Kays Translations

Chapter 4: The Black Bear

Even by autumn, my progress with life magic hadn’t improved much. My Water spell could barely fill seven-tenths of a wooden bucket, and Flame was only about one and a half fists in size. Light had become brighter, but still just a little dimmer than a car’s high beams—bright enough to sting the eyes at night, but nothing extraordinary.

It seemed that, by nature, life magic wasn’t meant to be particularly powerful. Still, my mother was delighted that my Clean spell had become stronger and that I’d learned Refresh. As a result, I’d been officially appointed as the household masseur for both my mother and father.

And since my Flame spell worked well as a fire starter, she made me light the cooking fire every mealtime. By pouring in half of one percent of my mana, the flame could burn steadily for more than thirty minutes in the stove—quite handy, admittedly. Ralph, who worked with my mother part-time at the hotel as a waiter and cleaner, often gave me a strange look whenever he saw me doing this.

I’d already accepted that this was the limit of life magic, but I kept practicing anyway.

As for wind magic—one summer day, I’d tried changing my image from a small whirlwind to a tornado. The result? I accidentally formed an actual tornado outside my window. It almost turned into a disaster.

Thankfully, I had limited the mana output to less than one percent, so it didn’t escalate. It was dark enough that no one realized what had happened.

After that scare, I returned to practicing smaller whirlwinds and began learning how to dissipate them.

Every evening after returning home, I placed my 2,000-dara helper’s pay on the table, then stared out the window and muttered to myself until dinner—enough to make my mother worry.

But the effort paid off: I discovered that I could dispel a whirlwind by withdrawing mana from it, much like extinguishing my Flame. Relieved, I stopped making whirlwinds altogether and instead began thinking of new ways to apply wind magic.

By November, we’d started venturing closer to the forest’s edge to collect fruits and mushrooms. My detection skill had improved to match Mintz’s, and I could now act as a scout in his place.

Daily practice had clearly paid off. My Detection range was now about sixty meters, and I had acquired both Detection and Presence Sense. I could notice concealed beasts within roughly forty meters.

My Appraisal skill, however, remained unreliable—at best, a fifty-percent chance of correctly identifying whether a plant was an herb or just a weed.

Even so, my helper’s pay had increased to 3,000 dara per day. Ted told me that if I became proficient with both spear and bow by my coming-of-age, he’d officially recognize me as a member of the party.

Even Marco didn’t seem to object, and the others said it made sense—Mintz and I scouting together had greatly increased our catch.

Only Marco remained unpleasant, driven by pride as a “mage.” He’d been cold toward me ever since I first joined Lynas’s Blast as a helper, so I simply ignored him in return.

If I could master the kind of wind magic I envisioned, I was sure I could surpass Marco easily. Once my coming-of-age day arrived, I planned to take a short break from the party and experiment with those ideas.

I already had several wind spells I could use—but I hadn’t told anyone about them.

I’d learned to adjust the size and strength of my whirlwinds, and since I knew I could form a tornado, I figured it could become a powerful weapon with proper control.

I also had the theory for creating a vacuum by sliding two wind currents against each other, but it was too dangerous to test inside the city.

Once, I even tried trapping a bat flying at dusk inside a bubble of air and expanding it until it dropped to the ground. People got suspicious when it fell mid-flight, so I stopped that experiment immediately.

By February, my second brother, Ralph, had earned recognition for his work at the hotel and moved into the staff quarters as a full-time attendant and server.

With both my eldest brother, Morris, and Ralph gone, it was now just my parents and me at home.

They told me to stay as long as I could because they would feel lonely once I left. Belinda visited often, so I doubted they would be too lonely, but she always told me:

“You’re small, so be a good son and take care of them.”

Being nine years younger than her, short like our mother, and the youngest of the family, I supposed I did still seem like a child in her eyes.

I would come of age in four months, but they still treated me like a child. Thankfully, they hadn’t told me to move out, so I planned to keep living at home even after officially joining Lynas’s Blast.

The Black Bear attack happened in April, on a warm day, while we were collecting herbs near the forest.

We’d paused our gathering when a group of nine goblins approached. In the middle of fighting them off, we were suddenly ambushed from behind.

We’d already defeated about half the goblins when I felt a chilling presence and turned around—only to see a massive black shape charging at us.

