Hermit Wizard

Chapter 22

Silver Forest under the Purple Sky (3)

“So, Yoong, why did you come to this world? Where are you going?”

I was thinking about how far to reveal my reasons, but I decided to be honest. They didn’t seem to want to threaten me anyway, and what I wanted from these giants was information. I thought it would be better to ask what I wanted in a straightforward manner.

“First of all, I came to get some Enchanted Wood. It’s my first time in this world, so I was just trying to get information on where to find it.”

“Enchanted Wood…”

Ghur nodded! The word Enchanted Wood seemed to have been properly translated. This meant that it wasn’t a concept unfamiliar to the inhabitants of this dimension.

“Yes, I saw the Asphim Wizard, who came to our dimension, holding a staff made of Enchanted Wood.”

“Yes, they sometimes pick some branches and make things like that.”

I sang, delighted inside. It became clear that it could be obtained from this dimension. Then, Ghur asked unexpectedly.

“I felt it for a while, but don’t you already have a lot of magic? How big a barrier are you going to make?”

“For some reason…I’m trying to make a big barrier where I live.”

“Hmm, really? But Yoong, I have no choice but to ask because you want to get an Enchanted Wood.”

Ghur pointed his finger at the Channel in my chest.

“That Channel was opened by the Truth-Seeker in your world, right? In other words, have you never met the Truth-Seeker in this world?”

I nodded because it was true. But what was wrong with the Truth-Seeker in this world? Ghur continued.

“There are two ways to get the Enchanted Wood. One is to go out of this forest and go back to the territory of the Ashpim Giant. I think you came across their territory before you entered this forest.”

I understood what Ghur was talking about.

“You mean to take the Enchanted Wood that the Ashpim Giants have?”

“Yeah. They picked up a few of the best branches. Still, if you try to take it, their resistance will be enormous. I don’t know if you felt it, too, but they’re far below Dell’s level of magic. Without the wood, protective magic would be almost impossible for them. From their point of view, the Enchanted Wood is a great treasure.”

It was necessary to collide with the Ashpim Giants before returning to Earth. Still, it was a bit burdensome to go deep into their territory and conduct a search and all-out war at the same time. Or should I deliberately provoke them out? Wouldn’t a wizard with an Enchanted Wood artifact come out to defend anyway? Thinking of putting it as one of the valid options, I turned to Ghur.

“The other way?”

“Going to find the area where the Enchanted Wood tree grows.”

Yes, this was close to my original plan.

“Is it far from here?”

“You have to walk further north past the area of ??Ashpim. Then, you’ll see a Silver Forest. It is a huge forest from a cluster of the Enchanted Wood trees.”

I cried out inside. Jackpot!

[Forest? And also, a huge forest? I can’t believe it even though I’ve translated it.]

Parvache said as if it were terrific news. In its parental dimension, the Enchanted Wood was a precious tree. It was natural to cut it before it grew enough to form a forest, and it was very rare. But a huge forest? I was distracted by the startlingly good news, and then I began to worry about a single word I had forgotten. Wait, I thought I heard that before.

“Silver Forest? You said earlier…”

Ghur nodded his head.

“Yes, Silver Forest is the hideout of this world’s Truth-Seeker. It’s a forest where the lazy Transcendent lays a huge barrier and hides.”

Of all the people, he was another Truth-Seeker. A Truth-Seeker lived with barriers? In the forest where the Enchanted Wood trees grow?

“…By any chance, the barrier itself is?”

The ominous feeling did not go wrong.

“A powerful barrier made using tens of thousands of barrier trees that make up the forest. Only the Truth Seeker knows precisely what kind of barrier it is. No one comes back alive after entering the forest. The area around Silver Forest has been Ashpim’s territory for a very long time. Still, they only pick up the branches that are cast off the forest after a storm and never go into the forest.”

Oh, it was a dark future in front of me. It was so powerful that I could double my barriers with a single branch, but how hideous was the barrier that the transcendental truth-seeker made out of tens of thousands of these trees?

* * *

Ghur and his disciples said they would go into a deeper forest in the southwest direction after spending the day resting. There seemed to be a village there. I asked if there were any Enchanted Wood in their villages worth selling to me. Still, they said it was hard to find outside of Ashpim’s territory, and the village had no Enchanted Wood at all. I told Ghur that I wanted to buy a map around this area. I couldn’t decide whether to get rid of the Ashpims or approach the Truth-seeker’s base, but I had to know the detailed location information first.

When asked if they had the concept of money, Ghur nodded and showed me an unknown black ore. It was a kind I had never seen before.

“It is a mineral called Derkop. You don’t have it in your world, do you?”

Parvache told me the ingredients. If I had all of them, I could make it. But I couldn’t even think about trying. First of all, I had to stay in the studio inside my house for a few days with enough material. However, I couldn’t afford to do that right away. And the material was also too expensive to get from Earth.

If that mineral were hidden underground in enough quantities to be used as currency in this world, it would be worth the price of gold in our world. However, trying to make this with materials available on Earth didn’t make a difference.

“Yes, it is a material that doesn’t exist on Earth. But instead of money, there are some things you might be interested in.”

