Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 5 Reddish-brown, parched earth; a lonely tree or two clawing through the dirt; and clouds of dust staining the distant horizon a hazy yellow.
Because of the vast wasteland stretching beneath Hisaril Hill, no large towns or cities had ever taken root nearby. The land was too barren to sustain a large population, and it produced no local specialties that could be traded for outside supplies.
Consequently, Turan trekked across the wilderness for miles without encountering a single soul.
The scenery was a fresh change from the familiar sights of the hill, but the novelty wore off quickly. After a full day of walking, he was thoroughly bored. He moved at a leisurely pace—half to enjoy his first journey and half to conserve mana in case of trouble—yet even his "slow" pace was equivalent to a normal person's sprint.
A typical traveler would have taken three days to reach this point. Even so, the lack of landmarks suggested he had bypassed several small villages without even noticing them.
As long as he didn't have to worry about food or water, he would eventually arrive somewhere if he kept walking, but still...
"Come."
He reached a hand toward the sky and issued the command. A bird flying in the distance veered off course, glided down, and perched on his hand. Commanding animals was a ritual he had practiced without fail every day since awakening his magic; he could do it as easily as breathing.
With his other hand, Turan snapped the bird's neck. He pulled a knife from his bag, plucked the feathers, and skinned it with practiced efficiency. Finally, he made an incision in the neck and focused his mind. Blood began to pour out.
Let's see...
A dark, viscous clump of gore separated from the flowing blood, leaving behind clear water that floated upward. It was a spell to extract drinkable water from blood—one of the techniques he had learned from Keorn. It was hundreds of times more efficient than manifesting water out of thin air.
After filling his leather canteen, he ate the roasted bird meat with some of the goat cheese he had brought along. His meal was complete.
How much longer did he walk after eating?
Just as the sun reached its zenith, he spotted figures descending a low hill ahead. There were six in total. They were all men, dressed in the dust-covered cloaks typical of travelers, with short swords strapped to their waists for self-defense. They were pulling a large wagon covered in cloth, making them look like itinerant peddlers who traveled from village to village.
Though he had never met them personally, he had heard stories of such people occasionally visiting the villages at the foot of the hill.
When Turan stepped into their path, a middle-aged man who appeared to be the leader asked with a look of deep suspicion, "Who are you to block our way?"
"I am a lone traveler. Could you tell me where the nearest city is?"
At his polite question, the men exchanged glances, tilting their heads. In that moment, Turan felt several of them eyeing him with sharp intensity. It wasn't just caution; it was a gaze laced with predatory greed.
The leader spoke again, his tone far more insolent than before. "Follow the path we just came from and you'll find a city called Murei. Just follow the wheel ruts. Unless you're an idiot, you won't miss it."
Turan frowned slightly at the unpleasant tone but nodded. He didn't feel like arguing over their attitude. He was the one who had stopped them to ask a question, and they had given him the information he needed.
"Thank you."
He bowed his head in thanks and prepared to follow the wheel ruts as instructed, but one of the merchants stepped out to block him. A mean smirk was plastered across the man's face.
"Hold on. One good turn deserves another. You think you can just take our information and run?"
"Open that bag first. It looks like you've got quite a haul in there."
Before he knew it, the merchants had surrounded him. A few had even drawn their swords, looking ready to take his head the moment he resisted.
"Bandits?"
"Let's call it a side hustle. Just leave the bag and get lost. We'll let you keep your clothes—we don't particularly enjoy taking lives."
Turan's heightened sense of smell sometimes allowed him to catch the scent of emotions. It wasn't a constant ability, and it only worked on those nearby during moments of intense feeling. Right now, the bandits surrounding him reeked of the scent a predator gives off just before tearing into its prey.
Their promise to let him go was a lie. They likely just wanted him to strip so they wouldn't get his belongings covered in blood.
"Fine. I might as well use you for practice."
"What?"
Turan swept his open palm horizontally, imagining the small breeze he created being amplified hundreds of times. A gale, fueled by his mana, surged forward and swept all six bandits off their feet.
"Aaaagh!"
It was certainly much more mana-efficient to amplify a physical gust than to conjure wind from nothing. This was another trick he had learned from Keorn, similar to extracting water from blood.
Looking at the scattered bandits, one didn't get up—his neck had likely snapped during the fall. Another was limping, his leg clearly broken, before collapsing back onto the ground.
Turan turned toward the four bandits who were stumbling to their feet, covered in dirt, and prepared his second spell.
He unfastened the water pouch at his waist. The water slithering out of the opening emitted a faint heat before transforming into a sharp ice spike. With a flick of Turan's hand, it whistled through the air and buried itself in a bandit's abdomen.
He recalled Keorn saying this spell was particularly useful when there was plenty of water around.
"Gwaaaargh!"
"We were wrong! Please, have mercy!"
While the man with the broken leg threw away his sword and begged for his life, Turan felt dissatisfied with the spell he had just used. Its speed, power, and accuracy were all laughably inferior to his skill with a sling. Then again, he had spent his entire life mastering the sling, so it was only natural there would be a difference.
As a test, he conjured a second ice spike, spun it around a few times, and fired. It flew several times faster than the first, piercing the throat of a bandit who was trying to flee.
"Die!"
At that moment, two bandits who had been creeping closer lunged at Turan with a shout. Turan considered kicking them but changed his mind and stomped his foot hard against the ground.
Instantly, several large earthen spikes erupted from the reddish-brown wasteland, impaling the charging men in multiple places. It was a technique that could only be used on soil, reshaping the earth itself into a weapon.
"Kegh..."
They were weak humans who would have died if he had simply commanded them to, but this brief taste of actual combat gave him a sense of how he should fight in the future. He was beginning to understand which of the techniques he had learned over the past few days were practical and which suited his aptitude.
