Once you accept a request, the targets are nowhere to be found.
It was just like losing something: it never appeared while you searched, but the moment you gave up, it turned up out of nowhere.
Well, in exchange, I managed to bag a fair number of Horn Rabbits, Hedgehogs, Horned Boars, and even a few Elks.
Sometimes Horned Dogs, Fang Dogs, or Carrions joined the fray and attacked us, but I caught only a handful of Chiki-Chiki Birds and Runner Birds.
Every now and then, I’d also run into groups of Goblins, so I started using my improved technique, [Ring!], to trap them inside, split the ring vertically, and fire arrows through the gaps.
“Not seeing any Chiki-Chiki Birds or Runner Birds around.”
“I usually hunt around here when I’m alone, but…”
“That’s it! You should have said so earlier! If you hunted this much using that ridiculous method of yours, of course the game around here would thin out.”
“Yeah. Even after you explained it, we couldn’t see a thing. Birds simply dropped out of the sky! Let’s move to a different hunting ground tomorrow.”
At the butchering yard, as I laid out the day’s catch, the submaster came by and frowned when he saw how few of the requested birds there were.
“They’ve been scarce lately. Can’t you do a bit better?”
“Submaster, we’ve been hunting in the same area for a long time, so the numbers are probably down.”
“We’re changing spots tomorrow. Should be better then. Probably.”
“‘Probably,’ huh. Well, ever since folks heard you took the request, everyone’s been coming out here every day. It’s turned into a race.”
We shifted a bit west from our usual area, and right away I could feel more presences—and even hear Chiki-Chiki Birds calling.
“They’re a bit far off. Should we flush the nearby ones out first?”
“There’s movement, but I can’t tell which are birds.”
“Yeah, me neither. Let’s just flush them out. Same routine as always.”
Mintz and Scott took up positions with their bows on either side of the thicket, nodding when ready.
I grabbed a few pebbles from my magic pouch, formed a [Vertical Ring Rotation!]—a donut-shaped spinning ring of wind—and tossed the stones inside.
When the rotating stones reached the bottom of the ring’s arc, I released the air membrane and sent them flying into the brush.
A series of sharp thwacks, thuds, and cracks echoed through the air.
“Something’s out!”
“Runner Bird’s mine!”
“I’ve got a Hedgehog—though there should’ve been another one.”
Peering into the thicket, I saw a slightly smaller Runner Bird collapsed there.
“Looks like the stone hit a female Runner Bird.”
“All right, let’s go toward where we heard the Chiki-Chiki Bird next.”
“Didn’t expect this many around here. First time in this area?”
“Yes. It takes longer to get here, so I’ve avoided it before.”
“No wonder. Hardly anyone can hunt Runner Birds or Chiki-Chiki Birds efficiently. Even if a party targets them, catching only one or two per trip isn’t worth the trouble, so most don’t bother.”
“I’m sure the calls came from this direction…”
“Yeah. Birds alone are hard to sense—their presence is so faint.”
As I checked the large tree branches overhead, Mintz warned that someone was approaching.
We stopped searching and switched to detection mode—there was a group heading straight for us.
“It’s Bloodsmoke Code. Leon, move to the rear and protect us.”
“Bloodsmoke Code?”
“They’re a party called Bloodsmoke Code. They usually venture deep into the forest and appear at the guild only two or three times a month. They’re skilled but temperamental—not people you want to deal with.”
“Watch out for Simon, the red-haired fire mage. Rumor has it that he sometimes throws [Fireballs] around for fun.”
“There’ve been complaints, but he never leaves proof. People say to steer clear if you ever run into them.”
We usually work the plains, so we’ve never crossed paths—but they’re heading right toward us now.
“They’re off course if they’re returning to Lynas.”
“Let’s hope it’s just coincidence, but… they’re coming straight at us. If we try to dodge, they’ll probably accuse us of something.”
“Guys like that wouldn’t have business with small fry like us… maybe they just want to rough us up.”
They kept their eyes fixed on us the whole way, an icy chill running down my spine as they drew near.
The six of them stopped before us, calm and confident, making no effort to hide their scrutiny.
“A three-man team with a kid, huh? Word is you’ve been making good money lately. How did you land those designated requests?”
“If you saw the guild board, you’d know. Anyone can get a designated request if they hunt the targets listed there.”
“You expect us to waste time catching Runner Birds and Chiki-Chiki Birds?”
“No way a brat like you gets a request from Travis Trading without some kind of connection.”
“Marks General Store named you too, and rumor says even the lord’s taken an interest in you.”
“Uh… are you guys hoping to get backing from a merchant or noble, by any chance?”
“Well, a rich merchant’s patronage is tempting. But what we really think is, those merchants and nobles are after your Wind Magic.”
“Heard you use some weird kind of wind spell.”
“I’ve been dying to test myself against it—no holding back.”
“It’s just simple Wind Magic for making pocket change on the plains. Go easy on me.”
