By the time me and Maia returned it was already around midday, and I’m sure that seeing us walk as Maia carried a giant stone made carriage on her own was definitely an interesting sight for anyone who was watching.

“Guess I don’t need to ask how it went, huh?”

Dad’s expression was as if he wanted to be surprised but couldn’t, since it was our well known prodigy we were talking about, and I felt the same way when I first saw it, couldn’t blame him.

“We definitely have enough food to feed everyone now.”

I think we could've fed our entire village before the attack with this much meat…

“Yeah… you’re right. But anyway, I have another task for you Maia. Also something for you too Cael.”

Neither me or Maia spoke, we just waited for him to elaborate.

“Since no one here can use Teleportation magic, and you’re also the fastest among us, I need you to go to the nearest town and report what happened. They should send someone to inform the land owner and he’ll send funds and materials for the reparations. It’s about 50 kilometers away towards the south, think you can do it?”

I can’t really blame him for asking her to do it, she is definitely the fastest out of us all, but 50 kilometers? Isn’t that a bit too far to send your own 14 year old daughter?

“Yeah I can get there in about half an hour if I run at full speed, do you want me to hurry with it?”

But once again I was reminded that this wasn’t just your average 14 year old girl… I let out an internal sigh at that point as I heard her answer, while she waited for dads reply as he thought about it for a second.

“Hmm, I don’t think you need to rush it. There’s another task I have for you once this is done, but the preparations for it will take a while, so I think you can take your time with it.”

“Alright, then I’ll go on my way, see y’all later.”

I don’t think anyone besides you would be this casual about a 50 kilometer trip…

“What about me?”

“I sent Aldric and Lyanna to gather all the monster corpses and form piles to make them easier to burn. It’ll get pretty boring here, so go back to Isolde and stay with the twins so she can help them as well, then you can leave the twins with Lyanna and Aldric. Your mother will burn the corpses till Maia comes back.”

“Alright, I’ll go right away then.”

Thankfully enough my task didn’t require what would be a few hours trip by carriage, so I joyfully went on my way to play with my adorable twin siblings. I explained to mom what dad asked her to do as soon as I got there, and while it did take up most of my energy because of Nala, who honestly resembled Maia before the goblins incident in her energetic behavior. Rune on the other hand was as shy as usual, honestly I’m pretty worried about him. He’s always hiding behind Nala, and though I have no intention of blaming him for anything, I cannot deny that his shyness worries me… Rune is a good kid. Maia won’t always be around to save us, and at a certain point neither will I. I genuinely hope with all my heart that rune will eventually manage to get enough strength to protect himself, even if not physical one.

After about 5 hours it was now evening, and Lyanna had come to pick up the twins.

“You good, Cael? Or did they tire you out completely?”

Her teasing tone was honestly refreshing. I had spent the past few hours running around with Nala, playing tag with her and stuff like that, and it was definitely tiresome.

“I’m still kicking in somehow haha, what about you guys? Must’ve been hard to pile up all those corpses.”

“Aldric is actually more prone to Wind magic, so he managed to move them without too much trouble. I honestly think you had it worse.”

“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?!”

Nala angrily (and cutely) started repeatedly punching Lyanna as she was probably offended or something? I don’t really know, and she was right at the end of the day so this was just a fairly cute but unjustified act of violence. Truly, I hope she doesn’t end up as a criminal or something…

Shortly after they left, going back to the village probably, I also started going on my way towards the northern entrance of the village which was supposed to be one of the weirdly Banana shaped structures ends, which is where they decided to pile up the corpses to probably minimize the burnt ground spots or something like that probably. Either way, when I got there, I immediately spotted mom and walked towards her, seeing pretty much nothing but massive piles of remains everywhere..

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“You guys sure made quite a few piles, huh?”

“Haha, I’ve burnt 2 so far, but we still have close to 100 I think? I have to properly burn them all, as you can see on the 2 that are already done, there’s just a much smaller pile of ashes left behind.”

Mom’s only elemental magic was fire, and she was entrusted with this task as in the whole village she had the best fire magic control… besides the prodigy herself that is, of course. It’s not like I could do much here honestly, so I just sat down next to where she was standing and just watched as she pointed both of her hands towards another pile, and fired up a bunch of flames towards it, which quickly started to burn them. I guess she had to constantly do this for all of them and keep the fire going, no wonder she had only done 2 so far.

wonder how long it takes her to burn each pile? She’s been doing this one for like 3 minutes straight so far and she’s not even halfway there yet.

The piles were fairly large, so i wasn’t necessarily surprised that it was taking a while, if anything your average fire user wouldn’t even do a third of what she’s done so far since she started, but it also really put into perspective how much talent and hard work is needed to properly use magic in this world.

