Chapter 22

“Haah… Haahh.”

Splat. Splat. Splat.

Limping and battered, I forced myself inside a cave I had found while running away from the Dark Mage. The entrance of the cave was small, so small that I had to crawl my way inside. The deeper I crawled inside the cave, though, the bigger the opening became until eventually, I could walk on my feet and reached the deepest part of the cave.

‘Phew… I should be safe here for some time.’

The Dark Mage was quite tall even for an adult. He wouldn’t be able to enter this cave easily even if he found it. I took a seat on the ground and leaned my back against the wall, resting while my eyes scanned the interior of the cave.

‘For a cave that has such a small opening, the inside sure is big.’

The inside of the cave was damp, water kept dripping from the stalactites onto the ground. There was a small opening in the ceiling directly above me where I could see the sky and also the only spot lit by moonlight.

‘I hope I bought enough time for Luna to run back to the town.’

“Guh…!”

Beads of sweat were dropping from my hair and face, accompanied by the sharp pang of pain from my left shoulder. My breathing quickened along with the beating of my heart.

‘Calm down, me. By now, the Tower must have already sent a search party. This cave should be safe as a hiding spot too, so right now, what I need to do is rest and recover as much as I can.’

“Hooo…”

A green glow came out of my right hand as I tried to heal the hole that was torn open by the Dark Mage’s tendril. Beginner-rank healing magic was far from enough to close this hole, but it could lessen the pain a little bit and also stop the bleeding.

With the pain lessened, I could feel my breathing and heart rate returning to normal. With a sigh of relief, I tilted my head up, looking at the full moon shining brightly in the sky while looking back at what happened.

After my left shoulder got pierced through, I activated Mist again as a cover, only this time, I did not use it to cover my escape but to cover my counterattack. With the mist covering his vision, the Dark Mage, who was completely underestimating me and had completely let down his guard, sure of his own victory, did not expect that I would jump straight at him and take him down to the ground, then cover his mouth with my right hand and blast Fireball right inside his mouth.

Any normal person would die from it, but Dark Mages are not in the normal category. Maybe it was one of the powers of the Demon he made a contract with, but right after the Fireball exploded inside his mouth and set his head on fire, the Dark Mage immediately started to regenerate.

‘What a monster, and I successfully pissed off that monster. Fuck my life.’

“Haaah…”

‘When I first arrived in this country, I thought that I would just spend my time learning magic, not getting hunted by a crazy Dark Mage.’

‘Well, what happened, happened. Right now, I need to recover.’

Closing my eyes and fixing my posture, I took a deep breath and absorbed the surrounding Ether to recover my Mana.

…

“Hooo…”

I don’t know how much time has passed, but I feel like it’s been quite a while. The moon was still shining brightly in the night sky, so maybe not much time had passed. Now that my Mana has fully recovered and I have rested for a while, I feel a little bit more relaxed and have more space in my mind to start analyzing the situation, starting with my own condition.

My body was covered with a lot of cuts that I got from branches of the trees in the forest while I was baiting and fighting the Dark Mage. The cuts were not bad enough to warrant any attention. The worst injury was the hole in my left shoulder. If I don’t get this treated immediately, I feel like it will fester, but I don’t have the means to treat it as basic healing magic is all I can use.

‘If I manage to survive this, I have to put Healing Magic on my priority list of magic to learn.’

Besides the fact that the highest tier of magic I could use right now was Tier 2 spells, I also didn’t put much effort into learning healing magic. Probably because I grew up in a martial arts family, combat was all I cared about, so I put most of my effort into learning magic for battles. Master Elara was also more focused on teaching me magic related to battle and magical combat techniques through sparring, so I never put much thought into healing magic.

“Haahh… I just have to learn it the hard way.”

Standing up, I started to look around the cave while using one of the most basic magic spells called Light. It’s a very simple magic that is basically just creating a glowing ball of Mana and letting it float near me, a very useful magic in a dark place like this.

