"Business relationships have to be cared for by both sides, right? So, won't you fess up to the actually important parts, little doll? Or should I call you little miss monster?"

Lily held her huge sword at my neck. Her face was expressionless, a huge contrast to before.

"Yumi?! Wait, what are you doing?! Let Yumi go!"

"What I am doing? I just told you. Business relationships go two ways. And I want to know who or what I am working for."

Lily didn't avert her attention from me for even a second. She held up the massive Zweihänder with her right arm while her left arm was ready to draw another sword from her waist. There was clearly no intention of letting me move even the tiniest bit.

I could feel my heart beating like mad and cold sweat running down my back. Despite that, I felt strangely calm, as if I wasn't even in mortal danger.

"What do you want to know?"

"Who and what are you? Why are you here? What is your objective?"

"You already know, I'm Yumi. And you already found out I'm a monster. And I'm here because I wouldn't survive in the wild. For my objective... I promised to help Sis. There's nothing else."

"And you expect me to believe that?"

"I don't know what you expect me to tell you. I can only answer your questions."

Lily furrowed her brows. I didn't know what was going through her mind, but she must have been thinking because she didn't react for a short time.

"Then, why do you not hide your mana? Why do you not attack others? Isn't a monster's objective to destroy everything and kill everyone?!"

"Huh? Why would I have to do that?"

I was honestly surprised. I didn't know what monsters were usually like, but I thought they were not much different from normal animals. I recalled Karen telling me they were highly aggressive, but they still kept to themselves inside their territories, right?

But, she also said something interesting.

"And what do you mean with hiding mana?"

"Huh?"

"As I said, you can hide your mana?"

"Are you serious?"

"I am."

"So, the reason you're not even attempting to hide, is... because you don't know how?"

Lily stared at me as if she saw the strangest oddity she ever met. Her sword moved away from my neck. Finally freedom! This was quite a nerve-racking experience. And really scary to boot.

"A monster who doesn't know how to use and hide their mana? To think such a thing exists..."

Lily held her head. She looked quite astonished.

"I do more or less know how to use my mana, though?"

"Then, what kind of magic can you use?"

"Magic? I don't even know how to use magic, don't you have to learn that from a magician or so?"

"... Are you serious?"

"Nn? I am?"

Lily thought for a moment and then turned towards Karen, who was helplessly standing at the side the entire time, looking anxious.

"Karen, can you sense mana?" Lily addressed Karen, taking her by surprise.

"Eh? No, I can't?"

"Ahhh... Okay, this is even worse than I thought. Like this, you two will never survive that. Change of plans, we're camping out. In the forest."

""Eh?""

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

And so, we were forced to accompany Lily to the deeper parts of the forest. She literally forced us, because Karen refused initially. The whole incident left a bit of a sour aftertaste and Karen became quite wary of Lily. It didn't help that we were just left hanging without an explanation.

In any case, Lily just grabbed us both by the arms and dragged us towards the forest. This was a perfect example of kidnapping, wasn't it? It also spoke about her strength that she was just casually dragging two struggling girls without a care. Even more so, since I knew how much strength Karen had. But as Lily's stamina seemed endless we both gave up struggling at some point. We resolved ourselves to an unknown fate. At least it didn't seem like she wanted to do us ill. Yet.

"Can't you let us down and finally explain yourself?"

"I'll explain later, no hurry. Actually, I explained quite a bit already, didn't I? Oh well, whatever. We're going camping, don't be such a spoil."

"I think I got plenty of reason to want an explanation now or to be a spoil."

Alas, Lily began humming and skipping, clearly looking forward to camping out. It was a mystery. A complete and utter mystery. She just held a sword against my neck and now kidnapped me to a... picnic? And I wished she would stop skipping since every skip shook us quite a lot. Even I started to feel ill.

Karen was entirely unable to understand the situation and tried to either struggle free or at least demand an explanation, a fruitless effort.

"Sis, let's give up. I don't think we can achieve anything when she has clearly no intention to explain."

