“Guildmaster, guildmaster… Is not this a bit too brutal?”
The snow-covered ground was now stained red with blood. Those thirteen magic tutors lay scattered about, and crimson dragon ants crawled over their bodies, igniting bursts of thick smoke and charred stench. Just as Ye Dui had guessed, the members of the Blue Puppet Magic Guild relied on their War God puppets. In every battle, they treated themselves as magic batteries, supplying mana to the puppets, yet neglected to hone their own spells. This left their personal combat abilities woefully mediocre, utterly fragile.
Once Teacher Saitama dispatched the War God puppets, Guni hefted her super greatsword and swung it wildly, swiftly finishing off the lot. This savage scene left Jacob, who since birth had only bricked the head chef to death, utterly stunned.
“Adventurers must act decisively. Since they sought to kill us, they ought to have been prepared for death at our hands. You will grow accustomed to such matters in time.” Green patted Jacob’s shoulder, offering advice in the tone of a seasoned veteran. Outwardly calm, inwardly he brimmed with glee. At last, at last he had the chance to school a newbie. No more endless scoldings from Debbie.
“Is that how it is…” Jacob nodded, then paused in confusion. Seeing Ye Dui, Debbie, and Lessa rifling through the fallen magic tutors’ belongings with practised ease, he grew puzzled anew. “Guildmaster and the others, how can they do that? This… this seems like the work of bandits and thugs…”
“Jacob, you misunderstand again. Adventurers never pass up a chance to claim spoils. Leaving their wealth to rot in the wild is a sin. Respecting coin is the most basic virtue of an adventurer.” Green lectured on, utterly shameless.
“Oh…” Jacob nodded as if suddenly enlightened, thinking to himself that adventuring was truly a profound profession.
Having finished looting, Ye Dui and the others netted several hundred gold coins, along with sundry items. Among them was a scroll, an employment task scroll stating that killing Ye Dui and bringing proof to the employment guild would earn a reward of one hundred thousand gold coins. Regrettably, the scroll bore no name of the task’s issuer.
Evidently, the Blue Puppet Magic Guild knew not who had posted this employment task. They had merely accepted it. Confident in their War God puppets, they found them powerless before Ye Dui’s summoned heroic spirit.
Ye Dui tore the scroll to shreds and stood to survey the surroundings.
“Guildmaster, let us make haste. Otherwise, we shall not reach Grey Wind Station by nightfall.” Green called out.
Ye Dui nodded and boarded the carriage, but he did not direct Green towards Grey Wind Station. Instead, he pointed aside. “We head this way. No more Grey Wind Station.”
“No Grey Wind Station?” Green blinked in surprise. “But guildmaster, the Elven Plains are sparsely populated, with few places to rest. Skipping Grey Wind Station means camping on the plains tonight. The snow has yet to melt from the ground. Outdoor camping in this chill is rough. We have food stores, true, but in this cold, sleeping in tents at night will be unbearable.”
“No matter. I have a way. My new spell is made precisely for wild camping.” Ye Dui said with a cheerful grin. “Head that way. We skirt Grey Wind Station.”
Grey Wind Station lay ahead on the path, a waystation for travellers to lodge and rest. It surely harboured ambushes aplenty. Ye Dui feared not attack, but blundering into the foe’s trap? Did they take him for a fool?
During his days in Windrock City, he had already devised his strategy. Green saw the guildmaster’s mind set, so he had no choice but to steer the carriage from the main road into the wilderness.
Such a route was naturally uncomfortable, full of jolts and bumps over uneven terrain. Progress slowed greatly. At midday, they halted for a rest and ate from the food in the storage space.
Inevitably, talk turned to Cass and Windsor’s wedding banquet. When Prince Geller declared that all must eat the food, wasting none, as a prince and the most authoritative and powerful in the empire, his words were as commands. Though Afu’s cooking was so vile it brought tears, the guests wept as they swallowed those devilish morsels…
Recalling the scene still brought chuckles. Afterwards, Ye Dui heard a phrase now popular in Windrock City: Other weddings demand gifts, but the lord’s wedding nearly demands lives…
Lunch done, the carriage pressed on. Nearing dusk, they reached a small lake. The map named it Wenga Lake. The lake was modest in size, now fully frozen, ringed by trees.
Debbie checked the map. “By the map, the nearest village is over thirty li from here… Ye Dui, shall we camp here tonight?”
“Here it is. Time to show you my new spell.” Ye Dui leapt from the carriage, wandered about, and settled on a somewhat flatter spot.
