Escape Comes First (Part One)

Bloodstained daggers were a common sight in some places, but one looked utterly out of place in a field. Lamore walked over slowly.

There was no smell of blood. No, the smell was simply very faint. The blood on the dagger had already dried.

Lamore picked up the dagger. Beneath the faint blood smell was a stronger, sickening odor: goblin.

"Dean, take this chance to recover your mana. We're close to our target, and we need you ready," Lamore told the other three, his expression grave.

He held out the dagger for them to see. Even Kana stopped teasing Dean at once, while Yanxi already had her shield in hand.

"The goblins aren't necessarily nearby. Dean's life-detection spell hasn't found them, at least. But they might come back the way they went." Lamore raised his long staff in front of himself.

Dean had already sunk into meditation.

Normally, it took Dean around five hours of meditation to recover his mana. On a particularly good day, he could shave a little time off that. Today, though, he had three hours at most to recover, then whatever time remained to find and eliminate the goblins.

Otherwise, once night fell, fighting the goblins would become several times more dangerous for the party.

Dean knew that too. But the harder he tried to do something well, the worse it went. His meditation was turning into a mess. He trusted his three companions to protect him, of course, but right now he desperately wanted to remain useful.

Instead, Dean felt like a burden. He had drained his mana searching for the goblins, but at this crucial moment, there was no denying that he had become a burden.

Mana. I need more mana, Dean thought frantically. Usually, he meditated by letting his imagination roam through the elements, drawing in the magical ones he needed from his surroundings. Now his mind held only one thought: I need mana.

Across the wheat field, the sun turned vast stretches of grain golden. What element was most abundant here and now?

Fire!

The sun's light!

In an instant, invisible fire elements gathered around Dean. Even Kana and Yanxi—an archer and a shield-bearing swordswoman who could not sense elements—noticed the air growing hotter, let alone Lamore.

Mana swirled around Dean. His body greedily drew in the surrounding fire elements, refined them into pure mana, and stored it within him.

Less than half an hour later, Dean shuddered. Strength filled his body, and he felt brimming with energy.

"What... just happened?" Kana asked blankly.

Yanxi and Lamore stared at Dean too. What was going on? How much time had passed? Had Dean already finished meditating?

"There was a little accident, but don't worry—it was a good one." Dean rubbed the back of his head. "I'll have to ask my mentor about the details when we get back to Blue Town. For now, the good news is that all my mana has recovered."

Recovering more than seventy points of mana in half an hour should have required a meditation technique. Dean was only a Magic Apprentice, limited to free-form meditation. How could he have recovered it all?

The three exchanged looks. It felt like a joke. Had Dean been hiding some special mana-restoring item? Of course, such items were generally so precious that there might not be more than a handful in the entire empire, let alone Blue Town.

Without a word, the three reached the same decision: no one could learn that Dean had a mana-restoring item. He had revealed it in front of them, so they would keep his secret buried in their hearts.

Dean looked from one to another, baffled. All three seemed to have grown resolute at once. What was going on? Had they misunderstood something?

"Dean, don't tell anyone how quickly your mana recovered. Don't let anyone else find out. This is a secret between the four of us—oh, and your new mentor." Kana turned to him, utterly serious.

"Oh? Okay, I understand!" Dean answered woodenly. What was going on? Why was Kana so serious?

Kana spent her days grinning and joking. She only acted like this when something important happened. Was it because his mana had recovered too quickly? It did seem a little fast.

After all, he had recovered eighty-two points of mana in just half an hour of meditation. Compared to what he could do before, it was an enormous improvement.

That was right: Dean's mana had reached eighty-two points. Perhaps because he had used it repeatedly all morning, or perhaps because of the Basic Troll Vortex Meditation Method, he seemed to be in a period of explosive mana growth.

Before, it had taken five to seven days for his maximum mana to rise by one point. Today it had risen by four, and the day was only half over.

Dean could feel a faint trace of the Basic Troll Vortex Meditation Method in the way his mana circulated. As that trace deepened, his chances of forming a Magic Vortex would rise dramatically. He might even form one in a single attempt with the help of the technique.

Dean had some idea what had happened to him. If he had guessed correctly, it was probably connected to the Demon Horn the demon Stavago had given him. Thanks to the Demon Horn, his affinity for the elements had soared.

That had greatly improved both his magic learning and his mana recovery. Of course, perhaps the effect seemed so dramatic only because he had been so weak! The Demon Horn's boost might not be that large, but to someone at Dean's level, it was an enormous help.

"The Goblins should be nearby. Let's find them!" Dean took the lead. Kana and the others came back to themselves and stopped pressing him about what had happened. They would rather protect his secret.

A faint ripple of mana spread out as Dean cast his Life Detection Magic again.

Half an hour and over four hundred meters later, Dean stopped abruptly and turned to the others with an odd look on his face.

"I found the Goblins. It's just... they seem to be taking a nap. They didn't even notice my spell." Dean could hardly believe it. The four of them had spent most of the day searching. He had worked so hard to track them down, while the other three had stayed sharply alert for an attack.

And their targets were fast asleep?

Kana's face darkened. She nearly burst out cursing, but held it in. Then she flashed an ugly grin, its bared teeth making her anger plain, and drew a finger lightly across her throat.

(End of chapter)