LXXIV

For the next few days, all my efforts are devoted to traveling. The terrain remains incredibly passable, and food and water are far more abundant than would be necessary to fuel my calorie consumption. The only interruption to my running is sleep, which I am sure to put off doing until I am too tired to continue. Though I would greatly like to practice, even swordsmanship is left to the side as I single-mindedly pursue my goal.

Of course, even caught in nearly perpetual motion, I am still sure to train my elemental manipulation abilities. With the exception of when I begin to feel hungry and get into a hunting mindset, I continuously burn through my magical energy, wanting to maximize my growth rate.

Even still, my growth is rather pathetic, my moderate elemental manipulation skill only rising two levels in the course of several days, growth that would have been considered pathetic by my pre-proficiency loss self.

It is only after I thoughtlessly try to attack a massive, squirrel-like creature with magic and my blade simultaneously, that I realize that my ability to use magic at all right now is slightly strange. The magic of the blade annuls my fire attack before continuing on to kill the monster in a single blow. This abruptly reminds me that this sword seemingly has a range of at least a few feet in which all magic is blocked, so how may I use magic when it hangs sheathed at my side, almost touching me?

My question is quickly answered when I look at my sheathe, and, with some surprise, realize that it is not my own. Actually, after a moment's thought, I remember that I hadn't even [been] wearing a sheath ever since being given that storage ring by Lector. However, I had spent so much time wearing it that it only seemed natural to awaken with one at my side.

No, this sheath is, as according to my best guess, Reinhart's. This seems rather strange to me; I had lost consciousness with Reinhart's sword in my hands, that I would wake up with it didn't seem all that strange, not any stranger than the inexplicable, drastic change in my location when I had awoken. However, for me to get this sheath, I would have had to unstrap it from Reinhart, or strap it to myself.

Such thinking immediately leads back to the pointless thoughts and questions regarding what happened after my wrath was released. Considering this detail, it seems rather unlikely that I was transported by some mere natural phenomenon, at least.

[Bah! There's really no point in thinking about things to which I have no answer, such is merely a waste of brainpower and an incredibly meaningless and frustrating activity. Best only to think on that which I know and that which may be deduced through my own knowledge, to consider that which is beyond me is only foolishness. And though I may be mad, wrathful, and perhaps chaotic, I hope not to be considered a fool. For imagine the shame, the embarrassment, if I were to have a skill titled 'fool?' Yes, such conditions are best avoided.]

Returning to the sheath, I can only conclude that it is magical as well, designed to suppress the blade's effects. At least, that seems to make sense to me; Reinhart could have hardly come into battles weakening any of his magic-based allies that were near him… right? I mean, Reinhart really did seem to despise magic casters, perhaps… no, Reinhart was far too professional and dedicated to the betterment of the military to be so short-sighted.

Onwards, and onwards still, the variety of trees changes regularly as I pass through their ranges. Occasional plains and hills appear, small yet vibrant, with flowers often taking advantage of the less wooded space to absorb more sunlight, leaving many idyllic images in my mind of hills topped with flowers.

Whether I hunger or not, I begin killing every animal by which I pass. The purpose of this is two-fold. Firstly, I desire them to not eat the flowers which so far surpass the dumb beasts in beauty and appeal, and, second and more importantly, I desire their xp.

Even common animals will give at least a measly amount of xp when killed, not to mention that any skills employed in their slaughter will receive a bit more xp than they otherwise would. That said, animals of drastically lower level than myself give pitiful sums of xp, and even animals much closer to my own level are still disappointing, especially when compared to the amount of xp I would have obtained should I still have my proficiencies. Of course, if that were the case, I would not be hunting so desperately for xp through this forest. Still, my need for xp at the moment is immense, even these pitiful sums shall eventually build up to what I can only hope to be a respectable sum.

At the thought of Lector benefitting from my proficiencies even now, experiencing unprecedented growth, I am filled with enough wrath to store some up in a newly-formed core in my heart. Unlike with the first amount, I have no intent of employing this wrath in a massive burst I can't control, I would much rather get use out of it, whatever wrath may actually be used for.

With some chagrin, I realize that I, despite learning many common straight magic spells in preparation for wizards' duels, don't even know the common applications of wrath. Even Lector had never bothered to teach me, though perhaps he was thinking even then of how to best hinder me in the future? I mean, if he sensed the wrath welling up within me during my interrogation, he surely must have felt it when Jorgenson died and surrounding other events during training.

[Well, I'll just have to test it out now, on whichever creatures I come across.]

The next victim of my plant protection activities (or leveling, whatever you may call it,) is a large horned animal somewhat reminiscent of a deer, if a deer had ears like a rabbit and a single sword-shaped horn jutting from its forehead. It stands a few meters tall, fiercely competing for the distinction of the largest beast I have thus far found.

