The Unwanted Undead Adventurer: Volume 5 Read online

  “I wouldn’t say hard, but certainly tedious. You might realize this after trying it, but this is something you could do nearly perfectly with enough patience. But not so much in this short a time.

  “At any rate, that’s enough of that. Next is the final step, combining the crystal and the wand. This is a bit difficult. You have to handle your mana differently in one hand than the other. One hand sends mana into the crystal while the other does the same for the wand, but it doesn’t matter which hand is which. If you fill the lines in your wand with enough mana, light will burst from the tip of the wand like you saw in my demonstration. You do the same with the crystal, but because you didn’t mess with the lines in that, light will emit from the entire thing until it nears the tip of the wand, at which point the light will be drawn to that. Don’t mind it too much. Also, I had both the wand and the crystal levitate as I did it, but that’s a relatively advanced technique, so you two should do it by hand,” Lorraine instructed.

  We picked up our wands and crystals and began filling them with mana.

  Half a minute after I began pouring mana into my wand, sparks flew from its tip. “Lorraine, is this good?” I asked.

  “Yes, that’s fine, but you also need to fill the magic crystal with mana until it looks like I demonstrated. Keep the wand like it is. Can you do it?”

  “Well, it shouldn’t be too difficult.”

  Each hand had to perform a different task, making it too challenging for some to manage. With that in mind, Alize was performing well. She was a bit behind me, but she kept her wand glowing as she charged her magic crystal with mana. I might have been biased, but she was remarkably adept.

  “You may have realized this now that you’ve tried it out, but magic crystals require more mana, otherwise you end up in the annoying position you’re in now. Next time you make a catalyst, try keeping that in mind,” Lorraine suggested.

  “I see,” I said with a nod. Alize was focused on distributing her mana, so she had no time to respond. Doing this was like trying to juggle with one hand while writing a letter with the other. Adding a third task to that list would be difficult, so Alize’s silence was understandable.

  “Oh, my magic crystal looks good,” I remarked. At last, it began to glow as well. The light from the wand shone in only one direction, but the light from the crystal traveled everywhere. Lorraine said this was normal, so I had to assume it was.

  Lorraine looked at my progress. “You can move on to the next step, Rentt. Bring your crystal and your wand close together,” she instructed.

  When I did, the light from the crystal directed itself toward the wand. “Do I just stick them together?” I asked.

  “It’s not like you’re using glue. Reshape the tip of the wand around the crystal to hold it in place. However, you have to do this without ruining the lines inside the wand. This is fairly challenging, so be careful.”

  “Does it matter what shape I make it?”

  “No, and many people get creative with this part. I wouldn’t recommend getting too fancy with your first attempt, though, but—”

  “Professor!” Alize shouted. Her crystal had also started to emit light.

  “Anyway, you can figure things out yourself,” Lorraine said and turned to guide Alize.

  I focused on my own work, unsure what shape to make the tip of my wand. I did recall seeing some in shops with different decorations. If you had to shape the tip a certain way, then those presumably wouldn’t exist, but I didn’t know how far I could go without ruining my work. I started off simple and made steady changes, learning I could make huge alterations without an issue. There did seem to be a limit, though; I got the sense that too much movement would break the lines. It was like bending a stick until near snapping. If you were lucky, a little more bending might curve the stick a bit more, but in most cases it would break. Regardless, it was malleable enough to leave plenty of options. With that thought, I immersed myself in forming the tip of my wand.

  ◆◇◆◇◆

  “All right, you’re done. Good work, Alize,” I heard Lorraine say, so I looked over. Alize was gripping her finished wand. The magic crystal was fixed in place, and I now sensed the stable mana of a magic item.

  “So this is my wand,” Alize said and stared at the stick with glee. She seemed tired, judging by her sweaty forehead and heavy panting.

  “Now you can try casting spells with it. You too, Rentt. Are you done yet?” Lorraine said and looked toward me. Her eyes opened wide with shock. “Again?”

