Rune engraving is a difficult craft and a near-impossible one for those lacking high perception. Relatively speaking, humans have quite a low base perception, and many choose to spec into other attributes after seeing the marginal gains it provides. All in all, this has led to very few humans making it as master engravers, especially compared to the other major races.

Suko Ryo - Interspecial Expert - Humanity and the Other Races

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Mana was a strange and, in Silas’s view, fickle thing. One moment, he could have near-perfect control of how it flowed through his body, guiding it where he wanted with his mind but in the next, it would give his guidance the finger and go the other way. As if that wasn’t bad enough, it only got more capricious as he tried to control it outside his body.

Unfortunately for him, that’s exactly what he had to do in order to engrave the quilted jacket in his hands. He would have preferred a helmet, so as to keep as many things constant with the runic helmet, but the System hadn’t provided any so he had to make do.

He had started by placing his palm over the jacket and imagining the manly, muscular chest, but nothing had come of it as the mana he had released simply passed through. Instead, he found the most effective way was to trace the engraving with his finger while keeping constitution-related images and notions in mind. For the manly chest engraving, these were thoughts of rigidity and health.

When he tried it this way he got results, just not the ones he wanted as the jacket began to rip under his finger and spill its padding. Sighing at his failure, he next tried it on a sword, confident that the metal wouldn’t rip under his touch. He was right as although it absorbed his mana, the metal was too tough to bend, let alone break. Still, it was no success, so he kept trying, marginally improving his technique each time through trial and error.

The difficulty, he found, was in getting his ideals about constitution to stick as his mana reacted destructively whenever he tried to chain it down to a physical thing. He wished Mia could help him, but she wasn’t nearly as interested in rune engraving as him because of her lacking perception. While she had eye-opening amounts of arcane firepower, her arcane sensitivity wasn’t quite up to scratch.

As such, she was instead obsessed with more direct uses of magic. While Silas had rested and practised his engraving and eventually spear training, the other two had assaulted the giant toads with fervour, Aengus doing so because he was Aengus and Mia because she was working towards stealing their elemental spells.

It was during the seventh day that Silas felt ready to re-enter the field as he had built up adequate tolerance to the tingling sensation.

“Just the laddie I was waiting for,” Aengus said, giving him massive whacks across the back. “In truth, we’ve nearly made it to their boss, but I wasn’t keen on fighting it without ye.”

Silas raised his brow at the man-giant, “You don’t want to fight?” He turned to Mia and grinned. It felt odd coming out of his lips, but he had surprised himself by getting comfortable with these two so quickly despite his months of loneliness on the streets. Then again, he figured life-threatening situations did wonders in bringing people together.

Mia grinned back, an easy flush rising through her cheeks. Her dark eyes were a-glitter, and her bronzy hair lay lazily across her shoulders.

Aengus grunted at their inside joke and playfully swatted at their heads. “No, no, no. Ye don’t understand, Silas. By themselves, they’re fair - I’d roast them up fine and eat them and their crackling skin if it called for it. But when they’re in a group, by god, they’re too much.” He took off his armour and showed his skin. It was littered with cuts and scars and burnt, flaky spots and red splotches, not all of it recent. “Far too much,” he repeated.

Mia waved her hand dismissively. “Don’t worry, Sil, he’s just trying to scare you - he’s got no talent for magic. For you and me, this will be a walk in the park.” She nudged Silas and giggled. He felt warm and happy beside her, beside both of them, and he wished he had discovered them earlier in his life.

Then, his mind sabotaged his joy as it asked him whether they would have accepted him as he was back then? Would they even have spared a glance to a scruffy thief, homeless and penniless without a shred of self-respect? It sobered him up, and his smile dimmed as he tried to move past the thoughts and focus on the work they had to do.

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He expected the truth of the toads to be somewhere in the middle between their claims. He was quickly proven right once they encountered the first group of giant toads. These monsters came up to his knees and had beige and brown leathery skin with stumpy legs. Their magic elements linked with their eye colours, the three types being fire, water, and electric.

Fire toads were the easiest to deal with as they were effectively short-range flamethrowers: you were fine as long as you kept out of their range, something his spear greatly helped with.

