Chapter 14: Chapter 14 – Maybe violence is the answer

 

Scarlett moved through the mansion's carpeted hallways towards the reception hall. This specific part of the mansion was starting to become familiar for her so she'd told Molly to return to whatever business it was that the servant usually performed and gone on her own. She descended a flight of stairs to the mansion's foyer and opened one of the side doors—she was starting to feel a little bit ridiculous over having worried about that earlier—that led directly to the reception hall. It was a large room lit up by several chandeliers—using magical candles instead of normal candles, just like the rest of the mansion—with beautiful white tapestries and dark red flooring. When she'd first seen the room there had been several round tables in it as well as a slightly elevated platform at one end but those things had been removed by the servants to make room for the children and their temporary living arrangements. Now there were just two long rectangular wooden tables in the middle of the room and some beds lining the walls. There weren't enough of the beds for all the children, even though most of them were small enough to share beds, so some of the older kids had to make do with sleeping on a layer of blankets for now.

Some of the children appeared to be sleeping on the beds right now, but the majority of them were gathered close to Kat who sat on a chair at the side of the room. The kids sat in a half-circle on the floor in front of the Shielder, their eyes captivated by the woman as she performed tricks with her magic. Scarlett's eyes narrowed as she saw Kat conjure a ball of fire above herself that immediately morphed into the shape of a roaring dragon that started flying around in the air, leaving a trailing blaze of fire behind. That had to be [Pyrokinesis], although probably at a higher level than Scarlett's.

She began walking over to Kat, passing by a young servant woman that rested in a chair by the reception hall's main entrance. It seemed to take a moment for the girl to notice her, but when she did she rushed to stand up and greet her. Scarlett merely waved for the servant to go back to what she was doing. Poor girl looked as if she had barely slept.

That made Scarlett think. Did these servants get paid something like overtime? All of the mansion's servants had been working like mad since yesterday morning to follow Scarlett order to take care of the children. It was honestly impressive how much they had accomplished. Most of the children even looked to have been given new clothes already. But this wasn't a daycare. The mansion wasn't ready to house over thirty kids, and the servants were the ones who had to work extra to make up for that. That was a lot of work to do in addition to their original duties. If Scarlett's guess was right there were only about ten different servants in the entire mansion, if you discounted the hired guards she'd seen guarding the estates' gates. Though there were probably a few more hires that didn't live around here. She hadn't seen whoever it was that took care of the gardens yet, for example.

She put a reminder to discreetly ask Garside about the matter at the back of her mind as she neared the group of children that were marveling over Kat's little pyrotechnics act. Kat paused her performance and looked at Scarlett.

"How'd the meeting with your sister go?" the blonde-haired woman asked. Most of the kids glanced at Scarlett.

"I...updated her on the current situation," Scarlett answered as she looked at the watchful faces of the children. "I am sorry to disturb your display. However, I wanted to inform you that I am going to the training ground and was curious if you had any interest in accompanying me. I would not mind some advice on pyromancy."

Kat smiled and scratched the side of her head. "Ah, I wouldn't mind giving you some pointers." She gestured towards the children. "But I already promised them I'd show them some more magic."

Scarlett raised an eyebrow. "I did not think you spoke Voneian."

"I don't. But that dark-haired woman translated some for me."

Scarlett nodded her head. "I see," she mumbled as she studied the kids. They'd all been cleaned up and, with the new clothes, they looked completely different from when she and Kat had first found them. However, although none of them looked starved, it was clear they did not usually get to eat too much. If that was from before or after their abduction she didn't know.

They did not seem dangerously traumatized by the current situation, at least, so that was something. When they had been watching Kat's performance they had all made sounds and chattered away with each other. Though now that they were looking at her it was completely quiet. Was it because of how she acted? Or did Scarlett just have an inherent quality that made these kids watchful?

"...The children may come too, if they wish." she eventually declared.

Kat's eyes widened slightly. "Really?"

"There is enough space. I do not believe there will be a problem." As long as the kids stayed out of the way she didn't really care what they did. She doubted they would be here for too long anyway.

"Hear that kids?" Kat said to them. They all turned to her. "That nice lady says all of you can come with us to see some more magic."

