A/N: Sorry for the cliffhanger... not. It was kinda fun lol. The power...!
Anyways, I... honestly don't even have words for this chapter.
I'm sorry if all the poo gets to you.
Happy reading :D
I almost dropped the body of the mana beast.
"This is...!"
Light!
It was way too light!
Like I had said, a coal pterodactyl was too heavy to fly anywhere outside of its natural habitat.
"Even if it were a mutant, this thing is still too light...!"
It made sense why I never heard the sound of the body hitting the floor. This thing was as light as a feather!
It was so light that I felt like I wasn't holding anything, despite clearly feeling the sensation of the mana beast in my hand.
The dissonance in my senses caused me to freak out.
But I quickly exhaled, trying to calm myself.
Freaking out wouldn't help anyone. I needed to analyze the situation calmly, and I didn't mean Dumbledore calmly.
Stabilizing my mind, I began to think.
I couldn't bring it back as any form of communication with anyone was strictly prohibited during an Asceticism Journey. That was why I was given this seal.
An intricately carved jade piece shone from my hip.
It radiated mana that interacted with seals that all patrols, guards, and registered hunters wandering about the forest had.
In any case, that meant that I needed to resolve this situation on my own since breaking the rule would result in me being unable to attempt an Asceticism Journey for another decade.
I carefully carried the corpse back to the camp, afraid that the mana beast could fall apart at any moment.
When I arrived at the camp, I sat down and examined the corpse. The campfire illuminated the black mass, revealing that it wasn't black at all.
"A midnight blue..."
And various scars and stitch marks.
I titled my head.
A nightmare fox?
Stealth abilities and a midnight blue color were traits unique to nightmare foxes.
So why would it be present on a coal pterodactyl...?
...
I flipped it over and studied it from all different angles.
Or was it a coal pterodactyl?
The scars were artificial. It was hard to tell them apart from normal scars, but that was the case for any stitch scars from my old world.
...Where the medical field was far more advanced.
The crease in my brow thickened before eventually falling apart.
I sighed.
I expected this to be a nice and easy journey where I trained and got stronger, but it looks like I was wrapped up in some annoying things now.
I stared into the eyes of the mana beast, which looked more like the eyes belonging to a thunderhawk, a species that evolved to have excellent eyesight.
The crease in my brow reformed.
No matter how I looked at it, the creature in my hands was a living compilation of contradictions.
Traits of different mana beasts, artificial scars, impossible weight...
It was like a Picasso painting. None of it made sense.
I lifted my gaze into the trees ahead of me.
"But it exists, which means that it does make sense."
I turned my eyes upward towards the stars.
"I just need to figure out why."
**
[The next day]
"..."
It seemed all color had been drained from my body as I sat or was spilled over a log as I stared up at the sky with a defeated expression.
"...Why?"
I could only hopelessly ask as even the passing breeze seemed to circle its way around me.
"Why is it...?"
I clenched my teeth and spoke with a kind of half-sob.
"Why is it that I can't think of anything??"
I buried my head in my hands.
After a night of trying to figure out the mystery of the mana beast, I had come to a couple of theories but no definitive conclusion to my great frustration.
I rolled over slightly to look at the corpse I placed at the far end of the clearing as it seemed to have begun rotting, and the stench was unbearable.
There were a few theories I came up with.
The first one was that it was simply a new species.
The second one was a crossbreed between two mana beasts, and the other traits were coincidental mutations. This was improbable, but I was willing to entertain anything at this point.
The third and final theory was the most insidious: the mana beast was artificial.
A chimera.
Sophus had spoken about an ancient mad sorcerer who had tried to raise the dead by mixing and matching body parts. Kind of like Frankenstein.
Fortunately, the guy never succeeded and was arrested by Sapin's guards, and he turned into an old wife's tale. I usually wouldn't have even thought of it, but the story had eerie similarities with this thing.
"If it's the former two, then I'm stressing over nothing."
But if it's the third...
An uneasy feeling suddenly arose within me.
I turned over to the horizon and smoldered.
"...Then that means someone, or something, has succeeded in raising the dead, or at least, creating living creatures."
...
—Cawcaw cawcaw
I sighed and turned away, shaking my head.
"Who am I even talking to?"
Still, this wasn't a bad thing. I could train as I hunted this pseudo-necromancer down.
But first...
"Hammer."
A white hammer made of pure mana formulated above the corpse.
These things always had a hidden camera or a wiretap or something.
But in this case, it was preparation.
Just in case.
In case... the third theory was correct.
As much as I didn't want it to be, my gut told me it was, and I didn't want to ignore it anymore.
I watched with stale eyes as the white hammer slammed against the ground—
**
I walked to where the mana beast had died and started looking for any hints or clues as to where the mana beast had come from.
"Hmmm..."
There wasn't anything I could immediately see—
—Squish.
"!"
I looked down and cringed.
"Eww..."
Some nasty brown stuff was stuck to my foot and was unwilling to let go.
"Agh..."
I grumbled as I looked for water to wash it off.
"Wait."
I froze.
Poop?
Poop poop poop poop poop?
I pinched my nose and turned back to closely examine the fecal matter. Scrutinizing the stinky brown pie, I finally managed to find something.
"...Mana!"
