CH 5

The smell of a burnt skin and roasted meat hung around us. Seeing the Red Grizzly lay completely still, Allison tried to cut its claw off.

“What are you doing?”

“This will be considered as the proof of subjugation. We can’t very well carry the whole bear right?”

I suppose she has a point, but still, it’s such a waste. Thinking that, I recalled what I did inside the dungeon. Body Strengthening!

“Hold on, is it okay if I try something first?” Allison gave me a puzzled look, “Sure, but what exactly…” I used Body Strengthening. Since I did an unintended backflip the last time, I tried to control it this time. I tried taking a step forward, and thankfully my foot didn’t swing above my head. I lifted the bear’s head first followed by its trunk while steadily increasing my Body Strengthening. “Heave, ho!” I couldn’t carry the whole bear because it was too big, but I could manage by half-carrying and half-dragging it.” I think I can carry it this way.”, I said and looked towards them only to find them goggling at me. “Where is all that strength coming from in that thin body?”, muttered Allison.

We began walking without minding the tracks drawn by the feet of the Red Grizzly as I dragged it along. I decided to ask them about something that had been bothering me. “You told me before that a person cannot possess two attributes right? But the shield back then had been endowed with two attributes. I was thinking about how such a thing was possible. Could I have, by any chance, formed a contract with Cornelia too?” Allison showed a wry smile and replied, “A Servant cannot be bound with two humans simultaneously. However, there are no such restrictions in converse. A human can bind contracts with multiple Servants.”

“Ah, is that so. And here I thought it was a pretty good theory. I mean, if both Allison and I were contracted with Cornelia, it would explain how she was able to receive both our mana and also use two attributes simultaneously.”

“I see. Nicola, so you have the water attribute then.”, confirmed Allison as if something had just occurred to her. “Yeah, that’s right what about it?”, I asked. “I see. I see.” Allison thought for a little while longer and said, “I think it was because you sent your mana into me. I don’t have the water attribute, which means the only possibility is that I received it from you. Similar to how some monsters live in symbiosis.”

“Like Matt the Mud Monkey and Tom the Tonito Crab huh?” Hearing me compare it to the well known fairy tale Allison laughed and nodded.

Matt the Mud Monkey and Tom the Tonito Crab was fairy tale that was commonly used to teach children about the relationship between a person and their Servant. Among monsters that possess mana, there are those that live by exchanging mana with monsters from another race for mutual benefits. For example, Mud Monkey is a type of monster that lives near water bodies and smears mud over itself as camouflage to hunt birds. However, the Mud Monkey only has the water attribute. While it can shoot water jets at birds, that alone is insufficient to bring them down. That’s where the Tonito Crab comes in. By scooping up a Tonito Crab that lives in the same region and exchanging mana with it, the Mud Monkey can charge its water jets with the lightning attribute to bring down birds. And the Tonito Crab uses the water attribute for self-preservation.

When I read this story I used to wish that it would be great if humans could give their mana to someone else like that too. But I couldn’t do it. Turned out that unless you can cast magic on your own, you can’t exchange mana with someone else.

“But you know, I never tried to give you my mana.”

“Yeah. That’s what eludes me too.”

Cornelia interjected here to say, “Rather send it to me consciously, wouldn’t it be closer to say that it’s constantly overflowing out of you? Even now, if I try to use an Ability, I can feel the presence your mana.”

It’s overflowing?

“Aaa” Allison nodded like she understood it too. “I bet it’s those bracelets. They have a lot of Animium right? Isn’t your mana overflowing through them?”, said Allison pointing at my arm.

The bracelet given to protect me from the effects of Mana Poisoning. I looked at the bracelets on my arms. I can remove these now right?

I supported the Red Grizzly with only my back and removed the bracelets from both my arms and dropped them on the ground. My back became suddenly light as my Physical Strengthening amplified and launched the bear into the air1.

“Kyaa!!” Allison screamed at the sudden flight of the bear. “Whoa!” I somehow managed to catch it before it hurt anyone. That was dangerous. I put the Red Grizzly on the ground for now.