"But Yumi! She attacked you!"

"I think that is actually a rather normal reaction. We can be glad she didn't just behead me immediately."

"But!"

"Sis, calm down. If there's one thing I understood so far, it is that we cannot apply common sense to this girl."

"I think you are the last person to talk about common sense, Yumi..."

"You two, you do know I'm listening,... right...? Well, I don't have any intention to harm you. I mean, we made a contract, right? Can't fulfil my contract without you two. That's common sense right there! I got proper common sense, right?!"

"... Yumi, you are maybe right. I give up. I do not understand her train of thought..."

"Neither do I."

"How rude?!"

How refreshing, for once it's not me who is at the butt of the joke. Albeit this wasn't really a joke...

In the end, we were pulled along the entire way to the forest. Karen and I previously camped at the border near the river, but this time we entered properly. There were many trees. Way too many. Every tree was filled with dense mana and the whole forest was covered in a thick layer of mana.

Honestly, it was quite comfortable. I could feel how the mana crystal inside me revved up its absorption of mana. It felt a bit like drinking alcohol, I had to take care not to get swept away by it.

"I think this place is good, yes. We can camp here."

Without warning, gravity pulled on me.

"Ouch!"

"That hurt!"

And there we reunited with the ground. In a rather violent manner as Lily simply let us go, making us lose our balance.

"Let's prepare! First should be... Actually, what do we need when camping in a group?"

"Have you never camped with the mercenaries before?"

"I did! But they always did everything? They told me to sit back and wait."

I got absolutely no good feelings about that statement.

Now we had to figure it out on our own. Or we could convince her not to camp outside with us. But I was kind of interested in her reason for this, to be honest. Either way, I took a look at our immediate surroundings. Fortunately, this was a small clearing and it seemed suitable for camping. Next to me, Karen was looking around as well, nodding to herself.

"This spot should be open enough, we can make a fire and then... Wait, why are we even here in the first place?" asked Karen.

"Huh? For training, of course. But a fire, yes? Should I just cut down a tree?"

"Please don't just cut down a tree! Just go collect branches and twigs that are dry!"

"That sounds like a pain, can I just hug Yumi and sit back?"

"Those who do not work, shan't eat!"

"Ugh..."

"Even Yumi is at least trying!"

In an inexplicable way, Karen took back the initiative and forced Lily to do some work. She was back to being my big sister. This made me glad. I just wished she wouldn't casually imply that I wasn't any help. Even I could collect branches, right?

Actually, was a fire in the middle of the forest even a good idea...? Well, it was surely fine if we took care not to light anything nearby. A few minutes later we got a small fire going.

"So, can you at least tell us, why we are even here? You said something about training?"

"Yes, it's for training. Have you two ever met a monster? And I mean, an actual one, not some weak small fry like fish monsters, demon rabbits and the like."

"No, not really."

"I did see a few weaker monsters before when I wasn't in the slums yet."

"Okay, so. Karen, were those monsters capable of magic?"

"Most were not, but I remember a Firebear using some. It took all we had to get away at the time."

"Oh, a Firebear, how nostalgic. In any case, have you ever thought about, why a monster can use magic?"

"Why a monster can use magic?"

"Yes. Everyone always talks about learning magic, that's because humans and animals are missing a certain trait of monsters. Do you know which?"

"A certain trait? They can inherently sense mana, but..."

"That's just a consequence of it. Ah, Yumi, you said you were trying to hide your identity. What did you do for that?"

"Huh? I hid my face and all, I also changed the look of my eyes. Ah, right."

I changed my eyes back to how they originally were, with the slitted pupils. The mana here was probably enough that I could keep it up without limit, but it was still bothering me a bit. Like you were wearing a bad costume, it didn't feel like it belonged there.

"Congratulations, you just used magic."

"Eh?"

"As I said, you just used magic. Congratulations! Good Job!"

"But..."

That was magic? It felt like something I was just inherently able to do, like a kind of ability, rather than magic. I did not quite understand what she meant.

