Liz took a few moments to calm herself down, and looked at her surroundings. The world had been covered by darkness for a few hours already, and the different wagons of the caravan were parked next to several towering rocks that protected them from the harsh winds.

Eventually, her eyes landed on the beautiful pink haired girl that was watching over their wagon, who smiled at her.

“Morning Lise, or should I say night?” Dere joked, as she handed her a metallic bottle. “Water?”

Liz silently grabbed the bottle and chanelled a bit of mana to the blue gemstone inside of it, then, she greedily drank from it.

“Thanks.” She finally said as she gave her the bottle back.

Dere grabbed the bottle and left it in a corner of the wagon, together with the rest of their supplies.

“What were you doing back there?” She asked. “Usually when you meditate you are still aware of your surroundings, but I literally lifted you up and you were still unresponsive.”

Liz closed her eyes, thinking about her answer.

‘What was I doing…?’ It was a reasonable question, but even she didn’t know the answer. She just followed her instinct and tried to see the inside of her body with her mana sense, yet that felt like nothing compared with whatever she really did.

“Focused too much… sorry.”

Dere simply smiled and shaked her head, whatever she was thinking was left unsaid.

“In any case… please don't focus that hard while we are outside of a city, what would happen if we got attacked while you are still meditating?”

Liz nodded, she had been reckless, blinded by her own curiosity. ‘To think that Dere of all people would be lecturing me about restraint…’ She almost wanted to laugh.

“Good, in that case, can I ask you for a favour?”

Liz blinked a couple times, and grabbed her vocabulary notebook. “Favour?”

“...Yes, a favour, you know… doing something for me…”

Liz carefully listened to her, making sure that she understood her correctly, then, she put her book away.

“What… you want?”

“Take over my watch already please, I’m super tired!” She begged her.

----------------------------------------

Farah’s day had been rather mundane, she woke up, ate some meat and wine, prepared some heat stones, sold them in the local market for profit, and made her way towards the library.

“Welcome back Miss Farah.” The librarian greeted her.

“Good morning.” She replied with a smile, before heading towards her usual spot in the library.

She spent some hours reading a grimoire on basic earth magic, nothing groundbreaking, but it was still helpful, her earth magic was only average at best after all.

“Uhhggg…” She sighed, exhausted. “Studying with books is so boring…”

This was the only thing she hated about being a mage, the studying. Endless books awaited anyone who dared to learn this power, and she could only speculate on the amount of time she spent in libraries alone.

“Still, it's quite helpful that the guild offers a discount for active mages…”

She let out a last sigh before placing the book back on its shelf and walking towards the exit. She said goodbye to the librarian before paying the two silver coins of today's visit.

“Will you come back tomorrow?” The librarian politely asked.

“I’m leaving the city today, so this has been my last visit of this year I’m afraid.”

“I understand, may the great one bless you with safe travels.”

Farah didn’t bother answering and simply smiled back before taking her leave. While she wasn’t or wished to be, an enemy of God, she wasn’t precisely a faithful believer either.

She walked down the streets of the city and took her time admiring some of its best views. The great cathedral was rather beautiful, she had to admit.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Eventually, she reached the caravan in which she was supposed to leave the city.

“Hey Farah, have you had fun with your books?” Alan, the captain of her party, mocked her.

“A lot really, did you know that fireballs have a tendency to target annoying party leaders?” She replied. “It would be a shame if one burned that cowboy hat of yours…”

“You wouldn’t dare.” He said before bursting into laughter.

This wasn’t a rare thing for them to do, they have known each other for more than a year after all. Eventually, their other two companions finally arrived, and happily shared their adventures in the past few weeks.

They planned on catching up on each others’ affairs before it was time for the caravan to leave, but then she felt her blessing activating, and rapidly looked around to see who dared to use identification on her.

It took her a while to finally spot her, a little girl average in any conceivable way, all but the nonexistent mana aura around her. Poor girl, not even Alan has that little.

Rapidly, her anger turned into pityness, even if she was just a girl, having no mana was one of the biggest flaws one could have in this world. Still, I should warn her about using identification on others. Else she might earn the anger of someone in the future.

“No one has told you that using Identification on someone is rude!?” She screamed at her, probably louder than what she wanted.

The girl simply stared at her, this was probably the first time someone was able to interrupt her skill, her blessing was quite rare after all.

“If you are so curious about my class and level I’ll tell you, but only if you tell me yours too.” She said. She is probably a classless level five at best, so just mocking her a bit should be enough for her to learn the lesson.

“Huh?” The confused girl said.

“I’m a level 36 mage, and you?” I’m sorry little girl, but this is for your own good.

