Kays Translations

Chapter 15: Among the Magic Used by the Master

The Sky Continent floated in the distant sky.

Ren narrowed his eyes as he gazed into the distance.

“The world’s second-strongest nation, Shelgad, rules that continent. Long-lived Shelgadians like me live there. It is home to the country closest to the heavens.”

“…So it really is floating in the sky.”

“Did you doubt the Sky Continent existed?”

“I didn’t doubt it, exactly. It’s just that some things are hard to believe until you see them with your own eyes.”

Ragna brought up the item discovered in Old Town the previous year and the ancient stories handed down on the Sky Continent.

“But the Sky Continent isn’t entirely unrelated to you, is it, Ren?”

“Is that about Cecil Ashton?”

“Exactly. That gentleman unquestionably defeated the Phoenix that attacked Shelgad. If that becomes public knowledge, you might be called the descendant of a hero too.”

“It’s not really my style.”

Without hesitation, Ren voiced his true feelings.

Ragna, having been rejected immediately, waited for Ren to continue.

“Besides, there’s still no proof that Cecil Ashton was my ancestor. We may have only shared the same family name.”

Ren did not mean to be a spoilsport. Yet perhaps precisely because he was like this, Ragna’s voice sounded more cheerful than usual.

“Hey, Ren. My friend.”

“What’s the matter? Why so formal all of a sudden?”

“I just felt like saying it. –I hope we find that sacred relic.”

“…Yeah.”

Maybe camping like this once in a while was not so bad.

The sky had darkened another shade toward night.

The light from the campfire illuminated the surroundings much more vividly than a few minutes ago.

“Um.”

Sitting around the campfire, Ren voiced something that had casually crossed his mind.

“Windea is treated as though it belongs only to the Goddess of Water. Why is that? Its name says it is a place where water and wind sleep, so it feels a little unbalanced.”

“It may seem strange that the Goddess of Wind isn’t involved, but there is a reason.”

Ragna explained that the Goddess of Water and the Goddess of Wind were close sisters. A place similar to Windea existed on the Martell Continent, and the winds from here were said to flow there as though the two places were linked. There, unlike Windea, the Goddess of Wind’s power was stronger.

“I see… there’s a place like that.”

“There is. It’s a mountain similar to Windea, though a little different. Not a bad place.”

“Sounds like you’ve been there before.”

“I explored the Martell Continent in the past and climbed it while I was there. Only partway, though.”

“Why didn’t you go all the way to the summit?”

“The wind was too strong. It blows hard all year–no, it’s more like a constant storm. A fierce storm surrounds the terrain, so I couldn’t climb it.”

Ren felt as though he had learned a little more about Windea and said, “I see.” Giant birdlike monsters cried as they flew through the sky away from the rocky slopes.

A few days after leaving Erendil, their plan was to finish exploring before noon, descend by brute force, and reach Erendil late that night. That morning too, they began their activities early.

“It’s like a castle made of plants.”

What Ragna found ahead was a natural fortress created by several kinds of plants.

They covered the rocks and intertwined more and more tightly. The plants were so tough that an ordinary sword would have difficulty cutting them.

Ren could cut through them effortlessly, but that was beside the point. These traps had been laid by a powerful plant-type monster living nearby; one wrong move and every creature that approached would simply become its prey. Every thick vine blocking the way was part of that monster’s trap.

Ren first passed through while avoiding that space, then spent roughly two hours weaving through gaps where the plants grew even more intricately–gaps that could hardly be called a path anymore.

Hidden beyond the rocks and plants was an almost spherical hollow.

Inside, green winds overlapped irregularly and blew as though protecting something.

Ren and Ragna stood on thick branches for footing.

“Ragna-san, look at that.”

Ren pointed toward the place where the green winds overlapped irregularly.

Something floated at the center of the hollow, reachable only with difficulty along a path of thick branches.

“Is someone using wind magic?”

“No. It’s probably because there’s a Wind Jewel.”

Ragna was surprised for an instant by Ren’s certainty, but immediately understood.

“A Wind Jewel… Such things certainly exist, but I never imagined one would be hidden here.”

A Wind Crystal that had accumulated dense mana over many years had become this exceptionally valuable gem.

It was another important item needed to obtain the Ring of the Goddess of Water.

“I’d like to acquire it as research material too. But the wind around it is troublesome.”

The simplest solution was to remove the wind surrounding the Wind Jewel.

Fortunately, those winds were themselves magic released by the Wind Jewel, so Ren could deal with them easily.

“I’ll go get it.”

Ren readied the Mithril Magic Sword and advanced toward the center of the fierce wind.

The winds around the Wind Jewel were sharp enough to slice a person’s body apart, so they could not be treated lightly.

Ren did not flinch. He approached until he was just at the limit where the wind touched his skin.

Then he put a little strength into the hand gripping the Mithril Magic Sword.

There was no hesitation. All he had to do was swing calmly.

“–!”