"To explain, monsters can interfere with mana directly. Humans have to use secondary methods before they can interact with mana and even then it is but a mockery. At least, my teacher explained it to me like that."

"You learnt magic?"

Karen was astounded. She told me that mostly only the rich could hire a magic tutor so that came as quite a surprise to us.

"I grew up in a mercenary group after all. There was a magician that was responsible for the children's education and he tried to teach those who had some talent with magic. My mana capacity is low so I'm not good at any big spells, but even a small spell can make a big difference in combat."

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As expected of a battle junkie. She didn't seem like someone who would diligently sit back and study, but she did it for the sake of combat, didn't she? At least, it was something to be thankful for, right now.

"To simplify it, true magic is the direct manipulation of mana to cause an intended phenomenon. While the magic we use is forcing mana to react through a catalyst. This catalyst can be just about anything, though. That's why there are so many weird magic systems."

"But don't we manipulate mana too? When using an elemental stone for example."

"Yes. We can manipulate our inner mana. That's also the basis for our magic. We use our inner mana and push it into a catalyst that then forms the magic. This magic catalyst can be just about anything, even songs and chants. Even beings we do not know whether they truly exist work in a way. The only thing we know for sure is, that an intended technique always causes approximately the same result."

"Wait a moment, that is quite a lot to stomach right now."

"Ah, right. Sorry. Forget that. In any case. Yumi should have no need for all that hocus-pocus of a catalyst and so on. By directly using her mana she should be able to gather it and form it into a phenomenon. Of course, that is more or less just speculation, and it is likely she can only cause a limited range of phenomena. Most likely related to whatever her attributes are."

"But how do I find out my attributes for sure?"

"No idea. Keep trying I guess?"

"That's not helpful..."

So, to summarise, I was already using magic instinctively. That was interesting. Maybe I was able to cause a fire without the stupid stone.

Let's try this!

I pushed some mana out like I did before with the mana crystals and imagined it to be a flame.

Silence.

I got the feeling I experienced this before. The last time it ended in a disaster, so let's be more careful this time. Alas, no matter what I tried I couldn't make a flame.

In the meantime, Lily was explaining some more things to Karen, but since they didn't ask me to pay attention, it probably wasn't important to me. For now, I had to test various things to see whether I could really cast a flame!

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

"Yumi, don't be so depressed, I am sure everyone needs some time to learn this."

Karen comforted me while I hugged her lap. I should have known that a flame was not possible. Lily even said that I could likely only cause something related to my attributes. That was apparently the downside of a monster's magic. The mana was already slightly attuned to them and the elements they represented, so they couldn't be easily used for different attributes in most cases. It wasn't impossible, apparently, but currently beyond my abilities.

But if Karen's guess from back then was right, my attributes were... that.

It made me quite depressed so I opted to get spoiled by Karen. She was stroking my head with slow movements while I enjoyed her warmth.

This was pure bliss. I wished I could stay like this forever.

"Sis."

"Yes?"

"..."

"Yumi?"

"Just wanted to call."

"Is that so."

The only downside to this position was, that I couldn't see her expression.

"I am quite sure this is not how siblings behave, you two..."

If only there wasn't a certain someone spoiling the mood. I turned my head in Karen's lap to glare at Lily.

"Let me enjoy my quality time with Sis!"

"Then, at least let me join!"

"No. Sis is mine! Shoo!"

"I won't take you away from each other, I'll just take both of you together!"

"I don't want toooo... oooooh!"

In the middle of the sentence, I was lifted up by Karen and pulled into a hug. It was warm.

"Curse you, happy people. Take your flirting elsewhere."

Seems Lily snapped. But who cared? Certainly not me.

After a while of being hugged by Karen, together with comfortable head pats, I noticed something strange. The mana stirred inside the forest. It was probably not a monster as I couldn't feel the usual concentration caused by the mana crystal.

"Lily, is something there, in front of us?"