The girl stared at her for a few seconds, Farah almost felt like she was just a painting being admired at some point. But eventually the little girl answered.

“Mage… level 15…” She said slowly, almost like she didn’t really know how to talk.

Hey hey hey what kind of bad joke is this? She almost felt insulted, a mage, this manaless girl, saying she was an enraged barbarian would have been more believable.

“Hey I might not have an identification skill, but even I can tell you're not a mage.” She said, looking at her dead in the eyes. “You have no mana.”

Now she was in a really bad mood, if she wasn't a little girl, she would’ve started a fight already. But before the girl could reply, an older girl appeared to protect her.

She must be her older sister, please control her a bit more next time, not everyone is as understanding as I am… She thought to herself.

But before she could leave, the older girl said something about finding another caravan. Hey, you aren’t really trying to join a caravan as fighters, right? A manaless child, a dagger rogue and whatever that wimp of a beastboy is, no one in his right mind would even consider it.

But unexpectedly, their insurance stopped them. “Wait please, I would like to apologise on my contractors behalf, would you be willing to join us for two coppers each?”

Farah couldn’t help but to watch, as the highest levelled person of the group interjected on their behalf. Has he lost his mind!? Given his position, he could easily ask for them to be treated as preferential passengers, so he must’ve had some reason to just ask for them to be treated as regular fighters…

And whatever reason he had must have convinced the owner of the caravan, since they were now riding on the last wagon, just behind her.

“Seriously, what was going through that knight's head when he asked for them to join as fighters, they will be slaughtered in the first fight!” Talia, their “archer” said.

“Maybe he wants to use them as an excuse to enter the fights, and earn a bigger cut?” Gustav, the bald tank of their team said.

“Nah, I checked his contract when I signed us in, he wont move a finger even if half of us die, not unless a lvl 50 monster appears.” Alan, who was driving the wagon, said.

“Then he must’ve liked one of the girls, maybe he wants to seduce them?”

“If he wanted to seduce them he would've paid for their transport, not given them a free ticket to the afterlife!” Gustav argued.

“Who knows, maybe he is a sadist.” Talia joked.

Farah simply laid back in the wagon and closed her eyes, it was of no use trying to understand why those kids were in their caravan, and whatever was the reason, it would probably be clear once the first monsters attacked them, so it wouldn’t take long.

“Whatever reason he has, it will be clear the first time we have to fight…” Fara said, as she laid back. “If I remember correctly I have to keep the night watch today, so please let me sleep for a bit.”

“She’s pissed…” The three of them whispered.

Eventually, the caravan reached a rocky formation with towering black boulders, following the plan, they parked the wagons next to them and walked towards the centre of the formation, where they lit a fire.

Today's dinner was provided by the owner of the caravan, a simple stew based on sand potatoes, which in Fara’s opinion were quite more apeticing than what the name would suggest.

After that, most of the people left to their respective wagons or carriages, and only the few assigned to the night watch remained.

“Why the long face?” The man asked Fara.

“That stupid little girl…” She answered without lifting her head, concentrating on her magic practice.

“Are you still angry because she used identification on you?”

“this isn't about the identification!” She shouted, louder than what she wanted to. “A girl with absolutely no mana calling herself a mage, that’s insulting.”

The man looked at her for a moment before leaning back and smiling. “My mage is also quite curious about that, what do you mean by no mana?”

“Just that, her body doesn’t emit any mana, it's like she was dead. But even a corpse emits some mana for a couple of weeks.” She focused her attention on her training again, finishing the conversation.

The man seemed to understand it, so he simply nodded and remained silent.

For almost an hour, only the subtle sound of the fire was heard in the desert, until some tiny footsteps disturbed this beautiful calmness.

‘The pink haired brat must have gotten bored after being alone for a while’ Fara didn’t dislike Dere that much, she reminded her of her stupid little brother, but just like him, she seemed to destroy every bit of peace wherever she went.

“Food, where?”

Fara’s eyes widened as she heard Liz’s voice.

“You have finally decided to eat something?” The man asked her. “Where were you anyway?”

“Meditating…” She answered as she sat down next to the fire.

“Here.” The man said as he handed her a wooden bowl full of stew. “You have to eat a lot if you want to grow strong like us.”

Liz stared at him for a few moments, making sure she heard correctly. “Thanks.” She said with a smile, before turning her attention to her food.

‘He forgot about the spoon.’ Fara thought and turned towards the box with wooden cutlery, but when she was about to offer one to Liz, she froze.

In front of her, the little girl was peacefully enjoying her meal with a blue spoon.

Fara blinked several times, and even activated her mana sense, but her eyes weren’t deceiving her, Liz had just used magic.

“HOW!?”