With a calm horizontal sweep, he sheared away the magical wind with the pressure of his blade.

True to the name of the Mighty Sword Art: Star Slaying, the magic wind vanished into glittering green particles of light.

The wind blowing through the hollow could no longer harm anyone.

What remained was the Wind Jewel, a blue-green gem floating in midair.

For a moment, Ren wondered whether it might grant him a new magic sword, but perhaps because it was not a magic stone, there was no sign of that happening. He simply took the Wind Jewel and returned to Ragna.

“That was a fine demonstration of why the Mighty Sword Style is called the natural enemy of magicians.”

“Thank you. Shall we head back to where we were before?”

“After spending two hours getting here?”

“…We’ve got a long way ahead of us.”

Neither Ren nor Ragna let the thought weigh down his steps.

They returned to the area of Nature Magic traps laid by the monster.

Compared with the terrain from a little earlier, this space was still easy enough to walk through and could be called a path.

“I could have had you cut through it, Ren, but let’s not.”

Plants spread around them like a spiderweb. This was the gimmick guarding the route to the Ring of the Goddess of Water, and there was something they needed to do before they could proceed.

The two looked around.

Windea as a whole resembled a mountain formed from countless sharp swords stacked atop one another.

They now stood in an open space. Unlike the spherical hollow where the Wind Jewel had been, this area extended much farther vertically.

Looking up, they saw thick branches from ancient trees stretching out like roads far above them.

Those paths connected three-dimensionally and led somewhere deeper into Windea.

Vines covered in fresh greenery hung down from far above, some reaching well below the two of them, swaying slightly in the breeze.

It was a natural road woven through the gaps between Windea’s characteristic jagged rocks.

The two chose a route that looked passable and continued forward.

Eventually they stepped onto a natural passage resembling a suspension bridge over a vast gorge.

It was already high above the ground, and open air stretched for dozens of mel on either side.

They could even look down through small gaps in the path, but all they saw were low clouds like a sea of clouds and monsters flying nearby.

“Beyond here is a space where wind- and water-aspected mana is drawn in more strongly than anywhere else,”

Ragna said while looking at a magic tool shaped like a wristwatch.

Beyond that path was the very place where Ren knew the Ring of the Goddess of Water was hidden.

Ren paused in thought before speaking.

“Let’s use a Wind Crystal.”

“One of those? They’re fairly valuable. What are you planning to do with it?”

“Most of Windea’s plants grow in clusters as if they’re drawn toward water- and wind-aspected mana.”

“…I see. You mean to recreate the conditions around the place where we found the Wind Crystal.”

The plan was like tossing food to fish in a pond: throw a Wind Crystal somewhere suitable, drawing the attention of the monster that had created the natural paths and causing the plants here to turn instinctively toward it. That should open a route.

That was why Ren had gathered the Wind Crystals.

They were valuable enough to fetch a considerable price, but this was the right time to use them.

Even if they burned the plants with magic or another tool, the vegetation would immediately regenerate and no path forward would open.

In fact, doing so would only make it harder to reach the Ring of the Goddess of Water.

It was also undesirable to damage the nature of this place.

“A Wind Crystal bursts when struck hard. It has no killing power, but when it releases a powerful gust, it also releases the natural mana stored inside. We use that opening to advance–is that right?”

“Exactly. Once the path opens, let’s move quickly.”

“What about the way back?”

“I’ll make sure we save enough Wind Crystals for the return trip.”

“And if you can’t?”

It was not a spiteful question, but an essential point they needed to discuss. Ren smiled before answering.

“Then we’ll have no choice but to subdue the master of this area.”

The master was a powerful monster that ruled the surrounding nature. It had not attacked them because it was normally docile and not especially aggressive. But if an intruder began ravaging its territory, it would immediately unleash its fury.

It was Windea’s sole truly formidable enemy–one they never needed to fight unless they forced the issue. Many of the plants around Ren and Ragna had been created by that monster with Nature Magic.

“I don’t mind. Let’s go with that plan.”

“I know I’m the one who suggested it, but are you really okay with that?”

“A journey without danger would be boring. That said, I have no desire to die.”

“…That does sound like you, Ragna-san.”

Ragna looked up at Ren with a bold smile.

“We’ll lose the daylight if we keep standing around.”

He snapped his fingers, and the enormous bag on his back spat out a Wind Crystal. Ragna caught it in his right hand and cast Ren an alluring sidelong glance.

“Off you go!”

With a swift, powerful throw, the Wind Crystal left his hand and dropped into the empty space below.

The strong wind at that altitude buffeted it away from the rock face and toward the open sky where monsters flew.

It did not vanish from sight. Ragna snapped his fingers again, and a small light appeared near the Wind Crystal. A silvery chain emerged from it and pierced the crystal.

A high sound like shattering glass–or like crushing thin ice over a winter puddle–reached Ren’s ears.

Then another sound followed.

A deep grinding, shifting sound echoed around Ren.

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