"Oh, you noticed? As expected of a monster. Just wait for a moment, you will see it."

That sounded ominous. Karen got interested as well and turned her eyes towards the direction I mentioned. Her head pats stopped.

Curse you, unknown disturbance!

I didn't know whether my curse reached it or not, but it certainly reached us in return.

A giant shadow appeared from between the trees.

Yeah. No way, this is impossible. Yes, this is impossible, therefore the thing in front of me is but a dream, and only the hugs and head pats from Sis are real! I must have fallen asleep at some point, definitely.

I tried to escape reality but the shadow did not disappear.

"Lily... Is this a joke?"

"No? He's cute, isn't he?"

She called us cute all the time and now she called this thing cute as well? Were we on the same level? That just couldn't be. No matter what, neither Karen nor I would ever lose in cuteness against this thing. After all, no matter how I looked at it, it looked like a huge ogre, even if I craned my neck back I couldn't see its head well. Why was something like this even here? Could physics even allow this? Then I remembered, that this was basically a fantasy world. So a classic creature like an ogre was possible as well with magic, right?

The ogre fit well into the scenery, with its green skin you were likely to just miss it at a glance. And it was entirely naked, not even a loincloth to cover the huge thing that was longer than my arm.

"Ah, if you don't move soon, you'll be captured you know? These guys are known to be rather rough with their prey so I wouldn't recommend any experiments born from curiosity!"

"Sis, we have to run."

"I agree."

With a surprising calmness, we stood up and turned around. And then we ran. Screaming.

"Where is this training?!"

The ogre roared, displaying its huge fangs in its mouth, and started running after us. For some reason, it ignored Lily as if she wasn't even there. I turned back for a second to see it slowly approaching. It was way faster than us. Or rather, than me. Karen would probably not be caught but in my case, wasn't it plain impossible? For every step, the ogre took I needed like four or more to keep the distance.

"Yumi!"

Karen also noticed that I had no chance of escaping like this, so she ran back and picked me up, throwing me over her shoulders. How valiant! Just, now we were both slower than the ogre. But we had one advantage, namely, we could easily navigate between the trees, while the ogre had to evade every tree in a considerable large manner.

At least, that was what I wished for, but, as expected of an inhabitant of the forest, the ogre was barely slowed down by the trees. It roared another time.

"Yumi! If you have anything that can stop this guy, now would be a good time!"

"Nn. Impossible. I don't have anything."

"Not any ideas on magic either? Can't you just ignore common sense again or do something on instinct?"

"The world is not such a convenient place! But I can at least try."

There wasn't really much to lose if I were to at least try, only to gain. Karen asked whether my instinct wouldn't tell me what I had to do.

Maybe I should just throw some mana and let my guts decide what happens. Let's try!

And so, I pushed some mana out, and then just threw it towards the ogre. The ogre slowed down in response. It was a success.

Not.

"Sis, I think I just made it worse."

"What did... you do?!"

"I threw mana at it. Now it... well..."

I honestly wasn't sure how to describe the current situation. The ogre roared and with incredible vigour, it sped up.

"Sis, if I get pierced by that, I will probably die in an instant."

"I don't know what you're talking about! I can't turn around so what the hell is happening?!"

"It has a boner..."

"... What."

"It has a boner."

"Why did this have to happen."

If I knew I could have prevented it maybe. The ogre was sporting an incredible hard-on. That wasn't in the realm of just being hurt anymore if you got caught. Whoever would survive that thing must have been similarly a monster.

Isn't there anything else I can do? What does Lust even represent outside of making others horny? Reproduction? That's not helping, isn't it. Ah, but what about life and soul?

"Sis, can people do anything useful with life or soul magic?"

"If I knew more about magic I'm sure I could tell you!"

That means she doesn't know anything. Great. Let's say Lust represents reproduction, then life and soul are the components needed for reproduction. So, could I maybe animate something from nothing? That'd be interesting but it's not helpful right now!

Wait, what if I could animate a tree to stop the ogre?

