Volume 3 Chapter 4 Magic Stones and Magic Power
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
On my way from Grimm to Niver, I happened across a carriage being attacked by a band of bandits.
After scattering the bandits, I listened to the story of the woman who had been inside the carriage, and she claimed to be the second daughter of a Niver noble.
Because she said she would pay a reward if I escorted her safely to Niver, I decided to take her up on the offer.
”Milady, you must not make such promises on your own authority. What will the master say…”
”It is fine, Isobel. I will absolutely find a way to convince my father.”
If she’s a noble, that means she’s a person of power.
Is it better to show a little politeness here?
No, whatever. There’s absolutely no need to respect a noble family that would get entirely wiped out by mere small-time bandits like these.
”I ask you once again. …Please, save us.”
Mira turned back toward me and lowered her head.
I stared at Mira’s face as she looked up, weighing my options.
Under my current circumstances, there is absolutely no way for me to return to Earth.
For now, I’m not hurting for money, but if I’m going to survive in this alternate world, there’s no harm in establishing a connection with someone in power.
Selling a favor to a noble of Niver right here might be a smart move.
”Um… h-how about it?”
However… a noble, huh.
This woman’s face isn’t half bad, though. Nobles really do wear the strangest outfits.
I took a moment to observe Mira’s appearance.
She had the hair on the left and right sides braided, brought up to the top of her head, and secured in two tightly wound coils.
Her dress, which left her shoulders completely exposed, was gaudily packed with heavy decorations, and it excessively emphasized the unnatural thinness of her waist.
The skirt of the dress was long enough to drag on the floor, billowing out in an bizarrely swollen shape.
Her makeup was thick, and the scent of her perfume hit me like a wall.
Personally, I think a Japanese kimono is vastly superior.
This girl’s clothes have no sense of modesty or grace whatsoever.
What on earth is going on inside that monstrously huge skirt anyway?
”Um… w-where exactly are you looking?”
As I was staring intently at her skirt, analyzing its structure, she interrupted my thoughts.
”Shut up. Keep quiet for a second. Can’t you tell I’m looking you over right now?”
”M-my body…?”
Mira placed the hand she had been clutching to her chest down at her side, turning her face away in deep embarrassment.
No, what am I doing wasting time analyzing this girl’s outfit for?
My thoughts completely drifted.
I looked back directly at Mira’s face to focus my mind.
If our destination is Niver, I suppose I don’t mind taking her along since I’m heading that way anyway.
However, I absolutely cannot afford to let them see me use Magic like Fly¹.
Should I just blindfold them ahead of time?
No, a mere blindfold isn’t going to cut it.
I have to completely strip them of consciousness.
Should I just punch them out? No, they might wake up too quickly.
Besides, beating someone half to death just to knock them out feels a bit crude.
”Don’t tell me, you mean to me…? I certainly said it was a reward worth my life, but that is…”
Can’t I forcibly put them to sleep using Magic?
Since I can remove foreign substances from inside the body using Cure², it stands to reason that I should conversely be able to introduce something into it.
Something like a sedative or a sleeping drug.
Yeah, let’s test it out.
Even if the experiment fails and she never wakes up, it’s not like I particularly care either way.
”Your name was Mira, right? If your father breaks this promise, you fully understand what the consequences will be, don’t you?”
”…A sorcerer-sama who possesses the power to single-handedly drive away this many bandits. My father is not a fool who would commit the blunder of breaking a promise to a man like you.”
”Hmph, it’d be nice if that’s true. Fine, I’ll take you along. …However, I have conditions.”
”W-w-what might they be?”
”First, I’m going to blindfold both of you. After that, I will put you to sleep using Magic.”
”A blindfold? P-put to sleep with Magic? What do you intend to do to my body…”
”You barbarian… I must report everything that happens here to the master.”
”…If you dislike the terms, I can just leave you behind right now, you know?”
”W-wait! …Ugh… I understand. I will obey you. Please… do as you like with my body.”
Just when I thought she had shut her eyes tightly for a few seconds, she nodded with a deadly serious expression.
