom medicine from Isaac and handed it off to the boy. “Dilute this in water a hundredfold and drink it once a day to suppress the urges. That should be enough for you to live comfortably among humans. However, you must leave Maalt. A demon is here in search of you. I can’t recommend that you remain in this town.” 

“What good will this do me?” the boy said, nearly tossing the bottle aside. 

“That medicine is how your kind has managed to live among humans in secret for so long. I expect it will be more difficult now that you have fewer avenues of obtaining more, but surely it won’t be impossible. There should be extra stock available where you come from. 

“But I must ask why a young boy like you decided to leave your village to come all the way here. You say you want to demonstrate the existence of your people to the world and you want my help. But if you were able to do that, there must be far more powerful individuals than yourself who are doing the same already. What is it you’re thinking, then?” 

When I asked him that, the boy slowly lowered his arm before he could throw the medicine. I seemed to have convinced him that he needed it, thankfully. 

“I just can’t stand living in the village anymore,” the boy said. “I hate having to hide from humans. We haven’t been wiped out yet, but we have to pretend we don’t exist. But we do. We live in the same world as everyone else. Why does it have to be this way?” 

The boy was so frustrated he started to shed tears. His feelings weren’t hard to understand. However, looking at the state of the world, asserting his existence wouldn’t be wise. 

“If nothing else, I acknowledge that you exist. You’re alive and standing here right now, and even interacting with me. And rest assured, you’re not the only ones who have been forced into hiding. Other races have as well to varying extents, including elves, dwarves, fairies, and beastfolk. There’s no escaping this fact. But despite it all, you continue to survive. If you remain here, however, I cannot protect you. It’s highly likely that you’ll perish and disappear. What of that?” 

The boy paused for a moment before saying, “I don’t want to die.” 

“Then return to your village. I won’t ask you where it is, and I’m sure you don’t want me to know.” 

“But how will we stay in touch?” 

“Don’t concern yourself with that. Isaac.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” Isaac said with a nod and left the room. 

“What the heck?” the boy asked. 

“We have a way of contacting your people. It will take a bit of time, but it’s guaranteed to work, so there’s no need to worry. The question of which village it is in particular will pose a problem to some extent, but if they’ve lost a boy your age, I expect they’re searching everywhere for you already. It’s more than likely they’ll get in touch with us soon.” 

“I heard about you from the elders, but why is it you know so much about us?” 

“My family has lived our lives in this way for ages now. Maalt exists as our base of operations for this purpose. Only my family remembers that at this point, but there’s no need to worry. I won’t betray you.” 

“Thank you so much.” 

“It’s nothing. Going back to what I was saying before, Maalt is dangerous at the moment. If you’re going to walk around town, be very cautious. Using that medicine will make you much safer, but I can’t guarantee that you won’t be discovered. Just to be safe, I suggest you leave your inn and stay at my mansion as a guest instead. We can provide food for you as well.” 

The boy nodded and said he’d go tell the inn he was leaving. Then he turned to exit the room. I had him dilute the dragon blood blossom extract and drink it before he left. 

As I was seeing him off, Isaac returned to the room. 

“Do you think you can get in contact with them?” I asked. 

“Yes. We’ll have to wait for a response, but I estimate that it will come tomorrow.” He paused before continuing. “Is that boy responsible for the missing adventurers?” 

I thought for a moment before I answered. “No, I doubt that he is. He came from one of the villages. He might not have dragon blood blossoms, but he does have medicine that suppresses his urges and makes it safe to approach humans. It does seem that he’s almost run out, but regardless, he didn’t smell of blood.” 

“Does that mean he’s not the only one of them in Maalt?” 

“I think it’s quite possible. We’ll have to look into this.” 

“Then I’ll get on that. Excuse me,” Isaac said and left the room once again. 

I leaned back against the couch and sighed. My life had been quite eventful as of late, and it was getting exhausting. If only there was someone to give me a shoulder massage. 