After looking around the cave for a while, I felt like there was something weird about this cave. One was that some of the stones in this cave were clearly man-made. I could see patterns on the rocks and walls. It was just so old that the traces could barely be seen. Second was that the place where I took a rest, the only spot in the cave that received moonlight, looked like an altar.

‘Based on these two facts, was this cave used as a temple? I don’t know, but I feel like this place was used for religious reasons a long time ago.’

The altar was very eye-catching, being under the moonlight and all, so I walked over there and inspected it more thoroughly.

‘Hmm… Are these runes?’

Based on the book I read in the library, Magic Theory I, runes are letters that have been used for a very long time. They have significance in both religious traditions and magic. Even now, magic circles use runes too.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell what these runes were for. Runes are basically letters that can be arranged into words and sentences just like any other letters, but I hadn’t studied Runic letters yet, so I couldn’t read them. Even though Runes can be used as any normal letters, they have very special properties, which is that they can be used for magic. Runic letters are so old that it’s not clear where they originated from, but what is clear is that these letters are special, so many mages and ancient religions used them.

‘Should I try to put Mana into the altar?’

Runes are used by mages as a set of commands. By using them, mages can perform very complex magic that would normally require a very long incantation. Apparently, it’s impossible to use Tier 6 magic and above without constructing magic circles with runes first, and apprentice mages who can already use Tier 3 magic and have reached Intermediate Mage rank must learn how to use Runes.

The simplest way to utilize a rune is just like this stone altar, just write it, in this case carve it, and then use Mana to activate it. The amount of Mana needed depends on what the Runes are used for. For example, runes for Tier 1 magic like Fireball will take less Mana to activate than a rune for Tier 5 magic, which is far stronger and more complex.

‘I don’t know what the effect of this rune is, though. Well, if I don’t have enough Mana, then nothing will happen anyway.’

With that decided, I put my palm on the stone altar and started to channel my Mana into it. The runes on the altar glowed blue almost immediately, telling me that the runes were still intact and could be activated. Suddenly, the glow of the runes spread out all over the cave’s floor and walls up to the ceiling, and a haze started forming, accompanied by a tremor, floating above the altar.

“Wha-What the hell!?”

A shaking like this inside a cave was bad news. It would not be weird if the ceiling collapsed, burying me alive.

‘At this rate, rather than dying at the hand of that Dark Mage, I would die here after getting buried alive.’

‘Hell no! I refuse!’

I tried to pull my hand away from the altar, but some kind of force was keeping my hand stuck to it, and the altar kept sucking my Mana away even though I had already stopped channeling my Mana into it. Flailing around like a fish that had been hooked, I did my best to release myself from this damned thing.

“DAMN IT!! STOP IT!! LET GO OF MEEE!!!”

Despite what I did, the altar did not let me go until the Mana I had recovered was once again gone. The cave was now bright, the runes still glowing. I fell on my butt, feeling weak after getting sucked dry.

“Haah… Haaaa… What the fuck was that?”

As I was wondering what in the world had just happened, floating above the altar, a haze formed and gradually took the shape of a small humanoid figure. It looked like a girl, but it was so small, just around the size of my palm, with three sets of wings on its back. By the looks of it, it was sleeping peacefully.

“Fuuuu…. Fuuuu…”

I could hear the sound of it breathing and decided to poke it a little bit.

Poke.

Poke Poke.

“Hmmnmnm… Stop it…”

‘Oh, it can talk.’

Poke.

Poke Poke Poke.

I was amused by this mysterious creature, so I kept poking it even though it was sleeping peacefully and got carried away.

“Hmmnnmn… Stop it… I SAID STOP IT!!”

FWOOOOOSH!!

An invisible force suddenly pushed me back off the altar, sending me flying and tumbling several paces from it.

“Guh… cough cough… What the heck?”

I tried getting back on my feet, and when I looked toward the altar, I could see the small-sized girl with wings staring at me.

“Hm? Who are you?”