Chương 18: Fire Among the Crops

Sieghart reached the edge of the fields and immediately lowered his stance. The crops were taller than he was. For once, being trapped inside the body of a four-year-old offered a tactical advantage. The dense rows concealed him almost completely, leaving only the crimson top of his hair visible whenever he straightened. He crouched lower and entered the field.

'I am really doing this, huh?' Leaves brushed against his face and shoulders. Damp soil compressed beneath his boots, while the cold night wind moved through the plants with a constant whisper. The mysterious light had vanished. Sieghart stopped. For several seconds, he heard nothing except wind and his own breathing. Then something grunted in the darkness ahead. Another grunt answered from farther to his right. The field no longer felt familiar.

During daylight, these rows were his training ground and workplace, but darkness had transformed them into narrow corridors with hidden endings. Every rustling leaf sounded like a step approaching from behind. Sieghart resisted the urge to look over his shoulder again, knowing that constant movement might reveal him first. Those weren't human voices. Sieghart's heart began beating faster. He had expected bandits, scouts, or desperate soldiers who slipped past the border.

Those possibilities would have created a difficult problem. Anyone sneaking through a farm at midnight during an invasion was almost certainly hostile, but Sieghart wasn't sure he could kill another human without hesitating.

'Well. this isn't earth anymore… I need to do what I have to do.' He understood what needed to be done. Understanding and doing were different things. He had never killed anyone in either of his lives. Even if an intruder carried a weapon, pulling the trigger, or launching the fireball, would be a line he could never uncross. Monsters were simpler. He didn't need to ask why they had entered the farm. He didn't need to wonder whether they possessed families or could be convinced to surrender.

Creatures traveling through the fields at midnight during a monster invasion had not come to purchase vegetables. Sieghart could kill them without hesitation. Probably. He moved deeper into the crops. Another grunt came from ahead, followed by the sound of something heavy pushing through the plants. The intruders weren't trying to remain quiet. They crushed stalks beneath their feet and moved in uneven bursts, stopping occasionally before wandering in different directions. Their lack of coordination became obvious.

That word, probably, bothered him. Training had taught him how to shape anger, aim spells, and strike targets, but no amount of practice against a boulder could prepare him for the moment a living creature looked back. If he froze at the wrong time, his grandparents might pay for his hesitation. One creature was approaching the farmhouse. Another moved parallel to the road. At least two more were wandering through the central field without maintaining any formation. Their positions were all over the place.

That made them careless. It also made them unpredictable. Sieghart couldn't determine whether they were searching for something or simply following the scent of food. If they moved as a group, he could strike them from a distance and retreat. Instead, the crops separated them into individual threats. Every grunt forced Sieghart to revise the number in his head. Two had become four, and four might become six if more creatures remained beyond the fields.

He had no idea whether he was stalking the entire group or merely walking into the middle of something much larger. That might work in his favor. Sieghart placed one hand against the ground. Earth Magic spread through the soil. His perception of nearby vibrations was primitive, but he could feel heavy footsteps within several meters. One set approached from the left. Sieghart crawled into the next row and waited. The plants parted. A broad figure stepped into view.

It was almost twice Sieghart's height and wider than an adult man. Moonlight revealed a hunched back, thick arms, and a protruding stomach covered by a filthy leather vest. Its head resembled that of a pig. A flattened snout occupied most of its face, while two short tusks curved from its lower jaw. Coarse black hair covered its neck and shoulders. Small eyes reflected faintly in the darkness. The creature carried a rusted cleaver. Sieghart remained motionless.

The monster turned its head from side to side, sniffing the air. Its attention drifted toward the farmhouse. There was no longer any question about whether it was dangerous. Sieghart summoned Black Magic. Anger stirred inside him, but he didn't form Fireball immediately. The light and heat might reveal his position before he completed the attack. His heartbeat seemed loud enough to betray him. For one irrational second, Sieghart imagined the creature turning directly toward the sound and smiling.

He tightened his fingers against the soil. If the first spell failed, there would be no comfortable distance, no second attempt, and no boulder patiently waiting to be struck again. He needed to disable the creature first. Sieghart focused on the dry soil near its feet. Earth Magic gathered loose sand and lifted it silently behind the monster's legs. He waited until it took another step. Then he sent the sand upward. The grains struck the monster's face. It grunted and covered its eyes. Sieghart formed Fireball.

Flames spiraled above his palm. He compressed as much mana as his concentration could safely control, creating a sphere smaller and denser than the ones he used during range training. The monster lowered one hand. It saw him. For an instant, confusion replaced pain. The creature had probably expected a soldier or armed farmer. It found a four-year-old crouching between the crops with a ball of fire above his hand. Sieghart launched the spell. At that distance, missing was impossible.

