Chapter 5: Testing Wind Magic

A heavy hand gripped my shoulder, and I heard the sound of teeth grinding.

“Let’s go, Leon.”

Ted’s voice sounded like it had come from the depths of hell. Supporting him, I pushed open the guild’s doors.

Inside, Mintz and Marco were glaring at each other across the counter, with a ring of onlooking adventurers forming a noisy crowd around them.

“Kick his ass for me.”

He didn’t need to tell me twice.

Pushing through the crowd, I slipped behind Marco. Mintz looked shocked to see me alive, but greetings could wait. I motioned for the adventurers behind Marco to step aside, then took a running start and aiming right between his spread legs kicked him square in the groin.

“Ugh!” 

Marco grunted in pain, and the guild erupted in cheers.

“Leon! You’re alive?”

“Ted’s alive too. What about Scott?”

“Haven’t seen him. By the time I got back, Marco was already mouthing off.”

I parted the crowd and led Ted inside. When Mintz saw Ted’s injured leg, he groaned in dismay. Ted used his makeshift cane to smack Marco across the back.

“You seriously thought your pathetic little Fireball could take down a Black Bear? If you’d followed my orders, those two wouldn’t have died!”

“Is what he’s saying true?” 

Someone asked.

“I don’t know what lies this bastard’s been spinning, but here’s what happened: we were in the middle of fighting goblins when the Black Bear showed up. It didn’t even care about us—it was too busy eating the fallen goblins. I told everyone to retreat quietly, but this idiot blasted a Fireball right into its face. That spell barely works on a Fangdog, let alone a Black Bear! All he did was make it angry. I almost died, but thanks to this kid coming back for me, we barely made it home alive.”

“Wait he’s not even a full party member?”

“He’s just been helping with herb gathering—still before his coming-of-age. A kid like him risked his life to come back for us, while this coward was already back here in town. You ready to face the consequences, Marco?”

Ted drew his knife, but the guildmaster stepped in. 

“Hold it. Even if his mistake caused deaths, lynching a fellow member won’t be allowed.”

“Ted…” 

The guildmaster continued.

“You’re alive?”

A voice came from behind us. 

“Ted, you made it?”

“Yeah. Edgar and Henry didn’t, though. And as you can see, my leg’s finished.”

Scott looked down at Ted’s ruined leg, sighed, and kicked Marco where he lay on the floor.

“Guildmaster, there are four witnesses. Because of this fool, two men are dead. We’re expelling him from the party. His share of the deposit goes to their families—no objections, right?”

“Looking at your leg, I doubt you’re lying…” 

The guildmaster said. 

“Handle the internal matter yourselves. Just report where the Black Bear attack happened.”

And with that, Marco’s punishment was decided—expelled from the party.

“Marco…” 

Ted said.

“…get out of Lynas. Even if you stay, your reputation as a useless mage won’t disappear.”

“If we meet outside the city, I’ll settle this!” 

Marco spat.

“Fine. I’ll let you fight goblins till you drop dead.”

After the expulsion, Ted grabbed my shoulder and told me to follow him to the adventurers’ shop.

There, he bought a Rank 2-10 Magic Pouch, stuffed it with a short bow, arrows, and a short spear, and handed it to me. He even asked the shopkeeper to register me as its owner.

“Ted, I can’t accept this. You’ll need the money now that you’re quitting adventuring.”

“Don’t worry about it. We’ve still got plenty in the party fund at the guild. If you hadn’t come back for me, I’d be bear food right now. Keep it, it’ll serve you better. A Rank 2-10 pouch holds about two meters’ worth of space, and its ‘10’ means ten hours. Food that would normally spoil in an hour lasts ten hours inside. Basically, what would rot tomorrow will last ten days. It stays warm for the first few days, then gradually cools. Anyway, I’ve got family in the barrel-making trade. Once my leg heals, I’ll start apprenticing there. So don’t worry about me.”

＊＊＊

With less than two months until my coming-of-age, I decided to test the wind magic I’d been imagining before registering as an adventurer.

That meant going out onto the plains alone—but I planned to stay close to the city gate, just in case.

The pouch Ted gave me was worth five gold coins, and I was truly grateful. I’d been meaning to buy one eventually, and if my magic worked as I hoped, I could hunt small animals and birds, store them inside, and earn back those coins.

With my detection and presence-sensing skills already recognized as near-professional level, there shouldn’t be much danger as long as I stayed near the city.

＊＊＊

I’d forgotten one important thing. Kids before their coming-of-age weren’t allowed outside the walls alone.

A guard grabbed me by the collar and demanded.

