It's high noon, the northern forests of clover kingdom are brimming with life. The merchants move in their carts, foresters wander and the hunters hide.
Meanwhile somewhere on a lonely road, a giant boulder could be seen moving by itself. But when someone looks at it from close-up, only then will they see the person carrying it on his back.
"One hundred and eight!!... THUD!! One Hundred and Nine!!.. BAMM!! ONE HUNDRED AND TEN!!!"
The peculiar figure screams as he tosses the boulder aside, revealing a cloaked body hidden beneath a hooded cape of cheap quality.
It was Asta, keeping his Training going every moment he found himself free. Just like a fanatic.
It has been six days since he left the mountain, uneventful six days of constant walking which would have bored the hell out of Asta if he didn't have variety of training ideas constantly popping up in his head.
Just now, Asta had finally completed his so-called morning workout. He was reeking with sweat and dirt, making him seem like a beggar.
He waits for a second, making his way to the boulder he just threw and laid down on it to rest. Soon He began talking to himself, reviewing the result of his efforts of his past few days.
"I can already do more than a hundred steps with this boulder.. It took me a little over a year to began doing that before... Also I have got to train in this too. "
Asta was obviously refering to raw mana piled up in his body. It was different from anti-magic after all, causing him rethink his strategies again and again.
However above everything else, Asta still had got no idea of how to convert his mana to gravity attribute. Forget converting, he hasn't even figured out how to even use mana in any way other than to feed his Devil heart to increase regeneration.
He didn't have anybody teaching how to use mana, never before have he either been able to sense mana so he couldn't even try using the way others do.
"Oi!!"
"I should go visit the Grimoire tower or something. It would be good if I can find someone willing to teach me –"
"Oii..!!!"
Asta looks back in annoyance, finding a bunch of lightly armoured guards looking at him with fury. A Merchant's caravan was behind then, it's carts numbering in dozens.
"Are you the one who put this Rock here?"
"It's not a rock but a boulder...What about it?" Replied Asta to the stupid question. If there was a rock in the middle of the road with a person on top while there is also a trail of deep footprints leading to it. Then it is easy to connect the dots.
However the face of the guards twisted in disgust at the answer.
"Remove this thing! Don't you see our cavaran!?"
"That's right. Use a little brain, you brick head!!"
" Shitty peasant! You think this road is your father's property or something!?"
The guards immediately bombarded Asta with insults and orders. However all he heard from them were pathetic superiority complexes, unnecessary arrogance and buckets of useless words.
He slowly turns, noticing that he was not even in the middle but the side. The caravan clearly had enough space to move on but they still insisted on him to move.
'I ain't dealing with bullcrap.' Asta decided unanimously as he stopped caring and began thinking about his training again.
The guards noticed this behaviour. Their faces twisting immediately to horrendous ones, their expressions filled with irritation and fury as one of them began walking forward.
"You Little PUN–"
Whoosh!
A hand grabs the soldier from behind, barely stopping him a inch away from the leg that was almost in his face. The soldier slowly looked up, noticing Asta's face which was looking down at him with his foot stopped right in front of his nose.
"Don't bother me, You morons."
It was one thing to endure insults but Asta was never going to just sit there and take a beating to avoid trouble. He had long sensed the hostility and was planning to teach the idiots a lesson but it looks like there was someone actually skillful between them.
Asta lifts his gaze, watching as a mercenary wearing plated leather armor pulls back the stunned soldier. It was a man of tanned skin, his grey hair tied into a ponytail while a sword and grimoire hung at his waists and a shield sat on his back.
"Are you gonna try the same?" Asta asked when the mercenary reached for his sword.
What happened next was something even Asta didn't predict.
The mercenary drew his sword, coating it with mana that shone in a purplish light. He twisted his arms, going into a full swing that sliced the boulder in two horizontal slices in a single attack.
.... Sliddddeeeee...
The boulder's top slowly slides to the side while Asta stood on it, drifting alongside it with a poker face. He wasn't going to show it but in realitt he was dancing inside right now.
'He cut the boulder!? What was that wierd glow? Wait, haven't I seen captain yami do something like that? It was like the mana became a sponge to absorb the damage or something."
Asta was so ingrossed into figuring how the mercenary did it that he even forgot he was standing still on a slowly sliding boulder and soon he paid the price as he fell and kissed the ground by his face with a thud.
