TERNLF Vol. 1 Chapter 2 Part 2

Full title: The Exiled Reincarnated Noble Lives Freely

Note: If you found any typos/mistakes, pls write them in the comment. Thanks.

Translator: Canon

____________________________________________

“This spot should do.”

After confirming with a detection spell that no one had followed us, I turned to Nikka while deploying a soundproof barrier.

“About earlier—”

“Do you mean the bill?”

“Not that. I meant when you tried to cast healing magic.”

Back then, I had watched the flow of her magic closely—seen it, in the literal sense.

“I saw it clearly. You really did try to use healing magic. That wasn’t a lie.”

At those words, Nikka looked up at me, startled.

The one who had taught me magic at the frontier fortress was a man named Dalmor.

I had learned many things from him, including how to see the flow of mana.

Even in this world, people who could see magic were rare. I certainly hadn’t been able to at first.

But thanks to Dalmor’s instruction—and my own backbreaking effort—I had eventually reached the point where, with focus, I could roughly perceive the movement of basic magical energy.

According to Dalmor, a true expert could eventually read the flow of mana from a distance and even predict an enemy’s next move.

But I was just an ordinary person. I had never reached that level.

“Still… your spell vanished right before it activated.”

“You could tell?”

“A little. But from what I saw, your healing magic was definitely about to cast.”

“Yes… Normally, at that point, I’d feel my mana flowing from my body toward the wound. But instead, it just… disappeared.”

She stared down at her hands in confusion.

“That’s why I brought you here,” I said.

“Brought me here…?”

“To figure out why your magic vanished like that—”

I drew a small blade and made a shallow cut on the tip of my finger.

Holding up the bleeding finger for her to see, I continued.

“I want you to try healing this. One more time. Right here.”

A bead of blood welled up from the cut and dripped to the ground.

Nikka stared at it with wide eyes.

“D-Do you think I can…?” she asked, her voice full of doubt.

She was likely still shaken by her repeated failures. They had begun to traumatize her.

So I softened my tone and expression as much as I could.

“It’s all right. I know the failure wasn’t your fault.”

Saying that, I gently took her hand.

She flinched.

Too sudden? I panicked internally, then hurried to explain.

“Sorry for startling you. But to analyze your mana properly, I need to make physical contact.”

Some might call that a sketchy excuse. But it was the truth.

“…All right.”

Her voice trembled with tension.

Under normal circumstances, I doubted she would’ve accepted so easily. But given how cornered she was, she probably had no one else to turn to.

It seemed she chose to believe me.

“Then, I want you to cast healing magic using your full strength, everything you’ve got.”

Casting a basic healing spell at full output for such a minor wound was pure overkill.

No professional healer would do something so wasteful.

Conserving mana and using only what was necessary for each injury was a core principle for any recovery specialist.

After all, if they ran out of magic when it truly mattered, the consequences could be fatal.

“This… this is necessary, right?”

“Absolutely.”

We weren’t on a battlefield. All I needed was to analyze her mana flow.

Unlike a genius like Dalmor, who could perfectly read magic with a glance, I needed the spell to be as strong as possible to perceive it clearly.

That was why I had asked her to go all out.

“…All right. I’m ready.”

She nodded faintly, raised her hand over my wound, and closed her eyes in concentration.

Through her trembling fingers, I felt it—an immense surge of mana building within her.

“…Incredible,” I whispered to myself.

Her magical power was far beyond what I had expected from a so-called novice adventurer.

Of course, it was “impressive for a beginner,” but even so, the amount of energy she had gathered—and yet still failed to manifest—confirmed that something was truly wrong.

“【Low Heal】.”

Nikka opened her eyes and cast the spell.

I saw the mana flow clearly, moving from her core into her palm and toward the wound.

And then—

“It vanished…”

Just like before in the diner, her magic scattered and disappeared the moment it was about to activate.

“Ah…”

She had held it together until now.

But the instant her spell collapsed again despite pouring her heart into it, Nikka broke down.

She sank to her knees, as if crushed by the weight of despair.

From her wide, vacant eyes, drops of tears fell silently to the ground.

“You don’t need to cry.”

I knelt in front of Nikka and gently patted her shoulder.

“I’ve pretty much figured out what caused it.”

As she slowly raised her head, her expression asked, Really? I nodded and moved on to the questions I needed to ask.

“There are a few things I need you to tell me.”

“Yes.”

“You said you could definitely use healing magic during the guild’s entrance exam, right?”

“That’s correct. Just like you and that man did earlier, the examiner created a small wound, and I healed it.”

“Have you used healing magic at all between the exam and today?”

“I… I don’t think I have.”

She paused briefly to reflect before answering.

“Then I want you to recall everything that’s happened between then and now. Did you pick up anything? Buy anything new?”

“Anything…?”

Again, there was a pause. She must have been mentally tracing the days between the exam and today.

“Ah—”

“Did something come to mind?”