“Where are your usual companions?”

I told him about the Black Bear attack and said I wanted to collect herbs nearby to earn some money.

He knew I’d been working with the Lynas Gale party for nearly three years, so he let me through with the condition that I stay within sight of the gate.

Once I was about fifty meters out, I stepped onto the grasslands and sat down in a hollow to begin testing.

First, I decided to scale up my Whirlwind spell step by step.

I defined the small version as a spindle shape about one meter wide and three meters tall, muttered “Whirlwind – Small,” and released my mana.

It formed easily and the shape was familiar, but soon the wind began to kick up dust and dead grass around me, so I quickly withdrew the mana and dispelled it.

Peeking back toward the gate, I was relieved to see the guards hadn’t noticed a thing.

I willed a small whirlwind to form about forty-five degrees above me and tried increasing its rotation speed with my mind.

It turned out I didn’t need extra mana to alter its spin. I could freely change the speed, but after some time, the whirlwind naturally dissipated.

I created another one and slowly counted one hundred eighty seconds. About three minutes. “Just like Ultraman,” I laughed.

After several tries, I was confident that even a small whirlwind could toss a grown person around depending on the rotation speed. I also realized I could freely adjust its size, so I decided to always start with a small one and expand it as needed.

Following the light-novel wisdom of counting how many times I cast magic, I stopped after fifty spells. Then I gathered nearby herbs to help my mana recover, though I had no clock or appraisal ability, so it was more of a mental exercise.

When the sun reached its peak, I decided to try making a tornado. Whispering small tornado…! I created one in midair. Being able to actually see air currents was convenient.

My tornado was a cylindrical column about a meter wide and five meters tall, similar to the whirlwinds. The kind that connects heaven and earth you see on TV would be far too dangerous, so I skipped that. Using only one-hundredth of my mana, I doubted I could create anything massive anyway. Unrestricted experiments would wait until after I officially registered as an adventurer.

I spent the rest of the day practicing a horizontal, donut-shaped ring of wind around myself as a defensive barrier. As a side application, I tried running it along the ground to kick up dust as a blinding tactic quite useful, I thought with a grin.

A ring of storm wind two to three meters wide and up to four meters high should be able to repel intruders. If I could form one right around myself, I might wander the plains solo without worrying about dying.

After a week, I’d grown accustomed to controlling the storm ring, so I changed things up. I created a vertically spinning ring to fling stones off a rock.

My image was of a weighted rope swung vertically, hurling the weight far away. But when the outer edge of the spinning ring touched the stone, it only rolled away. No matter how many times I tried, it kept rolling, so I pushed the vertical ring directly onto the rock, success, but it was hard to control.

“If pushing doesn’t work, try pulling.” as the saying goes. So I reversed it, attacking from the inside out. I dropped a stone into a vertical donut of wind about half a meter wide and three meters tall. The stone spun violently… and vanished into the sky.

That reminded me of experiments with rockets that use centrifugal force to launch, which was basically what I’d just done, except I forgot to control it.

Next, I tried placing a small stone inside the spinning ring, keeping it suspended without sinking, and just before it reached the lowest point of rotation, I released it, like an underhand throw.

Thud. The rock embedded itself into the slope of a hollow nearby.

Effective, yes, but it took too long to set up and I had to keep my eyes on the stone until launch.

Ideally, I wanted to fling stones lying at my feet instantly, an attack with no delay. That meant I needed to produce a sudden, straight gust, a blast capable of launching the projectile at around 100 km/h. Baseball pitchers throw about 150 km/h, so faster would be better.

It was difficult, but if I could do that, I’d be able to fire stone bullets, arrows, even short spears using wind. I practiced relentlessly, but it didn’t go smoothly.

Thinking my method was wrong, I recalled how air-powered weapons work, air guns and blowguns both shoot projectiles by pushing them through a tube with compressed air or breath, striking the target precisely.

So, I imagined creating an air cylinder, feeding air through it to push out the stone, except I could control air freely with wind magic.

That meant: place a stone on the ground, form a spiral vortex of air, spin it, and shoot it toward the target.

Easy to think of, but hard to execute. As always.

I formed a tubular vortex, set the stone inside, spun it, and narrowed the tube toward the tip like a funnel to compress the air and fire it out.

When the stone launched, it made a sharp pop like a paper popper, but the power was more than enough. A large beast like a horned boar would probably go down in one hit.

A rock larger than a fist, flying at that speed, might not kill instantly but would deal heavy damage.

It wasn’t rapid-fire, but it was plenty powerful. Rapid-fire could be the next goal.