Chapter 75: Witness Candidates

We headed south after entering the forest, so it seemed we were making for a familiar hunting ground.

Along the way, I caught three green birds and two chikki-chikki birds and handed them to Dale, but for some reason everyone was giving me cold looks.

By the time sunlight was filtering straight down from overhead, it seemed we had reached their base. After checking that there were no problems with the hut woven from thorny branches, Lloyd and Dale exchanged a few quiet words before we set off again.

The Strongarm types probably had their own hunting grounds, but when they entered the forest they seemed to wander at random, so they likely had no fixed base and instead operated over a wide area.

In contrast, Dale’s party—the Flames and Shield of Kreis—appeared to operate around a central base. The paths they followed were well-trodden and easy to walk.

Lloyd suddenly stopped and turned at the sound of a beast’s groan carried on the wind. Dale didn’t seem to hear it, so Lloyd looked at me and pointed.

Since the sound was coming on the wind, I nodded to confirm it.

After walking a little farther, their movements grew cautious. Lloyd signaled to Farana behind him, then moved forward alone.

What we found wasn’t so much a fight between a horn boar and wolves—it was the horn boar being attacked by a pack of wolves.

Between the struggle and the mutual growling, they hadn’t noticed our approach at all.

At Lloyd’s hand signals, everyone nocked arrows and carefully spread out to the left and right.

Farana stood diagonally behind Lloyd, with her mother Brenda beside her, holding a short spear as her guard.

Once Lloyd confirmed everyone’s positions and lowered his outstretched arm, a fist-sized fireball shot from Farana’s open palm and exploded above the horn boar’s head with a bang.

Startled by the blast, both the horn boar and the black wolves froze for an instant. In that moment, bowstrings twanged, and a wolf leapt into the air before collapsing.

The next instant, a stone lance flew toward the horn boar, plunging deep behind its foreleg.

The remaining black wolves bared their fangs at the new enemies, but when Dale loosed a second arrow, the rest scattered and fled.

“This one’s no good.”

The horn boar was badly torn up from the attack and clearly unsellable.

“Well, seven black wolves is still plenty.”

“Looks like we’re off to a good start today.”

“May I have this one?”

“What are you going to do with something that won’t sell?”

“Use it as bait. If you leave it nearby during camp, beasts will come sniffing around.”

“Hey now, there’s no way we can allow that.”

“I won’t put it near your base. In fact, tonight’s camp will be inside my dome.”

“The kind of place where you usually sleep in the grass?”

“In the forest. You won’t believe it unless you see it, so gather around me.”

They gathered around me, still half-skeptical, so I said, [Dome!], enclosing everyone.

“Huh… what are you talking about?”

Ah—I’d forgotten. An air dome is invisible.

“Farana, turn around, stretch your hands out in front of you, and walk five steps.”

She tilted her head, not understanding.

“Hurry. You’ll see why I can sleep safely in the grass.”

Intrigued by that, Farana turned around and began walking with her hands outstretched.

On the fifth step, she stopped and tested the sensation under her palms.

“What is it, Farana?”

“There’s something here… it’s like a wall…”

“Keep your hands on it and try walking to the right.”

“To the right?”

Murmuring in confusion, she began sidestepping to the right, hands still outstretched.

As everyone watched with keen interest, Farana completed a full circuit and returned to where she started, staring in astonishment.

“Oh?”

“Let me try too.”

Her mother stepped up beside her with a spark of excitement, stretched out her hands, and crab-walked to the right.

The rest followed after her, and I, standing in the middle, nearly burst out laughing—but I held it in. Laughing now felt dangerous.

“What’s going on?”

“There’s an invisible wall.”

“You said ‘dome,’ right? So that means there’s a ceiling too?”

“There is. I just made the invisible kind out of habit.”

“Invisible?”

“Yes. I can make it visible, but when I dispel it, it gets dirty with dust and debris, so I usually don’t.”

“Hey, show us the visible one too.”

Farana seemed to have caught on, so I decided to demonstrate.

Since Gel and Gru were still pressing their hands against the wall, I said [Release Mana] and dispelled the dome.

“Whoa!”

“Eh?!”

The sudden disappearance made the two stumble.

“What happened?”

“It’s gone.”

“It vanished all of a sudden.”

Farana’s eyes lit up again.

“I’ll make it slowly this time so you can see it. Watch closely.”

She nodded with a serious expression.

When I called out [Dome!], leaves and dust rose from the ground, spiraling upward as the dome’s walls took shape.

“Ohhh… amazing.”

“So this is what you were making.”

