Two weeks had passed since I began my survival vagabond life. By the way, in this continent one week was called as 『spirit week』 that was divided into seven days of light, darkness, earth, water, fire, wind, and void. The day of light was used as holiday. People got into work again at the day of darkness. It was the clichéd gag of the old men to lament 『Darkness has visited the world』 when they had to get up to work at the day of darkness. Originally darkness that was governing over rest was used as the holiday, but the holy church forcefully switched the holiday to the day of light.

I had gotten used to life in the forest after spending two weeks here, but this country was located at the southern part and the climate was warm, so I could somehow manage here, but if the season was late autumn or winter, there was a possibility that I would have dropped dead unceremoniously.

Due to what I did to the old hag and also that drunkard, I had been on my guard for these two weeks, but there wasn’t any pursuer coming after me.

I was continuing my usual training and basic training of magic power control. During that time, I showed myself in the city once more to resupply for things that I couldn’t get in the forest. I caught sight of those siblings during that time, but perhaps because I handed them the drunkard’s wallet at that time, it seemed they were able to eat properly and their complexion seemed to be better.

For now my relationship with those two was more than stranger but less than acquaintance. For some reason the big brother Gil was considering me as rival, but the little sister Shuri would smile broadly and waved her hand when seeing me.

I had tested many times my discovery of the phenomenon of using magic power to move my hair as an extension of my body. As the result I found out that I could move it for just several centimeters when I swung it around. As I thought the world wasn’t that easy. Even so when I tried experimenting a hundred times, I got the feeling that my accuracy increased by twenty percent while the power also rose slightly.

The bigger problem was how I created the cord just by tying up my hairs together to lengthen the length, so the cord would become frayed after using it dozens of times. Perhaps the cause was my low dexterity, but my dexterity had increased by one thanks to me continuously braiding my hairs into cord.

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▼ Aria (Alicia)?? Race : Human??– Rank 0

【Magic Power : 43/52】△ 7 UP【Stamina : 28/36】△ 4 UP

【Strength : 3 (4)】【Endurance : 4 (5)】【Agility : 5 (6)】【Dexterity : 6】△ 1 UP

《Non-Elemental Magic Level 1》

《Daily Life Magic×６》《Magic Power Control Level １》

《Stealth Level 1》《Night Vision Level 1》《Search Level 1》

【Overall Combat Strength : 24 (With Body Strengthening : 26)】△ 1 UP

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I still hadn’t learned short sword skill, but in exchange I obtained non-elemental magic level 1. I also still hadn’t learned appraisal skill, but I got the feeling that its precision increased quite a lot because I used it with concentration.

Non-elemental magic that had skill level was Body Strengthening and combat art. Body Strengthening originally should be learned together with close quarter combat skill, but I ended up learning it first.

Looking from the increase of my combat strength, it seemed that body strengthening level 1 strengthened you by ten percent.

....That meant, Feld’s body strengthening was level 5....in other words he could use close quarter combat skill level 5 which was the limit ordinary person. No wonder he was strong.

I only learned magic power type skill because my body was still small and couldn’t handle physical type skill. That was my guess. It was said that learning close quarter combat skill would be quicker if you had body strengthening, but even if I could possibly learn a skill that usually took two or three years to learn in just six months, the me right now didn’t have any leeway to spend that much time.

Was it no good to just trace the forms accurately? Perhaps there was some kind of trick to learn it.

My magic power increased must be thanks to my magic power training and learning body strengthening that was a non-elemental magic. But my stamina increased not only because I got used to live in the forest, I thought it was also because of the pain that came from my leg joints.

At first I thought that this sudden pain in the legs that I felt for the first time was caused by excessive training and fatigue, but the “knowledge” inside me taught me that it was 『growing pains』.

It seemed such phenomenon would occur when human body rapidly grew. But that should occur when I was over ten years old and my body got bigger. Then why was such phenomenon occurring in a seven years old like me? It made me anxious and I tried to investigate it in the “knowledge”. Then an information about magic power surfaced.

It almost never happened with commoner but, it seemed that the children of nobles who trained their magic power since their childhood would grow quickly. Noble had fast growth and slow aging. That was because the nobles were the ruling class who were chosen by god with noble blue blood flowing in their body....a part of the nobility seemed to say that about themselves, but according to that woman’s teacher, it seemed to be a phenomenon that occurred simply because they had a lot of magic power.

Certainly my magic power right now was a lot more than some random adult. But, according to my “knowledge”, even among nobles children whose growth already quickened when they were seven years old should be few in number. Perhaps, rather than because of the influence of the number of skills and combat training, it was because there was no children who would train this desperately when they were still just seven years old.

