Black Magic

The world fell silent!

An endless expanse of black light swallowed Ul's entire view. The wild boar was enveloped in it and vanished in an instant, vaporized by the black magic.

The sudden catastrophe left Ul's body rigid.

Although the magic wasn't aimed at him, the power it contained left him too afraid to move.

This had nothing to do with Ul's courage. It was the instinctive reaction of any living creature when faced with a power far beyond its own!

The magic came and went in a flash!

After the black magic devoured the wild boar, the black light finally stopped about ten meters in front of Ul, its edge forming a sweeping arc.

When the magic vanished,

Ul's trembling legs could no longer support him. He collapsed onto the ground, his face pale, cold sweat covering his body as he gasped for breath.

The unexpected incident had terrified Ul, and the sight before him left him utterly horrified.

The forest was gone!

It wasn't a ruin left behind by some violent destruction. It had been erased without a trace, as if it had never existed. In its place was a vast, circular pit hundreds of meters across.

The dense woods and the earth alike seemed to have been devoured by the black magic. The area more than ten meters ahead of Ul wasn't merely forest anymore—it looked more like a bottomless cliff...

Lying on the ground and staring up at the stars, Ul's heart still raced uncontrollably. Three words surfaced in his mind!

"Black Magic!"

Only Black Magic had such a dark quality and such silent destructive power.

And to cause destruction on this scale, the Mage responsible had to be at least close to the level of the Ten Wizard Saints.

"What would a Black Mage of this caliber be doing here?"

Someone like one of the Ten Wizard Saints couldn't act carelessly. When Mages of that level fought, they could easily trigger changes in the very heavens and earth, causing massive destruction across the continent.

That was why nearly every guild on the continent followed an unspoken rule: someone like one of the Ten Wizard Saints couldn't unleash their full power unless absolutely necessary, unless...

"Could a war be about to break out?"

As a possibility occurred to him, Ul's eyes narrowed.

Dawn broke!

When the first rays of sunlight reached his face, Ul slowly opened his eyes.

He had been so exhausted the night before, and the combined toll on his body and mind so great, that he had unknowingly fallen asleep on the ground.

Fortunately, the Black Magic strike had frightened away all the beasts and small animals in the surrounding area. Otherwise, given how deeply Ul had slept, he might not even have woken up if some beast had swallowed him whole.

Once he came to,

Ul didn't bother with anything else. Limping on one leg, he hoisted the wild boar "monster's" corpse out of the pit and left.

He was worried. If his guess was right and a war really was about to break out, that would be terrible news.

After all,

war meant people would die—and in a world of magic like this, even more people would die.

When he'd watched the anime before, it had seemed as if hardly anyone died in the wars. But in reality, that was only because the deaths went unmentioned.

According to the records of Fairy Tail, the guild had experienced several large-scale wars since its founding, and every one of them had resulted in heavy casualties within the guild, without exception!

If even the relatively "peaceful" Fairy Tail suffered that fate, then there was no need to say what might happen to other guilds.

All Ul could do now was pray that if a war really did break out, Fairy Tail wouldn't be at its center!

After dragging the wild boar "monster's" corpse back, Ul collected his reward from the short, stout middle-aged man.

Then, amid the man's endless thanks, Ul left the farm.

Hmmmm!

Come to think of it, he still didn't know the middle-aged man's name!

Although the farm wasn't far from the guild, getting such a large reward meant Ul could afford to indulge himself a little... All right, the main reason was that his injured leg put a damper on any plans to save money.

Once he was aboard the carriage, Ul immediately summoned the system that had appeared in reality.

At the familiar "ding" sound, a line of text appeared on the system panel before him, seeming almost impatient.

[Host, rech...

"Recharge!"

The text had barely begun to appear when Ul cut the system off. "Recharge 94,500 J for me!"

His final words came out through gritted teeth, with a hint of revenge in his tone.

System: [...]

[Host, you're so stingy!]

"Yeah, right."

The last two times Ul had recharged, the system had taken advantage of his youthful ignorance and cheated him badly. This time, he'd taken back every Jewel it had swindled from him.

Though the system was thoroughly displeased with Ul's "stingy" behavior, he still had to draw for a prize...

Soon,

the system panel slowly transformed into the familiar black-hole interface.

As the black hole began to turn, Ul's attention was drawn to it despite himself...

The black hole spun faster and faster...

After an unknown amount of time,

suddenly,

the black hole's rotation came to an abrupt halt.

Then a beam of white light shot out of the black hole and landed directly on Ul...