“Divinity-mana-spirit fusion, huh? Didn’t know there were techniques like that. I can’t even use mana-spirit fusion, so I can’t teach you anything of the sort,” Capitan said, a little disappointed. 

Unfortunately, there was no way around that. Mana was mostly something you were born with, and whether you had divinity was entirely a matter of luck. Many religions throughout history would frown on treating the possession of divinity as purely coincidental, but that was the reality of it. 

That’s not to say that one’s faith had nothing to do with it either, though. Gods would sometimes bless people for praying hard enough or performing good deeds, therefore granting them access to divinity. Even in my own case, I was blessed for repairing a shrine. 

But if you did good deeds with the ulterior motive of obtaining divinity for ill intent, you would usually get nothing out of it. There was an endless list of stories to demonstrate that. Gods were gods, after all, and they might very well be able to see our intentions. However, blessings from evil gods were supposedly indistinguishable from those granted by good gods, so the validity of those stories was questionable. I’d never seen anyone blessed by an evil god, though, so I wouldn’t know. Naturally, nobody would go around boasting about being blessed by an evil god. The most they might say would be that they had divinity, and divinity was divinity no matter the source. You’d think the evil gods would grant some distinct, evil power, but they didn’t, strangely. 

“Maybe you can’t use divinity, but I think you could use mana-based techniques,” I said to Capitan. If anything, it seemed unnatural that a man of his skill couldn’t use them. 

“If those complicated abilities are needed for something, I just let Gharb handle it. The people of Hathara may be descended from the Ancient Kingdom, but that doesn’t mean we all have mana. Apparently we’ve got a little more on average than most places, but that difference is negligible. The only villagers with much mana right now are you, Gharb, and her disciple Fahri. I don’t know if that counts as a lot or a little, but it seems to me that any village could just happen to have three people with mana.” 

In my case, I barely had enough mana to make use of it at first, so there were only two villagers who were born with a lot of mana. Considering the village’s population, it seemed like there should have been more, but most of the other villagers’ mana was probably no better than mine used to be. Only Gharb and Fahri had mana to spare, but maybe that was normal. 

“It’s a strange village, but I guess not everything about it has to be strange,” I said. 

“I mean, only three of us are still carrying on those old traditions. But it’s fine; Hathara’s way too small to be responsible for such a huge secret. We’re probably better off forgetting it.” 

“I guess so.” 

It seemed important to be familiar with the secret in case anything happened, but in the event that a country actually did interfere with their lives, maybe Hathara wouldn’t be big enough to do anything about it anyway. The most that Gharb and Capitan could do was deal with somewhat powerful individuals. If a Mithril-class adventurer came, even an army would be powerless to stop them. Facing them was like facing a natural disaster. Not that giving up on fighting back was a good idea, but I could see how they’d get into that state of mind. 

“Well, anyway, we’ve already made our decision when it comes to that. Right now, we should be talking about spirit,” Capitan said. 

“Right, so what was that ability?” 

“You already know that spirit has a variety of uses. The basic ones are enhancements for your physical strength, your weapon, and your healing rate. Those are relatively simple to learn and use. That move I used during our match, however, is a bit more difficult. If you hadn’t left the village, I would’ve taught it to you at some point, but you had your dreams to go chase. There was no time for that.” 

When I turned fifteen, old enough to become an adventurer with a guild, I headed off to Maalt. I didn’t have the patience to stay in Hathara any longer. I was young, after all. Not that I had grown up that much in some regards, though. If there was no time to teach it to me then, I didn’t know if I’d be able to learn it now. I’d planned to stay in Hathara for a while, but not for several weeks, and certainly not for months or years. I guess I was undead and had all the time in the world, but I wanted to actually go on adventures. I was only in Hathara now to get away from Nive. 

“How long is this going to take?” I asked. “I appreciate that you’re willing to teach me, but I can’t stay in Hathara for that long.” 

“Depends on how well you do.” 

