"Phew. This place is great! Why didn't you come here more often, Miss Clara?" Reiya asked, poking out of the lightly steaming water. After the two woke up and Clara finished barfing her guts out, Laura decided to come to the hot springs and Reiya insisted that Clara come along. Outnumbered and with the curse on her arms and legs still pretty potent, she had no choice but to teleport the duo to the hot springs.
"Yeah, it's great. Though we should also visit the ones on Getaway Island. Maybe hop through a water park and relax there after the next two waves," Laura suggested, leaning back. Unlike Clara, who tightly wrapped herself up in one of the robes the church guarding the holy springs gave her, Laura came wearing a blue and black two piece bikini. Her hair was neatly tied into a bun, and a large pair of sunglasses covering her eyes. She laid down on the shallower end of the spring and you wouldn't be wrong for thinking she fell asleep if not for her talking.
Reiya on the other hand got a one piece swimsuit from Laura, which outlined her figure really well. While her body wasn't as mature as Laura, who had a very prominent hourglass figure, but her chest was still pretty well develop-
Clara smacked her cheeks together and dipped her head in the water as she caught herself staring at Reiya again.
Why am I this way? I was acting completely normally with Reiya until yesterday, so why do I feel so weird now?! It was just a small peck on the cheek and I was very drunk! Reiya's acting perfectly fine! This is all alcohol's fault! Damn those bars and drinks!
"Miss Clara, is everything ok?" Reiya asked, popping up next to Clara, causing her to yelp and jump back in surprise. Reiya moved back the hair covering her face and looked up at the startled girl. Her previously semi transparent skin was now giving off a soft shine, and her ruby red eyes looked like they were glowing, lighting up the water droplets on her face. It was almost as if Reiya's clean, pale skin was covered in a bunch of mini rubies.
She's so adorable! I just want to hug her and never let her go. Clara thought, petting Reiya's head.
"I'm alright. Just thinking about strategies for the future waves. Also, what was that about a 'Getaway Island?'" Clara inquired, quickly changing the topic.
"Pretty much the entire island is a resort and a tourist attraction. The reviews of the place are really good so I always wanted to visit it," Laura explained, tapping on something on her tablet.
"Sounds great. We should totally go, Miss Clara!" Reiya exclaimed.
"Sure. Let's try to stop by and check it out after this set of waves end," Clara assured the girl, still petting her head.
"Ah damn," Laura blurted out, glancing at the tablet. "Elora wants us to come over for a party after this set of waves. That's gonna take like a week of preparation at least, and who knows what else afterwards. Maybe the next set."
"What's this party about?" Clara inquired.
"Just a morale boost. If people are partying, surely the waves aren't close to ending our world then. Or something like that. Your presence is mandatory as you're gonna be the main figure of the party. I guess Elora wants to show off that we still got a good defense against the waves even if we're two vassals down."
"I hope Hol returns soon before the waves get too bad," Clara mumbled.
"No! That guy is mean! And scary!" Reiya exclaimed, leaning on Clara and shaking slightly. Clara wrapped her arm around Reiya and continued petting her head with the other.
"Don't worry, I won't let Hol lay a hand on you," Clara promised, smiling at the girl in her arms. "But it would still help me protect you if we had another hero to fight the waves."
"I guess," Reiya pouted. "But only because it'll help keep people safe."
"Oh by the way, Clara. just because we're gonna have a party soon doesn't mean I'll let you slack off," Laura reminded the girl.
"But Laura, I just finished a wave and will have another one soon! My arms and legs are very sore!" Clara whined. "Reiya~, tell her."
"Speaking of arms and legs. How is that curse?"
Clara glanced down at her bandages and grumbled.
"Not that great. It doesn't hurt that much if I don't focus on it, but it still shows up as a debuff that lowers my stats a bit." Clara sighed and leaned on the walls of the hotsprings, still looking at her status. Reiya suddenly stood up and quickly rushed to the kimono she left neatly folded nearby. She rummaged through it and pulled out a small bottle of blue liquid before running back over to Clara and handing her the bottle.
"Fane gave me this before we left. He said it will help with the curse," Reiya explained when Clara looked at the bottle in confusion.
"I see," Clara mumbled, opening up the bottle. I hope this doesn't make me think anything weird.
Clara downed the bottle in one go and began to peel off the bandages on her right arm and legs. To her surprise, the dark skin began to heal, slowly returning back to its normal color. While the curse seemed to be weakening little by little, the burn marks still remained, making Clara sigh.
I don't think I'm going to get rid of these anytime soon, am I?