I called Nier over, had her move Mira and Isobel into my carriage, and instructed her to blindfold them using some spare cloth.
”Alright, let’s see how this goes.”
First up was the older woman, the one named Isobel.
General anesthesia… might be a bit too risky.
Let’s stick to a sleeping drug.
I’ll proceed by visualizing the injection of a sedative directly into her brain.
Good. The mental image has solidified.
Activate!
The older woman’s head was instantly enveloped in a thin membrane of light.
For now, it appeared that some form of Magic had successfully triggered.
The older woman’s body lost all its strength, slumping heavily onto the floor with a dull thud.
Hearing that blunt sound, Mira let out a sharp, tiny shriek.
When I pulled off the blindfold cloth to check, she appeared to be sleeping soundly, letting out quiet, steady breathing.
I placed a finger against her eyelid and forced her eye open, but her dark pupil stared straight ahead, completely unresponsive, without even a microscopic twitch.
I gave her cheek a solid slap just like that.
Absolutely no reaction.
Given that her eyeballs didn’t track or move even when her face was slapped, it’s safe to assume she has completely lost consciousness.
I removed Mira’s blindfold and spoke to her directly.
”Look, I am putting her to sleep with Magic.”
”Can such a miraculous thing really be done through Magic…?”
”And that brings us to the next point. I’m leaving this woman behind right here. I don’t like her eyes, and I don’t like her attitude.”
From start to finish, Isobel had done nothing but glare daggers at me.
She was even muttering threats about running to Mira’s father to tattle on me.
She is a liability with a hundred downsides and not a single benefit.
I have absolutely no intention of keeping someone like that alive.
”N-no, please! Please take Isobel along with us as well, I beg of you!”
”No. That creature harbors open hostility toward me. I show absolutely no mercy to anyone who opposes me, no matter who they are.”
”Isobel has been my close, trusted maid ever since I was a small child! Please, I beg of you, show her mercy!”
”Do you want me to call off taking you along too? Leave this old bag and take you, or leave both of you behind right here. Pick one.”
”How could you…”
”Stop wasting my time. This is your last warning. Decide in the next ten seconds.”
”……I under…stand. We will leave her behind… Ugh, I am so sorry… Isobel.”
”Then I’ll take you along. Next up is your turn to sleep. Got it?”
”…Yes.”
This time, I set out to put Mira under.
I tried activating the spell while purposely suppressing the amount of mana elements used compared to last time.
Mira’s body lost all its strength, collapsing sideways with a soft thud.
It didn’t glow this time.
I wound up my arm and delivered a sharp, resounding smack straight to Mira’s cheek.
”Ouch!”
Ah. She woke up.
Clutching her hand to her cheek, which had turned a vibrant, burning red, she stared up at me with tear-filled eyes.
”…You’re horrible… sniff“
Hmm. So if I weaken the efficacy, it results in nothing more than a standard, light sleep³.
At best, it’s roughly equivalent to a basic ‘Sleep’ spell.
Let’s try it one more time.
This time, I activated it without holding back on the power.
Mira’s head flashed with a thin, brilliant radiance.
”Even my father has never struck m—”
She fell straight backward, her cranium striking the floorboards with a heavy crash.
Blood began to trickle from her lips.
Because she was knocked out mid-sentence, it looked like she bit the inside of her own mouth.
Perfect, she’s under.
When the spell makes them glow like that, it seems they won’t wake up from just any ordinary stimulus.
I wonder exactly how much physical trauma it takes to wake someone up from this state?
I pulled her dress down past her shoulders, exposing her modest breasts.
Using the thumb and index finger of both hands, I pinched her n**ple and yanked it out with all my might.
It stretched out significantly, but she didn’t show the slightest hint of a reaction.
I dug in with my full grip strength, crushing the n**ple entirely, then twisted my wrist a full 180 degrees.
Mechanically, there was no reaction at all.
She doesn’t wake up even with this, huh.
The fact that she doesn’t wake up after this level of abuse proves this is completely different from normal sleep.
