Low-key and Exploration

This place lacked everything but roads. He twisted and turned until even he was getting disoriented, and only then did he finally relax.

But he merely stopped sprinting at full speed; he had no intention of stopping altogether. His two merciless little legs swung at a steady pace, as if they were about to fling his feet right off. He had always thought kobolds' timid nature was a bad thing, holding them back and making it hard for them to grow strong. But after what had just happened, he felt there was nothing wrong with it. It was completely understandable.

A kobold's cowardice could save its life. In most situations, they would not be scared stiff or do something as stupid as standing rooted to the spot. Once fear took hold, they scattered in all directions, instinct driving them to run wildly as far away as possible.

Just as he was doing now.

Ever since getting his little storage pouch, running away had become so much more convenient, he sighed inwardly.

For a kobold, this place was full of huge houses suitable for settling down. Open on all sides meant it was easy to escape.

He arrived at a spacious spot that looked pleasing enough, but unfortunately, it was the intersection of three passages. At best, it could only be called open on three sides.

He steadied himself.

The little bugman's expression when he left had been very wrong.

The only problem now was the lack of food, but that did not matter. He could go hungry for now. After all, enduring hunger was another of a kobold's specialties, one that he had not had the chance to put to use in a long time. He would quietly wait until tomorrow before feeling his way out.

"My emergency rations, are you all right?"

Holding the cultivation pouch, he opened its mouth, brought it close to his face, and spoke softly.

The large bug egg actually wobbled, as though it were trembling.

Could this thing really understand speech?

When he had seen the little bugman communicating with it, he had used the common language of the caverns, so he used that language this time as well to tease the egg. Before, he had assumed the two brothers communicated through some method like pheromones.

After teasing it for a while, he calmed down as well.

He sat down against the cave wall, took out the spellbook for Freezing Ray, and resumed reading.

Learning a spell from scratch did not begin with studying the spell model as he had imagined. He had learned before that spell models were a kind of special rune—capable of being incredibly simple or incredibly complex—and a different sort of artificial creation.

Without using an inheritance scroll and lacking that assisting force, simply put, if one wanted to construct an excellent spell model using one's own strength, one first had to understand a heap of smaller, more fragmented things. If even one point was not grasped thoroughly enough, it would be difficult to build even the simplest spell model.

Those little things could be understood as even smaller runes. They were somewhat like strange elements revealed through the collision between the principles of all things in the world and spiritual power that transcended the mundane; they could also be called the world's expression. If the world were viewed as a person who could speak, a person could say one sentence at a time, while the world could be speaking a hundred or ten thousand sentences at once. It was not a very accurate analogy, but these little things—even the great runes in meditation methods—were the words and sentences spoken by the world that one had captured, seen, and understood, perhaps even merely its punctuation marks.

These little things looked cute, but in truth they were so mischievous they wore one out. Even simply observing them came at the cost of continuously draining spiritual power.

At first glance, they all looked identical, yet they were actually entirely different. Even if one split into two and was put back together, it would no longer be the same. They merged and repelled each other, and when several came together, they changed in different ways again. If one understood even the slightest part insufficiently, one would be unable to keep going when constructing the spell model. And this was already the good part, because those before him had already walked the path. The book had provided the scope, matching every little troublemaker required by this spell one by one—not one too many, not one too few, complete and reliable.

Perhaps in the eyes of a grand wizard, this sort of book was a foolproof tutorial.

He scratched his head as he read, understanding and mastering things bit by bit. He turned the pages more and more slowly; sometimes an entire day passed without him turning a single page. Fortunately, becoming a wizard apprentice had transformed his spiritual power and made his brain just a tiny bit more useful than before.

He suddenly thought that, from another angle, wasn't he essentially conversing with the world?

It was just that the world was an even more outrageous chatterbox than Old Gold Tooth, having spoken without pause since the moment it was born. And what he had spent days breaking down and studying might have been only half a word uttered by the world—or perhaps the gap was even greater, so great it was impossible to describe. With such an absurd imbalance, calling it a conversation was already rather forced. When they studied and explored these runes, it was more like trying to touch the world's echo.

He raised his head toward the crystal lamp standing in the corner. Within its hourglass-shaped frame, the diamond-shaped crystal had switched from its glowing end to complete another cycle.

In the blink of an eye, he had already gone hungry for three days. He repeatedly reminded himself that this was not due to excessive caution. Rather, the selfless state he had entered while teaching himself a spell for the first time, combined with a kobold's talent for enduring hunger, had defeated starvation.

He finally decided to get moving.

After several days of self-study, he had accumulated quite a few gifts for Half-Man.

Perhaps he could also consider bringing Half-Man a bug, though he was not sure whether the fellow would take one bite and have it leak out somewhere.

He did not follow the route he remembered.

He had hidden for so many days; he could not let down his guard at the very end.

After spending half a day feeling his way around, he successfully arrived at the long-missed ravine hunting ground.

The first thing he saw was a beautiful, dark-skinned pointed ear.

It should be the dark elf Old Gold Tooth had mentioned.

At least, by human standards, she was exceedingly beautiful. Kobolds and lizardmen might have different opinions.

After coming out, he kept a low profile and did not cast Stinking Skin Spell. He looked like an ordinary little kobold.

At that moment, he performed an action fitting the image and temperament of an ordinary kobold.

He turned and ran.

This dark elf was about as tall as a human. Standing there casually, her waist and back straight, she carried a sharp, towering air. Upon noticing Ruger's footsteps, she did not look over immediately. She only shot him a glance after he began to flee.

That was exactly the effect Ruger wanted.

He was just an ordinary kobold. At the very least, it was best if that was everyone's first impression of him.

The fact that this dark elf could travel far from her homeland and wander alone through the territory of other underground races was enough to show that she was formidable.

There were plenty of places to catch bugs now, so he would just yield that place to her.

When he saw that the elf had not pursued him after a long while, he began slowing down and lightening his steps. Thinking carefully, that pointed-eared fellow seemed to have been observing the entire ravine rather than coming here to catch bugs to eat.

Ruger decided not to concern himself with that. He would finish catching bugs, hurry back, and master the spell.

He had already decided that he would no longer wait until becoming a second-level wizard apprentice. Once he learned this spell, he would set out and first loot the two relatively nearby sites where wizards had fallen. Thanks to the wizard inheritance map sent by the Little Crybaby Bug.

His last parting from the little bugman might well have been their final meeting. If there truly was any danger, it would certainly revolve around the little bugman. He himself was merely an insignificant scrap passing by.