8. Advance Payment
"No, no." The man with a broken right hand was holding a broken spear with his bloody left hand. The fractured spear was aimed at the pair of hyenas standing not too far away from it.
"Idiot, your legs are broken. Why the hell are you trying to survive?" Hilda didn't say it out loud; instead, she waved her tail, earthen rope shot out of the earth and wrapped around his arm.
Hilda wasn't sure if the man was too strong or if he mustered a tremendous amount of strength that broke half of them as he struggled.
"That is not right." Hilda had no idea when Knir appeared beside her. Black Mane exposed its teeth and growled at her.
"You need to understand the essence of each element. Otherwise, no matter how much mana you use, you couldn't wield the elements efficiently."
"Is that something to talk about now?" Hilda couldn't say it out loud. Knir did not know what Hilda was thinking, as they hadn't used the spell.
"There are not many left in the village who can fight. They will take care of it. Don't worry too much about them. Now concentrate."
Although Knir was teaching her, the man couldn't be carefree. The man couldn't know what they were talking about but was sure they were doing no good.
"Wind for range, earth for defense, fire for attack, and water for control." Knir looked at her, adding, "If you are proficient enough, you can use any elements any way you want, but for a beginner like you, you should stick to the basics."
"Now, you can't control wind and fire. So let's forget about them. That leaves earth and water. Try using water bindings instead of earth bindings."
"Do you want me to use a live human as a test subject?"
"What are you waiting for? It is not like that thing would live much longer."
Looking at that 'thing,' Hilda couldn't help but sigh. Hilda occasionally loses track of the fact that she is no longer a human, and neither the humans nor any other being of light would treat her kindly.
After Hilda's left hind leg shifted slightly, water tentacles slithered up from the floor and encircled his arms. It was not as quick as the earthen element, but it is moving under Hilda's will nonetheless.
"You need more practice to be fluent in using water mana. But it will do for now." Knir nodded and said, "As you can see, the elasticity was quite effective in binding other creatures using water magic. There is no way to break this without using overwhelming strength like Tsuth."
'This does make sense.' Hilda started to get the gist of Knir's words. She thought the earth was strong so that the earthen rope would be more robust. But the liquid state of the water makes it more useful for binding, and…
Hilda summoned the earth from the ground with a wave of her tail, which gathered above her to create a long spear resembling the one the man was wielding.
"Ahhhhhh…" The man screamed at the top of his lungs as the earthen spear pierced into her already bleeding thigh.
"What a good student you are." Knir smiled, asking, "What are you waiting for? End him."
"Black Mane," Hilda called, and it got the message. It had been five weeks, so its stomach started showing signs of hanging. Although it followed Hilda almost everywhere, it avoided running around much.
The water ropes were still binding his limbs. The man could only scream and groan as the giant maw-like jaw opened on his face and crushed his skull in a single bite.
"Hey, don't mess up its head. I won't be able to use it that way."
Black Mane didn't care about Knir's complaint and cracked the skull, spraying blood and brain juice all over the place.
"Huh! Make your girlfriend move." Before Hilda could look at her, Knir was already floating in the air.
A gust of cold wind washed over the land. Black miasma started to sip out of the ground and began to gather around the yet-to-be-cold dead body.
It wasn't the only body. Dead bodies all over the now destroyed village moved. It moved at first before it started to sit back up. The way the bodies stood up on their feet wasn't humanly possible.
No matter how often Hilda watched it happen, it still surprised her. It wasn't like she hadn't heard about necromancy or watched zombie movies.
However, it wasn't something she had ever imagined seeing in front of her very eyes.
Unlike what she had seen in the movies, the headless zombies didn't wander around like idiots. They avoid any creatures of darkness, like gnolls, kobolds, and orcs. They slowly walked out of the village like they were on a mission.
"What are you thinking about?" Hilda looked up to find Knir talking to her. "Oh! You can't talk." She threw a scroll at Hilda, which she tore off.
[Due to the effect of the magic circle, the host will be able to voice his thoughts out loud.]
"Will I be able to use necromancy when I evolve and activate the darkness mana?" Hilda couldn't help but feel a little excited. Necromancy was consistently portrayed as a powerful ability in the new-age fantasy literature set in her previous realm.
"That depends."
"Depends on what?"
"Not all darkness mana are the same?
"Huh! How can mana be different? Isn't just mana like earth and fire?"
"Light and darkness are different from normal elemental mana. It is something you call eternal mana. Although they might never learn to use it, the light and dark mana would have certain abilities."
"Your ability is necromancy." Hilda thought for a moment before inquiring, "Tsuth must have the ability to exceed the limit of physical abilities."
