Ciaran observed the circle from the outskirts of the clearing. Even without Envil or any deep knowledge about magic, he could recognize that this magic circle was used to cast something large and complex. The grass and dirt in the clearing was stained white in the exact shape and form of the magic circle that was once cast here.
[You can walk over it, Ciaran. You’re not going to trigger anything. The stain from the spell is a clear sign that it was successfully cast.]
Ciaran walked closer, hesitating for a moment before stepping over the white line on the grass. “I know that this I something that happens with pretty strong spells, but I also heard that this stain is something that fades over time. But… it’s been 300 years. Why is it still here? It looks as if the spell was cast yesterday.”
[Because it’s an ancient spell that was cast. This magic circle was not as big as some of the ones that mages cast during war, but what it lacks in size it makes up for in other areas. Look at those burnt objects, sitting in the middle of the smaller circles connected to the main circle. They’re mana-infused plants, gems, and animal byproducts. The mana in them helped to supplement the big mana cost for the spell.]
Ciaran walked closer to one that had the shape of a sharp rock. He touched it lightly, surprised at how hard it was. “Why are they like this?”
[When the spell was cast, the mana was drained from them in an instant. It crystallized them and allowed them to exist in this burnt, indestructible state ever since.]
Ciaran walked to another crystallized object. The petals of the flower were thin and seemed easy to break, but when Ciaran tried to snap it off, he wasn’t able to budge it at all. “What did you remember exactly? Why would you remember this magic circle, anyway? You’re not a mage. Did you find it before you died?”
[Honestly, I’m not sure. I remember arguing with someone here. I don’t know who, though. I can’t remember their name or their face at all, or what we were even arguing about.]
“Were you fighting with the mage? Maybe you were trying to stop him.”
[It’s a good possibility. What I find weird, though, is that neither me or the person I was arguing with were truly hostile. If it were really the mage, wouldn’t I just attack them right away, or at least destroy some of the materials needed for casting the spell? No matter how evil this nation may have been, I would never have approved of such a rash, destructive way of dealing with it. Why would I just stand there and argue with them? I think maybe I was there with someone I knew, and we were disagreeing over how to handle the matter.]
The matter, in any case, was a mystery so long as Envil’s memories remained obscured. Night had set in, and Ciaran could feel the sharp killing intent he was becoming more accustomed to from a greater distance than usual. No matter how long he waited, however, the sources of the killing intent would stop at a certain place and wouldn’t move beyond it. No ghouls flew over to attack him, despite Ciaran feeling their presence. “The ghouls can’t seem to move past a certain point. I’m going to go and check it out.”
Ciaran walked away from the magic circle, now illuminated by the dim moonlight as well as the fire on his sword. He looked away and headed back the way he came, running his fingers over the slashes he made on the trees as he went. It was the first time in days that he was so peacefully walking during the night. He had automatically put up his guard in case those ghouls flew over to him suddenly, but nothing happened. His hunger gnawed at him, begging him to eat the last few fruits in the bag he left by the stream, but he held off. What if a ghoul attacked him while he was chewing? He couldn’t make such a stupid mistake, so he ignored it and walked closer to the city gates.
As they came into view, he saw a dark mass hiding the view of the city through the open doors. As he brushed tree branches aside and stepped over roots protruding from the ground, the killing intent he had been sensing since earlier sharpened, most of it originating from the dark mass behind the city gates. The closer Ciaran came, the more his tense stance relaxed. He understood now why those ghouls hadn’t flown over to kill him at the first chance they got — because they were confined to the borders of the city.
Right behind the city gates, dozens upon dozens of ghouls had slammed into an invisible barrier through what should have been empty air. Emboldened, he walked closer, a step away from the city gates and the barrier keeping the ghouls at bay. “They can’t leave the city.”
An idea popped into Ciaran’s head. He wondered if the barrier stopped only the ghouls, or if it would stop him from entering, as well. He raised his sword and pointed the tip at the thin “wall” between him and the ghouls. As he exhaled, he pushed his sword forward, moving it past the barrier and killing a ghoul. It turned into dust and was absorbed by Envil’s spirit in the sword, but the other ghouls hadn’t budged a bit. They were still trapped.
The realization sent waves of relief through him. His tense body relaxed and his smirked, finding himself in advantageous situation for the first time in days. If he wanted to, he could sleep through the night in the forest, and his only worry would be bug bites, a stark contrast from all the nights he spent fighting nonstop.
[Wow, you can actually sleep at night now.]
“I can. But I won’t. Not for a while, anyway. If you’re going to be my swordsmanship teacher, I need to repay you anyway I can. The only thing I can do right now is help you find your missing memories, so I’m going to stay here and kill some more of these ghouls.”
[Kid, I appreciate the consideration, but rest is more important. I’ve been pushing you for hours and hours so far. Just find a quiet place under a tree and go to sleep.]
