Get to Work, Mage!

It took a little over a month after Lorenzo set out on his journey with Frieren for them to finally leave the forest.

They had long since finished the food they had prepared, and for a while they had even had to make do with wild fruit and vegetables. When they did get meat, it was usually no more than snakes, birds, or fish, and it was nowhere near satisfying. Those Demon Wolves were awful—why had they stopped coming when they needed them?

Aside from food, the most important matters were True Magic and Magecraft.

Clearly, Frieren had no Magic Circuits, so she couldn't learn Magecraft at all. However, the way some Magecraft worked had given her plenty of inspiration, and she had used True Magic to reproduce several techniques. Celestial Magecraft, of course, was not among them.

Lorenzo's progress in learning True Magic, however, had been unexpectedly smooth. At first, he had assumed he had no mana and therefore couldn't learn it, but once he actually tried, he discovered that he somehow really did have a reserve of mana in his body. It was small, but it was there.

He was also very talented at True Magic. After Frieren taught him a spell just a few times, he could quickly cast it himself, and his progress was especially noticeable, as though his body had used it before.

His progress in learning defensive magic and basic offensive magic, however, was somewhat slow.

"We're finally out."

Lorenzo stood at the forest's edge and narrowed his eyes, letting the broad sunlight fall on his face for the first time in ages. He took a deep breath. The wind swept across the open land and brushed his face, carrying the scent of grass and earth. It was much fresher than the air in the woods.

"The nearest village is just ahead."

Standing beside him, Frieren looked at the winding dirt road in the distance. She didn't feel much about it. After all, she had lived and traveled for so long that things like this must have become commonplace to her long ago.

Lorenzo, on the other hand, was a little excited. They were about to see signs of civilization, and this would be his first time seeing actual living humans in this world.

"I wonder if this village has any grimoires."

Frieren murmured to herself.

Some of the spells she had collected from ordinary people were genuinely useful for survival in the wild. One, for instance, sounded an alarm whenever it encountered a snake. Although she said its creator had intended it to help people avoid snakes in the wild, it had actually made catching snakes to eat much easier for them.

There was also a spell that made fish in the water taste crunchy. She said she had obtained it in a small fishing village by the sea, though the fishermen generally used it on sharks, presumably to make them into crunchy sharks. Frieren had told him the fins and belly tasted best. Unfortunately, there was no sea nearby, so they couldn't enjoy that delicacy, but making do with some crunchy river fish tasted quite good too.

"I hope we find a spell that can wipe out every mosquito in the world that bites people in an instant."

Over the past few days of their journey through the forest, the most annoying things had been the mosquitoes that were everywhere. They would often bite him the moment he let his guard down. Although Magecraft or True Magic could drive them away temporarily, he couldn't possibly keep using it twenty-four hours a day. He had to conserve mana for emergencies.

Most importantly, these mosquitoes were "picky eaters." They seemed uninterested in Frieren, an elf, and singled him out for their bites.

"How could a spell like that possibly exist?"

Hearing Lorenzo's words beside her, Frieren spoke with exasperation.

"You never know. Maybe Lady Serie has one."

"She definitely doesn't have one either..."

And so the two soon entered the village.

Rows of stone houses stood at uneven intervals on either side of the dirt road. Their walls had turned grayish yellow with age, and ivy crept up from their corners, covering most of the windowsills of several homes. Cooking smoke drifted lazily from one chimney and dissolved in the afternoon sunlight. The faint scent of firewood and roasting meat lingered in the air.

Villagers walked about in twos and threes. Some were returning from the fields with farming tools over their shoulders, while others stood in doorways chatting with children in their arms. A few young children chased one another through an alley, their clear laughter audible from afar.

When the two strangers walked in, the villagers turned to look at them, somewhat curious but not particularly wary.

"Let's find somewhere to stay first."

Frieren glanced over the houses along the street as she spoke.

"Would a village this size really have a place specifically for travelers to stay?"

Lorenzo doubted it. The village seemed quite small; he could see from one end to the other at a glance, and it hardly looked as though it had a place specifically for lodging.

"It does."

Frieren sounded quite certain.

"Villages like this usually have one or two homes that set aside rooms for travelers passing through. They don't necessarily have signs, but if you ask the locals, you'll find one soon enough. In return, you usually have to help the villagers deal with some monsters or do odd jobs and things like that."

She paused, then added smugly:

"You'll understand once you've traveled long enough."

Even so, why did the way she described it sound so strange? Staying in someone's home and helping the villagers with their work—rather than an inn, it sounded more like...

"Excuse me, do you have a spare room we could stay in for a few days? We can help you with some odd jobs."

Frieren had already stepped forward and stopped a middle-aged woman carrying a wooden basin past a doorway, calmly asking her the question.

Isn't that just working for lodging?

"You two are mages, aren't you?"

The middle-aged woman looked Lorenzo and Frieren up and down, then continued after they confirmed it.

"That's wonderful. Our village happens to have some trouble. A few Demon Wolves showed up near the warehouse at the east end of the village a few days ago. We don't know where they came from, but they've been causing a terrible ruckus at night and have frightened the village children to tears several times. The adults wanted to drive them away, but no one dared get close, and it's held up the farmwork for days now."

"If you two are willing to help clear out those monsters, I can make room for two rooms, never mind one, and I'll make sure you have plenty to eat, too."

At that, she sighed and pointed with her lips toward the east end of the village.

Demon Wolves?

Lorenzo's attention was caught. It was a little improper to think this way, but there were finally Demon Wolves again. Although he had grown a little tired of eating them before, it had been so long that he really did miss the taste.

Roasted or stewed? That's the question.

Even so, it felt as though Demon Wolves were causing trouble a little too often. He wondered whether that was normal.

"All right, no problem. We'll take the commission."

Frieren accepted the commission without even thinking. After all, there was nothing to hesitate over. They were just a few Demon Wolves.

"Oh, that's wonderful. Please wait a moment, you two. I'll go tidy up the rooms right away."

The middle-aged woman looked delighted, her expression relaxing. She spoke a little faster, set the wooden basin by the door, and turned to go inside.

"Come to think of it, is it really normal for Demon Wolves to be running rampant like this?"

Lorenzo asked Frieren.

"Not really, but what does that have to do with us? Let's hurry to the warehouse and take care of those Demon Wolves. We've been walking for so long, and I want to take a bath as soon as possible."

"That's true."

Lorenzo nodded, his face full of agreement.

Clearly, neither of them was the sort of person who would go out of their way to meddle in other people's business.