  “What?” I asked. I had finished around the same time as Alize. I’d reached the last step sooner, but I spent more time on the wand’s tip.

  She pointed at my wand. “That. The tip of your wand. That’s some impressive work,” she muttered.

  Curious, Alize popped out from behind Lorraine and peered at my wand. “Wow, what the? It’s so detailed,” she said, startled.

  Lorraine picked up my wand and looked at it from different angles. “The dragon’s holding the crystal in its mouth. This is an incredibly detailed sculpture of a dragon. These sorts of decorations usually aren’t made with mana manipulation alone, you know,” Lorraine pointed out.

  Specifically, this was the dragon that ate me. At the time, I thought my life was over, so its appearance was so ingrained it was the first thing that came to mind. To be honest, I did think it was kind of gauche. Lorraine seemed to agree because she looked at me like I was crazy for picking the creature that devoured me. But that wasn’t something we could discuss while Alize was around, so I asked something else that was on my mind.

  “How do you shape the tip of a wand other than mana manipulation, then?”

  “Oh, decorations like that are usually made while you’re shaping the material into a wand to begin with. People tend to make the tip larger and then shave it down into the shape they want.”

  “Why go through that much trouble?” I asked. Mana manipulation felt like it provided more freedom with the shape. I assumed it was because something like this required obsessive focus, so it took a while.

  Lorraine held her head in her hands. “You can get by with mana manipulation to a certain extent, but this much detail isn’t normally possible. Unless you happen to be an expert at controlling mana, carving it by hand with tools specifically for the job will give you better results. But I guess the rules don’t apply to you,” she complained.

  “So Rentt’s really special?” Alize asked.

  “Well, that’s one way to put it. Of course, a top-class artisan could do this kind of work too, but Rentt’s never even done this before. I always thought he was dexterous, but now that I’m seeing him work in my field of expertise, I’m reminded of that all over again,” Lorraine said.

  “I guess I should be sorry,” I said, apologizing.

  “You’ve got nothing to be sorry about. In fact, this is magnificent. Next time I make a wand, I’ll let you handle the tip. If I did that, then I could...” Lorraine lowered her head and began whispering to herself before looking back up. “Well, in any case, your wands are finished. They both came out well enough. Now you can try them and see how well they work as catalysts.”

  “Okay!” Alize shouted, covering up Lorraine’s suspicious whispering.

  ◆◇◆◇◆

  It was time to see the wand in action. I was about to cast a spell right then and there, but Lorraine stopped me. “Don’t try it in my house. Let’s go outside,” she requested in a surprising display of common sense.

  We headed out, but we only went as far as some empty ground on the outskirts of town.

  “Now you can cause all the explosions you want, and nobody will complain,” Lorraine said.

  Despite her reassurance, I couldn’t imagine the owner of the land being okay with that. And though it was a large space, there were houses visible in the distance. Maybe nobody would notice an explosion, but I wasn’t so sure.

  “Wouldn’t the owner of this place be unhappy about that?” I asked Lorraine.

/>   “No, I wouldn’t be. This is my land.”

  “Huh?” I blurted out. It was an unexpected response, but it explained why Lorraine wasn’t worried. If this was her land, then we could do anything we wanted. Unless we opened a doorway to Hell and let tons of demons through to attack the city. That would be a huge problem, but I didn’t anticipate anything that serious. Although mages in legends and fables tended to make those mistakes, I didn’t even know how that would be done.

  “I perform some experiments I’d rather not do at home, you see. That’s why I bought this land a while back. We’re far enough from the center of town that it wasn’t too expensive despite the size,” Lorraine explained.

  Despite what she said, the land was still too vast to be that cheap. I knew Lorraine was rich, though. She had always had a mysterious source of wealth. Buying a house was nothing to her either, so it wasn’t that great a surprise.

  At any rate, if this was true, then there was no need for concern. However, I wondered if this was so precarious it had to be done outside.

