The Otome Heroine's Fight for Survival: Volume 1 E-Book

Harunohi Biyori

• Herausgeber: J-Novel Club
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Serie: The Otome Heroine's Fight for Survival
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 483

Beschreibung

Orphaned by a monster attack on her village, young Alicia spends three horrid years in an orphanage before finally running away. When she flees, however, Alicia has a violent encounter with an older woman hell-bent on killing her. During their tussle, she comes into contact with a strange crystal that bestows upon her a wealth of knowledge, transforming her from an innocent child into a cool and calculated planner. Now aware that she was meant to be the protagonist of an otome game and disgusted with her supposed fate, Alicia decides to take matters into her own hands and become strong—by any means necessary. Using her newfound knowledge, and with some help from a stranger she meets in the woods, she learns to survive by herself in a world far too harsh and unforgiving for a girl her age. Ready or not, she’s determined to carve her own path.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Map

Act One: Wandering / The Ashen Princess of Slaughter

Chapter 1: The Heroine’s Fight against Fate

Chapter 2: The Battle Maid of Shadow

Side Story: Elena’s Vow

Side Story: An Afternoon in the Life of a Battle Maid

Afterword

Color Illustrations

Characters

About J-Novel Club

Copyright

Landmarks

Color Illustrations

Table of Contents

Act One: Wandering / The Ashen Princess of Slaughter

Chapter 1: The Heroine’s Fight against Fate

The Otome Heroine

“Fooound yooou!”

I met her in a back alley. That day, I was scared. Lost. Alone.

She wore a pink dress, typical for a young woman in the city, but it was oddly worn out. Her hair was filthy, disheveled, as though it were an old woman’s. Bloodshot eyes and hollow cheeks made her look ghastly, straight out of a nightmare.

As I sat rooted in place, cowering in fear, she threw aside her pack and lunged at me.

“N-Nooo!” I shrieked.

“Be quiet, brat!” she hissed as she tore the pouch I carried around my neck from me. “Heh heh... This is...”

“Nooo! Give it back!”

“Shut up!”

The woman fished into the pouch I’d been told never to open and pulled something out, bursting into maniacal laughter. “Ah ha... Ah ha ha ha ha ha! I knew it! This confirms everything! This is the world of ****! Ah ha ha ha ha!”

I sat there, unable to move, terrified of her hysterics.

***

Until age four, I’d lived with my parents, just the three of us.

I’d wake up to the smell of my mother’s soup, then go wake my sleepyhead of a father. He’d embrace me, rubbing his unshaven face against mine. I’d whine, and he’d lift me high into the air, instantly brightening my mood and making me laugh. My mother would scold us, but without a hint of anger on her features.

Those joyful days would never return.

Three years ago, our town had been attacked by a horde of monsters—there’d been a severe outbreak, the kind that only happened once every few decades. My father, who’d served as a town guard, had bravely set off to protect us, never to return again. The monsters had remained undeterred, and my mother, too, had lost her life to save mine.

I didn’t know how that battle ended. I’d been crying alone amid the corpses of monsters and people littering the rubble when a surviving soldier picked me up and brought me to an orphanage in a distant town.

Never again would I feel the comfort of my father’s broad back or my mother’s gentle smile. All I had left of them was a pouch my mother had given me—a “charm pouch,” she’d called it.

With no idea what would happen, and no time to mourn the loss of my family, I was exposed to the brutal realities of the world.

The orphanage was located in an old church, and about ten of us were brought in, crammed into a small room that looked like a barn. We were given thin, tattered blankets to use as bedding, and watery soup made with only salt and vegetable scraps—all of which was quickly snatched from us by the older kids who already lived there.

The old hag in charge of the place gave us only hardened brown bread and salt soup, twice a day. She made us do everything: fetch water, launder clothes, clean, tend the fields, collect firewood, lug things around, and even do work she’d take on that was unrelated to the orphanage. We were worked from before dawn until after dark, and the older orphans knew they could slack off by forcing the younger to do everything. One hungry boy who’d stolen into the pantry to nibble on potatoes was caught, and the old lady beat him with a rolling pin until he coughed up blood. The next day, he was cold and lifeless in his cot.

More than once, I thought I was going to die. The adults in town wouldn’t help us; no one wanted to get involved with dirty, emaciated orphans. No one wanted to adopt us either. Not only that, the old hag got hefty sums to hand over the better-looking children to well-dressed adults who’d come over from time to time.

I didn’t want to be there, but the memory of what my parents had said kept me going. “No one is bad at heart,” they’d told me. “Smile and let things go, okay?”

So I did. The violent old lady was probably in a bad mood, I’d tell myself. The older orphans stealing from the young were just a product of their bad environment. My smile never wavered, and I let it all go. For three years I endured, keeping my charm pouch safe.

It was only when the old lady came to me, telling me to wash up in the well and wear nice clothes because I had a very special visitor the next day, that I wondered where I’d gone wrong and fell into despair. I hated the way those adults looked at us. That day, no longer able to stomach my feelings of disgust or life at the orphanage, I finally ran away.

Which was all well and good, except I had nothing on me. Hungry and forlorn, I huddled up in an alley, hugging my knees to my chest. And it was then that she suddenly appeared before me.

***

The woman chuckled eerily. “Don’t be scared, Alicia...”

I was stunned when my name suddenly left her lips. How did she know it?

“I’ve been watching you for two days now, you know,” she cooed. “I only knew your name, age, hair and eye color, so finding you wasn’t easy...” The woman looked down at me with a twisted grin, brushing my cheek and hair with her fingers as I stared back in horror. “Oh, look how dirty you are. But don’t worry, you’ll be clean soon. And so thin too... You need to eat better. Your grandfather will be in for a surprise.”

“Grand...father?” I repeated quietly.

Her bloodshot eyes darted about in a maddened frenzy. “That’s right! Your—no, my grandfather! Listen, okay? When I regained my memories of my previous life and realized this was the world of ****, I was beside myself! With both joy...and despair, you see, because the main plot would happen decades later, when the heroine joins the Academy! By then, I’d be an old woman already. I wouldn’t be able to take part in the story in any way. So I figured, you know, maybe I’d become a teacher or something. I became an adventurer, I learned magic, I studied and studied...to no avail. Only nobles could become students or teachers there. And so...”