In other words, my conclusion about this current situation was that because my magic power had grown to rival an adult, my body went through a rapid growth and caused my joints to be in pain. That was why the pain wouldn’t vanish even if I rested my body, therefore it wasn’t a reason for me to stop training. Even so as expected the efficiency of training in this condition was bad, so for now I was prioritizing training in 『magic』.

But before that, what kind of magic should I learn I wonder.

Before thinking about what to choose, it should be more important to ponder about what type of 『magic user』 I wanted to become.

First was the type that I had been considering all this time. Becoming a 『sorcerer』 who used my own magic power to interfere with the surrounding magic particles and used elemental sorcery. This was the most common 『magic user』, and this style could be used in any condition so it was convenient to use.

The second was 『spirit user』 who employed the power of spirit by 『making request』 to the spirits at the surrounding using their own magic power as 『compensation』. The consumption of your magic power could be curbed if you increased your affinity with the spirits. Conversely, if the spirits got into a bad mood then the magic’s power would decrease, and the area would limit your option, like how you couldn’t use earth element on stone paving or couldn’t use wind element inside a cave. You would get hated by water spirit if you used fire inside a forest.

The third was 『summoner』 who used magic circle to summon their contracted spirit or monster. It seemed similar with spirit user, but in this case once you formed a contract, your summon would obey and fight for you every time unless there was some great extenuating circumstance.

You would need to focus your mind when summoning, but once the summon came, the caster could also fight as a warrior or sorcerer which was an advantage. To form a contract with the summon, you would need to subdue the target or made it took a liking to you. Also while the summon was out your magic power would be consumed, so it seemed that it was normal for high ranked sorcerer to learn self-defense. There was nobody who could pick this route as a beginner.

Because of that if I was to learn magic, my only choice from the start could only be 『sorcerer』.

Sorcery had six elements. A sorcerer would use sorcery of the element that suited them. ....That was the common opinion, but I was suspecting that perhaps an individual’s element was simply based on their like and dislike that was affected by their experience, preference, and the environment around them until then. And then by using that element many times, that element’s magic power would form 『magic stone』 inside the body. Perhaps that was the case?

But, did all the magicians until now fail to notice something like this that even a child like me could think of? Perhaps they had noticed but they still were unable to learn many elements simply because they lacked the time to train so many elements.

Let’s assume that the element that was your forte──that was your preference could be learned by training ten times, while it would take a hundred times of training to learn an element that you disliked. Setting aside a race like elf that had eternal life, if a human wanted to master sorcery then it should take them dozens of years just to do so with one element. That was why it was more efficient to abandon the elements that you weren’t good with and focused on the element that you were good with.

And even elf who specialized in magic couldn’t use fire element if they were wood elf who lived in a forest. This must be because they were unconsciously avoiding 『fire』 that could burn the forest.

Also....there might be a catch to this matter just like with 『divine protection(cheat)』. For now training in multiple elements would be inefficient. And if by some chance a catch really existed, then it would be better if I limited the element that I learned to just one or two.

Then first, I shouldn’t test all the elements to see which one I was good with. I should consider of the fighting style that I wanted to adopt before my interests and preferences could solidify and only chose based on efficiency.

If I simply considered battle, then fire magic would be the most optimum. Fire was effective against most living creature, and you could expect the damage to spread wider if the fire kept burning. If I had to list its weak point, it was that spreading damage might also come to hit myself, and flame didn’t have physical weight, so emission type fire sorcery tended to be slow.

For example, with the spell Fire Arrow, it only had a speed that was equal to a rock that a boy threw with all his strength, so any proper fighter would dodge it easily. With earth sorcery’s Stone Bullet, it had physical destructive power and you should be able to obtain a speed that was around the same with a slingshot used by adult, but Stone Bullet that had low magic power could be blocked easily by hard armor or shield.

With water, if you could create ice arrow then it would have speed and also quite a strong power, but water sorcery had a lot of spell that was for affecting living creature so their physical destructive power was low. With wind sorcery, it was difficult to discern it with naked eyes, so it was hard for the opponent to detect it and it was also fast. But its effect against living thing or object was lower than other elements.

Light sorcery could recover stamina and healed wound. It also had convenient spells like for curing poison, but it had very few method to attack. Darkness sorcery had a lot of spells for illusion and support. If you became an expert in it, it seemed that you would even be able to learn space type spell or teleportation, but you wouldn’t be able to use that kind of spell unless you were at the level of royal court sorcerer. And like light sorcery, darkness sorcery also had very few method to attack directly.

