Aida regretted her choice - why didn’t she take a path around the small wood? - until she reached a small area with felled trees. Intrigued by the growth from the stumps, she leaned down to investigate.
Even in the waning light, Aida could tell the haphazard collection of plants and fungi growing together were colorful and fun. She had never seen anything like it. The mushrooms had caps ranging from small and bubbly to tall and sleek, and every other combination in between; there were flowers that looked like a typical daisy, chrysanthemum, or tulip, as well as flower colors and designs she had never seen before.
Aida squinted. There were even a few flowers whose petals began glowing, with small motes of light lifting off from the middle of the petals.
Since she had no idea if those plants were dangerous (they were quite pretty, but also brightly colored), Aida decided it would be safer to back away. Returning to the path, Aida continued wandering, making note of how dark her return path would be.
She didn’t need to worry; fireflies were starting to wake up, lighting up her path. Absorbed by the ethereal scene in front of her, Aida was startled by a shriek in the distance.
With no idea what her plan would be, or even if she could help, Aida moved as quickly down the path as she could, careful not to stumble over roots or other obstacles. When she finally broke out of the small forest she was in, she was standing at the edge of a field, with tall grass and glowing blue flowers that reached up to her waist.
In the middle of the field, elegantly illuminated from below by the petals, with a clear sky of stars casting its blessed light from overhead, stood Sue and Ezra. Ezra was holding a bundle of flowers in one hand out to Sue, who was clearly flustered.
Aida was too far away to hear what they were saying, but she saw Sue run her fingers through her luscious locks in an effort to straighten her mussed hair before gratefully accepting the flowers from Ezra.
Aida melted back behind a tree so that she wouldn’t disturb Sue’s romance flag with Ezra. She knew Sue was the protagonist of this world, but she still couldn’t help but feel disappointed at how conveniently the world arranged things for Sue. After all, she chastised herself, just because Ezra offered to teach her magic didn’t mean that he intended to overcome the natural order of things.
Annie knew she - or rather, Aida - was pretty, but there was no way Aida held a candle to Sue’s protagonist aesthetic. Aida was pretty in that “cartoon characters are pretty because they have symmetrical features and no blemishes” kind of way, while Sue was literally the embodiment of every girl and guy’s dream. Side characters never received notable attention from romantic leads intended for the main character.
Blowing her bangs out of her face, Aida started making her way back towards the school. She paused, hearing shifting in the trees. Taking a steadying breath, she pulled her wand out of her blazer pocket, wishing she had chosen to learn the Water Blast skill instead of Heal.
Aiming her wand to her left, she focused and gathered her mana, feeling the thrumming gathering in her wand. Her fingers tightened, more of a physical manifestation of her mental strain in containing the mana, rather than her body actually requiring tension to hold back the Mana Blast that was so eager to leave her body. When no further noises emanated from the forest, Aida released a small spurt of power at the tree she heard noise from, expecting a small creature to scuttle away from the disturbance. Instead, a lithe form stepped out languidly from behind the tree she shot past.
Levi ducked underneath a hanging branch, fireflies swirling around him in a halo, emphasizing his high cheekbones and chiseled jawline. He gave Aida a half-hearted smirk.
“Hey Aida. What are you doing out here?”
Aida scoffed. “I heard Sue scream, so I came here to see that she’s okay. What about you?”
Levi’s smirk turned into a grimace. “Similar story.” He glanced at the field, where Sue and Ezra had stepped closer to each other. He tilted his head back towards the school. “Let’s go.”
Breaking into a jog to keep up with Levi’s long strides, Aida continued probing. “You don’t even want to check for yourself to see if she’s okay? You’re okay with leaving her in the dark with a guy?”
“I’m not worried. Suelina can handle herself with the regular monsters that prowl the school grounds, and Ezra’s a pretty great practitioner himself,” Levi replied genially. Despite his relaxed response, Levi’s footsteps started to take on a stomping quality.
