I'm back...

But not at the very start.

I'm back at the beginning of the day.

...why...?

I get up and exit the house.

"Ah...good morning."

...it's Zarrdos.

He is standing in the same spot and said the same thing as last time.

"...hi..."

"...is...something wrong?"

He furrows his brows as he stares at me.

"No...it's fine."

"Is that so..."

"Well...Suddon said I should lead you to the storehouse when you wake up."

"The dragon meat is being prepared for you there."

"...yeah, let's go then."

And so, we slowly walk over to the storehouse...again.

I notice the lizardman kids doing the same thing as previously.

Hiding behind crates and barrels while observing me.

But I was too lost in my thoughts to mind them.

How do I defeat that dragon?

Maybe if I'm less wasteful on those three before him...

No...that seems impossible.

I tried to be as conservative as possible and I still ran out at the end.

Hmm...what to do...

Soon, we arrive at the storehouse.

"Ah, good morning."

"...good morning."

"We are about done with skinning and deboning these dragons."

"How do you want us to wrap up the meat you wanted?"

Uh...do I need to go through this again?

Honestly, if I can defeat that big dragon, it should be enough meat for the rest of eternity.

And even if I don't, the other dragons should be sufficient as well.

"...I don't need the meat after all."

"...huh?"

"...instead..."

"Tell me something about...'the king'."

|= Two hours later =|

When he heard I would be fighting him, he was reluctant to talk.

Because if I lose to 'the king', their village will be next.

But I assured him, that it's impossible for me to lose.

Because I can try again, of course.

He was even more doubtful and looked extremely nervous when I said that.

But then, when I told him what my level is, he conceded.

Is level really that important?

My level more than doubles that big dragon, but the difference in our power is more than apparent.

We then talked about why I needed to fight him.

I told him about how I need to cross the mountains.

He was at first considering me walking around the mountain range.

But I would probably meet even more monsters of that magnitude along the way.

So in the end there would be no point.

After that, finally the conversation about the dragon himself started.

First, I was told that they don't actually know much about the big dragon.

Mainly because nobody here has ever seen him in person.

But they could tell me about his three 'guardians'.

It was the three dragons that teamed up on me and exhausted me.

The frost dragon seems to be the weakest of the bunch.

He can use very high level ice magic and specializes in defense, but other than that there is nothing much to be said.

The rain dragon can use water magic in a unique way.

Somehow, it is able to cast magic from clouds and not from its own body.

It's not certain how it does that though.

The hurricane dragon seems to be in a position higher than the rest.

Suddon said, that when someone spotted her, they would always spot the other two nearby as well.

He assumes they act as her guards of sort and therefore she must be an important individual in the dragon hierarchy.

Well...most of it I already knew.

The one thing that caught my attention, was the rain dragon's ability.

He can use water magic from clouds and not its own body?

Now that I think about it, he used that on me at the very start.

But other than that, he never repeated it.

I wonder why...?

Maybe it needs time before it can be used?

Hmm...

Other than the information I received from Suddon, I also thought about the fight I had with them.

The main problem is how much I exhausted myself in the fight with those three.

Their team work was top-notch and I couldn't easily take one of them out.

Accurately reflecting their attacks with phantom force wasn't possible in such chaotic circumstances.

The speed of fire dart wasn't enough and it got intercepted...

And phantom annihilation missed...

...

I need a faster attack...

A surefire way to quickly take one of them down.

And so, I decided to stay in the city a day longer.

In the meantime, I experimented with magic some more.

The goal was to speed up my fire dart.

But it wasn't going too well...

The spell pattern for it is strictly limiting the speed...

If I want to speed it up, I would need to get rid of this pattern and...

...

And that's when it hit me.

|= One day later =|

"Gh..."

I burned my hand.

...again.

[Heal]

I heal the burns and try to flex my fingers.

Right now, I'm trying something that defies the common sense of using magic.

I'm trying to cast a spell without making a pattern first.

Instead of preparing a pattern and then pouring mana into it...

I'm shaping the mana itself.

And it's really hard.

I'm doing it at a part of the village dedicated to training.

It's mostly flat ground with a few rocks as targets isolated from the rest of the village with a wall.

But there are several villagers watching me...

It's a few adults and many of those kids, who were observing me previously.

They seem to be interested in what I'm doing.

When I told them though, the adults looked at me like I'm crazy.

Why is this so hard...

It's not impossible...

I know it isn't.

After all, I was able to shoot a fire lance just now...

Except it also shot two smaller fireballs to the side and burned my hand.

