Master held a competition to see who could hunt better with a different male yesterday, and I too participated.
“************!?”
As a result of that, I succeeded in showing that foolish and inexperienced male, lacking in strength compared to my master, the difference in our strengths.
Muhahaha, this is the difference in strength between myself and humans.
The status as living beings I and you peons were born with differs so.
And I also came to realise something else.
That the difference in strength between master and me was not so large after all.
Indeed, as my still juvenile body had grown, I had also gained in strength.
I was no longer second to those simple humans.
Who won or lost in this hunting match merely depended on who had the luck to stumble across the better prey.
The meaning of which was that in a pure comparison of strength, I would not lose easily.
The time hath come!
I will challenge my master to a battle, emerge victorious, and eat his flesh!
♦ ♦
“Today, you’ll be practising the next level of body strengthening magic, elemental strengthening.”
“Okay, I’ll try my hardest!”
Liliella-san replied with a tense expression on her face.
It was the day after the match with Rody-san, and we had accepted a monster subjugation request to help with Liliella-san’s training.
A lot of monsters seemed to have been appearing around the royal capital lately, so there was no shortage of subjugation requests.
“By elements, you mean like in fire magic or in water magic, right? But won’t I get burned by my own magic?”
Hmm, quite a good question.
“That would be if you activated it as attack magic. In the case of elemental strengthening, however, it’s important to think of yourself as having become the element itself as well.”
“So I’ll become that element?”
“Yes, for fire elemental strengthening, you have to imagine yourself as the fire. You can’t get burned by fire if you’re fire yourself, right?”
“…It sounds ridiculously difficult to do though…”
“Don’t worry, it’s easy. Just do as I do. Lightning Boost!”
I activated lightning-attributed body strengthening magic, covering my whole body in lightning.
“Uwawa!? You’re crackling and going ‘bzzt’!?”
“If I had to give a different explanation, it would be that you basically have to put that element on and wear it as if it were armour. By the way, activating and even higher level of body strengthening would look like this. Lightning Effect!”
I circulated lightning-elemental mana through my body.
This level of body strengthening wasn’t something as simple as just covering one’s body in an element, but rather I was letting the lightning element permeate into my body, making it turn into something akin to lightning itself.
Liliella-san didn’t seem surprised.
I looked around, and jogged over to a monster nearby.
I drew ever closer to it, but it just kept staring off into space, showing no signs of having noticed me.
I grabbed it, simultaneously shooting lightning-elemental mana into it.
It still hadn’t reacted.
I returned to Liliella-san, still holding onto the monster.
It followed after me, not resisting at all.
Then, once we were back where I had been standing originally, I undid the magic.
With a loud bang, the monster jumped up in the air, then lost consciousness.
“Kya!? W-What!? Eh!? The monster!?”
Liliella-san had been surprised by the sudden bang.
Then, she had been surprised by a monster suddenly appearing in front of her.
Then, she had been surprised by the fact that the monster was unconscious.
“Eh? Did you just do something!?”
That’s right, Liliella-san hadn’t been able to perceive what had happened.
That was how fast I had been.
“I activated the upper-level elemental strengthening of the lightning attribute, and then went and grabbed a monster nearby and brought it back, all at the same speed as lightning.”
“…Huh!?”
Liliella-san was dumbfounded, unable to comprehend what I had just said.
“To put it another way, I moved with a speed humans are unable to comprehend.”
“A s-speed humans are u-unable to comprehend!?”
“Yes, the elemental strengthening I used has that kind of effect. The characteristics of elemental strengthening magic vary greatly depending on the attribute you use, so you’ll have to learn to do it with all sorts of elements.”
“…Isn’t that impossible?”
Liliella-san said, looking at me without any self-confidence.
“Don’t worry, everyone has things they’re good and bad at, and not being able to do something at all happens in only the rarest of cases! So you’ll be able to do it if you try hard enough!”
“I’ll do my best, but that’s still way too difficult! Way too difficult, I say!”
“Don’t worry about it, just do it! C’mon try it!”
With that, Liliella-san began to practise elemental strengthening.
“U-umm, the element and mana…”
“Right, focus on picturing the details too. That should reinforce it.”
“Kyuu!”
The furball said, running off into the forest.
“Going out to hunt again? Come back before it gets dark!”
“Kyuu!”
It replied, so it’ll be fine.
It also seemed to be strong enough to hunt down a Shadow Fox, so I didn’t really need to worry about it.
“Now then, let’s get back to training.”
“We’re really doing this!?”
♦ ♦
“************”
“************”
As usual, master was teaching the female in his pack how to hunt.
Not being able to hunt unless taught how to do so, it must be tough, being inferior species.
However, I am different. I have been a king ever since my birth.