KA-BOOM—!
Dozens of explosions went off in a chain.
The earthen wall, as solid as a great mountain, collapsed, and the rocks that had been holding up the ground buried the beast.
The Diamond Bear thrashed desperately in the heap of dirt.
Even a magic beast fed on mana was helpless before the overwhelming mass of nature.
"Did it work?"
"For now, keep quiet and don't say anything."
Anya, who'd been trembling, opened her mouth.
"We really got it, right?"
"I told you not to say anything."
"Sorry?"
"I've got a bad feeling. Usually, this is the pattern where it comes back......."
Just then, the Diamond Bear they'd thought was completely buried began to howl.
"Grooaaar!"
It wasn't dead yet.
As the Diamond Bear struggled, the dirt piled on top of it slid off little by little.
"Wh-what do we do? Should we run even now?"
"We can't run while dragging the whole carriage along. Then we'll have to sacrifice a little."
Honestly, he didn't particularly mind sacrificing it.
But that was the last resort.
"...Can't you set off another explosion?"
"I don't have enough explosive spheres left to cause a landslide."
"Then!"
"I'll have to make more."
"Sorry? Make more?"
He stretched his arm out and took a deep breath.
"You're going to control mana in this situation!?"
"Don't talk to me. I can't concentrate."
It was training he'd done countless times here.
When Adam defenselessly drew up his mana, the Diamond Bear sensed it and thrashed again.
THUD—!
As it struggled, the dirt slid off little by little.
"Grooaaaar!"
Adam focused every nerve on producing mana.
Mana circulated inside his body.
The circulating mana was absorbed by the magic circle in an instant.
It felt like no matter how much he made, it was taken away again.
But it wasn't only being taken.
Plop.
Plop.
Explosive spheres dropped to the ground.
One, two.
Three, four.
....
....
....
"How can you go this far......."
Just as he was about to collapse to the ground, drained of strength, Anya caught him.
"This is enough!"
Her hands were full of explosive spheres.
Having just finished controlling his mana, Adam narrowed his eyes and roughly snatched the spheres Anya was holding.
"Wh-what are you doing?"
"I'll do it."
"Forget it! You can't even walk properly. I can at least do this much."
"No."
Adam approached the magic beast on staggering feet.
It wasn't for any particularly logical reason, nor out of a sense of duty.
It was simply a need for all that suffering to pay off.
This was a power he'd gotten through hell and back.
It had better have enough power to take down a magic beast like this.
And above all, all this time he'd blamed himself for being a slave, but in truth he'd settled into an unfreedom where he never had to do anything.
He resolved to cut off that complacency here.
This was conviction.
"Here, eat up!"
Adam dropped every last sphere into the Diamond Bear's snout.
A chain of great explosions going off inside, where there was no hard shell, only soft flesh.
He badly wanted to enjoy this moment with the enormous roar as his music, but unfortunately, his vision went black.
Thud.
His legs gave out.
The last thing he felt was the cold dirt floor.
A roar that tore through the air as if to rip his ears apart.
Unfortunately, he didn't get to see that thing's head get blown off.
"Grrrrrr......."
The Diamond Bear's whole body had been torn to rags, and it was barely clinging to life.
Just then, countless sounds reached his ears.
Footsteps, coming from beyond the dust-choked slope.
"I heard the explosions and wondered......."
"They got it? That monster?"
"No, not yet. Unless we extract its mana stone, it will regenerate."
The surviving guards came running.
To extract the mana stone near the heart of the hunted magic beast.
It was an iron rule that had to be followed if you took part as a comrade in a magic beast hunt.
"Does everyone have weapons?"
"Only shovels and pickaxes."
"Those will do."
The guards all raised their weapons.
At the dull sound of iron striking the ground, the Diamond Bear grew frantic too.
It felt like he could hear the magic beast's voice.
Going to die.
Me, speed up, fast.
Mana control.
No. I don't want to die!
But because it was buried in the ground, no matter how it twisted its body, it couldn't move.
Resistance was meaningless.
A grotesque dissection began, searching for the heart deep inside the giant monster's chest.
In practice, it was the work of filleting it alive like raw fish.
It was cruel beyond measure, but if they didn't do this, it would come back to life, so it couldn't be helped.
The group, slowly making their way toward the heart, finally reached the mana stone.
As they dug out the mana stone mine that had formed around the Diamond Bear's heart, the humans let out fiery roars of victory.
At the same time, it was also the sound of the king of the forest passing away.
The Diamond Bear was no more.
Watching the scene, Adam finally let out the breath he'd been holding.
"Whew, that's a load off."
Familiar voices came from the direction the guards had come running from.
"What happened here?"
"Holy shit. They really got it......."
"What went on here?"
Most of those who saw the scene were thrown.
Huh? They killed this? Who did?
The people who couldn't grasp the situation looked around.
The fallen Diamond Bear.
Their comrades cheering as they mined the mana stone inside it.
And Adam, collapsed all alone, and the smell of explosives.
One of the guards asked.
"Adam, was it you?"
It was the butler who'd first opposed Adam joining.
"......."
"Thank you. Truly."
They could tell without being told.
Who had brought down that magic beast.
Instead of cheering, the people silently carried Adam onto a stretcher.
It was an atmosphere where everyone acknowledged it without a word.
The top contribution today was Adam's.