"Kind of… Tsuth can do what is called [weight manipulation]. He could hit you with one punch, which would feel like a giant had hit you. That is a rare one. The most common one is the ability of darkness mana, which is [shadow manipulation] or [Berserk]. Gnoll generally has [Berserk]."
"What about light mana?"
"Why do you want to know? There is no way you can awaken light mana."
"Why?"
"Because it is fixed at birth. Every soul has the mark of sin or virtue at birth. You are associated with Gnoll. You must have the sin of
Hilda didn't want to think about it, fearing the spell might voice her thoughts. She wanted to inquire more about it, but fearing that she might expose her own secret, she decided to change the subject.
"So, what do you want to talk about?"
"Your intelligence never ceases to surprise me. How do you know?"
"In the last two weeks, you never used those scrolls, even if we had met multiple times, but today…" Hilda thought momentarily before asking, "Is it about the thinking you wanted me to do?"
"If it weren't for that elf bastard, I would have made you my familiar a long time ago. What a waste…"
"I am not interested."
"Do you think your opinion matters?" The look on her owl's face sent a chill down her spine. "I am just joking." No matter what she said, Hilda knew it was not valid.
In moments like this, Hilda reminded herself that she was nothing but cannon fodder. She might be better than other hyenas, but she was still at the bottom of the pyramid.
"I have a gift for you." When Knir pulled it out of her robe, Hilda could see it.
"Inheritance shard!"
"Not just any shard. I have embedded it with an intermediate core formation circle. Better than the elf had given you."
Even if she held it before her, Hilda did not intend to take it. The spell just voiced her thought, "There is no free food in the world."
"It isn't free. I am just giving the reward first."
"Are you trying to make me a martyr?"
"There is no way I would try to do that."
"Then why are you giving me an intermediate core formation circle when even an omen has given me just a beginner core formation circle?"
"Because I know you need it."
"I need it!"
"You have a dual elemental affinity. One of your sub-cores is earth, and another one is water. How are you going to create your main core?"
"What main core? Wasn't this how most of them do it?"
"Do you really think there is no difference between me and that useless shaman of your tribe?"
Hilda knew there were glaring differences but didn't know what they were. Like Gnoll, who evolved from hyenas, Beastkin was similar. However, it was understandable why there were a couple of Beastkin warlords, yet the gnolls were almost at the bottom of the pyramid.
"That is because I have seven sub-cores and one central core." The owl's face looked quite proud as she explained, "Different creatures have different numbers of subcores. You have five; our race of strix has seven."
This was something Hilda had never heard before. She didn't dare miss a single word Knir was saying. Hilda was sure that even the shaman did not know much about it.
"Although our central core is also in our heart, the position of other cores varies. Depending on the race, the number of subcores varies. Do you know why those damn elves have so much mana? They have nine cores, the highest in any humanoid creature."
"So you are trying to say that activating other subcores before the main cores increased the amount of mana?"
"That was also why I was surprised when I found out a hunger-driven lowly creature would create a core in a tail instead of the heart."
Hilda didn't say she did it because she didn't believe that elf and did it just to be safe rather than sorry.
"However, now that you have a dual elemental core, you would need a mana circle that could combine both elements so that one of the elements wouldn't be useless for you."
Knir put her palm forward, adding, "You could combine both elements with this circle. It won't just be able to contain the dark mana but also influence it with the duel element, making it stronger. But this core can only be created as the central core, not as subcores."
Hilda hesitated momentarily, asking, "And you are giving this to me because?"
"Because I want you to kill someone."
It would be wrong to say that Hilda wasn't tempted to take that shard, but…
"Are you asking me to kill someone whom someone like you couldn't be able to? Isn't that just sending me to die?"
"It is not like that." Knir shook her head, adding, "If I kill him, I will die. But if you do it, you won't die."
"Do you think that makes sense?"
"Just like witches, those creatures of light have something called saints. Unlike a witch, the identity of a saint is fixed at birth. As long as we are able to kill it, we will reduce the chance of future trouble."
From her gaze, Knir could understand that Hilda wasn't convinced.
"The target is a child. However, he has a strong light affinity. The purity of the light mana is so strong that unless it is a witch or other highly dark creature, it can destroy its core."
"Even your?"
"Not mine. But his mere presence will be enough to reduce my ability by half."
"As I have yet to awaken dark mana, it won't affect me."
"Correct."
"Do you really think such a saint candidate won't have any bodyguards?"
"You don't have to worry about that. I will take care of them."
Hilda paused momentarily, asking, "Are all these attacks just an elaborate hoax to divert their attention?"
"You are more intelligent than you look."
"But how do you know where he is?"
Knir smiled at her, saying, "Do you think they are free from the cardinal sins just because they are blessed with light mana?"