It only took a third of the hill's height for Cter to again be faced by the dichotomy of her monster and human status. About how her soul was what her being was primarily, not her body. Her aura was her presence, not her form.

However after that third of the hill's height her legs were softer than warm porridge, and her breathing had reached a point where she could not widen her nostrils more to get more air in and still keep composure. Her answers to the curious questions from the villagers that helped carry her and Kurant's luggage among the other deliveries up to the clinic had drastically reduced from long and intricate to quick and jokey to finally just nods and shakes of her head as her focus was taken over by her breathing.

Proportionally, the satisfaction and fulfillment of the villagers curiosity shifted from being fulfilled by Cter struggling to keep up pace with the villagers while keeping her Monster Mage posture to Kurant carried on a stretcher due to her bad knee. While she did not have the same physical exertion hindering her answers she did have a mental one which put her at a sour mood not really happy to answer the more probing and deep questions asked.

Kurant was the Second Monster Mage. Grown up a farmer's girl and managed to excel not only at being said farmer's girl despite her injured knee, but she also managed to ascend from those humble beginnings to become one of the most powerful mages in the world! She had built up respect through her hard work and realized potential.

And where did that lead her?

To being carried up on a stretcher as if her limp was an amputation.

Her huffed annoyance, while not audible through her nose or mouth, was still deafening in her aura. Cter did enough to mask that with her own aura as well as she could with an almost inert sleeve, but she could not mask the bitter frown that furrowed Kurant's brow and bent her lips downwards. "Something like that," she mumbled as an answer to a black-haired woman wondering about the Royal Garden and its beauty. If it was true that the flowers there bloomed constantly. "They do it because of the King Asgore's magic," Kurant then added as the woman's lingering look was loud and clear that she did not find the first answer fulfilling.

Cter couldn't help but wonder if the Village Elder had purposely forgotten to have a crutch ready for Kurant. The elder did preface that her memory had been waning, but surely the Royal Guard office knew about Kurant's limp and that she needed a crutch to get up the hill to Bonny Sallus' clinic.

Or maybe it was that the hooded driver was petty enough to not forward the request before the travel?

In any case, Cter had trouble not bursting into laughter.

The ascend up the smoothed cobble road towards the clinic was only half of Cter's excertion forcing her to sneakily breathe through her mouth and to reduce her answers from explanatory to just confirming or denying.

The other half was her holding in a bursting guffaw seeing Kurant trying to find a respectful position to lie with on the stretcher being carried by two of the village's strongest men. She first tried to lie with her hands clasped over her stomach, but that made the walk up the clinic look like a funeral procession, so Kurant quickly abandoned that idea.

Problem was that it was really the only position that looked somewhat-respectful while laying on a stretcher, so the rest of the way up was a strange mix of different angels she kept her arms in. Behind her head, straight down her sides, folded across her chest, moving them while she talked which upset the balance of the ones carrying her.

Just a mess, really.

A mess that Cter found to be really, really funny.

Walking heavily after spending a long time inside a carriage she had done before already. She knew how to conserve her energy. Doing so while on the brink of laughing though? Oh that was a whole other story. To boot she had to keep Kurant's demeaned aura under cover with her own so that the children with magical potential were not aware of the way Kurant felt. To boot with the other foot as well Cter had to also not have her amusement of the situation not be felt too much through her own aura.

All in all she was even more focused than she was when she dried the ground at the bottom of the hill.

And she was loving it.

Had it not been for the fresh air whirling in from both Mt. Ebott and Mt. Ymmet in the far distance giving the walk up Clinic Hill a nice fresh upwards breeze that not only made sure that the miasma did not travel down into the village from the clinic, but it also gave the ones walking up a nice tailwind to help them up. Same with the ones walking down into the headwind. Saved on the knees.

Cter would not want to end up in Kurant's situation now would she?

N...No.

Absolutely no–

"Monster Mage?"

