Chapter 6: Chapter 6: Magic in the water

I just realized something, a parasite monster made of water mana infecting an entire town... I've read about something similar happening before.

Ah, I see that there's a canal providing the people of this town with water, it all fits.

"Hey Ara, do you know if this town gets its water from source boosted by a magic circuit?"

"Heh? I don't know, why do you ask?"

"If there's one it's very likely that those parasites are coming from it"

If she doesn't know I'll have to ask someone, oh, there's a guard on patrol over there, perfect.

"Excuse me" I call out to him.

"How can I help... you?"

He turns around but is taken aback when he sees me.

"Would you mind telling me where the source of the water canal in this town is located?"

He looks at me with a face full of suspicion.

"The water source? Why do you want to go there?"

"Oh, I'm a scholar researching magic circuits, there's one set up to provide this town with water, correct?"

I come up with a brilliant excuse on the spot, but he doesn't seem very convinced.

"Young lady, could you please show me your face?"

"No"

"No?"

I guess I should have known that keeping my face hidden would not make me seem very trustworthy.

"Come with me, I'll need you to use an appraisal stone so that we can take a look at your titles"

He's treating me like I'm a suspect for a crime... I'm sorry, but I cannot let you see my status.

"Mind void"

My spell makes the guard fall asleep on the spot, I grab him from under his arms and sit him next to a wall.

However, the people around here seem to have noticed me dragging the guard and are all staring at me.

"I didn't do anything! He collapsed on his own!"

They all exchange looks with each other.

"Oh, I guess he must have been tired"

"Yeah, she didn't do anything at all"

"I didn't see what happened! I swear!"

They all leave in a hurry, mmmm, they were surprisingly easy to convince, maybe I'm actually good at lying?

"Luna, if you want to find the source of the water, how about we follow the canal?"

Arana just had a good idea, or rather, that's probably the first thing that should have occurred to me.

---

 

We arrive at a building located next to a lake just outside town, numerous magic circles and lines form a circuit intended to transport and increase the amount of water from the lake.

Inside we find a man sitting on the ground with his hands on his stomach.

"Did he become infected as well?"

Well, since I already got rid of one parasite, it's easy to do it again.

"Huh? Miss, are you a healer?"

"Something like that, me and my friend were passing through this town during our journey and we couldn't help but notice how many of the townsfolk seemed to be sick, so we would like to offer our help"

He gets back up and takes a look at the two of us.

"This is Arana, I'm Luna, are you the one responsible for this magic circuit?"

"Ah, yes I am, my name is Joe, I would be grateful if you can heal everyone... But why are you asking me?"

Oh, that's disappointing, I expected a professional mage to have a more unique name.

"We believe that there's an error that's causing this circuit to generate monster parasites"

The mana on a magic circuit behaves according to the circles drawn on it, but since nobody controls it directly any excess mana behaves the same as a concentration of wild mana, in other words, it makes monsters.

Monsters born this way are too weak to be dangerous, but the ones being born from here are on the water that people drink, any monster is dangerous if it gets inside of your body.

I probably would have never thought that such a thing could happen by myself, but since this is not the first time this has happened I was able to read about it so now, I know how to deal with it.

"Parasites? Is that what has been making everyone sick?"

"Yes they are probably being born from an excess of mana on the circuit"

He looks shocked to hear me say that, so he had no idea...

"Does that mean that this was all my fault?"

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"Ah, don't worry, I can fix it for you"

I told him not to worry but he looks like I just scolded him.

"Well, let me take a look... Oh! There it is!"

I walk towards a magic circle painted on the ground on the corner of the room.

"The central star of this circle is eight-pointed when it should be six-pointed, that's providing more mana than necessary to the rest of the circuit"

"Huh? How did you find the error so quickly? Or rather, how did you even know how this circuit works?"

"What do you mean how? I looked at it"

"But you only took a single glance..."

I don't know what he finds strange about this, when you see something that's out of place, regardless of how small, it's impossible to avoid noticing it immediately and focusing on it, then there's an itch in your brain that keeps getting worse and worse to the point of not letting you even breathe until you fix it.

Everyone is like that, right?

"Well then, allow me to correct it"

Magic circles are drawn by projecting mana so I don't even need to get close, water may not be my specialty but this is not a task that requires any power, rank 1 would be enough.

"All done"

"That fast!? Miss... just who are you?"

For some reason he seems to be impressed, I never thought I was particularly good at this, but maybe the normal standards are just very low?

"Well, now all that's left to do is make sure that there are no other mistakes, you can go take a walk if you want, it won't take me long"

"I think I should help you out with that, I can see that I can't measure up to you as a mage but this is still my job"

"I'm a very shy person, I can't work if there's someone else is with me"

"But didn't you just..."

"Please leave"

Joe's face freezes and then he takes a step back.

"I... I understand I'll leave for a moment"

He then leaves in a hurry and Arana follows him, I was not expecting him to buy that, I'm really good at lying, aren't I!

Now that I'm alone I can put my plan in practice, I'll add a dark magic circle to the circuit, this will add some dark mana to the water ready to cast the 'corpse puppet' and 'mana corrosion' spells on anyone who drinks it, this way the cure will be distributed in the same way that the parasites infected the townsfolk in the first place.

I don't want to do this without permission, but I don't think Joe will allow me to place a dark spell on the drinking water, I will only reveal what I did after everyone has been healed, this way it won't matter what preconceived notions they have, they won't be able to deny their personal experiences.

"Fufufu, this plan is flawless"

Now I only need to wait.

---

 

-Silvea, knight apprentice-

I still tremble in fear when I remember our encounter with the queen of darkness.

She was much stronger than we expected, first, she easily overpowered Roul despite his strength stat of 310, with a single spell she immobilized the others and then, I came face to face with her.

I'll never forget that terrifying glare, even the most vicious monsters I've seen didn't possess such an enormous bloodlust when I fell on the ground, she looked down at me with an expression of disdain as if I was a disgusting insect.

"I'm such a failure..."

I just recently was allowed to join the royal knights as an apprentice at the age of 14, if someone reaches level 50 at my age they would already be considered talented, at level 70 they would be part of the elite, but I'm already level 91, because of that everyone had great expectations of me.

But I turned out to be just a coward, my first time facing a powerful enemy all I could do was freeze in fear.

"Come on Silvea, don't be so down"

"Yeah it's not as if we accomplished anything either"

Roul and Paula approach me and start scratching behind one of my ears each.

"Stop that... I'm not a cat"

It feels good but it's embarrassing.

"We'll get her for sure! This time captain Leon is coming with us"

We're on our way to a town called Kelna where we believe the queen of darkness has stopped to prepare for her journey, and with us is the captain of the royal knights, Leon Flameban, a famous and experienced knight with the title of 'hero', known as the strongest man in the kingdom at level 253, he's the person I admire the most.

"Silvea, remember the reason you are coming, try to not put yourself at risk" Captain Leon warns me.

I'm here because they need to make use of a very rare skill I possess, 'perfect pursuer', it allows me to memorize the mana signature of up to three people at the same time, then I can tell their general direction no matter how far away they are, the queen of darkness is, of course, one of the people I've currently memorized.

"That woman is extremely dangerous, when we investigated her room we found traces of her having researched 'necromancy', 'nightmare weaving' and, worst of all, 'flesh shaping', we need to make sure to not let her escape"

The captain seems much more serious than usual, I heard that he had a traumatic experience when he had to deal with some flesh shapers when he was just a young knight.

Alright, I cannot let him down, I'll find her for sure!