Octavia POV

I turned 13 recently. It’s been about a year since Cassius left. While the situation regarding his soul is a bit weird, I will continue to call him Cassius.

I decided to draw on what the real Cassius taught me when I was younger: no matter what, you don’t turn your back on people who need you. I learned from the old man that anyone if given empathy and love can change into a better person.

While I decided to commit my life to helping people, including Cassius, I can hardly do this if I remain weak forever. To this end, I am training with the old man and Livius. Livius is quite busy, while he leaves his aids to do most of his administration work, he is always buried in historical documents trying to uncover the mysteries of the past.

The old man is the one who spends the most time tutoring me. Whether it be spellcasting, philosophy, or the sciences, he is truly a genius. He explains everything so eloquently and knows something about everything. Despite how understandable his lessons are, I find it hard to keep up.

When Claudia would teach me, she had simple goals and thought very long-term. The old man is the opposite, he has complex challenges and ideas he wants me to understand in the short term, as well as limited time to teach everything. I have always pushed myself as hard as I thought I could, and now I am pushing myself far beyond that.

In the first 9 months, I made good progress, he wanted to help me build up confidence in what I was already good at. We focused on support and utility magic, my strengths. Just 2 months ago we started working on attack magic, primarily the elemental ones and…

“Watch out!” the old man leaped next to me, grabbed my right shoulder, and helped me control the fire spell that got wildly out of control.

“It’s alright, everyone makes mistakes” he comforted.

“Yeah, but they make progress. I am not getting anywhere with these attack spells! I can form the fire, I can feed it, but for some reason, I just can’t finish it!”

“Progress takes time Octavia.”

“I don’t have time! If I remain a failure, nothing will change.”

I lost myself there momentarily, so I walked to a tree trunk and sat down. I’ve been wearing pants and tunics recently instead of my normally worn dresses I sat more comfortably next to my staff because of this. I let out a sigh and looked up at the leaves. Trees give me a strange comfort, I know it’s odd, but I always feel protected under the shade of a tree.

The old man sat down cross-legged in front of me and placed his chin on his fist.

“Octavia, perhaps you are just not suited for attack magic.”

“Huh?” a mage without the ability to defend herself? If that’s true, I will never be allowed into a battlefield.

“It’s not that bad you see, you will have roles to play in parties that need support. You can still fulfill your mission, you just need to gather allies and…”

“And rely entirely on other people? Be a weak girl who needs defending? One who stands on the sidelines while others put their body on the line? I can’t accept this!”

“Do you have another choice?”

“...no.”

Dejected, I headed back into the city to reflect. Once again I experience a setback due to my own shortcomings. I bought a steamed bun, it was very warm and slathered in goat's butter. I buy this all the time with the allowance Livius gives me.

The clouds are getting darker, maybe I should head back soon. Still, this walk hasn’t cleared my mind at all. I am filled with anxieties, I fear that no matter how determined I am I will always be too weak to change anything.

I have lost so many people: Marcus, Claudia, Julius, and Cassius, I had to give up my biological family. I was always helpless to prevent these, I don’t want the same to occur next time.

I’m still about 30 minutes away from the estate, I walked pretty far. I eventually saw the adventurer's guild to my left. Drowning out the sound of my sandals on the stone road I hear shouting from the building.

An urgent-looking man clung to the leg of a tough-looking man. He held a grave look on his face accompanying his deep wrinkles. When the adventurer kicked the man's hands off him he swiftly departed.

“What is it?”

“It’s my daughter! I need help! Can you convince these people to help me?”

“I know strong people. What is happening to your daughter?”

“A thunder scorpion is attacking our home. I hid her in a cave and ran past the beast to get here for help, but no one will save her!”

If he brought his daughter with him there was a good chance she would die. He likely intended to take the risk of death upon himself only to leave her life in danger,

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“What about the guards?”

“They won’t leave their posts to save her. They sent me here, but I have no money.”

“I… I can get some people who can help. It will take 40 minutes or so to get back here but…”

“It’s already been 20 minutes! Please help me convince one of these adventurers!”

Convince an adventurer to take a tier 5 kill quest alone for no money? That is certainly impossible. I could run to the estate, but she’ll probably be dead by then.

This situation is the combination of the worst possible factors I could think of. Maybe I could speak to the guards myself? No, I don’t have the authority that Livius has. Is there anything I can do?

What would Cassius do if he were here?

There is no point in even asking.

“Come with me. I am a mage, I can save your daughter.” I order the man.

“A…alright.”

He comes with clinging onto his last hope. Truthfully, I don’t think I can win. I am completely incompetent, I am a useless mage flailing around her staff trying to save the world. Still, I have to do something… I can’t just betray the trust everyone has had for me.

