Chereads / Black Clover: Ash and Tarnish / Chapter 2 - Chapter Two: Camera

Chapter 2 - Chapter Two: Camera

A thick sheen of snow covers the landscape, as the clover kingdom is in deep winter once again, the view is cast to a forest, east of the town further most west of the clover kingdom capital, known as Ilshard, there lay many a hibernating predator but so too, a hunter on the prowl.

A very small figure covered in many layers, can be seen crouching in a collection of bushes, this person seems to be lying in wait for something, out in front of them is the leg of a chicken, plucked clean of feathers and blood,

As this figure, who seems to be very young, keeps still and hidden, an odd creature comes hesitantly out of the thicket, a seemingly normal hare, if not for the two deer antlers on its forehead and it's size, about that of a large dog, the creature described is an juvenile jackolope,

And thus, due to the harsh winter, and it's predominantly carnivorous nature, has lead it to trusting a food source it shouldn't, as it sniffs at the chicken leg, staying cautious just in case this was a trap, the creature slowly opens its mouth, revealing rows of teeth designed for tearing flesh and knashing bone, it bites down on the meat it found.

It is then that a sharp and sudden noise fills the almost empty clearing, and around the neck of the horned hare tightens a very thin, but very durable rope made out of an ethereal blue light coming from the hand of the small figure in the bushes.

As the jackalope stopped jerking, the figure slowly stood, then swiftly goes to the juvenile jackalope, closes her eyes and gives a small prayer to the animal then swiftly stabs the back of its neck.

Then she lifts it over her shoulder and walks away to clean the carcass and skin it before selling the meat and drying the pelt into leather.

'It's been four years since I came to this world…' she though to herself morosely.

Much has changed for the young Shepard, she managed to convince the villagers into letting her do odd jobs for Yul though they still thought of her as below dirt, eventually they warmed up to her and she even managed to get a local hunter to teach her how to set up traps and prepare a carcass, though it was much easier to trap her marks with magic, she only does so on days like this, where she would rather be home.

There aren't many things she remembers from her last life, for instance, she can't recall her name, or the name of anyone close to who she used to be, though she does have a vauge understanding of what she used to look like.

Tall guy with short spikey blonde hair with tannish skin, a resting bitch face and naturally spiky teeth, grade A punk material,

'Although it might not seem like it, I wasn't actually a delinquent, I got good grades! It's just that my genes made it look like I was constantly on the verge of demanding for some guy to give me his lunch money…' I think to myself.

Though I'm definitely different now… not withstanding the obvious, I have practically the opposite gene pool now as I did in my last life.

'Though most of that is due to the circumstances of my environment rather than my genes, malnourishment made sure I stay short and the amount of cloudy days in this part of the Kingdom is both annoying and unfortunate.

I suppose there are still some similarities between me and my old self, though in my last life my face and teeth got me called hot, and fierce, here they get me called 'demon child' or 'feral weirdo', and I'm not actually allowed to go into the part of village the church resides, which is about half, considered the 'better half' of the town, no one in power wants a person like me in view of their precious guests or any passing patrols of Magic Knights, however rare they may be in the forsaken realm…'

As I drain the blood if the jackalope into a river nearby I look down into the running winter stream, A Short girl with long straight dark grey hair with pale skin, dark brown eyes, a resting bitch face and naturally sharp teeth looks back at me, the eye bags make her eyes look smaller than they actually are. On top of that, her irises are smaller than a regular person's, making it look even more like she's constantly on the verge of murdering someone…

this girl is me.

'It's been a long few years… I miss modern toilets…' she says to herself.

The corpse finishes draining itself of its own blood, I pick it up move back to my small cabin to skin it and prep it's meat for selling.

Magic in this world is divided into two categories as far as I know, specialized which is a persons personal magic, like fire magic or water magic, and generalized which is more mana manipulation and control heavy. It wasn't really ever focused on in the anime but there are more forms of magic that most people can use outside of magic bullet, it's just that people tend to focus on their specialized magic, instead of the typically far weaker generalized magic.

Specialized magic tends to be far stronger then generalized magic, but I've found that in comparison to the of ways a person can manipulate their specialized magic tends to differ based off of the amount of control they have over generalized magic.

Thing is, I can't actually use my specialized magic, that's both bad, and good, it's bad because I can't learn how to control it from a young age, it's good because If I ever get it I will have very good control over it, as I have managed to get my off shoot of the mana bullet spell that I call 'mana rope' down to 40% of the original mana cost without taking away its durability or strength.

But like I said, there are more than just mana bullet that have generalized versions, curse magic and rune magic, both have generalized forms, but their specialized form is of course, stronger in most ways, not nearly as versatile, as with generalized magic you can focus on every kind of curse or rune out there, you can use all of them, except for the stronger ones, those ones require a specialization on that field to learn.

So really, generalized magic is more like a jack of all trades master of none type situation, and specialized magic is more like a normal class system with people that go deeply into one skill and focus on that only like paladins or barbarians in DND.

And since I haven't gained access to my specialized magic yet I've mostly been doing a small bit of all I can get my hands on, which isn't a whole lot but still more than a noble would expect a forsaken peasant like me to be able to get.

Right now I only know the 'minor tracking' curse, the 'minor sensory dislocation curse' and the 'ripper' rune

The curses are pretty self explanatory, weak magic signature that tags prey so you always know where they are, dissipates after twelve hours,

makes the world seem to have tilted two axis to the left or right including your sense of balance, lasts for thirty minutes.

The 'ripper' rune is fairly simple, you draw the rune onto something and it rips that thing apart, as well as itself, a stronger version exists for all of these but only those with specializations can use them.

Also, though enchantment and body enhancement are both generalized magic, I don't have the required materials to enchant something and I'm not about to fuck with body enhancement magic without a guide or teacher, call me superstitious but I don't want to get my arms ripped off because I enhanced them too much.

And it turns out that mana bullets are a spell, and actually have a magic tied to them, it's known as mana manipulation magic, and it is the most versatile piece of magic I have found myself able to use, as I happened upon a salesmen giving away a discounted book labeled 'mana manipulation so easily explained even peasants could do it' an annoying title, but very valuable knowledge for someone like me, as this was made by a noble, there were several efficiency and control traps, misleading information or just straight up incorrect material in the book about how to cast mana manipulation spells.

Luckily I had a retired magic knight living in the village as the sheriff confirm if something was wrong, he was nice enough to point out what was, and guided me a bit onto the right path for mana growth and control.

That was two years ago and I can safely say that although that guy did know a bit about what he was talking about the way we grew out our magic cores were just too different to act as proper guidance, I never told him, with my already tarnished reputation from being the 'demon child' I wasn't about to let any body know I knew what I was talking about…

Huh?

It was then that I noticed a floating, board thing? In the middle of my room…

[GREETINGS USER! Welcome to the Tarnish System! You have been transmigrated over from your world to a world of swords and magic, in this case, Black Clover! We are sure your confused, but if you try to, you will be able to feel an odd sort of film over your entire body, try to use that film to make some light!]

[BEGGINERS QUEST: MAKE SOME LIGHT]

My eye twitches and a vein on my forehead bulges with vexation…

"Huh?"