Wfb: Chapter 7

Always Keep an Eye on Your Stats. You’ll Regret it Otherwise.

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It seems the merchants and their guards were nervous because of they thought I was working for some “Noble-samas”. I don’t really get it, but when the woman had found an unbroken skin of water she asked “You … really have no affiliation with Nobles?” dropping the honorific. When I confirmed it a large tension seemed to be removed from everyone’s shoulders in an instant.

“I see, I see, you don’t work for a Noble? That’s good news!”

“Well, then. We are truly lucky you came across!”

“Hey, are you alright? You look pale.”

“Uwah, probably used up all your magic power, huh? That’s dangerous if you overdo it, you don’t want to die right?  … but we’re not complaining!”

They turned out to be a group of good natured people.

What’s that the male soldier over there said? Used up my magic power? But I didn’t use any skills?

I mutter “【STATUS】” under my breath.

◤

NAME: JUN

MP:【▏                               】0,000,015/2,500,000

TRAITS:

  [OTHERWORLDER]:

     [PASSIVE: (Secret Trait) (Resilient Body) (Magic Enrichment) (Otherworldly Knowledge) (Accelerated Learning) (Keen Instincts) (Translate)]

     [SKILLS: (Inventory) (Friend Chat) (Status) (Analyze^IV)]

  [MAGIC BORN]:

     [PASSIVE: (Secret Trait) (Boundless Magic) (Chantless Cast) (Well of Magic) (Magic Sense)]

  [WANDERER]:

     [PASSIVE: (Steady Balance) (Perceptive Sense) (Light Foot)]

     [SKILLS: (Augment Body) (Augment Mind) (Farsight) (Ground Shrink)]

◣

Ooooooi! Just 15 MP left?! No, wait, didn’t my total MP go up?! What’s with that ridiculous number?! That’s 2.5kk, 2.5 MILLIONS, you know?! And I used it ALL?!

No, wait, what’s with all those traits?! Since when?!

Could 2.5kk MP be not that much?

As I look over the skills, the name of the skill I’m inspecting shimmers into descriptions of the skill. From the [WANDERER] trait I soon understand why my MP vanished.

(Augment Body) devours MP and allows me to push past my physical limits. The further I go past the more MP it eats up. (Augment Mind) – well, I’m not too sure but perhaps I used it while trying not to mind the blood and gore. It eats MP provisionally like (Augment Body). I can’t say I used it a lot, but since the skill description doesn’t give me even a rough estimate, due to its provisional consumption, I can’t be too sure it wasn’t also a culprit for my ridiculous MP drain.

(Farsight) only uses a little bit of MP over the time I have it activated. It was what allowed me to see things in the distance like I zoomed in on them. I probably didn’t use more than 15 MP worth today. (Ground Shrink) …

500,000 MP per use?!

It lets the user shrink the distance needed to travel within sight … and I used it … twice, I think… 1 million MP gone just like that! And would that mean I used almost 1.5 mil for those stupidly superhuman stunts?!

What bothers me most is that I used MP without even wanting to. No, also, what did that male soldier over there say? I could die from using too much MP?

…

A cold chill washes over me.

On top of my dizziness, this new information weighs heavily on me and I flop back on the ground while pressing my cold hands to my forehead. Even though I should go help them fix their wagons and help move the injured people… ah … my head is swirling.

Almost dying, almost letting others die, this pain must be divine punishment for not keeping track of my status better!

“Um, are you alright?”

A young girl from among the merchants leans over me, worried. She is lucky to have gotten away with just scrapes and bruises … ah, I bet the others shielded her. She’s the youngest of everyone here, middle-school aged with freckles and pale-red hair twisted in two braids. Now she’s been running back and forth trying to help the injured, tend the animals, and sort out the wreckage all at once.

“Nn, fine. Reflecting on my insufficiencies.”

Despite the nausea I wave a hand carelessly in the air and speak casually. Masaki always told me I get sloppy when I’m tired.

The answer seems to persuade her and she darts away to help the others again.

“Haha, so it’s magic power depletion after all.”

A guard sitting nearby laughs weakly as he overhears us. His right arm is wrapped tightly with a splint and he has various bandages wrapped around his stomach. For a guard, his armor is rather light, mostly leather or lacquered wood with little metal. His long light brown hair is tied back in a low pony tail, and he’s on the slim side.

“I’m Lorenzo, you can call me Lor.”

“Ah … Jun.”

I reach up and shake his outstretched hand, though gently because he appears to be in pain all over. And, well, I still had a splitting headache.

“Well, we’re all grateful that you helped us out to this extent, despite pushing yourself to your limits.”

Lor’s words of gratitude hurt. I feel like I have to correct that misunderstanding.

“Ahahah … no, rather than saying I was pushing myself to my limits, how should I say it … I couldn’t control how much MP – er, magic power I used until it was almost all gone.”

I heaved a sigh and rest my throbbing temple in my hand again. There is no excuse. Not knowing my skills and not knowing how to activate – or not activate – them caused me to use both my skills and MP wastefully.

If I had known about the skills, at least, I could have done things in a safer manner. I could have intervened before the situation got so bad. Instead, there were so many casualties. For no one to have died, I can only believe it was luck.

… The silence after me was very long. I look up. Lor is staring at me with his mouth gaping open. I look at him questioningly.

“N-no, sorry, just … um, are you perhaps … a novice magic user?”

“Un, yeah, today was the first time I used magic – in a fight.”

I quickly added that last part as an after thought. Perhaps it would be weird to not ever have used magic. Eh?! My response seems to have shocked Lor even more!

“T-to be that powerful but still be a novice-! You were using (Fleet Foot), (Slow Fall), and (Strength of Arms) continuously, where you not? To perform such amazing feats… and chantlessly!”