***
He washed himself in the cool lake.
His mana was completely spent, and his whole body was covered in wounds.
Without everyone's help, he definitely couldn't have won.
From now on, I'll call them explosion 'magic' instead of bombs.
It's magic I'm going to keep using from now on, after all.
Calling it a modern weapon would hurt its pride.
As he was washing alone, the merchants from the campsite stripped off their clothes and jumped into the lake.
The wide lake quickly filled with people.
It seemed the preparations for the camp were all done.
Men and women, young and old alike, began playing happily in the lake.
They splashed water around, playing with people who might be family or might be strangers.
Suddenly curious, he asked a little girl.
"Hey, a lot of people died today, but nobody seems down."
"That's because! Someone might die again tomorrow anyway, so if you're sad every day, you'll get tired, they said!"
Satisfied, Adam nodded.
"And my dad said he didn't like the guards anyway, and now that they all got wiped out, the liquor goes down even better!"
"Your father had better watch what he says in front of you."
After finishing his bath, he went to the campsite.
The merchants and guards were enjoying a festival.
It was a festival for them, who'd mined a huge amount of mana stones and had the luck to survive.
The escort captain, who was sitting in the middle of the campsite, called him over.
"Adam, over here!"
Having set the record for top damage in today's magic beast raid, Adam had become a hero.
The seats of honor between Anya and the escort captain.
They were the seats of the heroes who'd hunted the Diamond Bear together.
"You're calling me by name now?"
"We're comrades who've crossed the line between life and death together, so of course I'll call you by name! You speak comfortably with me, too!"
"Live long enough and you see everything. Thanks to this, I've even made an adventurer friend."
"As it happens, there are a few cooks among our merchants, so there'll be a feast tonight."
"You had ingredients?"
"We came into a whole 30 tons of bear meat."
While they were talking, the food came out to their seats.
Thick-cut meat was placed on a stone slab with hot steam rising from it.
The cooks cooked the meat on the stone slabs.
It was bear steak.
It had a bit of a gamey smell, but it was plainly delicious.
Anya, in the seat beside him, wasn't chewing the bear meat. She was inhaling it.
"Uhuhuhuk... It's so good. I'm so glad I'm alive."
The escort captain tore into his steak as he spoke.
"Employer, have you thanked Adam?"
"Ahh! I forgot."
Anya wiped her mouth on her sleeve and bowed her head.
"You should thank him. Normally, adventurers run away when a job gets this bad."
"Adam. How was our employer?"
"She was practically flying, you know? I thought it was a pegasus, not a horse."
At Adam's answer, the escort captain laughed, "Hahaha!"
As his stomach filled, his body recovered, and his mana filled back up with it.
He could tell the signal right away by looking at the back of his hand.
Crackle.
An explosive sphere formed on the back of his hand.
He was used to it now.
He immediately threw the sphere onto the plain where there were no people.
A pillar of blue flame bloomed.
The people weren't scared.
If anything, they came out and danced, saying, 'As expected, a man with a big heart knows how to have fun!'
Watching the dancers, he took the wooden tablet out of his coat.
"Even a bandit studies like that! There's no end to learning! I respect you!"
"There might be a solution among the magic circles. And I'm not a bandit, you know? Why do you keep calling me a bandit?"
"Dunno! Dunno!"
"Seems like you've had a bit much to drink?"
Anya, now a drunk, put her hand on Adam's shoulder and turned serious.
"Adam."
"What?"
"I'll be delivering books to the Imperial Palace soon. Will you come with me?"
"The Imperial Palace......."
The Imperial Palace, where the Empire's capital was.
At the same time, it was the heart of the nation, where the Emperor resided.
It was quite a sweet offer.
A former slave might never get the chance to go all the way to the Imperial Palace in his life.
But he declined.
A crazy mage who periodically produced bombs was no different from a terrorist.
"If it's a grimoire's curse, then how about reading the grimoire that caused it yourself?"
"If I had it, I'd have read it already. But the grimoire ran off, and I don't know where it is."
"I know where the grimoire is, though?"
"Sorry?"
The fork holding his meat fell to the ground.
"How would you know that?"
"Anyone connected to the Imperial Palace knows. Apart from a few, the grimoires are kept in the underground archive of the Imperial Palace."
"Rumor has it that ownerless grimoires escape on their own, give their magic to a successor, and then go back to their original place, but this is the first time I've seen an actual case too."
Right after hearing that, he thought it over until the festival ended.
After the festival, there was an awards ceremony.
The recipients were Anya and the escort captain.
And the mana stones gained as spoils of the hunt were all given to Adam.
As a bonus, he got the contact information of the adventurer who'd led the escort detail.
Today's haul was considerable.
He'd gained a connection with a merchant who supplied books to the Imperial Palace.
He'd also learned how to use magic circles.
He'd have to try drawing magic circles once he got back to the mansion.
Adam put the mana stones by his pillow and fell asleep.
***
The next day.
"What is this......?"
Adam muttered, his appearance disheveled.
Warm sunlight.
A peaceful camp.
A morning where no one bothered him.
On a morning that was almost too refreshing, Adam wordlessly checked the back of his hand.
"There's no way I'd sleep that refreshingly, though?"
The dawn after the festival.
No explosive sphere had formed.
Suddenly, without any omen or change at all.
It was as if the curse had stopped.