Chapter 16 - Village Stabilization

Luckily we had enough money left to afford a ride home along with the corpse of that bird I defeated.

I wasn't sure how fast it would rot, so I kept cast on it for most of the trip.

was SO expensive to keep active, maybe I should have just tried to freeze it or try a spell to simply preserve it.

It seemed to be an extreme overkill spell that completely froze its deterioration.

Either way, we made it back, thankfully hearing that nothing happened while I was away.

Ria ran off first to go tell all the other children about her adventure and an exaggerated story of how I beat down a big bad monster for them.

She's just making things up however she wants and she didn't even catch a glimpse of the fight.

It definitely didn't end with a huge explosion or a sea of flames.

Aya had to return to her job as a priest, though I still dislike that church.

I can only hope it's mostly corruption free.

I went ahead to start solving the Mana problem around the village.

Ria came running after me wanting to go on another adventure.

The only reason I didn't make her stay is that I thought there shouldn't be anything too dangerous.

The Orichalcum does an amazingly fast job of absorbing the Mana from the saturated air.

I repeat the process for each region all the way up to the cave I used to live.

When I'm finished, the Orichalcum is glowing blindingly through Mana perception, it must be filled to the brim.

What I'll do with it after this, I'm not sure.

Finally done, the village should be much safer now.

Thankfully no monsters attacked while Ria was around.

Or maybe I shouldn't worry? She can incinerate anything with that broken fire affinity she has.

We were halfway back to the village when suddenly, a loud commotion of growling and roaring reverberated through the air.

Ria went from being excited to be on an adventure to hugging me for safety.

I should probably ignore it and come back without Ria, but whatever it is, it'll be hard to find later if I don't deal with it now.

After sitting Ria in a safe place, I approach to see a large wolf trying to claw its way into a small burrowed hole in the ground.

It looks big enough to be a problem later, and I don't feel like having another fight like with the bird.

It either didn't notice me at all, or saw my human form and didn't care, since I was able to simply cast on it.

Even weak magic beasts shouldn't be that easy to kill if they are paying attention.

When many enemies at this level of magic are capable of casting such cheap instant death spells, it becomes basic instinct to easily sense and cancel effortlessly obvious attacks like that.

It stops what it's doing in an instant and drops dead.

Now, for whatever's in that burrow.

I see a black lizard hiding in there too and contemplate if I should leave it or not.

「Thank you, dragon.」

It feels like I'm hearing it in my head.

No way! Could this be telepathy?

For that matter, magic beasts can be intelligent? The monster bird didn't seem like it, so how do I even tell?

Maybe if I use and focus on a creating a sort of channel, I can use it too!

I already have a question.

「How do you know I'm a dragon?」

I'm in human form and I'm even practicing with keeping my Mana concealed, it shouldn't be so obvious anymore!

「You have a similar aura to the dragon that lives here.」

So, it must be because it's hard to mask the type of Mana?

At the very least most shouldn't be able to notice that, then.

It doesn't seem to know she doesn't live here anymore.

I guess if it's not going to be attacking anyone I don't have to do anything.

I was about to return to Ria, but she was already right there and was trying to pet its head.

Hey! Don't go around petting things you don't know!

It didn't seem to react much and was fine with letting her do whatever she wanted until she started to get bored of the unresponsiveness and saw the baby lizard behind it that's barely as long as her body.

"It's a tiny Lava!" Ria squeals, equating the baby lizard to a tiny version of my normal form.

The poor lizard is already confused and tries to stumble away, but Ria grabs it and starts hugging it.

It immediately starts crying and trying to get away, wondering why its mother won't save it.

Yes! Yes! Get attached to that lizard and not me!

Once it escapes it tries to crawl away and then turns invisible with magic right in front of Ria, who just picks it up again and holds its cloaked body while annoyed whimpers come out of the seemingly empty space.

"Ria, don't bother the baby." I try to scold her before the baby gets impatient and attacks.

She doesn't listen and pats its head more until it finally loses it and bonks her over the head.

"Ow! It's a grumpy baby! Come back!" Ria yelps after watching it start to escape.

The villagers might attack them if they think they are a threat, so it would be wise to introduce them before that.

I gesture to get them to follow before returning.

The villagers look worried again after seeing the lizards.

They've already come to terms with living with a dragon, how can they still be bothered by a lizard.

"I'm not even sure what direction this village is going in anymore... First a dragon, and now an Abyssalix." Mino sighs with his hand covering his face.

"An Abyssalix?" I ask.

"They are cunning lizards that use gravity and light magic to hunt." He answers.

"But this one can use telepathy! Are magic beasts intelligent too?!" I inquire rashly.

"Sometimes. It depends on species, it's more or less trial and error to figure out which are capable of high-level thought. Just being cunning is not the same as sentience." Mino explains.

"Could you at least tell everyone not to worry?"

"That can't be helped, it's normal to fear new things, and they haven't seen an Abyssalix before, it's mainly adventurers that know these things." He says.

If possible I want to make the Abyssalix the protector of the village when I'm away, but considering it was about to lose if I didn't intervene, it's still got a long way to go.

Currently it's only useful to draw Ria away from me.

If I'm lucky she'll never get bored making the baby Abyssalix angry.

Eventually the shrieking is enough and its mom finally pulls Ria away from it by the scruff of her shirt.

The baby glares at her mockingly and dances around freely now that she can't catch it again.

I sigh and pull Ria closer to me so she can't go piss it off again.

"No, Lava! Let me go! I have to play with the baby!" She wails.

"No you don't. You've agitated that baby enough for one day..."

"No I haven't! I still have to give it its name! The big one is Liza and the baby is Shade!" She rambles.

That name is so obviously just 'Lizard' with two letters struck from the end...