The deepening frown and folds on Kurant's forehead were like the cracks of whips to Cter's ears even through her bursting laughter that had her bending over at the waste and bracing herself on her knees as she intimidated the smoothed stones of the road with her hysterical expression. Even as she had spent all of what remained from Frioke's borrowed magic the Delta Rune on her sleeve stood up just by the sheer jump in the activity in her aura. Kurant reacted to it, and even the children did. They were the first to turn as Cter bent over before in the beginning of her laugh. The rest of the humans followed as her laughter became mighty audible.

"I'm fine," she assured the stopped-and-stumped crowd through the brief moments she could catch the tiniest semblance of a breath not used to fuel her laughter. "I promise! I just–" Her laugh interrupted her. "I just feel so great, that's all." It wasn't a lie what she coughed out harshly enough to cause her to taste some blood in her throat. "Sitting so long inside a carriage and traveling across countries gives you such an overabundance of energy."

Her explanation of her laughter found no sympathy among the peasant villagers.

Some from Kurant.

But not a lot to write home about.

"Don't let me keep you," Cter said after she managed to control herself to the point where she could say it like she actually meant what she said. "I'll catch up to you after I've caught my breath." To her surprise it was with a lot of conviction that she said it. Confident, even. "You all go ahead."

After some hushed whispering that was impossible to denote a tone from, Kurant was again carried up the hill with the rest of the luggage. Just as confused as the humans she cast one final glance behind her before going back to briefly answering the questions poured over her from the humans around.

With an exasperated and hard landing on the grass next to the stone road Cter put her hand on her forehead to hold it up as she exhaled the last of her laughter through her nose in bursts.

Singe her soul, she felt so alive.

A beautiful mix between her restless energy and confidence in her abilities radiated throughout her faster and more racing than her blood pumped by her working heart. She savored it. With long inhales and long exhales, she savored it. The upwards breeze played with her hair and the warm sun tickled her skin. She was content.

Away from her family. Away from her friends. Away on her first mission as a Monster Mage she felt content. No anxiety or stress. She felt that she belonged with what she was doing and what she had done.

Oh it had been such a long time coming for her!

Such a long time coming for her to just feel like all of her pieces fit together. All of her old and new pieces clicked together to form a whole that she was entirely comfortable with. She was ready to have a permanent magic from a monster that she had never met before. She was ready to make it her own and to use it with the skill that befit a Monster Mage!

Cter was one step closer to fulfilling the promise she made to Romrom!

And nothing would stop her taking more steps towards that promise!

With her arms raised high Cter fell on her back into the grass, damn be if it got stained. She would be able to explain it. She knew that!

She could do anything!

Whatever it was that was needed of her she would get done. Of course she would! She was Cter, the Fourth Monster Mage! If she couldn't then no one could!

Be it human!

Or be it monster!

With spring in her step Cter bounced up on her two feet with eager energy surging throughout her with vigor. The fresh breeze coaxed her up the road, and who was she to deny it? One step forwards and–

"M-Mrs. Mon...um...Mrs. Monster Mage...um...ma'am?"

From behind a tree at the outside of the next bend up the road peeked a flustered child with both hands clutching at the bark of the tree which Cter did not know the name of. The clutching was both for the child to push himself out from behind the tree while at the same time dragging himself back behind it.

It was the same child that spoke up about Cter looking human.

"You can call me Cter," Cter said while beckoning for the child to get out fully from behind the tree. She met him up as she reached the bend, where he stood with one hand squeezing his other upper arm. Cter squatted down to his level, but he just turned his head away. "How come you're not with the others?" With her sleeved hand flat over her eyes Cter scanned up the hill to see where the crowd were. Three or four bends ahead were they, a bit more than half up the hill. "Do you feel tired?"

The boy shook his head. His grimy hair flicked with a lot of weight as he did. "I've been up the hill to visit Doctor Sallus before. He...he was the one that surveyed my soul." A slightly proud smile thinned the boy's lips and flushed his cheeks with luster. "He told me I had a lot of potential and that he would recommend me with the highest priority to Soul's School."

