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Chapter 195 – Day 26 of Management Life : Each Rescue Story Day 3, Sometimes Chel
Chel had run out of magical energy, so the golems carried her out of the dungeon.
By the time the sun began to rise, she had recovered, and magic stone particles were spewing from her blackened right side.
“Ahh… I slept well.”
“Chel, are you okay?”
Ka-Ryu looked at her with concern. She had Saketsu temporarily attach a golem’s eye for her. Though her vision was still blurry, she was happy to be able to see.
“How do I look to you, Ka-Ryu? Me when you can’t see me and me when you can?”
“Hmm… Can I be honest?”
“Yeah, sure, go ahead.”
“I can tell your form is different. But, honestly, it doesn’t seem that different to me. It’s just the type of magic that’s changed.”
“Oh, I see.”
Chel picked up a cam fruit with her black right hand and brought it to her mouth. Her hand had become monstrous, but it wasn’t inconvenient.
“Can those wings move? Can you fly?”
“I can move the wings. I guess I could fly without wings if I really wanted to.”
Chel spread her wings, making a flapping sound. Magic stones fell off her body, and Katan picked them up.
“Chel-neechan, you could stay like this forever. With this much, you’ll never go hungry.”
“No way. It’s inconvenient.”
“What do you think, Chel? Historically speaking, stopping midway through becoming a demon lord seems like an odd state.”
Ka-Ryu prepared a chair and seated Chel.
“Hmmm… It’s definitely influenced by Nushi’s magical power. I empathized with the Nushi’s feelings about sacrificing themselves to protect their race. I tried to surpass my race’s limits to protect the demonic land, too.”
“So, surpassing the limits of the demon race turns you into a demon lord?”
“But you didn’t, right?”
Ka-Ryu and Katan brushed the sand off the wings. They were beautiful, soft wings. Ka-Ryu leaned closer with her temporary eye, captivated.
“But Makyo protects the demonic land, so shouldn’t I do that instead?”
“Ah, you already want an answer?”
Both Ka-Ryu and Katan seemed convinced.
“When I was about to be overtaken by the Nushi’s emotions, it felt like Makyo said, ‘What are you doing?’ That’s why I ended up in this incomplete devil form.”
“Because you knew the real Makyo, you were able to pull back without being dominated by emotion.”
“I think that’s it. Makes you wonder, huh?”
“About what?”
Katan asked Chel, who was gazing northward toward where Makyo was likely far away.
“I thought strength was determined by magic power. You can boost your arm and leg strength with magic, and using spells lets you overwhelm enemies.”
“Huh? It’s not?”
“I don’t think so. This is just my hypothesis, but I think humans get stronger when they heal themselves.”
“Like when you tear muscle fibers and make them thicker?”
Ka-Ryu explained muscle soreness.
“Exactly. Magic power works like muscles—it increases when you are near death or suffer major injuries. Katan, you’ve nearly died countless times in the demonic land. Besides your muscles, hasn’t your magic power skyrocketed too?”
“It has. I think it’s increased dramatically. I hate to say it to Hel-san, but sometimes I feel like I could beat up those elves back in the village.”
“Exactly! That’s how you grow stronger: you get hurt, realize your weaknesses, discover your strengths, and grow stronger. When you face monsters that are stronger than you or have more magical power, you use even greater magical power as your weapon to attack.”
Chel swung her black arm, and a flaming spear emerged from the sand.
“Magic power increases based on your imagination.
“But defeating enemies that way lowers the quality of your imagery.”
“Huh? Why?”
“You don’t need a spear this long to defeat monsters. Isn’t a sharp tip enough to pierce their weak points?”
The handle of the flaming spear vanished, leaving only a blue, high-temperature tip flickering on the sand.
“True, but…”
You don’t need magic like this to defeat the local Haze Turtles. All you need is a fist hard enough to crack their shells. When Makyo exterminated the Rock Crocodile or blew away the Spider Guardian with a single strike, he never miscalculated his magic power. He observes the monsters, understands their range of motion, finds their weak points, and uses only the necessary amount of magic at the right moment. The precision of his imagery is unmatched.”
“He can alter the quality of his magic to suit his target. Is that the source of Makyo’s strength?”
“So, he didn’t become that strong just because he wanted to be?”
“Exactly. If you spend day after day observing monsters and plants in the demonic land, getting injured to increase your magic power and refine the precision of your visualization, you’d end up like that. I don’t think he really has a sense of ‘I’m strong’ or anything like that.”
“What is that? That’s weird!”
The cheerful Katan furrowed her brow.
“It is weird! By the way, this blue flame tip won’t affect the Nushi.”
“Then how…?”