“Eep!” I yelped as she gripped my neck and produced a knife and a pitch-black rock from her waist.

“I figured I’d just be the heroine. That is, you,” she said, her smile twisting into a grotesque smirk. “Hey, do you know what an aethercrystal is? Beings that have absorbed a certain amount of mana form a crystal in their hearts, using their blood as a medium. Aethercrystals generate aether within the body. They not only accumulate high-purity aether but also retain trace amounts of the host creature’s characteristics.” The woman chuckled. “I was thrilled to discover this technique in ancient texts, you know. With it, one can imprint one’s own memories and personality onto an aethercrystal, then transfer them into someone else!”

Mana? Aether?

She continued to speak as if drunk on her own jargon. “The sorcerer who’d been researching the method stopped at testing it on live frogs, but I knew I could develop it to completion! The only issue was that I couldn’t use another creature’s crystal! I drew my own blood, over and over, and patiently collected the coagulants containing my aether, until finally, after five years, my very own aethercrystal was complete! It was arduous... Painful... But...” The verbose woman grinned broadly, flaunting the pitch-black crystal. “All I need to do is embed this into your heart, and I can discard this old body and become you! I’ll be the protagonist!”

“Eep!”

The woman was mad. She couldn’t have been in her right mind. Even if she succeeded, wouldn’t she just be creating a different person bearing her memories and personality? I was a child, and still I understood that much.

Nevertheless, she raised her knife. “Now, be very still. This’ll be over soon.”

“N-Nooo!” I screamed. In my terror, I flailed, and the knife nicked my hand, causing a small cut on my palm. When my bloodied hand touched the aethercrystal in her grasp, something odd flowed into my mind. “Ack!”

Though I’d knocked the aethercrystal away, the woman’s consciousness seemed to split from the tumbling stone. A feeling both hot and cold flowed into me from the cut on my hand—something disgusting, as though that woman were invading my body. I resisted it with all my might, and only remnants of it settled within me. The feelings of fear that had reigned absolute for the past three years sank coldly to the bottom of my heart.

I narrowed my eyes, realizing that thoughts of seizing the opportunity to strike back were at the forefront of my mind. As the woman continued trying to pin me down, I spotted a convenient rock nearby. I gripped it and, with all the force I could muster, brought it down on the woman’s temple with a loud crunch.

She screamed in agony and tumbled sideways, dropping her knife as she lifted her hands to her head. I picked up the blade in my right hand, supported the hilt with my left, and plunged it into the woman’s torso.

A gurgle rose from her throat and she coughed. “Wh-Why...you...”

The knife had threaded between the woman’s ribs and settled into her chest, gouging out her heart. In her wide-open, disbelieving eyes, I saw a reflection of myself standing there, cold and emotionless. She reached for me and, unperturbed, I drove the knife farther in, even more forcefully, causing a large volume of blood to pour forth and the light to leave her eyes as she slumped motionless and silent to the ground.

My hand was shaking slightly as it held the knife. Slowly, I pried it off the hilt with my other hand’s just-as-shaky fingers.

I understood now that what had flowed into my mind were fragmented shards of this woman’s knowledge. While I didn’t know what she’d been thinking or why she’d tried to do what she did, I understood that this woman’s decades’ worth of blood and sweat had been poured into something called an “otome game.”

This world was called Ciel. It was a land of swords and magic, at the heart of which lay Claydale, the largest kingdom on the continent of Sars. Geography, history, sorcery, combat techniques—much of what was known to ordinary people throughout this world was too specialized for me to understand at the time, but I’d acquired the minimum knowledge necessary to survive on my own.

I retrieved my charm pouch and the ring that had once been within it from the woman’s ever-colder corpse. The creepy aethercrystal that lay discarded nearby I smashed to bits, careful not to touch it. I tossed what shards remained into a ditch. Next, I rummaged through the woman’s pockets, looting the knife’s sheath and her wallet, then slung her discarded pack over my shoulder.

There was nothing left for me in this place, but...there was still one thing I needed to do.

***

With the pack still slung over my shoulder, I made my way back to the orphanage I’d escaped from, my footsteps ringing differently in my ears. Unseen, I peered inside and saw the old lady yelling at the other orphans, apparently having just realized I was gone. I quietly slipped onto the grounds and concealed myself in a dark corner of the garden, holding my breath like a beast lying in wait.

I was so exhausted that I was quickly beset by sleepiness. I fended it off by slowly nibbling on the hardened brown bread I’d found among the woman’s belongings. Trying not to doze off, I waited until the orphanage had grown silent and the light in the old lady’s bedroom had gone out, then another hour still, before I began to move quietly in the shadows. My eyes, now well adapted to the dark, could spot the old lady even in the faint starlight.

None of the rooms in the old church-turned-orphanage could be locked, and so I quietly pushed the door open and made my way into her room, which smelled strongly of alcohol. Patiently, I waited for the snoring old hag to turn in her sleep. The moment she turned her back to me, I picked up a nearby hand towel, pressed it lightly to her neck, and brought down the knife between her vertebrae, putting all of my body weight into the swing.

A faint groan escaped the old lady’s throat as her body twitched. Keeping pressure on the towel to stem the bleeding, I slowly slid the knife out of her neck, wiping it clean in the process, and released the breath I’d been holding. My fingers’ tight grip on the hilt loosened as I returned the knife to its sheath, then tucked it into my belt.

She would never cause anyone anguish again. If the knowledge I’d acquired from that woman was to be believed, the orphanage where I’d lived was owned by a kindly old priest. Perhaps now he’d take over sooner, and fewer orphans would end up being sold off.

Still...

“How stupid,” I muttered.

The old orphanage, the contemptuous children, the greedy old hag, the townspeople who turned a blind eye to the abuse, the woman’s feelings, the whole idea of an “otome game”—all stupid.

This was what I’d been born for? This bullshit? My mother and father had died for this?!