"Sounds like this Doctor Sallus is a smart monster."

"H...He is."

Fluffbun, the boy's aura felt to Cter like her walking into a cloud of pure sweetness. She couldn't help but crack a smile with how much it tickled her feeling such innocence and purity. Was this how her aura felt to Romrom back when she was a child? For as much as Cter tried she could not imagine it, even as she felt it firsthand.

To think that such a small and innocent thing had the power to take on the entire Jarasevo Castle should he want to with enough conviction. All of a sudden, the innocence Cter felt began to have a sour taste behind it. A sinister and hidden potential that made Cter flinch slightly. She looked at her arm where the sour taste had emanated from. It had to be some leftover from Frioke coinciding with the innocence. She was the first to sense that innocence, and when Cter sensed it too the memory must've woken up on its own. "Hm..." she involuntarily grumbled.

It had the child taking a step back. "Does it hurt?"

"Hm?" Cter again grumbled without any conscious input, however with a bit-more lighter tone to it. "What do you mean?"

The child's eyes lingered on Cter's sleeve like it was about to dispense some form of punishment. "Does it hurt to do magic?"

There was genuine fear behind the child's words. Even his aura gave out the same emotion with surprising clarity. While understandable since it was fear he felt, the most primal and deepest-summoned emotion there was, it was still surprising just how much of it was in the child's aura. Might be that Cter was more sensitive to sensing another human's aura after becoming a Monster Mage, but it could also have been that the child's aura was impressively developed for his age without any magical schooling.

The fact that it was so developed with fear though…

"What makes you think so?" Cter asked back with a light chuckle. "Have you seen any monster hurting while using their magic before? I'm a monster myself, like Kurant explained, so no it doesn't hurt me." She massaged her sleeved palm with her fingers. "Quite the opposite, in fact. I feel the most alive when doing magic as it connects my magical soul with my physical body. I become one when casting magic, so to speak."

"Are you sure?"

The sincerity was striking. The weight of the child's almost plead had Cter craning her head back a bit and her eyes narrowed just the slightest to be noticeable. He didn't believe what she said.

"Y-Your...um...a-aura did n-not f-feel as if you t-told the truth."

It...didn't?

Maybe Cter was still keeping it like a thick fog like she did to obscure Kurant's huffed annoyance? The child was keen, but he lacked the nuance of understanding the precise emotion. He was still just a child, so it wasn't his fault to be blamed for. More than likely was it that he was confused with how he felt himself more than how he felt with her aura. Cter focused inwards to dissipate the obscuring, and when she managed the child gasped.

"How about now?" Cter pried friendly. "Does it feel like I'm lying now when I'm saying that it doesn't hurt when I cast magic?"

The child shook his head.

"See here." Cter opened the child's left hand with her own. "I am a bit tired from what I did with the ground below directly after having traveled for so far, but I think I can manage this." After looking into the child's eye for confirmation that he was okay with it, even if he was a bit anxious to what she was planning to do. The curiosity blossomed more than the anxiety did. "After I've concluded my business with Doctor Sallus I'll give all of you one of your own, but for now I can give you yours." It would be a good first test of the new memories inside Cter's sleeve, and with this she could squeeze out the last drop of what remained of Frioke. She'd feel the empty hollow inside her again without any magic at her disposal, but it would be easy to fill with the smile and joy from the child. "Do you know how a rainbow works?"

The child shook his head again.

"You see," Cter began explaining with almost motherly care as she weaved soft shards of ice just above the child's tanned hand, "when you look through something transparent it changes the colors. A rainbow happens when we look through many, many raindrops at the same time." The shards came together with a whistling whirl into a rudimentary cubic shape. "In a way it is like how the light of your soul goes through your sleeve to become magic."

