Low-Fantasy Occultist Isekai

Walking through the grassland after what they had experienced just a few hours earlier felt somewhat anticlimactic. It wasn't that Nick wanted them to be swarmed by monsters; rather, repelling a demonic invasion, casting a ritual to determine if his friend was possessed, and then having that same ritual hijacked by a goddess was a lot to process.

At least this time, nothing bad happened. But I'm beginning to think that I should be much more careful about where I hold my rituals.

What happened this time wasn't anything like what Sashara had done, to be fair. Nick had still been in control of the overall magic, and if he had wanted to, he could have halted the flow of mana even while the fox statue worked its magic.

There had been no intrusion into his system, nor had he been powerless to act. Still, Nick felt he should have expected something like this to happen.

Well, something did happen. Staring at the notification, Nick decided that while he would prefer not to face any more demons, he could appreciate the rewards that came with the danger.

The reward was less compared to the dungeon's, but then again, the demon itself had said it didn't believe its trap would come to fruition. It was their presence that had even allowed it to attempt a crossing.

Despite his brooding, he wasn't particularly worried. Elia seemed to be in high spirits—pun intended—now that she had finally received her miko Trait. Having a third tail seemed to enhance not just her illusions but also her body, as she was skipping around, cartwheeling in the air while trying to get used to her increased stats.

"You know, I'm starting to think that I'm the weird one," Rhea muttered, and Nick had to stifle a snort.

It was true that despite being the oldest of the group, she was now undeniably the weakest, but that didn't mean she didn't belong. "We wouldn't have been able to handle the corrupted spirits without you, and your knowledge of plants is by far the best. You are making us a lot of money."

She sighed, not particularly reassured by his encouragement. "I know I'm useful, but it's pretty clear I'm falling behind. It's just… Alchemists don't really get to add more traits or spells without a ton of training, you know? We have to study for years, and even then it takes several tries to brew something good enough to give Exp."

Nick hummed. He wasn't exactly an expert in the matter, but he knew he had an unfair advantage. Despite there being no one in Floria to teach him magic—not just a spell or two, but the actual basics—he had an entire lifetime's worth of knowledge of the arcane to rely on. While not everything turned out as he envisioned, he managed to cobble together many powerful spells from what he already knew and the instinctive understanding granted by his traits.

"Does Ogden just have you study and brew for him, then?" He asked.

Rhea pursed her lips, as if considering how much to share, before shaking her head, "No, while that is a good portion of what I do, he also teaches me higher concepts. He had me working on the basics of transmutation before we left, though I didn't get too far and certainly not enough to use it in battle. I've reached the necessary level for it, but I just haven't been able to make it happen yet."

That sounded mighty useful. He knew that alchemists in his old world desperately sought to restore their ancient powers, among which transmutation—the ability to change the basic building blocks of the universe, turning one thing into another so utterly that it could be considered to have always been such—was one of the most highly regarded.

He could think of several ways to use such a power in battle. Just turning the air into poisonous gas would be enough to win many low-level fights, but that was just the basics. He imagined an alchemist as powerful as Ogden might have been able to turn people into stone with a mere gesture, though that probably wouldn't work as well against high-level foes.

Changing the ground into liquid or turning an attack into harmless dust would have been enough to end many fights.

And that's just the stuff I can think about off the top of my head. I imagine an actual experienced alchemist would be able to do so much more.

"Is it a matter of time? I can see why you wouldn't want to use it if it took you too long, but we might be able to find you some slow monsters to test it against. That should give you some exp." He finally said.

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Rhea hummed, considering. "Time is certainly a constraint. It can take me up to a minute to be ready to cast, because I need to have such a firm grasp of the change I want to happen that it just makes more sense to chuck a potion. But there is also the fact that I often get lost trying to make the transmutation as efficient as possible because I don't have that much mana to throw around."

That was a problem Nick was familiar with from his past life. Being limited to one or two spells before tapping out was a curse he was grateful to have escaped, so he had some tips to share.

"If you want, we can go over your process when we stop for the night. My class might not give me insights into the process, but I do know mana. I can probably help with your efficiency in casting." He said, earning a smile of appreciation. It was smaller than Rhea's usual smirks, but much more genuine.

"I'd like that, thanks." She murmured.

Before they could get any further, Nick felt Elia stop bouncing around. "Hey!" She shouted, "If you guys are done chattering, there is something here!"

Shaking his head, Nick went to investigate. His senses told him that nothing was moving beyond the usual critters, and he sensed neither concentrations of mana nor voids that would indicate the presence of another fox tunnel.