“Seems like I don’t need to do this anymore.”

“Hm?”

I was taken off guard by her sudden comment as I was zoned out, and as she let out a sigh of relief while stepping aside, and stopping her fire she then pointed towards our right which was towards west, and surely enough I also quickly realized what she meant. It was slowly getting darker outside, it was already close to 6 in the evening after all. In the distance, among the slowly spreading darkness there was a single thing that caught our eyes. A golden glowing object that was coming towards us so fast that you could only see its trail of light left behind from it. Quickly reaching us in a matter of a few seconds from the moment I also turned around, and stopped a few meters ahead of us. It was obvious none other than Maia.

“How are things going here?”

“As you can see haha, I’ve only managed to burn 2 and a half so far. But what about you? How did things go with your task?”

When she finally reached us, she sat down on the ground next to me, and sighed in clear annoyance before replying.

“The process was ridiculously annoying. When I went towards the town’s mayor’s office residence the guards told me I needed to fill an official meeting application first. That alone took around an hour of waiting because of how many people were in front of me… then I had to wait another 2 hours just to finally be able to talk to the mayor's secretary that called him in, then after a 20 minute talk to explain the situation to that slow old man, they finally sent a few messengers away with teleportation magic. It was… painfully boring. But everything worked out well in the end.”

you sure had it rough…

Mom then walked up to her and extended her arm to pat Maia’s head, which made her blush a bit. She might be a prodigy and what not, but I guess all of that is meaningless against the touch of your mother.

“You did a good job, thanks to you now we are definitely going to get funds and materials to repair everyone’s home. Thank you, Maia.”

“… it was nothing…”

seeing her this weak sure is cute…

After mom stopped, it was time for her to go back to help dad start cooking. He wasn’t a bad cook honestly, but I wouldn’t let him do the cooking for every single person that we have to feed tonight either. He was probably done with the butchering by now, so it was the perfect time for her to leave.

“By the way, why did you come from the East when you were in a town in the south…”

“The forest extends all around the village in ¾ directions, I couldn’t be asked to pass through it.”

so you took the longest route possible just to avoid the forest… as expected from the airhead prodigy.

“What about you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m asking what your task was while I was gone. I doubt you just watched mom burn a few piles up, right?”

“Ohh, that. I had to take care of the twins while Lyanna, Aldric and mom made the piles, then came here after Lyanna took the kids with her.”

She then gave me a smug smirk upon hearing my answer, which pissed me off.

“What’s with that face?!”

“Nothingggg, I’m just glad I had to do the other task after hearing what yours was.”

No need to brag about it for fucks sake! I too would rather do that trip and be bored for a few hours instead of babysitting for 5 hours, alright?! So wipe that stupid grin off your face already. She kept teasing me about it for a good few minutes before her lazy ass finally got up, and decided it was time to do her new task.

“After I do this let’s also head back to dad, alright? She might need some help after all.”

I also got up from the ground, and walked next to her.

“It’ll be a while until we are done though, no? There’s like 100 massive piles, even you would need at least an hour for these many.”

She looked at me with a puzzled look for a few seconds before bursting out laughing.

“Huh?”

“M-my bad haha, my bad!”

“What’s with that reaction?!”

After wiping away whatever stupid laughter tears she had gotten from this, she finally composed enough to fully answer.

“It’s just funny, you know? You’re the only one who’s seen me use that arrow last night, and yet you still think…”

She stopped herself from finishing the sentence, and with a confident grin she snapped her fingers a single time. Right as I was confused about what had gotten into her, my thoughts were completely blown out of the way and replaced by what I could only describe as… terror. Surrounding the base of each of the more or less 100 piles, circles of flames appeared, and spiraled upwards at insane speed, all of them engulfing the piles throughout almost instantly, and the second they were all within the flames, their intensity sky rocketed. The shock from what could’ve been described only as hellish sight before my eyes caused by the massive enraging piles of flames consumed all of the piles, and even from a fair distance of at least 30 meters from the closest one, I could feel my skin getting dry. I knew Maia had gotten stronger, but this… was a completely different level. And the most shocking part, Is that the whole thing only lasted a mere minute. And when the flames were dispersed, not even their ashes were left behind.

“… that I’d need any more time than a single minute, for a task this easy?”

As she finished her sentence with her confident smile, I fell to the ground from the shock of what had just unfolded before me. I wasn’t scared of Maia herself, but there was no one that wouldn’t have been at least this shocked after seeing that.

“I guess… I underestimated you. Sorry…”

“It’s all good, my sweet little brother.”

She then landed me her hand and helped me get up, and after once again getting reminded that she’s a prodigy, it was time for us to go back to the village.