“Why not test it out for yourself? Is it okay to assume the main reason you don't like touching people is because of your charm magic?”

“That’s right.”

“Well then let's see if it has any effect,” He held his hand out towards her and waited to see what she would do. She stared at it for a moment before slowly and hesitantly reaching out to him, and gently taking his hand. Even though Falk and Sanya believed it would be fine they still waited with bated breath.

“Feeling fine so far,” He told them.

“Charm wouldn’t be very effective if a person realised they were charmed,” She replied with a shake of her head and a thoughtful look on her face.” I would need you to do something you wouldn’t normally do.”

She thought on it for a moment, still holding Ben's hand, before giving him an instruction.

“Punch uncle.”

“Hey!” Falk yelled at this, but they both ignored him.

Ben looked down at their hands briefly before answering. “Thera you can’t ask something so tempting after I find out he’s let a misunderstanding stand between us for over a month, I’m going to want to do it,” Still he contained himself to prove that there were no passive effects taking hold over him, though Falk still wasn’t happy with the response.

“Now what did I do?”

Even Sonya had to chime in. “You could have at least mentioned to your apprentice that he might want to show Thera his card. He certainly doesn’t seem to have any privacy concerns.”

“Is it so wrong that I wanted Thera to try and open up a bit herself?” He said in a huff. “The girl needs to learn to put some trust in others.”

“Well maybe you’re right,” Sonya said after some thought. “And what’s done is done. Hopefully now that they’re more aware of each other's circumstances they’ll grow even closer.” She smiled and gave them a look as she spoke, well not so much them but the fact that they were still holding hands at the time.

When Thera noticed her cheeks flushed a light gold, making Ben wonder if that was the color of her blood as well, before she let go and took a couple of steps back.

“Well,” She started, not making eye contact after being embarrassed by her aunt. “I guess you really aren’t under my influence, so that’s good at least.”

“Yeah, so when I’m in better shape we can go hunting again without worry,” Plus maybe now she wouldn’t be so hesitant around him which he considered a win. But as he brought up hunting again the atmosphere darkened and everyone grew quiet.

“Um, guys? What’s going on? Don’t tell me I’m going to be bedridden for a while now?” He was still sore but he thought he could move if he had to.

“Well, quite a few of your bones were broken and you experienced some organ damage, not to mention suffered some deep cuts where you were bitten, but most of the serious damage has been treated. You were out for a few days and I had to call in all of the town's healers to look after you almost around the clock in that time, but you’re out of danger now. After a few more days of treatment you should be completely fine,” Sonya explained.

“Oh boy that sounds expensive,” He winced.

“Well it probably would be, but I’m friends with all of the town's healers since we work together at the clinic, and I would never think of charging someone who almost died to save Thera’s life. The issue is…” She trailed off, not sure what to say, before Thera took over.

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“The issue is me,” She said bluntly. “I’m currently under house arrest.”

“What! Why?”

“Using any sort of mind-altering magic on civilians or not properly containing a magic's passive effects tends to be illegal. Currently I’ve done both,” She looked away and wouldn’t meet his eyes as she explained it.

“What? But we already established that your magic doesn’t affect me! What’s the issue?"

“Boy it isn’t about the effect she has on you, but what she had on others. It isn’t as bad as she made it sound, things are just a little complicated at the moment is all,” His teacher went on to explain what happened after he had blacked out that day.

The tamer that set the alseer on them had run off with the beast as it tried to escape, evidently worried about what could have been done to repel something that dangerous, but there was still the issue that Ben was laying on the ground dying. In an act of desperation, Thera dragged his body to the nearest party of adventurers that Myriad directed her to, and without having her cloak she charmed them.

Given how easy it was the party of four they encountered probably would have helped anyway, but that didn’t change the fact that not only did she expose them to her passive effects, but willingly took advantage of it too, making a mage with access to some light magic drain almost all of their mana to keep him alive, while the other three members carefully picked him up and ran him back to the town and through the gates, all the way to Sonya's home.

Thera passed many people in the streets as they ran there, and even though she didn’t do anything intentionally to influence them, many of them were drawn to her, some even trying to follow them along.

After such a brief exposure their minds cleared fairly quickly, and thankfully the party she manipulated were more understanding and even after no longer being under her effects were willing to let the matter go since it was to save a life, but the damage had been done.

The guards had come and were prepared to arrest Thera on the spot, if it weren’t for the sight of Ben bleeding out and Sonya desperately trying to treat him as she sent for more healers they probably would have, but they were able to see there was something more going on than just a person with a passive magic running wild and waited until Ben was out of immediate danger to get the whole story.

Once everything was cleared up and all of the victim’s minds were no longer distorted by the charm effect, it was decided that Thera would not be held liable for what happened seeing as she was attacked and trying to save a life, but that she would either be kept at home or was to return to the succubus nation of Anailia until a time that she could get a new means to block her magic.

Ben laid back down and stared up at the ceiling. “So then this is my fault.”

Thera, who looked like she was trying to control her emotion up to that point, turned to him in surprise. “What? Why would you think that?”

“I’m the one who broke your cloak. It’s what you used to block your charm right? I knew I could feel some sort of enchantment on it but I thought I could still apply my own and it would be fine. I have no clue what went wrong. Was I rushing too much with the enchantment? I could barely feel the magic in it so I didn't think I would have to be too careful, but it looks like I messed everything up.”

“You can feel the mana in an enchantment?” Sonya asked, surprised.

“Well yeah, I’d need to do that to be able to apply them carefully right?”

“Sonya’s just surprised cause mana sense is usually developed at higher levels of a magic skill than what you have, but that doesn’t matter right now. Don’t beat yourself up about the cloak boy, you didn’t do anything wrong. It all comes down to the ways it’s made,” Falk explained. “There aren’t many ways to disrupt a passive magic effect, they all end up being either too hard or too expensive to make. In the case of Thera’s cloak it’s a bit of both. The technique I used basically involved piling up fragments of skills instead of using the whole thing. Can’t really tell you why it works, as far as I know the person who discovered it did so by accident, but once you manage to pile up enough it can disrupt passive magics like charm and fear. The issue is that even though it won’t feel like it, the item that’s treated this way is absolutely saturated with enchantments. Adding anything else will break it immediately.”

“So it is my fault,” He sighed.

“No I should have realised, I just wasn’t thinking,” Thera jumped in, trying to take the blame herself.

“Both of you, enough,” Falk firmly said. “ Mistakes happen in the heat of the moment and you were being attacked. Stop beating yourselves up.”

“Right! What happened to the guy who was attacking us anyway? You said he was after you Thera?”

She seemed to want to retreat away even further but still explained what happened. “That would probably be Roan, an adventurer that's been exposed to my charm magic.”