Immediately upon getting back to town, it struck Sylvia that she had no idea what to spend her time on, since she didn’t really know what to prepare when going out with a party. Not sure what to do, she just went for a stroll around town in an attempt to increase her familiarity with the place. During her walk, she saw multiple domesticated beasts that she had never seen before, though only one of them beat out the weirdness of the snaky lizard hippopotamus looking Slimus that Mikhail’s party had to draw their wagon. Slimuses were actually the kind of beast she saw the most of.
The weirdest one had a body similar to that of a horse but with six legs, a pair of wings, and two bird-like heads. From her very basic observation, it appeared that it was faster than the Slimus, but the load it carried seemed a fair bit smaller.
Besides seeing a few new beasts, the main takeaway from her stroll was the newfound awareness of where multiple craftsmen of all kinds of trades were holed up, and where she could find both general goods stores, the food stalls, and inns, in addition to many more locations. Granted, she certainly wouldn’t recall the specific locations of each, but now she at least had a general layout of the town.
The further away from the main road she got, the more homely the town began to feel, with small open squares where kids were playing with each other, though it curiously enough seemed to mostly be human and dwarven kids, despite her having seen a decent number of elves throughout the town. While she only saw a single elven kid, she actually saw a small number of beastfolk kids, despite not seeing many beastfolk amongst the adults.
But that wasn’t the thing that surprised her the most. That prize would instead have to go to how well-fed even the few homeless people she saw were, and even the clearly less well-off kids. While their clothes may look old and worn down and their hygiene didn’t always seem to be the best, none of them looked especially famished.
It was actually when she encountered one of the food stalls that sold meat that she understood why they didn’t look famished; it was possible to buy anywhere from 1-3 kilograms of meat for a single caro. Granted, the meat didn’t look to be particularly interesting, though definitely still edible.
That price seemed ridiculously low at first, but then the memory of Mikhail’s party’s wagon carrying three pretty large beasts surfaced, along with her own hand-drawn cart with multiple beasts from a single day of hunting. If many adventurers brought back beasts in that amount every single day, then it’d quickly turn into an overwhelming amount of meat.
With well over an hour having passed during the walk, she made her way for the Adventurer’s Guild to train until Mikhail returned; they hadn’t agreed on a place to meet up and talk about it, so she figured it’d be best to just stick around the guild. On her way there, she dropped by a street food stall and got a few simple meat skewers for 1 caro per 2 skewers. While this was much more expensive than just buying it raw, it was to be expected when buying a prepared product.
It took a bit over an hour, but Mikhail really did as she had hoped and called out to her. With a smile, she stopped her training and went over. “Better luck today?” Sylvia asked.
“Most certainly. We found a high tier six Krongly, so a number of us actually leveled up.” Mikhail answered in a chipper tone. “But more importantly, did you practice your ability to hide in the ground? Because you might need it tomorrow.” Mikhail continued, though Sylvia thought that she could detect a hint of a serious undertone this time.
“Of course I did; I did say that I was going to do it. In addition to that, I improved both my defensive walls and the integration of magic into my combat flow.” To prove her point, she immediately activated Bomb Shelter beneath her, since they still were in the training yard.
In less than a second, she was underground in the dark. After a little bit, she retracted the cover and rose out of the ground, making sure to patch the ground up properly this time. “Impressive, even considering your medium affinity. Mostly because it yesterday sounded like you didn’t have a lot of experience with magic.”
Smiling in return, Sylvia gestured to the open field. “Actually, what do you say to a simple spar; that way you can also get an idea of my current capabilities.”
“Sure. Let me grab myself a practice bow. Don’t worry, I’ll take one with a low poundage and just stick to knobheaded arrows.” Mikhail said, heading over to the wall with practice equipment. “You go get ready for the spar; I’ll be there shortly.”
In the few moments of waiting on Mikhail, Sylvia wondered how much she had gotten in over her head with a spar like this. Luckily those thoughts were cut short as Mikhail quickly returned. “While there is little chance for your attacks to get through to me due to the sheer difference in our levels and abilities, please do keep in mind that I’m nowhere near Haris’ level, be it actual level or skill level, so your attacks can hurt me. With that said, let’s begin.”
It quickly became clear for Sylvia that this fight would be unlike anything she had experienced before, maybe with the exception of one or two Fast Wolves. In rapid succession, arrows were flying towards her. Though… they seemed slower than expected. In fact, they felt slower than the arrow that had almost taken Frank’s life back on Earth.
It was likely because of both the low poundage and the knobheads increasing drag like crazy, but it took the arrow at least a quarter of a second to cover the 15 meters between them. In the heat of the moment, it didn’t even strike her that her body naturally enhanced her senses and reaction time, despite feeling the effects as she began pulling up a wall whilst dodging away from the arrow to behind the wall.
Within the same second as the second arrow flew past the wall, she was suddenly pushed back and forced to close her eyes to shield them from the dust of the exploded wall. Having experienced something similar just a few days ago, she drew forth Earth mana and kept it before her eyes in a very thin layer to push away dust; making it thin prevented her vision from becoming distorted.