Aida picked up her pace. “You’re right, and Ezra’s the top of our class too. She’s probably safest with him,” she agreed, her last phrase coming out in a huff. She collided into Levi’s back.
“Aida,” Levi started, not turning around. “Aren’t you jealous of Suelina?”
“Huh?” Aida rubbed both hands on her face, trying to remove the sensation of how Levi’s back felt. Firm, yet still pliable where her forehead had bounced off the divot between his lats. Warm, even though he was wearing his school blazer over his button up.
Levi turned around to face her. “I mean, Suelina is really smart, is a naturally gifted fire practitioner, and honestly, one of the most beautiful girls the world has ever seen. And what’s more, she has a personality of gold.” Levi’s copper eyes seemed to melt to amber as he continued in a softer voice. “I don’t think she even realizes how amazing she is.”
Stunned, Aida grappled for a response. It would be really nice if I was given a couple options for responding. “I mean, even if I was jealous of her, what do you expect me to do about it?”
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Levi stared at her, dumbstruck. “Well…I just wanted to hear your thoughts.”
Aida scoffed again. “Do you really care about what I think? Or did you just want to talk about Suelina? Given that the whole world revolves around her.”
Levi’s eyes flickered between hers, seeming to see her for the first time. Aida took a deep breath. He’s just a teenage boy. Of course his worldview is small. And the narrative is centered around Sue anyway.
“Forget it. You’re right. Sue has so many amazing qualities. But I have enough troubles trying to get myself up to speed that I can’t afford to be jealous of her.”
“...Are you just saying that, or are you really not jealous?” Levi asked cautiously.
“A bit of both,” Aida replied ruefully. “I can’t deny that life would be a lot easier if I had even one of Sue’s traits or skills. But since it’s impossible for me to just copy one of them, the best I can do is focus on improving myself, however I can.” Considering the conversation completed, Aida strode past Levi, who followed her hesitantly.
“...I’m also a bit jealous.”
Aida glanced behind her, startled. “Excuse me?”
“Of Ezra,” Levi clarified. His lips, normally curved in a good-natured grin, were pressed in a thin line. “He comes from one of the most influential families, and has access to all the best resources. He doesn’t have to worry about the fate of his family, or about any consequences if he fails.” The displeased look on his face transformed to an outright ugly expression. “He’s probably already betrothed, and he’s still messing around with other girls, leading them on.”
Aida stayed quiet, thinking over his words. She agreed with the sentiment that people from well-off, highly influential families had more freedoms and privileges than regular people, but in her interactions with Ezra, he had been nothing but kind to her. Even when he offered to teach her, he didn’t exude any kind of condescension she would have expected from someone of his caliber. He treated her like they were both regular people, with no judgment that there were things she didn’t know or couldn’t do.
Aida’s thoughts were interrupted by Levi’s sudden grip on her forearm.
“Pull back, Aida.” Levi’s voice was low and brooked no argument. Following his gaze, she saw a giant beetle trundling across the path. The crest of its shell rose up to her sternum, and its antennae were swinging back and forth, almost like a drunk man swinging his arms to maintain balance after a great night, but being dragged by his own momentum due to overcorrection.
“Is it dangerous?” Aida asked softly as Levi pulled her further away, both careful to make their steps as noiseless as possible.
“It normally isn’t,” Levi murmured back, urging her along. “But it’s been soaked in aggression spores. The idiot underclassmen probably grew too many Stimflowers and then didn’t bother to clean up after themselves.”
Aida looked more closely at the beetle, and saw that what she thought was mere firefly reflection off of the beetle’s glossy shell was really more of a glow from the shell itself. There was even a brighter glow in the crevices of the creature, outlining the insect in neon green.
“Okay…so what’s the plan?”
“Plan A, don’t draw attention to ourselves and wait for the beetle to leave on its own.”
Aida had a foreboding feeling. “You know, saying it like that is literally asking to be jinxed.”
“What do you mean?”
