CH 96

“Right in front of you.” (Haru)

“Roger!” (Kei)

I follow Haru’s instructions and hold up my sword. When I became aware of it, I felt a hint of magic. Immediately, the grass shook and a wolf jumped out.

I shifted my body by shifting my center of gravity. I avoided the wolf’s attack then used the momentum of my shifting center to hit the wolf with my sword.

The sword struck the wolf in the torso and cut it in two.

Instead of lowering the sword that I swung, I hold it as it is and turn my attention to the surroundings.

No unnatural magical power. There is no rustling sound. No swaying vegetation.

“Haru, anything else.” (Kei)

“Nothing. We’re good.” (Haru)

We did this with maximum concentration and exhaled.

What we’re doing now is strengthening our search skills. In other words, it’s training.

Just like the goblins and slimes in the depths of the dungeon, the monsters of the future will be different and have special abilities.

We’ll have to be on our guard and ready to fight back with a lot of skills against these creatures.

That said, it gets really tiring. I’m always nervous. It is quite difficult for us at this moment.

However, that’s what other explorers say is normal, and people like us, whose first skill is not searching for enemies, never know when or where monsters will appear.

If you think about it, it makes sense that the other explorers are growing too slowly compared to us.

The biggest enemy in dungeon exploration is neither monsters nor physical strength. I guess it was how long your spirit would last.

For those of us who hadn’t trained to train our minds, it was impossible to keep fighting in such a tense situation. Without skills, we would become weak in the blink of an eye.

So, what to do? What should we do if we rely too much on our skills? That’s when I came up with the idea of training to search for enemies without relying on skills.

We don’t have the mental strength to go into battle the moment a monster appears. Then we should notice them before they appear in front of us.

Fortunately, the forest is easy to hear and the moving grass makes it easy to see the approaching enemy.

There were more monsters than right after the stampede, but fewer than before the stampede. This was a good place to train.

I’m looking for monsters while forcing myself not to acknowledge my “Passive” enemy search skill.

Even without using the skills, I can now somewhat understand the location of the magic power, but it seems that Haru’s range is much larger. If there is even the slightest sound, swaying grass, or movement of magic, she will notice.

I trained myself to look in the direction Haru told me to go, check the magic, sounds, and movements, and learn them before hunting the enemy.

And there was one more training. This was more of an experiment than a training.

That experiment is the modification of skills.

Up until now, there have been spells such as Haru’s [Bomb] and my [Bind] that have been used by changing their original forms. But to what extent is it possible to change them?

Haru’s [Bomb] manipulated everything from temperature, to combustion, to the intensity of light.

The magic [Bomb] is an explosion, and an explosion is essentially intense combustion. So the flame-like [bomb] that Haru uses is also normal.

I wonder if that’s true.

I’m not sure, but it seems very unnatural to me.

It’s not that the magic of the [Bomb] causes an explosion. I’m not sure if it’s just a generic term for a certain explosion-like magical attack to be called a bomb.

If that is the case, then there is no big difference between each magic and the modifications have infinite possibilities.

It might be possible to establish a technique for attacking with magic power instead of the magic indicated in the status.

If I could do that, I could seal off the skills of those nasty monsters in the depths of the dungeon.

“Haru, is there anything else?” (Kei)

“I don’t think there are any nearby. Let’s take a break.” (Haru)

When Haru puts away Tonfa, he leans against a nearby tree.

I then sheathed the sword back in the scabbard. At that time, my fingertips touched the magic circle engraved on the scabbard.

“By the way, I haven’t tried it recently.” (Kei)

I muttered quietly and put my hand out in front of me. I imagined a small flame and gathered the magic power in my fingertips. I’ve done this many times and failed. When I can’t gather anymore, I chant.

“Flame.” (Kei) [T/N: This is not a [Skill] or [Magic] like the others]

For a brief moment, a flame, less than an inch in diameter flickers at my fingertip, then disappears.

“Oh, brother. What was that?” (Haru)

The unexpected success made us stop moving for a short while.