A massive gout of flame hurtled forward in a straight line. At its destructive momentum, Dior shielded his face and backed away.
Yet the Wraith standing at the end of its path didn't budge. Instead, it raised an arm. A whitish energy unfolded like a barrier in front of it.
HSSSS—
Blocked by the barrier, the flames of Fire Strike sent up plumes of smoke. The barrier seemed to be woven from cold energy.
True to form for an intermediate monster, it apparently had its own techniques. That response alone showed why Dior had been scared out of his wits and eager to run.
My assault, however, didn't end with a single spell.
Spells fired off in rapid succession. Beyond the smoke and dust, rising flames began to coil around the area.
FWOOSH—!
A sea of fire formed in the blink of an eye. It looked as though a high-circle spell had been unleashed.
A feast of flames far exceeding the reach of the frost barrier. Some of the fire it failed to block began to batter the Wraith floating in midair.
"...!"
Though it made no sound, the monster was clearly flustered. White chill began to leak from its wavering body.
HSSSS—
Smoke billowed as the two opposing energies clashed. While the Wraith began to thrash wildly at the threat to its life, I kept casting spells one after another with a calm face.
Had it been only three or four Fire Strikes, an intermediate monster like the Wraith might have seized a chance to counterattack, but the source of my magic was an inexhaustible spring.
Well over a dozen blasts of flame raged in succession, twisting and wrenching the Wraith's form.
Lesser Ghouls that had risen from nearby graves, drawn by the Wraith's wicked energy, were swept up in the blaze and vanished before they could even take a few steps.
"H-urk...!"
Half-collapsing at a display of magic control he couldn't even begin to fathom, Dior scrambled backward on hands and knees to escape the heat.
As the master of the mana that had forged the spells, I naturally felt no particular heat. I simply stayed calm and wrapped the Wraith in a vortex of fire.
The tug-of-war didn't last long.
Unable to withstand the surging heat, the Wraith's form gradually crumbled, and the white cloth-like energy shrouding its body dissipated like smoke.
"Go rest in peace now."
Despite casting spells back-to-back, I spoke briefly without a hint of fatigue.
Fssss...
Along with pitiful wisps of smoke, a form came into view. As the Wraith vanished, parts of a charred skeleton were left behind.
Whoosh. With a simple wave of my hand to clear away the remaining flames, I walked over to the spot.
"..."
The bones appeared to belong to an ordinary woman. Yet something glinted among them.
A small stone of a familiar shape, and a smooth orb.
Someone had deliberately placed both items there.
'I knew it.'
Just as I had expected. I breathed an inward sigh of relief.
After casting a brief glance at Dior, who was still half out of his wits and unable to approach from afar, I crouched down and picked up both objects.
The first was a rune. This much was already familiar to me.
The spell engraved inside it was new, though.
VWOOM—!
As I gripped it tightly, energy flowed into me. I felt a new spell settle into place.
The 2nd Circle spell, Ice Touch.
It was a spell that called forth a burst of chill at a target point, mainly used for combat support.
A satisfying haul. Still, one more thing remained.
A small orb gleaming with an ominous purple light. Its smooth surface bore neither patterns nor inscriptions.
Not that it mattered. I already knew what this was.
A rune engraved with frost magic, and the corpse of a woman harboring a bitter grudge. Using those two as materials, this dangerous object had created a special frost-wielding Wraith, an intermediate monster.
Normally, a player would arrive in this village and spend several days going through a long chain of linked quests and investigations.
Uncovering the story of the woman buried in the old grave in the corner of the cemetery, her lingering resentment, the suspicious visitor, and so on.
In reality, where no game system existed, I had been able to skip all those intermediate steps and come straight to the graveyard.
I looked down briefly at the orb. Recalling the short description I had seen several times in the game wasn't hard.
-Orb of the Wraith: An object currently being experimented on by the Twilight Cult. Though its power has faded and gone dormant, an ominous energy still lingers within.
A quest starting in a small village, and the very item through which the player first learned the suspicious name of the Twilight Cult.
I slipped the orb into a small leather pouch I had prepared beforehand.