“I stabbed countless flame needles into its pores. I manipulated its skin, twisted its muscles, and dislocated its bones. Then I threw it to the ground. Just as I twisted its limbs completely, a pitch-black roar of magical power erupted from its mouth. I tried to slow its force with a water magic barrier, but the barrier simply vaporized. I tried to stop it with ice magic and burn it away, but the force wouldn’t stop. It took the right half of my body with it.”
Saying this, Chel laughed.
“No, this isn’t something to laugh about.
“But Makyo defeated the boss in Cliff Garuda without a scratch! What the hell is that guy? It makes no sense!”
Amidst Chel’s anger, Ka-Ryu and Katan laughed.
◇ ◇ ◇
In the dungeon of the Genetics Research Institute, we finally found parchment documents that seemed relevant.
“While sudden physical changes after maturity are often signs of aging, there are cases where individuals revert to ancestral traits due to curses or similar factors. So, is Chel-san an example of this ancestral regression?”
“No, it also mentions here that excessive attacks could potentially accelerate a species’ evolution…”
Without realizing it, the director had started using polite language with Jennifer.
“There are also descriptions stating that demons possess magic stones within their bodies. Before meeting Chel-san, I thought they were more like monsters, but she is remarkably human-like. In fact, the current Chel-san seems closer to the demons I had imagined. I’m certain there was an illustration somewhere.”
The director retrieved a scroll painting whose colors had mostly faded and carefully unfolded it on the desk.
It depicted a black monster with two pairs of wings attacking people. It seemed to have fought a dragon, but the outcome was unclear due to the faded paint.
“So dragons and demon tribes were fighting?”
“It might have been the dragonkin of Yggdrasil and the demonic beings of the Meiju Kingdom.”
“Neither appears openly now, but they were used in war then.”
Jennifer turned toward the room where the dragon slept.
“If war breaks out, will it awaken from its slumber?”
“Would war break out with that lord present?”
“Hmm… I wonder. They did respond when their territory was invaded. I don’t know how strong the dragon or the demon is, but it seems unlikely that Makyo-san will lose…”
“Even you can’t imagine it, Jennifer-san?”
“He has been doing everything imaginable, so unless the attack is completely unforeseeable, it would be impossible. Magic, physical blows, and poison seem unlikely, too. So, perhaps slashing attacks and curses?”
“What about attacking while he sleeps?”
“Sylvia tried it, but he didn’t wake up…”
Jennifer faced the scroll and wore a troubled expression.
“Ah! No, right now we’re focusing on the demon. We haven’t found a way to break the curse, really. The only thing we learned was that it was a weapon of the Meiju Kingdom.”
“Right. If we’re talking about cutting off arms or legs, should we look into regenerative medicine?”
“Let’s do that.”
The Genetic Research Institute’s dungeon was originally built to treat beast demon disease, so the medical literature was carefully preserved.
◇ ◇ ◇
“It’s different, after all. It’s not the sound of the wind…”
Gwoooooo!
A roaring sound echoed intermittently from deep within the tunnel.
Yesterday, I went to see the dog-flower fields in the north. I followed the earth veins to the mountain range bordering the Elven Kingdom and camped before the mine entrance. When the dog flowers opened their petals, dog heads emerged and barked incessantly. They barked menacingly with their tongues hanging out, but their bites weren’t particularly painful. Their saliva seemed to have some effect, as monsters didn’t approach. Perhaps it was the scent of dogs in heat.
“Aren’t you coming out? You sound like you’re in pain.”
I wondered if the tunnel was low on oxygen, so I imbued my fist with wind magic and sent air into it, but the voice didn’t stop.
I dispersed my magic into a mist and sent it down the tunnel. The passage narrowed, forming a maze of countless side passages. Only traces of past monsters remain; there are no living ones here. Even with abundant magic, the bones won’t move.
Deep within the tunnel, a large, serpentine monster lay immobilized and trapped by a magic stone crystal. Its form feels familiar, like something I saw in the Genetic Research Institute dungeon.
“Was it a basilisk?”
I recalled the monster called the Serpent King. I could see the magic particles I’d discarded hitting the basilisk’s scales and spinning as they were absorbed. Among the reptilian monsters in the demonic land, it was unusual for one to absorb magic.
“It looks like a slime. Is it because it’s the master?”
Then, I finally remembered the director of the Genetic Research Institute saying that the dungeon was a “hybrid of a basilisk and a slime.”
“Maybe it never fully became a dungeon…”
Regardless of its origin, mining the magic stones in this mine means fighting a pseudo-dungeon. It’s a monster made of magic; neither magic nor physical attacks seems to work on it. Is there a way to defeat a dungeon that has been continuously draining the earth’s veins?
Exporting it to the Meiju Kingdom is impossible now; we lack the manpower, and the risks are too high.
“Well, it can’t escape while it’s stuck in there, so maybe we should experiment with the slime.”
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