“Funny, you don’t seem scared of us at all.”
The instant after that, one of them slashed at Mintz. Mintz dodged by leaping back, only for the attacker to pivot and thrust at Scott.
“Hey, cut it out! If you want a noble patron, I can introduce you.”
“Hah. You lot used to serve in the count’s knight order, didn’t you? Got kicked out for being useless.”
Great… a bunch of battle maniacs.
I stepped back, lowering my sword, but the red-haired man behind them started muttering something—probably a spell.
They had already attacked us in earnest, and if he was about to cast a spell, there was no reason to hold back.
At this distance, if my defensive ring was even a second late, I would either go up in flames or be blasted away by the shock wave.
Yes… better to play it safe and prepare some insurance.
The moment he raised his palm toward us and a [Fireball] began to form, I released the mana stored in the compressed-air sphere I had planted at his feet.
BANG! The compressed air burst outward, making the man stagger backward. It seemed to have done little more than surprise him; the impact wasn’t as strong as I had hoped.
Still, the sudden blast threw the others off balance, so I formed a ring, invisible, with only the faint whoosh of swirling wind echoing through the clearing.
One of them sprang up, sword in hand, and rushed in to strike, but his blade was dragged aside by the dense swirl of air, throwing his stance off completely.
“Leon, what was that just now?”
“It’s like… I released a defensive barrier that I’d been compressing tightly.”
“Heh, not bad at all.”
“No need to hold back anymore—just toss them out of here.”
That was probably the cleanest way to end it, so I started with the red-haired fire mage in the back, lifting him into the air with a tornado.
The five others who’d been attacking the barrier loosened their grips in shock.
They looked capable of assessing the situation quickly. If I took them out one by one, some might escape.
So I cast [Whirlwind!] and then another [Whirlwind!], wrapping each of them in spinning gusts so they couldn’t escape.
Once they grew dizzy and sank to their knees, I transformed the whirlwinds into tornadoes and hurled them high above the forest canopy.
“Bye-bye.”
“It’s always amazing to watch,” Scott said with a grin. “Clean, fast, and no mess left behind.”
“About what they said earlier—were you really in the count’s knight corps?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah,” he replied with a wry grin. “After coming of age, I couldn’t find steady work, so I joined the guard corps. My sword skills earned me a place in the knight order, but it was dull as dirt.”
“Same routine every day: wake up at a set time, roll call, eat, train—repeat. And the pay was lousy to boot.”
“So a few of us who got along ditched the knights and became adventurers instead. I’ve got a wife and kid, so I stick to day jobs—herb gathering, small monster hunts, stuff like that.”
“Was Marco part of the lord’s service too?”
“We hired him to scatter packs of wolves or dogs if we were ambushed.”
“He was trained plenty in man-to-man combat, but against beasts, even he could’ve been badly hurt. And then that damned fool had to go and—ugh.”
So, as I suspected, that guy had basically been their scarecrow, making noise to scare off beasts.
Thanks to that whole interruption, we only managed to bag a single Chiki-Chiki Bird.
After spotting one perched on a branch, I shook the air around it with a gust of wind to make it fly, then enclosed it inside an air bubble and expanded it rapidly.
As the air thinned inside, the bird couldn’t breathe or stay airborne—it just dropped.
I picked it up, twisted its neck, and dropped it into my magic pouch.
Mintz and Scott could only shake their heads watching me.
Well, fair enough—if you can’t see the air or moving wind, it probably looks like some kind of weird parlor trick.
Hardly the image of a proper mage. I just laughed it off.
A week later, we delivered the required number of Runner Birds and Chiki-Chiki Birds to the guild and collected the payment.
Mintz and Scott split the proceeds from the hunted animals, but since the commission had been in my name, they refused their share of the official reward.
With the job done, I took the next day off for training.
This time, I wasn’t practicing anything flashy, so I went out the west gate, to a small hollow in the plains, and sat down.
I formed a three-meter air balloon in midair, compressed it, infused it with more mana, and left it hovering a short distance away.
Then I made another one, rolled it along the ground, and released the magic inside.
BANG! The sound was like a tire bursting, and the surrounding grass whipped violently.
I remembered a video of a truck tire bursting. It had made a tremendous boom, and the narrator said the shock alone could kill someone.
That must be because the compressed air explodes in a single direction.
I didn’t know how many atmospheres of pressure I produced by compressing a three-meter balloon to the size of a fist, but next time I should try compressing an even larger one.
After several trials, I decided that at close range, a four-meter balloon compressed to fist-size worked best.
For longer distances, I would use one seven or eight meters wide, depending on the situation.
I infused another balloon with mana and let it roll along the ground—it didn’t burst yet, so I decided to time it.
The ring barriers lasted about three minutes after activation—roughly as long as it took to prepare instant noodles.
Adding extra mana made them last a little longer, but I had always released the spell manually within ten or twenty minutes.
I should probably find out how long one could last if I kept adding mana.
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