CHAPTER 5 Part 1: Useless

3 months had gone by and I finally reached C rank on all elements and can now immediately make ice without first manifesting water then solidifying it.

It started snowing about 3 days ago and almost everyone started wearing thick and layered clothing. Snow-covered houses give off this feeling that’s quite charming to look at, I often find myself relaxing after a hard day’s work of training, staring at our village from the highest point in Gadvell together with Aishita. Though it is winter, flowers still provide life in our otherwise colorless village.

For the last 3 months, I was learning magic from Ophelia-san together with Aishita and Yuna, wearing my layered winter clothes my mother gave me long ago and when I have some free time, I’ll come and practice with Griffin by the cottage near the forest.

Griffin somehow started to get rough with training me, maybe Griffin is starting to see me as an adult? And that he needs to train me seriously. Honestly, I don’t know. He might also think that it doesn’t help when you go easy on someone you train, he/she will always think that others will always go easy on them. ‘You treat someone like a child, that someone will die like a child’ or so the saying goes. It might endanger that individual when the time comes that he/she faced an opponent that doesn’t care if they live or not. Plus, in defeat and failure is when you’ll learn more, frustrated in defeat is when one, finally has that motivation to get strong.

Today, Griffin asked me to go with him to scout near the Archean Grove the forest that enveloped the village, to hunt some monsters who started to wander off the forest, he seems to ask me out often lately, well it’s fine, I am starting to like being around others lately, it makes things… livelier.

Honestly, I don’t know why people called it a grove even though it is a whole forest. Griffin told me not too long ago that the name of the forest near the village was Archean Grove, it is to honor Archeus the protector, who defended the forest and its inhabitants 200 years ago against an army of 222 Ogres. Up until now, no one knows what Archeus’ class was, Griffin said that Archeus used magic or technique that no one knew back then, so people didn’t know how strong he was.

The monsters that usually wander off the forest this time of the year are usually Dire Wolves, White-furred Giant Rabbits, and Winter Treants. These monsters are not that strong, they’re usually C class at most and they usually get finished off with my Ignis spell, with Griffin’s help of course. Ignis is a C-tier fire attribute spell, an area of effect spell or AOE that can incinerate multiple opponents.

I know that it’s bad to incinerate your opponent when you’re in a forest, but it’s winter, meaning my flames won’t burn the grass and I usually avoid burning the dead trees, so when I face an opponent near some trees or when I face a Winter Treant, I instead use Ventus, a C tier wind spell, that cleanly slices of an opponent.

It was tough walking through the forest with snow that reaches above your ankles, however, I use wind magic to travel and avoid trekking through the freezing snow. My father scolded me for doing so because he understands that managing a mage’s mana is crucial, that if a mage doesn’t manage his/her mana pool properly they will die. I wasn’t using that much mana in my defense, plus I usually train by continuously using wind magic to levitate, and I feel confident with Griffin by my side, knowing how strong my dad is. Ophelia-san taught me that the best way for me to gradually increase my mana pool is to continuously use magic whenever it is safe.

[so, my mana is at two-thirds right now… I don’t think we’ll be spending the whole day outside seeing as it is cold out here, I’m confident I won’t run out of mana anytime soon.] I thought to myself monitoring my mana usage.

After some time, we entered somewhere deep inside the forest without thinking, the forest is a dangerous place having many high-ranking monsters, that’s why it’s advised to enter the forest with a full party of 7 members typically consisting of 2 frontliners, 2 duelists, 2 mages and a rogue, sometimes 1 of the frontliners can be replaced by a healer.

Griffin suddenly stops and with a serious face warned me to stop using magic immediately. At the time I couldn’t fathom why Griffin had a fearful expression, I landed silently onto the snow and crouched down to his level.

“Lygnicans! There are 2 Lygnicans!” Griffin whispered in terror, warning me of the imminent danger.

Lygnicans… I remembered Aishita informing me about every single monster she knew and Lygnicans was one of them. Lygnicans are A-class monsters, famous for their dark red fur and detection of mana.  2^nd to the most dangerous species of Wolves, they inhabit the volcanic area near Ciniel Forest, which is located south of the kingdom of LouwenDale, opposite of where we were. Lygnicans, just like Werewolves and Lycans, are also bipedal monsters, having sharp fangs, claws, and a muscular build, however, unlike the said mythological beasts, they were never human.

[if they are from the south then why are they even here?!]

After Griffin’s warning, we immediately started to head back to warn the others, careful not to let our presence show. Even though we were trying to be stealthy, they managed to notice us and immediately pounced towards us. Griffin and I were able to barely escape with our lives, Griffin carried me like how rugby players hold the ball. I used the combination of wind and water magic to push both beasts away from us, however, they didn’t even budge an inch, instead, they kept running on all fours to catch up to us.

