Fear Not The Elf Who Knows 10,000 Spells - Chapter 32

The monster's core grinded into nothing long before I reached the end of the tunnel. And when it was gone I sent a wave of fire to get rid of anything left behind just in case.

My hand was red and bloody as I looked at it in the end. The skin was shredded and peeled back in some places. The muscles of my shoulders, biceps and forearms felt like they were burning. Shoulder blades and back muscles hurt a bit too.

I put my mind out of the pain in my limbs right now, as I was focusing on something else.

Looking at my hands, my body, there was a grey smoky fire enveloping me. A cold physical aura. It was the remnant of the Einsam's mana I absorbed and filtered.

Yes, none of the Einsam's self was within this mana, just information.

But that information was, well, the phantoms it had used against me.

Does this count as me hosting ghosts? I wondered.

The first thought in my head was what to do about this mana. It's origin was the Einsam sure, but it had nothing of its will or anything resembling that. There was this feel to the mana of nostalgia, regret and now, relief.

I started to let it go, let it evaporate form my body.

For a moment I had the thought to hold onto it. I won it by conquest and I think eventually I could assimilate this mana completely and with it the knowledge and skills I originally absorbed it for.

I shook my head. No, that sounds like a process and a half. The work of a lifetime and I will just be chained to this self-forced quest for who knows how much of my life till I master this power.

I'm not putting anymore chains on myself. I began this life free and I will continue to live it as I wish, not by what's forced upon me to deal with, if I don't want to.

I could almost feel gratitude that wasn't my own, but it felt too much like an imagination of my mind. Like something I told myself to feel good about myself.

"Now how to go about this?" I muttered.

I let go of Rein, letting go of thousands of adventurers' skill, knowledge and instincts should be much easier.

But what's the proper way? Doing it like how I used Jilwer to refill my mana levels with Minus' mana feels... disrespectful. Like this mana is something sacred that should be treated with a bit more reverence.

Speaking of Minus I can't feel the mana link curse to her anymore. Yes, the hook she has in my soul due to the bargain of me doing something for her, in return for her help is still there.

But, the mana link curse, that would send her mana to me that would turn me to only be able to use her mana should I exhaust mine (making my body reject my own mana)? That was gone.

Weird but not something to focus on for now.

"How to do this?" I thought out loud.

Well, the goddess should give them passage to the afterlife, so a holy spell?

I only know one healing spell though...

"Praying is about faith, isn't it?" I said to myself.

Standing here outside the tunnel, on the edge of a cliff, facing the sea crashing on the walls below. There was a path to the side that lead down to the beach. They sky was brightening with the light of the morning. The sun rose maybe an hour or so ago. The sky was cloudy.

Did that fucker's illusion messed with my perception of time as well? That shitty Einsam seemed to have human-level intelligence enact cruelty and reveled in it, so probably.

I clicked my tongue, then shook my head. Not important for now. I still have time.

Hands open flat, brought my hands and pressed them together.

The universal gesture of prayer.

I called upon the mana within me. Mine, intertwined with the ghostly mana, guiding it to the spell structure of the Healing Spell.

Hey, Goddess? Can you accept them into the afterlife? Help them? If they are... something that can be helped?

I didn't have Certainty that this would work. I was really waving in the dark here.

Once the Healing Spell was finished I didn't cast it on myself. There was just this ball of energy in front of me, since I created the spell structure outside. I didn't know what else to do.

I just had a vague idea and Faith.

The clouds parted. I felt a smile caress my cheek, which was a warm and odd feeling because it wasn't me smiling.

There was a beam of sunlight engulfing me. Not focused but just clouds oddly parting. Viewing it from far away, the whole scene might be a natural coincidence.

The apparitions that appeared around me dispelled that notion. The ghostly vestige of all kinds filled my view. Adventurers, warriors, mages, priests, archers, lancers, rogues, normal people, people of all kinds.

Victims of a thousand years slain before their time by one monster. Looking at all these ghosts, it felt unfair that the Einsam managed to live and survive for so long.

Yet at the head of this ghostly parade were the three strongest phantoms I faced, summoned by the monster. They looked content. The Ghost Warrior grunted and nodded. I think he grunted, they didn't make a sound. The Ghost Swordsman brought his hands together as I did and bowed. And the Ghost Mage tipped his wizard hat at me. Huh, he didn't have that before.

"Good job, Boyo."

I startled at the sudden voice, and looked behind me.

"Flamme!" My eyes widened, as I felt a smile grow on my face.

"You did it good." She walked forward, ghostly hand patted my head, as she passed by me to join the other ghosts. "I marked the plants you wanted back in the tunnel." She said with her back to me.

"Huh?" Not the most eloquent reply, but I was mentally tired. Sue me.

"You still have stuff to do, don't you?" She turned back smiling, as golden light flared around and within every ghost. "Live a long life, Trenn. With as little regrets as you can manage." Flamme grinned cheekily. "And if you can, do help my dense student get to Ende once she starts her journey."

"Y-Yeah," I said back, finally found my voice. I felt a calming warmth in my chest from everything, this meeting, this goodbye and all. Then I realized what she just asked me. "Hey, wait and minute—!" One by one, very quickly like smoke going out in a wave, the ghost vanished in small flash and shine of gold.

The sunbeam was the only thing left and slowly it dimmed as the clouds closed once more.

I stood in silence for a while, only the sound of waves soothing me in the background.

"She knows? Did she read my memories?" I said to myself. I suppose it shouldn't be surprising given everything.

I went back into the tunnel, flying at high speed. The place was big so I needed to search it quickly, and...

I found a literally neon yellow glowing rock. It was very obvious in the relatively dark tunnel.

Also the giant neon yellow arrow was pointing at it with a caption 'SHINEGLOW MOSS BEHIND THIS ROCK!'.

"Thanks, Flamme. Really couldn't have figured that out." I deadpanned.

The rock glowing and arrows were clearly magic spells of some sort, but I didn't have time to sit down and study or memorize them.

I moved the rock to see a massive amount of the moss. Enough that even if I fill my bag and carried some I couldn't take them all.

On the back of the rock that, now lost its glow, I found the formula for a spell titled 'Flora Lifeforce Detection Spell'.

"I don't have paper and pen on me." I said mostly to myself as I clicked my mouth.

The giant arrow changed to another caption: 'MEMORIZE IT, NUMBNUTS!'

"...That was a timed trigger." I realized after a moment by observing the spell array. "She literally expected me for complain about not being able to write this down, and actively wrote that message." I blink in disbelief as this. "What the fuck—She's sassing me from beyond the grave."

There was no audio spell. There were no other spells cast or happening, just the neon messages left. I could have sworn I heard mocking laughter.

Frieren, your master is mean.

I went to gather the Shineglow Moss and fly out of the Death Tunnel.

It's only when I was about to cast Schnellwurf to fast travel back to Ackerheim that I realized my mana reserves were back to a 100%.

The Goddess gave me a refill. ...Holy shit. I was frozen, just floating in the air, at that realization. Okay processing that and everything else later on.

I cast Schnellwurf and went on my way.

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AN: Short chapter today. Next one I'm wrapping things up and that's it for this arc. Chapter after that will be a timeskip.