“By the way,” the goblin called Fekal was sitting next to Cirno, the rest of his companions were listening in from a small distance. “We have decided that we will be staying in that forest’s edge, what do you have to say?”
“Mhm… If it’s that forest then I don’t really mind.” Cirno said. “It’s even better, I’m getting bored and some company would be really nice!” She switched to a happy tone.
Fekal nodded.
By now most of the goblins could stand the temperature without shivering like earlier. A few steps away from Cirno would only be a little cool for them. They thought that was probably due to them getting familiar with the cold. Some of the more perceiving ones noticed Cirno lowering her power thus making her surroundings warmer.
The group had some discussions among themselves. The goblins were very tired from the wandering and they knew that even if they continued it would be really difficult to find a goblin village, so why not just stay here? All of the conditions were pretty favorable for them. There were both foods from the forest and water from the lake. Also, with the thick layer of mist and the long distance that they had to walk through the forest to get here, they wouldn’t need to worry about being hunted down by the demons or the humans either.
The goblins could always continue with their journey later so taking a little rest wouldn’t do any harm.
Looking at the snow-infested landscape and the cold air that was being emitted by Cirno, one of them had asked what she was. “I’m a fairy, obviously! Can’t you see that?” was the reply that they got.
Fairy, huh? That was interesting. As they remember, the fairy is supposed to be a tiny race. They were spirits of nature that resided in and used magics that involved plants. Fairies were also very shy and didn’t come into contact with other races often.
Cirno here contradicted all of their knowledge about the fairies. While she was only as tall as a human child or a goblin like them, she was much much bigger than an average fairy which could fit in the palm of an adult human. The girl used ice powers which in their memory had nothing to do with plants. She also sounds very confident in her tone and didn’t seem to be shy talking to them. In fact, she seemed to be so full of energy the goblins were the ones that were put aback here.
The only feature she had that was remotely similar to a fairy was probably her wings but even then fairies had white glowing to transparent wings that were shaped like a butterfly’s, not six floating icicles.
With Cirno happy that the goblins would be staying, some of them started to prepare to build temporary shelters while the rest continued the conversation with the girl.
“I have to ask,” Fekal thought about the battle that they fought with this blue-haired girl. “Why wasn’t any of us injured in any way?”
“Because hurting others is bad!” Cirno immediately replied. “Maybe a little pain is fine, but I have been told that you shouldn’t hurt others too much, and I think so too! Why should we hurt each other when we can all be friends!”
“Is that why you only shoot harmless bullets? How did you do that anyway? Some of your icicles looked sharp.” The goblin remembered taking a direct hit from an icicle and only receiving a slight bruise.
“Oh, you don’t know about the Spell Card Rules?” Cirno asked, surprised.
“No? What is that?” That was the first time that the goblin had heard of the term so he was a little confused.
“It’s how we fight without hurting each other!” The supposed fairy explained. “Do you wanna see how to do that?”
“Hmm, I’m curious.” Fekal decided that he would entertain himself.
“Hah!” The hero shouted as he thrust his sword down. The tip of the blade went cleanly through a slime, destroying its core and killing it instantly.
The slime melted, becoming a puddle on the ground.
“Aw… That slime looked quite cute. Did you really have to kill it, Akibara-kun?” The girl next to the hero, Mineko Shima said with pity. She was wearing a white robe and a white long hat with a red cross symbol on the front. On her hand was a two-handed staff with a golden handle and a golden holder surrounding some jewelry at the end. Basically, she looked like a typical healer that could be seen in fantasy games.
“Unfortunately, the Princess said in order for us to get stronger we have to kill them.” The hero of the party, Munemitsu Akibara said. He is the tallest person in the party. He was wearing a silver suit and holding a long silver sword. “Ugh… I think these clothes are too flashy for me.” He looked no different than the image of an ideal hero though, in reality, he didn’t like the appearance he was sporting.
