Selica watches Dimas face freeze in horror the moment she shouted using her final spell. She can hear the crumbling of his plans as he stares, shaking on what she just did.

“Wh-what.” Dimas utters. He flinches back when he hears a rock suddenly fall from the excavation. He’s now paranoid, Selica thinks. All his effort keeping his little plan a secret to the Silencers has just been exposed.

“Hehe”. Selica sputters, her coughs has begun spewing blood. “You lose, sir.” She meekly smiles, as if taunting Dimas more than he already has.

“Why you-!”

“Hey! What was that?” Dimas was about to strike Selica with his own fist, but he hears a faint voice coming from behind the buildings.

His eyes darted back and forth, his body shivering from either the fear, the cold, or from his wound, then returned his gaze back to Selica.

“You’ll pay for this.” He growls as he runs frantically away opposite of where the voice came.

After a few moments, even Dimas footsteps are barely audible for Selica. Only the torrential rain was the only noise she could hear, aside from her gasping breath. She could barely move an inch, with her adrenaline finally depleting, the pain from her gaping wound has finally started to take hold on her mortality.

“Hah, hah.” Her breathing is becoming thicker, her eyes growing heavy. Is it finally time? She tries to look back at the excavation cave, and immediately sees Gregor running straight towards her.

Oh right, I was supposed to save him, she thinks. Godsdamnnit Selica, how could you have deviated so much from the original plan so much?

“Miss! Miss!” Gregor shakes Selica’s scorched body. “Please don’t fall asleep now!”

“Ahhk!” Having her body shaken shocks her body so much Selica flinches in pain.

“Oh sorry!” Gregor, after realizing his mistake, slowly carries Selica back to the dry cave with the help of his golems.

Inside the cave, Gregor and the golems carefully place Selica on a polished stone tablet they found while digging. Even if they are absolutely careful, Selica’s body still pangs in pain after moving even an inch to the wrong direction. After they laid her body to the tablet Gregor tried to examine the wound on her chest. The damage seems to be getting worse, the burnt parts of her skin is slowly chipping away as blood starts to gush out from her wound.

“Oh no, oh no!” Gregor panics as he tries to look for a way to close out her wound, but Selica weakly grabs his hand before he goes overboard.

“Thanks kid.” Selica speaks, “But you need to run now. This place will be swarming with Silencers soon. I got you free, so go.” She tries to push Gregor away. At the very least, she thinks that she could succeed in her mission that brought her here in the first place.

“I-I can’t leave you miss.” Gregor speaks as he holds her hands trembling. “It’s the least I can do to save myself.” ”Idiot.” Selica tries to tell this kid that he’s just wasting her effort by saving her, but her strength is escaping her quickly. It reached a point where she could only speak.

Selica suddenly hears footsteps coming from outside of the rain. They’re already here?

“Kid, hide.” Selica tries to push Gregor back to one of the boulders, but the kid refuses and in fact walks forward in front of her along with his golems. When Selica first saw Gregor’s golems, there wasn't an ounce of hostility towards them, but now their features looked more sharpened and their eyes glowed in a fierce readiness for battle.

“Show yourself!” Gregor shouts at the cave’s mouth. His body is frail and shaking, but he’s keeping a courageous face to set off his fear.

“Woah wait!” But instead of a white-garbed Silencer, the people who enter the cave are mages. Young mages, in fact. The same age as Selica. One is wearing the stereotypical wizard and robe garment combination, another is wearing some kind of damp clerical clothes, and the other seems to be wearing tight fighter garments with bandages all over his body. They are all carrying a small sword each, while the fighter one is holstering two in his waist.

“We’re not Silencers! We’re mages!” The girl in the clerical clothes speaks up. “We heard the call for help, and we wanted to-! By the Nymphs!” The clerical girl immediately rushes at Selica's side, sliding beside her, and bruising her knees. She places both of her hands on her wound and starts chanting a spell.

This girl’s magic is very different compared to the incantations Selica is used to. It’s more of a prayer than an actual spell.

“Come on, come on.” But, as devoted as her prayers are, the girl’s spell doesn’t seem to properly work. Selica can feel tiny bits and pieces of her open wounds slowly closing, but after they close, the wound immediately opens anyways.

It’s the rain, Selica finally realizes the problem. The Psy Rain can affect even clerical spells as well. That’s why the girl is having some much difficulty in maintaining her healing’s foundation.

Selica slowly raises her hand and tries to touch the girl’s hands. “Sparks” Selica starts casting her fire spell for the girl. She needs to warm up a bit in order to shake off the effects of the rain.

But nothing comes out. “Sparks.” Selica does it again, but no mana even surges from her body towards her hand. She’s empty. After going through an arduous ringer with Dimas, Selica has really depleted all her resources.

“Dr-y up first.” Selica mutters her words, explaining what the cleric needs to do.

“Dry up?” The girl looks at her wet clothes, “Mariane, Hog. Get a fire going. Now!” The clerics shout at her friends, and they immediately grab anything they could find to get a fire going.