“Well, it might not be important…”

“Even the smallest detail could help.”

I met her gaze and encouraged her to speak.

“I think I mentioned this before, but I came to take the exam because a friend invited me. We were going to become adventurers together.”

Right, she had said she came with someone from the same village.

“Her name’s Grassa. The day after the exam, the two of us went sightseeing in the royal capital.”

Coming from a countryside village, the capital must have seemed like an entirely different world. With the stress of the exam behind them, it made sense they’d want to explore.

Apparently, Grassa had once lived in the capital before moving to Nikka’s village, so she acted as their guide.

I had assumed they were childhood friends from the same village, but it turned out Grassa had relocated due to her father’s circumstances.

“But everything in the capital is so expensive… No matter where we went, we couldn’t afford anything, so we just walked around window shopping.”

Window shopping, essentially.

Of course, they hadn’t come to the capital entirely empty-handed. But travel and lodging costs from a remote village to the capital would have already eaten up much of their savings.

And if they failed the exam, they’d have to return home. That meant setting aside money for the return trip, too—they couldn’t afford to be reckless.

“Still, we figured since we’d made it all the way to the capital, maybe we could buy matching accessories or something small…”

In the end, they agreed not to spend anything until they knew the results and returned to their inn.

“Then the next morning, Grassa said she had something to take care of and left on her own.”

Not familiar with the capital, Nikka had no choice but to wait at the inn until Grassa came back.

It was past noon when Grassa finally returned, holding a small leather pouch.

Where had she gone, and what had she done?

When Nikka asked her that—

“She pulled something from the pouch and gave it to me.”

Nikka reached toward her chest and took out the pendant hanging at her collar to show me.

“She said an old acquaintance of hers in the capital gave us matching pendants as a preemptive celebration for passing the exam. Said it was just a practice piece and didn’t cost anything.”

Judging from her smile, receiving the pendant had made her genuinely happy.

“Can I take a closer look at it?”

While Nikka smiled softly, my expression clouded as I reached out my hand.

“Of course.”

She lifted her hair and undid the clasp behind her neck, then carefully placed the pendant in my palm.

It still held the warmth of her skin.

“…I thought so. This is the cause.”

“What?”

At first glance, it was just a plain, cheap pendant.

But the moment it touched my hand, I felt something—subtle, but unmistakably wrong.

“Let’s make sure.”

Still holding the pendant, I cast a simple light spell with my fingertip.

Just as I expected, the mana dispersed right before activation.

No—dispersed wasn’t quite right.

It had been absorbed into the pendant.

I held it up in front of me and inspected it closely.

It had a modest design, with a gemstone set in its center. The stone didn’t appear valuable, and the decorative metalwork around it was crude and clumsy.

That’s likely why Nikka had believed Grassa when she said it was just a practice piece.

Had it looked expensive, she might have been suspicious. But its amateur craftsmanship had kept her guard down.

“Could this pendant really be the reason?”

“Without a doubt. Try casting healing magic again, without wearing it.”

I drew my knife and reopened the cut on my finger, just like before.

“But… what if I fail again?”

“You won’t. I promise.”

She hesitated.

I understood. After repeated failures, trying again must have felt terrifying.

But if we didn’t fix that wound in her heart now—before it festered—it would only grow worse.

“Breathe slowly. Focus the mana within you. You can do this. Trust me.”

“…All right. I believe you, Toa.”

After a deep breath, Nikka met my eyes with renewed clarity.

Then she raised her hand over my wound and spoke firmly:

“【Low Heal】.”

Warm mana flowed from her palm into the cut.

As expected—without the pendant—her magic activated properly.

I watched, little by little, as the wound on my finger closed.

There was no question: her healing magic was functioning exactly as it should.

“…Huh?”

But what happened wasn’t what I had expected.

Even with a basic healing spell, a cut this small should have healed instantly.

Yet my wound was closing so slowly, it was visibly noticeable.

Was Nikka’s mana weak?

No—that wasn’t it. From what I had seen, the amount of mana she had gathered and used was more than sufficient for a wound of this level.

And that was exactly why I was so puzzled by the sluggish recovery.

“I—I did it! Toa, it worked!!”

“Ah… yeah.”

Nikka, however, looked completely overjoyed, as if none of that mattered. Her beaming smile looked ready to break into a dance at any moment.

I gave her a vague smile in return while quietly mulling it over.

What exactly is going on here?

Was she not bothered by how abnormal the healing had been?

“Nikka, just hypothetically—”

With that question in mind, I turned to her.

“Did your friend Grassa give you anything else? Or actually, it doesn’t have to be her—was there anything new you’ve been wearing since the exam? Aside from the pendant, I mean.”

“No, nothing else… Is something still wrong?”

“I see… no, it was probably just me overthinking.”

The pendant Nikka had been wearing was a type of magical item known as a cursed tool, a device designed to interfere with a person’s body or abilities.

Her mana flow still seemed a little off, so I’d wondered if there might be another cursed item interfering with her.