“What does that mean?” 

“It’s just a matter of how proficient you are with spirit. I don’t think that’ll be a problem though. Back when you first became an adventurer a decade ago, you might’ve needed to train for a couple years, but now you should be able to learn the skill in a few weeks, if not a few days. All your hard work has paid off.” 

I thought I hadn’t progressed at all in ten years, but apparently I had grown more than I thought. I could apply spirit to my weapon a little faster, enhance my strength for a little longer, and heal a little more efficiently, so there was that. I never felt like I gained more spirit than I started with, but I felt like I made as clever a use of what I had as I could. 

“I thought it might’ve all been hopeless at times, but I guess there was some point to it all,” I muttered. 

“Well, spirit’s not like mana and divinity. It’s not about innate talent as much as it’s about hard work. If you just keep at it, you’ll get results. In your case, your total spirit capacity barely increased, so maybe it was hard to sense your growth. That’s different now, though. Your spirit capacity’s grown a lot, so you should be able to do plenty with it.” 

“So, as for how to do it, it’ll probably be easiest to just show you. I’ll take it slow so you can observe,” Capitan said and began to focus his spirit within himself. I sensed the same thing I did when he used this skill during our match. Tons of spirit was condensing on the surface of his body. Some time later, Capitan sighed. “There, go on and touch,” he said, holding out his right arm. 

It didn’t look like anything had changed. The only difference I noticed was a slightly increased presence of spirit, but that was similar to when using it to enhance physical strength. When I actually tried to touch him, though, I didn’t feel his arm at all. A layer of something was in the way. It felt like static electricity was repelling my hand. When I tried to push back against it, the static just repelled my hand harder in return. 

“Now try cutting it with this,” Capitan said and handed me a dagger. It was finely sharpened. 

“I don’t know,” I said hesitantly. We weren’t fighting, so I was averse to using it on him. 

He gave me an appalled look. “You came at me like you were trying to kill me in our fight. Why do you think you’ll hurt me now?” 

He was right, but I didn’t really think about morality in the middle of fights, for better or worse. The excitement of the moment made it hard to think straight. Maybe that made it sound like I was dangerous to be around, but that was the way warriors were. At this moment, though, I felt as reserved as I normally did. Yes, I would describe myself as reserved. 

“I’m telling you it’s fine,” Capitan said. “Staying in this state for too long gets pretty tiring, so if you really want to do me a favor, just get on with it.” 

It wasn’t clear from looking at him, but this was apparently more draining than I thought. In that case, I decided to make it quick and swung the dagger down at Capitan’s arm. And because I wanted to make it quick, it was a pretty fast slash. I thought I might have cut him a little too hard, but knowing Capitan, I figured it was fine. 

As it turned out, the dagger didn’t cut into Capitan’s arm at all. It met with the same repelling force that my hand had and went flying in the opposite direction. The more force I used, the stronger the repelling force, it seemed. I was impressed. 

“I said get on with it, but you didn’t have to cut so hard,” Capitan complained and glared at me. Based on the speed of the dagger, he seemed to get the impression that I sincerely attempted to slice his arm. He did ask for it, so I just stared back at him, to which he sighed. I did cut a little harder than necessary, to be fair. “Well, whatever. You get the idea now, right?” 

“So it’s like making armor out of spirit?” 

“That’s just how I’m using it right now, but if you wanted to describe it more generally, it’s like turning spirit into something physical. You can do the same thing with mana, right? I know you can make shields with that.” 

Now it made sense to me. Even back when my mana was weak, that was one of the skills I could use with it. As long as you understood how it worked, it wasn’t that hard to pull off. 

“So you can do the same thing with spirit?” I asked. 

“Not exactly. I’m no expert on magic, so this is just what I’ve heard from Gharb. But when you make a shield with mana, you need to decide the form of the shield and how long it’ll be projected and all that before you make it, right?” 