"Look at that," Elia said, pointing to the side, and Nick finally saw what she was talking about. A fire pit had been dug and then refilled not too far from them, and there were signs that people had been there recently.

"Well, that doesn't tell us much," Rhea muttered, but Nick shook his head.

"This isn't close to the usual routes. We're very far from any road, including the local hunters' paths." That didn't necessarily mean they had found proof of something sinister. It could just as easily suggest a group of people exploring or getting lost, but considering their recent streak of bad luck, Nick doubted that was likely.

"There are no wheel tracks either, so this isn't a merchant that tried to cut on travel time," Elia said, now sounding more serious.

"It could still be locals from one of the villages. I don't remember one this deep, but that doesn't mean much. Some are too small to put on a map." Nick walked around the fire pit, gently using [Minor Elemental Manipulation] to break up the earth.

There was something there.

A flick of his finger finally unearthed the object, and he lifted it into the air with a telekinetic pull.

"Looks like the broken handle of a knife to me," Elia said, looking at the dirty object curiously. Her eyes had become even more animalistic since she got her third tail, complete with a slit pupil and a fiery iris. Nick wondered if her vision was different now, but there hadn't been time to discuss the changes yet.

He nodded, about to let the handle drop, when Rhea lifted a hand, moving closer. "Could you clean this up?" she asked, her voice breathy.

Nick complied, summoning a glob of water and pushing the handle into it. He swished it around until the liquid turned murky before fishing it out with another flick of his finger. "There."

Rhea grabbed the handle as soon as it was out and began turning it over, running her finger over the grooves that the water had revealed.

Now that it was clean, Nick saw that it was a surprisingly well-made piece of steel. He still couldn't feel any active mana from it, but he doubted it had been made without its use. The level of detail was simply too great to achieve in this world otherwise.

What he had thought were grooves turned out to be tiny depictions of people slaying monsters, forging weapons, and being celebrated for it.

It now seemed much stranger for such a well-made object to have been discarded here. Even if the blade it was attached to had been broken, given the half-inch of steel that stuck out of it, it could have been taken to a blacksmith for repairs or even sold for a good profit.

It was also unlikely that it had been simply lost. Nick had found it buried under several inches of dirt, indicating it had been placed there intentionally. If it had been a low-quality chunk of iron, he might have understood. But this? It made no sense.

"This is a piece made by House Elpen," Rhea eventually said, sounding like she could hardly believe it herself.

Considering that Elpen was the name of the artificer house she hailed from, which had been exiled from its hometown of Toneburg years earlier, Nick could see why she was so shocked by the discovery.

"What do you think it's doing here?" Elia murmured, surprisingly aware of Rhea's fragile state.

The older girl took a moment to compose herself, but she eventually clenched a hand around the handle. "Every artifact ever made by House Elpen was either destroyed, stripped for parts, or sold for cheap after the enchantments had been broken. Only the best of our masterworks are still in circulation, and that is because those who bought them guard them jealously. This… this was probably once an enchanted dagger, bought for trash prices after what made it great was taken from it."

Nick and Elia remained quiet, allowing their friend to process her emotions. Rhea had confided in them about her family's fate, but it wasn't a subject she enjoyed revisiting. Encountering a relic of what had once been must have shocked her.

It's even weirder for it to be here, then. Yes, it might have been sold at a low price as further humiliation for the Elpens, but whoever bought it probably knew it was a high-quality product. Even without an enchantment, it could have sold for a lot of money in Alluria.

"We'll find them," Elia eventually said, startling Rhea out of her brooding. "Whoever left the handle here… They are probably not too far from where we are, and my nose is very good after I got my third tail."

Rhea looked lost, as if she wasn't sure whether she wanted to confront the person who had discarded her family's product like trash. "But what about the temples? We don't have that much time before the month is up."

Elia shrugged, unconcerned. "I have already gotten the Trait. While I want to get back to Floria to address my people's problems, I doubt it will take us that long to track the owner down. The fire was still smoldering yesterday, so they are at most two days away from us."

Seeing that she needed one last push, Nick placed his hand on her shoulder. "The worst that can happen is that they bought it from a reseller and don't know anything about it, but a detour of this length won't hurt us. The temples have stood for a century; I doubt they are about to fall to the demons anytime soon."

Eventually, Rhea nodded. "Alright. This is… Thank you, guys. This is important to me. I might not have gotten the family class, but our work is still important to me."

With that, they had a new destination.

Nick didn't mind. A simple deviation to check who had thrown away the knife handle and why seemed much easier than dealing with possibly demon-infested temples.

He wanted to test a few things before they moved on to the next one anyway. No more relying on gods for help.