“But we need you to heal now.” The girl placed her hand over Selica’s chest. “You don’t have much time, and I can’t-!”

“Selica?” Suddenly another voice enters the cave, everyone looks back and they all freeze in horror.

White garbed stained with blood from head to toe. A Silencer has finally arrived in the scene.

“Selica is that you?” The Silencer steps forward, and immediately the boy fighter slid in front of the rest with a sword aimed at her throat.

“Easy there.” The fighter boy is well adept with the sword. From his stance down to how he handles the blade, it was as if he’s been training with swords his whole life. “Can’t let you in here sorry.”

“Wait wha-?” The Silencer steps back, then pauses and looks down. “Oh, right.” She immediately removed the white garb covering her whole body and revealed a red headed girl...with a wooden splint on her arm. “Relax, I’m a friend.”

“Gallian?” The moment Selica sees the red hair and the splintered arm, she immediately calls out her friend.

“See! She knows me! So step aside.” Gallian immediately dashes past the fighter boy and straight beside Selica along with the clerical girl.

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“Where did-?”

“No questions idiot. Seriously, we leave you for five minutes and you end up like this.” Gallian interrupts Selica while she scans her body. “You’re in some bad shit, girl.” Gallian looks at the clerical girl. “So why are you not healing her?” ”I-I can’t!” The clerical girl finally breaks out in tears. “This has never happened before, I could heal anyone by just touching them. But this-this rain! It’s stopping me from being able to do anything.” ”She needs to dry up first.” Selica mutters. “I tried casting something to dry her up, but I’m all dried up, hehe- cough!” Selica tried to joke but was gifted with a hefty bloody cough.

“Idiot, don’t strain yourself.” Gallian grabs Selica by the head.

“Hey Galli,” Selica calls her up while still coughing blood, she nods her head towards the other end of the cave. “Got a gift for you and Ashlin. Too bad Silencers will be swarming here in no time.” ”Gift? What gift?” Gallian look at the cave and realizes what she meant. This was their exact plan to pass the test in the first place.

Gallian went silent, Selica tries to read her eyes for the last time, but it’s mostly covered by her red hair from her angle below.

“And you expect me to take this gift without you?” Gallian looks down with tears slowly forming from her eyes. “I don’t want any of this if you won’t be with us in the city Selica. I can do without the princess, but not you, girl. You’re the first...friend I got in this place, and I’m not letting you leave me like this.”

Gallian places her forehead on Selica and her functioning arm over her chest. Suddenly a faint light appears from Selica’s chest as it travels all the way through Gallian’s arm. “I told Ashlin I’m saving your ass, one way or another, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

Selica is surprised that Gallian could do anything magical after being soaked by the rain, but then she realizes that Gallian is actually dry as a rock right now. The Silencer clothes she was wearing was able to stave off most of the rain from her body by keeping it dry even till now.

After light vanishes, Gallian suddenly gives the biggest smile Selica has ever seen. “So you also think of me as a friend, huh?” Her smiles was blinding Selica. “You’ve been asking what my magic is all this time, right? Well here it is.” She slowly put Selica down back to her tablet and places her good arm below the clerical girl’s hands. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.

When Gallian opens her eyes, there’s a glint of the same light visible earlier. ”Sparks.” Suddenly Gallian’s hand radiated with fire, it’s warm, but not too hot to scorch somebody.

Gods how dramatic, Gallian. Selica thinks on her death bed as she watches Gallian create the “Sparks” spell in front of her. She really waited for things to be so dire to actually do this, huh? What a drama queen. Selica’s thoughts swirl in gladness but also a hint of ridicule with Gallian’s preposterous timing.

Then suddenly Selica realizes something peculiar in regards to Gallian’s spell. It’s very familiar for Selica, it’s as if she’s seen this exact fire before. She tries to feel the magic emanating from Gallian’s hand, trying to distinguish this spell.

It has the same spell signature as her spell. Aside from Gallian supplying the mana for the spell, everything; from the mana distribution, the power, the scope of the fire, everything is exactly the same as how Selica would do it.

“That should do it.” Gallian puts out the fire from her hand after drying up the cleric. The girl immediately placed both of her dry hands on Selica, and started praying once more.

This time, the prayer immediately took hold on Selica’s body as a wash of white light filled up the scorched gap on her body. Selica reels a bit as she feels her body quickly regenerates back to its former state as it creates new nerves and body parts that were recently missing.

After a few moments, Selica’s body is returned to normal with barely any sign of the gapping scorched wound on it.

“That was,” Selica looks at her healed body in awe. Even within the Heroes’ Hill Healing Chapels, healing a wound like hers would take days, if not weeks at most. But this girl did it in, what, a few seconds at most? “How-?” ”She’s a VERY gifted cleric.” The boy in a wizard garb answers Selica’s mouth-opened queries. “But in exchange she’s a dumb mage.” ”Naïve I think is the proper term.” The cleric retorts immediately. She then looks at Gallian’s splintered arm and touches it with a single finger.