“Is that really all your improved defenses can do?” Mikhail didn’t look particularly impressed as he held his bow ready to draw. She partially wondered if he was considering not taking her with them, for her own safety.
Forcing a smile despite her blunder, Sylvia answered. “Maybe? Maybe not? You’ll have to find out yourself.” Another wall arose from the ground, but this time it was enhanced. It didn’t take long for a second explosion to sound, followed shortly by a third, and then a fourth, but her wall stood, though she could certainly feel the drain as well, especially as it repaired itself. She began to wonder where he got those explosives from.
“I see. This is indeed a major improvement over the last one. However, it does quite limit your vision.” As he spoke, she could her him approach slowly.
‘Alright, time to counterattack.’ Drawing a deep breath, she braced her core as she drew mana into both of her hands, before giving the wall a big push. While the motion was unnecessary, she felt that it helped with her mental image, and the wall shooting forth certainly didn’t suggest that it had been a detriment.
As it flew forth, she called forth fire at the tip of her spear, preparing to shoot it towards Mikhail once he appeared, but she quickly encountered an issue with that plan. The issue wasn’t that he didn’t show up, it was instead that he appeared on both sides at once, rushing towards her with bow drawn. As he was about to pass the wall, he jumped up as if it was about to hit him, allowing it to pass beneath him.
Just as he was about to land, they both released their arrows at the same time, forcing Sylvia’s head back in the game. Since the arrows came at her from an angel, she leapt back, allowing the two to cross through each other where she had just stood. This was when she realized two things. The first was how the explosions were made, as these arrows were made of water, so the explosions must’ve been fire arrows. The second was that the other Mikhail was probably a mirage, with how the two arrows just passed through each other as if the other didn’t exist.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Now just came the question, which one was the real one and how to deal with it. Actually, regardless of which was the real one, she first had to figure out how to deal with the arrows speeding towards her in the first place. Instead of jumping back this time, she quickly moved to the right, dodging two ‘regular’ arrows, and shot her fire a couple times at the one in front of her.
Immediately, the Mikahils each held out the opposite hand from one another and emitted a large disk of fire, about a meter in radius, which seemed to just subsume her shots completely, leaving her unable to tell if she’d hit the real one or not. Nevertheless, her attack had not been completely wasted, as she had ascertained that one was a mirrored image of the other.
An idea pooped into her mind, and she began to run counterclockwise around the one before her, and as she had expected, he did not turn to face her. Rather, they both moved as well, doing their best to get her to be between them to keep up the illusion of them both aiming at her, occasionally shooting water arrows at her.
As they moved, Sylvia wondered if she was seeing things. She could almost swear that the two Mikhails were moving around mirror plane. Granted that the plane could rotate and move its axis of rotation. She also recalled that they had jumped over the wall earlier, despite already being out of its way. Figuring that she may as well throw a Hail Mary. As such, she sent her mana through the ground and had a wall arise between the two.
The moment the wall stood, the Mikhail on her left disappeared, though he just as quickly reappeared when Mikhail stepped back a couple steps, but the damage had already been done.
In a swift movement, Sylvia had closed the distance between them, but it hadn’t taken Mikhail any longer than that to manifest a growing ring of water around him. As she stabbed towards his gut and below the ring, it simply moved down faster than her spear, and she felt a strong current divert the spear away from him.
The slightly cocky smile from Mikhail spurred her to continue attacking, only for her following attacks to get diverted as well. This diversion of attacks somehow frustrated her more than back when Haris had skillfully deflected each of her strikes. Roughly ten attacks in, she realized that she was just doing exactly what he wanted of her.
She couldn’t help herself but mentally applaud the youth for his play. However, rather than stop her attack and retreat, she pushed further, but more calculated this time around. Each of her strikes was aimed such that the water had to move the most, hopefully making Mikhail use more of his mana and focus.
As she struck, she began to send mana into the ground, attempting to turn it into quicksand beneath him. Fully within her expectations, a steady and powerful pulsing of mana began to radiate into the ground from him, making the quicksand useless.
“Since it appears that your last move didn’t work out either, despite your massive amount of mana, what do you say to end-“ Mikhail suddenly found his words cut off and his cocky smile faded, as eight enhanced spears of earth had suddenly risen from the ground and encased him, with the ground at his feet quickly crawling up his legs the moment he let his mind slip for but an instant. Without losing his smile, though no longer cocky, he spoke. “I guess that settles it. You did well Sylvia.”
All of a sudden, the ring of water burst forth, drenching Sylvia who hadn’t managed to react due to thinking it was over. The laughter coming from Mikhail felt infectious and she couldn’t help but chuckle slightly at it. “Let’s just call it a tie. In a proper battle, you could’ve ended me with those spears of yours.
“However, you completely forgot that I could’ve attacked with the water as well, and your last rush left you completely exposed. While that worked out fine in this spar, the same can not be said for a life of death battle.” The serious undertone of the last sentence was not lost on her.