I rifled through the old lady’s room and the adjacent storeroom, finding leather sandals for my bare feet and proper clothes to replace my bloodied rags. Then I took clean cloths, the woman’s hidden savings, and the quality food and canteens she’d hoarded for herself, among other essentials, and packed everything into a sheet before running into the night, away from this stupid city.

Screw the otome game.

“I’m gonna make it all by my damn self.”

Escape

First, I went over my newly acquired knowledge.

This was the world of an “otome game” called Silver Wings of Love, commonly shortened to just Silver Love. I wasn’t quite sure what such games entailed exactly, but I grasped that they were like illustrated stories in which the protagonist could seduce various men, giving and receiving gifts and favors. Though I couldn’t imagine someone like that really existed, according to that woman, I was this “protagonist.”

My name, Alicia, was also the name of the game’s heroine. In the story, my last name changed when I was taken in by a noble family. According to my new knowledge, my mother had been a noble lady and had eloped with my father, a knight’s apprentice. This meant I had noble blood and relatives and could probably live a better life. If I were still my old self, not knowing any better, I might’ve been intimidated by nobles, who were so far above me on the food chain, though I would also have longed to live like a princess.

But now that I had all this “knowledge,” I feared aristocrats far more than I longed to be one. I knew they were nothing but trouble. Besides, I had no intention of living a life on the rails of fate, following the plot that woman had been so passionate about. She’d fully believed this world was part of a game, but from my perspective, that notion didn’t match with reality.

I wasn’t some character in a story. I was me, a person living and breathing in this world.

Screw fate. I’d make it on my own. And now I had all the knowledge I needed to do that. Ideally, if I was going to stay away from the game’s story, I needed to know what it was about to an extent. But acquiring that information would’ve required embedding that aethercrystal with the woman’s knowledge and personality into my heart, which I hadn’t done, so what I’d gleaned about her former world was vague at best. Perhaps in my rejection of her, I’d subconsciously blocked that aspect of her nature and thus had been unable to absorb that information. And now the crystal had been smashed to bits and dumped into a ditch, so even if I’d wanted to do something about it, I wouldn’t have been able to. And, honestly, I didn’t want to touch it again either way.

Still, by piecing together the bits I knew about the game with what I knew about other stories, I was beginning to get a rough idea of what it may have been about.

The bright, kindhearted, hardworking heroine was born from the elopement of a noble lady and a knight’s apprentice. She lost both parents to a monster attack and was raised in a church as an orphan. After various twists and turns, she was discovered by her mother’s family, attended an academy for noble children, became friends with a prince and his entourage, and was bullied by his fiancée, the “villainess.” Then, in a dungeon, she received a divine blessing. She went on adventures, and eventually got a happy ending somehow. It was truly a stupid story.

Seriously, how stupid. It wasn’t like humans needed to be nobles or marry princes to live. I didn’t care whether it was the gods themselves who had laid out that path for me—not even they got to tell me I’d been born for that kind of bullshit.

For now, I decided, based on the knowledge I’d gained from that woman, to head to the neighboring town. I’d learned I was in the Claydale Empire, on the continent of Sars, in a world named Ciel. Specifically, I was in the northernmost part of Claydale, in some baron’s territory, whatever the name was. She didn’t seem to have memorized the names of smaller places either.

Regardless, I wanted to go to the neighboring town because the place where I’d lived so far had felt more like a large village, and I figured that going to the town where the baron lived would afford me more places to hide in. Ideally, I would leave this man’s territory altogether before any nobles found me, but as a child, I couldn’t travel far. I’d been able to manage in the town where I’d been living, but entering a larger, walled settlement meant paying a toll of one silver coin. Crossing into other territories also cost money, so ordinarily, commoners didn’t travel.

There were ways around those fees, however. By paying income-appropriate taxes to the lord of a given territory, one could attain citizenship and move freely within those lands. Another option was to buy a merchant’s pass from the Traders’ Guild, which allowed travel to other territories at a discount.

Lastly, there was the Adventurers’ Guild. By signing up and reaching a high enough rank, a member could move freely within the country. Of course, one didn’t simply become high ranked overnight, but even an entry-level Rank 1 adventurer could freely come and go from the town where they’d registered.

“Adventurer?” I asked myself.

What was an adventurer, anyway? I thought about it, and some information surfaced in my mind. The Adventurers’ Guild was an organization originally derived from a mercenary guild supported by the Traders’ Guild, and adventurers were mercenaries who specialized in eliminating monsters while exploring ruins and other untrodden areas, either alone or in small groups.

Nowadays, however, adventurers could more accurately be described as jacks-of-all-trades, doing anything from looting ancient ruins to supplying cities with aethercrystals harvested from monsters. Even so, high-ranking adventurers capable of rallying a small elite force to bring down powerful monsters were still highly valued.

Considering that aethercrystals were used like batteries, as a means to store aether, it was a necessity to have adventurers who could supply them. But in order to register with the Adventurers’ Guild, aspiring candidates needed to at least qualify for Rank 1. That is, they needed to have a combat-related skill at Level 1 or higher.

Skill? Level? I tilted my head at the words floating casually through my mind. Having grown up an orphan with neither wisdom nor knowledge, I wasn’t sure what either of those words meant, but I didn’t have time to try and find out.

My immediate goal was to get a Level 1 skill somehow and become an adventurer. The neighboring town had a Guild as well as some places for me to lie low, but I couldn’t simply head straight there.

The biggest issue was the fact that I was only seven years old. Even if I did manage to get into the town, there was a high chance I’d be tricked and sold by a grown-up with ill intentions. Before I ever ventured in there, I needed, at minimum, the combat prowess to fend off run-of-the-mill thugs. If I could learn a combat skill in the process, even better, but it was questionable whether that was possible with just the knowledge I had.

For now, I needed to ascertain what I could and couldn’t do in my current state, so I thought of hiding somewhere along the road that connected the rural settlement I’d been in to the neighboring town. Apparently it took from dawn ’til dusk to reach my destination by horse-drawn carriage, which meant that on foot, it should take about two days. Considering the distance, there had to be someplace suitable for camping along the way, and there would likely be a source of water nearby. That was my first destination.

