Chapter 35

The question of whether or not Zeth should bring a Hellfire Ritual circle along with him when he went to meet with Erza had been the subject of endless back-and-forth thought. On one hand, he still wasn’t sure whether or not the man suspected him of being a Blood Mage, and in the case he did know, Zeth would definitely want some sort of protection to fight back against a potential trap. But on the other hand, if Erza didn’t know, bringing a ritual circle along with him was one surefire way to get found out.

Ultimately, with what he’d seen that guard woman do to detect his mana residue in the shed, he decided carrying a piece of potent magic around a powerful mage was likely more risk than it was worth. However, just because Erza might notice if he had a Hellfire Ritual when they met didn’t mean he couldn’t use one to protect himself.

As he walked into town from his base in the woods, he carried in his pocket a scrap of cloth with a Hellfire Ritual painted onto it. Just having it on his person as he navigated the streets filled him with anxiety. Every time he saw a guard glance over at him, every time a passerby brushed against his shoulder, a shudder ran down his spine. But with the now dozens of hours he’d spent around the terror-inducing demons, he’d learned well how to control his facial expressions when confronting intense fear.

As he walked to the tavern he’d agreed to meet them at, he glanced around, looking for a place to stow it where nobody would go looking.

He spotted a barrel that looked like it’d gone at least a few weeks without being touched sitting in front of a small shop right by the tavern. Perfect. He walked up to it, pretending to simply be catching a break in the shade the building created as he leaned against the barrel and slid the cloth in a crack between two of its boards, on the side facing away from the street. Hopefully, the inconspicuous little square would draw no attention from the people passing by, hidden from most peoples’ sight, while he’d still be able to return here to retrieve it in case of a crisis.

Aside from that, his other piece of safety preparation had already been completed and was currently on standby—off somewhere in the woods, he’d asked the demon to hang out nearby. He’d set the demon up with some strict standing orders while in the woods to avoid a crisis. Primarily, the demon was explicitly not allowed to attack or kill anything under any circumstances, and in the case he was spotted, he was simply to dismiss himself immediately.

The demon was far away from town, too—just barely in earshot. They apparently had good enough senses that if Zeth screamed, even as far away from each other as they were, the demon would be able to hear. And, considering how fast they could run, help would be here in no time.

Not that doing such a thing would be very subtle; if he shouted for help and a demon showed up, he’d be announcing to everyone around that he owned an illegal Class, and every guard in town would be on their way to execute him. It was a last resort measure for sure. But having something he could do in the worst-case scenario was far better than simply resigning himself to die.

Though, his final preparations would hopefully help with that issue. Walking through the streets, Zeth had on a simple, loose-fitting tunic and some cheap patchwork pants—what he usually wore. But underneath, he had on an outfit he’d spent the last few days preparing.

A tight-fitting black cloth outfit hugged his body under his typical clothes. Apparently, even though Zeth had never developed a skill for stitchwork, demons were forced to frequently repair rips in their clothes caused from monster attacks, and had to work with much, much tougher materials than the simple cottons and wools of the First Realm. So, when he asked one to help make some clothes, they were more than capable.

And not only did Zeth have a bodysuit that he could comfortably wear under his clothes, but he also had a hood and facemask that could fit in his pocket, which he was carrying with him as well. All of this meant that, at a moment’s notice, Zeth could find a secluded area, strip off his normal clothes, throw on the mask to hide his face, and emerge looking completely different from before, identity now protected while he conducted illegal actions.

Perhaps all of this was overkill. Perhaps Erza had completely innocent intentions. But Zeth wasn’t about to take a risk like this without at least rigging the odds as much in his favor as was possible. If this was some sort of ambush, he wouldn’t hesitate to kill the man.

With those preparations ready, he entered the tavern.

Erza was sitting at a table, the other members of the group—Rosalie and Alfon—nowhere to be seen. Part of Zeth worried about them being hidden somewhere, ready to strike, but he supposed those two weren’t the ones hiring him, so maybe they just didn’t consider this to be their business.

Upon seeing him, Ezra raised his hand and waved Zeth over.

“Alright,” he said, “you ready to learn some magic?”

Zeth frowned. “I thought I was just helping you move stuff.”

“I may have stretched the truth a little. C’mon, follow me. It’s stored out back.”

He stood and started heading out of the tavern, and Zeth walked after him. “Hey, listen, I didn’t sign up to do anything weird, alright?”

“You’ll be okay. I told you before, I wanted you to carry around some magic items, right? Just wanna make sure you know enough to carry them safely. So I’ll be teaching you a little. If anything, that’s an upside—free education.”