Whether or not the child heard Cter's improvised explanation that actually managed to get the point across quite beautifully if she did say so herself, which she did, was up in the air due to his enraptured look at the forming ice cube in his hand. It gave Cter another chuckle as she continued to fill the ice with magic to not have it melt. Even more so what with the sun being hotter than in Monster Country.

It was not a perfectly formed cube since that would just have the light go straight through and not change at all. There had to be imperfections in it. Not necessarily in the quality and make of the ice since that would just make it more or less cloudy to look through. Instead Cter changed the density of the ice almost like trapping bubbles of air inside it. She could have done it actually, but decided against it as she found it more difficult to control the temperature across the volume. With it all being her magic it was easy to have it be distributed evenly, but with pockets of air inside the ice cube she'd have to compensate for the size of the bubble as well as its ambient temperature and also keep in mind how it would change when the trapped air cooled and created a slight vacuum that changed the stress of the structure of the magic and so on and so on.

Better was it to just add a bit more magic to make it all magic and just have the surface be more resistant to the outside temperature.

Which is what she did.

The slightly-irregularly-shaped ice cube was dropped into the child's anticipating hand with a surprised meep due to the cold of it. While it was not as cold as a natural ice cube Cter found that at least the hint of it being cold made it more natural. It just had to feel colder than not colder and it would be cold to the child. His small gasp was confirmation enough that she had succeeded with her goal, and it pleased her to see how his face shone with the dancing colors from his gift.

"Hold it up to the sun."

Wait.

"Hold it up not directly to the sun. Just somewhere where it's bright."

Problem fixed before it became one.

While Cter had a high rank and prestige she would still be chastised if she made something to a human child which would blind him. She would not be able to explain it away by equating it to Prince Soulay's blindness and saying that it would make the child's magical potential even stronger.

Such magical thinking would be frowned, if not screamed, upon.

As Cter suspected it was not long until she began to feel hollow inside. An echoing nothing that pulsated like a pounding heartbeat throughout her being. Like the echoes of flu inside her bones, but within something she could not point to a doctor and say what, exactly.

Not a human doctor.

But what about a monster doctor?

Cter looked up the rest of the hill.

"Maybe?"

"Maybe what?" reacted the child with his face glimmering with the refracting colors from his cold gift. The spots of dirt on his cheeks and forehead shifted from dried-brown to more delighted and pleasant shades which brought the childish smile a luster which had Cter stunned for a moment.

Stunned that the hollow feeling inside of her just up and vanished. Like a burp that had upset her stomach just petered out of her.

"I don't know," she said with her expression heavily confused. Relieved too, but mostly confused. She looked to her sleeve and saw the Delta Rune gently move. Could it have been the wind? Cter hid her left hand from the wind in the bend of her right arm, yet the fur continued to move.

Magic. There was magical activity inside her sleeve reacting to her soul. Yet there was no magic left from Frioke inside it. Cter spent it all on the ice cube.

Was it…

More importantly, could it?

She'd have to ask Kurant about it. Ask if she sensed some of Frioke or not.

"You don't know if maybe?" The child's face had turned quite folded with a similar, yet different type of confusion. Cter was supposed to be a Monster Mage yet she spoke just a confused as the child did. He held the ice cube up to her furrowed brow. "D-Do you want it back?" he asked, almost demanded. She became confused after she gave it to him, so his reaction was understandable.

A good heart, that child had.

It earned him a pat on the head.

"It's the heat," Cter lied, which only had the child giving back the ice cube even more. "No, no, you keep it," she chuckled. "I gotta get used to it like you have." Then she opened her right hand for the child. "You can help me up the hill though if you want?"

A determined nod shook the wild nest of hair that had just been patted. Despite the child's small hand Cter felt that it were sturdy and confident as it gripped hers safely and securely. His brow hardened as he took the first step forward which Cter followed after.

If needed be she'd arrange the travel herself for the kid to get to Soul's School. With such conviction to escorting such an important figure he would have have no problem finding work at any royal court of his choosing.

That Cter swore.