It wasn't something I could use directly right now, but once the main story got underway, it would come in handy later.
Basically, an item to tuck safely away in a corner of my inventory rather than throwing out.
After stowing the small pouch deep inside my inner pocket in place of an inventory, I turned around.
All the flames had gone out thanks to my recalling them, though smoke still curled up here and there across the graveyard.
The graveyard was a mess, sure, but with all the troublesome Ghouls burned to ash, the place would find peace now.
Ah. Though there was still one thing moving.
"W-w-what on earth was..."
Half out of his mind from encountering a monster far stronger than he'd expected—and seeing my magic overwhelm it in a single stroke—Dior muttered to himself.
Having no particular intention of offering a kindly explanation, I looked at him and spoke.
"As you can see, the job is done. Just report that to the Blue Magic Tower."
There was no need to silence him. I already knew this orb was tied to the Twilight Cult, whereas an outsider looking at the scene itself wouldn't be able to figure out a thing.
"Don't try digging too deep into it. Well, doing so would only hurt you anyway."
Keeping my words brief, I left the graveyard and headed back to the village.
***
There was no need to explain the monster subjugation in detail.
In the pitch-black night, the feast of flames that had erupted in the graveyard must have been clearly visible even from the village a short distance away.
"I had only ever heard stories of mages, but I never imagined it would be like this..."
"Good heavens, I thought a fire spirit had descended!"
"...Some folks had even packed their bags to flee, sir mage."
Waiting for me with faces full of worry and fear, the villagers breathed sighs of relief upon hearing that the source of the eerie rumors had been cleanly dealt with.
"There was an old, unmarked grave buried deep inside the cemetery. It seems the one resting there came into contact with wicked energy, and that's how all this started."
"To think..."
Listening to my brief summary, the villagers wore complicated expressions.
The backstory itself was obvious enough.
A woman who had passed away in the village long ago, a bitter grievance. And those who had died so far were all tied to that story.
Everyone who deserved punishment had already paid the price. Now that I had stopped the harm from spreading to the innocent villagers who remained, there was nothing more for me to do.
I had gotten everything I came for, too.
The villagers could handle the aftermath of tidying up the graves among themselves.
"...This is the promised reward."
Stepping forward from the crowd of conflicted faces, the village chief gestured with his hand.
Two men carried a heavy sack. The payment consisted of three or four gold coins alongside a large pile of silver and copper coins.
Roughly 20 gold in all. For a country village like this, it was an enormous sum—and also the reason the Magic Tower had sent a greenhorn of the lowest circle.
Looked at coldly, the Magic Tower, which had no real need for such pocket change, had actually done them a small favor by sending anyone at all.
Granted, I was the one who ended up solving it.
I stared at the heavy money sack filled with silver and copper coins.
Money scraped together by every resident of the village. Sitting on several hundred gold right now, I didn't particularly need this payment.
Passing it up wouldn't sting, either.
A rune containing ice magic and an orb being tested by the Twilight Cult. The value of those two things couldn't even be compared to a pouch of silver and copper coins.
To the villagers, though, it was a fortune.
"Keep it. You'd do better to use this to rebuild the graves. I ruined most of them, after all."
A graveyard left in shambles by my barrage of magic. And the unmarked grave that had, in a sense, been at the root of this whole affair.
Catching my drift—that they should use the money to repair the grounds and console the dead—the village chief bowed his head with a complicated look.
Truth be told, this was also a way to nip any annoying future trouble in the bud.
If this were the game, lines of text praising my wise choice would probably have popped up by now.
Something like: [You have selected 'Return the Reward.' The people of Porins Village are deeply grateful to you and will remember your name, and the remnants of the Twilight Cult vanish without a trace!]
"You don't have any complaints either, right?"
I glanced over my shoulder at Dior. Meeting my eyes, he flinched and lowered his gaze.
"O-of course not! In fact, I was thinking along the same—"
Chuckling softly, I turned and walked off to get some rest.
Night in Porins felt quite different from how it had a few hours ago.
The savory aroma of dishes prepared for the village's sole benefactor was wafting all the way outside the inn.