***

Gong... Gong...

The bell in the town’s clock tower tolled twice, rousing me from my half-conscious state. It rang every four hours, and the two tolls meant it was now four in the morning. Field workers typically woke up to this bell, whereas town residents started working to the tolling of eight in the morning. The orphans in the church started working at four, but the old hag only woke up at eight, so it would be a while yet before anyone noticed she was dead. After making sure the night sky was indeed getting brighter, I left my hiding spot in the woods and started down the road to the neighboring town.

I wasn’t sure how long it’d take me to reach the campsite, but even on my child’s legs, I hoped to arrive by nightfall. Unfortunately, I’d overestimated my stamina. For four hours, I walked—not bad, all things considered. The sky had grown bright and the bell tolled for the third time today, far in the distance.

Logically, there was no way a child could’ve walked for hours without a proper meal and on virtually no sleep. I’d reached my limit, and I slumped to the ground, a dull ache in my head and a haze forming over my vision. This was bad, I knew, and I dragged myself a few meters off the road on weak, trembling legs. I took refuge in the forest, under the shade of a tree, out of view from the main road.

I reached into my pack and took out a leather canteen, taking greedy gulps of the musty water to soothe my parched throat. It’d been mixed with fruit liquor to prevent spoilage, which made me cough violently.

After catching my breath, I brought the canteen to my lips again, drinking in small sips this time. As my consciousness cleared, the roar of hunger in my stomach grew more intense. I rifled through the food I’d stolen from the old hag and grabbed a piece of white bread, thinking it would be best to eat it before it got moldy. The first bite felt nostalgic, reminding me of a flavor I’d experienced long ago with my family.

Soft white bread was a luxury. Even when I’d still had my parents, we’d only eaten it on special occasions, which I’d looked forward to. My father, a guard, had apologized to my mother every day for not being able to afford white bread. I remembered finding it odd at the time, but if the knowledge I’d acquired from that woman was to be believed and my mother had been of noble stock, then my father’s behavior made sense.

As if willing my wistfulness away, I tore into the bread, then washed it down with water from the canteen. On a full stomach, I finally felt more alert.

“Ow.”

Now that I’d calmed down, I felt the pain in my feet and grimaced. At the orphanage, all the children were barefoot, so this was my first time wearing sandals. I wasn’t used to it, and my feet were chafed and bleeding.

It hurt, but I wasn’t scared. After making sure the injuries weren’t serious, I plucked a clean-looking hand towel from my pack and used the knife to cut strips off of it to use as makeshift bandages. While I was at it, I treated the cut on my hand from my scuffle with the woman the day before. I’d already performed basic first aid last night, but now I cleaned the gash with the alcohol-laced water from my canteen before bandaging it up.

Though I now knew how to do these things, my child fingers were surprisingly clumsy, and it took me quite a while to finish patching myself up. That wasn’t the main issue, however.

“I’m low on water.” Having used it to treat my wounds, I was left with very little.

Perhaps due to my concerns over what remained of my drinking water, the knowledge I’d acquired from that woman surfaced in my mind—small children needed to consume plenty of fluids. Perhaps failing to do so had left me in my previous state. I wondered what to do and thought perhaps I needed “sugars” and “vitamins” from fruit and such.

I wasn’t sure what vitamins were, exactly, but I figured they must’ve been important. But where in this forest was I to find fruit? Once again, the knowledge volunteered itself, and guided by it, I searched for a while until I found blackberries growing on a shrub about as tall as my chest.

I plucked one, pinched it between my fingers to break the skin, and gave the juice a taste. It was rather tart, not very sweet, and quite acidic. “So sour...”

People usually made these into jam or dried them before eating, but they were still edible raw. After making sure there were no snakes nearby, I picked more of the black fruit, using a large leaf—torsol grass?—as a makeshift plate to collect them on. Afterward, I organized my belongings, then began eating.

In the bag I’d brought with me from the orphanage I had a number of garments, cloths, food items, and some coin. The tunic I was wearing was standard among commoner children. A bit big, but it’d suffice for now. I had one loaf of white bread remaining, plus some jerky and a chunk of dried cheese, which meant if I rationed my food, I had enough for another three days. Adding in the money I’d taken from that woman, I had fifteen silver, eight small silver, and thirteen copper. It was quite a large sum, considering I could buy meals for a few copper, and a single silver covered three days’ lodging.

As I checked the pack I’d taken from that woman in the alley, I found bundles of wilted herbs and two ceramic vials containing what appeared to be potions. And, tucked away at the bottom, there was a small book that seemed to be a pocket journal.

“Strange,” I mused as knowledge yet again bubbled to the surface from looking at the book.

Books were expensive, but not that rare. According to my knowledge, plant-based paper had come into widespread use on this continent around 120 years ago, replacing parchment made from animal skin. Torsol grass, the same plant I’d used earlier to collect berries, was used for pulp. The leaves were large, supple, and covered in short, fuzzy hairs. Originally, it had been used for cleanup after doing one’s business. I myself had used it for this purpose, in fact, but it was fair to say it wasn’t good for much else. While the leaves were soft, they were very fibrous, and the only animals that grazed on it were goats.

Supposedly, plant-based paper was discovered because ancient nobles, displeased with using the leaves for wiping, had ordered alchemists to research an alternative. When torsol grass was heated, it lost its coloration and turned into a yellowish paper. Over the decades, the quality of the process had improved, and books that had once cost over ten gold had dropped to a tenth of the price.

What I’d called “strange” was actually the fact that this book was made of parchment. The pages were flimsy, perhaps worn thin from having been rewritten on many times, and contained detailed information on various medicinal and poisonous plants, mushrooms, and minerals, complete with intricate illustrations.

I wondered if that woman’d really had a scholarly side. My gut told me she’d stolen this from whomever had taught her magic. What a waste of space she’d been.

Regardless, this truly was good news. My knowledge helped me understand what the letters on the pages meant, but I still needed to learn how to read and write proper sentences. This would be helpful for that.

The potions, it seemed, had also been stolen from her mentor. They were high-level healing potions which she’d apparently planned to use to treat me after embedding the aethercrystal into my heart.

