Chapter 36

<??? pov>

I wound up coming under the hero's care.

Her face darkened at the sight of my burn scars. I was used to them; the way they spread across half my body was proof that I was alive.

The hero tried to use healing magic to do something about them. It didn't appear to work. Merging with Ifrit had stabilized my body to its current state, scars and all. She thought for a moment and then took a pretty mask out from a bag.

"You know," she said, "this mask helps boost your resistance to magic. You might be able to use it to keep Ifrit at bay inside you." She gave it a loving caress, then handed it to me.

The instant I put the Mask of Magic Resistance on, it immobilized Ifrit inside me and hid the burn scars across my body. And that wasn't all. With the will of Ifrit no longer dominating mine, all the oppressed emotions I felt over the years immediately welled out of me. The pangs of loneliness, the fear of becoming a magic-born. The deep shame of killing the first friend I ever made. The intense hatred I held for this unfair world. Putting on that mask helped me regain the emotions I had thought I had forsaken with my childhood.

The hero held me tight until I was able to calm down. I remember how scared I was after that for a while—so scared that I couldn't even talk to anyone except the hero. But she never complained. She treated me warmly. And little by little, she loosened the ropes around my heart, teaching me how to converse with others once more.

I accompanied the hero wherever she went, hiding myself in a full-body robe. I was always following her, scared she'd leave me behind. That was about when I was introduced to the Society of Adventurers. I was, as other people at the time put it, a silent girl, one who always covered her face in a mask. One who never ventured out past the hero's shadow. A useless piece of baggage.

One day, something happened to me at the society, which I had visited alongside the hero several times. A man, concerned after seeing how I joined her on all of her monster-slaying work, spoke up. "Is that child in the mask a girl?" he asked. "Don't you think she should stay here this time? This'll be a dangerous one."

All I could do was shiver at the idea. At the time, the hero was the only person on the planet I could muster the courage to trust. The hero meant everything to me, and I couldn't bear the thought of being separated from her. I was sure the grown-ups would kill me if they found out I was a magic-born. I had that much common sense, at least.

The hero gave me a thin smile. "It'll be all right," she said in a reassuring tone. "Everyone here's really nice, all right? You're a strong girl, too. It'll be fine."

I think that's what made me do it. I wanted to live up to the hero's expectations, and I knew this couldn't go on forever. Something about the way she spoke always seemed brimming with confidence, too. It made me believe whatever she said was true.

It was with a strange sense of calm, then, that I separated from her on that day.

In the waiting room next to the society's front desk, I began studying.

That was around when I learned that I was in the kingdom of Blumund. There were several other nations nearby, I found out, around the Forest of Jura. And that wasn't all. When they weren't handling society issues, the workers there taught me arithmetic, as well as several different writing systems.

I listened intently to the passing adventurers as they spoke about the neighboring nations. My knowledge of these other states and the balance of power between them was faint at first, but I still gained a working understanding. To someone like me, who had hardly seen the inside of a school, the society became my place of learning.

I studied magic, as well. The society played home to sorcerers, shamans, magicians, and enchanters, as well as many others who were versed in magic ways. I was lucky enough to build friendships with them, and they, in turn, taught me about the mysteries of the world.

There was much about what they said that seemed unfathomable me. But what I needed most of all was to learn how to deal with elemental spirits. Ifrit, a high-level elemental, was merged with me. Apparently, this allowed me to harness his abilities without the formality of forging a pact with him. But remember—I still had my Mask of Magic Resistance on.

Carefully, I attempted to find an inroad to Ifrit. Soon I discovered ways to manipulate his skills without exacting a burden upon my own body.

Somewhere along the line, I came to be known as the "Conqueror of Flames." I was an elementalist, gifted in the arts of fire and explosive magic, and I had grown to the point that no one worried about me joining the hero on adventures. In fact, she had fully accepted me now—not as a traveling companion, but as a full-fledged partner.

It made me so happy. I had worked hard for so long to help her out, to have the woman who'd saved my life recognize me for who I was. All the effort had paid off. Life was good.

Several years later, though, the hero went off on a journey. Without me.

I didn't know why. The hero must have had her motivations, much like I had mine. I intended to set off myself someday, so I had no right to complain about it.

Did she want to slay the demon lord I served? No, the truth was...

She had saved me, then left me. I needed to find out why, perhaps, and I wanted her to accept me once more. I wanted to show that I was alive, that I was human. It was exactly that kind of selfish hope that proved I had no right to stop her in her tracks.

I was already grown up, not some child naive in the ways of the world. The droplets slipping down from behind the mask must have been my imagination. I made myself believe it was true as I watched her leave.

'Because I know I'll see you again...'

The thought made me want to grow stronger than ever before.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

I continued traveling after she left me, across many countries. I wanted to help people in their times of need, as she did.

Whether it was Ifrit's influence on me or not, my body had stopped growing at the age of sixteen or seventeen. One of the demon lord's curses, I thought, but it nonetheless served me well on the road.

A large number of adventurers were in the business of handling other people's dirty work—searching for rare plants in the forest, slaying monsters and harvesting them for useful materials, and so on. It was a line of work that stereotypically involved huge, lumbering frames and equally bulging muscles. Sheer strength bred respect and trust from others, since it meant one could hold one's own in a job that flirted with the line between life and death.

The Society of Adventurers attracted the kind of people who lived free lives and were never tied down by any one nation. If they were injured fighting a monster, they could expect no assistance from one government or another. Nations already had their armies of knights to protect them. They didn't need the aid of some dirty adventurer.

Sometimes a local lord would ask for their help rooting a monster out from their lands or villages, but there was no formal system in place for encouraging cooperation between nations and adventurers. It meant that nations could expand only into the range their armies could physically defend—small pockets of civilization in an otherwise wild land.

There would be times when towns fell under attack from powerful monsters. Three-headed snakes, winged lions, and such. Whenever these so-called calamities appeared near a settlement, they would cause as much consternation as a full-scale war.

Of course, one might expect governments to cooperate and create support systems that extended beyond national borders. And such agreements did exist, but such support always came after things were stable. In the meantime, it was seen as a country's own responsibility to defeat the monster in question.

This was why those with full rights as city-dwellers were granted special treatment, while the others had to make do with life in neighborhoods built in the hazardous areas around the walls. Such people eventually acclimated to a life of being pillaged and exploited. The stronger among them saw an adventurer's career as a way to protect themselves.

The wealth gap quickly grew between rich and poor. It was a dog-eat-dog world, one where the weak had no recourse. I wanted to protect them. Just like the hero, who'd offered me the salvation I'd so deeply hoped for. If I abandoned them, I would be no different from my demon lord.

So I worked as hard as I could to be an ally to the weak. And somewhere along the line, people started relying on me. Calling me a hero.