It Was A Story From A Long Time Ago, Apparently

Back at Aria’s house, Kikori was having his question thrown back at him with a “Magic?”

“Yes. I was wondering if I could use it too.”

“Huh. Well, you seem to have some mana—though not much—so you probably can.”

As she spoke, Aria took several books down from a bookshelf.

They all seemed to be magic books, and Aria lined them up on the desk.

“That said, from what you told me, you mean offensive magic, right? Like what that goblin shaman used.”

“Yes.”

Right—apparently, the large goblin Kikori had killed today was a hobgoblin, a higher-class goblin, and the staff goblin was also a higher-class goblin called a goblin shaman.

The Adventurers’ Guild had been in quite an uproar that such things were wandering around, right after that orc incident… but that aside.

“Hm. Offensive magic… I saw your fighting style a bit before, but basically you go for one-hit kills, right?”

“But with that, I can’t beat an orc, so I figured I have to do something.”

“Hm. I hear you, but… magic probably isn’t as convenient as you’re imagining.”

Hearing that, Kikori remembered the staff goblin he had met today… the goblin shaman.

Even it had only been able to use magic twice.

“Is that because my mana is weak?”

“More like, magic is basically a clash of mana. Like muscle strength—if you lose in raw power, it doesn’t work at all.”

Just like Kikori would lose one-sidedly if he traded blows head-on with an orc, it was common for magic to do nothing to an opponent with stronger mana. And it was also common for a magic-reliant mage to run into a monster that happened to be strong “only in mana,” get completely helpless, and be toyed with until they were killed.

And if you added that it could even happen against a monster a rookie adventurer could toy with one-sidedly—so long as they were a warrior—you could see just how bad that mismatch was.

“I can’t know without measuring properly, but you probably don’t have much aptitude as a mage, Kikori. If you had a ton of mana, you could’ve fought like that genius spell-sword, but…”

“Genius… spell-sword?”

He had heard the word “genius” before, and Kikori found himself thinking it was probably another reincarnated type.

“Oh, you’re interested? It was a story from a long time ago, apparently… uh, more than 500 years ago? Supposedly there was a genius who developed all kinds of original magic. Well, I heard it was more like brute-forcing with mana, so calling them ‘new spells’ was… kind of iffy.”