But it looked like that wasn’t the case.

“You’re not carrying any other stones or gems, like ones with cracks or chips in them, are you?”

“I couldn’t afford something like a mana stone.”

True enough. An item like that would be out of reach for a novice adventurer.

The pendant itself had been simple in design. Its effect relied on the properties of the small gem embedded in its center.

At first glance, it looked like a cheap, low-grade jewel—but in reality, it was a mana stone, the kind typically used as a power source in magic tools.

Mana stones could be found inside certain monsters and absorbed ambient magical energy from the air.

That accumulated energy served as fuel for tools that incorporated them.

However, if processed a certain way, a mana stone could retain its ability to absorb mana while losing the ability to store it.

And that process was deceptively simple: scoring the surface of the stone in several places.

That said, mana stones were hard and difficult to scratch. In fact, polishing and repairing the surface could restore their energy-storing function, which is why damaged stones were rarely used as components.

But when deliberately scratched and left unpolished, the result was a cursed tool.

Anyone with proper magical knowledge could easily avoid such items.

But for someone like Nikka—an inexperienced rookie with no formal training—it wouldn’t be surprising if she unknowingly accepted such an object.

And that pendant? Unless you inspected it closely, it just looked like a harmless accessory.

If you flipped the jewel over, you could see the scratches. But how many people would think to do that?

“…My healing magic… did it not work after all?”

She had likely hoped I would celebrate with her.

But I had fallen silent, deep in thought, and now she looked up at me with worry in her eyes.

To ease her fears, I quickly explained what I had figured out.

“Just like I suspected, that pendant was a cursed item designed to interfere with your magic. The moment you took it off, your spell worked. That much is certain.”

“I see… then that’s a relief. I can’t believe it was the pendant’s fault. The royal capital really is full of scary things, isn’t it?”

Yes, her magic had activated. That wasn’t the problem anymore.

But—

“Ah—”

As I tried to think of a gentle way to explain the part that still bothered me, Nikka suddenly gasped.

“Oh no! Grassa has one too—she should have the same pendant as me!”

“That’s right, you said you were given matching pendants.”

“Yes! They were only slightly different in color, but they were the same design.”

Panic spread across her face as she worried whether her friend might be experiencing the same issue.

And she had every reason to worry—if Grassa’s pendant was also a cursed item, she might be suffering from its effects without realizing it.

But then something struck me.

Nikka had said she and Grassa came to the capital together to become adventurers.

So why had they ended up in separate parties?

I tried to recall if I’d seen anyone like Grassa among that man’s group.

But there hadn’t been any girl around Nikka’s age in that party.

“Nikka. Do you know where that friend of yours, Grassa, is right now?”

“Um… I haven’t seen her since we parted ways at the Guild this morning. I should’ve spoken up and said I didn’t want to be in a different party…”

“That’s just it. Why didn’t the two of you join the same party?”

“Well… those men we met at the temporary Guild Home said they were looking for a healer to join them temporarily, and they invited me.”

This morning, after receiving their guild cards at the temporary Guild Home, the girls had set out to join a party.

Apparently, a staff member had warned them that it would be dangerous for two beginner girls to form a party on their own.

It would be safer to temporarily tag along with a veteran party willing to guide them.

But with the Guild Home in utter chaos—largely thanks to me—most of the adventurers showing up were in disarray as well. There wasn’t a single veteran party available to take new recruits under their wing.

Normally, the guild would help arrange these things. But right now, they didn’t have the resources to do that.

Most of the instructors and staff members responsible for such arrangements had become “victims” in the incident the other day. That left the current personnel stretched impossibly thin.

Because of that, Nikka and Grassa had to find a party on their own in the midst of that confusion.

That was when they encountered the party led by the large man from earlier.

Their usual healer had apparently fallen ill with something contagious, and they were searching for a temporary substitute until he recovered.

They weren’t planning to take on anything too dangerous, just easy commissions that wouldn’t risk serious injury.

So as far as they were concerned, bringing on a rookie like Nikka for basic backup was good enough.

“I really did want to join the same party as Grassa, but they said they didn’t have the capacity to take in two new recruits. I was about to decline, but then…”

Grassa had stopped her.

She said she had a lead on a party that needed a frontliner, and she’d be fine.

Since Grassa used to live in the capital, she had a lot of connections; something Nikka had noticed when Grassa showed her around town.

Trusting her friend’s word and her confident encouragement—“You should definitely go with them”—Nikka had decided to accept the offer.

“Do you have any idea who that ‘connection’ might’ve been?”

“No… not at all.”

“I see. In that case, let’s head to the Guild for now and ask if they know where Grassa went. They should have a record of what party she joined.”

Nikka still looked anxious, but I offered the reassurance calmly.

Then I tossed the cursed pendant—resting on the nearby box—into a mana-shielded pouch made of special fabric designed to block magical influence.

With that done, Nikka and I left the alley behind.

—

Next→