Chapter 378: Sage’s Autobiography (2)
Translated by Zzonkedd
Edited by Gumihou
Warning:
Since autobiography uses 1st person POV, Gumi will switch over whenever appropriate.
By ‘whenever appropriate’, Gumi meant the entire freaking chapter. So, [8] on that.
Also, there were a lot of unnecessary or unlikely information from Mukouda.
By unlikely, Gumi meant things Mukouda could never have known!!
While travelling around the country, I [8] learned of a place where demons with vast magical knowledge live. Naturally, as a Sage with Unfathomable Magic, I decided that I should head over there right away. [5a]
[9] Thus, I began keeping an eye on the mission board for a job that would take me to the vicinity. Finally, an escort job for a merchant came up and I signed for it right away.
From what I have heard, the demons there are pretty friendly. Well, not friendly exactly but according to my new merchant friend, I have decided we shall be great friends now, they were ‘pretty good people’.
Well, [8] I have my doubts since, you know, ‘demons’.
Anyway, according to [8] my merchant friend, the majority of these so-called demons looked pretty similar to humans. However, there were also some with blue skin and bat-like wings sprouting from their backs. Dark-skinned elves called, hehe, ‘Dark Elves’ and Beastmen of all kinds which were basically humanoid creatures with animal features. There were even races of demons that looked like Orcs and Goblins. Woah, there were all kinds of magical monsters and creatures here.
[6] Finally, we arrived at the so-called demon country. It was everything my merchant friend said and more. By the way, we are totally best friends now and thanks to this, I was allowed to stay in the village even though a lot of the villagers gave me curious looks.
However, I’m a pretty friendly guy and soon became friends with a lot of them.
Speaking of which, rather than a country, this place was more like a village.
More importantly, there were all kinds of magic being casually used here!
Barrier Magic! Charm Magic! Illusion Magic! Oh, and even more amazingly, Flying Magic!! [5]
From what I learned, only the Dark Elves and Blue Demons could learn the above magic. As a rule, the spells were pretty species limited.
Despite being told that only those with the right aptitude could use these magics, I still begged the villagers to give me some pointers. [6] On the excuse that I was conducting research, research!
I believe that with my Sage occupation, I could learn anything I put my mind to.
Thankfully, the villagers were all, ‘Sure, if you like.’
Apparently, while most of the people in the village could use magic, the more powerful magic users have all left for the big cities.
Anyway, I learned a few general rules about the magic that I had not known before.
The more power you put into the spell, the more robust the Barrier Magic (if you’re making a barrier), the stronger the Charm or the more confused your opponent is if you use Illusion Magic. The same principle would apply to Flying Magic. You could stay in the air longer and fly higher etc.
The villager’s explanations were rather simplistic yet complicated in their own way. If not for my Sage occupation and Unique Skill [Unfathomable Magic] I might have stayed here all my life without gaining anything.
To make a long story short, I did it. I managed to learn the special magic limited to Blue Demons and Dark Elves.
Once done, I turned my attention to studying the bipedal Beastmen.
When it comes to designing a fantasy world, one could not have a fantasy world without all sorts of Beastmen. In this village alone, there were Wolves, Tigers, Lions etc., the one thing they have in common was their explosive power and great agility.
On the surface, it looked like physical traits, but from what I have observed and studied, there was an innate usage of magic that enhances their physical powers.
Naturally, I was eager to learn it. I befriended a few Beastmen and got close enough to a few to get them to teach me about their magic. However…
[6] “So, like, you just pow! Bam! Smash ’em up!”
[6] I ask you, can you make any sense of the above instructions? No? Well, neither could my Unfathomable Skill. Some things were just… beyond unfathomable. I was still interested in learning this obscure magic though. Despite them being meatheads, the [9] Beastmen were pretty friendly and allowed me to follow and observe them for days.
Finally, I cracked the secret.
Basically, the secret was to just keep Bam! Bam! Bam! forward in hopes that the innate magic will support your muscles and keep repeating it until you get the hang of it.
Beastmen started this process while they were still children.
