Chapter 50: Arc 4 Ch. 5: Foxy Magic, Part I

“Mana Wave: a basic spell that projects the user’s mana outward from the body into a wide wave of force. The cost to cast is… a crapload of MP.”

“Beryl, what is ‘em pee?’”

“Don’t worry about it…”

After setting out the next day, Alice and I finally started practicing those three new spells the witch gave me back in town. Magically blasting away piles of leaves turned out to be a very satisfying way to pass the time during our hike—at least, until our mana ran out.

The symbol to cast Mana Wave was simple enough, yet the spell was far more costly than Mana Bolt, and we only had a few chances to practice before we felt our mana run low and had to stop. It almost felt like that spell was designed to be inefficient and simple, with its only practical purpose to train mages for controlling a basic ‘area of effect’ spell. If I had more time to practice it, I could probably figure out a way to cast Mana Wave with a wider range and without wasting too much extra mana.

But that would have to wait for later…

While Freya did give Viela a shifty glance every now and then, she had been much friendlier toward us since ‘officially’ joining our party last night. The snow leopard spirit offered to show us the easiest route higher into the mountains where we could gather plenty of those herbs we needed.

In fact, Freya even know where to find some along the way.

Alice looked like a fangirl spotting her favorite pop idol when her eyes landed on the first specimen. She ran over to the tall, prickly plant and stared at its inky flower from every possible angle. I didn’t know what made her so fascinated by the plants here, but I wasn’t about to get in her way. Alice had happily agreed to gather the murkthistle we needed to complete that ‘gathering quest’ all on her own. And beyond that, her bliss was contagious; I couldn’t help smiling as she fumbled in her excitement pulling out the witch’s bag and a small knife before harvesting the…

“Wait, are you sure we just need the seeds?” I asked.

“Of course!” Alice huffed. “That’s the best part of the plant for alchemy. My book said so!”

Now I was even more glad she wanted to do this; we were going to need a lot of seeds to fill that deceptively large bag.

To my surprise, Titania was the only one who didn’t seem to share Alice’s enthusiasm. For some reason, the lancer appeared like she was studying Alice carefully. I was about to ask her why when she caught me staring at her, offering me an awkward shrug.

And then I noticed something even stranger.

“Titania, it’s not even noon. Why are you holding so much firewood right now?”

She gestured toward the distant skies. “A storm’s coming. We have to find some shelter soon.”

A shiver ran down my spine when I spotted the wall of dark, ominous clouds looming over the horizon. I really hoped they weren’t heading our way, but Titania seemed pretty sure of herself.

“Freya, you should know where we can find a cave or something around here, right?” I asked.

Freya initially perked up at the question, then her shoulders slumped before her eyes fell to the ground.

“Yeah, I know where we can take shelter for a while…”

***

An hour later, we barely managed to make it into the cave before the first downpour drenched us. Actually, calling it a ‘cave’ was a stretch; it was barely the size of a tiny apartment room, with a small rocky ‘hallway’ leading to an even tinier room deeper under the mountain.

The scattered tufts of white and grey fur littering the ground and Freya’s suddenly soured mood confirmed my suspicions: this must have been the den she once called home.

And… the place where she lost one of her cubs.

As thick sheets of rain began to bombard the mountain above us, Freya slumped against the cave’s wall and held her two cubs tight, staring at nothing. I didn’t know why she had agreed to lead us back here, and I didn’t want to ask.

Out of all of us, Alice was the one who knelt down and gently wrapped her arms around the snow leopard spirit. Even with all her eccentricities, when the time was right, somehow the young witch really did have a way of knowing how people really felt… and what they wanted.

I only realized Titania had been working on getting our campfire going when the first flicker of light burst into life. She took out her bedroll and sat down on it like a cushion on the hard ground, and the rest of us followed suit.

I couldn’t help sighing. Having to wait out rain this way… in hindsight, maybe we should have tried getting some damn playing cards or something.

Titania must have been thinking along those lines. “Oh yeah, I haven’t caught up on all the stuff that’s happened on Earth in the two years I’ve been here,” she said. “Beryl, what’s it been like?”

I groaned. “Where should I even begin…”

“How about, any decent games? Not that we can really play them here, but, you know what I mean.”

“Let me think. Yeah, there were some pretty groundbreaking VR MMOs that came out, like—”

Titania slammed both hands on her legplates and leaned forward. “Groundbreaking VR? You mean like, full dive? Directly hooked up to your brain?!”

“Uh, what? No, I meant with better VR headsets. It’s only been two years, not two hundred.”

She fell backward to the ground, defeated. “Right…”

An awkward silence descended on our party once more, only broken by the hammering of heavy rain and booming thunderclaps all around.

Alice joined us by the fire, inviting Freya to share her bedroll. The snow leopard spirit refused at first, but relented in the end when a gust of cold wind made her shiver.

Aside from the fire’s warm protection against the chilly weather, I noticed another sensation; the feeling of mana coursing through my body again. It wasn’t anywhere near as much as when my ‘MP’ was at max capacity, but it should be enough for a bit of practice!

“Hey Alice, do you want to try the next spell?”

She jumped up and nodded twice.

Mana Shield was another ‘area of effect’ kind of spell that projected a semispheric dome of solid mana where the caster directed it—although I had to imagine its coverage could increase with some skill. Unlike any other spell I had cast before, this one had to be channeled to keep its shape, otherwise the shield would just fizzle out of existence a moment after getting cast. It took some getting used to; holding a spell like this almost felt like holding my breath in a weird way that had nothing to do with my lungs. After a few minutes though, Alice and I finally managed to get the hang of it.