Some of the kids nodded their heads a little at her words, although most seemed confused about what she said. Kat stood up, however, and looked at Scarlett. "Let's go then."

 

 

It took a little while extra because some of the children came with, but soon they were all standing on the large training ground situated behind the mansion. The children were standing off to the side and watched Kat with attentive expressions. Kat herself seemed to be looking at the wooden and stone targets that were set up at the end of the grounds with a hesitant face.

"What if we accidentally break those?"

"I do not believe they are destroyed that effortlessly. They have enchantments that protect them," Scarlett said. "Although I suppose it isn't entirely inconceivable for you to overcome those. But there are several more targets in that." She gestured towards the small shed that stood at the edge of the training ground next to the stone wall that surrounded the whole property. She had checked to make sure last time that, amongst other things, there were a lot of those targets inside.

"They're all enchanted?" Kat asked in disbelief.

"From what I have seen, yes."

"Gods..." Scarlett heard the woman mutter. She looked over the dozen or so training targets that were lined up. In the game, enchantments hadn't been anything special. A lot of the gear obtained even in the early game had enchantments on it. But it was true that the player couldn't start enchanting gear themselves until much later in the game, so perhaps it wasn't something common. She knew that the skills related to [Enchanting] belonged to the unaligned school of magic, instead of any of the elemental schools, and were relatively hard to obtain.

"Maybe I'll take it a bit careful today then," Kat said with a wary look.

"If you wish." Scarlett let out a short agreement before walking to a distance of around twenty or so meters from the targets. She'd been dying to hit something for a while now. Raising her right hand—now more out of habit than any sort of need, she'd noticed—she held it towards one of the wooden targets. Conjuring a ball of water a little larger than usual, she spent a moment extra in making sure the surface of the liquid was completely still. Then she lit the proverbial fuse and created a searing fire inside the sphere. Usually, the flames were closer to a deep or slightly clear orange, but now she was pushing it to a much brighter, white shine. When she felt as if she couldn't force it to be any hotter she finally relaxed slightly and wiped away the traces of sweat that had formed on her brow. Now her Aqua Mine, perhaps a little smaller than two tennis balls together, was hovering like a miniature sun next to the target's head.

Despite there being no actual physical exertion, pushing her [Hydrokinesis] and [Pyrokinesis] skills to the limit was taxing. Her [Lesser Hydrokinesis] probably couldn't create two Mines of this size, even though she was relatively sure her [Pyrokinesis] could support it if she just lessened the heat a little bit.

[Skills Menu:
Upgrades
[Greater Pyromancy] (10 points)
[Greater Pyrokinesis] (10 points)
[Hydromancy] (5 points)
[Minor Hydrokinesis] (2 points)
[Mana Control] (5 points)
New skills
[LOCKED]]

This was her first chance to test the difference, but she'd already used the five skill points she'd gained to upgrade her [Minor Pyrokinesis] to [Pyrokinesis] as it had seemed the most logical for her at the moment. She was planning on earning some more points to upgrade her [Lesser Hydrokinesis] before she decided exactly what to do next, but she was leaning towards just keeping to upgrading those skills for the foreseeable future. She still wasn't sure if [Minor Mana Control] did anything more than what it did in Chronicle of Realms though, so she would have to look into it a bit more.

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After having kept the Mine going for a while she was starting to lose concentration on it so, with a small mental nudge, she created a ripple on the surface facing the target and watched as the sphere of water immediately exploded in a burst towards the weak point in the target's enchantment that she had been targeting. She watched with slight satisfaction as the target wobbled a little from the blow.

"What spell is that?" Kat asked and walked up next to her. "I saw you do it earlier but I've never seen it before."

"It is not an existing spell as far as I am aware." Scarlett turned her head towards Kat. "But rather something of my own design. However it is still lacking in power, regrettably."

Kat looked confused. "You developed that yourself? Are you a wizard?"

Unlike a mage, which was basically anybody who used magic in this world, a wizard was someone who specifically researched magic at any of the magic towers. Scarlett remembered doing a questline in the Imperial Mage Tower in her first playthrough to get it as a title. It had a few decent benefits such as increased mana regeneration and a discount for buying scrolls.

"I am not a wizard. The number of spells I know is scarce."