Instead of continuing to argue with him, Ciaran showed Envil his decision by killing a few more ghouls. He heard Envil sigh and then stay silent. The night continued to pass with the screeches of ghouls from the front and the sounds of the forest from behind. Now that he had guaranteed safety from the ghouls that had been repeatedly trying to kill him, his stamina lasted longer than it did before and he wasn’t as exhausted as his first night here. After spending a while killing more ghouls, he began to feel thirsty and reflexively tried to reach for the water canister he kept by his side or in his bag, but felt nothing. He remembered then that he had left the bag by the stream and decided to walk over and grab the canister before heading back again.
As he followed his trail of marks through the dark, cold forest, his throat parched and dry, his starsight sensed a brief flash of killing intent from a few meters away before snuffing out again. Ciaran paused. Was he mistaken? It had come and gone so quickly that, if it had happened before Ciaran came here and experienced the hellish nights of never-ending battle, he would have ignored it and moved on.
However, if there was one thing he had learned the hard way in the past few days, it was to never ignore the intuitive abilities of his starsight. He continued walking after a very brief stop, pretending to have been fooled by whatever was lying in wait in the dark. He wasn’t sure what it was, or if he could beat whatever it was in a fight. Maybe it was a mana-mutated monster that could kill him in one hit, or maybe it was a silent hunter, an animal that marks and kills its prey during the darkest hour of the night.
His slow steps made a light sound through the silent woods every time he stepped on grass and dry leaves. The noise itself wouldn’t have been loud during the day with the sun out, but at this time of night, it reverberated around him, not much quieter than the slam of a heavy door. As he walked past a tree, a stretch of grass stood before him, the river coming into sight up ahead. The moment he raised his foot to take a step forward, the killing intent he sensed earlier appeared again, much stronger than the brief sensation he sensed earlier. A rush of wind, a rustle of a body moving through the air, and Ciaran jumped back to avoid the attack that had just grazed past his nose. Past the glow of fire and under the moonlight filtering through the canopy above, Ciaran could finally see what had tried to kill him — a yuin.
Stolen story; please report.
It was crouching on its four legs, the muzzle drawn back into a snarl. It had short but thick gray fur with swaths and spots of black in some places. Ciaran hadn’t studied animals like the yuin in depth, but he didn’t need to; it was an animal all kids learned about, if only for the sake of avoiding it. It was characterized by its incredible speed and agility, and its tendency to hunt for its prey at night. Its pointed ears were drawn back atop its head, and its claws were digging into the soil beneath its feet. Before Ciaran had time to curse his luck, the yuin had already lunged, the movement a blur to the naked eye.
Ciaran reacted on instinct, dodging to the right but still getting his arm grazed by one of its claws. Ciaran hissed, but didn’t pay attention to the light wound, having already accumulated several similar ones during the past few nights of battling against ghouls. Ciaran tightened his grip on the sword, his calluses burning from the friction. He turned around to face the yuin just as it had already jumped and aimed for his throat, its jaw wide open, its yellowed teeth stretching wide as its eyes glinted with a malicious determination.
Ciaran didn’t think at all. Just before its teeth grazed the skin of his neck, he thrust his sword up and through its head, stopping it just before the jaw clamped shut and pierced his throat. Blood spurted from the wound as the yuin died, the body falling limp to the ground as Ciaran removed the blade. He wiped away the blood that had splattered on his cheek and released a slow breath, his heart racing as his mind processed what had just happened. He stared down at the dead yuin. If it stood on its hind legs, it would have been taller than him. On all fours, it only reached his thighs, but Ciaran remembered what he knew about yuins. A fully grown, adult yuin was twice the size of the one that just attacked him. Only the young, half-grown pups would be this small. And where a pup was, its mother would surely follow.
Ciaran didn’t let his guard down. Past the light of the fire, everything was shrouded in darkness, with only a few leaves and bushes illuminated in the sparse shafts of moonlight. Ciaran closed his eyes, concentrating on the sounds he could hear while carefully feeling for any killing intent. He knew, however, that a grown yuin would never make the mistake that its young had just made. They would never carelessly reveal their killing intent, since some of their prey had sharp enough senses to detect it and run away. Since he couldn’t see anything, he tried to detect any presence of the mother through its footsteps, the brush of wind against its fur, the huff of its breath, but he heard nothing.
[Ciaran, listen, we don’t have much time, so do as I say if you don’t want to die right now.]
Ciaran didn’t respond, his silence an indication to continue.
[From what you’ve told me about inscription magic, you should already be able to move your mana a little, right? That means you have already learned how to detect the mana inside your body and manipulate it somewhat. Right now, I’m going to try to show you how to create a mana core in your heart. Move your mana the way I show you to.]
Ciaran hadn’t expected Envil to say this, not now of all times. Did they even have the time for this? What if the mother of the yuin he killed attack him while he was moving his mana? However, he didn’t have more time to ask questions, so he trusted Envil remained silent. Not a second later, a phantom sensation traveled from the sword he was holding and through his body. It stopped at the heart, and then he heard Envil’s voice.
[Now!]
Ciaran sensed the sluggish mana moving very slowly throughout his body, as it did for every person, but then began to move it. To use inscription magic, one had to be able to detect the mana flowing through their body and then move it to the inscription pen to create inscriptions. They didn’t have to create a mana core the way mages and swordsmen did, so while the difficulty of the field wasn’t low, the barrier to entry was. He followed the phantom sense that circulated through his body, moving his mana along the same path.
