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Sorry for no posts the last few days. I've been working two jobs. I have today off, though, so I'll make up for it with multiple chapters. Going to post them up as I finish them, so they'll be a bit rough and unedited at first. If you see any mistakes, feel free to point them out and I'll try to fix them later~

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I laid awake in my bed, staring at the featureless ceiling above. The soft swishing sounds of Benson’s sword echoed from outside my window, but I still didn’t move. Thoughts of last night…

“Mistress, it’s time to get up,” cooed Tenia’s voice from the other side of my door, interrupting my train of thought. In response I grabbed the pillow and held it over my face in a childish attempt to repress the memories that began bubbling up. I could feel color rushing to my cheeks. A few minutes passed this way and I began to wonder if, perhaps, I actually could call in sick today.

“Mistress,” Tenia’s voice was a bit more firm as the door cracked open, “If you don’t get up I’ll have to give you another demonstration on using tamp-”

“I’M UP!” I cried as I leapt from the covers, my cheeks burning beet red.

“Good. Hurry up and get dressed. Breakfast is ready. Benson and I won’t start eating without you, so hurry hurry~” Called the wicked witch, her voice filled to the brim with amusement. She knew damn well that I was already decked out in my combat gear. Tenia may be stronger than me, but if I’m fully equipped I can at least escape from her. After getting tricked last night, I wasn’t about to take off my high-tiered armors ever again. I can rely on the [Refresh] and [Clean] enchantments. Showers and baths are now unnecessary luxuries!

Carefully, I tip-toed down the stairs, reluctant to see Tenia’s face. I prepared my armor’s anti-magic barrier, just in case.

“I don’t even want to know,” muttered Benson as he seemed to materialize out of thin air. I jumped high enough to hit my head on the overhang at the bottom of the stairwell. A powerful defensive spell immediately blossomed from my armguards, ready to intercept any attack…

Benson simply stared at me while shaking his head. I couldn’t quite make it out, but I heard him muttering something about a ‘foolish child’ under his breath.

“Y-you scared me,” I managed to stutter out while trying to pick up the pieces of my shattered pride.

“Mistress,” said Benson with a look of pity, “let’s just eat breakfast and forget this happened.”

Benson really is the best. He is far better as a companion than Tenia could ever be. He understands me.

“Yes,” I replied with a smile as I dropped the paranoia-formed barriers and walked to the dining table. That was when I met Tenia’s gaze for the first time since the incident. Her eyes were stern, but she couldn’t hide the amusement buried within them. I’m beginning to think that Tenia might be a closet sadist.

“Morning, Tenia,” I managed to say as I sat down at the table. In my heart I was pleading she wouldn’t mention what happened last night. I think Benson would probably think less of me if he knew exactly what went down… Or in my case, went up.

“Good morning, Mistress,” replied Tenia with a sly smile as she poured what looked like milk into everyone’s drinking glasses.

“Where did you get the milk?” I couldn’t help but ask, glad to find a discussion subject unrelated to the night before. In hindsight, it wasn’t a good question. It was a bit obvious where she would get milk considering the sheer number of farms in town.

“I acquired the goat’s milk from one of the farms in town,” she said, almost parodying my own thoughts.

“Goat’s milk?” I mused aloud. I had never tried goat’s milk before... Curiosity battled with my cautiousness, but in the end curiosity won out and I decided to take a sip. The milk felt cold and had a sweet taste.

“It’s good,” I said as I felt the tension leave my face. I looked over only to find that Benson had already drained his glass in one go. He had a milk mustache…

Breakfast today seemed to be sausage with some strange foreign vegetable. It looked a bit like grass but with odd buds growing orthogonally at odd intervals, and its body was curled in a natural spiral. Feeling a bit adventurous, after having tasted goat’s milk for the first time, I took a bite only to be surprised at the asparagus-like taste. It was a bit briney, though. It tasted like the ocean, salt and all. I didn’t mind the flavor, but I’d prefer not to eat something like this for breakfast…

Benson didn’t seem to mind as he, once again, shoveled the entire plate of food into his mouth without regard. He seemed content.