Their claws can slice through metal with ease, their jaws can crush boulders effortlessly, and with their terrifying speed to traverse through the forest send shivers down my spine. Seeing that my spell was unable to do anything against these terrifying beasts, I used wind magic to propel us away from the danger instead. The moment Griffin landed on his feet he ran as fast as he can, one might think that me not using wind magic to fly was a dumb idea, however, all I could do is barely hover above the ground, and I can’t support Griffin’s added weight so propelling us hundreds of meters away is all I could do.

The Lygnicans are fast approaching from behind, having been able to leap from tree to tree, eventually, they’ll reach us. I don’t think I can survive going toe to toe with an A-class monster and I don’t think I can defend Father against those 2.

I tried to cast some spells at them while Griffin held me. I don’t have enough experience fighting monsters, only having 3 months of experience won’t help against an A-class monster that even Griffin can’t handle by himself and so I tried as much as I can to slow down the 2 beasts that are hunting us down, I used Stone Caliber, Water Cannon and Frost Spear to try and inflict as much damage as I can and cast Aqua Sphere to try to slow them down, all of which are ineffective.

[shit…]

I stopped casting all in all, as I notice that I have spent half of my mana, I instead tried to think of another way to survive.

[this might work… I hope]

I cast a large Fireball towards the sky and made it so it would explode at a certain point to create a firework-like explosion, to try and inform the others of our situation, honestly, we didn’t talk about a distress signal like this, so I don’t know if this will work, the village usually used bells as distress signals. I can only hope that people would understand my intention.

Griffin suddenly stopped running, set me down, and turned towards both monsters, naturally, I went to stand beside him. Griffin suddenly looking cool, moved in a blink of an eye, now next to one of the Lygnicans that was meters away.

For now, I’ll call them beast 1 and 2. Beast 1 was able to block Griffin’s sword and the other rushed towards my location, ignoring Griffin. I used earth magic to create 3 walls, 5 times thicker than those I’ve been making so far, and used wind magic to launch myself to create some distance between beast 2 and me. The beast was able to smash the stone walls without any difficulties, I know that I can’t kill the beast in front of me, I’m still a C rank Wizard after all, but I can at the very least stall for Griffin and the other guards of the village to come.

Griffin usually carries a two-handed sword, however, today was different, he was dual-wielding. On his right hand was some sort of dagger that has some sort of inscriptions on the blades and in his left hand, he holds a one-handed sword, nothing special though, looks like it’s only a normal sword. It seems that he can use a wide variety of weapons, well, he is an A rank Weapon God after all.

Griffin crouched down to dodge the incoming claws that were aimed at his torso, he then, disappeared for a moment and reappeared on the right side of beast 1. He launched an attack using the normal sword, aiming at the neck, but the beast ducked and tried to kick Griffin upwards to launch him towards the sky, fortunately, he was able to block using both of his weapons, air rushed violently from the blocked strike causing the snow underneath Griffin’s feet to be pushed away, his hair swaying. Griffin then spins and attacked again using his left-hand sword with his right-hand dagger, but beast 1 manages to kick Griffin away, desperate to save its skin.

While desperately trying to dodge the attacks of the Lygnican in front of me, I was suddenly knocked out of balance when Griffin flew straight at me, having been cornered by the two beasts, all I could think of is to use the strongest spell I know, Eruption, an A tier spell that Ophelia taught me recently, it is a combination spell using fire, wind, and earth magic, it is a spell that ruptures the ground lifting molten lava from beneath the earth and together with wind magic, manipulating the gas in the air to cause an explosion, spreading molten lava to instantly kill large groups of monsters. Though I couldn’t utilize the spell to its full potential because of my limited mana pool and knowledge as a C rank Wizard.

Together with Eruption, I cast another spell, Ignis then I empowered it by using wind magic acting like kerosine, manipulating the particles of gas in the air, empowering the C tier spell. Eruption, a spell I recently learned, is without a doubt the strongest spell I know as of now but when I tried to conjure both spells I… couldn’t…

Panicked, I ultimately failed to cast both of them… the spells backfired, Eruption was supposed to erupt from the ground without causing harm to the caster but what I have done caused an explosion from my bare hands, flames and lava flew in every direction, smoke and ashes began to cover the battlefield, and I was sent flying, crashing to the ground back first.

My body felt like it was burning in hell, the scrapes and bruises I received from crash-landing didn’t help, burns on my arms hurt like crazy, my clothes were now ruined and bones and muscles in every part of my body ached as I try to stand up.

[damn this body!]

I looked for where Griffin was, however, I can’t seem to use the smoke from the explosion to detect him as I did before, so I used wind magic to blow the smoke away. What I saw was a destroyed terrain, patches of fire and lava can be seen everywhere you look, ashes and scorched earth replaced the white snow from where I had used the spells, however

“No way…”

I was hoping that my strongest spell would at least be able to knock out our opponents, however, it didn’t even bother them, they stood tall in the distance, wary of my father Griffin who was relieved from seeing that I’m safe. I was useless, all I was able to do was render myself unable to move, I spend all of my mana on those spells and I can’t create any more spells.

we lost…

I started to lose consciousness due to the lack of mana.