Chapter 209

Demon King Tralzard’s tactician was apparently quite brilliant.

And so my fight with Tralzard was used to their benefit.

“Nevermind what has already happened. There is no point in talking about it now.”

In that case, I too would make use of this opportunity.

“I am sorry. Now, if you have any questions, I will answer if I can.”

She sounded so admirable that it was hard to believe this was the same hag who attacked me without provocation on our first meeting.

“The first thing I want to know is why you attacked me. I seriously almost died.”

I knew that Dragons were quick to start fights, but there were limits.

Was this really how a Demon King should act?

“In Miralda’s report, she said that ‘Golan’s race is similar to that of Lesser High King Yamato.’”

“Yes. She said that to me as well.”

Yamato Takeru no Mikoto and Susanno no Mikoto.

As someone with knowledge of the Chronicles of Japan, the names sounded familiar.

Of course, I would never have associated them with a type of race in the Demon World.

“While they are not the same, they may be related. And so I decided to try and confirm it. However, there is no easy way to do it.”

“…What do you mean?”

“Lesser High King Yamato absorbed the mana of his enemies. And since none of his comrades did anything similar, it’s been speculated that it was a special ability.”

I hadn’t heard about that before.

“He exclusively absorbed the mana of enemies?”

“Yes. In general, that was how King Yamato fought. He always weakened his enemies like that before fighting them.”

“…”

A special ability that absorbed the enemy’s mana… While I had never heard of that before, it was too early to discard it as mere myth.

But still, absorb the enemy’s mana and weaken them?

Was such a thing possible?

“You don’t believe me.”

“I guess not. It’s hard to believe. Could such a thing really be done?”

“I thought so too. But according to Miralda, you have yet to fully understand your own special ability. And so I thought it might be interesting to fight you.”

“In that case, you could have given me a warning.”

“But then you wouldn’t have seen me as an enemy. Besides, you would just use normal attacks. And so after considering it for some time, I decided that ‘Roar’ would be the best. After all, it’s an attack that carves away the enemy’s mana.”

“I see… So if I didn’t want to die, I would be forced to use the ability in order to take back the mana that I lost.”

“That’s it. But I didn’t expect you to escape to the ceiling.

After evolving, I was occasionally able to move at a ridiculous speed.

It had been possible when I enveloped my legs in mana.

“Well, it seems like I haven’t awakened to any such ability yet.”

Even among the same race, such as Ogres, there were discrepancies in the kinds of special abilities that you could use.

About thirty percent of Ogres couldn’t use ‘Rock Throw.’ But about ninety percent could use ‘Red Skin,’ and so I assumed that it had something to do with difficulty.

With enough experience, you might suddenly be able to use abilities that you weren’t able to before.

However, I didn’t know how or when it would happen.

It could happen all of a sudden one day. You realize that something feels different, and you understand why.

However, I hadn’t awakened to any new special abilities after evolving.

There was something I thought might be it, but I wasn’t sure.

But judging by the way I felt, I didn’t think I had anything that would allow me to absorb an enemy’s mana.

In the first place, mana was the source of power.

You could roughly determine if someone was strong or weak judging by the level of mana they had.

And yet he could not only absorb it, but make it his own. How overpowered was this Lesser High King Yamato?

“I tried pushing you to the brink, but you showed no signs of doing it. And so I thought I must have been wrong. In fact, I was very surprised that you survived.”

“I did survive! In spite of your best efforts, hag!”

It was no wonder Dragons had such a reputation.

“And what about your mana? Perhaps you still do not understand how to control it well. I don’t know how much you had before, but right now, your mana is about twenty times as high as an ordinary Ogre. Or is it thirty? If you have that much mana, it must be in preparation for a special ability.”

Tralzard thought that I could become even stronger if I just learned how to use my power.

I wasn’t so sure about that.

Just then, Tactician Seitry, who had been silent up until now, began to talk about the drop and recovery of mana.

“The Tree Fairies absorb mana through their roots in the ground, but sometimes that is not enough. And so they absorb mana from their branches and leaves. This mana does not belong to anyone. It is from the atmosphere.”

“Like the food we eat then.”

You take mana that doesn’t belong to anyone and make it your own.

“Indeed. If our vessels do not contain enough mana, we feel ill. Mana strengthens our bodies and decreases when we use magic.”

“Obviously.”

“Yes, obviously. Because of this, we absorb mana through eating and sleeping.”

“I know. On my way here, I kept getting hungry and had to eat many more meals than I usually would.”

“In other words, regardless of what race we are, we absorb mana in a very similar way. Not only that, but we also store it in the same place.”

“The Orb of Control.”

“Yes. And so if we know the timing and method of mana absorption, it would be possible to steal it. If we knew how the Orb of Control stored mana, we may even be able to extract it.”

“In other words, what I lack is knowledge…that is a possibility.”

“It’s just a possibility, but, yes. I think that you should not give up so easily. And you should continue to try and gain knowledge.”

“Well, I guess it’s better than suddenly being hit by a lethal attack.”

I didn’t know what kind of special ability I had, but there might be something there that was related to mana.

A special ability related to mana. Hmm. What valuable information.

It might be a good idea to do some testing while keeping that in mind.