He tasted dirt and grass yet he didn't try to shift his focus onto his pose. His mind was fully fixated onto the same sight that has ingrained into his head, repeating again and again before his eyes.
Asta has always controlled anti-magic– the most unstable form of mana. He has also spent most of his life, learning from watching others and through self effort. This two habits of his has given him something akin to a artificial talent for controlling. His body has already began moving at minisculest level, trying to imitate a replica of the mercenary's technique.
The mana in Asta's body rapidly shifted, spreading to the most weapon like part of his body– his right hand. The mana slowly coated it, shining a weak almost transparent glow but the basis of techniques was almost the same with the only difference being control and the amount.
'This is it! This is how mana should be used! Why didn't I think of this sooner...?'
... Nudgenudge.
"Who the hell–"
Asta felt something poking him from the side, breaking his focus and irritating him. He turns, coming face to face with a old hunched back women with a donkey drawn cart.
"Are you okay, young lad? Did those merchants hit you?"
"...Heh *smirks* they could try." Asta slowly stands up.
The women sighs in relief, his gaze falling onto the split boulder to the side, turning her curiosity up.
"Why would a boulder be here...? Did they– Holy!!" She turns to Asta, immediately getting startled in the process as her gaze fell on one of his horns.
... Complete silence took over. Neither Asta nor the old women moved from their spots.
Asta just stood there, panicking inside as the old lady extends her hand towards his face and then to his head.
"Where did you buy these from? They look smooth."
"Eh?...Smooth?"
The old lady nods, slowly caressing Asta's devil horns as if they were a goat's.
"Many lads in the villages have been wearing black horns like these. They said it was to honor someone."
'Huh? That's weird. I don't remember anything about that.'
Asta thought for a second, wondering if there has been anything like this happened in his world. Nevertheless it was perfect cover story for his appearance.
"I bought it off it some poacher, he said it came from a small horned goat in the mountains."
....
The lady doesn't comment, instead she kept rubbing horn making Asta feel like a pet goat. It was like he was being treated as a soothing device, however The smile on the old women's face also made it hard for him to pull away since that would seem suspicious and he didn't want to interrupt her brief moment of happiness.
So unable to move, Asta decided to mentally remember each transformed part of his body.
Firstly, he had a pair of curved horns like those Nero had but pointing ahead. The horns also started from within his hair just above his forehead.
Then the next biggest change was a pointy tail with a shape scaled end that he hide beneath the clothes. His eyes colour was now red, and he two pairs of sharp fangs ... And lastly his back has black scales following the spine.
The fangs dont gather much attention, the horns are easy to hide with a hood as long as he is vigilant. The tail doesn't give much bother since it moves just like a extra limb. The scales are stationary and nothing too big and bothering. Overall it was not very hard for Asta to hide his appearance.
Anyway, the old lady had finally rubbed Asta's horns to her heart's content. She finally lets go of them and once again sat down on her cart.
"Where are you going anyway, lad? I can give you a lift."
"Hage."
"Ah! The village with the giant horned skull. I was gonna pass by there so you can come with me."
The lady was offering a genuine recommendation out of kindness and Asta happily accepted.
"Thanks for having me!" He said, jumping up the cart before sitting on the side. He looked back as the cart began moving, watching as the split boulder slowly vanished out of view.
The journey was going to be hellva boring, so Asta decided to focus on his mana application as a time pass until he got a guidebook or something.
Time passes, night arrives, all this time Asta was constantly moving his mana around, trying to find figure out the best way to use it as a enhancer.
He could coat his hand in it but it fell apart the moment he stopped focusing, it was clear that he will have to work a lot to get used to doing it subconsciously.
All this while the old lady has also tried to began a conversation many times but Asta was too focused to hear her. She had tried again and again until she gave up, eventually stopping from trying to converse with a training maniac like him.
Eventually Asta began feeling sleepy, so he looked up at the moon to figure out the time.
"About 11 PM... *yawn* I should probably sleep."
The old lady had already slept and so had the mule, leaving Asta as the only one awake. He closed his eyes, layed down near a sack of potatoes and as soon as he began drifting to sleep... He sensed hostility.
There were dozens of places it was coming from, from the trees to even the bushes to the side. It was bandits, and unluckily Asta had just been Targetted by them.
How unlucky indeed, because not even one of them will be leaving unharmed after what he is going to do to them.