Chapter 35: Until I Can Put Out the Fire

In the morning, I was at a place some distance from the village.

There was little grass, and bare earth and stone showed through. It was well away from the fence and the houses.

Yesterday, the first thing I had produced with sorcery was only a tiny spark.

Even so, it hadn’t been dragon breath.

I had gathered magic drifting through my surroundings and turned it into fire through my own will.

I wanted to try again.

That was exactly why I had decided not to do it inside the village.

“This should be far enough,” Dario said, looking around.

A bucket of water stood some distance away. The woman with the staff had ordered someone to bring it.

“What do we need water for?” Lina asked, looking at the bucket. “Yesterday it was just a spark, right?”

“There’s no guarantee it’ll be the same size today,” the woman replied, then looked at me. “Especially with Val.”

Why especially me?

“Yesterday, you gathered the surrounding magic strangely quickly. So today we aren’t practicing making the flame larger.”

“…Smaller?”

“That too. But before that, you’ll practice putting it out.”

“…Put out?”

“That’s right.”

She pointed her staff at the ground.

The surrounding magic shifted faintly. Because I was watching more carefully than yesterday, I could follow its flow better.

A small flame appeared at the tip of her staff and flickered at the same size for a while.

“You can keep it out like that?” Lina asked.

“For something this small.”

As soon as the woman answered, the flame vanished.

She hadn’t poured water on it.

A moment before it disappeared, the flow of magic feeding it had stopped.

“Was that the putting-it-out part?”

“Yes. I simply stopped creating the fire.”

Easy to understand.

Rather than doing something directly to the flame, she cut off whatever maintained it. I thought of the gas flame I had used in my previous life. The mechanism was surely different, but I understood the idea of stopping the source.

“Want to try?”

“…Yes.”

I focused just beyond one forefoot.

There was magic inside my body and faint magic in the world around me. Neither was something I had to search for anymore.

I tried to divert toward my claw the flow that normally entered my body.

Magic began gathering faster than I expected.

“Stop!”

At the woman’s command, I broke my concentration at once.

The half-gathered magic scattered.

“…What?”

“How much were you planning to gather just now?”

“…A little.”

She put a hand to her forehead.

“I think a dragon’s ‘little’ and my ‘little’ are different.”

Dario laughed beside us.

“Your bodies are different to begin with.”

“Don’t laugh. Move farther back.”

“I’m already standing back.”

“Farther.”

Dario obediently retreated several steps.

I looked at my forefoot.

Gathering magic itself had become easier than yesterday.

The amount was the problem.

“You should probably picture a small flame first, like yesterday,” the woman said. “Don’t gather magic and decide afterward. Decide from the beginning that you need no more than this.”

I understood.

I concentrated again.

This time I set the size first: small enough to fit at the tip of a claw.

I pictured a little flame familiar from my previous life, not a large campfire, and certainly not something that needed to spread.

Then I fed it only as much magic as it required.

The surrounding current moved, weaker than before.

That was good.

There was a soft snap.

A red flame floated just beyond my claw.

“It came out,” Lina said.

I didn’t look toward her.

Yesterday, surprise had broken my concentration. Today I would continue until I put the fire out.

The flame was small, but it was truly hot.

As long as I kept feeding it magic, it tried to hold its shape.

I stopped that flow.

At first, the flame only wavered.

This wasn’t the same as losing concentration. I felt the path along which the magic traveled and closed it.

The flame shrank.

A little more.

The red light contracted and vanished.

For a while, I stared at the tip of my claw.

Nothing remained.

“…I did it.”

“You stopped it yourself properly,” the woman said, inspecting the ground as well.

There was no scorch mark.

Lina looked delighted.

“That looked even more like magic than yesterday!”

Yesterday had been magic too.

“Want to do it again?”

I looked at my forefoot, then shook my head.

“…Not yet.”

“Are you tired?”

“…No.”

I still had plenty of stamina and magic.

But that didn’t mean I should continue.

Even this time, I had nearly gathered too much at first. If a human’s “little” and my “little” were different, the scale of a failure might be different too.

The woman seemed to have thought the same thing.

“That’s the right decision. Producing a larger flame can wait. First, you need to be able to stop one of the same size every time.”

I nodded.

It was the same with my breath.

The flames I had breathed at the Armored Bear had been incomparably stronger than before. That didn’t mean I intended to test the absolute limit.

The stronger the power, the more carefully I had to choose where I used it.

◇

After returning near the fence, the chief looked at me and asked, “You didn’t burn anything, did you?”

“…No.”

“Good.”

What exactly had he imagined I planned to do?

Dario laughed.

“He put it out himself.”

“Then, sooner or later, someone too lazy to start a fire will call for Val,” the chief said.

“…Won’t.”

“I assumed as much.”

His answer came immediately.

“If our village starts using a dragon in place of flint, we’ve truly reached the end.”

Lina, listening nearby, laughed.

I wouldn’t like that either.

Learning to make a small flame didn’t mean I intended to go around lighting everyone’s stove each morning.

But unlike yesterday, I now knew that I was very likely capable of sorcery.

It hadn’t been a one-time accident.

I had made fire and extinguished it myself.

That was still all.

◇

By early afternoon, the four prepared to leave.

Because the road had been attacked, they joined others headed south. The chief again told them not to hurry and to come back if they sensed danger.

I didn’t escort them.

The woman repeated before departing, “Keep practicing far from the village, and don’t make it bigger yet.”

I agreed.

After they were gone, I returned to the place we had used that morning.

Not to resume practice.

I inspected the ground.

There were no scorch marks. The bucket of water was still there.

I couldn’t hook its handle properly with my claws, so I carefully pushed it from the side without tipping it, moving it closer to a place where someone could carry it back.

If I focused on my claw, I could recall the morning’s sensation at once.

Gather magic.

Make a small flame.

Then stop it.

I could probably do it one more time.

But I didn’t.

I had succeeded once that morning.

What I needed now wasn’t to pile up repetitions in a burst of excitement. It was to become able to do the same thing the same way every time.

I looked away from my empty claw and returned to the village.

Beyond the fence, the evening work continued as usual.

Learning a new power was no reason to add an unnecessary fire to everyone’s troubles.