Ezra led Zeth around to the back of the tavern, where a small building was set up with several doors lining it, each labeled with a different room number.”

“Is this where you’re staying?” Zeth asked.

“Hm? No, no, the inn I’m staying at is nearby. This is just some extra storage space I rented.”

“Storage space? What for?”

Ezra walked up to one of the doors, inserted a key, and swung it open. An enchanting glow cast out from inside, shining across Zeth’s face.

“…Oh,” he said.

Inside, the room was filled to the brim with magical items. Weapons, armor, and clothing, all decorated with expensive-looking whites and golds, colorful gems encrusted into their surfaces, and strange runes carved into their surfaces. Dozens upon dozens of ancient-looking books, each with an unknown language scrawled across the cover. Tucked into every corner of the room was some little trinket or bauble, each with its own distinct look and, likely, function.

And, of course, they were all glowing. Every single object gave off its own light, each one a slightly different shade and brightness. The same kind of strange glow Zeth saw come off of the equipment Erza carried with him. Only, considering the sheer number of items in the shed, it was dozens of times brighter than the dim, barely-noticeable glow coming from his gear. Was this some magical property of theirs?

“What is all this?” Zeth asked.

“These are the items I can’t fit on my person,” Erza said. He glanced at Zeth. “If the light’s too much, I can throw a blanket over the brighter ones.”

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“Hm? No, no, it’s alright. Why are they glowing like that, anyway?”

He nodded, eyes squinting slightly. As always, he wore an inscrutable expression on his face that made it impossible to guess what he was thinking. “Magic items glow according to the mana put into them. The more mana, the more intense the light. You just probably haven’t seen it before because it’s pretty easy to suppress the glow—most people do that with their gear. But I’ve got enough that doing so would be quite the hassle. Which is actually why I wanted your help. See, there are a couple items that I want to bring into my arsenal, but I don’t feel like going through the whole process on my own with each and every one of them. So that’s your job.”

“I’ll be…getting rid of the light? How?”

“It’s something you have to do on a consistent basis, but with most of my gear it’s pretty easy since I keep up with it. The first time you do it is always the hardest. Here, let me give you an item and I’ll help you figure it out.”

He walked over and grabbed a small ball made of winding metal bars, turning it over in his hand. Its glow was one of the brighter ones.

“Try this one,” he said, holding it out for Zeth to take.

Zeth didn’t touch it yet. “What does it do?”

“Oh, this is a bomb.”

He backed away.

Erza chuckled. “Don’t worry, it's not armed.”

“I’m not gonna take a bomb and start messing around with it. Sounds like a really good way to blow myself up.”

“It also isn’t that kind of bomb. It’s a mana bomb. When activated, it’ll shove all the mana inside out into the world nearby, and since it has quite a lot of mana stored inside, the amount that washes over the surrounding area is enough to disrupt most magic constructs it touches—if for a little while.”

“Which means…?”

“Basically, it deactivates anything magical for a time. The more powerful and sturdily-made the magic construct, the less like this is gonna be to turn it off, and for less time. But generally speaking, if someone hasn’t intentionally built their construct to be immune to mana bombs, it’ll work just fine.”

“...I see,” Zeth said. “So, would it work against the Blood Mage’s ritual circles?”

“Precisely. Glad you catch on so fast. This is one of the best ways to get through a Blood Mage’s lair unharmed—if you see a circle, just throw this ahead and it’ll shut the thing off for some time. And that’s why I need to get it ready. They’re normally too unwieldy and situational to carry around all the time, but if we know our enemy’s a Blood Mage, having a way to disable their main method of attack would be extremely helpful.”

“It certainly would,” he replied, taking mental note of how the device worked. He was very glad to know about that—if there was a bomb that could turn off his ritual circles, he’d need to shift around the design of his base to accommodate that. Don’t cluster circles together so a single bomb could take out multiple, for one. Plus, if he had a circle on his person, a single one of those being thrown at him could disable his own weapon in the middle of a fight.

“Anyway, it’s totally safe. Even if it were to go off right now, you’d be fine. Unless you have some sort of magic effect keeping you alive.”

“Uh, no, nothing like that.”

“Great! Then go ahead and take this and I’ll guide you through the process.”

Zeth still hesitated. “How do I know you’re not lying?”

Ezra stared at him. “What reason would I have for blowing up a random citizen of a town I’m staying in?”