The man leads the way out of the city. It was just 5 minutes to reach the gate. After that, the gravel roads turned to dirt and my footing turned uneasy as I ran. I have been training my body recently, but I am still physically lacking.

The stench of the city exits my nose as we run through the forest just outside of the city. This is the only forest close to the city walls. The people who live here tend to be hunters or those looking for very cheap residences, but it is dangerous. Not only do monsters frequently enter, but the guards have no incentive to protect the impoverished at the cost of their lives.

Off a dirt road, 15 minutes outside of the city walls there lay a house in shambles. The walls were chipped, bent, and snapped to pieces. The mud by the rushing river had odd prints on it. The silence was eerie, just the rush of the water over my panting breath. Then suddenly… the ground shook.

I jerk my head to the left to see a hole made through a cave. A giant beast dug through the rocky walls trying to fit into the narrow interior. Its skin is transparent, yet you can see the lines of its body.

Within its body, bolts of blue electricity shot around. It was probably thrice as tall as an adult male, and its body was as wide as a building. Though its front-end claws filled me with fear, I felt the truest terror when I laid my eyes upon its imposing stinger.

It only continued its attack on the cave briefly after I arrived. The beast maneuvered its body using small and sharp limbs to face me and the man I was with.

“Grab your daughter and run. I will draw its attention.”

“But you…”

“I’ll be fine. I’m stronger than I look.”

“...ok.”

The man accepted his role and braced himself. I could tell he was scared, but nothing would stop him from saving his daughter. Me? I was better at hiding it.

I had never fought a monster alone before. Truthfully, I was terrified. I’m not like Cassius, or Julius, or any of them. I never wanted to be a fighter, when I think about strong opponents, injury, or death, my knees shake.

None of that matters right now. What is before me is an opponent that must be held off. Even if I lack attack magic, I am still a mage. I can at least hold it off.

Perhaps the old man, Livius, or even Cassius will come and save me. Maybe a wandering hero will come across this scene and protect me. Ah, I can only wish.

I breathed in a deep breath and stared down the thunder scorpion. I made it clear who its opponent is. The old man told me about them, I know their attacks.

Any possible physical enhancement I cast on myself to the maximum degree. I don’t have as much mana as Cassius, but I am getting closer. In terms of raw mana capacity, I have greater talent than him.

For its first move, the monster launched its body at me. With the focus spell cast, I perceived every detail of its movement. The scorpion's body was deceptively heavy. I held it back with my mana barrier.

Mana barrier is the most powerful combat barrier spell known to man, you cast it by weaving pure mana into threads and pulling it tight into a wall. Claudia left behind this spell, though my spell is far weaker than hers.

While I was holding the scorpion's body back with one barrier, it pushed its stinger over my head and attacked me from behind. This was its first attack, and while extremely effective against fighters, I had a way to deal with it.

Without turning around, I constructed another barrier. The tip of the sharp stinger broke through, but the rest got stuck. While it was held still, I lept away towards the river. My sandals slid through the mud as I did a 180-degree turn, pointing my staff at the beast once more.

I can’t use attack magic, but other spells can work in this situation. Such as support spell: lock joints. By targeting the joints of a creature, visualizing its movement, and visualizing obstructing that, you can impede every aspect of your opponent’s attacks.

This spell isn’t perfect, it only slows down the enemy, but it helps. I cast confusion which creates illusions of other enemies attacking. Then depression, which lowers your enemy's alertness and will to fight.

The combination of these spells gives the man the opportunity to sneak into the cave and pick up his daughter. She was probably my age, maybe a year older. Despite appearing mortified, she was unharmed.

I spent 2 minutes maintaining these spells while the man got his daughter and took the first few steps out of the cave toward safety. By the time they made it that far, the scorpion realized what was going on and locked its focus on me once more.

Lighting shot at me. The spell combines speed, potency, and bending at odd angles. This was its most troublesome power. As a mage, I have nothing to fear, with my barriers and magic nullification I can get through this.

Bolt after bolt, it attacks from every angle. Each time, I either touch the bolt with my staff casting magic nullification, or I put a barrier in harm's way. If I can keep this up, if I can confuse the scorpion long enough, then maybe I can survive this. Or so I thought.

Then, just ahead of me, in the direction the father and daughter were running, another appeared. The scorpion was of equal size to the one I was holding off. He didn’t stand a chance, just after pushing his daughter out of the way, he was pierced through the stomach.

The man was killed.

I ran towards the two of them. Casting the spell ‘slip’ on myself, I slid under the scorpion's legs and got to the girl just in time to cast a barrier, protecting her from the scorpion’s first attack. But because of this, I was left at the mercy of the other one.

On the left side at the bottom of my abdomen, a familiar stinger pierced through me. My body tensed up and I fell to the ground.

Poison.