  “Hey, can your first wand really be that dangerous?” I asked Lorraine.

  “Not usually. Depending on the spell you use, most beginners can use elementary spells in the home without a hitch. In your case, though, I’m a bit uneasy. You’re good enough at mana manipulation that I don’t think it’ll be that bad, but you can’t be too careful. Also, Alize has a lot of mana herself, so she might find it hard to keep it under control. I don’t want you to worry about that while you test your magic, so I figured this would be the best place.”

  If more mana meant it was harder to control, then maybe it felt different casting magic with a wand than without one, considering catalysts were for stabilizing and amplifying your mana. Stabilization was one thing, but amplification could be a hindrance. Losing control as a result was probably the reason for Lorraine’s concern.

  “Well, whatever the case, give it a try. I’ve only taught you basic magic, so that’s what you’ll have to go with. It’ll be the easiest way to understand the power of your wand anyway,” Lorraine said.

  Alize and I nodded.

  “Alize, why don’t you go first? Remember your incantations?”

  “Yes, I’ll be fine!”

  “Good answer. Then Rentt and I will stand back a bit. Go when I say we’re ready.”

  “Okay!”

  We walked a short distance away, and Lorraine yelled to Alize that she could start.

  “Fire, use my mana as your fuel and manifest before me: Aliumage!” she chanted. The mana within Alize condensed and flowed to her wand. The energy swelled until flames burst from the tip. They were fiercer than I expected, to the point I questioned whether this was elementary magic. In my past experiences with this spell, the fire only burned from the fingertip, but this was more like the flames from a torch.

  “What? What is this?” Alize stammered, intimidated by the size of the flame.

  Lorraine approached and cast a spell to make the fire disappear, much to Alize’s relief. I walked up to her too.

  “That was awesome, Alize. I didn’t know you could make such big flames with basic magic,” I said, complimenting her.

  “I wasn’t expecting that either,” she replied. She was still a bit tense.

  Lorraine overheard us and butted in. “It sounds like you have the wrong idea. You don’t typically get flames that large, but like I said, Alize has a lot of mana. That’s why they were so big. Most beginners wouldn’t be able to do this without a wand, regardless of how much mana they had, but the wand changes everything. It helps you control your magic and use it more efficiently. This isn’t all good, though,” she said.

  “What’s bad about it?” Alize asked, curious.

  “If you rely on your wand too much, then one day you won’t be able to control your mana without it. You could also become unable to move your mana without a wand.”

  “Is that a big problem?”

  “Yes, a fatal one, you could say. You’d have to be in contact with your wand at all times to be able to fight as a mage. But the young people these days choose to depend entirely on their wands for magic anyway. It’s a much easier way to go about it. They start right off training with their wands, getting just good enough with it to go off adventuring. It’s pitiful,” she said as if she weren’t also young.

  I was going to joke about that, but she seemed serious, so I decided against it. She was past the average marrying age, so maybe you could say she wasn’t that young. I was about the same age, though, just a little older. But when it came to our mental ages, people often thought I was younger.

  “But I see mages around Maalt using magic without a wand all the time,” Alize pointed out.

  Lorraine nodded. “Yes, I see them levitating their purchases on the way home from shopping sometimes. The first time I saw that, I found it surprising as well. You don’t see things like that in the Empire anymore, so it had been a while,” Lorraine said, referring to her homeland, the Lelmudan Empire. They were supposed to be an advanced civilization with great progress in the field of magic, but maybe when it came to magic without a wand, that was somewhat in question.

  “How did the Empire end up that way?” I asked.

  “I just mentioned the disadvantages of wands, but there are advantages too. Detailed work is far easier with wands than without, as is larger scale work. The Empire engages in a lot of research on magical weapons and tools, so their mages keep wands on hand at all times. When you use something often enough, you start to depend on it. Do that even longer and people start to feel training with wands from the start is more efficient. As a result, that’s how thoughts have evolved in the Empire. Of course, some can still use magic without a wand, but they can never gain influence among the Empire’s mages. That includes me,” she explained.

