Thereafter of An Exiled Magician - CH 63

“Today, we’ll finally fight packs of greywolves!”

The day after my conversation with the girls, Reno and Sui became visibly excited as I bring up heading deeper into the forest.

Since we were dragged around by Milia these past few days, even entering the forest felt like nothing more than taking a stroll.

So it’s not like I don’t get their excitement.

“Calm down, now. Your duties don’t change that much, and the situation doesn’t change much either.”

“We got it! Lain nii-chan!”

“Greywolves, defeated.”

(Do they really get it?)

As I looked towards Kili with a troubled expression, she simply shrugged.

She had given up as well.

(I’ll have to keep my guard up if I want to keep these two safe.)

I made up my mind and left for the Demon Forest.

***

“Lain nii-chan. Two greywolves, in that direction.”

“I see. Then lure them over here.”

It had been a week since we last came deep into the Demon Forest.

Here we could find several greywolves working together as a pack.

Each of them was also a lot more bulked up.

In the Demon Forest, regions with different concentration of magic were separated by a thin line.

Beyond that line, monsters became immediately stronger.

Of course, the number of inhabiting monsters also increased.

Since coming here, we have had several near-misses with these monsters.

Since they were all in groups of three or more, we moved so as to not make contact with any of them.

This would normally have been impossible.

Until this point, I was thinking of taking the role of guiding, but Reno ended up handling that on her own.

Reno’s search ability had sharply improved all of a sudden.

We were capable of capturing greywolves long before they could even sense us.

I hadn’t even taught her detection magic yet, so this was far beyond my expectations.

Even I couldn’t do that unless I expended my own magic.

As expected, it’s a better choice to make her grow as a specialist rather than turn her into an all-mighty, like me.

“…Oh? Are they here?”

As I was lost in my own thoughts, Reno turned towards us and dashed at her full speed.

Following her were two greywolves.

“Everyone, battle positions.”

“”””Roger.””””

As I call them out, the four take a stance with their weapons.

In case of Sui, she started preparing her magic spell.

It seemed like she wanted to end it in one go, as soon as they showed their heads.

“Order up!”

“[Water Sphere].”

Sui’s magic activated, and a ball of water flew towards Reno.

“Eh?”

Sui’s [Water Sphere] was much larger than usual, and flew at a greater speed than ever before.

It advanced while knocking down all the trees between Sui and Reno.

“Eek-!”

Someone raised a voice in panic.

The only things that remained were two magic stones.

“”””…””””

The four looked stunned at the destruction caused by her magic spell.

Sui was shaking with a pale expression.

“Fuu-, that was a close one.”

“Lain nii-chan! You saved me!”

“!!”

Sui looked towards me with a shocked expression.

She then burst into tears.

“O-oi, Sui, what’s wrong?”

“I though, Reno, would get hit by it.”

As Reno rushed towards Sui and asked her, Sui told her while shedding tears.

She thought she had hurt Reno with her magic.

Though she may have gotten some bad injuries, magic at that level wasn’t enough to rip apart a human.

Well, it was precisely because she’d get badly injured, that I went and evacuated Reno.

More than that though, I was curious about something.

“Sui, did you release that spell the same way you’ve done before?”

“*nod* I also practiced it yesterday, but it never became like that.”

I moved right next to Sui, and matched her eyes before asking my question.

She answered with a serious face while wiping her tears.

Apparently, she was normal up until yesterday.

“What does this mean?”

“I’m not sure. There’s too little information.”

I couldn’t give a clear answer to Aria’s question.

Did Sui grow all of a sudden, or was it this place’s fault.

(Though what’s more likely is…)

I looked at the spell book in Sui’s arm.

I’ve heard that sorcery is more susceptible to changes in environment that magic.

If the spell book was influenced by the high concentration of magical power in this place, and even affected her magic, then our future actions may have to be reconsidered.

That day, we again came back from the Demon Forest, without having done any fighting.