“Run!” I yelled, leaping aside and narrowly avoiding the black mass as it barreled into the fallen goblins.

The monster ignored us and tore into the corpses. It was a Black Bear. Ted signaled for everyone to retreat quietly, and we slowly backed away, holding our breath so as not to provoke it.

Then—〈Paan〉!—a sudden explosion.

A fireball had burst right in front of the bear’s nose.

“Ha! Did you see that? My Fireball stopped the Black Bear cold! I’ll finish it off with another one!”

Marco’s smug voice echoed—and the bear turned from its meal toward us, bellowing in rage.

Another fireball struck—〈Paan〉!—but it didn’t even flinch.

The Black Bear slammed its paws into the ground and charged, roaring furiously.

“Run!” someone shouted, the warning overlapping with terrified screams.

We broke formation and scattered, fleeing in all directions. Behind us came the bear’s roar, followed by shrieks and crashing noises.

I tripped over the grass and tumbled into a hollow in the ground. From the smell, it seemed to be an abandoned Horn Boar den. Holding my breath, I listened carefully—no sign of the bear nearby. I exhaled in relief.

My throat was parched, and my clothes were soaked in cold sweat. I gulped down water from my Water spell and tried to think.

I’d heard two, maybe three screams—so at least half of us must have escaped.

Detection magic was useless in the chaos of battle, but I never expected a Black Bear to appear this close to the forest’s edge. It had been too busy feasting on the goblins to notice us—until Marco’s idiotic fireball.

If only we’d followed Ted’s command and withdrawn quietly…

That damned fool Marco—did he really think his flimsy little fireball could kill a Black Bear?

Anger simmered in my chest as I calmed myself with another gulp of water and scanned my surroundings. No beasts nearby.

I didn’t know exactly where I was, but the spot where we’d fought the goblins was a familiar herb-gathering area.

I could run back to town now, but after nearly three years of working alongside these people, I couldn’t just abandon them.

Some of them might be wounded.

I decided to go back and check.

＊＊＊

Using Detection and Presence Sense, I carefully returned to the site of the goblin fight. There I found Henry’s body, his back raked open by claws and his body crushed.

Beyond the half-devoured corpses of the goblins lay Edgar, his face frozen in terror, eyes staring blankly at the sky.

Their armor had kept most of their bodies from being devoured, but their arms and legs had still been torn off.

I couldn’t possibly carry their bodies back alone, so I decided to at least collect their belongings. Just then, a faint voice called my name.

It was Ted. He lay in the grass, his right leg dark with blood.

“Ted! You’re alive!”

“I managed to stay alive… but thanks to Marco, I ended up like this. Who didn’t make it?”

“Henry and Edgar are dead. The rest seem to have gotten away. Are you alright to move?”

“When Henry fell, I tried to pull him up, but one swipe sent me flying. I’m lucky to be breathing. The guild potion could only stop the bleeding. I’m finished as an adventurer.”

Looking closely, his thigh had been deeply gouged open. The bleeding had stopped, the wound closed up, but it was jagged and twisted.

He’d never walk properly again, not without a cane—and adventuring was out of the question.

“Leon, make me a splint. We’re taking the two of them back to town.”

He handed me a knife. I cut some suitable branches, wrapped his thigh with herbs and cloth, then lashed small sticks around it with rope.

Getting him upright with a broken spear shaft as a crutch was difficult. I was small, even with mana reinforcing my strength.

We stored both bodies in the magic pouch and started toward the main road. Ted had lost a great deal of blood and could barely walk, so our progress was painfully slow.

By the time we finally reached the road, the sun was already sinking. Luckily, a passing wagon came by, and the driver let us ride in the back to town.

At the Adventurers’ Guild, we got off the wagon. Ted pressed a silver coin into the driver’s hand in thanks.

From inside the guild came the sound of angry shouting.

“I was fighting that Black Bear head-on! Everyone else just abandoned me and ran for it!”

“You really think your little Fireball could hurt a Black Bear?! If we’d just quietly retreated like Ted signaled, no one would’ve died! He told us to fall back when it was eating the goblins!”

“Lies! We were preparing to attack in formation, but the moment I launched my Fireball, everyone turned tail and ran! Don’t you dare blame me for your cowardice!”

Returning adventurers, hearing the commotion, stopped to listen in, then began filing curiously into the guild hall.

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