Kat furrowed her brows. "Then how did you do that?"

"It was merely an application of basic pyrokinesis and hydrokinesis."

The Shielder gave her an odd look. "You're bad at using magic, but know how to use both hydrokinesis and pyrokinesis?"

Scarlett tilted her head to the side. "Is that odd?"

Kat shrugged her shoulders. "It took me a while after learning my first pyromancy spell to get the hang of even basic pyrokinesis. And I'm terrible at terrakinesis unless I'm right next to stone."

"I see," Scarlett mumbled. She had been wondering if the people of this world had skills like in the game, but from the way Kat spoke now, that didn't seem to be the case. So she was different in that aspect. But it was also the reason she could do this the other way round from Kat. "Do you believe you could teach me any spells?" she asked.

Kat let out a short laugh. "I could certainly try, but I don't know if it'll help much. I've been told the way I perform magic is a bit...unique."

"In what way?"

"Well..." She turned towards the onlooking children who had walked closer to them. "All of you should move back some," she said, then looked at Scarlett. "You too."

Scarlett obliged and stepped back a few steps behind Kat.

"I think it's most clear what I mean with this spell," the woman said and she began moving her hands in front of her. Several rocks began forming from thin air and clustering into a sphere with cracks in it. Then those cracks started glowing a bright red as liquid lava sprang from the depths of the sphere and began enveloping the rocky surface. "As you see I'm not really controlling the mana by using any inner circuits to let it merge into the spell as one usually would, but rather I'm forcing it to take on the particular elements I want and then using that to replicate the effect of a normal Pyroclastic Fragment."

Scarlett examined the smoldering boulder conjured by the Shielder intently. While it looked sufficiently deadly and terrifying with the way the molten stone rose and billowed, she couldn't see anything more than that. She didn't even know one was supposed to be able to see any mana. Her [Charms of Apperception] were obviously not meant to aid with this.

"I couldn't exactly tell you how I do it," Kat continued. "When I've shown it to others they usually just end up getting confused by it." She pressed her hand forward and the flaming boulder that was about the size of a grown man flew forward. It landed between two of the stone targets and erupted into an explosion of molten rock and lava that disintegrated everything around it, leaving a crater behind in the ground. The children let out several shocked and excited sounds as Kat turned towards them with a small smile. Then her eyes widened and she spun to look at the result with a dark expression. "Shit...I said I was going to hold back." She gave Scarlett an apologetic look. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..."

"It is quite all right," Scarlett said. She wasn't sure if it actually was—that was a large hole in the ground—but she wasn't mad at least. This was the purpose of the training ground, after all. "More importantly, can you explain what you meant earlier once again."

Kat paused in whatever it was that she was about to say and looked at her. "What, the part about how I use the mana?"

Scarlett gave a slight nod of her head. "Yes. I am unable to see mana in such a manner so I could not observe any of what you spoke of."

Kat stared at her. "Wait. You don't know any mana perceiving spell? Like Ethereal Eye or Mana Vision? Then how do you—" She stopped and looked between her and the wooden target that she had attacked with her Aqua Mine earlier. "It can't be that that's all you can do?"

"It is," Scarlett admitted. "That is why I have need of you. Although I would appreciate if you kept quiet about it."

"I'm not sure if I should be surprised or impressed." Kat shook her head. "How'd you learn pyrokinesis like that?"

"One could say it came naturally to me. Casting spells, however, does not. I was harboring some hope you would be able to help me with that."

"I honestly don't think I'll be much help if you're starting from scratch like that. I can give you some advice I used myself, but I've never really been a good teacher."

"Your advice would be more than good enough," Scarlett said and turned back towards the row of targets. There were still some glowing rocks lying around from Kat's spell, though most of them seemed to have disappeared into nothingness. "Truthfully, I was not expecting much in that regard. I have already devised other solutions to rectify that particular predicament. But I would also greatly appreciate any extra input you have regarding the means I currently have at my disposal."

"That I can do," Kat said. There was a hint of enthusiasm to the Shielder's voice that hadn't been there before. "Whatever it was that you did earlier was interesting enough."

Scarlett looked back and saw the woman grin.

"Up for some light sparring?"

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