An Omen

The Kingdom of Knightley was one of the countries in the Central Provinces. We find ourselves currently in Lune, the largest city on the frontier, located in the southern part of the Kingdom.

After washing off the sweat they'd worked up in the public bathhouse, the water magician Ryo and his three roommates-Nils, Eto, and Amon-had headed for the adventurers' guild canteen, where they were currently eating dinner.

"Oh, right, Ryo. You mentioned you were going to the library today before you left the room. Can I ask what you were looking for?" Eto asked. Compared to the other two who were swordsmen in training, Eto was a priest. As one would expect from someone of that vocation, he was curious about Ryo's research.

"Information on alchemy."

"Does that mean you can perform alchemy too then?"

"No, I've never tried it. But there are a few things I want to try to become good at."

Ultimately, Ryo wanted to construct an ice golem to clear land for a rice field in the Forest of Rondo. However, he hadn't disclosed this with anyone yet, so he kept his desire hidden.

"I've heard you can make potions using alchemy, but apparently it consumes a significant amount of magical energy...?"

"That's right. I bought a recipe book geared toward beginners and it mentioned something along those lines too."

"You bought-a book...?" Nils asked.

Eto the priest smiled ruefully.

Amon, the apprentice swordsman, tried to look as impressed as he could without knowing how much money was at stake.

"Abel compensated me for guiding him, so I guess you could say that's how I was able to afford it."

"That makes complete sense!" Nils replied. Abel was already a hero he admired tremendously. "I shouldn't be surprised to learn that he can afford to pay you those kinds of wages."

For whatever reason, the mention of Abel's name brought an image of Rihya to Eto's mind. "Miss Rihya truly is an angel..." he muttered to himself, cheeks flushed.

"I'm assuming books are expensive then?" Amon asked.

His extremely ordinary reaction made Ryo feel relieved.

"Oh, right," Nils said suddenly. "Ryo, Amon is partying with me and Eto tomorrow to hit the dungeon. How about joining us?"

"Sorry, but I have to decline." Ryo bowed his head. "There's something I want to do up here."

"Ahhh, okay," Nils replied, scratching his head. "I had a feeling you'd say that, so don't even worry about it."

Eto chuckled wryly. He and Nils were both aware of the huge disparity in power between Ryo and the three of them.

The two of them had been exploring the dungeon for half a year now while Amon had only recently arrived in the city from his village, so the difference in ability among the three of them was clear. Even then, it was negligible compared to the gulf between them and Ryo. Nils and Eto understood that plainly. They had suspected as much when he had been able to register right off the bat as a D-rank adventurer, but their suspicions had been confirmed when Ryo defeated Dan earlier that day in one fell swoop.

Dungeon exploration progressed more smoothly with a strong adventurer, but there were always two sides to the equation: those who worked hard to keep up and those who led them. Dungeon exploration placed undue strain on both sides of this equation, so the guild recommended that people of similar ability levels form parties.

Amid this, the fact that only Ryo found himself in such a situation was unusual. Typically, those who had just registered as adventurers weren't considered particularly strong. Ryo was one of the rare exceptions. Even the guild hadn't anticipated someone like him wanting to move into their housing annex, so perhaps it was inevitable.

?

The next day, Monday.

"All right, Ryo, we'll see you later."

With that, Nils, Eto, and Amon left to do their dungeon dive.

After seeing them off, Ryo left the city limits. Outside the city walls, he began running. The guild's outdoor training ground had been perfectly fine for this activity, but he couldn't help getting distracted by the goings-on in the place where he lived, so he decided to do his training outside the city instead.

As he ran, he built microscopic ice versions of Tokyo Tower on both palms. Just like he used to do back in the Forest of Rondo. Magical control and stamina...his goal was to train both. The more he increased his magical control, the faster he could generate magic.

Yesterday, Ryo had lost to Leonore's magic in a number of ways, including sheer power. Fortunately, he had actually measured up to Leonore in how fast he could produce magic. He definitely hadn't lost on that front. This was evidenced by the fact that he'd been able to obstruct her magic during the fight while it was still in the process of being generated.

That was exactly why he wanted to be able to use his magic faster and more precisely. He needed to keep improving upon his strengths and he needed to shore up his weaknesses until they were no longer weaknesses.

In that respect, he had felt an overwhelming disparity between them in movement speed. Leonore had closed a gap of several dozen meters in an instant. He thought the most likely reason for that was air magic. Unfortunately, Ryo could only use water magic, meaning he needed to find a way to combat her air magic with his water magic...

On Earth, there was something called water jet propulsion. Mainly, aquatic warships sucked in water and blasted it out behind them, which propelled them forward. Ryo had already mastered his own water jet in order to cut through things, so he might be able to use that.

Plus, in reality, he had actually used his Water Jet spell to move from one place to another when he launched himself out of the sea during his battles against the bait ball and the kraken all those years ago. He had generated the Water Jet from the soles of his feet to blast himself straight up through the water's surface.

Back then, he'd been under such an incredible amount of mental strain that he just hadn't had the headspace to think about the risk of failing, but...without preparation, Ryo had managed to pull it off just when he needed it most, so he knew very well that it was possible.

However, the problem now was trying to figure out how to produce it from behind in a land battle. Maybe shoot Water Jets out of his back...? That might be his only option, but wouldn't he break his neck? He'd have to shoot a jet from the back of his head too. Yeah, that was the way to go-but then he started wondering if that wouldn't give intense whiplash to his limbs... Okay, so then he had to shoot it from his shoulders, upper arms, butt, hamstrings, and heels too...?

It looked like he might have to launch the Water Jets from every part of the back of his body. For now, he had an idea of how to visualize it, but he wanted to start off as small as he could on his first attempt.

If I freeze the ground using Ice Bahn, I should be able to propel myself forward easily enough with a weak stream of Water Jet...?

With that thought, he set about putting his plan into action right away.

"Ice Bahn."

First, he froze the ground. Then, in his head, he imagined shooting Water Jets from every part of his back.

"Water Jet 256."

Currently, the highest number of Water Jets he could produce was two hundred and fifty-six, so he pictured that many bursting out of the back of his body. What actually happened was...

"I'm not moving forward..."

Not a single inch. It only felt like he had moved forward the tiniest bit.

Ryo's knees buckled and he collapsed to the ground on all fours in his usual pose of despair.

"I lost..."

Evidently, something had beaten him...

A minute later...

"Well, I guess I can't do it just yet... But I think I have a shot if I can increase the number of jets from two hundred and fifty-six to one thousand and twenty-four!"

He got back up. Then he started running again.

?

Nils, Eto, and Amon were in the dungeon's fourth layer, where goblins first appeared. Alone, goblins weren't a big deal. Compared to the lesser wolves that showed up until Layer 3, defeating one goblin was pretty easy.

Unfortunately, goblins had weapons and they sometimes attacked in groups too. They usually used broken swords, spears, and such, but there were also goblins who used bows and arrows, though these were rare. Even rarer were the goblins that used magic.

As long as you avoided those rarer types of goblins and didn't let groups of them surround you, the monsters were easy enough to defeat. However, no resources could be extracted from them, meaning nothing of theirs could be sold off other than their magic stones.

"Man, hunting goes a lot faster with another swordsman, huh?" Nils grinned heartily as he took a magic stone from the goblin he'd just killed.

"It really does," Eto said. "The speed we progress is especially obvious against goblins."

Since he was a priest, Eto focused almost exclusively...