Chapter 5 (1/2)
Chapter 5 – The Ruins＊
No matter what it may be, repeated practice is essential.
There’s a saying amongst those who need to maintain some kind of skill that goes ‘Rest for one day, and you’ll have wasted three’, and this went for magic and martial arts as well.
Luru was one of those who believed in these words, so he would never miss practice for a single day. He could now move in ways that he couldn’t as a baby, and practised not just magic, but swordsmans.h.i.+p too.
Early every morning after having breakfast, he’d practise mana manipulation and swordsman in a place with n.o.body else around, a little removed from the village.
The swordsmans.h.i.+p techniques he practised was the form he learnt in the past.
In other words, it was the ancient demon race style, or the demon king style perhaps you should say.
He was also learning modern human swordsmans.h.i.+p from his father, Patrick, but when he moved on a whim, it was his old swordsmans.h.i.+p that came out.
Of course he couldn’t use these techniques when practising with his father.
His father was a knight that served the country, and not only was he quite skilled himself, it seemed that it was easy for him to see through the princ.i.p.als behind his opponent’s techniques.
As long as this was true, if he started using the techniques that he used as a demon king, his father would surely feel that something was out of play.
That’s why Luru used nothing but modern swordsmans.h.i.+p when he practised with his father.
Furthermore, learning new techniques meaning practising with nothing but those new techniques was pretty good training, so he didn’t have any complaints in particular.
For when he would leave the village one day, he’d try and preserve as many of the ancient demon style techniques as possible, and keep them as his trump cards, he thought.
For that sake, there was no choice but to reach a practical level of skill in the style his father taught, and because of that he focused and earnestly repeated the things his father taught.
Of course even so, his original style of combat was none other than the one that was supported by his huge mana and physical ability.
The reason he was able to make the most efficient and logical use of these advantages was because the demon race with magical and physical ability far above humans had spent long years creating these many techniques.
That’s why it was necessary for him to practice the many techniques of the ancient demon style of swordsmans.h.i.+p and magic so that he would be able to use them without a problem in his human body, so he could use them when he really needed them in the future.
He continued to wholeheartedly train so he would be able to use both the human techniques and the ancient demon techniques.
This would take more than ordinary effort.
His days would start with training mostly ancient demon style techniques in the early morning, and then training with Rusty the human swordsmans.h.i.+p he had learned his father once the sun had risen.
The days when he trained with Rusty were often arrangements from the day beforehand, and it wasn’t something they did every day.
Because of that, it wasn’t rare that he would spend the whole day training by himself as he did today, and immersing himself in training ancient demon techniques all day.
Listening to the cries of birds in the morning mist during training calmed him down, and he could feel his mind sharpening.
Perhaps because of his training each day, he could feel the mana in his body circulating as he wished, and because his physical ability had weakened since becoming a human, through the circulation of mana, he could feel himself getting closer a step at a time to his old self.
Pa.s.sing his days like that, he recalled a number of things.
Most of them were memories of his time as a demon king.
The final battle with the hero.
He remembered the many techniques the hero had shown him, refined enough that even the demon king had had a tough battle.
Lately he had been thinking of recreating(/reproducing) those techniques, and though he found that he still couldn’t do it, it was a good way to kill time.
And like that, after reviewing his techniques from when he was a demon king, and swinging his wooden sword(practising) so as to usurp the techniques that the hero had used in his memories, he would end.
By the time he had finished all of his practice, the sun would usually set, and he’d carry home the empty lunchbox that his mother had prepared for him. Such was his daily routine.
Normally the village women would finish doing the daily things they needed to, like working the fields, and would be chatting with each other for example, and the smell of cooking dinner would waft about.
However, that day was different, and Luru noticed the village being more flurried than usual.
The women wore uneasy expressions, and the men were busiedly running about.
Wondering what was going on, Luru asked one of the village girls he was acquainted with.
“Did something happen? Every seems oddly unsettled.”
When he did, she replied with discomfiture visible in her expression.
“That’s… It seems that Rusty and the rest aren’t here. Even though they searched for them, they can’t find them!”
Were it just that much, it would be just be something common so it didn’t seem like it would be enough to fl.u.s.ter them so much, or so Luru thought, but it seems that it wasn’t so simple an issue.
The village girl continued.
“If they were just somewhere in the village it’d be fine but… I mean, look, those kids, and Rusty in particular admried adventurers, right? That’s why, the adventurers from yesterday, umm…? [(What were their names again?)]”
“Gran and Yuumis?”
“Right. We were wondering if perhaps Rusty and the others followed after them…”
The first thing he thought of when he heard that was though Gran and Yuumis were certainly quite the oddb.a.l.l.s and carefree, he didn’t think they were the type to bring children to dangerous places.
And the villagers should have understood that as well, after speaking with them yesterday.
But what she was worried about was probably something completely different.
That is, the concern that they hadn’t been taken along by Gran, but had tailed Gran of their own accord.
When Luru suggested this, she agreed with him and said with a nod,
“Right! That’s exactly right! That’s why everyone is worried… It’d be great if they were actually in the village and we were worried for nothing but… Ahh[Ohhh], talking like this just makes me more worried. I’ll go help search!”
Saying so, she ran off to search for them.
Luru considered things.
It was natural to search for them, and he had to as well.
But where should he begin with?
Since the villages were searching inside the village he thought that he should search in the forest, but the forest was wide.
Just where on earth should he begin?
However, yesterday Gran and Yuumis had mentioned the ruin.
Luru remembered the men of the village telling them the location.
Being the case, if they had followed after Gran and Yuumis, then they’d have headed towards the ruin.
Having come up with a plan for now, Luru headed to the village entrance.
When he did, he saw somebody running towards the village.
Looking carefully, he found it was somebody he knew.
A woman with long ears, beautiful skin, and a slender body.
She was the elven woman, named…
“Yuumis!”
“…You’re, Luru-kun!? Why are you here?”
Having run up to Luru, though Yuumis looked a little surprised to see him, her expression immediately stiffened and she said,
“Stand back a little! I’m going to place a barrier around the village, okay!?”
“A barrier? Why?”
“I’m kind of lacking time, so be quiet for a moment… 『O pure spirits of the forest… Lend me your power. With my mana as recompense, create a wall that separates the inside from the outside』”
Yuumis had already begun chanting without delay.
Her chant was very familiar to Luru’s ears, formed from the proper grammar and syntax that he was used to, but right now wasn’t the time to think about that.
What was the bgiger issue was that Rusty, Mii and Yuuri were in the forest.
Yuumis said that she was spreading a barrier.
Though he didn’t know why she was doing so, the spell she was chanting was for a barrier of absolute separation.
In other words, if she finished chanting this, he wouldn’t be able to leave the village.
Luru intended to search for them in the forest, and if he couldn’t do it himself then he was going to have the adults in the village do it, so letting Yuumis do this would be extremely troubling for him.
Thus, Luru said,
“Please wait a bit! Rusty, Mii and Yuuri are missing right now!”
“What was that!?”
For a moment, Yuumis’ chanting was interrupted.
Luru replied.
“We can’t find them! They probably aren’t in the village. Everyone is wondering if they went into the forest! That’s why I have to go find them! Please wait!”
Yuumis’ eyes widened in shock.
With this, Yuumis will definitely stop her magic, thought Luru.
However after thinking for a moment, what left Yuumis’ mouth was unexpected.
“…I’m sorry. I can’t stop. 『…Mysterious Wall{Arcanuma Wall}!』”
And like that, Yuumis completed her spell.