That was true. Magic was a highly theoretical power, and if the composition of the spell wasn’t solid, it would instantly fail. Even when it came to just projecting a shield, you had to structure the spell properly and know exactly what you wanted to do. 

“Is spirit different?” 

“Yeah, it’s more something you feel than something you think about. Rather than construct something based on logic, you need to get a feel for spirit if you want to control it. So to be totally frank, even a moron can learn to use spirit if they keep trying for long enough. Doesn’t take any brains at all.” 

That was an incredibly blunt way of putting it, but I felt like I understood. Magic was based on theory, so intellect was crucial. And because of that, geniuses at magic were much like geniuses at academics. 

Spirit, by contrast, wasn’t something you could get good at by being good at studying. In fact, while it might be rude to call them idiots, some of the most famous spirit users were pretty simpleminded. All the work that was required to construct theories when it came to magic wasn’t so important when it came to spirit. But being smart was probably still an advantage, of course. Considering all that, Capitan might even have been on the smarter side when it came to spirit users, relatively speaking. But he probably wouldn’t have taken that as a compliment. 

“When you learn to manifest your spirit physically, there’s a lot you can do,” Capitan continued. “You can freely control the form of it. For example, you can even do this.” 

Capitan knelt down and picked up a short stick. I watched as he filled it with spirit energy, and a moment later, a leaf falling from the trees above was sliced in half. 

“What was that?” I asked, surprised by what I saw. 

“Didn’t look like anything touched it, right? But I extended a spirit blade from the tip of this stick. That’s what cut the leaf,” Capitan explained as he appeared to touch the invisible blade. He presented the blade to me and prompted me to touch it, so I carefully reached out my hand. There turned out to actually be something there. I couldn’t see it, but it felt like a long blade. “When you really get this down, you can do things like this. You can shape the spirit into whatever you want, too. Convenient, right?” 

It did sound convenient. In fact, it sounded perfect for sneak attacks. Maybe it said something about me that it was the first idea I thought of, but this seemed like something assassins would treasure. 

“But there are drawbacks, of course,” Capitan admitted. “It’s extremely exhausting to use. If you’re just in any old fight, simply filling your weapon with spirit is a lot easier. Might be best off saving this as a last resort.” 

I could see all the sweat on Capitan’s forehead since he started materializing his spirit. Clearly it was draining to use. He was much better at using spirit than I was, so if this was how hard it hit him, I didn’t know how long I’d be able to keep it up. 

“Anyway, give it a try. As for how to do it, I’ll hammer it into you; just keep trying. If you practice enough, you’ll figure it out eventually,” Capitan said, looking the part of the ruthless instructor I remembered from years ago. That brought back horrible memories. 

After Capitan gave me a rundown on how to materialize spirit, he made me try and do it myself over and over. 

“All right, now sustain it like that,” he told me. 

I was materializing spirit the way I had been taught a moment ago, but I couldn’t get it to cover my body the way Capitan could. All I could do instead was have it cover the palm of my hand to create some lame spirit armor. I couldn’t see it, but I could feel it. The ideal was to create something like another layer of skin on top of my own, but this felt more like a thick glove. 

And it was brittle. Capitan struck my weak spirit glove with a stick each time I tried it, and each time, it broke from just a light strike. Capitan was filling the stick with spirit when he did this, which made it about as hard as an iron sword, so maybe I wasn’t doing that badly. But my spirit armor still wasn’t nearly hard enough, that was for sure. It didn’t look like I’d be mastering this overnight. If I kept it up, though, I figured I would get the hang of it eventually. 

“Well, not bad for your first day,” Capitan said. 

“How long will it take until I can cover my whole body in armor like you can?” 

“Who knows? Depends on how hard you work. But for you, even just protecting a part of your body should be plenty. Seems like you’ve got better eyes than you used to.” 

It was true that my eyesight had improved. That also improved my reflexes, so even if I were to only project the armor over part of my body, maybe I could just use that part as a shield of sorts. 