If anything, it’s closer to a deep coma⁴.
What should I call this coma-inducing spell?
Calling it ‘Coma Magic’ just as it is works perfectly fine; keeping things simple and easy to understand is always best.
While I’m at it, let’s run another experiment.
Keeping her n**ple pinned and twisted violently out of shape, I cast my healing spell.
”‘Extra Heal⁵.’”
Mira’s breast erupted in a thin, brilliant aura of light.
I released my fingers.
The n**ple appeared to have remained elongated.
Its shape was also distinctly flattened out.
When I gave the tip a sharp flick with my finger, it wobbled loosely up and down, completely deformed.
When I glanced over at Nier who was watching from the side, she had her brows knitted tightly together, instinctively pressing a hand over her own chest.
”The n**ple stretched out quite a bit. What do you think, Nier? Want to give it a try too?”
”Y-yes…”
Nier leaned over, flicking Mira’s altered n**ple with her own fingertip to verify the structural texture.
It went exactly as I hypothesized.
If I cast healing Magic while the body is being held in an abnormal, distorted state, the spell forces that exact state to solidify and heal in place.
Granted, because the n**ple didn’t stay completely stretched to its maximum elasticity, the structural alteration didn’t freeze perfectly, but the change is obvious.
Healing Magic, at its core, is nothing more than an artificial acceleration of the body’s natural self-healing capabilities.
It is not an intelligent spell that automatically reverts a body back to its ideal, baseline template.
That’s why it yields this kind of result.
And this is the consequence after only a single trial.
If I repeat this process dozens of times, I could easily remodel and bio-engineer the human body however I see fit.
I pulled Mira’s dress back up to cover her and left her rolled out on the floor.
”Nier. I’ve decided to bring this girl along to Niver too. Apparently, she’s a noble’s daughter, you see.”
”N-Nobles?! To do that sort of terrible thing to a noble lady’s chest…”
”She explicitly said I could do whatever I liked with her body. There shouldn’t be any legal or moral issue. …Ah, but it’ll be a massive pain if she accidentally relieves herself while she’s comatose. Go ahead and stuff a bunch of rags or something down into her crotch to protect the carriage.”
”Y-yes… Goshujin-sama.”
”Now then, I’m going to step outside and take care of the cleanup.”
I dragged Isobel’s body out of the carriage and dumped her onto the dirt road.
Outside, John and the rest of the crew had just finished stripping down the corpses.
”Reina. How do the surroundings look?”
”No changes, sir. The bandits who managed to flee haven’t shown any signs of returning.”
The small fry I scattered earlier seemed to have completely abandoned their crew.
I loaded every piece of gear John and Helga had stripped off, along with all the cargo from Mira’s damaged carriage, directly into my Storage via Interdimensional Space.
I made sure to drop the dead sorcerer’s corpse into Storage as well.
Mira’s original carriage had been thoroughly wrecked by the bandits, rendering it complete junk.
All four of their horses had sustained nasty arrow wounds, and one of them was already dead.
If I bring the carcass to a butcher later on, I can easily sell it off as horse meat.
Since I didn’t have the luxury of time to bleed the animal properly out here, I tossed the whole carcass straight into Storage as is.
Finally, there was Isobel.
I needed to ensure this woman was permanently taken out of the equation.
If by some astronomical fluke she survived out here, it would create an incredibly annoying headache for me later.
”Since I have a fresh subject on hand, I might as well use her for a quick experiment.”
I focused my senses and detected an incredibly microscopic trace of Mana residing within Isobel’s heart.
This represents the absolute baseline, standard amount of Mana inherent to an ordinary adult human—the capacity of someone completely incapable of utilizing Magic.
I attempted to consciously draw the Mana directly out of Isobel’s heart.
Seamless.
I can extract it without any resistance.
The sensation was identical to manipulating the raw mana elements drifting freely in the atmosphere.
As I drained every drop of her internal Mana, it condensed until it felt roughly the size of a ping-pong ball.
Next, I willed that extracted Mana to convert into solid ice.
It worked.
