Setting out

The next morning, Allen left without a sound, at an hour when hardly anyone would notice. He traveled alone, moving slowly and keeping watch on his surroundings all the way. He had actually wanted to buy a horse so he could arrive in a month. Unfortunately, horses were not bred here, and as strategic resources, they were controlled by the state. Even nobles could not get hold of them, let alone a commoner like him. Even with money, he could not buy one. In any case, in this age that resembled the Middle Ages, he could only travel on foot.

Half a month soon passed, yet he had not covered even a fifth of the journey. It was not that he walked slowly, but that the roads were nothing like the smooth roads of his previous life. Many roads marked on the map turned out to be nothing of the sort when he arrived. Most were uneven dirt tracks only wide enough for a few people to walk along, while some did not exist at all despite appearing on the map.

With no other choice, he could only follow the map, occasionally asking passersby for directions and checking its inaccuracies from time to time. Traveling quickly under those circumstances was impossible.

The map left Allen utterly frazzled, and many times he wanted to tear it up. But he had no choice except to keep testing it and correcting its errors. Even then, he had covered only this short distance, and that was without encountering any monsters or bandits along the way.

He finally understood why so many people chose to travel with caravans. Those nobles must have had more detailed, more accurate maps.

That day, he saw that the sun was about to set. Pale orange light filtered through the gaps between the trees, and the fragrance of roadside wildflowers filled the air. Occasionally, he could even hear birds calling in the trees. It was a truly pleasant scene, but Allen had no time to enjoy it. He had to find a safe clearing before sunset. All sorts of strange things would emerge if he spent the night in the forest, and this particular forest was not safe.

A few days earlier, he had been unable to find a good place to spend the night and had been forced to sleep among the trees. He still remembered how some antlike insects had emerged from the woods that night and flown straight at him, frightening him into immediately climbing a tree. Like a swarm of locusts, those antlike creatures had devoured every slice of meat he had just roasted, along with the raw meat he had not yet cooked.

However, they did not seem interested in living creatures, or Allen would certainly have died. After that, he no longer dared to spend the night in the forest so carelessly.

Allen was quite lucky that day. After walking only a short while, he found a cave. There was nothing inside except some charred wood and rubbish. It looked as though someone had been there before, and scraps of food still remained on the ground. After examining it carefully, he determined that they had probably been there a few months earlier. There had not been many of them, no more than ten at most; any more would have made the cave rather cramped. It was certainly enough for Allen alone, though. First, he cleared all the rubbish out of the cave, then went outside to gather dead branches and fallen leaves for firewood.

It was nearly dark when he returned to the cave. He first lit a campfire and set up a stove as large as an earthenware pot. These days, he had eaten nothing but dry rations or roasted meat, to the point that he was nearly suffering from excess internal heat. Since he had been lucky enough to find a safe cave that day, he decided to go to the trouble of cooking a boiled meal. Time passed quickly, and it was soon completely dark. Allen pulled his clothes tighter around himself. The forest was usually very cold at night. Fortunately, he had a cave, or he would surely have been too cold to sleep.

Allen stirred the pot with a large spoon and tasted it. It was not particularly good, but it was at least much better than his dry rations. He finished the meal while it was hot. After dinner, he sat in the cave and took out the energy-filled stone he had found in the wild wolf's stomach before setting out on his adventure, along with the staff he had bought earlier. He had been studying them for a long time, trying to charge the staff with the stone's energy. He had already thoroughly familiarized himself with the Magic Runes inside the staff, but his attempts to charge it always failed. Each time he was on the verge of success, the energy from the stone would inexplicably leak away.

Through his experiments over the past few days, he had more or less figured out why this happened. Charging it mainly involved three steps. The first was naturally to draw the energy out of the stone without letting it leak away in the process. To reduce the loss during extraction, he always held the stone and staff together.

The second was to guide the energy through a complete circuit inside the staff. This was extremely difficult to control, and it had taken him a full month to barely manage it. Of course, this was mainly because he had no technique whatsoever and relied entirely on his powerful Mental Power. Even so, it had taken him a great deal of time.

