Luge strung the four plump grubs one after another and slung them back over his shoulder.
He ambled homeward.
He had mostly figured out what the big kobold meant by now. In the end he hadn't chosen to dirty his long staff after all, and had let the big oaf go. On the way back it struck him all at once, and he found it briefly amusing—that stupidity had actually turned into a life-preserving ability. He couldn't even bring himself to think of having the fellow hunt for him.
The so-called Gray Longneck Holy Lord really did forbid kobolds to hunt grubs for food. But its command was that every grub caught be offered up to it, the Holy Lord—catch them, but don't eat them.
If he hadn't misunderstood, that should be the meaning.
He couldn't be bothered to dwell on it; it was a pure waste of brainpower.
He returned to his little den, ate some grub meat with relish, had a comfortable sleep.
Then he resumed his meditation.
The book he slept on had briefly become a head-bursting book.
He had many guesses, but none of them frightened him.
He believed the pages that had always been so hard to turn were a kind of protection for someone like him. As his mental power grew, turning the pages one by one was itself a form of training. Those two kobolds must have had mental power aptitude far too low—they couldn't withstand even the very first rune. One look and they lost all control, until their heads burst; they couldn't even manage to look away.
Since in his heart he didn't consider the book some evil thing, naturally he wasn't afraid of it.
As time passed.
He could finally trace the fifth rune with ease.
During that stretch he ate another half grub. He had still never made the trip to the hot spring he'd been wanting to visit; forcing down slimy raw grub meat for so long, his mouth was honestly getting sick of it.
But his rear end still showed not the slightest intention of moving.
The next page could finally be turned. He was intensely curious—opening it would reveal the contents of the seventh and eighth pages. One of them was bound to be a rune; would the other be the spell he had waited for so long? Just thinking that one day he might actually master such a wondrous thing made him feel strange, as if in a dream, and he no longer cared whether he had to choke down snot-like slime.
He spread the book open on his knees and lightly tested the page with his fingers. Sure enough, he could turn it now.
What met his eyes was a rune somewhat more complex than the previous five, but not beyond what he had expected, and then the opposite page held a long, dense block of explanation about precautions—something he hadn't seen in quite a while.
Turning further, it was back to a meticulous iron door bolt.
He scratched his head. He hadn't seen the spell knowledge he'd imagined, but he wasn't all that disappointed. Once he mastered the sixth rune, or actually completed a demonic mark, he ought to be able to look at pages nine and ten—perhaps what he wanted would be there.
With that in mind, he skipped the rune and read the long discourse first.
After reading for a while, his expression turned less than pleasant.
The knowledge on this page about how the six runes formed a demonic mark was very helpful to him, but the notes further on about becoming a first-rank apprentice wizard struck him a heavy blow.
Once one became an apprentice wizard, one would gain a zero-ring spell slot.
This was an extremely precious thing that transformed an apprentice wizard qualitatively. To gain another spell slot, one had to wait until becoming a first-rank formal wizard; at that point one could fix a first-ring spell, another qualitative transformation.
A fixed spell needed no incantation or gestures to assist it, and casting it many times wouldn't leave one weary; it was easier to gain insight and understanding from it, even to make it like instinct—in short, the benefits were many.
What made his dog face change color was that upon becoming an apprentice wizard, one had to immediately fix a spell one had prepared.
That is, normal apprentice wizards all began learning about spells in advance, mastering the relevant spell models.
While practicing the Demonic Mark Meditation Method, they would start choosing, studying with a specific aim in mind.
To him this was sheer absurd fantasy. Never mind strategically choosing and carefully refining a fixed spell to accompany him for the rest of his life—he didn't have a single ordinary one he could muddle through with. He had never even seen one. There was genuinely nothing to choose from.
After pondering a while, he decided to first try to master this final rune.
From mastering this most complex rune, to being able to trace all of them in one breath, to attempting to fuse the six runes into a demonic mark—all of it would take time, and he didn't want his progress falling behind for any reason.
Maybe this time it would be like before—once he mastered the sixth rune, he'd be able to turn to the book's next page?
