Kochugunshikan Boukensha ni Naru

Translator: SFBaka

『It’s dawn. Please wake up.』

It’s morning again. I already formed a habit of waking up early in the morning huh. One major reason is my desire for a nice, long morning bath.

I want to savor my morning bath, so I went out of my room straight away after waking up. This is the best, man.

“Let’s have some breakfast, Alan.”

There was a knock on my door after I got back from bathing. It was Cleria, who invited me for breakfast.

When we reached the dining area, we managed to run into the other group of customers, who seemed to be merchants, in the middle of checking out. So we would be the only guests staying in this inn after this huh?

It seems there were no courses to choose from when it comes to breakfast. The breakfast set consists of toasted bread, butter, jam, salad, rolled egg omelets, sunny-side up, and meat and vegetable stir fry.
It certainly was a rich-looking breakfast. It was kinda unfortunate that there wasn’t any rice included.

Cleria ordered seconds of course, just as expected.

“Um, my father said we can cater to any of your requests for dinner since you’ll be the only customers staying over from now on, so he sent me over to ask if you had any in mind…”

“Oh, so you’re dad’s the one in charge of cooking huh. Now that you mention it, is it possible for this inn to serve rice?”

“Yes, we can. Dad likes rice as well so he actually wanted it to be part of the menu, but most customers still prefer bread, so we didn’t include it in the end.”

“I see. I, for one, totally dig rice more. How about you guys? Do you prefer bread or rice?”

“The rice we had yesterday was quite delicious. I do not mind having rice for meals.”

“I’m alright with either.”

“Well then, can we have rice instead of bread for our meals from now on?”

“Alright, I’ll let dad know.”

We finished our food and went out of the inn after a few minutes of break to give time for our meals to settle down our stomachs first. We’re supposed to go to the Adventurer’s Guild at nine in the morning. It’s still a bit early, but we decided to go there in advance.

We arrived at the guild after a twenty-minute walk, and surprisingly found Jonas-san and ten other men already waiting in front of the guild building. As expected of a qualified merchant firm. They’re even earlier than we are.

“Good morning, Jonas-san.”

“Good morning to you as well, Alan-san. We’ll be in your care today.”

“Likewise.”

We boarded three carriages and set off right away. I estimate the travel time to be about three hours via carriage. I had Nanom save the coordinates of the bandit lair last time, so there’s no chance of getting lost.

We went out of the city and got on the road, heading for the bandit lair. We were to serve as guides, so we rode on the lead carriage. Jonas-san served as the driver of the carriage we were in.
I left watching out for threats to Nanom so I was quite free.

“Elna, is it possible for you to show me some wind magic spells right now? You can just aim the spells at tree branches.”

“……Understood. To put it simply, wind magic spells fire off a mass of air in order to hit the desired target.”

Elna closed her eyes in concentration for about fifteen minutes and pointed her outstretched hand toward the canopy of trees in the distance.

“Air Bullet!”

Since it was a mass of compressed air, it wasn’t visible like the Fire Ball spell. It was as though part of the tree canopy in the distance suddenly got blown off.

“Whoah! That’s amazing! So that’s wind magic huh.”

It wasn’t visible to the naked eye, unlike Fire Ball, and there was almost no sound when the spell was fired off, making it so that it would be hard for the spell’s target to dodge. The trade-off was the spell’s power was a bit on the low side, but it should be fairly adequate for human opponents. It would create a major advantage if you could somehow break the stance of your opponents with this spell.

I had Nanom do a playback of the video it recorded regarding the spell’s magicle flow on my virtual HUD so I can further familiarize myself with it. It seems the flow was fairly similar to the Fire Ball spell like I thought.

What’s left is for me to solidify my image of it. Since it was a mass of compressed air, an image based on a typhoon should be appropriate, I think. I made an image of a rapidly swirling mass of wind compressing itself in my mind. I’ll fire off this compressed air mass to hit my intended target.

“So, something like this, I think.”

The magicle charges have already been prepared by Nanom for me. I lined up my sights with the target reticule displayed on the virtual HUD, aimed at the tree canopy right ahead and activated the spell.

Air Bullet, fire!

A mass of compressed air was immediately launched out, accompanied by a booming sound. In order to see the otherwise invisible air mass, I activated the magic imaging mode of my virtual HUD.

The air mass hit the treetops with a bam and blew them away. A large number of thick-looking branches had fallen off, so the tree canopy became almost barren. I guess this was a good enough showing for my first time using this spell.

“Eh!? Just what in blazes was that?”

Elna looked quite surprised.

“Well, it was my first try, so I haven’t adjusted the output yet.”

I failed to launch out an Air Bullet that made almost no sound, so I graded my first try to be somewhat lacking. I might have overdone it with the amount of air I compressed for the spell. I’ll need to adjust the revolution speed as well.

I aimed at a different group of trees and fired off a second spell.

The spell flew out silently this time and hit the target with a muffled bam. Another large number of branches were blown off. It wasn’t as powerful as my first try, but it was more refined.

I finally managed to get an adequate grasp of the spell after firing off a couple more test shots. A maximum range of 20 meters is enough for an anti-personnel spell. And the magic power required is about the same as the Fire Ball spell.

I turned around and saw Cleria, Elna, Jonas-san and everyone else spacing out.

“This can’t be… This should not be possible… Without even focusing… Just what is going on, Ria-sama?”

“This is just how Alan is. I’ve already lost count of how many times he’s surprised me since I met him.”

It seems Elna also couldn’t learn magic without relying on a magic tome. Cleria’s already gotten fairly good at it, so I bet Elna would also improve after a bit of practice.

“Do you know any other wind spells?”

“……Y-Yes, of course. The next spell I’ll show you is called Wind Cutter. It creates a blade of wind sharp enough to cut its target.”

Oh! That sounds kinda neat. Elna closed her eyes in concentration. She took about twenty seconds this time.

“Wind Cutter!”

A thin sheet of shining energy appeared before her outstretched palm and flew out with a swish. It hit the canopy of another tree and cut off a number of branches.

“Whoah! That’s amazing!”

But how should I form an image for this one? Why’d the blade of wind glow anyway? I can’t think of an appropriate image.

I somehow managed to cast Fire Ball and Flame Arrow by imagining my magic power combusting. It wasn’t scientific at all, but I suppose that’s a moot point by now.

But I just can’t think of an appropriate image for Wind Cutter. Was it fine to think of it as wind surging at speeds fast enough to cut through things?

“Hey. Elna. What kind of image do you have in your mind while casting this spell?”

“Image, is it? I don’t think it’s anything too fancy. I only follow the steps as stated in the magic tome.”

Oh yeah. The folks here use concrete steps listed out on magic tomes in place of constructing a spell image themselves.

This is a problem. An image for the wind to be able to cut through things… Well, I guess I’ll make do with wind surging ahead at speeds great enough to cut targets; something spinning at high speed. Like a saw wheel, maybe? I’ll imagine it being made of wind instead of metal.

But it does seem a bit dangerous for something like that to materialize near me while already spinning away in full force. Should I set it to spin at full power once it hits the target?