The sun was going down and night was approaching. The party was still going at full energy, everyone talking with everyone, eating different food, even making more if it striked their fancy. Lots of new recipes were made that day, some better than others.
Mia looked around and knew that it was almost time to end the party. She could let it go all the way into the night and she knew that people were more than willing to stick around but a part of her knew that partying for half a day was more than enough. She would still follow her parents advice of just enjoying the day but she wanted to enjoy some of it with just her family.
As the night continued to approach, Mia found herself in her room as people began to take a look around. Her clubmates found her choice of books interesting, not that she had many, a good amount of the women, girls and a few men found her collection of plushies that she had no hand in acquiring was adorable. It wasn’t unusual for her to just find a new plushie of something in her room after a few days. Her walls had a few decorations that the boys found cool, a sword, a scroll with the image of a dragon, another with the image of a tiger, one telling something about fighting and one last one philosophizing about magic. The one thing that everyone, no matter the sex, found interesting was Mia’s doll collection. Out of everything Mia had, her doll collection was the one thing that she had that she liked and had no use for combat. She actively took care of her dolls. It was one of the ways that she relaxed after a day of training. She was pretty sure that it was a remnant of her old life. She could feel that she never had the chance to make a collection like that.
Outside her room, her family was slowly taking away food making sure that no more was being made. There were a lot of adults that could eat non-stop so as long there was food, there would be people eating. They also need to make space for the cakes.
The games were tallied, the winner was informed to Mia and only her. Once all the food was finished, the dishes cleaned and everyone gathered outside, Mia and her family brought out a few chocolate cakes and the chocolate truffles to the table outside.
The music stopped, everyone gathered around the tables outside the house. The magical lights of the street finally kicked on, making the atmosphere even better. More than one person was salivating at the treats in front of them. Mia walked to the table and began to address everyone.
“Hello everyone. Thank you for coming to my birthday party. I cannot express how happy I am that everyone came here to celebrate my birth! A lot of things happened in my life so far, some good, some bad, but I am happy where I am now.” Mia said, clearly happy and full of emotion.
“We love you Mia!” Someone shouted. It was followed by almost everyone cheering Mia up.
“Thank you! Thank you!” Mia said, trying to calm people down. “This is my home, my country. My family and friends live here. There are a lot of scary things out there that would take those away, the things I love, so I will continue to train, I will get strong, so strong that everyday will be like today. So that no one will ever take someone I love from me again!” Mia declared. She was clearly a little distressed but she continued to smile. “I have been told that this cake and truffles are so unique that nobody would be able to eat them if I didn’t make them. I hope you enjoy it as best as you can because, sadly, there aren't enough ingredients to make more than what you are seeing. It also is not very healthy to eat a lot of, but I can guarantee it's extremely good.”
“Here is the knife.” Marry said to Mia as she gave Mia a big knife to cut the cakes. Mia herself was going to give a slice of cake to everyone. But she had one last thing to do.
“One last thing. When I got into the academy, my master said that the spell I used to pass the last test was beautiful and it was a shame that not everyone managed to see it. Now that it is night, look at the sky, I will show something beautiful again.” Mia said confidently.
Without even leaving where she was she began to concentrate her mana on her hands. She wasn’t making a spell to damage someone, so putting power into it wasn’t a problem, more mana could be used to increase the size and detail. She concentrated on the spell, thinking about all the good things in her life so far. This spell was something that would show everyone the happiness she was feelling.
It took a few seconds, in her hand a ball of concentrated mana formed and then it was launched into the sky. There it exploded like fireworks but from it emerged various forms made out of flames. Long dragons danced into the sky for everyone to see. One was reading, another was eating a cartoon piece of meat, one had a beard and a wizard hat along with a cane, one was using a sword and the last one had a lot of smaller dragons following it along. The dance in the sky continued for a full 10 minutes where everyone just stood there in silence, mesmerized by the view.
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Once the dragons vanished, everyone turned their attention back to Mia. She was cutting the cake. One after the other she took a piece of the cakes, put it onto a plate along with a fork and a truffle and gave it to someone after thanking them again for coming, giving them a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Quite a lot of people felt embarrassed by that but no one recused. The winner of the games earned an extra truffle, those were Kretia and Toshiro, the king, who won against everyone back to back once he heard about a prize.
Not everyone liked the cake or the truffles, it was expected, not everyone liked sweet stuff, but nobody could really tell it was bad, just not their taste. Mia also made sure to give some of it to the guards that worked all day protecting the street.
After about an hour after all that, everyone began to leave. The tables were returned to the house, the street was cleaned with the use of magic and opened again after that. Traffic was not really expected there but there was no need to close it anymore.
Inside her house, Mia couldn’t help but be a little giddy. She had a giant pile of presents and could barely tell what 10% of them were. Her family gathered around and helped her open everything as well as check if it was something she could actually have. They trusted Mia to be mature enough for a lot of stuff but Lin knew that nobles tended to prepare their children for some things way earlier than her or Marry were comfortable with.
As they all watched Mia bean with joy over the presents and their company, some people were taking care of problems.
—--
“So, what did you want to talk about?” Maximillian asked Frank.
“I think someone found my pill cache.” He said.
“What?” Toshiro, the king asked.
“Those demons, they ate my pills and it has been a while since I made those.”
“Where was this cache?” Maximillian asked.
“In the middle of the forest, I quite literally buried it before I was arrested.”
“That might be a problem but I see that it isn’t the reason you called for the two of us.” Toshiro said.
“Anyone capable of knowing what those pills do will know what the other there do too and will easily be able to make more once they analyze it.”
“And?” Maximillian asked.
“I had my doubts but after today I am pretty sure I am right. Someone is using one of my pills to poison the town, more specifically nobles.”
“What!?” Toshiro almost lost control once he heard that.
“Calm down. I can probably fix things, the problem will be finding everyone affected.” Frank said.
“How can you be so sure?” Maximillian asked.
“I tested the water around the city and it had trace amounts of alchemical compounds that shouldn’t be there. They were stronger on the common water going to the noble areas.”
“How did you get that water?”
“Mia. Continuing, the attack today, if everything I heard is true, was made by merchants and nobles of a certain group, right?” Frank asked Toshiro.
“Yes.”
“And said group of nobles was slowly becoming greedier over the decades, right?”
“Yes…”
“Pretty sure someone is using my greed pill on the nobles to destabilize the country slowly.”
“Then that means…” Maximillian began to say.
“Someone is attacking us for a while and we didn’t even see….” Toshiro added.
“I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so. I was wrongfully arrested. Someone is trying to do something with your country and I think they are slowly making sure nobody can do anything. Just can’t figure out why someone who could actually do all of this would do it slowly.”
“The only thing a slow revolution can do is change how things work internally, but we can’t…” Toshiro said something but it suddenly clicked what might be happening.
“Someone is after the dungeon!” Maximillian exclaimed.
“Fuck! You are right. If things continued like this the contract would break! Frank, this is an official order from The King of Azuria. If anything is making its way into the land, the air, the water or the food of my kingdom, you are to find out and take care of it. Resources will not be a problem.”
“So I am a free man now?”
“Sadly, that is above anyone. You have a contract.” Maximillian said.
“Well, I can work with that.” Frank said. His plan was to get his guild back and pretty much ignore the world but this became personal the moment someone used his things without permission. His cache wasn’t the easiest thing to crack open. He was so angry that he even forgot the ‘present’ he gave Mia, something that would bite him in the ass later.