As for the bundles of wilted herbs, they were just ordinary medicinal plants that grew everywhere and were used in most homes. I took one into my mouth and chewed it. Enduring the pungent, grassy smell that filled my nostrils, I rubbed the herb into my wounds, then re-bandaged them.

By then, the sun was high in the sky, and my consciousness was at its limit. Before resting, I repacked my belongings and used the knife to chop off my long hair, which the old lady had told me to grow out to sell. I hungrily devoured the berries I’d picked, then hid in the shade like a wounded animal before quietly closing my eyes.

Until recently, I’d been afraid of the dark. Of pain. Hunger. Loneliness. But that’d been because I hadn’t known how to survive on my own.

A quiet noise made me half-open my eyes, and I brought my knife down on the head of a snake that had been approaching my feet. I watched, unfazed, as it writhed for a while before growing still.

It was the unknown that had been frightening to me. Now, small pains no longer scared me. My knowledge helped me understand how much I could endure without dying. I had no reason to be afraid anymore. Had I become this way because I’d absorbed that woman’s decades of knowledge? Still, I didn’t think I’d become someone else as a result.

I was still me. Alicia. No one else.

With those thoughts in mind, I drifted off into a shallow sleep, remaining alert to my surroundings as I rested to heal from my physical fatigue.

Meeting

The next afternoon, I finally arrived at the campsite.

Of my remaining food, I’d eaten only a piece of white bread and jerky; I’d otherwise subsisted on the blackberries easily found all over the woods. According to my previous calculations, my supplies would last me three days total if I rationed them, which meant I had two days to think of some way to engage in combat.

There was no sign of anyone at the campsite. Cautiously, I stepped closer and touched the ashes of a fire. They were fresh, but no traces of heat remained. I had nothing to start a fire with, so I’d hoped there would be embers remaining, but there was no point in wishing for what wasn’t there.

I grabbed a handful of the ashes from the extinguished fire and sprinkled it on my head. I’d already cut my hair, but the pink color still stood out. This could perhaps make it less eye-catching, which would make things easier for me later.

After hiding my belongings in a nearby bower a little ways from the campsite, I took my knife and canteen and decided to look for a water source. I was certain there’d be one nearby, and it didn’t take much searching to find a watering place sprouting from the bottom of a well-trodden road. A little ways upstream from there, I found a small stream that flowed into the rocks through a crack-like hollow before emerging again below the road.

Generally speaking, the farther upstream one was, the cleaner a river’s water, but since I couldn’t boil it, I thought it prudent not to drink any, so I only used it to dampen a cloth to wipe myself clean—not because I necessarily cared about cleanliness, but it would have been stupid to stay caked in sweat and grime and give away my presence through smell.

The reason I was unable to get a fire going or make myself water was the fact that, at the orphanage, the older children used Practical Magic to ignite fires, so there’d been no flintstones I could’ve brought with me.

Magic existed in this world, but the form in common use was called sorcery. The difference was that magic was primal and had existed since ancient times, whereas sorcery was designed through academic analysis and meant for the majority of people to use. One way to think about it would be this: a carriage built by oneself from scratch was magic; a commercially available carriage was sorcery. It wasn’t difficult to figure out which of the two was easier to use.

That woman seemed to have been a sorceress and quite well informed in that sphere, but she hadn’t studied much beyond her areas of interest, so some parts of her knowledge were questionable. What a pain.

In magic, there were six different elements: light, shadow, earth, water, fire, and wind—although, technically, there was also non-elemental magic, so one could say there were seven types. When people had a sufficient amount of aether in an element that suited them, they could use sorcery. There was no convenient technique or tool to easily determine which element one was able to use, so researching it took some effort. At that point, most commoners would’ve given up on learning.

Apparently, that woman had thought there existed a convenient tool one could use to find out what element one was compatible with just by waving a hand over it. She’d been quite indignant at how dry and boring reality was. I seemed to remember quite a bit of useless information, really.

I wanted to learn sorcery myself someday, but what I needed right now was Practical Magic, which was categorized as non-elemental. It could be used to start a fire or produce water, so the reason it was considered non-elemental was generally not well understood.

That woman’s master had taught her crucial information about the amount of aether used to cast spells, causal laws that could interfere with space, and things likely related to the basic principles of this world, but sadly, she hadn’t been interested, so she hadn’t learned them very well.

There were six varieties of Practical Magic, and most commoner adults were able to use it, but not all. Even those who could use it could at most use one or two varieties, according to my newly acquired knowledge. For the record, the woman had been taught all six by her master as part of her pursuits as a sorceress.

Shine, to create a light source roughly the size of a candle.

Darken, to extinguish lights and lamps lit by Shine.

Harden, to solidify something of the earth element for a time.

Spark, to ignite a small flame at one’s fingertips.

Flow, to produce enough water to fill a cup.

Gust, to create a gentle breeze in any direction.

Of these six, Shine was the variety most commonly learned, followed by Spark, then Flow. Hardly anyone cared to learn the rest. It wasn’t so much that people weren’t able to master all six; it was more that nobody bothered to. Wasn’t this the foundation for elemental magic, though?

Since even commoners could use Practical Magic, it had never been subjected to academic analysis, and it was generally learned incidentally, through repeated observation.

One of the core principles of sorcery was that elemental spells required incantations. Practical Magic, however, being non-elemental, could be cast just by saying a simple word, called an “invocation,” as long as the caster had a clear mental image of what they wanted.

Since that woman’s master had insisted that she learn, she’d had clear memories of the training process. I, however, was stuck at the preliminary stage. It involved practicing by feeling the aether within oneself, but I wasn’t in touch with my own aether in any way.

“Oh well,” I muttered.

For the time being, I searched the knowledge I’d acquired from that woman, looking for anything related to aether.

The first thing I found was that all living creatures in this world, without exception, possessed aether. This was because mana, the foundation for aether, existed in the environment—not just the air but water and soil, too, were filled with mana. Different theories posited that it was due to spirits, or generated by the soul, but basically, by performing essential functions such as breathing, drinking water, consuming the blessings of the earth, and eating animal meat, the body stored mana.