The fireball struck the left side of its face. Flames erupted across its head. The explosion threw the monster sideways, sending the cleaver into the soil. It tried to scream, but the sound collapsed into a wet grunt as it struck the ground. Half of its face had been burned beyond recognition. The creature twitched once. Then it became still. A blue window appeared. Enemy slain. Black Magic Experience +10 Sieghart stared at the body. He had killed it.

The thought arrived with surprising calmness, but his body reacted differently. His hands trembled, his mouth became dry, and his heart struck his ribs hard enough to hurt. The smell reached him a moment later. Burned flesh. It was thick, greasy, and far worse than the smoke produced by wood or grass. Sieghart covered his nose with one sleeve. Too late to pretend this was another experiment.

A living creature had moved, breathed, and looked at him; now half its face was gone because he had willed fire into existence. Sieghart waited for guilt, satisfaction, or triumph to settle over him. None arrived. There was only nausea and the sharp fear that something else had heard the blast. A grunt came from the neighboring field. No time. He dismissed the notification and retreated through the crops. The explosion had been quieter than his unrestricted fireballs, but it wasn't silent.

If the other creatures possessed any intelligence, they would investigate. Sieghart moved twenty meters away before circling around. He kept Protection active beneath his skin. It wouldn't stop a cleaver, but it might reduce the damage if he failed to evade completely. Heavy footsteps approached the corpse. A second pig-headed creature emerged from between the rows. This one carried a crude spear, and several metal plates had been tied across its chest. It grunted at the body.

Then it raised its head and searched the darkness. Sieghart remained concealed behind it. Sand gathered near his feet. He sent it forward. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. The grains curved through the air and struck the creature from the side. It turned instinctively, exposing the unarmored section beneath one arm. Sieghart considered targeting the gap. Then he remembered how long a body could continue fighting after receiving a survivable wound.

He chose the head again. The monster wiped sand from its eyes. A fireball struck its face. The blast spun it around and drove it to its knees. Fire consumed its hair and spread across its neck. It dropped the spear, clawed at the flames, and collapsed. Enemy slain. Black Magic Experience +10 Two. Sieghart moved immediately. He resisted the urge to check the body or wait for the flames to disappear. Remaining near a successful ambush was how a person turned victory into death.

He crossed three rows before dropping flat against the soil. Something large ran past him. The third monster had heard the attack. It carried a wooden club over one shoulder and moved faster than the others, smashing crops aside instead of navigating between them. The second kill should have made the next one easier. Instead, it proved that the first had not been an accident, and that realization sat heavily inside him. Sieghart pushed the thought aside.

He could question what the night was turning him into after everyone he cared about remained alive to see the morning. Sieghart held his breath. The creature stopped less than five meters away. Its snout moved as it smelled the air. Sieghart's stomach tightened. Smoke and burned flesh covered the field, but the creature might still detect him. His grandparents used scented herbs to repel certain animals, but Sieghart hadn't thought to hide his scent before leaving the house.

For several agonizing seconds, he was painfully aware of how small his body was. The club's head looked wider than his chest, and Protection had never been tested against such force. If the monster swung once and connected, infinite mana would only ensure that he died with a perfectly full resource bar. The monster turned. Its eyes settled on the disturbed leaves above him. Sieghart acted first. He pulled sand from the ground. The earth was damp, and the grains clung together.

The first burst struck the monster's chin instead of its eyes. It roared. Sieghart rolled as the club descended. The weapon struck the ground where his head had been. Soil erupted from the impact, and the force shook the plants around them. Protection tightened beneath Sieghart's skin. He raised one hand while still lying on his back. The monster lifted its club again. Sieghart fired Water Creation. A thin, pressurized stream struck its right eye. The creature recoiled and released the club with one hand.

Sieghart ended the water spell, replaced calm with anger, and formed Fireball. The delay felt endless. One second. Then two. The monster recovered and charged. The black sphere stabilized. Sieghart released it. Fire struck the creature directly beneath the snout. The explosion snapped its head backward and sent it crashing into the crops. Sieghart scrambled to his feet. The monster was still moving. He formed a second fireball and fired from three meters away. The next explosion ended it. Enemy slain.

Black Magic Experience +10 Three. Sieghart's breathing had become unsteady. The fight had lasted only seconds, yet his thoughts were more exhausted than after an hour of controlled practice. Fear interfered with the emotions required by his magic. It made serenity harder to reach and turned controlled anger into something wild. This was precisely why mages struggled in battle. There was no quiet space to prepare. No cooperative target waiting for him to finish.

If Sieghart hadn't practiced shortening his cast time, the club would have crushed him before Fireball formed. He forced himself to breathe slowly. More footsteps moved through the field. Two sets. The remaining monsters were approaching from different directions. Sieghart couldn't allow himself to become trapped between them. He moved toward the closer one. The fourth creature carried the light Sieghart had seen from his window.

