Chapter 547: The Strength of the Young Team

After that we set out from the city of Sven, and the first day passed without encountering any monsters.

That was only natural since we were traveling along a well-maintained road. For the next several days, nothing out of the ordinary happened either. On the sixth day, we entered a mountain path and pressed deeper into the Antas Mountain Range.

The Antas Mountains were an area known for being home to many formidable monsters.

Sure enough, we soon encountered a group of five ogres.

Ogres, with their demonic appearance and resistance to physical attacks, were monsters that boasted B-rank–level strength if one tried to fight them using only swords.

Tauro knew well how dangerous they were, and so did the A-rank team Blue Thunder Beast and the B-rank team Silver Twin Magi.

At first, Tauro and his group considered handling it themselves as a sort of greeting—but the twin sisters Gemma and Gemis, leaders of Silver Twin Magi, stepped forward and declared together.

““We don’t need your help!””

With that, they began chanting.

Having been told so bluntly, Tauro and the others couldn’t do anything.

Gemma and Gemis positioned Jimin—the one-handed sword and shield user—and Buder, a ranger who also served as a pharmacist, as their vanguard, keeping distance from the ogres. First, the younger sister Gemis, known as the Flame Mage, unleashed a wide-area spell, dropping a massive fireball onto the ogre group.

The ogres were scorched by the intense heat and destructive power.

Then, as a follow-up, the older sister Gemma—nicknamed the Water Mage—impaled the ogres with countless water spears.

Countless spears of water pierced their bodies, which were already burning from the flames, finishing them off one by one.

In no time at all, all five ogres were reduced to pitiful heaps by the twins’ magic.

“Whoa…! It feels like overkill, but those ogres went down in an instant,” Tauro said, impressed by the twins’ coordination.

“This is the true strength of Silver Twin Magi!” Gemma declared proudly.

They had clearly wanted to show this off, deliberately using excessive force to defeat the enemy.

It was likely their usual winning pattern when hunting large targets.

“I get that you’re the Swen Adventurers’ Guild promising young team, but with that approach, won’t you run out of steam later on?” Aeris pointed out, stating what seemed obvious.

Highly powerful magic consumed a great deal of mana.

No matter how talented the twin mages were, once they ran out of mana, they would be useless.

In a region like the Antas Mountains, filled with powerful monsters, managing one’s mana was critical.

“Hehehe. We have an excellent pharmacist on our team!” Gemma replied, as if she had anticipated Aeris’s comment, and extended a hand toward Buder beside her.

Buder reached into the pack at his waist and handed mana recovery potions to the twins.

“Well, what do you think? Our Buder can make extremely valuable mana recovery potions. Thanks to these, my sister and I have no weaknesses. Pretty amazing, right?”

Gemma said as she downed the magic recovery potion.

“Judging by the color, that mana recovery potion still looks unfinished. But wow, it brings back memories. When I first started making them in the village of Dansas, I could only make unfinished ones like that too. Still, they’re handy to have,” Tauro said nostalgically, recalling Dansas Village, where Black-Golden Wings was formed.

“True. Back then your magic recovery potions were still far from what they are now,” Aeris added, also gazing into the distance.

“U-unfinished!?” Gemma exclaimed, shooting a glance at Buder to confirm.

Startled, Buder shook his head vigorously.

For him, mana recovery potions had been the decisive factor in passing Silver Twin Magi’s entry test. He had complete confidence in his work and had never considered them unfinished.

“Don’t be ridiculous! There aren’t many pharmacists who can make magic recovery potions, you know? Calling them unfinished—!” Buder protested angrily, offended that something he took pride in had been dismissed.

“Ah, sorry. Actually, I can make mana recovery potions too. For reference, this one here is a completed version that’s a rank above what you made. And this is an even higher-tier version. Feel free to take a look,” Tauro said.

He was genuinely happy to meet another pharmacist who could make mana recovery potions, so he took some out of his magic storage to show them side by side.

“! …I can tell immediately—the color is clearer, and the purity is much higher than mine… And this is an even higher version? What an incredibly lustrous liquid… Just by looking at it, I can tell it’s highly effective

Buder, clearly a capable pharmacist, froze in shock at the sight of Tauro’s potions.

“Ggh! D-don’t think you’ve won! You can’t beat us twins when it comes to magic!” Gemma blurted out sourly, realizing that her team’s prized pharmacist had been completely lost to the magic recovery potion that Tauro had made.

“I wasn’t trying to compete. I’d just be happy to talk shop with you about pharmacology, Buder-san…” 

Tauro had simply wanted someone to talk to about potion-making, something he had honed through steady, quiet effort but rarely had the chance to discuss with others.

“I don’t know what the standard for B-rank magic is, but… you two are really impressive, don’t you think? Still, your mana control is sloppy, and burning through mana with excessive attacks is a bad habit. You need to be more careful to assess your enemy and adjust your magical power to match their level,” Aeris said.

She personally knew several outstanding mages.

Among them were Maria, the true saint of the Dragon people, and Slane, the Dragon people Heavenly Will Archmage—mages capable of ultimate spells that could reduce vast areas to scorched wastelands, yet who’ve chose never to use them.

At that level, what mattered was to see how to defeat an enemy efficiently using just the right amount of magic, without waste.

Aeris herself had been lectured repeatedly about this and held to those standards.

That was why, seeing her past self in these talented twins, she ended up speaking in a lecturing tone.

“S-shut up! If you’re so confident, then next time a monster show up, you guys have to defeat it! We’ll judge your strength then!” Gemma snapped defiantly, with Gemis nodding in agreement.

“Hey now, don’t forget that this job isn’t about competing with each other,” Jack, leader of Blue Thunder Beast, finally stepped in to mediate.

At that, Silver Twin Magi fell silent, clearly holding back their words.

They then put some distance between themselves and Black-Golden Wings and moved ahead.

Tauro and Jack exchanged wry smiles.

“Well then, let’s keep moving,” Jack said simply, and started forward.

Tauro and the others nodded and followed behind Blue Thunder Beast, taking up the rear of the formation.