The B-rank quest parchment in Kaito's hand was a simple missing persons case. Three travelers had vanished on the trade route skirting the Cinder Peaks. To the guild, it was a straightforward investigation. To Kaito, it was a direct return to the epicenter of the magical fallout, the same region where Roland's party had slain their Titan and where the land was likely still raw and unstable.
He left Whitepeak at first light, the two silver stars on his badge drawing more looks from the city guards than his face ever had. The road towards the Cinder Peaks was a well-traveled artery of commerce, but even here, the signs were subtle. Patches of vegetation by the roadside were wilted or showed strange, accelerated growth. The air carried a faint, metallic tang.
Unbeknownst to him, two separate parties followed his trail.
The first was Kaelen. The Half-Divine hero moved with a preternatural silence, a shadow flitting between the rocks and scrubland well off the main road. His enhanced senses tracked Kaito's progress effortlessly. He was a predator observing new, unfamiliar prey, his every instinct telling him this "pacification specialist" was the key to understanding the land's sickness.
The second was Roland and his shield, Borin. They were not following Kaito, but their path converged with his. They were on their way back to the Cinder Peaks on a different guild assignment—to clear out a newly discovered nest of Magma Drakes that were threatening the mining operations. Their heavy armor and purposeful stride were a stark contrast to Kaito's quiet travel.
Kaito, his own senses tuned to the flow of energy in the land, felt the disturbances long before he reached the site of the disappearance. He left the road, following a faint, sickly pull of corrupted mana into a narrow, ashen canyon. The air grew hot and thick. And there, he found the "missing travelers."
They were not dead. They were transformed. Huddled together in a small cave, their bodies were partially crystallized, the same violent, jagged growths erupting from their skin. Their eyes were wide with terror, glowing with the same feral yellow light as the beasts. They were trapped, mid-transformation, victims of a concentrated pocket of the very energy he had come to cleanse.
Before he could act, the ground trembled. From a fissure in the canyon wall, a hulking Magma Drake, its scales glittering with infected violet crystals, erupted with a roar. It had been drawn to the same corrupted energy, mutating into something far more aggressive and potent than its kind should be.
At that exact moment, Roland and Borin, having heard the roar, charged into the far end of the canyon. "Drake!" Roland yelled, his spear coming to hand.
Simultaneously, Kaelen, observing from the high canyon rim, saw the entire scene unfold: the corrupted civilians, the mutated drake, and the B-rank adventurer standing calmly between them.
Kaito was now at the center of a storm. Before him, innocent lives to save. To his side, a mutated monster surging with power. Behind him, two A-rank adventurers ready for a fight. And above, a hidden hero judging his every move. There was no more room for subtle pacification. His next action would be witnessed, analyzed, and would define him in the eyes of everyone who mattered.
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『Author: I just remembered he literally child he live 10-20 day not even a year. Bruh』
The Child in the Storm
The world exploded into noise and terror. The monster roared, the big armored men shouted, and the trapped people made tiny, scared sounds. It was too much. Kaito's mind, for all its power, was still so new, so simple. It didn't see a complex tactical scenario; it saw a big problem, a scary problem, and people who were hurting.
[Sage! There's a big lizard! And the people are sick like the forest! The loud men are here!]
His internal cry was not one of strategy, but of overwhelmed panic. He didn't think about the watching hero on the cliff or the reputation of the A-ranks. He just saw the immediate, screaming needs in front of him.
[Prioritize containment. The civilians are the primary objective. The entity is a secondary threat.]
Sage's voice was the only calm thing in his world, a lifeline. The "entity." The "civilians." These were words he understood from their missions.
The Magma Drake, enraged and corrupted, belched a stream of superheated rock and violet energy directly at the cowering, crystallized travelers.
Kaito didn't think. He just acted.
He didn't try a fancy shield or a clever counter-spell.He did the most direct, brute-force thing his childlike logic could conceive. He planted the Leviathan Staff and pulled on the earth with all the raw, unthinking power he possessed.
The ground in front of the travelers didn't just rise; it erupted. A sheer wall of solid granite, twenty feet high and five feet thick, slammed up from the canyon floor with a sound like a mountain cracking in two. The drake's fiery breath splashed harmlessly against the impossible barrier, the violet energy dissipating against the sheer, sudden density of the stone.
Roland and Borin, who had been mid-charge, skidded to a halt, their jaws slack. They had seen earth magic before. They had never seen the very planet itself obey a command with such instantaneous, absolute force. It wasn't a spell; it was a decree.
"By all the gods..." Borin muttered, his grip on his tower shield tightening.
Kaito ignored them. His focus was on the sick people. He scrambled to the base of his own wall, his fear for them overriding everything else. He reached out, his hands glowing with a soft green light, not with a conscious spell, but with the pure, instinctual desire to fix it.
[Initiating targeted assimilation of foreign mana. Focus on the crystalline structures.]
He touched the arm of one of the travelers. The violent crystals encrusting their skin flickered and then dissolved into harmless dust. The yellow light in their eyes faded, replaced by dazed, human confusion. He moved to the next, and the next, his movements frantic, like a child trying to clean up a spill before he got in trouble.
He was so focused on his task, he completely forgot about the monster.
The Magma Drake, enraged by the sudden wall, rounded the end of the barrier, its molten maw opening for another attack.
It never got the chance.
A blur of silver and light fell from the canyon rim. Kaelen landed between Kaito and the drake, his rune-etched sword a blinding arc in the ashen air. With a single, precise strike fueled by his Half-Divine strength, he cleaved the mutated drake's head from its shoulders in a shower of dissipating violet sparks.
Silence returned to the canyon, broken only by the confused whimpers of the now-cured travelers.
Kaelen stood over the drake's corpse, his chest heaving slightly. He turned and looked at Kaito, who was still hunched over the last traveler, his back to the dead monster, his entire being radiating a simple, focused concern for the people he had saved.
Roland finally found his voice, striding forward. "What in the seven hells was that, kid? That wall..."
Kaito finally looked up, his eyes wide. He saw the dead drake, the stern-faced Kaelen, and the shocked Roland. The complexity of the situation finally crashed down on him. He had used too much power. He had been seen.
He didn't have a clever lie or a boast. He just pointed a trembling finger at the now-safe travelers, his voice small and defensive.
"I... I fixed them."