Turning Point

Chapter 14 - Turning Point

"Yo."

"Bogyaaaaaa!?"

"Gyan!?"

"Gyaun!?"

"Gygya!?"

I instantly slashed monsters that came out of the forest, a Terminate Boar and three Assault Dogs, a monster that looks similar to a Dobermann, into pieces.

It took less than a second.

It was a decent time for a Sword Saint.

I celebrated my birthday a while ago, making me ten years old.

Recently, I have found my life very fulfilling.

I spent recent days training with Master, who started to train himself once again after I surpassed him while training Elder sister in the village.

Visiting the Boreas family once a month also had become a recurring event.

Every time I visited, Young lady would launch a surprise attack, and she even attacked me during the night when Philip-san offered me to stay the night.

It was good practice for countermeasures against surprise attacks, and most importantly, Ghislaine, a stronger opponent, would train me every time, so it was a very lucky thing.

The biggest secret to one's improvement is to imitate stronger people and fight with stronger people.

Thanks to that, my sword skill is sharpened every time I go to the Boreas family, and I finally landed an attack on Ghislaine a while ago.

It was a single attack, but a single attack.

It made me happy as it made me clearly feel my growth.

And right now, I would participate in the hunts of militia where Master and Father belong and accumulate a lot of experience in real battles against monsters like the Terminate Boars that I just killed.

In the beginning, I felt resistance towards the feeling of a blade cutting through a living thing, but after I gathered my resolve and decided that it was something I could not avoid as a swordsman, I accepted it easier than I thought.

Well, it's pest control after all.

Thinking that it also happens in Japan, it wasn't anything I needed to feel heavy about.

Recently, I even started enjoying killing monsters, but... well, it isn't a good symptom, so I should be careful.

"Phew. There have been too many monsters recently. Are you okay, Emily, Rawls."

"No problem.

"Second that. I won't lose to my daughter."

"Haha! Of course!"

Master laughed cheerfully while Father showed some fatigue despite saying he was okay.

As Master said, monsters seem to become very active recently, so leaving me and Master, who have a lot of stamina, the other people, including Father, looked tired.

Master also felt sad that he couldn't go to Rudeus's 10th birthday because of being sent to exterminate monsters all the time.

The country I'm currently in seems to have a culture of celebrating the 5th, 10th, and 15th birthday grandly, so he seems to be very sad that he couldn't attend such an occasion as a parent.

By the way, in my family's case, we were originally poor, and having twins made our finances worse, so on my 5th birthday, all we could buy was a hooded coat that could hide Elder sister's green hair.

Although it was the result of wanting to do something about the bullying caused by green hair, my parents would still apologize for not being able to send me a present even now.

Personally, being introduced to Master is the greatest gift I could ever receive, and I feel happy and fortunate enough to be born to parents who cherish me so much that I feel a little guilty.

It made me think I should've been more filial to my parents in my previous life.

By the way, on our 10th birthday, Master surprisingly invited our family to his home and celebrated.

My parents felt very embarrassed, but I felt very happy that Master and the others treated me like part of their family.

Elder sister, who learned many things from Zenith-san and Lilia-san, was very happy being congratulated by them and their daughters Norn-chan and Aisha-chan.

As a birthday present, I received a sword that I currently use to exterminate monsters, while Elder sister received a short sword for self-defense that fits Water God Style, making us even happier.

I must take good care of the gift I receive.

...still, it feels bad that they celebrated the birthday of children of another family like us, but couldn't celebrate their son, Rudeus' birthday although it was caused by the circumstances.

I swore to myself that I should treat him a little kinder the next time we meet.

And so, we ended cleaning up the monsters that appeared in the morning and returned to the village.

With me, Master, and Father as an exception, the others went to the clinic Zenith-san opened.

Elder sister is probably helping over there right now.

I don't know if Master will go to Zenith-san, or go home, but Father and I separated from him and went home.

Father and I return to our house where Mother is waiting.

"Welcome back, Emily, Dear."

"We're back, Bonny."

"Tadaima."

I spoke in a slightly better tone after ten years of learning this new language.

Our house is old, but I like having a family who would welcome me back.

It seems that 15 years old is an adult in this country, so I plan on going on a journey of training after reaching that age, but I think I should return regularly.

"What about Sylphy?"

"As usual, she went to Zenith-san's place to help."

"I see."

While listening to Father and Mother's conversation, I relaxed for a while.

It's so peaceful.

During my journey of training, I probably won't be able to be so leisurely, so I should enjoy the peace as I can right now.

"Mm?"

It was that time when I was relaxing. My right eye suddenly captured a strange mana reaction.

Ghislaine, who probably possesses the same eye I have, seems to be able to see the boundless mana that fills the natural world, so she wears an eyepatch to hide her demon eye because she gets tired of being able to see too much.

But maybe because my demon eye has a lower sensitivity compared to Ghislaine's, or maybe for other reasons, all I could see was the mana that people leak from their body, just like battle aura and when using magic.

That eye suddenly captured mana flowing into our house.

An unprecedented situation, an anomaly.

Master taught me to be extremely vigilant in such situations, so I quickly picked up the sword I received as a birthday gift and looked toward the direction mana was coming from.

"What, is that...?

The abnormal mana came from the sky.

Not here, probably in the sky directly above the town of Roa, an extraordinary mana cloud swirls.

An anomaly that even my lower sensitive demon eye could see it so bright and clear it was dazzling.

According to Rudeus, he once used a Saint rank magic spell near the village as his graduation test from Roxy-san, his magic teacher, but I didn't see anything at that time.

Moreover, the color of mana is strange.

Mana also has colors.

Pure battle aura mana is close to transparent, while mana with attributes that change into wind or water would look green or blue.

The only time I saw a strange mana color was when Rudeus used two kinds of magic spells at the same time.

But the color of the mana vortex in the sky was not only two.

Brown, purple, black, yellow.

Colors that are stronger and deeper compared to Rudeus' magic spell are mixed into each other looking indescribable.

Bad.

That is bad.

I had an intuition that it wasn't something that a human could deal with, even with fantasy swordsmanship and magic.

That thing, it's within the category of big earthquakes, big tsunamis, and gigantic typhoons. It's at the level of catastrophic natural disasters.

I saw that catastrophic mana vortex falling into the ground.

A tsunami of mana spread out explosively from the point it fell.

It should easily reach where we are.

But, I can't do anything about it.

In front of such a thing, there is no way that a person who learned a little fantasy swordsmanship could do something to deal with it.

Despite that, the only thing I could do was to jump towards my parents, who were worried about my sudden change.

I think it's a pointless move.

I don't know what kind of phenomenon that tsunami of mana would cause, but I have a hunch that we are going to be squeezed out or crushed by the massive amount of mana.

But even if that's the case, I wanted to raise the possibility of saving the two of them close to me, so I pushed them to the ground and covered them with my body.

The next instant, my consciousness was swallowed by the torrent of mana, dyed in pure white.