Water toads were more difficult as not only did they release water that could form tough, defensive shields, they could also switch onto offence in a heartbeat and attack with jets of freezing water.

The worst, however, were the electric toads as their attacks were both unblockable and near unavoidable: they would open their damned mouths and zap you from a distance before you could even react. Although their attacks did little damage, they shocked you motionless which, during a battle, was practically a death sentence.

The reason Silas didn’t struggle as much as Aengus was because of his smaller frame, alongside his speed, allowing him to dodge more often than not. Regardless, he found himself almost reminiscing about the times with the boars who now seemed cute in comparison. Almost.

****

Hidden behind swamp-grass, the trio considered their options as a group of fifteen toads and their boss frolicked about ahead of them.

“You could go in and distract the boss,” Silas suggested, rubbing his arm which had recently been scorched.

Aengus frowned. “What colour is its eyes?”

Squinting, Silas studied the toad mother. It came up to his hips and had darker skin than its children with fist-sized bumps dotted across its back. It had purple, amphibian eyes.

“Purple.”

The man-giant violently shook his head. “No bloody way. I don’t even know what magic it has, but I know it’s not going to be nice. How about ye do it?”

Silas cleared his throat. “I’d love to, but I can’t. I’m, uh, busy—”

Harrumphing, Mia interrupted their chatter. “Fine, I’ll be the man and take it on.”

Aengus clapped her on the shoulder, and Silas noted with some irritation how gentle he was as opposed to with him. “Ye’ve grown up so fast. If only Silas could be like ye.”

She rolled her eyes. “Since I’m taking on the mother, you two better take out the rest. I don’t want to be barraged while fighting it.”

No further words were needed as the two men lowered into running stances, nodding at each other before setting off. Silas cut down two before the others started casting magic at him. Dodging frantically, he could only grit his teeth at the few that hit. Still, he forged onward and stabbed one through its eye and desperately chopped down another as it opened its mouth to smother him with fire.

Sidestepping an incoming jet of water, he dashed on and stabbed low, only to be blocked by a water shield. He had expected as much and instantly struck high before the toad had a chance to react. Puncturing through its brain, he almost sighed in relief when electricity dispersed through his body, momentarily blocking the signals to his limbs. He shrunk back and stood frozen in place, glancing down in terror and noticing a toad beside him, one with red eyes…

He screamed as the flames licked his body and seared his skin. Clumsily swiping at the toad, he got a lucky strike which he followed up on in anger. Diving into the swamp water, steam burst from his body and hid his exact position, saving him from another direct electric bolt. It hit the ground beside him and dispersed into the water, transferring into him but only doing enough damage to make him wince. He charged out from the cloud of steam, leaping over an attack he anticipated, and dived onto the monster.

He did quick, dirty work with his axe and the toad lay by his feet. Finished with his side of monsters, he scanned the rest of the battlefield to see Aengus furiously charging at his last three foes, taking attacks like a tank. Then, his eyes rove away and caught sight of Mia on her knees, gasping for breath.

Swallowing down his pain, Silas trudged towards the boss, freezing as he saw it turn towards him. He felt a sudden kick against his shins and he fell face-first into the swamp. Spitting out swamp water, he rose up, only to be cuffed across the head, his body crumpling back down. Although he now knew the boss was a telekinesis user, he couldn’t do anything with the information as his strength deserted him.

Despite fighting regularly over the last week, he hadn’t seriously considered the possibility of death for a while. It seemed like something that belonged with the Robert and Angela portion of the tutorial, not the Mia and Aengus part. Yet, right now it didn’t feel as much a possibility as a certainty. Hopelessness seeped to his core, and he barely had enough energy to raise his head when he heard a resounding roar.

Aengus had finished on his side and was hurtling towards the boss. He was hit fast and hard by an invisible strike, but he snarled instead of wincing and broke through the telekinetic force. This time it was the mother toad that croaked, before trying again to stop him, only to return to the same result. Unfortunately for it, the man-giant was too massive an entity for it to block. It took him two swift chops to split the toad in half, after which he rushed to Mia and Silas and picked them up.

That was the last thing Silas saw as his eyelids grew unbearably heavy and closed, leaving him alone in the cold, inky darkness.