And it was this stored mana that was converted into energy—aether—that could be used for spells. And if one possessed above a certain amount of aether, said aether would supposedly produce an aethercrystal within one’s body, capable of generating more aether autonomously. But that was beside the point. The crux of the matter was that I undoubtedly had aether within me, though, perhaps because mana was plentiful in the environment, I couldn’t tell my own aether apart from it.

Mana formed aethercrystals using blood as a medium, which meant there had to be aether flowing in my blood. I brought my fingers to my wrist, feeling the thump-thump of my pulse. Closing my eyes, I tried to focus and sense the aether that I knew had to be coursing through my veins. There was something there. Something faint...

“No use,” I said.

In the end, whether that faint feeling had been aether or just my imagination, I couldn’t tell.

Impatience served no purpose, but I didn’t have the luxury of time. I had much to do. For the time being, while searching for a safe place to stash my belongings, I surveyed my surroundings, picked some more blackberries, and breathed in repeatedly, trying to visualize absorbing as much mana as possible.

Still, I couldn’t sense my aether. Perhaps I needed to change my approach, I thought. It was hard to feel, say, the moisture in the air, but rain was a different story. So perhaps it would’ve been easier for me to sense my own aether if someone directed a large amount of it at me, but considering I was avoiding people, that wasn’t practical.

I hid myself in a gap between some rocks I found a little upstream of a creek. As I ate the berries, which I’d washed in the creek, I went over other, non-magical options in my head. I could use the knife, probably. The woman was a sorceress, but she also had Dagger Mastery, a skill for handling small bladed weapons.

I’d been putting off going over skills, and now was an appropriate time for it.

Skills were nothing to write home about—human abilities, little else. That woman had thought them to be a special gift, a cheat code of some sort, but reality wasn’t so simple, much to her usual self-righteous indignation. That said, to be clear, there did seem to be something called a “gift,” bestowed upon people by spirits. That was different from skills, though.

Her master had called skills the “imprinting” of general abilities. When one consciously repeated an action, the aether within one’s body seemed to react, causing the action to be “imprinted” upon the soul. So “skill,” in this world, was a simplified way of putting this phenomenon into words.

Of course, one could perform those same actions without having the related skill. All imprinting did was make the action less likely to fail and impossible to forget.

For instance, it was said that taking a single day off from swordplay practice meant you’d need three days to catch back up. But for someone who’d acquired the relevant skill, there was no decay, so practice was more effective, making the art even faster to learn. Even when one was in poor health or anxious, actions that would’ve otherwise required conscious performance could now be done unconsciously, making things much easier in any field. However, skills weren’t easily acquired, and even more training was necessary in order to raise one’s skill level.

Skills had stages depending on one’s proficiency and technique. Since there existed technology to measure and describe them, they were called “skill levels”—numerical representations of a skill’s progression.

Increasing a skill’s level was no easy feat; just learning the skill itself was often difficult. It wasn’t as simple as memorizing the basics and slapping a Level 1 label on it. One couldn’t acquire a skill until one could perform the same action flawlessly, over and over.

It’d taken that woman three years to achieve Level 1 in Dagger Mastery due to her unwillingness to practice. Fire Mastery, on the other hand, had only taken her months. This wasn’t necessarily due to talent, however; it could’ve been a simple matter of preference.

She was a Rank 2 sorceress, which meant her relevant combat skills were all at Level 2. Her skills were Level 2 Fire Mastery, Level 2 Water Mastery, and Level 1 Dagger Mastery, I think? She had other skills, I was pretty sure, but they were general skills, so my memory of them was vague.

Having a Level 1 skill made one a beginner but not an amateur. Apparently, it was commonly agreed upon in this world that one was fully competent at any given skill at Level 2. A level of 3 made one a specialist in that field, and qualified to find employment with nobles and such. Meanwhile, nobles and governments would actively attempt to recruit people who attained Level 4. Finally, at Level 5, one was revered as an expert, commonly referred to as a “master.”

It was possible to go even higher, however. At Level 6, one transcended human limits, able to serve as the chief court sorcerer of an empire, or a “sword saint”—the leader of an order of knights.

Though there was no concrete evidence of this, it was believed skills could go up to Level 10, at which point one became a demigod, no longer human. This was only seen in legends and fairy tales, however.

That woman had been disappointed that skills weren’t special blessings from the gods or whatever it was she’d been expecting, but personally, I was happy that they weren’t simple handouts. Otherwise, it’d have meant there was some sort of divine entity pulling strings the whole time, right?

I had no interest in an easy “gift” that could be taken away just as easily on the whims of whoever had bestowed it. I’d just have lived in fear that way. For the same reason, I wasn’t interested in, say, a one-of-a-kind, powerful weapon. Strength that could be lost or taken away wasn’t what I considered true strength.

My surroundings had grown darker as I pondered this. Thanks to the berries I’d been eating, I wasn’t too hungry, but the water in my canteen was running low. Though the berries had supplemented my hydration, it wasn’t enough. If I couldn’t learn Practical Magic, I’d have to drink water from the creek, dangerous though it might be. It wasn’t something I could learn on the spot either way, so I decided to save my thoughts on my aether for after dark. Until then, I’d get some knife practice in.

To start, I gripped the hilt based on my knowledge of that woman’s Dagger Mastery skill. Apparently, my grip had been correct from the moment I’d stabbed her. Then, taking on a half-crouching stance to reduce my exposure to attack, I thrust out the knife with one hand.

Too slow. Too clumsy, even for a first attempt. Instead of trying various techniques, I decided to stick with practicing this thrust for now.

After many repetitions, I exhaled. I must’ve been very focused, because I’d failed to notice the sun had set and my surroundings had grown quite dark, too dark to see well. The only sound reaching my ears was the gentle flow of the nearby creek. Maybe I’ll practice sensing my aether for a bit, then go to sleep, I thought.

A distant, flickering scarlet light pierced through the darkness and caught my eye. Was someone at the campsite? I’d wanted to avoid people for a while longer, but if this was a bandit or something, it’d be prudent for me to leave this place immediately.