"How is your other arm?"
Clara ran her fingers along the bandages on her left arm and shuttered.
"I'd rather not talk about it," she mumbled and quickly hid the arm behind her back.
"Let me change the bandage then while you look the other way," Reiya suggested, pulling out a fresh roll of bandages out of her kimono.
"Do you always have bandages on you?" Clara inquired, handing Reiya her arm.
"Of course! What if somebody around me gets hurt? In that case, I can always just bandage them up!" Reiya replied with a bright smile as she began to unbandage Clara's burnt arm.
You're too pure for this world. Please never change.
"Well, you guys enjoy yourselves. I'm gonna go now," Laura exclaimed, getting out of the hot springs. "Don't forget, you have Izuma's first lesson later, so don't spend too long here."
"Alright Laura/Yes big sister Laura!" the two replied in unison, watching Laura leave. Clara leaned on the side of the springs and closed her eyes, while Reiya dried off and continued to bandage up Clara's arm.
The two sat in silence for a bit before Reiya spoke up again.
"Miss Clara, what will you do after the waves?"
"Gp back to my home world probably. What's with the question all of a sudden?" Clara opened up her eyes and turned towards Reiya, who stopped bandaging her arm and simply stared ahead for a bit before answering.
"I'm just wondering. You must miss your home and your family."
"Yeah. It's much safer there. I don't have to fight monsters, or risk my life to raise my level. And I miss mom and dad and Jim too." Clara smiled at the thought of returning to her old life. No fighting, a family by your side, a normal routine that doesn't delve into murder of the local wildlife.
"Oh. I see," Reiya mumbled, glancing down and letting out a short sigh.
"What about you? Do you miss anyone from your world?"
"Yeah. I wish I could visit it again and see my family. It's been a while since I was home, I'm sure they are worried about me," Reiya muttered, lowering herself deeper into the water.
"Aw, don't worry. I'll do everything I can to help you get home." Clara hugged Reiya, trying to cheer her up. "Maybe the next wave will lead to your world?"
"Yeah. Maybe." Reiya glanced at Clara for a moment before wrapping her arms around the girl and burying her head in Clara's chest. Clara rested her head on top of Reiya's and glanced down at the water sadly.
I guess we will have to part ways eventually. I just hope we can spend a little more time together before that day comes.
Clara and Reiya walked slowly down the hallway of the ship, with Reiya nibbling on a sandwich. However, Clara was a bit more concerned about Reiya's skin glowing even brighter than when they got into the hot springs. But despite this, Reiya said she felt completely fine, so they decided to ignore it for now.
Laura texted Reiya, who was already beginning to understand this world's language better than Clara, telling her to come to a room to meet up with Izuma for magic lessons.
"You think he'll be strict?" Clara put her hand on the handle that led to the room Laura said Izuma was in.
"I hope not. Well, he can't be scarier than the chef guy, right?" Reiya guessed, remembering the days when she worked in a kitchen for a bit.
"Guess we'll have to find out!" Clara giggled and pushed the door open.
"Ah, there you two are. I was beginning to think you two ditched your first day of class." Izuma smiled and waved over to Reiya as the duo walked into the room. The room was of a similar size to Clara's and the basic furniture was about the same. But unlike Clara, who barely had anything to fill her room with other than whatever she needed at the moment, Izuma's room was packed with different potions, magic robes, amulets, and accessories.
Clara was also pretty sure she saw a few weapons peeking out of the backpack Izuma pushed into the corner of his room, but it could have been weirdly shaped accessories. The room became more like a storage closet than someone's bedroom.
"How did you even get so much stuff here?! You just arrived like… today!" Clara exclaimed, trying to read the labels on the potion bottles. She was pretty sure one of them said 'poison' but it also seemed to look similar to 'strength' and she couldn't figure out which was which.
I really need to learn the language.
"Oh, I used that enchanted backpack. It has storage expansion and weight reduction on it. Though only the basic tiers, nothing too strong, sadly. Or else I would have packed my entire room with me," he explained, pulling out a few more things from his bag.
"Woah, it really is bigger on the inside," Reiya remarked, glancing inside the backpack.
"How expensive is one of those?" Clara asked, poking the bag.
"Not very. Enchantment Lands can get a lot of custom enchants for you on the spot, and this bag could go for around one to two gold pieces since the enchantment levels aren't too high." Izuma began to pull out a few bags out of the side of his backpack. They were all different shapes and sizes, one resembling a purse, a bag, a backpack, a rectangle box, and a few more. "If you are thinking of acquiring one, I can get you one for a decent price based on your preferences a-"
"Izuma, what did we talk about?" Laura asked, barging into the room.