“But even that seems like it’d be hard to use too often,” I said. 

“That’s because you’re wasting too much energy. I’m telling you to make the armor thinner because it’ll be more cost-efficient. Oh, looks like there’s a chink in the armor there,” Capitan said and mercilessly struck it with his stick. Having to repair the armor every time he destroyed it was brutal. After that, I finally ran out of spirit and couldn’t project anything anymore. I tried as hard as I could, but I didn’t feel any spirit coming. “Looks like we’ll have to call it quits for the day. Not much we can do if you’re out of spirit. There are ways you could force some more out, I guess.” 

“There are?” 

“Yeah, if you’re willing to shorten your lifespan. It’ll give you a more powerful spirit than usual, too. But I wouldn’t recommend it, for obvious reasons,” he said. Capitan’s answer to my question was terrifying, but then he thought of something. “Actually, if you don’t have a lifespan anyway, maybe it’d work well for you. You don’t have a lifespan, do you?” 

But I shook my head to express my disinterest. “No thanks. Maybe I don’t have a lifespan, but maybe I do; I don’t know. I don’t know precisely what I am in the first place. If I try anything funny like that, it could really mess me up.” 

I could instantly heal from wounds and go without sleep, though. Considering all my unique features, it seemed safe to assume that I was undead and a vampire, but I couldn’t be entirely certain. If I tested this method of exchanging lifespan for spirit, it could end up killing me, for all I knew. 

“Have you ever used that method before?” I asked Capitan. 

“Hell no, I value my life. But I’ve been told how to do it, so if I wanted to, I could. I can teach it to you too.” 

“Sounds like another crazy skill you inherited.” 

“It could be useful in drastic situations, is all. It’s been passed down as a secret weapon. Couldn’t tell you how many people have ever actually used the skill, though. There’s really no situation where anyone would need to use it in Hathara.” 

They were charged with protecting the teleportation circles, so it made sense they would want to pass this skill down in case some sort of massive threat invaded. If Capitan had a skill like this, maybe Gharb had something crazy as well that Lorraine was going to learn. The thought of that was kind of frightening, but maybe I was worrying too much. 

Capitan and I continued to discuss this as we returned to the village. 

“Looks like another hearty meal,” I said when I got back home and found dinner ready. It was the mayor’s house, so the table was nice and big, but it was completely covered in plates of food. Clearly this food was meant for more than just me, Lorraine, and my parents. That was, in fact, pretty obvious considering the numerous other people in the house. In addition to me, Lorraine, and my parents, Capitan, Gharb, Riri, and Fahri were there too. 

“What are you guys doing here?” I asked. 

“Well, Gharb and Gilda said they’d teach us to cook,” Riri said with a determined look. 

“Did they?” I asked, turning to Fahri. 

“Yep,” the sleepy girl said. “They said they’d teach us to cook some important dishes.” Fahri was going to say more, but then Riri dragged her to the kitchen. 

“What the heck was that about?” I muttered as Lorraine brought some more food out. 

“Well, don’t ask too many questions,” she said. “Anyway, how’s it look? Pretty good, right?” 

I had to admit that it all looked pretty good, but I could also tell that Gilda didn’t make it. It was subtly different from her cooking. That’s not to say that this was a bad thing, of course. 

“Did Riri and Fahri make this?” 

“Yes, as did I. This is Hathara’s traditional cuisine, correct?” 

“Yeah. I used to eat this stuff all the time. You’d get the same food going over to anyone’s house in Hathara.” 

But unlike the insect-based cooking you’d find in some villages, Hathara used your typical meat and vegetables. That included monster meat, of course, but no bugs. If Hathara did serve bugs, I would probably like eating them more. If I had to give my opinion on it though, I’d have to say I’m not a fan. 

“I don’t know how it will taste, but give me your impressions later,” Lorraine said. “Ideally I’ll be able to cook these recipes well by the time we return to Maalt.” 

“Right, got it,” I said and then took a seat at the table.