Translator: Exodus Tales
Editor: Exodus Tales
Chapter 7 – The Fireball Is a Magician’s Romance!
The stars outside the window were brilliant, and the moon was bright. And in this quiet world, only the occasional bug call sounded.
Despite ordinary people having fallen asleep already at this time, Zwei was still alert.
The rest a mage received from meditation was often better than sleep. If not for the fact that prolonged meditation caused mental damage, every magician in the world would most likely replace their sleep with meditation.
Moreover, Zwei had just experienced the benefits of the Magic Academy System. His consequent excitement left him wide awake.
Despite the blanket over his body, Zwei’s eyes remained fixed on the hourglass. Eventually, the final grain of sand fell to the bottom bulb. Then, the hourglass flipped over in its bracket, and under the pull of gravity, the fine sand particles started falling downward once more.
This change signified that a new day had begun.
Seeing this, Zwei immediately focused his mental power on the tattoo on his hand and opened the Trial Gate.
Sure enough, what appeared this time wasn’t the red notice of “Today’s trial opportunities have been used up.” Instead, what appeared was the [Enter/Cancel] option.
After decisively choosing “Enter,” Zwei appeared in the starting camp of the Night Forest’s Outskirts.
With his previous experience, he quickly collected the provided supplies and entered the forest.
The benefits of the Lesser Fireball spell quickly revealed itself. Now, Zwei needed only one attack instead of three to kill a goblin. However, his targets would run about with a flaming head for a while.
Initially, Zwei had been a little worried about starting a forest fire if his Lesser Fireballs missed. However, he quickly discovered that his worries were needless. While he didn’t know if it was because of the dungeon’s restrictions or some other reason, even when his fireballs struck a tree, the flames would only burn for a few seconds before going out.
Although he didn’t find out the cause for this situation, with his restrictions cast off, he progressed through the dungeon even faster than before. Moreover, in an attempt to see if he could score an A-rank evaluation, Zwei didn’t even bother collecting his spoils to save time.
Soon, Zwei had advanced into the second half of the forest. Now, strong goblins were gradually replacing the fodder goblins.
The strong goblins had much better fire resistance than the fodder goblins. Even so, they still fell after two Lesser Fireball hits. What with the Lesser Fireball using nearly the same amount of mana to cast as Magic Bullet, Zwei had consumed only one of his rations thus far, despite having advanced nonstop.
Moreover, because of his repeated practice, Zwei had now thoroughly integrated the Lesser Fireball’s information with his body.
After advancing aggressively, he eventually saw a faint light ahead.
Although Zwei felt he could trounce the goblin spellcaster’s group now, he still chose to eat the other piece of hardtack and wait for his stamina and mana to recover fully.
Afterward, he rushed straight into the camp and sent a Lesser Fireball blasting at the goblin spellcaster.
Meanwhile, the two strong goblins that got startled awake by Zwei’s sudden appearance snapped out of their daze and charged at him. However, Zwei, who had long since prepared for this moment, easily evaded their attacks.
Just as Zwei planned to kite the two strong goblins like before, a fireball suddenly appeared in front of him!
Instinctively, Zwei bent over and rolled across the ground like a lazy donkey, dodging the oncoming fireball by just a few centimeters.
Afterward, he promptly got up and started running, leaving the two strong goblins with no opportunity to catch up to him. Simultaneously, he glanced at the fireball’s origin, only to find the goblin spellcaster, whom he had expected to be at death’s door, waving its magic staff and howling gibberish. Moreover, as the spellcaster’s nonsensical howling continued, another fireball appeared before it.
Zwei was shocked. Based on the previous battle, the goblin spellcaster’s HP should be similar to that of ordinary goblins. Logically, it should’ve died after eating one Lesser Fireball. However, judging by the spellcaster’s current state, although it couldn’t be considered unharmed, it was still alive and kicking.
Wait, it’s using a fireball? In that case, there’s a chance that…
“Crap! Could that thing’s trait be fire resistance?!”
Zwei cursed in a low voice.
If I had known you were of the fire element, I would’ve picked Minor Water Mastery and used Ice Bullet!
However, it was useless to complain now. He could only deal with the two strong goblins first before turning around to teach the goblin spellcaster a lesson.
After thinking up to this point, Zwei leaned forward and summoned a fireball. He then shot it at the face of one of the ferocious strong goblins chasing him.
Caught off guard, the strong goblin failed to defend itself against the attack, and it started shrieking in agony while clutching its face. Initially, Zwei thought to capitalize on his small victory. However, the goblin spellcaster interrupted him with another fireball.
Although not as good as Zwei’s silent casting, the goblin spellcaster only needed to scream “wah” or “gua” to prepare its own Lesser Fireballs. In short, its casting speed was also quite fast.
Meanwhile, due to the spellcaster’s support, Zwei faced quite a challenge when dealing with the two strong goblins.
Fortunately, he managed to find a gap and successfully killed one of the strong goblins. And without its partner, the remaining strong goblin couldn’t do much.
Shortly after, the second strong goblin fell at Zwei’s feet, as well. However, Zwei wasn’t unscathed, as half his sleeve had been burnt. He felt greatly ashamed of this outcome.
Guessing that he wouldn’t be receiving an A-rank evaluation this time, Zwei vented his anger on the goblin spellcaster.
He could’ve easily finished things with just three Magic Bullets. However, he instead chose to smash the goblin with over a dozen Lesser Fireballs.
What a waste of time. I should’ve saved my energy and used Magic Bullets right off the bat.
The goblin spellcaster’s bamboo basket didn’t yield anything good this time.
And as Zwei expected, the Proof of the Strong was nowhere to be found.
However, despite having anticipated this, he was still a little disappointed upon verifying his conjecture.
The bamboo basket held three items.
The first item was a blue potion called Mental Potion. According to its description, it could replenish mana—and quite a lot by the looks of it.
The second item was a white feather. Unfortunately, without an Identification Crystal, Zwei had no way to identify it.
The third item was a card the size of a bank card, with the words “Resource Voucher” written on it.
…
[Resource Voucher (Temporary)]
Resources/Temporary Item
You can exchange this for 10 Metal in the collection box.
…
The collection box should be the red box. After understanding the purpose of the card, Zwei put away his three rewards.
With this dungeon run, he had verified that the Proof of the Strong would appear only on a dungeon’s first clear.
Afterward, Zwei used Collection on the goblin spellcaster’s corpse. Unfortunately, what he got was the thing he wanted the least—a Goblin’s Rag. In other words, it was the bastard’s underwear.
“…At least put in some effort after you die.” Sighing, Zwei used the Return Crystal to teleport back to camp.
Now, what he looked forward to was naturally the clear rewards.