I directed my Mana Shield right over my head and stepped outside the cave and its protective roof. To my satisfaction, the shimmering dome of mana acted like a sturdy umbrella that kept me dry from the heavy rainfall outside.

Alice lit up with a heartwarming smile when she copied me and saw she could do the same. I couldn’t help watching her as she spun around and danced in the downpour, only her ankles getting wet from the rain splashing against the ground.

And then a moment later, we had to run back inside… because we ran out of mana again.

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It would have been really nice right about now if I had one of those spirit contracts with Viela and she could share her mana with me…!

For whatever reason, the fox spirit had been surprisingly quiet today, and not even our antics had lightened her mood. As I sat back down near our campfire, I debated how to approach her about it.

Before I could come up with something, a far stronger gust of wind blasted into our cave. The flurry carried with it a thick payload of rain, soaking our outer layer of clothing—and the campfire.

The fire sputtered out of existence in a hiss of smoke, the light vanishing along with its comforting heat.

“Damn it, I knew I should have made it further inside,” Titania grumbled.

We rearranged our bedrolls around the new ‘campfire’ away from the entrance, but Titania wasn’t having any luck getting the drenched and partially burnt wood relit. Even her extra firewood had gotten wet from the gust and had trouble lighting.

As we all started shivering from the new cold upon us, Viela sighed instead.

“Looks like there’s no helping it,” she said. “Step back and let big sis show you how it’s done.”

The fox spirit knelt down and traced a symbol with a fingertip lit by her mana. A small flare materialized on the end of her finger before shrinking down to a tiny flame like a candle. Viela brought the flame to her lips, blew into it, and the candle flame grew into a flamethrower.

The constant stream of fire made the wet firewood violently crackle and sputter with smoke—until the wood was dry enough to be set aflame once more, and the campfire was reborn.

“You can really do that with fire magic?!” I blurted out. “I mean… can you teach me how to do that?”

Viela sat back down, staring at the warming results of her magic. “It’s harder than it looks,” she replied with a satisfied grin. “Fire spells aren’t meant for just anyone. It takes practice for magic users to safely cast fire magic without hurting themselves—keeping it projected away from the body and with the right amount of personal shielding when necessary.”

“So… was that a ‘yes?’”

She grinned a little wider. “One day I could try teaching you, but I couldn’t bear to see you get burned so easily. You’ve probably heard what they say about playing with fire and all that.”

I groaned. “Look, I even have this anti-magic kind of passive ability. I’m still not quite sure how it works, but you saw what it could do that one night in the tavern. That night I helped save you when everything went to hell, if you remember. That’s got to count for something, right?”

Viela scratched her chin, wagging her fox tail a little behind her while she mulled over something. I didn’t want to make her feel indebted to me, but that shouldn’t have been too much to ask for!

“Anyways, can you try that spell again?” I asked. “I know it’s fire, but it has to be related to magic.”

“It’s true that basic fire spells are essentially just ignited mana,” she admitted. “But whatever you’re thinking, be careful.”

Viela held out a finger and recast the spell, and the candle flame flickered over her fingertip again.

Slowly, I started reaching for it with my own finger. If my Mirror of Soul—or whatever the hell John had called my Divine Gift—really did deflect magic, I should basically be able to touch the flame without hardly feeling it.

Before my fingertip was even close, I had already expected the outcome. The heat of the flame threatened to singe my skin, and I had to quickly pull it back.

“Is anti-magic really that limited?” I thought aloud. “Titania, you know a lot about Divine Gifts, don’t you?”

Titania stirred at the attention. “Yeah, they’re supposed to be another kind of magical enhancement for Outworlders that are linked to their soul, or something like that. I’ve heard rumors about some Outworlders who tried ‘leveling up’ their Gifts with soul magic.”

Soul magic? This just got even more complicated…

“Well, did it work?”

“It’s hard to say,” Titania replied. “The general consensus seems to be that it’s much easier to improve your control over your Divine Gift than to simply increase its raw strength, if the latter is even possible. And, uh, speaking from experience…” The lancer rubbed the back of her neck and looked away.

Crap, I almost forgot what her pervy ‘Gift’ was! Of all things, why did she have to pick something like Dual Genitalia?!

That aside, I’d have to take this one step at a time. Making the most out of the abilities I already had should take priority, and we did have at least one party member who had some skill with this…

“Viela, you know about soul magic too, right?” I asked.

The fox spirit twirled her hair around a finger. “Are you sure about this, Beryl? You know I can teach you all kinds of other fun things.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Alice leaning a little closer to us.

“Uh… let’s just stick to magic right now,” I sighed.

Viela shrugged, then crossed her legs and sat a little straighter. “Alright. Close your eyes and focus inward. Can you sense your own soul?”

That was rather sudden, but I tried doing just that anyway. For all my trying, however, the only magic-related thing I could feel was a tiny flow of mana coursing through my body.

“I don’t think so,” I said before opening my eyes.

Viela frowned. “No? Not even a little bit of warm, fluffy light in there?”

“Not really. Wait… Come on, don’t look at me like that! It’s not like I don’t have a freaking soul!”

She burst out laughing. “No, it’s not that! In truth, it’s very common for magic users to not have any perception of their own soul. But in that case…”

My heart sank. “Does that mean I’m kind of screwed?”

Viela shook her head, tapping her fingers together with a surprisingly bashful red to her cheeks. “There is… another thing we can try.”

A heavy sigh escaped me, even before I knew what she was up to.

Why do I have a bad feeling about this…?

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