We finished our meal in peace, without any harrowing conversations being brought up. I didn’t hide my pleased expression, and the corners of my mouth were beginning to grow tired from smiling too much.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

After our meal, the three of us prepared to head into town. We decided to arrive about noon, as I had promised Kelding yesterday. Until then Benson would patrol the area, Tenia would add the finishing touches to the roadway, and I would craft a few new items.

I decided to finish James’s Landstrung Wasp Staff. Of course it wouldn’t be for James to use, now. Tenia’s equipment needed to be upgraded. The Landstrung Wasp Staff would be rank 9, whereas Tenia’s current wand only met the requirements for higher-tiered rank 7. This would provide her with quite an increase to her overall power… Of course I also planned to install a safety net into the staff so that, if an offensive magic over rank 4 was ever targeted at me, it would self-destruct with considerable force.

It was a shame Benson already had a full set of rank 9 equipment. I would have liked to carve anti-betrayal enchantment measures into his things, as well. Fortunately, Benson hadn’t given me any reasons to mistrust him. Tenia though…

I shaped the staff on the night I first came to this world, so that the only thing left was the actual enchanting process. I waved to Tenia and Benson as they left, and then made my way to the workshop. Taking the well-worn tools in my hands, I felt euphoria again. I couldn’t help but whistle the tune of ‘Born to Run’ as I carved the initial routing lines into the staff.

I branched the staff’s functional runes into three sets: magic control, magic amplification, and anti-betrayal. Tenia, unlike me, didn’t need preset spells inscribed in her wands. She was perfectly capable of instantly casting terribly powerful magics by herself. The use of a stave was for the sake of decreasing her mana consumption and increasing spell-power output; in essence it was an amplifier.

The soft rapping of my tools echoed through Journey’s End. My concentration didn’t break once as I worked, wearing a goofy smile on my face. Occasionally, due to a jolt or erratic motion, a few strands of red would cover my vision. I appreciated these little reminders of mom almost as much as the work itself. Her hair was hanging from my head, and that thought warmed my soul.

“I’m coming back to you, Mom,” I whispered under my breath as I folded the frayed curls back behind my ears. Working with my hands kept my heart at peace.

I finished the two amplification runes in record time, but the self-destruct runes proved tricky. I wasn’t capable of emulating the geometric sequence for an [Explosion] spell, so I had to cheat a bit to inscribe it within the staff’s core.

I decided to use a [Grenade Bottle] potion as the actuator liquid for this part of the enchantment. This method, of course, went against every common-sense method of enchanting in Xternity. It also happened to be one of the biggest secrets I knew and the reason I pursued Alchemical skills in the first place.

I used the crafting Rank 9 spell [Potion Effect Deconstruction] to remove the explosive effect from the potion itself. A glowing light, the pure essence of the geometrics for the [Explosion] spell, floated out of the liquid itself. Using [Mana Gloves], I moved the light into the very center of the staff and set it in place using the enchantment lines to push it forward.

Basically, I created a loop. The explosion spell would forever be trapped in said loop until the preset requirements were met; those requirements being the staff becoming a conduit for a spell that targets my [Blood Essence] with Rank 4 or greater power.

This also had the unfortunate side effect that if Tenia ever targeted a relative of mine, or someone with an egregious amount of my blood on them, that the staff would explode. In the second case, I would be dead if I lost the amount of blood necessary to trigger this rune anyways.

I used Rank 4 as the benchmark because that was the level where Tenia’s spells would, most likely, be considered lethal to me. With her skill and power magnification abilities, she could potentially wipe my entire Hit Points with a single cast at Rank 4… In fact, with the Landstrung Staff, she could potentially do the same with a Rank 3.

I took solace, though, in knowing that those spell ranks would only prove lethal if I wasn’t wearing my top armors.

Carefully, I poured the enchantment conduit potions into the carved grooves. With a smile, I admired the completed staff. Glowing blue lines of runes and magic shimmered on the surface. The head was gnarled and twisted, like a tree trying to grow through steel, and the body tapered down to a point at the bottom.

It was a masterpiece.