"Don't sell merchandise during magic lessons. But we haven't started those yet, so I technically didn't do anything wrong." Izuma smiled.
"Izuma."
"Fine." Izuma sighed and put away the bags. "Now shoo, I'll be starting my lessons and I don't want any interruptions."
Laura rolled her eyes and walked out of the room, leaving the trio alone.
"Alright. Who's ready to learn new ways of casting magic?" Izuma pulled out several bean bag chairs from his backpack and tossed two to Clara and Reiya.
"What do you mean? Isn't magic cast by forming stars and connecting them into spells?" Clara asked, sitting down and getting comfortable. Reiya moved her chair as close to Clara's as she could and followed her example.
"Yes. Now I want you to show me how you two cast spells right now. Doesn't have to be an offensive spell, just a spell," he started.
Reiya and Clara glanced at each other for a moment before the two of them began to form their spells. Reiya did so effortlessly, summoning three small balls of light and releasing them into the room. Clara, on the other hand, took a moment before one single ball of light escaped her grasp.
"I see. It's just as I thought," Izuma grumbled, noting something down on a piece of paper. "Well, this just won't do."
"Eh? Did I do something wrong?" Clara panicked, glancing at the ball of light in front of her.
"No, not at all. You cast the spell like how pretty much everyone else casts it. Just clump up some mana together and throw it forward. It's an old method, but pretty much everyone uses it. There are some who can't do it like that and end up trying to find another method and failing, or using items to compensate for lack of focus." He explained. "I, however, have managed to find a way suited towards me that allows me to do this!"
With a wave of his hand, 14 bright starts appeared around him, scattering and lighting up the room in an instant. Reiya and Clara looked around in awe. But unlike Clara, who saw the stars move around, Reiya tilted her head and frowned.
"Something on your mind?" Izuma asked, leaning closer to Reiya.
"When you summoned those, I think I saw you make some kind of disk out of mana, but then it split up into pieces?" Reiya mumbled, looking around the room. Izuma's face instantly brightened at this and he nodded.
"That is exactly what I did! I'm impressed that you were able to pick up on it so quickly." Izuma grinned, pulling out a piece of chalk and a flat green board. "I call this technique the 'mana field'."
With that, he began to draw a tilted flat surface on the chalkboard. Reiya scooted closer to him to get a better look to not miss anything.
"This is the mana field itself. Instead of making several separate sections right off the bat and trying to balance them all in your mind, it is better to make a flat, rough outline of the spell beforehand, as a single entity." He explained. Then he grabbed the chalk again and began to split up the plane into sections.
"Ah, so you split it up afterwards, and simply connect the segments after, creating the spell."
"Exactly! I'm so glad you managed to pick up on that. Now I want you to try the spell out this way. Same for you, though I wouldn't go past magic bullet for now," he said, pointing to Clara. She slumped in her seat but tried it anyway. "And don't expect to get this first try. Too much mana flow and the whole thing folds in on itself. Too little flow and the thing becomes too thin and rips apart."
First she pulled the mana from her body and condensed it into a small rectangle, and then she tried to split it in half. Though the second the two segments split, they fell apart and faded into the air.
"I'm not saying to do exactly as I do. If a rectangle doesn't work, try other shapes or something," he grumbled, before turning back to Reiya. Clara also looked to her side and saw several stars form in the shape of a plus. In the next moment, a semi-transparent green wall appeared in front of her.
"Woah!" Reiya exclaimed, a wide smile on her face and stars in her eyes. She shook Clara's shoulder and pointed to the magic wall. "Look, Miss Clara! It worked!"
Clara smiled and petted Reiya on the head as a reward, making the ghost girl's grin widen even more.
I shouldn't be jealous. Maybe magic won't be my thing. But I can still be happy for Reiya.
Izuma was also smiling as he looked over the wall. "Not bad, not bad at all! Oh, there is definitely a lot of potential here!"
"But isn't this your personal technique that you use? Why would you teach us something like that?" Clara inquired, growing uneasy.
"So far the strongest spell known to man is the star spear. And I don't mean the combo spells like combining the spear with an explosive skill. I mean a single spell on its own." Izuma began. "Unfortunately, unless two people are in absolute perfect sync with each other, combo magic is basically impossible or takes way too long to be practical and mages tire themselves out before they finish even a simple spell. And as a fourteen star mage, I, of course, have spells available to me that normally people wouldn't be able to cast. But even through my experimentation, I couldn't find any new spells."