[6] It was already too late for me to start anything, but by observing the children at practice, I could roughly formulate the way they use magic and apply it to myself. However, I could only use it in short increments. There was no substituting for repeated Bam! Bam! Bam! from childhood onwards but I have no interest in putting in the hours needed to convince my muscles to take in strengthening magic permanently. [5]
The Orcs, and wow, they really were Orcs, were good at a branch of magic called Hardening. [6] Like that second stage pocket monster creature that evolved from a caterpillar. It works like how you’d imagine ‘Hardening’ would [5] [6] without being a total pervert about it. Aside from defensive purposes, you can also harden your fists for a more powerful punch.
The Orc I was learning this Hardening magic from was a little more talented than the rest of his brethren. [9] In addition to Hardening his own body, he could also use Fire Magic. The Orc was sharpening his axe while speaking to me.
“I could imbue Fire Magic onto my weapon, but only for a little while. However, thanks to this, I learned that I could also use Hardening on my weapons, this increases durability and sharpens it without having to keep burning Fire Magic to make it more powerful.”
When I learned that Hardening could be applied to weapons, I became super excited. “That sounds awesome! I mean, even a wooden stick could turn into a weapon with Hardening.” [5]
In fact, this proved to be one of the more useful skills I had picked up… [5]
Woah! This Kazuki guy is pretty incredible, learning all those magic skills and going on adventures. This autobiography reads like an adventure book.
Hmm, looks like he also learned to make potions from Goblins. [9] Wow, I never thought of Goblins as anything but crazy club-wielding menaces. Ugh, my trauma against those little green monsters is acting up again. Nope, definitely can’t see them as beings who could make high-level potions. [5b]
Anyway, let’s get back to the autobiography.
It was great being in this demon village.
Eventually, I learned that there were actually three countries that made up the demon territory. Kimaris, Raum and Andras. The place where I’m staying now is considered part of Andras. Relationships between all three countries were pretty good, all things considered. There were some small border conflicts, but that was pretty normal and mild given that these were countries run by demons.
[9] Naturally, I wanted to know more and started asking around a bit. What I found out was pretty interesting.
Here’s the thing, the land area that made up ‘demon territory’ was pretty thin. [9] It was also at the very edge of the world, on a piece of land that stuck out as a peninsular into the sea.
What’s even more interesting is the comparatively fewer people on the limited landmass. I roughly know the size of the land because my merchant friend told me that it would take less than a month to walk around the entire demon territory. [5c]
[9] Considering the lack of cars and the fact that merchants don’t have special powers or stamina, that’s… pretty small. [5] [5d]
Anyway, it did not take me long to discover a possible reason why this was the case.
According to the oral legends that I had collected from several sources:
A long, long time ago, a ship departed from the Demon Lands for the Island of Giants. On its way, it was caught in a terrible storm. The storm was so fierce and the sea so wild that even with all their skills and magic, the crew members could do nothing but waited for death.
Eventually, someone spied land and, gathering all their might and desire to survive, the crew members mustered their courage, strength and magic and flew towards that life-saving piece of land. That land was the peninsular which stuck out from this large piece of landmass like a life-saving hand.
That was how demons came to this continent.
Anyway, it was not known how many demons made it here, but it is said that all the demons on this territory are descendants of those crew members. [5c] [5c] [5d]
Gumihou: … Gumi has special feelings for this chapter. Let me know if you want to see the original text…
╭∩╮(︶︿︶)╭∩╮
[1] Structural Change: Combine 2 paragraphs
[2] Structural Change: Combine 3 paragraphs
[3] Structural Change: Combine paragraph & dialogue
[4] Structural Change: Change passive sentence to dialogue
[5] Delete Repetitive or Pointless Information.
[5a] We have no relationship with the demon territory now, but it was more friendly back then?
Like, how did you know?
[5b] Scrapped ‘making money from selling high-level potions scene for green goblin trauma. Like, relevance?
[5c] Deleted Mukouda’s ‘Oh, I see’ noises as well as repeats of whatever he ‘read to the readers’ and then ‘said to himself’
[5d] Blah, blah, Mukouda’s experience at Reijseger and ‘I know more about demons now’ blah
[6] Additional Information for Aesthetic Purpose
[7] Add Dialogue Tag
[8] Creative Licence Taken – Switch to 3rd person (actually, just apply it to the whole chapter)
[9] Padding loose ends