But if I can perfect this...

...

In my line of sight, Zarrdos appears.

And that's when I remember certain something.

When I was fighting him...didn't I freely use dark mana?

Inspired by this, I gather dark mana this time.

Without creating a pattern, I try to imitate [Dark world].

...and I succeed.

The darkness envelops the ground and makes a bumpy surface of darkness.

Hmm...

It's a little difficult, but easier than with fire...

Ah...

There are several holes in it...

It's still not perfect it seems...

But I can work with this.

Unfortunately, manipulating fire mana is completely different from manipulating dark mana...

So I can't just mimic what I did now but use fire...

...

Actually, now that I think about it...

Why do I always use fire magic as my main offensive tool?

I know I'm better at dark magic...

...

Ugh...

I can't quite remember...

|= Two days later =|

I decided to stay a bit longer and practice instead of trying again.

There was that event when a bunch of drakes tried to raid this place in the meantime.

But I eliminated all of them again.

After I did that, the mood in the village seemed to brighten up even more.

And I have finally come to realize why.

It's because it means free food for the village.

Although this village farms some crops, it's not nearly enough to feed everyone.

Which means that if I defeat a bunch of monsters and leave the corpses to the village, they get free food.

Well, that's good...I guess?

Somehow, it feels good to be of help.

And in exchange for protecting this village, they let me stay here and practice magic.

Speaking of practice, it seems like I have become some sort of an attraction...

Lizardmen of all ages come to see me practice and some of them even wanted me to teach them.

Of course, I wanted to refuse at first.

But I realized, that this could be of mutual benefit.

The lizardmen are generally skilled with the acid element magic.

That's one I haven't had the opportunity to learn yet.

And on top of that, Zarrdos seems to be able to use some advanced magic as well.

I thought it was just high level light magic, but apparently it's something called star magic.

Star magic is supposedly derived from light magic.

It's...a combination element of light magic...and pure mana.

That's so odd.

I always thought combination element has to be a combination of two or more elements.

And I didn't know mixing pure mana into my spells could actually be meaningful.

From further questioning, I found that mixing in pure mana has several advantages.

Firstly, the body is much more tolerant to such magic.

Which means you can enchant your body with it and even if you handle it poorly, it won't damage your body as much.

But despite that, the offensive power against enemies rises.

Why?

Even Zarrdos doesn't know.

It's a mystery.

The second big advantage is that you don't need to change the pure mana into elemental mana.

Which means that in theory, this will be a little faster to use if I can master it.

With that information, I am going to try and mix pure mana into my dark and fire spells.

But since pure mana behaves differently from elemental mana, I have to go back to using spell patterns in order to handle it.

However, because it is literally just mixing pure mana into my spells, I don't think it will be too hard.

I also have experience with other combination elements, so this shouldn't be a problem.

And thus, I started my old routine of practicing.

Except this time, there was no need to commit suicide every so often.

Bonus:

Let's talk about viruses, bacteria, mold and other microorganisms.

Or lack thereof...

This world doesn't have any of these things.

The smallest physical organisms are just some bugs.

Why is that...?

"Hey, you know..."

"Wouldn't it be lame if you died to some random illness?"

"Isn't it cooler if you fall while fighting a dragon?!"

Well, I guess...

...does that also mean that food can't spoil?

"Well..."

"It's not like microorganisms are the only cause of food spoiling."

"But yeah, it's a lot less common of a problem without them."

"However, food in games never spoils!"

"When I tried to reproduce that, it broke several other things in the system though..."

"So I had to compromise with this."

That's still pretty convenient...

Also...

What happened to those microorganisms that helped with digesting and stuff?

"Replaced!"

"I modified all organisms in such a way so they wouldn't need these things!"

Wow, you actually did a good job for once?

"Woohoo!"

"A praise!"

"...no, but seriously."

"You don't know how many iterations it took just to stop everyone from spontaneously exploding due to their stomach acids."

...

Oh, and aren't there some foods produced thanks to microorganisms?

"Ah, well..."

"Those don't exist here, which is a shame..."

"But there are other things similar to them, so it's all alright!"

By the way...what about the summoned heroes?

Don't they bring microorganisms with them?

"Don't worry!"

"When they get summoned, they are cleansed off of microorganisms."

"And the summoning also includes the same body modification, so it's all good!"

Hmm, I almost thought I found another hole in your system.

But it looks like you really did do a good job for once.

"Ah!"

"The dere has arrived!"

"Everyone rejoice!"

...but as a person, you are still the worst.