Thinking so, he meditated even harder and more intently.
But a voice in his heart kept insisting that he might need to become an apprentice wizard before he could keep turning those pages, and that there would be no spell models further on—only more knowledge about the Demonic Mark Meditation Method. Perhaps this book had nothing to do with low-tier spells at all.
Time passed in meditation.
The grubs dwindled bit by bit, turning into an alternative sort of clock through their rich nutrition and awful taste.
The sixth rune was successfully mastered.
He let out a long breath.
But then, though his fingers rubbed the corner of the book until they trembled and shed hair, he still couldn't turn to a new page.
He flung the book away, thought about it, picked it back up, and lay down with it as a pillow.
During the breaks between meditation these past days, he had carefully reviewed his past. Apart from the Black Codex, his avenues for gaining spell knowledge were nearly zero—unless a miracle suddenly appeared before him, the kind that inexplicably granted him a wish.
Of course, a final struggle had to be made too—for instance, returning to where he had picked up the book.
But back then, when he found something so exquisite, so obviously a product of civilization, he had excitedly searched the whole area and come up with nothing.
Maybe hunger had made him miss something back then.
Comforting himself this way as he swallowed grub meat, his scrawny body was already setting out on the path from memory.
Unlike going out to hunt, he had found this book while exploring the caves where the kobolds dwelt, so there was no need to go outside; instead he followed the other end of his not-exactly-safe little safe nest and entered a branch passage.
In these caves, suited to creatures about the height of a person, the tallest spots reached four meters and the lowest were around two, enough to keep out some of the grotesquely oversized underground beasts to a degree. But this place was no calmer than the big cavern hunting grounds outside, each like a separate world.
These passages, which looked modest, were a tangled maze, as if without end; counted carefully, they might even be larger than those vast hunting grounds.
There was no real safety in this place—including the stretch of cave where he ate and slept, which was open at both ends with nothing blocking it. The only reason he could laze here so freely was that it was out of the way and no kobolds came through; and since the kobold tribe had occupied this area for years, ordinary predators rarely appeared nearby either.
Though the odds of an accident were very low, in theory, every time he slept, he could still be carried off by a small underground beast passing by.
As he walked, he memorized the way, leaving simple marks at the branch passages along the route.
Getting lost was another danger that could cost him his life.
He got hungry once along the way and ate some of the grub meat he carried. It seemed the growth of his mental power had made his brain work much better than before; previously he had felt himself getting dumber and dumber, but now the things in his memory had become clearer.
Judging by his stomach-timer's reminder, combined with the details of his surroundings, the destination shouldn't be far now.
“This must all have been built by someone, right?”
He suddenly felt an urge: one day, when he could become an apprentice wizard, when the means at his command were enough to face all kinds of danger, he would follow the paths and walk this place to its end, walk until there was nowhere left to go, and see where these passages running in all directions actually led.
That might be an extremely long journey.
When his stomach was a little hungry again, he finally arrived at the place in his memory: a crossroads wide as a small plaza.
The Black Codex had been right beside that big rock up ahead. Compared to last time, some small mushrooms giving off a faint white glow had grown there.
The quiet crossroads lay fully exposed to view.
The mushrooms' faint glow made the passages in all four directions seem even darker.
“Ugly little kobold, you've finally come...”
A voice devoid of any fluctuation of emotion sounded directly in Luge's mind.
He immediately opened the Black Codex, held it in his hands, and raised it before him like a shield.
“I've been waiting for you all this while. It seems you have forgotten me.”
Holding the Black Codex up, he widened his dog eyes—eyes that could see in the dark—and quickly spun around.
In the end his gaze came back to that rock.
“It seems you like the book I gave you very much. What a pity you are only a kobold, doomed never to become a formal wizard. Even though you are quite different, cleverer than other kobolds, the limits of a short-lived species are something you cannot break...”
The person's voice kept sounding in his mind. Squinting, he could faintly make out the outline of a figure lying on its side atop the rock.
Chapter 4