Water Magician

Chapter 48: Amon’s Training

Ryo and Amon were on the second floor of Rune’s dungeon.

It was a floor with wolf-type monsters such as the Lesser Wolf.

“<O ice, pierce, Icicle Lance 4>”

The hind legs of two Lesser Wolves were sewn to the ground with ice spears to prevent them from leaping.

“Hah.”

Amon launched an attack at one of them.

The Lesser Wolf responded with its uninjured front legs and jaws.

Amon repeatedly attacked and backstepped, accumulating damage on the Lesser Wolf while making sure he didn’t receive any.

(That’s very effective against a stationary opponent. I’m interested in how he will fight against mobile opponents …)

After several attacks that disabled the Lesser Wolf’s front legs, Amon thrust into its throat.

Amon defeated the other, whose hind legs were locked by ice spears, in the same manner.

“Good job.”

“Yes, thank you.”

Amon replied with a flushed face.

It was not as exciting as yesterday but he felt a thrill right after defeating a monster.

Ryo collected the magic stone from the monster that Amon defeated first.

Those two added up to six Lesser Wolves that they had encountered since entering the second floor.

For the first four wolves, Ryo sewed all their legs to the ground with ice spears like yesterday’s ants and had Amon deal the final blow.

As for the recent two wolves, he had Amon fight them with only their hind legs sewn to the ground with ice spears.

“How about it, Amon? For the next one, just one wolf … with no damage would be a troublesome opponent … so I’ll damage one of its front legs and let you try fighting it?”

Rather than exploring the dungeon, it had completely turned into battle training for Amon.

“Please do so!”

“That’s a good reply.”

Everyone likes motivated and honest young people.

Ryo was no exception.

However, Ryo looked like he was in his late teens, so he was pretty much a 『young man』 too …

“But Ryo-san, is that okay?”

“Hmm?”

“I’m very grateful that you are combining both dungeon exploration and combat training, but I think Ryo wouldn’t be satisfied …”

Amon asked while washing the magic stone harvested from the Lesser Wolf with water.

Originally, water was precious in the dungeon but since there was a Water-Attribute Magician, they had an inexhaustible supply.

“You don’t have to worry about that. It’s natural to help my roommates get stronger. By the way, Amon’s swordsmanship or movement is similar to Abel’s swordsmanship, but you learned from a former adventurer in the village, right?”

“Abel-san’s …! Ah, yes. I was taught by an old man named Kiro … Even though he’s an old man, he has a toned body and does fieldwork well. I heard that he learned swordsmanship at a large dojo in the royal capital, a somewhat famous school … I think it was the Hume school of swordsmanship.”

Amon was apologetic that he didn’t remember much.

“I see. If you build a solid foundation, you’ll surely become very strong. Because Abel was like that too. Let’s continue.”

With that said, the two started walking side by side.

Like yesterday, they walked in parallel.

“I thought Ryo is a Magician, but are you familiar with swords too?”

“A long time ago, I had sword sparring with my teacher but I can’t say that I’m familiar with swords because it’s an original style.”

Ryo replied and stared off into the distance.

The figure of Dullahan, the Fairy King, came to his mind for the first time in a long time.

“You’re amazing! You have sword technique on top of being a Magician … Eh? But you don’t usually carry a sword.”

(I remember having such an exchange recently …)

“This is my sword.”

He replied and drew Murasame out of his belt before forming the ice blade.

“Wha-wha-what is that …”

Amon’s eyes were wide open with interest.

That said, a sword blade that was formed with ice, or rather a single-edged sword that was closer in form to a katana, would cause anybody to react like Amon when they see such a thing for the first time.

“A sword for Water Magicians given to me by my teacher.”

“An Ice blade … Yeah, you can’t make the blade if you can’t use Water-Attribute Magic. But this is the first time I’ve seen one.”

At that moment, Ryo reacted.

“Two Lesser Wolves are coming from the front.”

“Ah, yes!”

Amon, whose head was spinning a little from seeing Murasame, unsheathed his sword and braced himself.

“Then, as mentioned earlier, I will damage the front leg of one of them so please fight it.”

“Yes!”

“<Icicle Lance 2> <Water Jet>”

Two ice spears pierced the hind legs of a Lesser Wolf and sewn it to the ground.

Then, a water jet shot through the left front leg of another Lesser Wolf.

“Kyainnn”

The Lesser Wolf was shot in its front leg but it stood on three legs and faced Amon who was approaching.

The Lesser Wolf’s magic stone was a small green magic stone so it had the Wind Attribute as a monster, but it can’t use long-range attack magic like Air Slash.

Even if it charged, it could not attack at the speed of sound like the Assassin Hawk, a monster with the same Wind Attribute.

It was a 『Lesser』 monster and a monster that appeared on the second floor, so it was not that strong.

Still, for Amon, who had just registered as an F-rank adventurer, it was a strong enemy one-on-one.

To be safe, Ryo had applied an ultra-thin Ice Armor spell on both of them.

As it did not affect movement during battle, Amon had already forgotten about it.

Ryo thought that was better for training.

Amon’s fighting style was basically the same as when fighting against the immobile Lesser Wolf with hind legs sewn to the ground.