Every single one of them had their own weakness and advantage. From that point of view, fire sorcery had a power specialized for attack, water sorcery could also cover wound and do simple treatment, so that woman who could use both might be ideal as a common sorcerer.

In the first place, what was I looking for from sorcery?

I wanted a “weapon” as a method to survive, and even though my magic power had increased somewhat, the amount was still only around a normal adult. I got the feeling that it would be dangerous for me to rely on attack sorcery that would consume a lot of magic power.

Besides I could just train in short sword skill and throwing if I wanted attack power, so I should learn the type of sorcery that could assist with that.

──*Hyun-!*

The skewer I threw stabbed the ground. During these two weeks, I had trained my throwing using the iron skewers.

The skewers were scorched and rusty and pitch black from the soot clinging on it. I spent two whole days grinding them with the whetstone and as I thought, they were made from steel. It would be hard to use them as they were, so I tried grinding the tips to be sharp like a blade. It took time until they became usable, but I was really glad that they were steel. I didn’t know what I would do if it turned out they were just casting after spending this much time.

But although my throw could pierce the ground, it still couldn’t stab a tree trunk. Perhaps that might seem to be completely no good, but being able to throw the skewer completely straight was already a very great improvement.

Light Sorcery and Darkness Sorcery would be good for assisting in close quarter combat and throwing. If I had these two, after a close quarter combat I would be able to treat my wound by my own and my small stamina could also be recovered.

I had also learned stealth, so it should have a particularly good affinity with darkness sorcery’s illusion.

I wouldn’t force myself to fight head on. I’d outwit the enemy, laid trap, and ran away if it was no good. I’d just leave fighting fair and square to the honorable knights or muscle monster like Feld.

Then let’s practice sorcery immediately....that was my plan, but even though that woman should have done the general training to investigate her element, she had completely forgotten everything about darkness sorcery.

No, she wasn’t interested to it at all, so there was also a possibility that she was listening to the lesson of her teacher from the start.....

In exchange, she had a lot of knowledge about light sorcery. When I pondered why was her knowledge that polarized, it seemed the 『me』 in the 『otome game』 was using light magic, so she became desperate to study it.

If asked why she didn’t manage to learn it even though she was that interested in it, it was because she managed to learn fire sorcery and water sorcery easily. It seemed that she had so much fun with them and got bored with learning light magic. ....From this I learned how important it was for a sorcerer to have concentration.

Now then, let’s train in light sorcery. When it came to learning sorcery spell with skill level 2....or in sorcery term, second rank sorcery or above, usually people would became an apprentice of a master and learned from them like that woman, or joined the sorcerer guild and paid to be taught the sorcery that they wanted.

The exception was the nobles who entered the sorcery academy. They would be taught the fundamental sorcery there. Then how did the ordinary people who didn’t even know their element learned the basic of sorcery? The sorcerer guild had written a book about the level 1 sorcery, or first rank sorcery into a book and sold it in order to increase the number of sorcerer, so it seemed they learned from there.

The training of that elemental magic started from accurately memorizing the spell and chanting it accurately.

You also had to learn the meaning of the incantation at the same time. The spell wouldn’t activate unless you understood how the meaning of the incantation influenced the world....that was what that woman’s teacher said.

First was the 『spell』. The spirits used the language called 『spirit language』 to interfere with the world. The ancient elf simplified that language so that even human could use it....well, to be blunt spell was like the degraded version of the spirit language. Even though it had been simplified so that even human could use it, it was originally the language of a being that possessed different way of thinking, so to understand it human would need several months....in the worst case it could even take several years. That woman only had vague recollection for the meaning of spells, even for her own spells that she was using, but the meaning of light sorcery’s spell was the only one that she remembered (though she couldn’t comprehend it).

The first rank light sorcery was Heal and Cure. I lightly reviewed them.

Heal recovered your stamina and also forcefully made the body’s wound to heal naturally. That was why when people without knowledge used it, incidents like bone getting healed while still bending the wrong way or terrible scars remaining behind could happen.

Cure wasn’t natural healing. It was closer to regeneration. It completely healed wound with not even a scar remaining, but its range was small and took time. If it was forcefully used to heal deep wound, it seemed there were cases where the spell consumed the person’s stamina and drove them to the verge of death.

Common injury could be treated with just Heal, so there were people who didn’t learn Cure like Feld. That was the actual state of affairs.