It started at his heart before circling around his torso, head, and limbs. The phantom sensation sped up, every new cycle getting faster and faster. Every time he completed a cycle, he could feel something happening in his heart. At first, the feeling was so faint he didn’t realize it was there, but before long, a dense mass began to grow, starting off smaller than a seed. As the cycles sped up, it grew a little at a time. When the size of the mass was big enough to fit in the palm of his hand, the phantom sensation changes its movement.
A cycle would be complete when his mana reached his heart. It would run through the heart very quick before moving on to circulate through the body. Now, whenever the phantom sense finished a cycle, it would swirl around the mass in his heart, condensing it before cycling through the body again. This was much more difficult than simply moving his mana. Ciaran’s brows furrowed as sweat soaked him. The difficulty was so much higher that Ciaran couldn’t concentrate on anything else happening around him. After completing the new mana path three times, the mass began to change as the phantom sensation disappeared. It began to spin, and as it did, it shrunk to half of the previous size, amounting to little more than a small berry now. The change it brought, however, was immediate.
The mana that Ciaran had to manually move through his body before was now cycling along the mana path that same mana path without Ciaran having to do anything. He had never experienced something like this, but he understood that this mass was a mana core. As the mana core cycled his mana through his body, he could feel a renewal of strength surging through his limbs. His exhausted body that he’d been forcefully dragging along had become lighter, and his five senses had been enhanced a little. Ciaran opened his eyes and was shocked to see that the impenetrable darkness now had some outlines of shapes. It hadn’t given him the ability to see at night, but it was an improvement before.
His ears picked up on sound she hadn’t noticed before and the brush of the cold night air against his skin became more apparent. As he was getting accustomed to the new sensations brought by the mana core, Ciaran’s intuition and starsight rang cries of alarm at the same time. He tensed, glancing into the darkness between the trees out of the corner of his eye. His improved eyesight now saw something he’d failed to notice before due to his ordinary vision — the silhouette of a large beast standing between a few trees not even a few meters away from him.
Chills ran down his spine. How long had it been standing there, watching him? It wasn’t making a move at all. As if, no matter what Ciaran did, he would never escape it. His grip on the sword, which had slackened while he was forming a mana core, tightened. Every hair stood on end as his heart, which had calmed down, sped up again. The breath that had hitched was stabilized with force. What should he do? Should he attack first? Should he wait for it to make a move, or should he pretend he never noticed it?
This was a creature that knew no defeat. It lived to this day by killing everything that opposed it, even if the fight ended with it being wounded. It was bigger, stronger, and faster than him. The yuin pup he just killed had been his first time fighting and killing a living being. While the ghouls he fought before had been trying to kill him all the time, they didn’t have any mind to form strategies with. This creature, unlike those senseless ghouls, had the ability to stalk its prey and toy with it. He mind was racing, trying to figure out how to defeat it so he could live, when he heard Envil’s voice.
[Kid, I can’t see past a meter around you, so I don’t know where the mother of this cub is, but remember something — fire is something that can hurt any ordinary animal. Especially if there’s no lake or river around. As long as you don’t lead it to the stream, you can use its instinctual fear of the fire against it. The mana core I just helped you create isn’t going to help much. You’re now stronger and faster, and your senses are a little better than before, but don’t let your guard down. An adult yuin, especially a mother that had just lost its cub, is not something you can have an easy victory against at this point. But I believe in you. You may not realize, but the mana circulation I just had you do is not something an ordinary person can do. You have an incredible ability to sense and manipulate mana. Believe in yourself.]
Ciaran calmed his unsteady thoughts with Envil’s words. He was right. He could do this. He had to try, at least. If didn’t live, then the last person in his family would be dead, and no one could avenge the deaths of his family. The world would continue on, thinking that they all went crazy and killed each other. He couldn’t let that happen. His racing heart slowed down, and he decided to make the first move against it. If he didn’t, how long would this standoff continue? He needed to win. He had bigger goals to accomplish, and he couldn’t falter here.
Ciaran took a deep breath, exhaling as he tensed his muscles and lunged in the direction of the beast, his flaming sword already raised, ready to strike. Just as the tip of the sword neared the beast, the flames illuminated its eyes — filled with a calm that formed a stark contrast to the pup he’d slain earlier. He thought he had caught it by surprise, that his sword would pierce through its eye and into its brain, but before it had the chance to even graze the tip of its fur, a sudden force slammed into him, sending him flying through the trees until his body crashed onto a hard surface. As he fell to the ground, Ciaran saw the yuin walking toward him through the trees, its pace unhurried. As it walked beneath a shaft of moonlight, he saw the look in its eyes — mirth. It was toying with him.
It could have gone for a killing blow right then and there, but instead, it threw him around like a sack of flour. Ciaran drew in a shuddering breath, realizing for the first time that the disadvantage was much greater than he thought. The fear he suppressed before came rushing back with a vengeance, and he tried to stand on weak, shaking legs.
As he raised his sword, doing his best to ignore the sharp pain radiating throughout his body, he sent a silent apology to his family while wondering if this would truly be his last day among the living.