The repeated tactic of attacking and pulling away.

However, even though it was shot in the front leg, the Lesser Wolf still sometimes charged in from the front, so he had to dodge diagonally backward many times.

(I see. His style of fighting ensures that he doesn’t take a lot of damage. The worry is running out of stamina. Well, stamina can be trained by anyone as long as they run seriously, so it can be done … Now that I think about it, I haven’t run at all recently …)

When he was in the Rondo Forest, he ran every morning … Well, he ran while training his magic control, but he hadn’t done that since he left the forest and started traveling with Abel.

But in a shared room with four others, he was worried that he would wake the others up. Amon defeated the Lesser Wolf as Ryo was thinking to himself.

“Good job.”

However, he seemed to be quite tired as he was supporting himself with his sword.

“Amon, sit down and take a break.”

Ryo, with a swing of Murasame, cut off the head of the Lesser Wolf whose hind legs were sewn to the ground.

Then, he extracted the magic stone with Michael’s knife.

After taking out the magic stone from the Lesser Wolf that was defeated by Amon too, Ryo returned to Amon.

“<Omnidirectional Icewall>”

The Ice Wall stretched to the ceiling and covered all four directions, forming a safe area of 5 meters squared.

“This ice wall cannot be easily broken through so take your time to rest.”

“Sorry.”

Amon replied and lay down spread-eagled. He was still out of breath.

(If I want to be on the safe side, I should put an ice wall on the floor too … No, the ground is uneven, so I can’t use Ice Wall … What about Ice Bahn, it has some durability and will work … but it’s ‘ice’ after all so it will be cold … I wonder if it won’t be cold if I apply it about 5 mm below the ground … In the first place, I wonder if I can generate an Ice Bahn inside the ground … I’ll experiment on this when I return to the surface.)

While Ryo was thinking about creating Ice Bahn as such, Amon, who had somewhat regained his breath, got up.

“I’m sorry, I can move a little now.”

Ryo could tell that he was actually overdoing it.

“No, this is not a situation where you have to overdo it, so just rest. It’s a good idea to drink water first.”

Amon drank water from the water bottle as he was told.

Since there was a chance that something could cause them to separate from each other, each of them had their own dungeon exploration tools.

For example, water bottles, potions, antidotes, etc.

“Phew.”

Amon exhaled audibly.

“Even so, this Ice Wall is amazing. It’s completely transparent, isn’t it? I’ve never seen transparent ice. Isn’t it always white?”

“It’s because of the impurities and air in the water. If you remove them completely, you’ll get transparent ice even without magic. Though this was made completely transparent using magic.”

Ryo laughed as he said that.

Even on modern earth, nearly completely transparent ice could be made.

Even if it could not be made with the home refrigerator or an ice machine used for business use, with time and effort, it could be made by a professional using more than 48 hours.

For example, the ice used in ice sculpture would be manufactured in such a manner.

On Earth, things that took so much effort and time could be made in an instant on 『Phi』 … magic is great!

“Water-Attribute Magic is amazing!”

Amon looked at Ryo and the Ice Wall with a look of adoration.

(All right, I’m contributing to improving the status of Water-Attribute Magicians little by little.)

Ryo nodded in his heart.

“Anyway, battling a moving opponent is so exhausting …”

Amon was slightly depressed.

“Did you fight monsters when you were in the village?”

“I’ve only experienced fighting against lone monsters with a few people.”

Fighting one-on-one and beating the hell out of one using numbers are completely different in how the battle wears down the nerves.

“Amon’s style of fighting tires you out easily after all.”

Hit and away sounds good, but it means that it involves a lot of approaching and breaking away movements.

It leads to constant leg movement and is prone to causing fatigue as a result.

“Is that so……”

Amon was still slightly depressed.

“But if you do it right, I think it’s a way of fighting that is less likely to cause serious injuries. The point is that you only need to have endurance. And anyone can train endurance.”

“Is that true?!”

Amon looked at Ryo with glistening eyes.

“Run earnestly. With just that, anyone can develop endurance. Build a body that is resistant to fatigue. It is a versatile capability that is useful in any situation.”

“I see!”

“After that, practice swings are useful for building endurance for the upper body muscles such as the arms and shoulders. You practiced that in your village too, right?”

Even when you examine swordsmanship all over the world, none advocate not performing practice swings and routines.

“Yes. I did it every day, including other routines.”

“I believe keeping that up is the way to improve. I traveled with Abel for a while and even Abel practiced his routines every day early in the morning.”

“Abel-san too!”

“Abel may be a genius with the sword, but he puts in effort even as a genius.”

“I … I don’t think I have a talent for the sword.”

Amon said in a slightly lower tone. He still seemed to be a little negative of himself.

“Amon, the strongest master I know, when asked what talent is, he said 『Talent is the will to persevere』. Perseverance is power.”

Amon looked up enthusiastically and stared at Ryo.

“Amon, are you unable to continue putting in the effort?”

“No … I’ll do it! Let me do it!”

Ryo nodded while watching Amon screaming ‘I will do it!’ next to him.

(It is so difficult to be a motivator … The ability to inspire people … is something I want badly.)

Ryo, who was great at stirring up Abel … It seemed that the world would be difficult in many ways.