The third was to seal the energy inside the staff so that it would not leak out. This was the step at which he failed. Now, however, he knew the reason.

First, he immersed his mind in the staff. He had to locate the storage Magic Circle inside it first; this was crucial. Only after finding the storage Magic Circle could he channel energy into it and activate it, allowing the energy to be sealed inside the staff.

The storage Magic Circle was not difficult to find. It lay where the Magic Runes inside the staff were most complex. That was because the most difficult parts of making a staff like this were the storage Magic Circle and the inscription of the Magic Runes. First, one needed Mental Power powerful enough to qualify to inscribe Magic Runes and Magic Circles. Second, one needed sufficient magic to support charging the Magic Circle. Finally, the inscriptions had to be made on the chosen material accordingly. During inscription, the material could not be allowed to interfere with the functioning of the Magic Runes and Magic Circle, nor could the Magic Runes and Magic Circle be so powerful that they damaged the material. In short, it was not easy.

Charging it, however, was relatively simple. Allen spent a long time probing the Magic Circle with tiny amounts of energy to see exactly how it stored energy. After several attempts without any response, he began to suspect that something was wrong with the Magic Circle. Just as he decided to try one last time, it responded. He had "lit up" part of the Magic Circle, which actually meant filling it with energy. This discovery delighted Allen. After working at it for so long, he finally had a result.

It turned out that the Magic Circle had to be charged in a particular sequence, and it could only be used once the entire Magic Circle had been imbued with energy. The staff's power was also closely related to the strength of the charger's magic, though it could not exceed the staff's own limits.

Allen spent another hour finally working out the charging sequence, but charging could not be completed immediately. The time required depended on the complexity of the storage Magic Circle and the charger's ability to control energy. In Allen's case, it would take at least three hours, without stopping midway. This was because he was using the stone's energy as a substitute and had no magic of his own. His control could not compare with that of mages, either. On top of that, he had no technique whatsoever, and this was his first time.

Allen restrained his urge to charge it immediately. He was out in the wilderness, and if anything happened during the process, he would have no way to react. He checked the map. The closest city was Morien City, Viscount Morien's territory, and there were bound to be villages nearby. He planned to spend a night resting in a village and charge the staff while he was there.

The next day, Allen hurried on his way without stopping for breakfast. Consulting both the map and the signposts, he finally reached a village toward evening. The village looked extremely dilapidated, with leaning, collapsed houses everywhere he looked. Allen found it strange. It was not as though he had never rested in a village before, but however poor those villages were, none had been as disorderly as this.

Just as Allen was about to enter and ask around, he noticed blood on the ground. He crouched down and examined it carefully. It had not yet clotted and was still warm. Most importantly, it was human blood. Allen grew alert and began studying the village closely, discovering things he had missed before. It was too quiet. Normally, even in the middle of the night, there would be some sounds from livestock, but this village was quiet-silent, even.

He examined the ground more closely. Near the blood, he could clearly make out signs of a struggle, and the person had resisted fiercely. Looking at the signs of disorder around him, he immediately guessed that the village had probably been invaded. The villagers had put up fierce resistance, but had clearly failed.

He did not know whether anyone in the village was still alive. Allen guessed that they probably all were. If the invaders had wanted to kill the villagers, they would have done so right here. There should then have been a great deal of blood, but in fact there was not much. The invaders must have taken all the villagers captive, though he did not know what they intended to do.

With that thought, Allen no longer ventured into the village rashly. He first surveyed its outskirts and soon spotted two people in shabby leather armor standing on high ground, clearly watching the surrounding area. Fortunately, he had not rushed into the village, or those people would certainly have spotted him.

Allen slowly concealed himself, then quietly circled around the two people and slipped into the village. Once inside, he quickly hid in a dilapidated house. Its interior was extremely untidy and showed obvious signs of having been rummaged through, as though the invaders had searched it for valuables.

Allen ignored the junk scattered across the floor and went straight to a clean spot to sit down. He did not dare investigate how many enemies were in the village just yet; that would expose him far too easily. He would have to wait until midnight. Before then, he could take the opportunity to charge the staff. With it, he would be able to fight his way out even if he was discovered.