I successfully manifested a ping-pong ball-sized chunk of ice directly inside her heart.
I reshaped the ice, growing jagged, razor-sharp spines all over it like a sea urchin, and commanded it to violently shred the heart chambers from the inside out.
I pressed my palm flat against Isobel’s chest.
There was no heartbeat. Her pulse had entirely vanished. Her breathing had stopped dead. She was dead.
”Excellent. This specific spell is highly practical. Let’s name it ‘Heartbreak⁶‘.”
I was able to completely obliterate her vital organs using nothing but Isobel’s own internal Mana.
With this technique, I can instantaneously rupture the heart of any human within close proximity at any given moment without anyone ever realizing it.
It leaves absolutely zero physical evidence behind.
No one will ever be able to trace the assassination back to me.
”‘Extra Heal.’”
Isobel’s entire corpse was instantly shrouded in a thin veil of light, but her eyes remained closed, and her body showed absolutely no signs of life.
I checked her chest once more.
The heartbeat failed to return.
This also aligned perfectly with my hypothesis.
Even if you violently accelerate a body’s natural healing factor, a heart that has been systematically shredded into ground meat isn’t magically going to reconstruct itself back into a pristine, functional pump.
It likely fused back together into a horribly deformed, solid lump of tissue.
A heart like that is physically incapable of resuming a rhythmic beat.
With my data collected and tasks completed, I climbed back into the driver’s seat and urged the horses forward toward Niver once again.
* * *
Night.
After thoroughly cataloging the bulk of today’s looted war trophies, I slipped away alone into the carriage’s rear storage compartment.
Mira lay bound in heavy ropes on the floorboards.
She hadn’t shown the slightest sign of regaining consciousness since this afternoon.
I manifested the sorcerer’s dead body out of my Interdimensional Space and laid it out flat on the floor beside her.
Given that he had fired off several Fireballs during the ambush, his remaining reserves should be running low, but I could still clearly perceive a much larger pool of Mana inside him than any normal adult.
”Let’s see what else I can do.”
I focused on pulling all the remaining Mana out of the dead sorcerer’s heart.
It flows out easily, just as expected.
The extracted Mana pooled and spread out in the air around his chest cavity.
Next, I attempted to force this external pool of Mana to discharge completely out of his physical body.
”Mm…”
Moving the Mana through the physical flesh took a noticeable amount of effort.
I felt a thick, sluggish resistance, as if I were forcing an object through a dense swamp.
It took some time, but I successfully forced it to discharge.
So I can actually manipulate and expel Mana from points other than just the tips of my fingers, huh.
”‘Waterball⁷.’”
A sphere of water instantly materialized, hovering silently in midair.
It went flawlessly.
Next, I wanted to test whether I could forcefully terminate a spell.
”Vanish⁸“
The floating water ball instantly popped out of existence, completely eradicated.
Perfect, total success.
I can actively interfere with and override another person’s magical constructs.
With this, I should be able to completely neutralize and counter any Magic cast within a strict three-meter radius around myself.
Let’s dub this defensive technique ‘Cancel⁹‘.
Moving on to the next test.
I tried drawing the ambient mana elements directly out of the surrounding atmosphere and injecting them straight into the dead sorcerer’s corpse.
This was also entirely possible.
I focused on channeling the external mana elements directly into his heart.
They were steadily, incrementally absorbed by the organ until every single speck of the ambient energy had vanished into his chest.
The Mana pool, which should have been completely drained and empty, began to rapidly refill.
I had successfully replenished his internal reserves.
”Perfect. I’ve gathered basically everything I wanted to know.”
I had been able to thoroughly verify multiple magical laws using this valuable sorcerer’s corpse.
To think that I can completely control not only the ambient mana elements in the air, but also the internal, personal Mana of other human beings.
I am highly confident that I am the only existence on this entire planet capable of pulling off a stunt like this.
It’s completely abnormal.
What on earth is the true nature of this unique ability of mine?
Well, whatever the case, with this data, I can safely manipulate Nier’s internal Mana myself to help her naturally develop the physical sensation required to cast Magic.