A pale blue stone hung from its belt inside a crude wire cage, illuminating the crops around its legs. The light made it easy to locate. It also made the monster harder to ambush from the front. Sieghart circled through the darker rows. The creature stopped near the second body. It bent down and touched the burned remains, then released a long, angry squeal. The fifth monster answered from across the field. They finally knew they were under attack. Sieghart gathered sand from both sides of the glowing creature.

He launched the first cloud toward its face. The monster covered its eyes. The second cloud struck from behind, slipping beneath its raised arms. The grains entered its nostrils and mouth. It coughed violently. Sieghart formed two fireballs. Maintaining both strained his focus, but he didn't need them to travel far. He compressed the spheres, stepped through the crops, and launched them in quick succession. The first struck the monster's shoulder. The second hit its face. It fell beside the glowing stone.

Enemy slain. Black Magic Experience +10 Four. The final creature roared. It crashed through the plants toward the light. Sieghart retreated. He used Breeze to move the crops in the opposite direction, creating the sound of someone fleeing toward the road. The monster changed course and followed the false movement. That gave Sieghart time to circle behind it. The final creature was larger than the others. Strips of metal protected its chest, shoulders, and head. It carried a heavy axe in both hands.

Sieghart's first instinct was to run toward the house and wake Edric. The thought lasted only a heartbeat. Leading the largest monster toward his sleeping grandparents would turn his safest escape into the worst possible mistake. Whether he felt ready no longer mattered. This one had to die in the fields. An ordinary fireball might not penetrate its crude helmet. Sieghart didn't need to penetrate it. He only needed the creature unable to see. Sand rose from the soil.

Sieghart compressed it into a narrow stream and launched it toward the monster's face. The grains struck the gaps around the eyes and snout. The creature bellowed and swung its axe blindly. The blade cut through several rows of crops. Sieghart remained outside its reach. He summoned one fireball. Then another. A third formed above his shoulder. The strain built behind his eyes, but he held all three spells steady. The monster wiped at its face and turned toward him. Sieghart released the first spell.

It struck the creature's knee. The explosion destroyed its balance and forced it down. The second fireball hit its exposed throat. The third struck the lower half of its face. The monster collapsed. Its axe landed beside it with a heavy thud. Black flames continued burning across its head and neck, but it didn't move again. Enemy slain. Black Magic Experience +10 Silence returned to the fields. Sieghart remained in place, waiting for another grunt. Nothing answered.

He listened for footsteps, breathing, or breaking plants. Only wind moved through the damaged crops. Five monsters. Five kills. He opened his status screen. He did not lower his hands. The silence felt less like safety and more like the pause before another attack, and every dark row still seemed capable of hiding a sixth creature. Only after counting fifty slow breaths did Sieghart accept that nothing else was charging toward him.

Black Magic — Level 1 Experience: 50/100 So that was how his foundational magic advanced. Creating and improving spells increased their levels or strengthened elemental paths. Killing enemies with those spells rewarded experience directly to Black Magic. Sieghart had found the missing progression method. He should have felt excited. Instead, his heart continued racing. He looked at the burned bodies scattered across the field. The smell of cooked flesh had grown stronger, mixing with smoke and churned soil.

The glowing numbers made the night feel disturbingly transactional. Five deaths had become fifty points, neat and useful, as though the system had weighed the lives on a scale and paid him for them. Sieghart wanted stronger magic, but the ease with which the reward appeared made him uneasy about how quickly he might learn to desire the next one. It was unpleasant. Monster flesh didn't smell different enough from ordinary meat for comfort. Sieghart swallowed and approached the closest corpse.

He used Breeze to move the smoke away before examining it under the light. The creature possessed hands with thick fingers and dirty nails. Its body was humanoid beneath the patches of coarse hair, though the head and proportions were distinctly inhuman. Pig-men. That was the simplest description. They might have been this world's version of orcs. Or they might once have been human. Sieghart remembered his grandparents' explanation. Some people consumed monsters and gradually transformed into creatures themselves.

Others produced monsters through rituals. There was no way to determine which category these belonged to. It didn't matter now. Whatever they had once been, they entered the farm with weapons during the middle of the night. If Sieghart hadn't stopped them, they might have killed his grandparents or the workers in their sleep. He didn't regret fighting. He only wished victory smelled better. Sieghart looked toward the farmhouse. No lights had appeared in the windows.

His grandparents were still asleep, and the workers lived too far away to have heard the restrained explosions. That was fortunate. It also left him with another problem. Five large corpses lay between the crops. Several sections of the field were damaged, and black scorch marks covered the soil. By sunrise, everyone would see what had happened. Sieghart lowered his gaze toward the bodies. He had killed the intruders without being discovered. Now he needed to dispose of the evidence.