"Hooh… Hah…"

It was the crack of dawn, but I was already working up a great sweat.

Yep, that's right. I was actually jogging.

Running for exercise—something that I thought that I would never do. Although my new body was healthy, I've come to realize that its fitness could only be described as 'passable'. I was only on my 2nd lap around the small village when I found myself completely out of breath, exhausted.

Alright, I'll stop here for today. Deciding that this was a good start for my first time doing cardio, I walked over to the fountain of the village square to wash my face.

"Whew…"

It had only been two days since I've been transported to this world in my new body, yet I feel strangely comfortable in it. Rather, I never liked my old body. I've promised to myself that I would never end up like that again.

"Ah, good morning, Sir Mage. What brings you out here so early?"

I turned around, and standing before me was the village Chief. He gave me a kind smile while standing ever so hunched with his hands behind his back. Man, this guy really nailed the 'starter town village elder' look. No, wait. This wasn't a game—this old man's a real person, just like me. I can't continue to equate everyone I see to NPC's.

"Good morning, my lord. I hope I haven't disturbed you when I left your home this morning. I've just finished doing some exercises, you see."

I threw in a 'my lord', just to be safe. Who knows what kind of power this guy has over the village. If I'm not mistaken, villages tended to be ran by lords in the medieval period. (Source: the fantasy light novels that I've binged throughout the years.)

Again, I need to remember that I have no idea what the social norms were in this world.

"Oh, there's no need for that title. Instead, I should be showing more deference to you, Sir Mage!"

A brief flash of surprise flashed over the Chief's face as he gave a hearty chuckle.

"Seeing that you have mastered the elemental attack magics, and the quality of your clothes, you must be a visiting noble, no?"

"…I beg your pardon?"

"You see, only aristocrats and wealthy merchants can afford to become mages, as one would need to take a special medicine in their youth to access the job. Surely, Sir Mage must be a man of status. I, however, am but a humble Chief of a small village."

Ah, crap. How am I supposed to talk myself out of this one? I knew little to nothing about how nobility was supposed to act. I could barely keep a conversation going, yet I had to come up with a lie good enough to fool this guy?

"Oh, no. Uh, I, that's not it at all…"

I stuttered, contorting my face into something that only vaguely resembled a smile. The Chief did not seem convinced at all—instead, he paused, and gave me a look of suspicion. Was I about to be arrested?

"Ah, forgive me. I see how it is."

…Eh? How did you see it? I'd like to know too.

"You must be serving a noble in secret. It all makes sense now—you carry such a powerful staff, and wear such exotic clothing, yet you haven't a coin nor a slave with you. I should have known from the moment you spoke fluent Brahim. My, my… I must be getting on in my years."

The old man conveniently contrived his own conclusions and gave me a friendly pat on the back as he winked.

"Your secret is safe with me, Sir Mage."

Opportunities like this don't just fall out of the sky every day. Of course, I played along and chuckled with him. He had sensed my avoidance around the topic of my identity, and probably not wanting to push the guy who could torch a person alive into a corner, the Chief gave me a convenient out.

I didn't know whether or not he actually believed what he said, but as long as he didn't ask too many questions, I was safe for now. What a shrew old man.

"A-ah. Yes, of course, sir. How clever of you to have figured me out. I am indeed on such a journey, and I'd like to apologize in advance. Since I had been away from the common peoples for so long, my common sense has gradually eroded, you see. Do forgive me if I were to make a gaffe or ask a foolish question."

"Oh, no, no! It's no trouble at all, Sir Mage. Goodness, how rude of me, addressing the savior of our village only by a title. May I have your name, if permissible?"

"Naturally, sir. It's—"

…My name? Well, I can't use my Japanese name anymore. Right, my name is Rudeus Greyrat now.

"Ahem. My name is Rudeus Greyrat. It is an honor to be at your service."

"Sir Greyrat, is it? I see. Well, Sir Greyrat, I'm not sure how the high-born folk like it, but it is customary for commoners to eat breakfast once the sun has risen. I will fetch you then, so please excuse me for now, as I have my duties to attend do."

After finishing our pleasant chat, the old man paced away.

Whew. That was a close one. I didn't plan on revealing that I was from an alternate world anytime soon.

