Olivia watched as Jesse set up the spell.

She'd never seen a human that was able to perform magic.

Or... many humans at all.

Ellegaard wasn't exactly a hermit, but the program to become her protege was intense training- some people, like Olivia, trained for their whole lives in a building before being chosen.

And even after being chosen, they could last for the rest of their life in a building and not outside, seeing sun and bloodred sky on a daily basis.

Sometimes the lucky(?) person... well, died during the more intense phases of training, and sometimes they died on the job.

Olivia apparently had lasted the longest so far at two years, four months, nine days, and seven hours.

Yes, she kept a running tab. She was trying to get to three years straight.

Set a damn good record before she went out, if it ever happened.

The point was, she rarely ever saw humans before they were contracted, and rarely ever saw humans that apparently just... wandered around Cosmos.

(The pig felt oddly tasty, to be fair, but Jesse themselves was definitely more of a delicacy for demons.)

And here was a human, trying to perform an intensely difficult spell, if the fact that Jesse had re-gathered up some of the redstone pieces (usually, it was pure dust, but to conduct it better Ellegaard and most of the people in Yurin carried around redstone pieces that were in the shape of a pyramid- you could crumble it up if needed, but it was easier than just toting around pocketfuls of dust) and re-done the shape about fifteen times was any indication.

Then again, Jesse was probably not that fluent with magic.

That did not assure Jesse too much.

At one point, Jesse asked Olivia if it was okay that they weren't crumbling it up into dust, and Olivia checked the spell before shrugging. "Unless it says it has to be pure dust, you're probably okay..."

Jesse mucked around for a bit before pausing, glancing from the book to the little setup around them.

"Oh! I got the setup right..."

Olivia wished they didn't sound or look so surprised about that.

Jesse lifted their arms and started chanting- well, it was easy to say that it was a magic incantation or a chant. Truthfully, it was more of a memorized spiel of words in a language lost to time and magic; but it didn't have to be incredibly rhythmic or anything.

She watched the concentric gold (iridescent, really) circles snap into place around Jesse, locking every word into place.

Ivor was impressive at magic- Olivia knew that- but she also noted that his magic wasn't incredibly flowery or visually appealing; it just produced results faster than any other demon alive.

Although, she noted to herself as she watched the tower of rings rising into the air, far beyond Jesse's height (meaning this spell was particularly a doozy), this is definitely the most potent chanted magic I've seen.

Lukas's was a pretty shade of gold, which already meant it was pretty powerful, and Olivia had seen the occasional chanted rings with Ivor's going gold with an iridescent sheen... but even though the iridescent quality of these rings weren't quite as potent as Ivor's, it was definitely stronger than most magic users she'd seen.

She glanced at Ellegaard to check- and then started back.

There were dark strings that were currently being burned away by the light that Olivia could only see for a few feet- but with the light blazing through it like moths in flame, Olivia could see almost a dark, sticky web clouding around Ellegaard, burning away with every strand falling loose and swinging momentarily before it was devoured by the flame.

No wonder she'd been acting odd. She was mired in negative energy.

It wasn't easy for people like Olivia to see magic, or negative energy before it had taken something over. For Lukas, it was easier, but for Olivia, who had used magic exactly once, it just didn't come easily- to the point where sometimes she was totally oblivious to it.

You apparently had to have a good amount of magic sensitivity to be able to see it, though you could sense it enough that you wanted to stay away- which Olivia had just chalked up to some negative energy being in the room or in Ellegaard's system somehow.

Which meant that for Jesse to be seeing it, their magic sensitivity had to be quite high- especially since humans were particularly magic-insensitive.

Jesse uttered the last word, and the negative energy sizzled as the very last bits of it curled up in the half-blinding light and died, the rings shrinking down on themselves and leaving Jesse wrapped up in their blanket, still sick and swaying slightly as the spell undoubtedly left them half-coherent.

Magic could drain people, even tiny spells, and for a spell the level Jesse had just somehow pulled out of their butt, they had to be half-dead already.

Ellegaard shook her head, as if shaking something off, and stared up at Jesse for a moment, utterly confused.

Jesse smiled almost drunkenly at Ellegaard, except of course, they weren't drunk, so it just meant they were swaying and a little woozy.

Then they pitched forward.

Olivia had to lunge across the floor to catch Jesse, their slightly feverish little body (why were they so thin? How old were they? She had so many questions) almost toppling out of the blanket that was wrapped around them.

Ellegaard blinked hard, as if trying to remember what she was doing, then she frowned and tilted her head, eyes scanning the room slowly, trailing from Jesse's unconscious little form, to the fading effects of light magic, to the disheveled state of the room, and then back to Olivia's stunned face.

"... alright, what the fuck happened?" she asked this flatly.


A/N: ellegaard returns...

fun fact usually when i'm chatting with people i just don't use proper capitalization and it just looks

like this.

yay.

I'm making MCSM merch. Like acrylic charms and stuff. Just for the heck of it.

also, omakes will no longer be every chapter. I only have so much content I can give/find.

rqtc: don't really have one right now.

responses to reviews:

Northern Goshawk: Here is the next chapter!

Happygoluckymegami: Good to know.

TheAmberShadow: Explained the redstone pieces.

Saran: Anime girl Jesse. xD

That's all for now! See ya, so long, g'bye!

x.X. A.L. x.x