He bit his lip. Maybe he was being overly cautious. If Erza wanted Zeth dead, he’d have plenty more methods of killing him than trying to convince him to blow himself up. “Fine, sure. Just a little uneasy around this stuff. The most complex magic item I’ve ever used were the lamps the guild uses.”

As Zeth reached out and took the sphere, he felt an energy inside his body instantly connect through his fingertips with the object. And instantly, information came pouring into his mind. Erza hadn’t been lying—this thing was a mana bomb, used to disrupt magical constructs, and it wasn’t armed. Zeth had no idea how he knew these things, he just knew them. Like the sphere was sharing the information with him directly.

“Feel it talking to you?”

“Uh, yeah, sorta. Like…instructions?”

He nodded. “Yeah, that happens because…Well, anyway, let’s just focus on getting you to be able to suppress that light. Generally, it’s not a good idea to walk around with all of the gear you’re holding screaming out how expensive and powerful it is. So, first, you just need to close your eyes and feel around for a bit. Explore it.”

“...Are you sure I won’t accidentally cause it to go off?”

“No, that shouldn’t happen if you don’t mean it to. Anyone can do this sort of thing.”

Zeth hesitantly did what Erza said, trying his best to focus on the object and figure out what he was supposed to notice. Inwardly, he sighed. Just doing some normal physical labor would’ve been so much easier than this.

Eventually, he found what he assumed Erza was talking about. There was a sort of energy field around the object that he could somehow sense. And when he pushed his perception to examine it more closely, it was like there were holes in the field of energy. Most were miniscule, but some were larger, tearing through a whole fifth of the field’s area. And coming through those holes was a different type of energy—a more wild, unrestrained type—that leaked into the surrounding world. That must’ve been the light.

“Okay, I think I see what you were talking about,” he said. “It’s like a bunch of gaps in some sort of covering. How do I close them?”

For a moment, Erza didn’t speak. But eventually he said, “Is it not intuitive?”

“Hm? No. I don’t know if I’ve emphasized this enough, but I really have no idea what I’m doing here.”

“Just…Hm, how do I describe this? Use your mind to stretch the fabric across the holes, but be careful not to make new ones.”

“Uh huh.” Zeth started focusing on one of the hundreds of tiny holes, trying to see if he could manipulate the field. For a few moments, he had no luck, simply staring at the thing with his mind’s eye attempting to will it into moving, but eventually, as he mentally pushed in every way he knew how, one of the random movements he made caused it to shift slightly. Slowly, bit by bit, he managed to stretch and pull the covering to close up the hole, and the flow-y energy stopped shining through it.

After that, he moved to another nearby smaller hole. But this time, the moment he touched it, the original hole he’d closed tore right back open.

He frowned. This would probably take a while.

Covering every single hole in the field took quite a while, but Zeth at least managed to get it done over the course of the next few hours. He got the hang of the small ones pretty quickly, but the massive gaps took forever before he could get even one closed without ripping another massive hole in the covering.

When he’d realized it would take that long, he moved to sit in the shed, eyes closed while Erza sat next to him, working on another mana bomb of his own. By the time he finished, of course, Erza had finished around two other items on top of the bomb, but Zeth supposed Erza felt that a little help was better than none, when it came to work as time-consuming as this.

Zeth took a breath, finally opening his eyes and stretching his arms after being stuck in the same hunched-over position for so long. “So, are we doing another?”

Erza looked at him. “Another? You’re not tired yet?”

“I’m used to twelve-hour days in the mines. This is nothing.”

He stood up, glancing around. “No, no, I think we’ll be done for now. I’ve seen enough.”

Zeth frowned. “Enough of what?”

“Evidence.”

Zeth’s blood turned to ice. “…Evidence?”

“Well, you see, I have something to confess. I’ve been lying to you.”

“About what?”

“Most of it was the truth. I really am just a mage from out of town, here to guard a merchant. But I lied about what you are. I’m not sure you know, but the Shaping Stat affects quite a lot. System-granted Skill, the finesse with which you can control mana, and much more. It affects so much, an unpracticed user may not realize how much their perception of the world has shifted.”

Zeth took a step back, preparing for the worst.

“The only people who can see the glow of magic items are mages. And you’ve more than demonstrated that you could see it. In addition to that, it’s completely impossible for someone who isn’t practiced with magic to be capable of repairing their mana fields so that they shine no longer.” He stared at Zeth. “So, I hope it’s not offensive when I tell you, I don’t quite believe you when you say you don’t have a Class. And considering you’ve been lying to me about it, I think I know which one you have.”