Gantz, mounted on the donkey, passed the carriage once more. A few foxes were atop Leonardo's body, but due to its toughness, they could only tear away pieces with great difficulty. He dismounted and climbed onto the side of the carriage; taking one look inside, Gantz turned abruptly and vomited again.
— Dammit! — he choked out through the retching.
Peering in again, he saw the walls stained with blood, with small bits of flesh stuck to them. Half-devoured skeletons lay at the back, recognizable only by the shape of the bones. Gantz climbed down in disgust, holding his breath; the smell of rotting flesh was something he could never explain—it was like a animal, but much, much worse.
He grabbed rings, bracelets, and necklaces that were stuck amidst the gore. Gantz wiped away the filth and tucked them into a leather pouch with a drawstring top.
Climbing back up with effort, he took a deep breath, but the stench seemed trapped in his nostrils. Returning to the donkey and stowing the bag, Gantz looked toward the side of the road and spotted some trunks tossed in the dirt. Going over and opening them, he found magic diamonds. His heart nearly stopped.
— Holy shit! — he exclaimed, staring at all those small, multicolored diamonds.
He was a layman, but as far as he knew, a single diamond was worth a hundred gold coins. If there were at least a thousand diamonds, that would be a hundred thousand gold coins!
— This... this must be the tithe money from the city! It has to be! Not even the Mayor has this much money!
Gantz picked up a diamond the size of a walnut. He felt that familiar sensation as the stone darkened and his body warmed, the mana passing from his palm into his core. The diamond turned black and crumbled into dust.
He took more stones, and the same happened with the next ten before he stopped.
— I have to figure out how to control this.
Closing the trunk and fastening it to the donkey, he accelerated as much as he could, only stopping at sunset to set up camp far from the road. Sitting before the fire, he tried to absorb a few more stones, but without success.
— What triggers this, whatever it is?
Another thing he noticed was his body. When he first woke up, he had been emaciated; he could barely lift that stone, and his bones poked out beneath his skin. But after absorbing that energy transferred from that man, he felt revitalized. Now, his body seemed even more robust than before.
Closing his eyes and entering a state of peace, trying to sense any difference, a memory surfaced: an elderly man with neatly trimmed hair and a medium beard, wearing armor, teaching how to practice with mana.
Gantz stood up, paced back and forth, and after a deep breath, sat back down.
— These aren't my memories.
He felt anxiety return as his brain whirled with questions.
— Better to focus on something else. Let's test the tips from that old man... Aubert.
— Albert? Like me? Whatever! Don't think!
Closing his eyes, the words began to flow.
— First, feel the energy running through your body, then channel it outward. Imagine it as if you were urinating; the point isn't to use force, but to relax. The nature of energy is to want to escape your control.
Gantz opened his eyes. — Like pissing? What a crude comparison!
He took a deep breath and relaxed his muscles, slowly sensing two flows within him. One was strange—sticky, slow, yet possessing a certain malice. The other was refreshing; it ran like a small brook and felt calm and gentle.
He tried to move the cold flow, but the dark energy felt like a beast whose cage had been opened. It flowed out uncontrollably, forming a sludge that stretched into the air like a deformed spiderweb. It seemed to be trying to escape—and it nearly did, until Gantz focused on calming himself and regained his concentration. The thing stopped spreading and began to gather again, forming a thick line until it sank back into his hand.
— What a bizarre thing.
Next, he let it out again, and this time the energy remained still, in the shape of a ball.
— Does this follow my will? Let's see...
Thinking of a whip, the shape changed, extending over a meter and forming a scaled whip with a sharp tip. He looked at a trunk, and the energy pierced it with a quick swing. He thought of lashing out, and the energy did just that, leaving a thick gash that cut halfway through the tree.
Gantz tried to stretch it further, but the whip lost its strength and became thin once it reached two meters. He retracted it back into himself.
— It seems the quantity is limited, restricting both range and strength. Turning liquid into solid is one of the simplest aspects for a magic user. It seems I got what I wanted... but at what cost?
Setting the grim thoughts aside, he realized he had never heard of "black mana." Based on what he knew, if something wasn't common or widely known, it was likely a taboo or a crime.
— How am I going to enter the city with this thing inside me? They'll catch me just like they did that night.
He thought of that bizarre wolf from that day.
— It came from that thing, didn't it? — Asking himself, Gantz rubbed his face, full of worry.
He lay down and watched the stars as he thought. The fire illuminated the surrounding trees, the wind swayed the leaves, and the scent of wet grass calmed him. Suddenly, he sat up and closed his eyes, ordering the dark energy to gather into a ball within him, then using the other energy as a container, leaving only a small space between them. Opening his eyes, he waited for something to go wrong, but the two remained contained, one swirling inside the other.
— I don't know if it'll work, but I hope they can only see the outer layer.
Day broke. The sky shone a clear blue, with small, fluffy clouds floating everywhere, covering part of his view. Gantz liked looking at the sky; it gave him a sense of freedom he didn't have on land. As he watched, a dark speck seemed to leave a trail before vanishing.