Weapons forged from pure elemental force turned out to be even more useful than Jhin had anticipated. A Giant Frog's hide was coated in slick, viscous fluid — enough to rob most physical weapons of their momentum and leave nothing behind but a shallow scratch that the creature wouldn't even register. The element-blades punched straight through that problem.
"Time, resume."
The wind- and ice-element longswords slid effortlessly into the skulls of the other two frogs. The moment they slipped beyond Jhin's direct control, the element-weapons detonated and reverted to their raw elemental nature.
Inside the skull of the frog killed by the wind-element blade, a muffled boom rang out — then a clean, circular hole blew open as countless wind elements churned within, shredding flesh and blood into fine mist. The other frog's head was flash-frozen in a solid block of ice; the weight dragged the entire body crashing to the ground.
The frog Jhin had killed with the lightning-element blade was different — a web of hairline cracks had spread across the surface of its skull, and thin threads of white smoke were curling lazily from those cracks, carrying with them the faint, mouthwatering scent of cooked meat.
"A-Amazing! That's amazing!" Megumin stood at a distance and watched Jhin drop all three Giant Frogs in the blink of an eye — using something uncannily similar to [Light Blade], that style of magic that condenses elements into a weapon. The spectacle made her fingers itch something fierce. She desperately wanted to lob an Explosion Magic right now, just to join in the fun.
Fortunately, Megumin still remembered what Jhin had told her, and she smothered the urge beneath thoughts of food.
As a general rule, only three Giant Frogs ever appeared around a given frog pond at any one time. They leapt out of the water in the morning and ambled around the nearby area like bored old men taking a stroll, then retreated back into the pond at dusk. So long as adventurers kept their distance — beyond twenty meters — the frogs would never initiate an attack.
All things considered, they were a fairly harmless variety of monster. The trouble was that leaving a Giant Frog pond alone for too long caused both the pond and the frog population to grow. Once a single pond housed six or more Giant Frogs, the Adventurers' Guild would issue a commission and send adventurers out to exterminate them.
After the extermination, the Guild would dispatch workers to fill in the now-empty pond and destroy the monster nest entirely. That said, once a year a peculiar weather phenomenon known as the Giant Frog Rain would roll through — and on that day, the frogs no longer emerged from their ponds.
Instead, they rained down from the clouds like scattered seeds, pelting the vast suburban prairies outside Landosol. On the day of the Giant Frog Rain, every Adventurers' Guild in the royal city mobilized to head out to those prairies and cull the swarms. For adventurers who had a weakness for fried Giant Frog legs, it was nothing short of an annual festival.
Jhin had dealt with three. Four remained. As he wove between snapping tongues, he made another attempt to sever them — but the Giant Frog's tongue was its lifeline, packed with a resilience that element-blades alone simply couldn't cut through.
Pecorine's Void weapon could probably do it, he thought.
With that idle reflection, Jhin activated Time Stop again and dispatched the remaining four with wind-element blades — clean, efficient, no fuss.
Having no ranged or magical offensive options was his biggest weakness right now. If he hadn't picked up those new skills yesterday, his only option against the Giant Frogs would have been to beat them to death with his bare fists — and that would have been genuinely difficult. Their hides were saturated with that special fluid; physical attacks barely managed half their normal effectiveness.
"Jhin, is that your new magic? What's it called?" Megumin's eyes were practically sparkling as she stared at the translucent, pale-blue longsword in his hand — the one he was using to slice off the frogs' limbs.
It was nothing like [Light Blade]. This was a weapon condensed from wind elements — but she had never heard of anything called [Wind Blade]. [Wind Arrow] was a spell exclusive to elven rangers. Had Jhin invented this himself?
Megumin had no intention of ever learning any magic other than Explosion Magic, but that didn't mean she was ignorant about the rest. She was, after all, a member of the Crimson Demon Clan — a race of arch-wizards to a person. Her theoretical grounding was beyond question.
Jhin removed the limbs from all seven Giant Frogs and tucked them into his Storage Space. The finest meat on a Giant Frog was in those powerful, muscular thighs — the flesh everywhere else was laced with a mild toxin, which was a rather odd quirk of the creature.
He tossed the carcasses into the pond, then let the wind-element longsword in his hand dissolve slowly under his direction. Only then did he answer Megumin's question. "It's not magic. You can probably tell — it's just a large volume of elements forced together into a solid shape."
"Right, it looks like the same principle as [Light Blade]."
"I'm just brute-forcing elements into a clump. That's all there is to it." Jhin raised his right hand and curled his fingers slightly toward his palm. A hazy red orb of light materialized in the center of his hand. "Like what you're seeing right now."
"Directly controlling elements and mana…"
Megumin's brow knitted. She had the nagging feeling she'd seen this method somewhere before. After a moment's thought, it clicked — she had heard about it in a classroom back in Crimson Demon Village. The teacher had been describing how ancient mages cast their spells. The technique was so far removed from modern magic that the students had assumed it was something the teacher had made up for a novel.
And now, overnight, her own companion had transformed into one of those ancient mages — a figure she'd only ever encountered in a lecture. Megumin clicked her tongue in amazement. "You've actually gone and taken up the ancient mage's school of magic. The world really is a strange place."
"Sounds impressive, but right now all I can do is push elements around like this. I can't cast a single actual spell."
"As it happens, I do have one piece of ancient magic — but it's back at home."
"Crimson Demon Village?"
"No, no, no. The guild hall." Megumin extended her right hand toward Jhin — palm facing up — while a smile practically radiating the stench of money spread across her small face. "One million Eris. Thank you for your patronage."
"You want a million Eris for one piece of ancient magic? Why don't you just rob me while you're at it?"
"You won't find ancient magic anywhere else out there, you know. Take it or leave it."
"What type of ancient magic is it?"
"Offensive."
"Can't you go any lower?"
Megumin kept smiling and said nothing. Her pale little palm, bathed in sunlight, somehow managed to reek of money even harder.
"You know as well as I do — our guild is barely off the ground. I don't have money just lying around; everything went into the guild fund."
"Then hand over the magic tool storing my dark history."
"No deal. I'll just go ask Kokkoro — maybe she knows where to find some ancient magic."
Megumin's patience snapped. She swung her fists at Jhin and started pounding on him. "You absolute jerk — you'd rather skip out on learning magic than give me that thing back?! What do I even owe you?!"
Jhin let her soft little fists tickle him like a gentle scratch and grinned. "Don't you think there's something deeply satisfying about having someone else's secrets in the palm of your hand?"
"You rotten, twisted piece of work — when you die, you're going straight to hell!"
"Ha ha ha!" Jhin threw his head back and laughed. "I've got connections down there. Not worried in the slightest."
"Achoo!" Back in the main world, Satania — who was grimly slogging through her homework — and Vignette — who was keeping watch over her — both sneezed at exactly the same moment.
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🔥 New history: Danmachi: Summoning Ruri Gokou, And other Chuunibyou Brats
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