Of course, tomorrow was still a fair deal away. After the celebratory dinner at the tavern, which cost about 10 copper each when drinks were taken into account – putting Shirou at 1 silver, 36 copper left, and everybody else around 50 copper more – the group traveled to the Crimson Moon soldier's lodge, which allowed anybody with a badge to stay for free. On the way, Shirou insisted on stopping for fresh groceries, spending another few copper and worrying Haruhiro, who wasn't sure that this rate of spending was sustainable. Shirou assured him that if they couldn't make enough money as volunteer soldiers to sustain free housing and groceries, then there wouldn't be any volunteer soldiers left after they all starved. When they arrived, they learned something that Manato hadn't quite realized: Only full Crimson Moon members, with a proper contract and a silver badge, could stay for free. Trainees like them, with only copper badges, had to pay 10 copper per room, which came in either 4-bed or 6-bed sizes. Still, it was cheaper than any of the other options, so they paid the price with only minor grumbling. Despite the cheap accommodations, they were the only people there – Renji's party, who should have been at the same level as them, was apparently either already more successful, or simply more confident and willing to spend more money on less drab housing.

To be fair to Renji's party, the reserve lodge was nothing special… or even good. There was a pit for a toilet, a stone-lined hole in the ground serving as a public bathroom, and the straw-lined bunk beds didn't even come with blankets. The five boys in the group would have taken a 6-bed room, but the beds, which were already on the small side in the 4-bed room, would definitely not be big enough for the 6'1" Moguzo. They were instead forced to get two 4-bed rooms for the boys, and another for the girls. It came out to thirty coppers total, or four each, with Shirou paying the extra two despite the protests of everybody else but Ranta. Ranta and Moguzo would share one room, with Manato, Haruhiro, and Shirou in the other.

The girls washed up first, as the boys placed what meager belongings they had in their rooms. Shirou immediately left and went back down to the baths, and was surprised when he got there that Ranta and Moguzo had beaten him there.

Ranta, for his part, looked even more surprised to see Shirou, but his eyes immediately lit up with newfound respect for the other redhead. In a somewhat overblown stage whisper, he called out "Shirou! I knew it! You're a man of good taste and no class as well!" as Moguzo stood behind him, a bit of a blush visible on his face even in the dim light of dusk.

"What do you mean?" Shirou asked as he walked over, not bothering to lower his own voice. "I was just going to offer to wash the girls' clothes while they were in the bath, so they would have something clean to change into when they got out."

Ranta's eyes flashed even brighter. "Shirou, you're – you don't just have good taste, you're a GENIUS!"

Ignoring the suspicious duo as they ran and hid – poorly – behind a tree in the courtyard, Shirou walked up to the door of the baths and gave it a light knock. The murmured conversation inside stopped as there was a shriek and a splash, followed by a sputtering noise and a coughing "Who-who's there!" from Shihoru, punctuated by Yume's soft laughter.

"Ah, sorry, it's just me… I wanted to know if you wanted me to wash your clothes for you. I even have some ideas as to how I could improve them."

"Shi-Shirou! Don't scare me like that! And asking for my clothes…" Came Shihoru's voice, still muffled by the door.

Yume's laughter grew closer and she cracked the door open, sticking her head out. Her hair, freed from its braid, was wet from the bath and cascaded down over her shoulders. "Yume thinks that's a good idea! Thanks Shirou!" She extended an arm through the crack as well, holding both hers and Shihoru's clothes all bundled together, and Shirou took them even as Shihoru's panicked voice rose from behind her.

"Yume, no! What are you doing! M-m-my – Shirou, you'd better not do anything weird to them!" She called out as the door was closed and latched shut again.

Ranta all but sprinted out from behind his cover, followed by the lumbering Moguzo. "Mission success! Come on, don't be shy, hand them over!" Ranta extended a hand, his face a mask of pure greed.

For some reason, Shirou had reservations about letting the smaller boy help out with the washing, and went to the well ignoring the impish pestering of the Dread Knight that hounded him all along the way. After washing, pressing, and hanging the clothes by the fire to dry, he closed his eyes and once again slipped into the trance necessary to perform magecraft. Reaching out and brushing his fingers against the fabric of the hanging clothing in front of him, as Ranta nearby stared, slack-jawed and drooling a little, he began using Structural Grasp. While his affinity to swords made this technique perform on them immediately, automatically, and from a distance, using it on other objects still required time and a physical connection. He had just finished inspecting them all, identifying the areas that he would beef up with reinforcement, when a voice snapped him out of his concentration.