The party was on their first real monster hunting trip. Actually, calling it a ‘hunting trip’ might offend some adventurers since they were literally just running around in the castle’s garden killing slimes.
Why were they doing this? Well, the captain of the Royal Knight, their trainer, wanted them to begin hunting some weak monsters to gain ‘experience’, but the Third Princess thought that they would still need some more training before going out of the city’s wall. Right then she heard that the royal garden was being infested with slimes, so the princess just sent them to clean up the garden, saving both the time it would take to send the knights out to catch monsters back and the efforts to clean up the garden.
“The Princess wanted us to have the best equipment possible, you are just unlucky you are the hero.” The assassin of the team, Ayase Sakurazaki said sympathetically. Because of the nature of her role, she was wearing a black cloak with two sheathed daggers strapped around the hip.
“Yea, poor Munemitsu, I don’t think those clothes really go with you.” The last member of the party said. “Also, I think the Princess is too overprotective, she is watching us like crazy from that window over there.” He was Yasutake Nakagome, and he was a swordsman. His appearance can be summarized as the hero but black-colored.
Munemitsu thrust his sword down once again, taking out another slime in the process. “I think this is the last one, we should head back inside and report to the Princess.”
The rest of the party agreed, and all of them went back to the castle.
“Well, what do you think?” Cirno turned to the companion next to her as some of the last bullets of the spellcard impacted the ground.
“It’s interesting.” Fekal rubbed his chin in deep thoughts. “I have never thought about using magic that way.”
“It’s easy once you know how to do it!” Cirno said. “Oh, I have an idea! Why don’t you try to do it? If you learn how then we can play danmaku together!”
“Uh...” The goblin was unsure of what to do then he saw the face filled with expectant and the sparkling eyes of Cirno. “Alright, let me see…” Fekal thought about how the supposed fairy shot her bullets. Goblins weren’t known to be especially good at magics and he was lucky to even be among the few that could use them but then there was no harm in trying.
He raised his hand to cast a spell that shot out the simplest bullet that he saw, a glowing ball of light. Normally, such an attack would be counted as a light-based spell that would be hard to cast for a goblin like him because of the race’s nature. However, Fekal couldn’t sense any light attributes from Cirno’s attack, so he decided to imitate that feature.
Casting the spell became much easier just as he expected. When the light attribute was removed, the bullet became less like a light-based attack and more like a physical attack but had the shape of one. Also, without its core feature, the spell lost the majority of its damaging capability.
The glowing bullet impacted the ground and immediately dissipated after blowing up a small amount of dirt. The goblin thought that he performed it correctly since normally it should have resulted in a magical explosion of light, not a physical one. “That’s how you do it!” A confirmation from Cirno proved him true. “Now please make your bullet weaker and add much much more! Like filling the entire field full of bullets!”
Fekal lessened the amount of mana he would pour into the casting process and estimated how many bullets he could shoot out before exhausting his mana reserve. He then shot rapidly and randomly in the general direction that was out of the other goblins’ way. He counted around three hundred bullets being fired. “That’s all I can do right now.”
“It’s still not much but it’s no problem! It’s about how much Rumia can do.” Cirno paused before pulling out a slip of paper from her pocket. “And this is when the spellcards would come into play!”
“Oh? If I remember correctly is that how you casted such a big number of bullets earlier? I can’t believe you could seal magic in such a thin piece of paper.” Fekal said right as he noticed one of his companions on the ground with the back smoking. That one goblin then stood up and turned to him with a face like a volcano that was about to erupt. “Well, I think I accidentally hit someone and they are pissed off.”
“Hah! I have made plenty of people mad and I have nothing to fear here!” The fairy said in her haughty tone.
“Uhh… It is Edria that is being angry here. I don’t think-“ The goblin was about to finish his sentence but he didn’t have the chance to do that. The other goblin moved in front of them so fast it looked like teleportation. “Oh.”
“Eh?” Was all that could be heard from Cirno.
Thanks for the chapter!
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Thanks for the chapter