TN: Please read my translations only on my website nyx-translation.com since I never give my permission to any site to host my translations. And if you like my translations, please support this site on Ko-fi and Patreon to read several chapters ahead!
Sponsored chapter by Patreon. Enjoy~
TL: ALT
Chapter 144 – Day 36 of the Strategy Life
It was late at night when I woke up.
It seemed that Hel had been awake the whole time, watching over the bonfire.
“Are you awake?”
“Yeah. Did you get attacked?”
“No, everything’s fine.”
“We saw something strange.”
Ka-Ryu turned to me.
“Makyo absorbs magic while sleeping. It felt like you were absorbing the magic around you with every breath you took.”
I don’t usually use much magic, and since we sleep in separate rooms, they didn’t notice. Apparently, though, I looked strange while I was sleeping. I can’t do anything about what happens when I’m unconscious.
“Are you fully recovered?”
Hel asked me. I stretched and released magic into my body to check my condition. Everything was normal. There were no minor injuries.
“Nothing’s wrong. The only problem is that my shoes are broken. I’ll have to do something about that.”
I showed her my boots, which had holes in the soles. They were probably past their prime. My leather armor was also in tatters. I had overused it during my time in the demonic land.
Hel, who was a night owl, watched me with half-closed eyes. She had been awake all day, so she must have been sleepy, even though she was a night owl.
“You can go to sleep. We’ll get moving in the morning.”
“Good. It’s the usual Makyo.”
With that, Hel leaned against me and fell asleep.
“Was she really that worried?”
“She said she’d never seen you lose your magic before, and she was worried.”
It seemed that Ka-Ryu and Hel had been watching over me while I slept.
“Maybe so. I got carried away and did too much. Even as a margrave, I’m still a low-level adventurer. There’s not much I can do.”
I searched for something to put on the soles of my boots. If I ran barefoot in the desert during the day, I would get burned, and if I went into the forest, sharp stones would pierce my feet. The soles of my boots were important.
I wanted to look for some material, but it was nighttime, and I couldn’t see anything around me. Besides, if I moved, Hel would wake up.
“Calm down a little. The magic circle won’t follow us outside the dungeon.”
Ka-Ryu threw some dried plants into the crackling bonfire.
I often think while staring at the fire. Until now, I could use my magic to escape any situation, but in the dungeon, that magic could kill me. Negotiating with the military base dungeon will be necessary.
“Yeah, I’m really glad we have Ka-Ryu.”
“I’m the one who should be saying that. I’m glad that Yggdrasil—no, this demonic land—met Makyo in this era.”
“Is that so? I don’t think it’s such a big deal.”
With that, I started grilling and eating some dried meat. I was hungry because I had been sleeping.
As I thought about what to use for the soles of my shoes, I experimented with techniques to eliminate magic power.
Magic power flows through the body like blood. If the flow is stopped, it becomes blocked. If you stop the flow with your fist, the magic power becomes trapped in your fist and is released. Concentrating all the magic power in your body causes it to overflow out of your body.
If that happens, the magic circle will activate again, and we’ll end up doing the same thing as yesterday.
“If only there were an organ to store magic power. Can demon tribes do that?”
Demon tribes with magic stones in their bodies might know how to eliminate magic power. I should have brought Chel with me. No, golems are the same.
“How does Ka-Ryu change your body shape?”
“I just change the flow of magic power…”
“Tell me more about it.”
Ka-Ryu’s original form is an iron cube, which allows her to control the flow of magic freely. My flesh-and-blood body has a function that allows magic to flow freely, but golems don’t have that.
“So, can you take on other forms?”
“I think I’ll be able to eventually, but human form is the most familiar.”
“I’ll try changing the flow of magic to see if I can change my form…”
As a test, instead of stopping the magic flowing to my limbs, I tried to circulate it by changing its flow. The magic flowing to my limbs decreased, and I felt it start to circulate at high speed.
“Makyo! What are you doing!?”
Ka-Ryu looked at me, seeming a bit taken aback.
“No, I’m practicing eliminating magic. I feel warmth deep within my body. Is that dangerous?”
“The desert nights are cold, so it might be okay. But to someone like me, who can only sense magical power, it looks like your limbs have suddenly been cut off.”
“Yeah. That’s what I’m trying to do. I might be able to make it smaller.”
I cut off all the fine tubes of magical power flowing to my limbs, stopped the flow to my head, and circulated it around my chest. My heartbeat grew so strong that I could almost hear it. Before I knew it, my breathing had become rough.
It felt dangerous, so I released the magic from my mouth into the air.
Even though it was just magic, it shone brightly, and a pillar stretched into the night sky for an instant. It resembled a golem’s attack at the moment of death.
“Hey! Makyo, are you okay!?”
“I’m fine. I heard my heartbeat, so I thought it was dangerous and released it.”
“Released it… What about the magic you just recovered?”
“Just a little. It’s already recovered.”
“Well, that’s good…”
“It’s just practice, so it’s okay if it doesn’t go perfectly. But maybe you should stand a little farther away, Ka-Ryu.”
“Yeah…”
Ka-Ryu looks at me and steps back.
“Maybe breathing is important when using magic?”
“That’s true. Mages who chant long spells breathe deeply and slowly.”
“That’s it. I want to let the magic flow slowly. Should I avoid circulating it in my chest?”
After trying various things, such as shooting up pillars of light several times, night turned into morning.
As it grew lighter, I could see my surroundings and noticed that monsters were gathering.