"Shirou, I demand an explanation for this." Manato's deadpan voice cut through the night air like a knife.

With the tension suddenly broken, Ranta let out a rattling breath that he had apparently been holding, and Shirou actually thought he saw the glint of a tear or two in the boy's eyes. "A true connoisseur…" Ranta muttered in pure admiration.

Shirou then looked in front of himself again, and realized exactly which small piece of fabric he had just finished Grasping, or, to the uninitiated observer… gently caressing, with a glassy look in his eyes. He gulped, and turned to the stony-faced Manato.

"I-it's not what it looks like."

"I thought better of you, Shirou."

"N-no, really! Watch, I'll prove it! Just let me finish—"

"Not a chance!"

Ranta leaped to Shirou's defense, once again throwing his arm around him like they were best friends. Moguzo vigorously nodded his encouragement behind them. "I think we should give the guy a chance! Come on, Manato, you trust Shirou, don't you? He wouldn't do anything like that! And it's my turn next!"

Shirou shook off the proffered arm, but before he could continue his explanation, Manato snatched away all the clean clothing, walked over to the bath, and knocked again. Shirou sat with his face burning in shame, trying his best to ignore the pitying glances Moguzo and Ranta were shooting him, as Manato spoke softly with Yume in the distance. Shirou couldn't hear what they were saying, and didn't want to reinforce his ears to find out, but whatever it was elicited another loud shriek from inside the bath, which made all three of the other boys flinch, as well as prompting a sleepy-eyed Haruhiro to come see what all the commotion was about.

A few minutes later, both girls emerged from the bath in their freshly cleaned clothes. Shihoru, if anything, looked even more embarrassed than Shirou, her face beet-red and physically trembling as she clutched her mage's staff tightly to her body and refused to meet anybody's eyes. Yume, surprisingly, looked like her usual happy-go-lucky self, like she didn't really care.

Manato, standing in front of Shihoru protectively, once more turned his accusing glare on Shirou, whose own face practically matched his hair at this point.

"You have one minute to explain yourself, before I have you ejected from this lodge as a terrible pervert." Manato's voice came down like a judge's gavel.

"Wait, wait! Watch! I'll show you what I was doing, with my own clothes this time so you don't get the wrong idea!" Shirou protested, and quickly slipped out of his own priest's robe, leaving him shirtless in front of the rest of the group.

This action was met by several more loud shrieks. Shihoru was now practically so red that Shirou could swear steam was coming off of her, but she seemingly couldn't tear her eyes from his exposed – heavily muscled – form.

Yume, who had also exclaimed loudly, gingerly took a few steps towards Shirou, her face now frozen in concern. The boys all stared as well with similar looks of horror and confusion.

"Shirou… what happened to you?" Yume whispered as she extended a hand and gently ran two fingers down his left pectoral muscle, just over his heart. Or, more accurately, she traced the massive, angry red scar that covered it.

He looked down, noticing it for the first time as well. "I… don't know." He couldn't remember – the only memory he could conjure up was a sudden flash of red.

Yume, from where she had silently walked around behind him, traced the matching scar on his back. "This… you shouldn't be alive, Shirou. Your heart…"

Even Shihoru seemed to have forgotten the incident momentarily, as everybody stared at the teenager's impressive collection of scars. It wasn't just the heart, though that was by far the largest. His entire chest and back, and most of his arms, were covered in thin, raised white lines that spoke of far more than a life's worth of battle wounds.

Shirou, uncomfortable under everybody's eyes, shrugged awkwardly and flapped the shirt in his hands. "I don't know, but it's not important. Just let me show you. Trace: On."

The English words snapped everybody out of it, and they watched the boy's amber eyes once more take on a glassy hue. A few moments later, during which nobody was really sure what exactly they were supposed to be watching, he blinked a few times and relaxed, before handing his shirt over to Manato.

"Take Haruhiro's knife. Try to cut it."

"Are you sure? You only have the one, after all," Manato asked questioningly as he accepted the proffered knife from the thief. Shirou nodded once.