Heal’s incantation was──

『Riteiiwaa Rusutori Zahiikaa』

Its meaning was 『Heal that target』. ....The spell was strangely long. Even though it was so short in human words, was there some kind of meaning to it? It was the result of making spirit language into words that human could use, so perhaps that caused excess to show up?

Cure’s incantation was──

『Riteiishuwaa Ruborudean Osutooriisuten』

The meaning was 『Turn the body back to before』. ....Both spells were strangely hard to remember. In that woman’s “knowledge”, it seemed there were times when her pronunciation was subtly different so the sorcery didn’t activate. It seemed there were tricks like it was easier to activate the sorcery if you rhymed when chanting, but in the end I thought that the correct answer was what that woman’s teacher kept preaching on.

『Understand the meaning of the spell correctly and chant the spell accurately.』

For now let’s try chanting it once. Fortunately....or perhaps not so fortunately, I never lacked for small wounds because of living in the forest.

「....Riteiwaa Rusutori Zahikaa....」

....It was a bit different? Sure enough the effect that I hoped for didn’t activate. Even when I tried checking with appraisal crystal, my magic power hadn’t decreased at all. Normally people would chant Heal at the end, but Heal wasn’t a spirit language but common language. It wasn’t a part of the spell but just an activation word. In other words it was something that people chanted in order to make their image clearer. There wouldn’t be any problem even if that word was omitted. Even so apparently most people couldn’t activate magic unless they said the activation word. It was the same with Battle Skills that were non-elemental magic where people had to said the activation word, with the exception of body strengthening. Perhaps it would be better for me to use the activation word while I was still starting.

My first chanting failed. Perhaps it was because my pronunciation was bad or my understanding of the meaning was lacking. After that I kept trying while changing the pronunciation bit by bit, but I was still unable to see any sign of the Heal sorcery activating.

「........」

I tried searching that woman’s “knowledge” a little. The Heal that woman’s teacher used and the Heal that Feld used were the same thing, but when I tried recalling back, I got the feeling that my impression of their pronunciation was somewhat different.

Feld said that it took him half a year until he was able to use it. It seemed that during that time the only thing he did was practicing spell chanting by repetition. How was he became able to use it with that method? As I thought, was he learning the correct pronunciation by repeating the pronunciation? There was only a vague recollection, but I tried recalling the heal that woman’s teacher used and compared it to the Heal that Feld used.

....It was slight but there was a difference....or so I thought. In fact, the spell that was chanted by that woman’s teacher felt like it was somewhat shorter in some parts compared to the spell that woman memorized.

「....Could it be」

....The spell was shortened? The sorcery could activate even with that?

I tried forming a hypothesis. Even with the common language of mankind that I was using, there would be some differences depending on the region. People would shorten their words and the like during their livelihood. But even though they talk not using the official words, if both the talker and the listener understood the correct meaning, even shortened word would still carry the correct meaning.

That must be why there was a need to 『correctly understand the meaning』 in chanting a spell.

Perhaps, the spells that had been passed down by the ancient elves should be considered as the 『proper style』. Why was it shortened....surely because it was originally too long.

To be more accurate, it was a drag how long it was so it was shortened. It might be through that process the 『proper style』 had fallen out of use like how it was with human’s ancient writing, but that wasn’t all bad things. There were people who remembered wrong even the words of the modern common language. The meaning of modern words were getting harder to understand, conversely people who knew about the correct meaning would find it difficult to understand the meaning of the modern words and as a result the 『conversation』 might fail, but if they could understand the meaning of the modern words properly, the modern words should be able to convey a lot more than the ancient words.

Sorcery had evolved and degraded like that until now. Spell was getting harder to understand and easier to misunderstand, conversely once you managed to properly understand it, it should become easier to use it compared to the primitive sorcery.

My hypothesis until here was based on that woman’s “knowledge”. From here on it would be just my assumption.

Spell too originally should be a 『sentence』 at the beginning. What kind of change it went through until now?

For example in the common knowledge the spell was 『Treat all the injuries on the body of that person and heal them』──that would then became,

『Treat the injuries on that person and heal them』──and then,

『Treat and heal that person’s injuries』──then became,

『Heal the injuries on that person』──the meaning here became harder to understand,

『Heal that person』──and at the end it became like that.

....It felt like an extreme logic even if I said so myself, but I believed that what happened was something similar to that.

The meaning would just barely get through depending on the situation and pronunciation. But in the first place if you didn’t even understand the meaning, then even just a slight accent would make the sentence ended up as a mere 『sound』 without any meaning.

──That was the hypothesis that I tried to build up, but I wondered how accurate it could be.