“Wh… Wh… Why can you do something like that?!?!?” Allison seemed to be slightly frightened.

“It’s just Body Strengthening.”

“Why can you use an Ability without having a servant?”

I then told her my theory. “I told you I became healthy because I could circulate the mana inside me right? To be able to circulate mana also means that I am able to use magic. Evidently, I still can’t use it very well.”

Allison pressed both her hands to her face and sighed deeply. “It’s been one shock after another since I met you.”

Looks like it’s best if I continue to wear these bracelets. It’ll be troubling if keep throwing the bear around . When I wore the bracelets again Cornelia said, “It’s those bracelets after all. When you removed them it felt like the flow of mana had decreased significantly, but now it’s overflowing again.”

I wonder if it’s okay to be causing my mana to flow out like this constantly. Well, I’ve been doing it all this while, I guess it’s fine.

— —

Soon we’d arrived in close view of the town. It was a town that was surrounded by large walls. I hadn’t ever left my family’s estate before, so I found myself slack-jawed and staring at the enormity of the walls. “Huge.” When I managed to put my thoughts into words Allison laughed. “The royal capital’s walls are much larger. These walls are on the smaller side.” I keenly felt that the world was truly vast.

It turned out that the Red Grizzly would be processed in a dismantling area located outside the town’s gate. As I went carrying the Red Grizzly, there was a tent set up, next to which was a place built with stone delineated for dismantling. I was a little frightened by the range of knives that hung in a row looking like torture implements.

Allison had said that there wouldn’t be much of a crowd at this time of day, looks like she was right. When Allison called out for someone in the tent a female guild staff appeared from inside. She was a bit surprised by the Red Grizzly I’d laid out in the dismantling area.

“That’s a pretty big one. How did you transport it here?”

“We dragged it here” When I replied so, the staff member chuckled. She probably thought I was joking. The guild staff went around and inspected the Red Grizzly, asked Allison a few questions, noted something down and enquired, “Did you drain the blood?”

“Ah!” Allison made a face that practically read ‘oops!’. “Please make sure you do it next time if you want the game to highly evaluated as meat. Moreover, cooling the body and preserving it using an Ability will raise its value even higher.”, informed the guild staff. “Okay”, replied Allison quite dispiritedly.

“Having said that, since this bear was hunted near the ‘River of Death’ it probably drank from it and can’t be eaten in the first place. I will calculate the price for the rest of the parts including the magic stone. Please give me 20 minutes.”

For the next 20 minutes I watched the Red Grizzly being dismantled. It was purely out of intellectual curiosity, but I ended regretting it because the whole process too grotesque for my tastes. In the end, the only things that sold were the claw and the magic stone which was about the size of my head.

Apparently magic stones are generally used to power the magic tools crafted by dwarves or elves. I’d never really used magic tools in my daily life, so I don’t know what size of magic stone is required to power a particular tool.

“Including the subjugation reward, the total comes out to 80,000 Luna. Please sign here.” After Allison signed, the guild staff gave her a metal plate and some paper. The plate bore the guild’s mark and some digits. “Please present the plate along with the paper at the guild’s reception and receive your reward.”

We then entered the town through the gate. “First order of business is Nicola’s clothes.” I was a little embarrassed hearing that and said sheepishly, “Um, I don’t really have any money.” When I said that, Allison thought for a moment and said, “Let’s split the reward in half then. You’re okay with that right? We managed to defeat the Red Grizzly thanks to your mana. Plus, you carried it all the way here.” With that being the case, I nodded in assent.

The guild was located very close to the town’s entrance. Once we entered inside, I could see people with Servants in the form of weapons all around. Various sheets of papers were affixed to the large bulletin board on a wall. Allison informed me that they were subjugation requests. Further inside, the guild staff were working busily at the reception desk.

“I’ll take care of the subjugation reward. Nicola, you go and register as an adventurer.” I nodded and headed towards a different counter at the reception desk.

T/N Notes: