Chapter 5: Son of a... dog (1/2)
//Translation of the ancient is in square brackets [xxx], paragraph comments and author's notes
In the end, the group allowed Layn to join their ranks. And once it happened, the full degree of their friendliness finally came to the light. Rather than just leaving him alone to tend for himself, the same girl that he happened to create thoughts transfer with led him to the small lake in the middle of the area, before conjuring a pair of cups out of the thin air.
”Kaka magnari ypah.” [I'm very happy] Nodding his head in gratitude, Layn accepted the cup filled with the freshly obtained water. Leaving the problem of dealing with any and all potential parasites to his slightly modified intestines, Layn finally enjoyed the feeling of the relatively cold water flushing all the sand from his throat.
Just a single sip was enough to make the archmage feel like if his entire body revitalized on the spot. It seemed that his earlier tiredness wasn't physical exhaustion, but the way of his newly reformed body to announce how greatly it lacked water.
Layn's thirst was finally satisfied only once five more cups were filled and emptied. Only then did his brain return to the usual rate of its spin, allowing the archmage to look at the world around him with clarity.
'What the fuck I was doing all this time!' Internally screaming as soon as the major part of his intelligence returned from the unexpected vacation, Layn only barely stopped his own hand from punishing his stupidity by slapping his own face.
”Irea, collea.” [Irea, come] With the entire group preparing to leave the oasis, it was the last moment for Layn to invest most of what remained of his initial pool of magic. Due to how dead the entirety of this desert was, it would take literal aeons for his full state of mana to replenish by itself. Even in the locally rich in life oasis, the density of magic in the air was so impossibly small, that Layn once again started to consider the most disastrous scenario.
And as lady fortune would have it, so far, it seemed that this unbelievably tragic scenario seemed to perfectly answer all the inconsistencies between Layn's plan and the reality he had to face.
Hearing his call, the girl quickly trodded towards the archmage, with great curiosity written all over her face. Even though she had her own initial doubts about Layn, ever since she first uttered that 'Rexa' world, her attitude changed drastically.
”Let's try it out…” Muttering to himself as an extremely complicated structure of grade fifth spell appeared in his mind, Layn overcame the last bout of hesitation, before pouring all his remaining magic right into the form.
But nothing happened. That is, on the surface.
With the magic in the area being extremely thin, the usually high cost of this spell lowered by a huge degree. No interference of the local free energy meant that more of Layn's mana could be used to achieve the actual objective rather than keeping the spell stable.
And soon, this godlike spell started to work.
It wasn't anything flashy. Just a mix of five different spells charged in a polar fashion. The activity of one part would lead to the activation of the other, and so on. This way, a single bout of energy could constantly travel between each of the activators, saving Layn the trouble of controlling it.
”We should reach the city in two to three days. That is, if our gabba won't sezere.” [package/succumb] Even though the spell wasn't perfect, it made communication way easier. The meaning of the untranslated words could be guessed from the context or just the gestures and facial expression of the one speaking.
But as great as this spell was, not only it could last only for so long, Layn also had to limit its usability to keep the energy cost affordable. With that said, while the spell would continue to learn more words, understanding others would quickly become an easy task…