Of course there was also a method like Feld where he remembered the spell, and on top of that he also learned the meaning and effect instinctually by repeating the spell over and over. But I felt unsure of trying that method. Because it was unknown whether words that even I myself didn’t understand the meaning of could possibly get through to the other side.

I needed strength in order to live. I was a girl and furthermore a child. If I did the same thing like normal....like Feld, a man who was blessed with powerful body, then surely sooner or later I would be defeated in the crucial moment.

I wouldn’t be picky with my method. I would become strong. Even if I had to take a slightly roundabout way for that, I wanted to obtain true strength with my own power.

Let’s start analyzing the spell for real from now.

Assuming that Heal’s incantantion──『Riteiiwaa Rusutori Zahiikaa』 was a sentence, it should be divided into several words. Perhaps there was also word that got shortened even more among them. It might also be possible for a word to get mixed with the word after it.

If I knew of other spell, I would be able to research them and searched for some points of similarity, but that woman only knew spells of light and fire and water until the second rank. I wished to say that it was splendid how she managed to remember that much, but I couldn’t praise her because she didn’t remember the spells that she didn’t use much.

Then let’s change the way I practiced spell. First I’d search for the 『single word』 that was mixed in the spell. Although, I wouldn’t know whether I was right or wrong even if I chanted haphazardly, so I’d search for the word that definitely existed in the spell──the word 『heal』. The spell which was a 『degraded spirit language』 wouldn’t have any effect from simply getting chanted. Not only you had to understand its meaning properly while speaking it, you also had to put magic power into your voice.

When I tried doing it, it turned out to be not that difficult. Perhaps it would be difficult for sorcerer who had only just start practicing, but to put it simply, I just needed to stimulate the magic power in my body. Doing that would cause magic power to fill into your action itself.

In my case, the state of body strengthening was close to that. I believed that at the final stage, I would need to be able to stimulate my magic power even without doing body strengthening, but for now I was searching for the single word in the spell while training my body strengthening and fighting skill at the same time.

I tried picking out a part of the Heal’s incantation that seemed to be a single word and chanted it while thinking『Heal』 in my head.

Even if I failed I paid it no mind and kept repeating my attempt over and over. However in order to not let my combat training became half-baked from doing that, I paid attention while moving my body carefully. At the same time I kept speaking while thinking 『heal』.

There wasn’t any result at all in the first day. I never thought that I would find it that easily in the first place, but concentrating your mind while training your body at the same time put a heavier burden than expected on myself, so I slept like a log that day.

There was also no result in the second day. I was only guessing but, perhaps there was insufficient character in my pronunciation. Like perhaps I was only speaking 『hea』 from what should be 『heal』, so I tried mixing various sounds into my speaking.

At the third day, there was zero result just like before. However my stamina decreased slightly and my maximum stamina amount increased by 1.

The fourth day, I got used to do both trainings simultaneously. There was no result, but I noticed that I consumed just slightly more magic power than usual.

The fifth day, I searched for word that consumed magic power. Perhaps because I was constantly using magic power, it felt like the efficiency of my body strengthening and daily life magic increased.

The sixth day, I got anxious whether it was really possible to search for the word with this way.

In the first place other sorcerer would have found the word already if it was that easy wouldn’t it? Perhaps because I was thinking such thing, I got my fingertip cut by rabbit bone. It hurt.

The seventh day──

「Riteiru Hiikaa」

When I made that 『voice』, light element magic power shined slightly from my hand.

....I had a mistaken idea. The word heal didn’t exist in the incantation of Heal.

I was under the impression that Heal was a medical treatment sorcery. I guessed that most sorcerers would also think so too. But that wasn’t it. When I tried recalling Heal’s effect, it was recovering the body’s stamina while at the same time gradually closing the wound.

Yes....this was? a recovery spell. The wound was simply healing naturally from the process of the stamina returning back.

『Riteiru』 and 『Hiikaa』──it was only slight, but those words consumed my magic power. There were still other similar words but, the effect that was like magic only got activated when I combined these two words.

This was only my guess but, these two words combined would become the word that corresponded to 『heal』. But that wasn’t the accurate meaning. It had more different meaning. If Heal’s sorcery had recovery effect, did the word had the meaning of 『stamina』? Or perhaps 『life force』? If there was word that made use of that term then....it might be 『return』. 『Returning』 the 『stamina』?

....From the feeling that I got when chanting, it might be 『Riteiru(return)』『Hiikaa(stamina)』.

After that I kept repeating my training while changing the pronunciation bit-->>

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