Well, with nothing else to do, I began to finish up my morning training routine. My body was still sore from yesterday, but I forced myself to eke out a few pushups, pullups, and sit-ups. For reference, I could maybe do about 10 pushups and 15 sit ups without stopping. Pullups were significantly harder, as I was struggling to even do one.

About an hour later when I had finished, I wandered into a field on the outskirts of town where nobody could see me. Now was the time to get started experimenting on magic.

Dust swirled about my feet, congealing into a solid sphere of earth that gathered at the forefront of my open palm. The sphere of earth spun, quickly gaining velocity, before flying off from my hand into the sky. The projectile shot in a straight line for about 50 meters, and then disappeared into a puff of sand.

That was a variation on the attack spell, Sandball. I think I'm going to call this "Stone Cannon".

The sun was firmly in the sky by now, but the temperature still felt comfortable. If I had to guess, I'd think that it was around late morning. It had been a few hours since dawn, and I'd spent that time experimenting with magic.

I learned in the past few hours that my Mage job allowed me to use Beginner level magic; Beginner level magic split into 4 elemental types: Fire, Water, Wind, and Earth. I figured out that much by intuition; if there was a 'fireball', then it would make sense that there were also water, wind, and earth elements.

Also, apparently one of my skills that I had picked up when I created my character, Shortened Spellcasting Speed, allowed me to omit the incantation altogether. Pretty neat, huh?

Furthermore, I discovered that each type of magic has their own "ball" type—Fireball and Waterball were obvious, but the 'earth' and 'wind' variants took me a bit longer to find the right words. Annoyingly, the earth and wind variants were called 'sandball' and 'breezeball' respectively.

There seemed to be a clear difference in lethality with each variant of element. The basic 'ball' attacks dealt a set amount of damage, but there was also additional attribute damage to consider.

For example, since I was only a level 1 mage, let's assume that all of my 'ball' attacks did a base damage of 1, regardless of the element. However, the elemental effects of the attacks still occured regardless of my level—if I used Fireball, while the target may only take the base damage of 1, they'll still be lit on fire regardless.

From personal experience, I can say that being lit on fire does in fact do lethal damage.

On the other hand, if I used Waterball, then the target would take the base damage, and then be sopping wet, that's all. In conclusion, I think I'll stick to the non-lethal elements from now on. Honestly, using Fireball on people traumatized me—I'd rather not burn people alive, thank you very much.

That's why I came up with a less lethal, but still effective spell: Stone Cannon. You see, if I were to ever get in a situation where I have to face off against people again, I'm afraid that I'll either use too much lethal force, or not enough force. So, by tweaking around with how I apply my mana into the spells, I'd managed to condense the sand from the Sandball attack into a solid rock. Essentially, I'd created a non-lethal alternative to Fireball that would only bruise and batter my opponents a bit.

Also, I should note that despite messing around with spells all morning, my mana bar didn't seem to be going down at all. Whatever magic I used would quickly regenerate. That was great and all, but magic did have a cooldown period in between spells. I tried switching between elements, but the cooldown seemed to apply for all 'ball' type spells.

I'll need to be careful when facing off against multiple opponents for the time being.

Regarding my mana, my current hypothesis is that one: Beginner Attack Magic doesn't take up much mana, or two: I have unnaturally high mana reserves. Most likely, it seems that both of these hold true.

Back when I created my character, my stat attributes were heavily skewed toward Intellect, which I assume is the stat that determines your mana capacity. What's more, that's probably why my physical abilities are only average even though I had rolled a max stat of 99. I'll need to check out my stats at an Adventurer's Guild or something to confirm my suspicions.

Alright, this is enough for the morning. It was nearly noon by now, and I was getting rather hungry. Speaking of food, I wonder where my breakfast was? Of course, if they were having trouble, then I'd be happy to help them. I never bothered to learn to cook in my previous life, so maybe this would be a good time to learn. I wonder if they have Japanese food here…

Ah, rice… That's one thing I'll miss about Japan. Seriously, I love rice. Anything else I can live without, but I'll be damned that I'll taste rice once more in this life.

However, just as I was daydreaming about my comfort food, I heard a shout in the distance. Just beyond the hill, a familiar face raced toward me while frantically waving his arms.

"Sir Greyrat! There is big trouble at the village! Please, we require your assistance immediately!"