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TL: ALT
Chapter 146 – Day 38 of the Strategy Life
I practice suppressing my magical powers while taking a morning bath.
Like the calm surface of a swamp, I slowly allow my powers to flow throughout my body.
When I focus my energy below my navel and rotate it, the surrounding water also begins to rotate. But at that moment, I lost my concentration, and my magical powers spread out, causing the water to splash up.
“I don’t get it!”
How does everyone else use their magic?
I catch a nearby Haze Turtle, release my magic, and peek inside its body. Blood vessels run through its body, centered around the heart. Magic flows along these vessels, but unlike blood, it is concentrated toward the shell.
Maybe the Haze Turtle’s shell is hard because of magic.
When I try to stop the magic from flowing toward the shell, the turtle panics. It tucks its limbs and neck into its shell and rolls away into the swamp.
“Maybe I’ve figured out a new way to defeat monsters…”
“What are you saying, naked?”
Jennifer, who had been watching from the shade, teased me.
“Oh, I’m sorry…”
“The bath doesn’t have enough hot water, so please add some.”
I tried to leave, embarrassed, but she called out to me.
“Yes…”
Humans are weak when naked.
Back in the cave, I examined Lipa while eating breakfast.
Except for the feathers growing here and there, he wasn’t much different from me. His magic flow was normal, too.
“What are you two doing?”
Chel asked while eating a sandwich.
“We’re checking each other’s magic flow.”
“Why don’t you just spar?”
Come to think of it, when Chel first taught me magic, I realized that she demonstrated the flow of magic by putting our hands together.
“That’s right. I injected some magic into Ka-Ryu, and now I can control the magic of anyone I touch, right?”
“Eh?”
“No, when I stopped the magic from heading toward the turtle’s shell earlier, it escaped.”
“Oh, I see…”
Chel suddenly became serious and looked at Hel.
“Injecting magic is something even ordinary people can do, but being able to manipulate someone else’s magic is rare.”
Hel began to explain.
“However, Makyo interferes with various powers, so I thought you would notice sooner or later.”
“You should practice more. You might accidentally kill someone.”
“Eh!?”
Lipa, whom I had touched on the back, turned around and looked at me.
“No, it’s not something that can be done by mistake, so I think it’s fine.”
“I hope so, but even in the history of elves, those who can manipulate the magic of others are rare. The most famous ones were doctors who contributed to the development of mental magic, but they didn’t have happy endings.”
“Even among demons, it’s rare. I think you’d be severely quarantined if you appeared in the Kingdom of Meiju.”
“I see.”
“For example, if you concentrate magic behind someone’s ear, you can dull their sense of balance and knock them down. Can you do that, Makyo?”
“I think I could do that much. But, even if I damaged their vestibular system, could healing magic restore it?”
“You could heal the wound, but there would be lasting effects on the flow of magic.”
“That’s no good. Maybe I’ll try it out on some monsters.”
I looked at Sylvia as I said that.
“Are you going to use the crocodile?”
“No, aren’t you raising it?”
It seems she already calls the Rock Crocodile just a crocodile.
“I-It’s okay. There are too many of them. I want to watch Makyo fight, too.”
“I don’t plan on changing my fighting style or anything…”
“Are you going to get stronger again?”
“Sigh…”
Lipa and Jennifer were dumbfounded. I was just looking for a way to suppress my magic, but they took it in a different direction.
“About exploring the central dungeon…”
I changed the subject and turned to Ka-Ryu.
“Yeah, I heard. There must be a lot of agitated monsters, right?”
The area around the Midgard ruins has gradually calmed down during the breeding season, but many monsters have already started laying eggs. Yesterday, when Lipa and I went to check on the situation, the monsters were even emitting a killing intent around their young and becoming aggressive to protect them.
There are too many of them, and they are not actively attacking us, so we will leave them alone.
“Right. I want to put off exploring the central dungeon until later and build a training ground in the demonic land first.”
“I’m in no hurry, so it’s fine with me. More importantly, Makyo should train in strange fighting techniques. It’s rare to encounter someone who can use magic the moment they cast it.”
“No, I have no intention of creating magic…”
It seems that everyone’s attention is on me.
After breakfast, for some reason, we all headed to the crocodile ranch to experiment with magic. I rode on the back of a Rock Crocodile and used my magic to see inside its body.
I interfered with the Rock Crocodile’s rampaging magic, slowing down its rapid flow so that it became like a slow-moving river.
The Rock Crocodile immediately calmed down and stopped moving. This alone caused the spectators around me to exclaim, “Wow!” It was no big deal.
For fun, I stopped the relaxed flow of magic through its tail. The magic gathered in its tail, and it swelled up all at once.
The Rock Crocodile changed its posture, raised its tail, and slammed it down onto the ground.
Boom!
An explosion-like sound rang out, and a rock pillar shot out as high as the ground.
The Rock Crocodile cut off its tail and rolled away.
The other Rock Crocodiles around me naturally fled to the edges, keeping their distance.
“What did you do!?”