  That was the fate of something that became too convenient, I supposed. But what Lorraine said seemed to imply some circumstances behind why she left the Empire.

  Lorraine changed her tone. “Well, enough about that. Let’s focus on your wands for the time being. I may have a lot of criticisms, but they’re still generally useful tools. Now, Rentt, it’s your turn. Alize and I will stand back.”

  I nodded, ready to try out my new wand.

  ◆◇◆◇◆

  “Hey, aren’t you a little too far away? Just what do you think I’m going to do?”

  I couldn’t help but ask. Lorraine said they would stand back, but now they looked like specks from my perspective. It was about ten times further than the distance we stood at when Alize practiced. I wondered if I had done something to intimidate them, but when I thought about it more, an undead vampire was probably worth fearing.

  “We’re ready, Rentt!” Lorraine shouted from afar. That meant I could use magic now, I guessed. At that distance, something insane would have to happen to bring them any harm, so maybe it was for the best.

  I went with the same magic as Alize, a life spell called Aliumage. I knew what it should look like after watching Alize, so I figured it would be easy enough to pull off. Considering a wand could strengthen a mage’s control and amplify their mana, there was no reason I would fail. All I had to do was manage the power of the spell, but I had to try it at least once to get a feel for it.

  Honestly, this wasn’t my first time using a wand. But that was back when I was alive and had next to no mana, so there wasn’t much to amplify. A droplet multiplied several times was still only a few droplets. But now I clearly had more mana, so I could look forward to different results. With that in mind, I filled my body with mana, focused it into my hand, and poured the energy into the wand.

  “Fire, use my mana as your fuel and manifest before me: Aliumage,” I chanted, and fire spewed from the wand’s tip. It felt like the wand vastly amplified my power, so I frantically withdrew some mana. Regardless, an intense blaze burned. Thankfully no buildings were around. Lorraine’s decision to stand that far away turned out to be correct. I had been sure of my ability to
control mana, but this incident made me less confident.

  I needed a bit of practice with the wand, but I didn’t panic in the face of the flames the way Alize did. That was the power of my extra 25 or so years of life. I stopped supplying the flame with mana and adjusted its direction as I stared at it for a few seconds. When I confirmed that the flames were gone, I waved to Lorraine and Alize.

  “You can come over now!” I shouted.

  They observed for a bit to see if that was true before they approached. They were cautious, but maybe that was necessary. Wands could trigger by accident, and if some mana had remained stored inside it somehow, it could cause some odd reactions. They wanted to see if that would happen.

  “Your Aliumage was super big,” Alize remarked.

  “Good thing we stood all the way out there. We would’ve been burnt to a crisp otherwise,” Lorraine said with a smile. In reality, she would probably have conjured up a barrier and saved them anyway, but mistakes could have occurred. She was right overall.

  “But that was a little oversized for Aliumage. I know you have a lot of mana, but that spell shouldn’t produce flames like that.”

  “Really? But you can’t deny what you just saw,” I pointed out.

  “True. Hm, Rentt, try another spell. You know a water-based life spell called Mah, don’t you?”

  Mah generated a cup’s worth of water. It was helpful for adventurers, and it was one of the few spells I could cast with what little mana I had. I got a sense of what Lorraine was thinking.

  “Yeah. I see, so I should test whether it’s the same for other elements?” I assumed.

  Some people excelled at specific elements of magic. Most humans could use all spells equally, but some leaned heavily toward certain types. There were many theories as to why that was true. If you were born near a volcano, for example, then you might end up more proficient at fire magic. The blessing of a divine spirit could also give you the capacity to specialize in spells of that spirit’s element.

  I had been blessed by a plant-type spirit, so if anything, I felt I should have been bad with fire. But maybe it didn’t work how I expected. It was strange, but Lorraine must have thought I should determine just where my specialties lay.