Careful not to make any sounds, I peeked out from the bushes to check the campsite. A man was sitting there, with his wide back to me, roasting meat on a skewer by a fire. As I stared intently at his unusually broad shoulders, the man suddenly raised his voice.

“Who’s there?! Show yourself!”

Aether

Had I been spotted?!

The large man who’d had his back to me silently rose to his feet, gripping the greatsword next to him. I couldn’t see his face clearly against the backlight, but the sharp glint in his gaze made me think he wasn’t ordinary.

“A monster? Come out or I’ll make you,” he threatened in a low tone, unsheathing his blade.

I felt something emanating from him, and my legs began to tremble slightly as my blood ran cold. Maybe it was a lack of hesitation to kill if necessary that I’d sensed in him. I’d messed up; I should’ve retreated as soon as I was noticed. Even with my knowledge, his overwhelming presence, the likes of which I’d never felt, paralyzed my mind for a moment.

Smacking my trembling legs with my fists, I quickly turned on my heel and ran. I could still escape. I’d been in the shadows all along, but the man had been sitting by a fire, so his eyes hadn’t adjusted to the darkness yet.

Crossing my arms in front of my face to protect my eyes from the bushes, I sprinted through the dark forest, keeping my center of gravity low.

Behind me, I heard the sounds of branches snapping as if someone was kicking through the brush. The man was chasing after me. I could feel his intense presence but heard no footsteps.

Trying to suppress the feeling that was swelling in my heart, I thought back on how it had felt to kill that old hag and took a deep, calming breath.

Forcing my screaming legs into action, I made an abrupt turn and raced off in another direction. The rustling behind me grew a little louder, which told me that I had thrown my pursuer off momentarily. Before he could recover, I turned again, careful to mask the sounds of my footsteps as I ran through the forest, hiding in the shadows of the trees. If the man continued to chase me even now, then he was definitely going for the kill.

The tingling sensation I’d felt from his presence began to fade. Trying to be quieter, I slowed my pace and held my breath, but at that moment, I heard the sound of something cutting through the wind, and a hand axe whizzed past me and lodged itself in the trunk of the tree I’d been hiding behind.

I stifled a scream. The man wasn’t far behind. He’d been suppressing his presence, trying to narrow down where I was.

Once he realized he’d failed to kill me, he broke out in a mad dash through the forest. My body, too young and frail to keep up with that kind of stamina, couldn’t continue running. Instead, I waited for the moment when he raised his greatsword, and then I charged at him with my knife.

“Guh!” Before my blade could reach his thick leg, he quickly struck me with the pommel of his sword.

The sound of something cracking echoed through the air, and a surprised exclamation escaped the man’s lips. The impact knocked the wind out of my lungs and lifted me into the air, sending me tumbling through the forest.

My consciousness began to dim, and the last thing I heard was the man rushing over before darkness claimed me.

***

And now here I was, quietly sitting by the campfire with my pursuer.

“Sorry, lad,” the man said. “You were so quick I mistook you for a kobold and chased you down.” Kobolds were low-level monsters that looked like bipedal dogs. I’d never thought I could’ve been mistaken for one.

This man was apparently an adventurer. His thought process was that a monster on the loose near the roads would’ve been dangerous for travelers, and so he’d given chase. And since I’d kept trying to throw him off my tail, he’d turned relentless in his pursuit.

“Now, this ain’t an apology or anything, but go on, eat up,” he said, offering me the snake he’d been roasting earlier, skinned and chopped. I’d never had snake before, but I remembered someone at the orphanage mentioning that the older boys who couldn’t deal with the meager food would venture out into the forest and catch snakes to eat.

There were a lot of green snakes in this area, and they only had a mildly paralytic venom. They wouldn’t attack larger animals unless threatened. A typical girl might’ve been grossed out by the thought of eating a snake, but I wasn’t, and the grilled-meat aroma was tempting, so I took a bite. The meat was quite juicy, and a mild taste spread through my mouth.

Frankly, it was bland, not particularly tasty, but between an empty stomach and a history of not having had much access to good food, I practically inhaled it. The man gave me water to wash it down with, and after drinking it, I finally felt like a person again.

He watched me eat, waiting silently for me to finish before speaking. “So, lad. What’s a kid doing at a place like this? Where are your folks?”

I didn’t respond.

The man must’ve mistaken me for a boy due to my hair, which I’d cut short. He had a rough look to him, but deep down he was kindhearted. Soft, perhaps, was a better term.

Noticing my silence, and possibly assuming I was an orphaned street urchin, he let out a small sigh and changed the subject. “Does that still hurt?”

I shook my head slightly in response. The man had Level 1 in Light Mastery and had used the spell Cure on me. A faint bruise remained between my chest and left shoulder, though. It hurt when touched, but it wasn’t anything unbearable.

A brief explanation of Light Mastery: at Level 1, one could use the spells “Cure” and “Restore.” While Cure could replenish one’s vitality, all it did was close wounds, not completely ease pain. Restore, meanwhile, would fully mend one’s injuries, but it had to be used at close range, it took time to fully work, and it actually depleted one’s vitality.

Used promptly enough, Cure could completely heal a cut without leaving any scarring. Since it had a wider range and took effect faster, it was the most commonly used form of healing sorcery. Restore was used in cases such as that of an unmarried young woman sustaining a severe injury that would’ve otherwise left a scar. Due to the complexity of the spell’s structure, even those with an aptitude for light-based sorcery tended not to go out of their way to learn it. If the man had used Restore, my bruise would’ve cleared up completely in no time, but he’d said he didn’t know how to cast it.

I could sense his growing impatience as I gathered my thoughts in silence, but I still couldn’t fully trust him. Shifting my gaze downward, I looked at my knife, broken by the pommel of his greatsword.

“Oh, my bad,” he said. “I ruined your knife, huh? But that one ain’t good for combat, not really. Might be something for a noblewoman to use for self-defense. The blade’s sharp but flimsy. Even trying to cut through a rabbit bone would’ve chipped it.”