Izuma reached into his bag and pulled out a map. He hung it onto the wall, revealing the view of the night sky with different constellations on it. Clara wasn't really a fan of stargazing, but even then she thought she would have recognized at least a few constellations. But the sky map was completely different from the one in her world.
Izuma quickly pulled out a folded up map and hung it onto the wall as well. On it were the different spells Clara was able to recognize from the book Ellis gave her. This one had the name of the spell, the effects, and a few other notes that were left by Izuma for himself.
"Well, I see you're able to recognize these. This is the map of the night sky and is also the birth of the magic we use today." Izuma pointed to one of the constellations.
There were several small stars that were connected by dotted lines, creating a silhouette of a person holding a single bright star in between the palms of their hands. One of their hands was pointed upwards, while the second one was pointed downwards.
"This is the goddess of light, Lumena. This is the first spell people discovered once apparently some person saw a monster move mana around and felt it, or something along those lines. The history is blurry there," he muttered before shaking his head. "Anyways, this was the beginning of all the magic we use now. These here and here are some of the other gods that possess different magic spells which we learned and began to utilize."
He pointed to the different shapes on the map and then to a doodle in the corner. There were a few crossed out patterns with question marks here and there, but one pattern was circled that seemed to resemble the cross from before, except it was bigger and had way more stars in it.
"There is a rumor of someone achieving a 20 star purification spell before, but no official records. And as talented as I may be, I may never even hit that level of mana control. Which is why I'm excited to see what your friend here can do. Don't you think it would be amazing if she managed to summon 20 stars at once? She would be able to prove once and for all the existence of some higher tier spells, and perhaps even discover new ones!" Izuma was shaking with excitement, pacing back and forth as he said this.
He came to a sudden stop in front of the star map and smiled.
"There is a theory that at a certain number of connections, a spell could potentially become unstable, leading to its collapse. There are many theories as to what can happen from here, but the one most mages believe to be true would be a point of such high density appearing that it devours everything around it, consuming all and leaving nothing in its wake," he said in a low voice, and his smile widened. "Now wouldn't that be a spectacle to witness?"
His grin made Clara shiver in her seat and she debated walking out of the room. But his grin fell and he turned back to Clara and Reiya as if nothing ever happened.
"Anyway, that's why I'm teaching Reiya this technique. I know she will be able to push the boundaries of this magic system, and I want to bear witness to this. As for you!" Izuma pointed to Clara, causing her to shrink in her seat. "You're the Cooking Hero. Kinda the strongest defense we got against the apocalypse. And the more people you save, the more potential customers I have."
As Izuma finished, he glanced at his reflection in one of the bottles with a potion and sighed.
"Though I wouldn't advise you to just start telling everyone this technique. I don't want it to fall into the wrong hands and cause untold destruction."
"We won't!" Reiya assured him. She nudged Clara's arm and Clara nodded.
"Alright then, who's ready to continue?"
The place where the last wave took place was now almost completely empty. The corpses of monsters were either burned, buried, or cooked into food by the townsfolk. Barely anything remained behind other than small pits, and a few shards of weaponry, proof to the existence of a battle.
Completely barren, except for three hooded figures. The dark crimson hooded figure glanced upon the area, calmly surveying the near empty field with his crimson eyes. It was like he was searching for something. Unfortunately for him, whatever he was searching for was completely gone.
"It would appear that we have a traitor amongst us," he said, his voice calm and collected. However, the two beings following him shivered at his words.
"But your majesty, we would neve-" the one on the left began, his figure smaller than the man in front of him, covered in a dark green cloak. Steel fangs peeking out from under his hood shined brightly in the moonlight.
However, the hooded figure before him raised his hand, causing the armored man to silence himself.
"I'm not referring to you, but to the soul eater that was under the alchemist's watch. Seems like she joined the humans, including the cooking hero. A shame, I only recently confirmed that Wildcats trinkets worked," he grumbled, pulling out two small totems from under his cloak. The golden object had a small heart in the center, with gold surrounding it.
"Do. You. Want. Us. To. Track. Her. Down?" the third figure asked. Unlike the other two, they towered over the rest of them. A large cleaver poked out from under their cloak, coated in blood and dirt. However, despite being several heads taller, they bowed down to the man at the front of them without any question.
"There will be no need for that. She is the one who will come to us. Now, take these." He tossed the two totems to his underlings and pointed towards that village. "Now raze it to the ground."
"With pleasure!" "As. You. Command."