The man stabbed in the stomach was going to die soon anyway, so Turan walked slowly toward the last survivor—the one with the broken leg.
Keorn had taught him never to show mercy to the likes of roadside bandits. He said that if you spared even one out of pity, that man would eventually repay you by harming ten innocent people. Turan intended to follow that teaching to the letter.
"Ah... ah..."
The man was trembling so hard he had wet himself. Turan reached out his hand, but instead of finishing him immediately, he voiced a question that had just occurred to him.
"Let me ask you one thing."
"Y-yes! Please, Great Mage! I'll answer anything!"
Thinking there was a chance for salvation, the bandit bowed his head, ignoring the agony in his broken leg.
"Why did you attack me so recklessly? If someone is traveling alone, don't you think they might be a mage, like I am?"
If Turan had been a bandit, he would never have attacked someone like himself. Even setting aside the basic moral code of not harming those who don't harm you, shouldn't it be obvious that someone traveling alone in this wasteland has a trick up their sleeve? It wasn't as if they had some secret weapon to rely on, either.
The bandit hesitated for a moment before answering. "B-because you bowed your head..."
"What?"
"The boss spoke to you rudely, but you bowed and greeted him anyway. We figured you had to be an ordinary person."
So, the rude tone had been a test. Because Turan hadn't wanted to bother with an argument and had simply greeted them and moved on, they judged him to be weak and decided to satisfy their greed.
"Thank you. I've learned something valuable thanks to you."
Showing weakness in a deserted place only provokes the other party. As a reward for the lesson, Turan placed a finger on the last survivor's forehead and commanded him to die. At the very least, he died without pain.
*
The wagon the bandits had been pulling was filled with various daily necessities that would be hard to find in the countryside. Judging by the fact that they didn't look heavily used, it didn't seem like they had been stolen. His initial guess that they were actually merchants hadn't been entirely wrong.
It would be a hassle to take everything, so Turan only took the money from their pockets, abandoned the wagon, and continued following the wheel ruts.
As he headed toward the city, he noticed the reddish-brown earth gradually giving way to weeds and an increasing number of trees. Now that his destination was clear, he ran lightly at several times his previous speed, arriving at the city of Murei just as the sun began to set.
"Wow..."
Turan let out an exclamation of awe at the sight of the city sprawling beneath the low hill. Under the setting sun, at least a hundred people—more than he could count at a glance—were walking the streets or working.
The village at the foot of Hisaril Hill only had about thirty or forty residents in total. This was the first time in his life he had seen so many people gathered in one place.
Entering the city, Turan walked slowly through the crowds, taking in the sights of a world he had never seen before. The buildings, made of dark brown brick, were all similar in shape and stood two or three stories high. Occasionally, stalls were set up in front of buildings, selling various goods.
The people passing by seemed to have little interest in one another; they didn't speak or greet each other even when they crossed paths. Turan observed them for a while before picking out a fruit merchant who looked the least busy.
"Excuse me."
"Hmm? A customer?"
"No, I was wondering if you could tell me where an 'inn' is—"
Keorn had told him about places where travelers could stay. He said almost every city had them. However, the fruit merchant didn't even listen to the rest of Turan's sentence; he snorted and shook his head.
"If you aren't buying fruit, get lost!"
Turan's expression hardened at the cold reception. Was he supposed to get angry here to avoid being looked down upon? But then again, perhaps it was an unwritten rule in the city that one had to buy fruit to ask a question.
After a moment of thought, Turan nodded and pulled out his pouch. "Fine. How much for this?"
"Apples are 2 Dufit each. You look like an outsider; you can pay with other coins of similar size."
When he asked what a Dufit was, it seemed to be the copper coin used in this city. Turan had found several of them among the money he took from the bandits, so he handed them over and bought the fruit. He had never seen an apple before, but these looked withered and smelled unpleasant—hardly fresh.
"Go straight down this road, take a left, and you'll see a house with a blue roof and a picture of a beer mug. That's the inn."
Having finally learned the location of the inn, Turan took a bite of the apple as he walked, only to spit it out and toss the rest into the street. It was horribly sour and astringent, so bad he suspected it might be poisonous.
Fortunately, the merchant hadn't lied about the location—if he had, Turan planned to go back and give him a stinging taste of magic. He soon spotted the inn exactly where the man had said it would be.
As he stepped inside, a young waitress approached him.
"Oh my, what a handsome guy! Are you a guest?"
"Mm."
Turan gave a silent nod of agreement. He was inwardly flustered by the woman's clothing, which was so loose it was practically transparent. He had heard that in places like this, there were women who served guests and sometimes acted as prostitutes—but hearing about it and seeing it were two very different things.
"How much for a day?"
"16 Dufit. You can pay with 1 Room if you prefer. If you have other currency, you'll have to ask the boss."
A "Room," it turned out, was a silver coin. When he handed over the money, the waitress gave a coy smile and leaned her body suggestively against Turan's shoulder.
"The room will be awfully cold if you sleep alone. Want me to warm it up for you?"
"No, thank you."
Keorn had repeatedly warned him never to get involved with prostitutes, including tavern waitresses. He said most women in that line of work carried diseases; while a strong knight or noble might have enough resistance to avoid getting sick themselves, they would end up passing it on to other women later.
"More importantly, there's something I'd like to ask."
What Turan wanted to know was whether there were any magical beasts with bounties on them near the city. By killing magical beasts, he could absorb their mana to grow stronger and earn some money as a bonus.
But instead of answering, the waitress pointed to a large barrel of ale sitting nearby.
The second lesson he learned after coming down from the hill was that in the city, no question was free.
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