This place was lacking in everything except paths. He twisted and turned through the tunnels until he was disoriented himself, and only then did he finally relax.
Yet he merely ceased running at full tilt; he had no intention of stopping altogether. His two merciless little stubby legs pumped at an even tempo, looking as if they might fling his feet right off. He had always felt that a kobold's timid nature was a wretched flaw that held them back and kept them from growing strong. But after what had just transpired, he felt it was nothing to be ashamed of—in fact, it was entirely understandable.
A kobold's cowardice was a lifesaver. In most situations, they never froze in terror or did something foolish like standing rooted to the spot. The moment fright took hold, they scattered in all directions, instinct driving them to dash wildly into the distance.
Just as he was doing now.
*Ever since I got this little storage pouch, fleeing has become so much easier,* he thought with heartfelt appreciation.
To a kobold, this place was full of grand chambers where one could make a home; being open on all sides simply meant having abundant escape routes.
He arrived at a spacious, agreeable spot. Unfortunately, it sat at the intersection of three tunnels, so it could only be considered open on three sides.
He collected himself.
The little chrysalis worm-person's expression upon leaving had been very wrong.
Now his only problem was a lack of food, but that was hardly critical. He could go hungry for a while; after all, another of a kobold's talents—starvation resistance—had gone unused for quite some time. He would wait quietly until tomorrow before creeping out to forage.
"My reserve ration, how are you holding up?"
He pulled out the nurturing bag, opened the mouth, brought it close to his face, and spoke in a low voice.
The large insect egg actually gave a slight wobble, as if shivering.
*This thing can actually understand speech?*
Remembering that the little chrysalis worm-person had spoken to him in the Earth Cave common tongue, he had teased the egg in the same language. Previously, he had assumed the two siblings communicated through pheromones or some similar mechanism.
After teasing it for a bit, he calmed down as well.
Leaning back against the cave wall, he took out the spellbook for Ray of Frost and resumed reading.
Learning a spell directly from scratch was not the process of starting straight from a spell model, as one might imagine. He had learned earlier that a spell model was akin to a special rune that could be exceedingly simple or extraordinarily complex—a peculiar artificial creation.
Without an inheritance scroll, and without that guiding force, constructing a proper spell model on one's own required mastering a heap of tinier, more fragmented elements first. If even a single point remained poorly understood, assembling even the simplest spell model would prove impossible.
Those tiny elements could be understood as smaller runes. They were somewhat like bizarre elements brought forth when everything in the world—every principle and phenomenon—collided with transcendent mental power. In a sense, they were the world's own expression. If the world were viewed as a speaking person, a human could speak only one sentence at a time, whereas the world could utter a hundred or ten thousand sentences all at once. To use an imperfect analogy, these tiny things, and even the larger runes of the meditation method, were fragments, words, or merely punctuation marks of the world's speech that one managed to capture, observe, and comprehend.
Though these little things appeared endearing, they were so mischievous they wore a person out. Merely observing them continuously drained one's mental power.
At first glance, they all looked identical, yet in truth, they were completely different. Even breaking one into two and assembling them back together resulted in something else entirely. They blended together yet repelled each other, and grouping several produced novel transformations. Any failure to grasp them thoroughly would leave the construction of a spell model unsustainable. Still, this was already considered fortunate, as predecessors had already paved the way; the book clearly defined the scope, matching each mischievous imp needed for this spell in a one-to-one correspondence—neither one too many nor one too few, complete and reliable.
Perhaps in the eyes of a great wizard, such a book was merely a tutorial for fools.
He scratched his head as he flipped through the pages, understanding and mastering it bit by bit. His page-turning grew slower and slower, sometimes passing an entire day without turning a single leaf. Fortunately, becoming an apprentice wizard and undergoing the transformation of his mental power had made his mind slightly sharper than before.
It suddenly occurred to him: looking at it from another angle, wasn't he essentially conversing with the world?
Except the world was far more of a chatterbox than Old Gold Tooth, talking nonstop since the dawn of creation. What he had spent days breaking down and studying might amount to only half a word uttered by the world, or perhaps the disparity was even vaster, so enormous it defied description. Calling such a grotesque imbalance a "conversation" was a bit of a stretch. When studying and exploring these runes, they were more like people attempting to touch an echo of the world—perhaps an echo from tens of millions of years ago.
He looked up at the crystal lamp standing in the corner. The rhombic crystal set within the hourglass-shaped frame had shifted its luminous end, completing another full rotation.
In the blink of an eye, he had gone hungry for five days. He repeatedly told himself this was not born of overcaution, but rather that the selfless state of self-studying a spell for the first time, combined with a kobold's innate talent for fasting, had triumphed over hunger. It seemed that after becoming an apprentice wizard, his ability to endure starvation had grown even stronger.
He finally decided to stir.
Over several days of self-study, he had accumulated quite a few gifts for Half-Man.
Perhaps he could also consider bringing Half-Man a worm, though he was unsure whether the fellow would take a bite only for it to spill out from somewhere else.
He did not follow the route in his memory.
Having hidden away for so many days, he could not afford to be careless at the very end.
After spending half a day groping his way out, he smoothly reached the long-unvisited little hunting ground in the gully.
At first glance, he caught sight of a dark, beautiful pointed ear.
It had to be one of the dark elves Old Gold Tooth had spoken of.
At least by his human aesthetic standards, the figure was strikingly beautiful, though kobolds and lizardfolk might beg to differ.
Upon emerging, he kept a low profile and refrained from casting the Fetid Skin spell, looking every bit like an ordinary little kobold.
Right then, he performed an act perfectly suited to the image and temperament of an ordinary kobold.
Howling and flailing his arms, he turned and bolted.
The dark elf was roughly the height of a human, standing there with an easy, straight-backed posture that conveyed a sharp, upright presence. Upon detecting Luge's footsteps, the elf had not even looked over right away, glancing only after he started fleeing.
This was precisely the effect Luge wanted.
At this moment, he was nothing more than an ordinary kobold—or at least, that was the first impression he wanted others to have.
For this dark elf to wander alone so far from home through the territory of other underground races was proof enough that the stranger was a formidable individual.
There were plenty of places to catch worms now; he might as well cede this spot.
Seeing that the elf had made no move to pursue him after a long while, Luge slowed his pace, lightened his steps, closed his mouth, and reflected carefully. The pointed-eared fellow standing there had seemed to be surveying the entire gully rather than hunting for worms to eat.
Luge pondered it, then decided not to concern himself with such matters. He would catch some worms, hurry back, and master the spell as quickly as possible.
He had already made up his mind: rather than waiting until he became a second-rank apprentice wizard, he would set out as soon as he learned this spell and loot the two relatively close wizard fall sites first. He had the little crybaby worm-person to thank for providing the map of wizard legacies.
His parting with the little chrysalis worm-person might well have been their final meeting. If any real danger arose, it would certainly revolve around the little chrysalis worm-person; he was merely a passerby of no consequence.
Chapter 17