The Liberomancer [Isekai Progression LitRPG]

I took some time out for the rest of the day to go around looking at some other things in the village that might need some attention.

The people that we had saved while on the way during our first journey had mostly recovered and had assimilated in with the village. Putting those people aside, there were two villagers who would've recovered eventually anyway but were able to benefit from a touch of healing magic. I sent out my Elephant Frog to help with plowing some of the fields given the lack of beasts of burden, but that was more of a drop of water in a well rather than making a massive change.

The villagers were doing a good enough job getting back up on their feet on their own, with anything that they really needed like food already provided for.

I got to sleep indoors that night rather than setting up a tent in the woods, which was another reason I had taken the detour.

The next day I set out, and though nothing of interest happened, it was my first time sleeping in the great outdoors that night. Sleeping on the ground was something that I had only really done back when I had come to Arconia initially, and was a bit hard to get used to as this was the wilderness and not a city street. I considered summoning the Elephant Frog for no other reason than to be able to lie on its soft belly like a giant mattress, but I wanted to save it in case I needed it in an emergency.

There was a reason why I had chosen to use the bear instead of the Elephant Frog as my primary means of transport - it was much harder to grip onto the Elephant Frog than the bear, which made loading it with the stuff I was carrying harder as well unless I also wanted to lug around a cart with me. But because it was better for getting away quickly, even if we were off the road, it was an excellent backup if I chose to abandon everything to run away. On the other hand, on level ground, while carrying a passenger and some baggage, the bear was not that much slower than the frog.

The following two nights, I was able to find a village whose infrastructure was good enough that they were able to rent me a room. Most villages were far worse off than Granny Qi's - some of them had been abandoned entirely it seemed as there was nothing left other than the outline of some houses in the dirt. Others were hardly more than just a bunch of tents with a rickety wall surrounding them to dissuade wild animals, and sometimes not even that.

Still, that was better than lying on the ground in the middle of the wilderness even if it was just sleeping in the back of a barn. I would have my red fox stand guard over me while I slept as yet another precautionary measure, whether I was in a village or out in the wilderness. That was another advantage to traveling in groups - having someone to take turns to keep watch at night. Without anyone else to rely on other than myself, I could only turn to the Rank One summon to watch out for danger as I hit the hay.

I only traveled nine hours a day with the help of the bear, and time was about to run out, I'd find a village or a comfy spot on the ground to spend the night. If I had time, I would work on a new Rank Three grimoire.

I had already made a copy of each of the two I had already made, and after failing so many times to make one that might help me fly, I had shifted to writing something else.

The Strange Tale of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was what I decided to work on now. It was one of the few other works which I remembered well enough to make a somewhat accurate recreation of.

I could tell though that my memory was going to be an issue going forward - it had been over a year, and that was more than long enough to forget a lot of things.

There were some grimoires I could've made when I first arrived which I probably couldn't now - because I no longer remembered what I would've written well enough to do it now.

I had heard of a grimoire that could boost one's memory in the capital, though I didn't know the specifics of how it worked. I would definitely have to look into it once I got there as a potential solution to this problem. A problem that was only going to get worse with time - I really needed to find either a way to charge my phone, or the Ruler of the Astral Wind's treasure. Either that or just a way back home.

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About midway through my journey, someone actually tried to talk to me while I was on the road.

"Sir Liberomancer!" I heard someone call out, and saw a green-scaled lizardman standing near the side of the road under the shade of a tree.

He eyed the bear I was riding on with some concern and asked, "Is that bear a summon? May I approach?" To be fair, my bear was also glaring at him as it tended to do to anyone I didn't know, so it was understandable as to why he was nervous.

"Yes, it's fine," I said. "He is in fact one of my summons."

The lizardman was still slightly nervous around the creature, warily looking at it as he advanced.

He then noticed the purple sash I was wearing. "Lord, my apologies for bothering you, however, if you would be so kind as to provide some aid. I haven't eaten in over a day, and I no longer have coin either to make the journey to Arconia before I fear that I'll collapse from hunger. My throat has also been parched - could you please spare me a piece of your generosity?"

"Sure," I said. Preserving mana was always a priority, but because I was mainly relying on summons while traveling, it did free up some options as summons did not consume mana. Plus, one spell wouldn't hurt. [Fish Haul] created a large amount of fish - so many it was hard for me to hold in my hands. That was the side effect of having a high Luck stat. "I know that many lizardmen prefer live fish, but this spell can't do so…" I said while handing the entire pile to him.

I knew it was customary among lizardmen to gift each other fish when they first met, though as far as I knew it would usually be a single fish and generally it would be some sort of rare fish as well.

These were rather plain and common fish, but that was the best that I could do - I knew the spell specifically so that I wouldn't starve if worse came to worse after all and not because it would let me eat gourmet food while on the road.

"Are these all for me, Lord?" he asked, shocked.

"Yes. And no need to call me 'Lord', I'm no one's lord," I said to him. Many high-ranking Liberomancers were also nobles and vice-versa; Rank Three Liberomancers could usually earn enough money or distinguish themselves in ways that would lead to them either buying noble titles or being granted them. And nobles taught themselves to read and write, and had the money and the time to study Liberomancy in depth, becoming Rank Three Liberomancers far easier than ordinary people could.

Lance had tried to give me some titles and land for my efforts during the war, which I had declined. On the surface this was supposed to be a 'reward', but was more like cheese in a mousetrap. Land, titles - both of these things could not easily be moved, meaning I'd be tied down to the city. I doubt that Lance intended for it to seem that way - then again, he was a politician. It was possible that those were his intentions in the end.

The bear gave me a hopeful look as I was handing the fish to the lizardman. "No fish for you," I said to it. "You don't need to eat."

Summons could eat and drink - they just didn't need to. There were many theories on how or why this was - most people assumed that since summons were created with a Liberomancer's magic, they were also sustained by the same. The fact that they didn't consume mana at all while being summoned or used kind of clashed with this theory. Although everyone agreed that mana powered spells, what powered skills in general? No one seemed to know. Some people theorized there was something other than 'mana' that people had - something that they couldn't quantify or measure, I guess it'd be called something like 'qi' or something else along those lines which was used up for skills.

As with a lot of things regarding Liberomancy - when you look into things too deeply the answer was basically along the lines of 'that's just how the world works.' I had gotten somewhat used to hearing that as a reply to most of the questions I had, but it was still annoying nonetheless. This world really needed a tutorial village.

The bear then gave me another sad look - one I recognized, the same look that Cheddar would give me when I wouldn't give him another treat. Unfortunately, for the bear, it couldn't exactly pull this off very well and I had grown immune to this as Cheddar pulled it so many times.

The lizardman polished off two of the fish right away - with an efficiency that only the lizardmen seemed to have. Their mouths were far more adapted to this than that of a human's - there were quite a few things about lizardmen biology that I had learned while staying in Arconia, such as them preferring warmer temperatures compared to humans.

Come to think of it, I had never gotten to know the answer to one question I'd had - did lizardmen lay eggs, or give birth?

I had never found myself in a scenario where I could ask that question without it seeming extremely awkward, and as such, was still ignorant as to what the answer was, despite being close friends with at least one lizardman.

I used [Create Water] to quench some of his thirst once he was done eating.

"Master Liberomancer, I do not have the words to express my gratitude," he said. "I had called out to other travelers, though none of them stopped to help…"

"If you don't mind me asking," I said. "What exactly happened to you?" He didn't seem to be a villager, his clothes were nice but dirty, and he had some passing knowledge of Liberomancy to know what a summon was and how it functioned. Why was he wandering around the road in the middle of the wilderness with not a penny to his name?