For All The Trouble It Took To Bring It Down—

“I… nghhhhhh…!”

The pain from his half-melted hand surged through him, and yet he couldn’t even bear to touch it.

Kuon rushed over and chanted, “Healing.”

That alone made the pain vanish, and Kikori stared in amazement at his restored hand.

“Huh… my hand’s healed?”

“It’s recovery magic. It can heal wounds a potion can’t fix in time, too, you know?”

“I-I see… thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

After thanking him, Kikori suddenly remembered what had happened when they first met.

“…When we met, you used a potion because of a mana issue?”

“Pretty much. I didn’t know how long it would take you to wake up, so I wanted to conserve it.”

“I see…”

“More importantly, Kikori! That Break just now—that was magic! That was incredible!”

“Y-yeah. I’m glad it landed properly.”

“You were hiding a spell like that! Not bad!”

“No, it’s not that amazing. And besides, that one cast drained my mana.”

Right—given Kikori’s mana, he could only use Break once.

“Even so, it’s amazing!”

“I only pulled it off because the slime was weak to magic, just like I expected.”

Yeah—what he’d recalled was Aria’s advice.

Magic was a clash of mana, the same as muscles.

If the slime was that invincible to physical attacks, then maybe it had almost no mana.

That was the gamble he’d taken.

If the slime had been overflowing with mana, Kikori’s destructive spell, Break, probably wouldn’t have worked at all.

Magic worked. Because he knew that much, he was able to gamble… but still.

“By the way, no mana stone? Do slimes not have them?”

“They don’t. Slimes are famous for being all effort and no reward, considering how hard they are to kill.”

“Hmmm…”

Mana stones were apparently like condensed clumps of mana.

Strong monsters carried big mana stones… but either way, it was mana.

Then maybe—

“…Slimes have no mana, so they have no mana stones…?”

“Oh, that’s an interesting idea.”

“Interesting? No, more importantly… if that’s true…”

The bigger the mana stone, the more mana the monster carried in its body.

And the higher a monster’s mana, the harder it was for Kikori’s “destructive spell, Break” to work.

That was probably even more pronounced than with other magic that produced natural phenomena, like fire or ice.

In other words, it suggested one fact.

“…My spell… the stronger the opponent is, the less it works.”

He’d want to use it most when it mattered most—yet it was most likely to be useless when it mattered most.

What an unbelievably awkward spell he’d ended up mastering.

Kikori almost felt himself sinking into gloom.