I searched through my backpack and pulled out an artifact I had brought in advance. It was an enchanted item made out of plastic soju glasses sold at convenience stores. I felt like I was losing money because I didn’t know how much value it would have in this world. Still, from my point of view, it was kind of easy to make with little labor and money, so I was just trying to exchange it for a map. I turned the soju glass upside down, put it on the ground, and then put the Mana into it.

“Well, if you put this here like this and use barrier magic…”

Perhaps these giants would find this kind of artifact useful. As soon as we settled under the shade of this tree, I noticed that three giants were deciding the night-watch shift among themselves. When they camp out, they said that they usually took turns making barriers and waiting for the day to pass. When I asked if the reason for the night watch was because there were wild beasts that could destroy the barriers among the beasts running around during the day, an unexpected answer came back. It turned out that they couldn’t maintain barriers while sleeping with their knowledge of magic.

I asked, spreading the barriers.

“Well…is there any beast in this forest that can break this level of barrier?”

A soft green light surrounded the plastic cup placed on the ground, creating a flipped cup. The cluster of lights grew in size. Eventually, it was completed in the form of a physical defense barrier that could cover us all. Hickham and Palo opened their mouths as they felt the Mana in the barrier, and Ghur spoke in a confused voice.

“…Yoong, I expected it, but are you one of the best archmages of your dimension? The Mana I felt before was really only a fraction of it. Even Elder Kapal, the best wizard in our village, would not be able to make such a barrier.”

“Well…I have higher Mana than the others in my dimension.”

It wasn’t just higher. There was no one on Earth with stronger Mana than me…because I was the only one with Mana in the first place. Hickham received my words in agreement.

“Ohh! Yoong, are you the leader of the human village in your dimension? The reason why you want to get the Enchanted Wood, are you trying to cover the whole of your village with a defense barrier to protect it?”

Although I wasn’t the village leader, it was correct to say that I wanted to cover a village with a barrier. It was already surrounding the town, but I wanted to cover more area. If I talked about the fact that it would almost double the barrier, which was now 3km in diameter, the reaction seemed to be more intense, so I murmured.

“No, I’m not very interested in domination or anything like that…”

Ghur spoke once more.

“Anyway…to answer your question, no creature in this forest can break it. But I didn’t mean to make you stay awake…”

Of course, I didn’t bring out this artifact just because I would stand for a night watch. Actually, this was an artifact that I had been preparing for camping out.

“No…you don’t need to worry that this barrier would break anyway. Why don’t you all stay and go to bed without any concern?”

“What do you mean? No matter what, we can’t just make you stay up all day.”

They misunderstood that I would keep this barrier until the night arrived and stay focused without sleeping.

“…No, I’m going to sleep, too.”

When Ghur looked at me with a glance that seemed like he didn’t get what I meant, I explained.

“This thing buried in the ground is an artifact that maintains a barrier even if I don’t keep focusing. If I leave it like this, even if I pass out, it will hold.”

“Whaaaat?!”

The giants jumped up as if they couldn’t believe it. Looking at the reaction, it wasn’t because the level of the trio was relatively low. Still, it seemed that there was no knowledge of barrier magic and artifacts that remained semi-permanent once unfolded. I was grateful because I had Parvache. If Parvache’s parental dimension had been this dimension, I would never have thought of creating a barrier near my house. I couldn’t sleep for 24 hours while maintaining the barriers, could I?

“Well, so I create a barrier nucleus separately inside this artifact. If the Mana is concentrated in the outside space in this way, rather than the body of the caster as the center of the barrier…”

I had always learned from Parvache, but it was the first time I explained magic to others. Despite the unsophisticated explanation, Ghur and Palo admired and were amazed when they had a rough understanding of the artifact’s principle. It seems to be an unimaginable way of operating Mana. However, even in the midst of this, Hickham was blanking out with a look on his face, wondering what a bummer I was talking about.

In any dimension, the curiosity and enthusiasm of the wizards were the same. These giants put off their sleep and fell into the story of my barrier magic and artifacts’ principles. Mostly the giants asked questions, and I answered them. In the meantime, I chanted the magic formula. There were times when I forgot what to chant next, but Parvache helped with that part. As the sleepless night’s burden was gone, I was ready to reduce my sleeping time, so I thought that I had to change the subject.

“Although the effective material for making such artifacts is the Enchanted Wood…unfortunately, the Ashpim Giants are very primitive in using Enchanted Wood.”

“There’s no way they can do magic in a way that our Dells don’t know.”

Ghur said as he shook his head.

“Anyway, because I will give you this artifact, I want to buy some maps that show up to the territory of Ashpims and the Enchanted Wood Forest.”

“There is no map of the inside of Enchanted Wood Forest, of course. But there is a map in the village that shows the way to it. The elders will also pay any price for these treasures. Why don’t you come to the village with us as soon as tomorrow night comes?”

It wasn’t very comfortable to say that it was a treasure. There’s a box of these plastic soju bottles in my backpack right now. Of course, all of them were artifacts.

However, I nodded gladly without showing any signs of this fact.