Still, it hardly seems opposing to me. As I ready myself to try out the effects of wrath elemental manipulation, a skill so drastically increased by my wrath skill as to be unrecognizable to most people who would try to control this finicky emotion, I come to a distance of about ten yards from the creature.

As I am gathering up the wrath that I had only recently stored away in my core, a beam of light shoots from its horn at staggering speeds. I instinctively form a barrier of my wrath in front of me, making a hazy and translucent red surface. I only have time to resolve myself to getting hit by the attack as it inevitably pierces through the insubstantial wrath element, but, to my surprise, the beam is actually blocked by the wrath barrier.

"Eh?" I cannot help but say aloud, having witnessed the rather strange sight of an emotion blocking an attack of some sort. I mean, it [does] seem as though the power of love and friendship is enough to inexplicably counter the laws governing a world, seemingly whoever created it, but this is reality, not fiction! So how, then, could an emotion create a [physical] barrier before me, eh?

The deer seems rather confused as well, tilting its head sideways a bit in almost comical confusion. Or at least, I assume it's confusion; I don't speak deer. I am somewhat surprised when it continues to stand there, neither running nor attacking again, as if daring me to do anything.

Maintaining my barrier of wrath, I take some more from my core and shoot it at the deer before releasing it. The attack dissipates near the deer, and I can no longer sense the particles after they flow into the deer's head.

Still, I don't need to be able to sense them to tell that they have an effect. The deer immediately charges for me, all confusion, curiosity, and trepidation seemingly replaced with a maddening desire to see me dead.

The distance between us closing rapidly, I form an orb of the wrath element, directly slamming it into the deer. To my surprise, the attack does not break up; rather, flames of an extremely deep, dark red gather upon the animal's fur where my attack had landed.

The deer does not have time to change course, it continues running, straight through my barrier. [Oh? Not solid, then?] I think, calmly blasting myself away with a burst of wind, flames gathering along the whole of the beast's body as it barrels through my defense. I grab onto a branch of a tree above me, holding it tight.

I turn to find the deer glaring at me from the ground, ignoring the flames covering its body that have already revealed and blackened some of its bones. Despite the truly excruciating agony that it must be in, it only stands still, glaring up at me, as its life is quickly drained away, never once showing any concern for its state.

[Well, either the flames of wrath are painless and that deer was very unintelligent, or the small trace of wrath I place into its mind was enough to drive it so insanely towards killing me that burning to death was not a concern while in my presence. Or perhaps something else, I guess, but I lean towards the second option.

[Still, wrath is quite interesting. It blocked that first attack, which appeared to be a blast of the high-level light element, while doing nothing to impede the deer's motion. However, the barrier, alongside the directed attack, put some strange flames upon it. Interesting… Yes, I must further test this.

[I generally enjoy using magic, especially when its use is successful, but that was truly amazing to use. It felt as joyful as casting away a bad emotion, which, when combined with its interesting effects and immense ease of use, only makes me want to use it more.

[And easy to use, it was! I normally would consider myself most adept at wind usage, like most mages, I am more suited for one element than some of the others, however, the degree of ease of use for wrath was somewhat unreal. It honestly reminded me of controlling base level elements with greater elemental manipulation despite my skill only being at moderate level. When one takes into account that wrath is a higher level element and like most of the emotions is notoriously difficult to use, the ease with which I manipulated it is honestly quite amazing, the wrath skill certainly holds up to the power one may imagine it has from its name.

[Honestly, the greatest detriment is likely supply. The trace amounts to be found in the atmosphere are woefully insufficient for most spells; any wrath particles I use will have to come from me. And even with the wrath skill, which gives a greatly increased output, I still went through nearly a third of my reserves in just those three spells, an amount that will take likely more than a day to recover. Of course, nothing overly anger-inducing has occurred these last few days, I'm sure that the amount I possessed before my blackout would have lasted a [long] time. Though that does make me wonder, what sort of impact all that wrath had when I released it, I really hope that it wasn't wasted for nothing…]

By the time that the flames are through with the deer, nothing is left but a pile of blackened bones. That this method leaves nothing to eat and no monster materials to sell, a primary method of adventurers to make money, greatly decreases its value. Still, even if it is only useful in real life-and-death conflicts, it is a good ability to have.

Besides, I haven't been collecting anything off my previous victims' corpses anyways, this really doesn't change much. I can continue testing with my wrath attacks, I just need to leave an animal once in a while to be eaten.

I leave the bones behind, for they are useless to me. I continue on through the stretch of forest, until I emerge in a plain of a far more expansive size than any which I have yet encountered. Unlike those that seemed only a break from the forest, this one stretches forth as far as the eye can see.