Manato ran the knife across the fabric, frowned, and did it again. And then several more times. Looking troubled, he handed both items off to Haruhiro, telling the smaller boy to try it. He did, to no avail, and shortly, everybody had the un-cuttable shirt passed around to them.

"What did you do to it?" Manato asked, some of the accusation seeping out of his tone at last.

"It's called reinforcement. I tried to tell you before, I know some magecraft as well. I'm a terrible magus, I only know four mysteries – maybe five – but the ones I do know, I'm very good at. I was planning on reinforcing everybody's clothes tonight for added protection tomorrow."

Shihoru, who herself only knew the spells Magic Missile and Shadow Echo, once more visibly wilted under Shirou's casual dismissal of his own magical knowledge – five spells – as "terrible," prompting Manato to once more put a comforting hand on her shoulder, before he asked "You said you wanted to teach us all magic, right? Why not just teach the girls how to do it, so they could do their own clothes in private?"

Shirou accepted his shirt back from the priest, and slipped it back on, before leaning down and picking up a rock. "It would take too long to teach them properly, though I do plan on doing so eventually. If you put too little prana into the spell, it won't work, and too much…"

The rock in his hand exploded in a small burst of shrapnel.

Ranta's eyes once more shone with a plan. "You mean, if you did it on clothes… Shirou. Teach me that spell."

Haruhiro absently slapped the back of Ranta's head. "Stop thinking weird things, and don't learn things just to purposefully do them wrong."

Shihoru, blushing again, said in a barely audible whisper, "But… did you really have to… my… p-p-p…"

Shirou shook his head sheepishly. "No, you're right. Just the dress would have been fine. I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention. In fact, I didn't quite finish, so, if you don't mind…"

Before Shirou could walk towards the flustered girl, Manato blocked his path. "I think we're overlooking the most important question here. Shirou, how do you know magic? They definitely don't teach Reinforcement in the guild, and we only came here with the skills we had from wherever we were before, so… does that mean…?"

"Yes. This was a skill I had before we woke up in that cave."

"But… how? Where we came from, magic didn't…" Manato tapered off. Why did he think that magic wasn't real where he came from? He must have known what it was, at least, or he wouldn't have recognized what a Mage's Guild was… "Man, this all seems like something out of a game, huh? Wait… a game? What even is that…?"

The strange nostalgic feeling swept over everybody again, like a memory only partially grasped before it dissipated.

"Well, I say we forgive him!" Ranta loudly proclaimed. "So, master wizard, what else can you do besides the panty disintegrator/armor strengthener spell?"

"Besides reinforcement, which essentially makes an object more of what it is, I know Structural Grasp, which allows me to read an object's statistics and history, Alteration, which adds properties to an item, and Projection or Gradation Air, which can create an item from air. Although, I have a very specialized alignment and element… which makes Projection situational, at best. Most things cost too much prana for me to be able to easily project."

"Prana?" Shihoru shyly asked. "Is that what you call the mana that mages and priests use to cast their spells?"

"Ah, close enough, I suppose. Mana comes from the atmosphere, Od comes from the body, and both of those can be refined by a body's magic circuits into Prana, which is used to cast spells. But no, that should only apply to mages, I think. Priests should use Sacraments, right?" Shirou turned to Manato questioningly, who prepared to demonstrate his own spell.

"O Light, may Lumiaris' divine protection be upon you… Cure!" Manato's hand began to glow with light, but without a wound to heal, it quickly dissipated.

Shirou looked on and frowned. "Shihoru, would you mind casting a spell for me as well?"

Shihoru fumbled for a moment with her staff, then squeezed her eyes shut and began to chant swiftly in her haste to acquiesce to Shirou's request. "Oom rel eckt vel dash!"

She opened her eyes just in time to watch a seaweed-like dark burst of shadow elemental magic fly just over Ranta's head, who fell over with a squawk. "Oy! You big-boobied bitch, watch where you're shooting those things, you almost hit me!"

Haruhiro was quicker on the draw than either Shirou or Manato to defend the Mage as she shrunk back, tears already starting to form again. "You would have deserved it if it did hit you, idiot. She probably aimed it towards you unconsciously because of karma."