Though he was mouthing off excuses for having broken my knife, I didn’t really blame him. Yes, it was inconvenient, but I’d been the one who’d run away for no reason, and it was better to have a broken knife than a fractured bone the man’s Cure spell wouldn’t have been able to handle. It could’ve been worse.

Seeing me shake my head without complaint, he seemed to grow restless. From his waist, he produced a knife, still in its sheath, and handed it to me.

“Use this instead,” he offered. “It’s a bit big for a child, but I use it to take monsters apart, so it’s pretty sturdy.”

Silently, I took the blade and pulled it from its sheath. Though it looked a bit aged, it had been carefully sharpened. It was sturdier than my previous knife, which would make it more challenging to get a deep stab in, but it wouldn’t chip against bone, at least. And it was no simple iron knife—it was refined forged steel, making it relatively expensive. That he’d just casually offer it to a street urchin suggested he was indeed far too soft, and it made me feel silly for having kept my guard up.

“Thanks, mister,” I murmured.

“I’m only twenty, you know,” he pointed out.

I’d thought him to be at least thirty, but he was surprisingly young. Now that I took a closer look, I could see that his skin appeared youthful, and the ruggedness probably came from his stubble. He wasn’t bad looking, and his somewhat sullen expression had a certain charm to it that drew an involuntary smile from me.

“Oh hey, there’s a smile,” he said. “That’s much better on a kid.” He ruffled my hair roughly and I swatted his hand away as my smile faded back into a frown.

I stared up at him intently. “Hey, will you teach me how to use aether?”

“Uh, what? That’s kinda sudden.”

“Learning practical magic would really help me.”

“Uh, I dunno. I mean, I didn’t really learn it from anyone else.”

He went on to explain that upon using practical magic, he’d felt something different “course” through him, which had helped him understand what aether was. Meaning my learning process had been backwards.

I pondered the matter quietly. At this rate, learning practical magic would take far too long and be too difficult. In which case, as I’d thought, it’d be quicker to just sense a large amount of aether from someone else.

“Hey, can you use a lot of aether?” I asked.

“Hmm,” he mused. “My sorcery ain’t anything special, but I do use a ton of aether for Boost.”

“Can you do that now?”

“I can, but... Oh, whatever. Just stand back. It’s dangerous.”

“Uh, okay.”

Dangerous? Boost was a technique used by fighters to enhance their physical abilities by channeling aether throughout their bodies. Why would that be dangerous? I didn’t fully understand, but nevertheless, I took a few steps back.

A surge of energy emanated from him, causing the fire’s flames to flare up and sway intensely.

“Wow...” I murmured.

So this was Boost. Even just by watching, I could feel how overwhelmingly powerful it was. Drawn to it, I impulsively stepped closer and reached for his arm. The man’s eyes snapped open in surprise, and the moment I touched him, I felt a sharp jolt and was sent tumbling backwards.

“Lad!” he exclaimed, rushing over in a panic. I wasn’t injured, but my hand was still tingling. As I sat there in a daze, he began to scold me. “I told you to stay back! It wouldn’t have affected someone who can already use aether, but a kid like you who’s not used to it gets a huge shock!”

“Yeah,” I mumbled. “That startled me.” It’d been surprising and somewhat painful, but not incapacitating or anything. With a bit of a grimace, I pushed myself to my feet and flexed my tingling fingers as he gave me an exasperated look.

But that’d been—no, this, right now, was aether. I could feel a power coursing through my veins, similar to what I’d felt when I’d touched the man. That seemed to confirm my hypothesis that blood was rife with aether. As that woman’s knowledge suggested, when I focused on the blood flowing through the veins and capillaries all throughout my body, the hazy aether spreading within me did indeed become more pronounced. With every heartbeat, blood and aether gathered in my heart and grew slightly stronger, and I felt a slight warmth as it circulated throughout my body once more.

“Wait. Lad, is that Boost?!” the man said. “Wait, no, it ain’t perfect, but...”

Apparently, by making aether flow alongside my bloodstream, I had managed to use a sort of facsimile of Boost. With this, I could learn practical magic, and perhaps even elemental sorcery.

As I excitedly continued making aether circulate within me, I suddenly felt dizzy. The man caught my arm to keep me from collapsing. “Hey, you should stop that,” he cautioned. “Using Boost gradually consumes your aether. You’ll fall over at this rate.”

“Okay...” I murmured. The woman had known Dagger Mastery, but that skill hadn’t allowed her to use Boost, so my knowledge of how it worked was limited. I nodded obediently at him, and he let out a tired sigh for some reason. “Um, mister?”

“I ain’t no ‘mister,’” he grumbled. “Call me Feld.” After a brief moment’s pause, he continued, “Well, whatever. Won’t matter if I’m a day late getting back.”

The man—that is, Feld—stood up and loomed over me with a smile fierce enough to make an ordinary child cry.

“You better be ready, kid,” he said. “Tomorrow I’m drilling the basics into you. All day.”

Uh, what?

Training in the Forest

Feld, the big, kindhearted man, planned to “drill the basics into me all day.”

I wasn’t sure how, exactly, we’d reached this point, but I did trust him to an extent. And, given his skills, it wasn’t as though I could’ve escaped, even if I’d refused. Since that woman’s knowledge of close combat was lacking, which made me nervous, I’d decided to accept his offer.

The next morning, I rose with the sun. For breakfast, Feld lightly toasted some brown bread he had on him and shared it with me. Back at the orphanage, the kids would always complain about brown bread, calling it “bland and gross” and whining about wanting to eat white bread instead. It was true that some of it was so hard one may as well have been chewing on leather sandals, but I didn’t hate it that much.

Sure, it wasn’t as fluffy as white bread, but it was soft on the inside, and with proper chewing, the flavor really came through. If it was made with care, using flour ground finely enough, it wasn’t that bad. It was the poorly made stuff made from low-grade buckwheat flour that was awful, so that was on the baker. That said, the brown bread at the orphanage? Horrendous.

“All right, lad,” Feld asked after breakfast, towering over me. “First off, have you ever seen your own stats?”

I shook my head. At first, the term “stats” eluded me, but upon drawing from the woman’s knowledge, I eventually understood what it meant.