“Implying there’s alternative plans means that the worst-case scenario is always going to be—” Aida’s lecture was promptly interrupted by the beetle crashing into a tree, right at the edge of the path. Aida and Levi both froze.
The giant insect let out an adorable chirrup, shaking its head. One of its antennae was bent at an odd angle. The beetle swung towards them and froze, its antennae quivering. Letting out a screech, the beetle lurched towards them, compound eyes seeming to glow in its frenzy.
Levi cursed, pulling Aida behind him. “Get ready to fight your way out!”
“I don’t have any offensive skills!”
“Then Mana Blast it!” Levi took aim at the charging beetle, causing a variety of vines to grow down and up from the surrounding plants, neatly capturing the mindlessly rampaging creature.
“Can’t we just escape while you have it trapped here?” Aida asked, pointing her wavering wand at the flailing beetle.
“It’s going to eat through everything before we can get far enough away to lose its attention,” Levi said grimly. “I don’t have enough mana to hold it forever either.”
Resigned, Aida started blasting at the beetle - for all the good it did. Her blasts just ricocheted off of the insect’s tough exoskeleton, and even its eyes and other soft joint areas seemed to knock her mana away. “I don’t have enough power to bring it down!”
Levi cursed again. “I’ll try to cripple it so that we can run.” Aida felt a shiver pass through her body; Levi was gathering mana, at a much larger scale and faster pace than Aida had ever managed. Feeling helpless (and useless), Aida started looking for a path around the beetle. Her eye fell on the bent antenna, which was barely moving, while the other antenna continued its frenzied thrashing. Aida didn’t know if she was just imagining things, but she thought she almost saw a glimmer of desperation in the beetle’s eyes.
“Wait!” Aida latched onto Levi’s wand arm, and was almost overwhelmed by the vortex that seemed to suck Aida’s power away. She felt like all of her mana and energy was getting drawn into Levi, and Levi’s presence and power seemed to grow while hers dwindled.
Levi threw Aida off his arm, looking at her with fury. “Don’t do that!”
“Just - wait—” Aida gasped, clutching her chest. She pointed a trembling arm at the beetle. “Can you - grow something - to calm it down? You said normally it’s passive?”
Levi’s eyes flickered, and his incensed expression melted into an annoyed frown. “I wouldn’t have had enough mana, but maybe now…” He turned towards the thrashing beetle, which had started tearing through some of the vines. He waved his wand at the ground below the elevated beetle, almost as if he was sowing seeds. Then he deliberately pointed his wand at the beetle, and with his other hand, palm held forward, started slowly pushing up.
Nothing happened, until Levi’s hand reached shoulder height. As soon as his fingers broke chin-level, a cluster of colorful bulbs also broke out of the ground. Levi let out a clenched breath and grinned, and pushed harder with renewed strength. “Aida, back up.”
Aida obliged, retreating to safety behind Levi’s back, but still keeping an eye on the mushroom caps that were unfolding. Unlike the pops of color they were as the fungi first came out of the ground, as their caps unfurled the color seemed to retreat into the stem, leaving the cap a sleepy gray color. When Levi decided they had grown enough, he clenched his fingers, and the mushroom caps violently inverted, like hundreds of mini umbrellas that were simultaneously blown inside out by a strong gust of wind, releasing a cloud of spores right into the beetle’s head.
After a few seconds of continuous thrashing, the beetle’s movements started to slow down, until its head and antennae dropped limply.
“Genius idea, Aida,” Levi said approvingly. He finally turned to her and held his hand out, offering to support her. “Let’s go.”
“Wait,” Aida said, ignoring his hand and moving towards the beetle. “It hurt its antenna.”
“So what? We should go before it wakes up.”
“Let me just try something.” Stopping a safe distance away from the still-entangled beetle, Aida checked her mana levels. Despite the sudden drain when Aida touched Levi - what was that, anyway? - she still had enough mana remaining for one round of Heal. Should I use it on this beast that tried to attack us, or should I save it for an emergency?