“It’s not what I expected.”
“I-It’s okay. The tail will regenerate. But…”
“As usual, you always do something unexpected.”
The women looked up at the pillar and shared their impressions. Lipa tapped the rock pillar to check its hardness.
“I stopped the flow of magic to its tail. That’s why I didn’t use much of my own power. It was the Rock Crocodile’s own power.”
“So you let it use its magic?”
Ka-Ryu asked.
“Yeah.”
“But why can you stop magic when it’s not yours?”
“It’s not much different from putting magic power into your fist.”
“It’s different!”
Chel was furious. “What are you talking about?”
“Ma-Ma-Makyo connects the flow of magic power from monsters to his own, right?”
“Maybe.”
Sylvia’s words made me realize that I was doing it unconsciously.
To confirm this, I approached the Rock Crocodile, which was baring its fangs and threatening me. I grabbed its nose. I released my magic and read the flow. At that moment, I felt as if my hand and the entire body of the Rock Crocodile were connected.
Its magic power flowed into me, so I adjusted and transferred my own magic power.
“So, by touching someone, you connect to their magic power?”
“It seems so. But it feels the same as ‘hand-to-hand combat.’”
“Does ‘hand-to-hand combat’ make a rock pillar like this appear?”
Jennifer asked, confused, but no one could answer.
Indeed, the result was odd when looking at the facts alone.
“Chel, what happens if you forcefully transfer magic to someone else without adjusting it during a ‘handshake’?”
“Their arm might get torn off, right? Everyone has different magical capacities, so it could make them sick.”
“Maybe you should experiment with slimes or other shape-shifting monsters.”
“That’s a good idea.”
I accepted Hel’s suggestion to experiment on the slimes near the entrance.
Everyone followed me as if it were natural, but I wondered if they were doing their jobs. The path was clear, making it easy to move around.
Suddenly, everyone from the demonic land appeared, surprising the two elves.
“What’s going on!?”
“No, just an experiment. Oh, this is a good opportunity to introduce you. Everyone, these two elves are the gatekeepers of the demonic land. Don’t bully them too much.”
Everyone said, “Hey,” and “Nice to meet you.”
“Um… I’m not sure if some of them are human…”
“Oh, Ka-Ryu is a golem. She’s a gatekeeper from 1,000 years ago, so she’s your senior. Be polite to her. The rest are easy to understand, like birdmen and demons, right?”
“Easy to tell apart, you say? Is that okay?”
“The demonic land is anything goes. You’ll find that out once you enter, so there’s no point in hiding it.”
“Anyway, you should stay away.”
“You might come into contact with the elves’ forbidden magic, so it’s probably best not to look.”
When Chel and Hel said this threateningly, the two gatekeepers hurriedly fled to the other side of the hut.
After clearing the area, I caught a slime from the stream.
It trembled with joy, thinking it would receive my magical power. I released my magical power into the slime and tried to peek at the flow of magical power inside. However, the magic was absorbed and did not bounce back.
With no other option, I pushed the magic power to the limit, causing the slime to swell. Then, I checked the flow of magic power. There was a flat membrane of magic power on the surface that was slowly flowing toward the core in the center. It seemed to be moving by changing the flow of magic power.
“So, I can change the shape of the flow. It doesn’t have to be tube-shaped like blood vessels. If that’s the case, then I might be able to gather some magic power…”
“What are you agreeing with yourself about?”
Chel asked.
“No, I was just thinking that monsters are good at manipulating magic.
I said, poking the surface of the slime with my finger to make it spit out water and return to its original size. As long as there was magic, the hole I had poked opened returned to normal.
Next, I tried an experiment where I poured magic into the slime with my right hand and caught the magic flowing out with my left. The slime couldn’t maintain its membrane and turned into water, leaving only its core.
“As long as I control the flow of magic, this seems useful. If I apply this to other monsters, I might be able to make them run out of magic.”
“It’s not ‘might be able to’! It’ll actually make people run out of magic!”
Jennifer protested.
“Wouldn’t that be a countermeasure against magic?”
“Huh?”
I asked Chel to create a water ball, channeled magic power through my right hand, and pulled it out with my left.
Splash!
The water ball collapsed, forming a puddle on the ground.
“Huh? Was the magic rewritten?”
“It looks like Makyo ate Chel’s magic…”
Hel and Ka-Ryu crossed their arms, expressing their dissatisfaction.
“Can magic really be broken so easily?”
“I-I-It’s impossible! Something’s wrong. The laws of magic are being broken!”
Lipa and Sylvia were also panicking.
“I think I did something dangerous.”
“Makyo has been dangerous ever since we first met.”
“All right, let’s stop the experiment for now. Let’s have lunch, and then we can set up a training ground in the afternoon.”
Everyone returned to the cave, ate lunch, and then began clearing the forest near the entrance.
There weren’t any particularly vicious monsters, but we planted sleeping flowers, razor grass, and bendgrass in case any intruders came.
That day, everyone except me was distracted, and the work didn’t progress as well as I had hoped.
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