He shakes his head as if he can’t believe it.

“Ah, no, just (Augment Body) … I think. Ah, and (Ground Shrink).”

With that statement I seem to have done him in. Uh… if I hadn’t killed anyone yet today, I think I just did. I didn’t even tell him about (Farsight) or (Augment Mind), though I’m still not sure I used (Augment Mind).

“Au-Augment Body, certainly if you are capable of chantless magic, (Augment Body) is possible, right. Ahahaha…”

Um… hello? Oi, Lor? Are you alright? He’s laughing kind of weird, as if I broke his world. Just when I’m thinking about trying to comfort him …

“(Augment Body) and (Ground Shrink)?! There’s no way you’re just a novice with legendary skills like that!”

Lor leans forward all of a sudden and smacks his left hand on the ground. It seems to have been a bad move. He groans and crumples a little bit, nursing his stomach.

“Jeez, what are you doing Lor? You have broken ribs, y’know, broken ribs.”

A pretty Onee-san walks over to where I’m sprawled on the ground and the guard, Lor, is curled up in pain.

Niera and Lor

She’s in armor, one of the two female guards of the group. The other is currently lying in a swathe of blankets and bandages, unconscious from all the wounds and trauma she had undergone while being slowly crushed by the wagon.

“Don’t mind him too much, he’s a mage’s apprentice just close to finishing his apprenticeship. I’m Niera, you know that’s Lor, Jericho is the big guy in the armor, Kristaf is over there, and Miinalya is the injured one. We’re part of the Guild’s Militia, escorting this caravan to the Nyl Labyrinth City. The merchants and company are Kali, that stern-faced woman, and her aides Feron and Louie. Also, the old man Harulf and his granddaughter Lyla.”

“Ah, I’m Jun. I’m … um, lost?”

I’m not sure what I am.

Niera is a platinum blonde with a pleasant face. Her eyebrows seem eternally quirked, as if she is always laughing inside. Unless she has completely flattened a pair of mountains under her armor she seems to have an average build; not too skinny or too wide. For some reason, because this is a fantasy world I expected all the women to have large breasts. But that stereotype is only in games and anime from my world, right …

As Niera and I finish our introductions, Lor has recovered.

“Oi, I’m not overreacting this time, Niera. (Augment Body), the ability to be as unlimitedly strong and fast as you want! (Ground Shrink), the space magic to teleport short distances! Those are skills so difficult to learn and with such great magic power consumption that only great people like High Priests or Heroes could learn them!”

Uh oh. So those skills are considered cheat-like abilities, huh? And they don’t seem hard to learn … they just kind of popped up from somewhere before I realized it.

“And this girl shows up out of nowhere and – hack, cough cough-!”

Lor jabs his finger in my direction, getting worked up again, and collapses in a coughing fit.

“Jeeez, Lor, calm down, calm down.”

By the way, I don’t refute the “girl” part, though it doesn’t sit entirely well with me. Right now I don’t think I can make a very convincing argument since I have what I shouldn’t have and don’t have what I should.

This is one of the reasons I can’t give up the idea that this world might be in the game. Why am I a girl?  … I file this problem to the back of my mind. It’s not like the immediate situation will change if I’m a boy or a girl. That’s something to investigate later, after I figure out how not to suicide by using up all my MP.

I sigh heavily.

“Legendary or not, (Augment Body) is really troublesome…”

I muttered it under my breath, but Lor and Niera seem to catch it all the same. Niera tilts her head.

“Oh, how so? Aren’t you a ‘Close-Combat Magician’? I would imagine (Augment Body) to be super beneficial.”

“Nn… (Augment Body) consumes MP continuously. Though my own strength is enough, it seems like I’ve been using (Augment Body) indiscriminately until I reach this point. I don’t really know how to stop.”

“I-indiscriminately … no, using magic without even thinking about it … your original strength is enough for you?”

Lor doesn’t seem to know what to respond to.

“If I had to say, I prefer swords to magic.”

“N-no, no, you don’t understand exactly how whack what everything you’ve said is, do you?”

“… forgive me I come from a very backwaters, isolated place.”

Sorry, Japan, I don’t really know what else to say other than “I come from another world”, and that just seems like it could have all sorts of bad consequences.

A low, rumbling laugh comes from near us. I finally sit up, as my dizziness has subsided. Checking my MP it seems that it’s replenishing itself, but it’s slow. Around 50 MP now. So I should aim to stop consumption before I get below 50 MP.

Near us, in a tattered lean-to the others have set up for the injured, the old man among the merchants, Grandpa Harulf, was nursing his wounds while eavesdropping on our conversation. “Young one, why don’t you explain to us how you’ve ended up all the way out here without luggage and supplies?”

“Eh? W-wai- oourgh…”

Lor tries to stop Grandpa Harulf from derailing the conversation, but Niera elbows him in the ribs. Ouch. Didn’t he have broken ribs, Niera?

“Ah … how did I end up out here I wonder … for that matter, I’m not sure where HERE is.”

To tell the truth I’d been thinking about how to answer that question this entire time, but nothing came to me.

“Don’t tell me you have amnesia …”

Nearby the leader of the guards, er militia, Jericho muttered darkly. He still seemed suspicious of me, as did the female merchant, Kali. Eh… They’ve finished tending to the wounded and are now preparing camp. Right on the road? Well, I guess I’m tired out too. There’s not much energy left to move everything away.

“Ah, no. There was a bright light, and when I came to I was separated from my companions and in a place I didn’t recognize. … I don’t know if they’re here as well or not.”

“… How strange… Space Magic, I wonder? But, to separate your companions…”

Lor was muttering. I said “here” as in “this world”, but I think they all took it as “here” in “this part of the world”.

“Hmm… it might have been the Star Fall.”

Old man Harulf said something mysterious.

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