Shirou headed off the upcoming argument. "Wait, before we get into that, can anyone tell me whether those two spells were fundamentally the same, or different?"

"Different! As an agent of the dark god Skullheil, even just seeing the magic of Lumiaris makes me sick! Unlike that shadow bolt, which would have been pretty cool if it hadn't been aimed right fucking at me!"

"I suppose you won't be wanting any healing then if you get hurt," Haruhiro said coldly.

"Wha- No! I never said anything like that! I should be healed first! I'm the most important!"

"They were the same," Haruhiro finally answered. "Fundamentally, it looked like both of them just chanted some words, and then magic happened?"

"That's right." Shirou nodded, and then adopted a lecture pose that just seemed right, with one finger up in the air. "The chanting is called an aria, which is a tool used to help a mage self-hypnotize themselves into a state of "believing magic is possible." You can have different arias for different spells, using them as a mnemonic device, or use an all-purpose one. My aria, as you heard, is Trace: On. Once entranced, the mage circulates prana through their magic circuits, which is a painful but necessary part of magecraft, and channels that prana into a mystery, an artificial reenactment of a miracle. These mysteries can be learned, through great time and effort, or they can be carved into a magic crest, a type of spiritual tattoo that is passed along from generation to generation, and allows rapid-fire actualization of mysteries. It's like, if you have raw steel, you can shape it into a sword, or an axe, or a spearhead, if you know how – or, if you have a mold for a sword already, you can just pour the steel in directly and get the finished product much faster and easier, without even really knowing how to forge one the traditional way."

Shihoru and Manato, at this point, both were clearly confused, but Manato was the only one brave enough to cut off the redhead's ramblings. "Shirou, that's… no. That's completely wrong. The words we use aren't just a mnemonic, they have to be pronounced exactly, or the spell doesn't work at all, even if you really believe it will – I know, I've messed up the incantation before without realizing it, and nothing happened. Likewise, I'm definitely not hypnotizing myself, there's no pain when I cast a spell, just fatigue if I cast too many, and I think I speak for Shihoru as well when I say that neither of us got any kind of tattoos."

Now it was Shirou's turn to frown. "Wait. You aren't using magic circuits?"

Both of the other magic users shook their heads.

"Hold on, can I just quick check something? I'll need to touch one of you. I promise it won't hurt."

Shihoru stepped forward before he was even finished speaking, and Shirou tapped her lightly on the arm, using Structural Grasp, and then frowned heavily.

"This… for just having cast a spell, your body isn't resisting my prana at all, like there's none even circulating… There are circuits here, a high amount and quality even, but they're dormant?! This…" He pulled back, looking at the timid girl and the priest beside her with amazement. "High speed divine words?!"

Nobody else really knew how to react to Shirou's exclamation, so Ranta decided to fill the silence. "Did you just completely analyze Shihoru's body using the Structure spell you mentioned?"

"Yes?"

Ranta got down on one knee in front of Shirou. "Master. I will do anything you ask of me. I have but one request: You must teach me these wonderful, amazing, perfect spells. I will not be able to rest until I too know the spells Panty Disintegrator and Three Sizes Discovery."

Shirou thought that Shihoru might pop a blood vessel at this rate if she continued blushing so heavily and so often. "I think that's maybe enough excitement for one night. We should all get some rest, and I'll make breakfast in the morning for all of us before we go hunting. But I was wrong about one thing, Shihoru, Manato. You aren't just geniuses, to be able to learn magecraft in under a week. You're both supreme geniuses, to be able to utilize High Speed Divine Words… Your magecraft is so far above my own that there's no way I'll be able to learn the spells you can do. This truly must be the Age of Gods, for me to have found not one, but two practitioners of such immense skill. I'll try to teach you what I know as well, however insignificant it may be, but I'll never be able to reach the same level as you both."

Shihoru swooned from such earnest praise, to be caught by Yume, who now that Shirou noticed, was pouting a little. Haruhiro and Moguzo also looked a little put off. "Ah, that is, not to say the rest of you aren't just as skilled. I'm sure that you'll all manage to surprise me tomorrow!" Ranta, of course, hadn't even been paying attention, busy fantasizing about his soon to come magical powers.

With Shirou's words of encouragement fresh in their minds, everybody went to bed content and excited for what the next day would bring.