Because if I fail by manipulating Nier’s Mana from the start, it would be terrible.
I was waiting for an opportunity to be able to do human experimentation using another sorcerer’s body.
Now, it’s time for the final verification.
This was the one mystery that had been nagging at the back of my mind for a long time.
Utilizing my Interdimensional Magic, I targeted and isolated the sorcerer’s heart, putting it into Storage.
Then, I pulled the isolated heart back out and meticulously dissected it using a sharp knife.
Inside—was a Magic Stone.
”So it really was there. …Even inside a human heart, a Magic Stone.”
There it was, embedded directly within the sorcerer’s heart tissue.
A solid, clear Magic Stone measuring roughly one centimeter in diameter.
* * *
I finally returned to our private room in the simple lodging facility.
I pulled Nier close, letting her rest her head against my arm as an arm pillow while I let my thoughts drift.
”Because there is a Magic Stone, they’re called monsters.”
Balan’s words from the guild appraisal office echoed clearly in my mind.
In the heart of an intermediate-tier sorcerer, there was a Magic Stone embedded in his heart that was entirely on par with a Goblin’s.
By logical extension, this means that even humans who aren’t sorcerers must possess a Magic Stone as well.
It’s likely just an incredibly minuscule, sand-grained speck of a stone.
This is almost certainly a medical fact completely unknown to the general public of this world.
Since it seems they don’t do things like human anatomical dissection.
Is a Magic Stone buried deep inside my own heart as well?
And if so, given my power, it must be an extraordinarily massive one.
It’s strange.
If that kind of stone were buried, it should have been found with an X-ray, right.
…Is it the timing when I did the alternate world teleportation?
There can only be that.
Does it mean a Magic Stone sprouts when you come here?
Perhaps only I am special, though.
I possess a unique, absolute power that is fundamentally detached from the magic system used by the native sorcerers.
I might be an irregular anomaly in this world’s system.
There might not be a Magic Stone in my heart.
But this experiment has finally painted a clear picture.
The Magic of this alternate world was not some mysterious, divine blessing bestowed by a benevolent god.
It’s pure biological evolution.
The entire ecosystem of this planet simply evolved over generations to organically utilize the ambient mana elements in the atmosphere to survive.
Monsters have Magic Stones inside their bodies.
Humans also possess Magic Stones inside their bodies.
On the other hand, normal wildlife like wild boars and regular pigs don’t have Magic Stones.
Sorcerers accumulate Mana inside the Magic Stone embedded in their hearts, using it as a battery to discharge Magic.
In short, the Magic Stone is a biological organ explicitly required to generate and process Mana.
The physical size and capacity of this organ varies from person to person, and that biological variance is the sole dividing line separating sorcerers from ordinary humans.
Don’t monsters utilize their stored Mana to fuel their physical bodies in ways completely different from casting spells, I wonder.
Magic Stone and Mana, and the ambient mana elements filling the atmosphere.
The overarching, unique ecosystem of this strange planet.
As I let my mind wander through the endless complexities of this world’s biology, my consciousness finally drifted down into the deep depths of sleep.
—
Summary:
The protagonist successfully subdues the noble daughter Mira while executing cold human experiments regarding coma limits on her flesh. Meanwhile, the companion maid Isobel is secretly executed via internal cardiovascular crystallization to test targeted mana rupture parameters. This grim verification sequence transitions directly into a clinical evaluation of a harvested enemy sorcerer’s heart as an unresolved biological mystery details the true nature of his own unverified anatomy
—
Trivia:
- The protagonist explicitly contrasts the elaborate, restrictive noble gown worn by Mira against the simplicity and aesthetic value of a standard Japanese traditional kimono.
- The spatial limit of the protagonist’s active spell intervention capability is strictly defined during his nocturnal testing sequence as a three-meter radius sphere
—
Character Insight:
The protagonist demonstrates a total shift into operational pragmatism, dropping any surface pretense of standard moral values to treat the local human inhabitants purely as biochemical data points for systemic optimization.