“We couldn’t see it before, though.”

As the walls rose, they curved inward, forming a ceiling and finishing with a hole left at the top.

“It’s much darker this time.”

“Well, I made it visible by pulling in leaves and dust.”

“What’s that hole at the top?”

“A smoke vent. If you seal it completely, you’ll die.”

“Die?”

“If you light a fire in an enclosed space, you’ll choke on the smoke. If you endure that, you’ll suffocate and die—or sometimes you die without even realizing it. When you make one with earth magic, Farana, you must always leave several small openings for airflow.”

Since she was nodding with a serious expression, I figured she wouldn’t forget, so I said “Release” out loud and withdrew the mana.

At the same moment the dome vanished, fallen leaves and clouds of dust collapsed inward, so I blew them away with [Wind!].
They had been startled by the collapsing dome, but seeing the leaves and dust scatter in the wind, they let out relieved sighs.

“See? I’ll try making one now, so watch.”

“In that case, it would be better to gather everyone and practice with a shelter—a small one meant to protect everyone.”

“A shelter?”

“It’s an emergency refuge, for times when there’s no place or time to create a large dome. If you can’t make this, creating a full dome will be difficult. Gather around Farana, and try forming the wall you made earlier around her.”

Including myself, eight of us gathered around Farana, and a wall rose up in a spiral around us.

She clearly had the habit of using magic exactly as she had been taught, but being able to do this after seeing it only once meant she must have practiced extensively.

When it began to rise above head height, I instructed her to start narrowing it inward.

“Ohhh, as expected of Farana.”

“Our mage is impressive.”

“Can this really keep beasts out?”

“Well, Leon’s sleeping inside, so it should be fine, right?”

The structure stopped with a hole left at the top, but Farana let out a sigh.

“That uses an incredible amount of mana.”

“Once you’re used to it, you’ll be able to create it in a single breath, just like a lance or a fireball. I’ll also teach you how to make an entrance.”

“Oh, right. Otherwise we couldn’t get out.”

“Hey now, don’t trap us inside, alright?”

I taught them how to make and seal an entrance, how to open attack holes, and finally how to withdraw mana.

“Well now… did Lady Felicienne personally give you magic lessons or something?”

“I knew you were skilled, but still…”

“I’ve been hearing stories since I was little—from my mother’s mother, my grandmother. Otherwise, there’s no way you could just casually use magic right after receiving it.”

“So you didn’t immediately start using magic after you were granted it?”

“Of course not. I started by learning how to refine mana and practiced the basics endlessly. Only after that did I start thinking about different ways to use it.”

“So you’re thinking beyond what you were taught.”

“If you don’t, then even after receiving magic, you’ll only ever be able to do exactly what you were taught.”

At my words, Farana nodded with a serious expression.

＊　＊　＊　＊　＊　＊　＊

After setting up camp and having Farana level the ground, I had her create a dome and then tested its strength.

Everyone attacked it with their preferred weapons, but since she had experience making shields, short spears and bows didn’t even make it budge.

Finally, I had her fire a Stone Lance.

“Lance… ha!”

The Stone Lance, fired with a shortened chant, cleanly pierced through the dome and flew off beyond it.

“Whoops.”

“Hm… it’s far better than a thorn hut, but still…”

“How strong is your dome, Leon?”

“It can withstand an armored buffalo’s charge.”

“An armored buffalo… you’re not about to say you defeated one, are you?”

“I was invited along as defense, but another party handled the actual kill.”

“You really are unbelievable. Still, having a hole punched through it in one shot…”

“When you make a shield, how hard do you set it? You should have made it at least that strong.”

“You’re right. I was too focused on forming the dome itself. You can destroy it by releasing mana, right?”

When I nodded, she glared at the dome and murmured [Mana—Release!], watching it collapse before nodding in satisfaction.

After leveling the ground again, I created a [Dome!] about five meters in diameter. For preparation, I took a horn boar we had set aside to a spot some distance away and drained its blood.

After splashing the blood around in several places, I rolled the horn boar into a spot clearly visible from the dome.

“Using unsellable prey as bait to lure beasts and hunt them.”

“That’s a trick too dangerous for us to pull off.”

“But hey, doesn’t this mean we can attack from inside Farana’s dome now?”

“If we can do that, our earnings will go up and dangerous hunts will become easier.”

After an early dinner, everyone lay back on furs, relaxing.

I alone used a simple bed, and when they learned why I could sleep comfortably even in the grass, they looked at me with envy.

If I showed them the hut, who knows what they’d say—so it was probably better not to show it this time.