Very Good.

“Alright! Then let’s have you try it for real too, Kikori.”

“Yes!”

He could visualize it.

Kikori had just seen Mjolnir activated with his own eyes.

He’d also gotten a clear explanation—and after that, he wasn’t going to say he couldn’t do it.

So, Kikori raised the Magic Axe and formed the image in his mind.

Lightning gathering around the axe.

The axe returning to his hand.

He pictured it—exactly as Aria had shown him.

“Mjolnir!”

Crack—compared to Aria’s, it was much weaker, but a discharging axe took shape in Kikori’s hands.

That was simply the difference in mana between Kikori and Aria.

Even so… this was definitely Mjolnir.

“Take thiiis!”

He threw it. The axe Kikori hurled sank into a tree, smashed it cleanly while discharging electricity, and then flew back into Kikori’s hand.

The tree… looked only slightly scorched, but that couldn’t be helped.

“Yes, yes—you activated it properly!”

“Thanks to your demonstration, Aria-san.”

“I’m happy to hear you say that.”

Smiling, Aria inspected the tree Kikori had shattered.

“…You really are a boy, Kikori. You’ve got power.”

“Do I?”

“Yes. You broke the wood cleanly. If you train, you’ll probably be able to slash through it instead of just smashing it.”

If he could do that, Kikori thought, it would be pretty incredible.

The essence of this spell—Mjolnir—was that it amplified destructive power massively.

So if Kikori trained himself, he could expect its power to rise even further.

“Heehee—you’ve got the face of someone who wants to start training immediately. No. Not on my watch. I’m not letting you do anything reckless while I’m here.”

“Ugh… I know.”

“They say growth is found at the edge of death, but that’s just an excuse for people who can’t give it their all in normal circumstances. If you turn that into a success experience, you end up only capable of a warped kind of growth.”

“I’ll be careful.”

“Mm. Very good!”

Kikori smiled back at Aria’s beaming face… and then, as if something had just occurred to him, he said, “Oh, right.”

“Even though the Big Goblin was defeated, we’re not seeing any monsters… what do you think is going on?”

“Hm…”

Aria looked around and shrugged.

“I don’t know. It could be that weaker monsters are watching to see what happens, or it could be that the survey team pushing deeper in has wiped them out. Either way… I can’t say for sure right now. But I think we’ll be able to judge something in two or three days.”