Birth of the Legendary Battle Mage

Chapter 23

‘I aimed for it’s head, but this beast is fast and avoided my attack hitting its head. Nevertheless, if I wasn’t this far, from a closer distance, I would have gotten it for sure.’  “It seems I was only able to dislocate that shoulder, this guy’s defence must be pretty good, even for its class.” Ashia said from some distance away. Even though she was able to offset the beast’s trajectory, it wasn’t enough for it to completely avoid the girl. The beast must have bushed her pretty roughly for her to faint, or it could be that maybe she fainted before that, maybe the beast didn’t even touch her. It was uncertain about what was which, but one thing was for sure, the leader of the adventuring group had to retrieve her body.

The four that were heading towards the opening between the two trees in front had stopped and turned at that moment. They rushed back to retrieve their friend, but halve way through, their leader stopped them and asked that they continue onward and follow the plan. “You don’t need to worry, since miss. Ashia has arrived, it shouldn’t be hard for me to get her and escape before the beast regains its senses! Move on now!” He said.

The beast ran into one of the big trees in the forest and one of its horns got stuck in the tree. If nothing else, the fact that it’s horns were able to pierce the though body of those trees that have grown in such mana rich places was impressive. Then again, it might be that it’s because the trees are not the ones found deeper into the forest, if not it would definitely be impossible. The beast itself seemed to be struggling a bit to remove its horn. Normally, freeing it’s horns wouldn’t be too hard, but because of it’s dislocated shoulder, it makes the whole process more strenuous and harder, than it is supposed to be. The leader ceased the opportunity to snatch the girl’s body from the ground and returned safely.

Just as he crossed the gap in between the trees, the beast finally gained it’s freedom by removing it’s horns. It must have been mad at the leader for taking away its prey away, because as soon as it removed it’s horns, it charged in the direction they were, ignoring the pain it felt from the dislocated shoulder, almost as if nothing happened to it. The beast got half way before stopping suddenly to face back, trying to move sideways to avoid an attack, but the energy it was releasing earlier had already started to decimate, and because the boost it got before was related to the ominous mana/energy that had surrounded it from seemingly nowhere, it’s speed was starting to return to its original level.

*Swoosh* *Swoosh*

Two enormous ice spears flew across the forest into the beast’s body. One piercing its abdomen, and the other piercing it’s back and bursting out of its neck. Within a matter of seconds, the beast stopped moving, and just lay there with two spears made of ice going through it. The adventurer’s eye brows were raised at witnessing the sight before them. This was a beast they spent so much time fighting with all they had, until the point of exhaustion and had to flee, but now it died to only one magic spell. This only helped to solidify the gap between Ashia and them combined. Four seconds later Ashia arrived, jumping onto the spot the adventurers stood when fighting the beast from atop a tree, holding 10 other beasts she had killed in her hands.

“Miss Ashia truly is powerful. Killing such a beast with just one spell.”

“Yes. Power..ful. How is she able to hold all those beasts so easily?”

“Miss Ashia, over here!” they said to catch her attention.

Ashia dropped the dead beasts she was holding and rushed towards the adventurers as they moved closer, emerging from the gap between the two trees. As Ashia saw that they were ok, she slowed down and started walking. It looked like she had injured her leg because she was limping.

After they reunited, Ashia explained to the group why she was late, and told them about the tracks she found and about Julius. She didn’t tell them about him being ‘Julius’, but just spoke of him as her brother. She suspected that he must have chased someone into the forest, and since the tracks continued, they might still be in there. She planned to come check up on them then return, but she would have to wait because of the injury on her left leg. “It’s a dislocation, with the help of your healer, it should be no problem. But now that she’s in this state, I might have to use my own methods if she doesn’t wake up.” Ashia said.

They were still curious of to how Ashia was able to carry the beasts she killed. It turned out that she used a form of wind magic that makes things weightless by hovering it in a way, making it feel weightless. The same magic was applied to the bull like beast’s body, as they dragged it back with them. They could have just taken everything they needed there on the spot, but another beast could attack. Considering the noise they made earlier when fighting, some beasts or maybe even a monster that can be attracted by noise might head that way. They might have Ashia, but thinking in that way would be detrimental.

They headed back to the village, but before they got there, when they got to a place that was close to the exit of the forest, they stopped and took everything that they deemed profitable from the beasts, which was a lot considering the class of the beasts. They caught 18 beasts in total after combining the one Ashia brought and the ones they killed. After they extracted everything they needed and calculated the price of each based on the standard prices, they could now walk home with a few hundred gold coins each, excluding Ashia who still refused to take anything for herself.

When they finally got back to the village, Ashia explained everything that happened on their little expenditure to the village chief, including the matter of the footprints. The healer was still unconscious and was placed in one of the rooms provided to them by the village chief to stay during their stay. Waiting for the healer to wake up might take longer than can be afforded, because even after she wakes up, she won’t immediately be in a good state, and would need to recover her mana for some time, that is hoping she doesn’t suffer from mana deprivation. Ashia decided to go with her method, she might not be a healer, but since ancient times water has been known to possess healing properties, and after advancing so well in water magic, she came across a spell book that had something to say about using water magic to heal. Originally, the magic was made for healers that can use water magic, so that they might be able to treat many people at once by engulfing them in a special kind of water produced by the spell. But Ashia found a way to produce a similar effect to what was mentioned in the spell book. Although, the scale of her water was small to only cover from her wrists to her finger tips, it was good enough to heal a small injury as her dislocation.

The healing effect of this magic was supposed to be amplified when used, but Ashia wasn’t a healer, so she couldn’t bring out the healing potential of the spell, just a little. It might seem like it’s nothing, but the fact that she could do something such as use even a little healing spell was a big achievement. After she returned to her room, she asked for nobody to disturb her no matter what until she came out, except the village was in danger.

She started the healing process by taking a bowl of cold water and placing her hands in them while she sat on the floor with the bowl of water in front of her. After a moment of placing her hand inside the bowl of water, while keeping her eyes closed during this whole time like she was meditating, the water started to turn into a turquoise coloured thick liquid. By the time this process was finished and she opened her eyes, the water’s viscosity increased to now reassemble cold oil, and the colour was completely turquoise. She lifted her hands from the bowl slowly, and the waster followed, stuck to her hand while flowing over her hands. As she placed the hand on her dislocated leg that was all swollen now and dark coloured in parts, the water revolving around her hands flowed from her hands onto the affected area and continued flowing around the affected leg area.

‘This is amazing, this healing water even gives a comforting feeling.’ She thought to herself while mentally praising herself for learning such a skill. She did have to repeat the whole process a couple times, maybe because she wasn’t a healer, or maybe this magic wasn’t meant to last long. Overall, it took her 2 days to completely heal the leg, and with those two days, the healer had still not woken up. So it was good that she used her own method.

Wasting no time, she set out into the forest to continue her tracking. Before she left, she set up a teleportation circle in the village, and she established a communication link between her and the chief so that long distance communication would be possible. She could only hope that the traces hadn’t disappeared. The last time she was there, the traces were almost lost. It’s apparent that she’ll have to do more now since the traces would have disappeared after these two days. But she’ll try regardless.