While pulling the water from her with little effort, she released the earth around his feet and had the spears return to the ground. “I’m just surprised I even got through with the spears. I was aware of the possibility of you trying to disrupt my mana like that, which is why I had to first distract you by attempting to transform the ground, but I had still assumed the disruption would’ve been stronger.”
The man shook his head lightly, his smile fully returned. “You certainly did far better than I had expected. Of everything, your deduction of which one was the real me was quite clever. And on the note of my mana disruption, it wasn’t that it was particularly week, just that you have such an overwhelming amount of mana that I could do little to get through your mana.
“In fact, if you had just turned the ground liquid beneath me instead of whatever you were trying to, you would’ve most likely thrown me off balance.”
Sylvia shook her head lightly at the last comment. “I’m not familiar with doing that, so I couldn’t have done as you suggest, though my intent was relatively similar. Besides, it’s not as if I had a lot of mana left by the time I went for that final gambit. The majority of my mana was used hours ago when I practiced my magic, and my mana recovery is not particularly fast.”
“That explains a lot.” He nodded, as they put away their training gear, having cleaned up the mess from their spar. “Say, what do you say to me explaining that to you some other time? Halae mentioned us all going for a meal together and suggested that I invite you as well. It’s somewhat of a tradition for us to share a meal together before a big mission, and this one can certainly be counted as that.”
“Oh? I’ll gladly accept both of those offers. I haven’t had the chance to spend much time with the others since you guys picked us up. It’d be nice to get to know them a little before going on a mission with them.”
They retrieved their regular gear, and with a short comment from Mikhail concerning her new gear, they went their ways until dinner; Mikhail apparently had something he had to do now that he had informed her of the mission being accepted.
Back at the cave, Sally was enjoying the dinner she had prepared for her and the other three. Though they had by now somewhat moved out of the cave and into the fortress built by Korrak; actually, it’d be most correct to say that they lived in both, as the two had been connected.
This combination of the two places was a great improvement in her mind, especially since they now something akin to a proper door. The largest improvement by far was the kitchen space, which they had finished today, since she now had a full room dedicated to her work, allowing her to work without being constantly distracted by everyone else; an issue she, as always, seemed to be the only one facing.
Besides the kitchen, the fortress now held multiple workshops throughout different rooms, though about half stood empty. Korrak had even made a small cellar where they could store their foodstuffs.
Looking over at the dragonborn shoveling down his meal, she couldn’t help but smile slightly. Her appreciation and respect for the man had grown a lot over the past half week. Rather than sit and wallow in despair over the orcs relatively nearby, he had raised a small fortress in just under two weeks; a feat that even great builders with an Earth affinity should’ve found hard to accomplish, let alone someone at the Experienced rank.
No, Proficient, not Experienced; he had managed to rank up just a couple hours ago. She had overheard him excitedly telling Corrin about how his skill had grown much faster during this construction than ever before and finishing the kitchen had been the last push to step to advance his skill to Advanced.
It was nice to see him not focusing on the orcs anymore, at least not outwardly. However, while he no longer seemed to despair about their situation, there was still an underlying, though noticeable, desperation to him as he went about his day.
“Yer getting better at foraging for edible stuff, Sally.” Corrin spoke, interrupting her thoughts as he fished up bits of melot from the stew. “Not to mention yer cooking; what’s yer skill at now?”
“Not that much, just 37; I haven’t had anyone to give me any guidance after all.” -She let out a small sigh- “I wouldn’t mind being able to go back to tailoring though. Cooking is nice and all, but I miss working with cloth.”
“I feel that.” Adam interjected, smiling softly. “I would’ve gone mad if I hadn’t been able to do any woodworking or carpentry for four weeks either. Hopefully Frank and Enelise return sooner rather than later with some materials.”
It was only as he mentioned those two that Sally realized how little they had actually talked, about them over these days; they had been quite busy with construction work after all. As Adam and Corrin began talking about something and Korrak returned to do some evening work, her mind wandered back to a couple of days before the others left.
Having always been curious by nature, her way of coping with her extremely good hearing, she had ended up following behind back when Frank had pulled Enelise to the side. As such, she was now familiar with more of his origin than those remaining here.
With what she had experienced of Frank, she didn’t doubt anything he had said that day, but that had just left her confused as to where he actually came from. Her current theory was that he must be from another world, but that just felt insane to think about. Since she had arrived at that idea shortly after they left, she had figured that there was no reason to spend more time thinking about it until she could ask Enelise; she must’ve figured out more by now.
While clearing away from dinner, she considered whether or not she should tell the others to get their input. In the end she decided against it; she figured it was best to respect Frank’s wish about this kind of personal information, though she did want to know the reason behind keeping a secret from everyone here.
As evening turned to night, Sally made her way to one of the four-person rooms, with the others sharing the other one. This split was agreed upon by the others as well, mostly in respect of her enhanced senses; a consideration she greatly appreciated.
While having her own room was nice, that did not mean that sleeping was nice in any way. The others seemed to have an easier time with it, but the stone was simply so rough to lay on, even with the amount of padding she had between it and herself. Even shaping the stone to better match her body through magic did little to help, but while it was a slight struggle, she did eventually fall asleep.