Most of them were medium-sized sand coyotes and vultures who had seen the pillars of light and thought there was a battle going on. They were trying to get a piece of the action.
“Fuaaah…”
Hel woke up.
“Good morning.”
“Good morning. Makyo, were you doing something? My body feels strangely warm.”
“Sorry. I was practicing suppressing my magic. The monsters arrived, so shall we have breakfast?”
“Yes, that’s a good idea.”
After hearing Hel’s reply, I closed the distance between us. I cut off the monster’s head with a swift blow of my magic-imbued hand. Perhaps because I had been controlling my magic for so long, my movements were smooth.
Seeing this, the other monsters quickly fled.
For breakfast, we had grilled vulture. I was starting to crave wild herb soup.
“I think I’ll use the skin for shoe soles.”
“Should we draw a defensive magic circle?”
“Please. I want to get back today.”
“Oh, is that possible?”
After eating, we covered the place where we had been staying with sand and headed for the valley.
We picked up the magic tools and bags we had collected and used magic cubes to easily extract the magic stones from the slimes that had attacked us. The slimes were unable to respond to our movements, which were different from yesterday’s.
We dug up the dragon-folk explorers and had Hel question them; she could use spirit mediumship. Meanwhile, I searched for plant bark that could be used for shoe soles. I threaded leather straps through the bark and made sandals. I made several pairs in case they broke.
Apparently, the dragon-folk explorers were a group of royalty who explored the demonic land 400 years ago. Were they the first to explore the land before P.J. and the others?
“They said, ‘Don’t be intoxicated by your strength and think you are omnipotent. This is the demonic land. Never forget that.'”
“That’s right. I learned that lesson the hard way.”
“They also found traces of the civil war that happened 1,000 years ago after the Midgard Transfer.”
“So there was a civil war after all…”
Ka-Ryu said sadly.
“This withered plant is also said to be affected by it. The Magic Sealing Clan must have fled during the war.”
“I see.”
“They’re rusty, but they said to take the swords and armor. What should we do?”
“Let’s take them. They might be useful once we remove the rust.”
We searched the dragon-folk corpses and buried them carefully at the edge of the village. Hel recited a prayer and laid them to rest. I offered a silent prayer as well.
We packed our belongings and had Hel carry them. Ka-Ryu was also in the luggage.
I put Hel on my back and ran across the desert.
The desert sand was extremely hot during the day. Even with sandals on, my feet swelled and turned red as if burned by a low-temperature fire.
I applied a healing potion, discarded the torn sandals, and put on a new pair.
When we reached the forest, we cooled our feet in the river. The sandals had been torn by stones and monster thorns. After changing into five pairs of sandals, there were none left.
I covered my feet with leaves and vines from nearby trees, but they tore immediately. I focused all my magic on my feet and tried to run as hard as I could, but the rocks just cracked, and I couldn’t move forward.
I saw a golden bat flying by and tried to grab its feet to glide, but it was too heavy.
When I reached the vicinity of the giant magical beast’s footprints, the monsters seemed to sense me and stopped attacking. As long as I avoided plants such as razor grass and bendgrass, I could run barefoot.
After taking a break for lunch, the evening finally came, and I could see the crocodile ranch.
Sylvia was feeding the crocodiles, so I decided to go home with her.
“What happened to your shoes?”
“The dungeon took them. I found the dungeon, but I couldn’t get inside. I ran out of magic for the first time in a long time. After all, traps devised by humans are scary.”
“You probably don’t believe that Makyo ran out of magic. But it’s true.”
Hel, on my back, explained.
In front of the cave, Jennifer was still making wild herb soup, and Chel was baking bread.
“I’m home! I’m hungry!”
“Hey, welcome back. Why are you barefoot? Is that a trend?”
“The dungeon took them.”
“What? Did you fail?”
“Yeah, it was a big failure. We found lots of magical tools and the corpses of dragon-folk explorers, but… Please teach me how to erase magic power. We can’t enter the dungeon like this.”
“Sure.”
Chel said casually.
“For now, let’s sort and store the things you dug up.”
Jennifer unloaded the luggage and began sorting it. Meanwhile, Hel was telling Sylvia about the effects and possible uses of the magic tools.
“What about Lipa?”
“He’s dismantling an ice weasel right now.”
As they were talking, Lipa returned, covered in blood.
“Oh, welcome back! I’ll just go wash off the blood!”
He headed toward the swamp, so I followed him with some healing ointment and a cloth.
“Did the ice weasel come this far?”
I asked Lipa as I cleaned the dirt off his body from the journey. Ice weasels are supposed to live a little further north.
“No, I was practicing running and hunting it. I wanted to dismantle a monster that I had hunted myself. Plus, knowing which parts are soft will make it easier to deal with them next time I encounter one.”
“You’re still training hard.”
“Well, hehehe. Chel-san made the path, so I want to be ready when new people join us. It’s not enough to just be able to fly in the demonic land.”
Lipa might make a good instructor.
Compared to Chel, though…
“You just have to rotate it in your lower abdomen. See, like this?”
After dinner, she taught me how to control my magical power, but she couldn’t do it herself.
“I used to be able to do it. Why? Hah, hah, hah!”
She seemed to be having trouble breathing, so I patted her on the back.
“Breathing is important, isn’t it?”
“Yeah… but why?”
In the end, Chel was shocked that she couldn’t do something she used to be able to do. We ended up practicing how to dispel magic together.
If you like my translations, please support me on Ko-Fi and subscribe my Patreon to read several chapters ahead!