—
Glossary:
Notes:
• Grimm – The name of a large settlement and community located near the Forest of Magic. Grimm is a walled city featuring a bustling marketplace and diverse population, though it suffers from severe lack of sanitation and a legalized slave trade.
• Isobel – A maid who has been close to Mira since childhood. She is an older woman who displays constant hostility toward the protagonist. An older woman and loyal maid servant to Mila who survives the brutal bandit assault inside the carriage. She possesses a highly defensive, indignant attitude, actively scolding Ryuichi for his blunt, transactional treatment of her young mistress.
• Mira – The second daughter of the Brooke Taylor family. She is a noble from the city-state of Niver who was rescued from a bandit attack, carries herself with aristocratic pride despite immense embarrassment over her situation, and is highly knowledgeable about the geography and governance of Niver. The second daughter of the aristocratic Brooke Taylor family from Niver. She survives a catastrophic bandit ambush that slaughters her retainers and guards, subsequently using her high-born lineage and the promise of her father’s financial rewards to negotiate passage to Niver with a highly callous Ryuichi. A thirteen-year-old girl who wears heavy makeup that masks her true age, causing others to mistake her for being around twenty. She is the second daughter of Roman’s legal wife. A young woman who has her hair on the left and right sides in braids, brought to the top of her head in two tightly wound coils. Her dress leaves her shoulders completely exposed, has decorations heavily attached, and excessively emphasizes the thinness of her waist, with a skirt long enough to drag on the floor in a strangely swollen shape. She wears thick makeup, carries a strong scent of perfume, and is the second daughter of a Niver noble.
• Nier – A 27-year-old Japanese-esque beauty with long black hair, refined features, and large breasts, she is Ryuichi’s primary, devoted slave. Traumatized by the slave trade and separated from her daughter, she travels with him to find her child, managing domestic duties, cooking, and reading local script for him. Protective of other subordinates, she also explains world logistics and assists in his magic experiments.
• John – A twenty-year-old blond, large-built vanguard mercenary who grew up with Allen and Reina. Arrogant and gruff, he wears chainmail, a helm, and a wool coat, wielding a massive two-handed sword with advanced half-swording techniques alongside a heater shield. To protect his partner, he becomes Ryuichi’s combat slave and carriage driver, securing perimeters, looting foes, and taking route directions from Mila.
• Reina – A 19-year-old female archer, village hunter, and slave to Ryuichi, she has fair skin, a brown ponytail, a well-proportioned build, and wears a leather cuirass. Mobilizing with a shortbow and dagger, she serves as her party’s emotional heart alongside friends Allen and John. Highly competent in wilderness survival, she drives the carriage with John, vigilantly watching for ambushers or bandits, and holds immense, submissive respect for Ryuichi.
• Helga – A twelve-year-old former Adventurer’s Guild receptionist with waist-length blonde hair, silver eyes, a doll-like appearance, and a raspy voice. Bratty yet high-energy, she previously knew John and Reina and gave Ryuichi key info on world magic systems. After a conflict, she fell into slavery but is now Ryuichi’s doted-on companion. She wears a fluffy gown, loves meat snacks, and handles domestic tasks, horse care, and fetching fodder.
• Man – A roughneck wearing a hat who participated in a group assault. He suffers the loss of his right arm and later his left arm during an experiment by the protagonist before being stored.
• Balan – A burly, intimidating appraiser in a blood-stained apron works the Guild’s counter, expertly butchering and evaluating monsters. Despite his terrifying face and boisterous personality, he kindly advises novices and maintains a friendly rapport with regulars like Ryuichi. He later arrives with low-ranking workers to evaluate Ryuichi’s massive haul and introduces him to the Guild Master.
• Goblin – Goblins are hostile creatures inhabiting the village, armed with primitive weapons such as sticks, axes, and spears. They can be male, female, and include Hobgoblins. Some are pregnant, as seen in the hut.
Please bookmark this series and rate ☆☆☆☆☆ on here!
Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
Thanks for reading.
Leave a Reply