I had no idea whether something like that would ever work, I was basically thinking of giving a tree a soul. But there was nothing to lose, except my mana, that was recovering quickly from the surroundings.

Therefore, I gathered some mana, thought of making a 'soul' and threw it at a passing tree. The tree shook, and that was it. In the meantime, the ogre roared again. We were running out of time.

This isn't working, what am I missing? Is it the lack of knowing what a soul even is? Or is it plainly the amount of mana?

I had no idea what a soul was, but my instincts were telling me I shouldn't worry about that. That meant my lack of mana was the more likely problem.

"Sis, where is that mana egg?"

"It is in my pouch, can you reach it?"

"I'll try."

I stretched my arms towards the pouch. It took a short moment before I successfully grabbed it and extracted the mana egg from the inside.

"Let's try this again."

I gathered all the mana from the egg, thinking of a soul to throw. I was ready to throw it, but...

No, this is wrong. This is not how I have to do it.

I returned the mana to the egg. A strong urge told me to do it. I had to return the mana it and then I should use the mana egg itself to house the soul. I threw the egg at a nearby tree. The tree disappeared quickly from our view, so I couldn't confirm whether it worked or not.

Seconds later, the ogre passed that spot and disappeared.

A loud explosion was heard.

"Yumi?! What the hell happened?"

"I don't know, the ogre is gone..."

Karen slowed down and put me back to the ground, after confirming there was no immediate danger.

"Yumi, what did you do this time?"

"I threw the egg at a tree."

"You threw the egg? Did it explode?"

"I don't know."

Another loud explosion could be heard. And then it was silent again. The mana in front of us was heavily disturbed and I couldn't make out anything from it. We would have to go and confirm it ourselves.

"Let's see what happened?"

"Are you sure? What if it isn't dead?"

"I'm sure it'll be fine."

"... Okay."

Relying entirely on my questionable instincts wasn't the best option, but it saved us just now. It was surely fine to trust it.

We slowly approached the source of the explosions. Everything was still silent. From the gap between the trees, I could recognize splintered wood and something green on the ground.

The moment we got close enough for a clear view... everything went dark.

"Sis? Why did you cover my eyes?"

"Yumi, you are too young to see this."

I'm technically the older one here?! And I probably saw worse things just now!

"Just turn around and wait for me, okay? At least we have no need to worry about this thing anymore."

Karen turned me around and pushed me a few meters away, so I couldn't see what the situation was like. She returned to the scene to investigate what happened. The ogre probably died somehow. I had no idea what I actually did, but it must have been quite impressive. Did I finally have a chance to graduate from my uselessness?

A few minutes later, Karen returned holding something in her hands. One seemed like the mana egg, except it had a few green spots and was cracked. It obviously stopped working and the mana dispersed already. In her other hand was also a mana crystal, but slightly larger and blueish in colour. Was that the mana crystal of the ogre?

"I have no idea what actually happened, there was a splintered tree with the mana egg embedded inside and next to it the ogre in an... unfortunate condition. It clearly looked as if the tree exploded and took the ogre down with it, but..."

"Huh, so you can do things like that? Explosion... No, doesn't seem likely. Maybe Life Magic? Mm... Well, aren't you glad, you used magic again?"

The source of all our troubles has reappeared right next to us. I already had decided what to do in this situation. It was simple.

"Woah, Yumi? What are you trying to do, charging at me out of nowhere? Oh, is that it? Do you want a hug? Okay, come here to Big Sis Lily!"

"My only Sis is Karen. I have no need for you to be my older sister!"

My attempt at physical retribution was misunderstood as wanting a hug. And so I was caught and cuddled.

"Lily! Let Yumi go, she's mine!"

"Oh, you want one too? Okay, come here Karen!"

And so, we were both thoroughly cuddled by this unpredictable incarnation of stupidity.

If anyone ever calls me dense, an airhead or says I lack common sense, I will redirect them to this idiot.

And we are still missing a goddamn explanation!