“Little brother, what exactly do you plan? Conjure a house out of thin air?” Lessa asked from nearby, her tone laced with teasing. To her, producing a house outright was impossible. None knew what Ye Dui’s new spell truly was, only that he had comprehended it specially for this wilderness trek.
Specially comprehended. Such a notion was unthinkable for other magic tutors. Whose spells were not learned through toil and rigorous practice? What spell one comprehended was never certain. Whence this talk of whim? For Ye Dui, though, it was everyday fare.
Ye Dui chuckled and glanced at his companions. Today, he would astound them!
His hands then blurred in a flurry of gestures, dazzling the eye, like the hand seals of Naruto shinobi. It seemed the next instant he would unleash some mighty jutsu. Then… seals complete, he summoned his magic tutor avatar and released a spell. The seals were needless, really.
With the spell’s release, the ground quaked. Thick trees burst from the earth, growing swiftly.
The trees extended branches and leaves in sequence, intertwining and coiling, swiftly forming a unique shape.
Thus, in the winter dusk across the open wilds, a wooden house appeared in all their sights!
It rooted deep, towered seven or eight metres, grand and imposing.
Elven Magic: Wood Release: Four-Pillar House!
This was the jutsu of Yamato, the Wood Release shinobi from Naruto.
Jutsu in Ye Dui’s iPad grimoire were reworked as spells. Mana supplanted chakra. Though a reworked jutsu, the broad effects remained. Wood Release ninjutsu became elven magic here, or wood-attribute magic, a fusion of earth, water, and wind elements. It commanded nature’s magical forces. Using wood-attribute magic to form a wooden house was no great marvel. Other powerful elven magic tutors could do the same.
Beyond lottery draws and points from slaying the devil, Ye Dui gained one targeted Insight. Insight came in three forms. Random Insight drew a random anime or film from the resource library for Insight. Targeted Insight specified a work for Insight, but if the work held myriad elements, the resulting magic would randomise. Like DC or Marvel films, or Bleach or Naruto anime. With targeted Insight, who knew what might emerge?
Targeted Insight could narrow to a single person in a work, Insighting that person’s magical attributes. Ye Dui unleashed his targeted Insight on Yamato from Naruto, gaining the fused wood magic attribute and a suite of Yamato’s jutsu-spells, such as Wood Release: Wood Lock Wall, Wood Release: Four-Pillar Prison, Wood Release: Wood Clone, and more.
Among them, Wood Release: Four-Pillar House excited Ye Dui most.
This spell was essential for wilderness travel!
The wooden house Ye Dui conjured with magic differed somewhat from Yamato’s in Naruto. Ye Dui’s brimmed with green, visible forked green leaves and coiling green vines around it. Overall, it resembled a great tree shaped as a house. Moreover, this house had windows, a door, divided rooms. Even inside, crude beds and tables, plus a full suite of bathroom, kitchen, bedrooms, and so on…
Ye Dui waved to his gawking companions. “Park the carriage before the house, everyone. Come in and rest.” So saying, he himself ascended the wooden steps, pulled open the vine-woven door, and continued instructing, “Green, fetch the magic lamps, folding chairs, and such I had you buy in Windrock City. Just the thing.”
Entering yielded a hall, with bathroom, bath, and kitchen on either side. Stairs on one side led to the second floor, six simple bedrooms above, one per person for their group of six.
Ye Dui eyed his companions, still rigid as if dreaming, then grinned and began pulling items from his storage space: quilts, pillows, teacups, tea sets, and more. During those two days in Windrock City, he had busied himself procuring these. Lord Kevin had puzzled over it long, unknowing Ye Dui’s intent.
“I, I am not dreaming, am I? Magic can do this?” Jacob rubbed the wooden walls, formed of tree trunks and interwoven vines, airtight to bar the outer cold. Shocked, he said, “Truly, truly eye-opening. Magic’s power is wondrous!”
“Others’ magic is not like this…” Debbie sighed in astonishment. Only Ye Dui’s held such variety!
“The kitchen works. Green, bring the pots, bowls, basins, coal stove you packed? Hurry and cook. So cold, best a pot of meat soup with bread.” Ye Dui called.
“…Oh.” Green nodded dazedly. Even after so long with Ye Dui, he still found himself stunned anew. Recovering, he called Green into the kitchen. Wait, that was himself.
Ye Dui had Lessa, Debbie, and Guni distribute quilts and such to each room. As they descended, Ye Dui stood outside the bathroom door. Steam billowed from within. He had placed a wooden tub inside, filled with steaming water. Ye Dui smiled. “I just magicked up a big basin of hot water. Everyone, take a hot bath.”
“We can take hot baths too!?”
Debbie could stay composed no longer. “How do I feel we are not adventuring, but holidaying…”