Extremely faint traces of mana were present in the feces.
"So that's what the disturbance was."
Back then, the flow of mana was disturbed, which was what alerted me of the presence of the mana beast. It wasn't that it moved; it was that it unloaded.
"Which means...!"
It most likely wasn't planning on moving at all. It probably let itself poop because it thought that the slight hints of mana wouldn't be noticed. In fact, if I were any less sensitive, I wouldn't have noticed at all.
That meant that it was highly likely that...
"...It was watching me."
But why?
Did it see me as prey? That didn't make sense. With the flow of mana constantly going in and out of me, I should seem like a B-A ranked mana beast or higher. A coal pterodactyl was perhaps a C rank at best, and it died in a single hit too...
I began to fall into contemplation but shook it off.
That was a question for later. I had a hint now, so I was planning on using it.
Though I couldn't confirm yet if the mana beast had truly been watching me, I could confirm it now.
I sent some mana into my nose to sniff out the dung.
I was bombarded with various scents of the forest. The smell of animal waste was especially potent, and adding on the mixture of sweet, sour, and a myriad of other aromas nearly caused me to throw up. Still, I held strong and hunted for the unmistakable smell of the poop I had stepped in.
My head was afflicted by a rather serious migraine, but I figured out the direction I needed to go.
"That way."
I quickly moved, entirely forgetting about the presence of feces on my foot.
Soon enough, by another tree, I found poop that had similarly not yet hardened or decomposed. Further examination revealed traces of mana, just like the poop from before.
It was oddly suspicious that mana existed in the poop, but I suppose I shouldn't complain. It was giving me a clear trail, after all.
I smiled as I lifted my nose to sniff out any other traces.
*
Currently, I was bent over, smiling at a pile of shit.
**
[1 week later]
I've found and lost the stench several times, and mana laced crap along with it.
But it was clear to me now.
The mana beast had to have been watching me. I climbed the trees where dung was nearby and found that it gave perfect vantage points to observe where I had stayed.
As for why, I had no idea.
Regardless, I was reaching the limits of traces I could hunt with, and I had another gut feeling that I wasn't going to be finding anything anymore.
Sighing, I returned to my camp, which constantly moved throughout my journey.
"Training... training..."
I muttered as I trudged towards the grounds.
My progress in the direction of Reinforced Mana had stagnated due to my recent endeavors. I had tried, but I found it was exceptionally challenging to concentrate when my mind was flooded with thoughts about the mystery mana beast and the possibilities.
So, I decided that it would be best to focus on other things like...
I narrowed my eyes.
"...!"
What in the—
The campgrounds were utterly thrashed apart.
I rushed forward to look around.
Everything that I had set up was vandalized in some way or another. The fire pit seemed to be flipped over. The meat I had set up to dry was ripped apart, various vegetables and mushrooms were scattered all over the place, and my bag was torn to practical shreds.
"..."
I observed the desecrated scene.
"...Someone was looking for something."
That was the conclusion I immediately reached.
Of course, one would typically suspect that a mana beast had stumbled upon the camp, but upon closer inspection, that wasn't possible.
I didn't choose Serious Crimes Investigation as my elective during all my years in the institution for no reason.
The reasons why were simple.
If it were a mana beast looking for food, the food would've been eaten, not just torn apart and strewn around. The meat was ripped off to the bone as though whoever was here was looking for something inside the meat... or looking at the meat. I say studying the meat because of spacing. Some meat fragments were oddly grouped together, while others were just thrown about.
It was like chunks were ripped, and those chunks were ripped again.
Another piece of evidence disproving the mana beast theory was the bag. It was ripped into shreds, its contents were seemingly flung about, and something was missing making it a dead giveaway...
Noticing something, I studied the shredded remains closer.
"..."
My face hardened.
Damn... looks like the mana beast theory might actually be correct.
There was only one way for me to confirm this, however.
I quickly got to work.
Collecting the shredded pieces, I placed them together like a jig-saw puzzle. It was arduous but necessary.
If I was right... my third theory, that something out there had created the mystery mana beast, was correct.
*
"Done!"
After over 4 painstaking hours, I managed to succeed. I looked at the results of my efforts and started studying every cut.
My triumphant face immediately twisted.
"!"
It was true.
A mana beast had to have cut through the bag. The cut lines were always created with three sharp edges. I wasn't perfect in my knowledge about tools or weapons, but I was reasonably sure no such blade with three sharp edges existed, at least, in this world.
What did exist were mana beasts.
Though it was a bit of a stretch, it gave a solid validation to my third theory, primarily because of what was in my bag.
I stood up, my bones creaking as I did.
My eyes glowed as I began circulating mana throughout my body, carefully adjusting the flow of mana and my acupoints to have an even flow going in and out of me.
A technique I had developed while I was following the trail of dung.
It came naturally due to my extensive experience with controlling the flow of mana through my body.
Something I would later come to know as "Mirage Walk." However, back then, I called it...
Shade Steps.
I moved some mana into my eyes, looking for a trail of the mana signature I had implanted into the core of the mystery mana beast.
Flash Thunder.
—BOOOM
With the roar of thunder, I blasted forward at the speed of lightning.
A clear trail of mana guiding me to my destination.
A/N: And so, the plot thickens... I think.