In just a flick of a moment and a bright flash later from the cleric, Gallian can already move her arm like normal.

“How in the Abyss-!” Gallian removed the splint on her arm and tested it. It was as if nothing had happened to it at all.

“Are we all good?” The fighter boy asks everyone, “Because this is a dangerous hotspot right now. The Silencers can come in any second.” ”No.” The cleric girl speaks up. “We can’t run any longer, we have to fight them head on at this point.” She points at the excavation hole. “If this hole is what I expect it to be, then we have to keep on digging until we get to the very end of this, right?” She looks at both Gallian and Selica, and both nods in agreement. “We’ll leave you two for a while while we prepare things for the defense, okay? Hey little boy! What’s your name?” The girl immediately calls upon Gregor who is watching in the corner with his golems.

“Um thanks, Miss?” Selica sit back up as she looks at her savior.

“The name is Mirna. and the wizard boy is Hog, and the sword boy is Mariane.” She introduces her friends. “Okay, let’s get this defense on the go!” She cheerily marches her companion on the task at hand.

*

It’s been a few minutes already after Mirna and the boys have begun barricading the cave’s entrance. The littered rocks have been turned into makeshift walls as they’ve narrowed down the wall’s entrance to only be a few feet wide.

“So,” Selica finally breaks the awkward silence between her and Gallian. “You steal other people’s magic?”

“Not stealing, copying. It’s called Pact Magic.” Gallian tries to finally explain her magic to Selica. “Too much copying in fact, down to every little detail.” Selica recalls how similar Gallian’s “Sparks” was to hers earlier. “I can see that. But why did you just suddenly say I treat you as a friend as well?”

“Wait! You mean we’re not?” Gallian’s surprise was too much even for Selica.

“No no. I mean, yes! We are friends.” Selica immediately retracts her statement. “But, I mean it had to be significant or something with how you said it, like you were discovering it or something.”

“Oh, that. Yeah.” Gallian slowly calms down. “Yeah, you see my magic has a certain condition I need to have before I could copy a person’s magic.”

“And? Come on Galli, just spill it already.” Selica’s getting a bit tired in dragging this conversation along.

Gallian’s face blushes as she finds the words to properly explain it. “I need reciprocal intimacy with the one I’m trying to copy the spells from.” ”Intimacy?” Selica tries to think how such a vague notion could be equated for a spell. Emotive notions such as intimacy and love are very foreign for the type of magic Selica studies. But based on what she has read before, mages in all of time have approached magic differently to one another. So having Gallian use something like “intimacy” is as valid in magic as her book reading.

“Yeah! As in being close...” Gallian stammers a bit, “Emotionally or physically.” ”Oh. OH.” Finally Selica figured everything out. The make up, the flirting, the boy. It all comes down to her magic. She was trying to copy that boy’s spell using her magic, so she tried to flirt with him to do so.

Gallian stares at Selica’s face of realization and sighs. “Yeah yeah you finally got it, congratulations.” ”By the gods Galli, I get it now! I’m so sorry.” Though they wouldn’t be this close now if she didn’t do what she did way back before they entered the gate, she does kind of feel bad now for ruining Gallian’s hustle.

Gallian’s smile at the profusely sorry Selica. “Nah, it’s okay.” She raised her now healed arm and whispered a spell.

“Ice Knife.” An exact same Ice Knife Selica had been using appears in Gallian’s hand. “You’re a better catch than that snotty boy anyways.” Gallian smiles. “Hey Selica,” ”Yup?” Selica answers back.

“Promise me that you’ll still enter Magecraft City.” Gallian’s voice is melancholically warm. Like a childhood friend swearing to another.

Selica still has reservations about the whole thing, but those things don’t matter that much anymore, she thought. Especially with a friend like Gallian. She deeply sighs, exhaling the fears she once carried before.

“I promise.” She says in all honesty in her heart. “Now let’s find Ashlin and make her swear-!”

“BANG!”

Suddenly a loud gunfire noise echoes just outside of the cave. Everyone immediately jumped and readied themselves behind the walls they’ve made.

“What was that?” Gallian hurriedly peaks out of the wall through their only opening.

“Gunfire? How can any gunfire work under this weather? And didn’t they confiscate them before entering?” The boy named Hog immediately commented. For a boy wearing full on wizard gear, Selica finds it odd that Hog knows quite a lot regarding conventional firearms.

“Yeah, so that means that gunfire was most probably from the Silencers’.” Gallian closes her eyes. “Psy Shield.” A “Psy Shield” bubble, the same exact height and circumference as Selica used to use, appears around Gallian. “I’ll take a look outside. I’ll signal everyone if I find anything dangerous. Okay.”

“Wait, Gallian! I’m coming!” Selica tries to stop her.

“You’re manaless already, girl. You’ll be a sitting duck out there” Gallian answers back. “Just be confident that your own spells will be the ones helping me this time, okay?”

Gallian hurriedly runs outside of the cave.