Solum (25.11.9978 AS)

“Did you read the notes I gave you yesterday?”

“Yes, Sir!” Ai saluted to Tristan.

Both of them were sitting, next to each other on an old sordid bench from the long forgotten panoramic viewpoint they had first met.

“Good, so let’s start with a light spell, it’s getting dark anyways and I don’t want to sit here in the dark.”

“Ok, but isn’t such a spell a little too easy?”

“You might say so now, but you’ll soon realize it isn’t as easy as you might think.”

Ai, stood up and cleared her throat and started to chant the words needed to create the spell.

Tristan smiled mischievously as saw how the magical circle started to form in front of Ai.

“Have you ever heard of magical backslash?” Tristan asked as he threw a small green ball, he had hidden in his pocket towards Ai who was trying to cast the spell.

“Kyaaaaah”

Ai was thrown tow meters into the air and landed directly on her behind, her straight red hair all frizzy. The look in her face frozen from the shock she had just suffered.

Trying to hold back his laughter Tristan reached his hand to help her up. She mindlessly took it, still in shock of what had happened to her.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to harm you, but a magical backslash is something that everyone has to go through that wants to create his own magic.” Tristan said as he thought back to all his failures trying to create the magic circle behind the Commu.

After a while Ai finally recovered from the shock she had suffered, or at least a little. Her blank face turned slightly red from anger and shame and her eyes filled with anger were glued on Tristan as she shouted: “WHAT WAS THAT? WHY DID YOU DO THAT?!”

“That was just a little test to see if you’ve ever experienced a magical backlash, or if you know what it is.” Tristan stated with a calm voice, causing Ai to avert her eyes from Tristan face towards the ground.

“…”

Tristan cleared his throat and started his explanation: “When casting magic you concentrate your mana on a certain point in your body and then you let it flow out of your body. While doing so, all of your senses are concentrated on that certain point, which means you don’t pay attention to anything else. If you get interrupted while being on this trance like state you end might end in shock, which causes instinctively your mana to flow back towards your body colliding with the mana flowing outside your body. This can be really harmful since a small spell like I made you cast already caused you to jerk back about two meters behind, you don’t want to start imagining what might happen if something like that happens when you cast a strong spell.”

Ai nodded as enthusiastically as she heard the new information.

“Thus, your first lesson will be learning to add a security mechanism to every spell you cast, so you don’t receive a magical backslash and get hurt badly as you cast your magic.”

“Cool, but what about the book you gave me to read yesterday? There wasn’t a single word written in there about magical backslash or whatever.”

“Well, I kinda forgot about the magical backlash while writing that book for you.” Tristan smiled as innocently as possible.

‘It’s not like I knew that most of the spells Humans use don’t have the security mechanism integrated in them. Luckily, yesterday I had a good read on those books from the library.’ Tristan thought.

“You see I always add these security mechanisms whenever I cast a spell without thinking about them. So, I kinda forgot you might not add them.” Tristan tried to sound as earnest as possible.

“Admit it, you just wanted to zap me!” Ai said in a joking manner.

“Yes, yes, you got me, I just wanted to get the kick out of seeing you in pain.” Tristan said in a teasing manner causing Ai to blush a little.

“Oy, don’t get the wrong idea there, we’re way too young for stuff like that!” He added flustered after remembering how Abigail had shut him down a few days ago. “Anyways, let’s get started with the theory behind these security mechanisms we spoke of…”

Arcadia (25.11.9978 AS) (Seraph’s main base on Terra)

Clair walked the streets of the outpost Arcadia with a big grin on her face, causing everyone on her way to turn towards her and bow. In the past such behavior would have bothered her, but not anymore. She was so happy she couldn’t care less about the commotion her sole presence was causing in the outpost.

Clair was escorted by Sariel on her left, Dietrich on her right and Kayle was walking slightly behind them.

‘This is my first visit of an outpost and nonetheless as a member of the Horde!’

“I’m so glad, you came to visit me!” Sariel said with a big smile on her face. “I just got appointed a mission on Terra for the first time and I’m glad to know that you’re here to cheer for me.” She bowed slightly.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“I’m glad to see you doing well, I hope your mission goes well.” Clair said with a fake smile. ‘As if I would come for such a puny reason as to cheer you on, I just used visiting you as an excuse to leave that stupid castle behind.’

Although, Clair was now officially part of the Horde, she was just treated more like an honorary member than an actual recruit. Up until now she had not taken part in any of the Hordes mission and maneuvers, and it started to look like it wouldn’t happen anytime soon.

She was taught all necessary things, a member of the horde should know by Dietrich, but that was all.

So, she used the fact that Sariel would be joining a mission in Terra as a reason to visit one of the outposts. And maybe even visit the Human world!

“This outpost is awesome!” She said in awe by the people who were all hiding their wings and looked more like Humans than Seraphs.

“I can’t wait to visit Solum, the capital of the Human Continent!” She said as they all entered a plaza in the center of the outpost.

“About that, you’ll have to behave, if you want to visit the Human world.” Kayle said. “I don’t want to see you running around without permission.”

“Yeah, I promised that to mum, so she would let me come here.” Clair reassured Kayle. “So, when are we going?”

“We’ll be visiting Solum this Sunday. I know there, a good place to eat crêpes and drink hot chocolate.” Dietrich answered with a fatherly smile.

Solum (29.11.9978 AS)

It was Sunday and Tristan was on his bike on the way to the city center accompanied by Ai on his left on her own bike.

“Where are we heading to?”

“That’s classified.”

“Come on, I know you’re showing me the city, but you got all worked out about a certain place so I want to know what that place is!”

“Looks like you’ll have to show some patience, since it’s the last place we’ll visit today! Our first stop is going to be the National Library our second stop will be the Great Park and the last stop will be a surprise.” Ai said in a playful manner as she disclosed her plans for the day.

Tristan just followed her with a sigh.

***

‘I can’t believe that huge library didn’t have a single useful book! Most of their books about magic are so outdated, using them as reference to research magic should be a crime! I know Humans were never meant to know any magic, but still! At least their knowledge in Alchemy and Physics isn’t as bad.’ Tristan thought to himself while sitting next to Ai on a bench in the Great Park.

“We spend more time than I thought, in the library.” Ai said while looking at her clock.

“Yeah, the books were so interesting I couldn’t help myself but to get a few of them.” Tristan said as he touched his backpack full of books, mostly of the genre Fantasy.

“Yeah, but there is no time to relax, we still have to go that place.”

“Come on now, you’ve been teasing that place all day by now, so please tell me, where are we going?”

“Ok, let’s get going and I’ll tell you on the way, we have to cross the whole park area to reach it anyways, that’s about 8 kilometers from here.”

While they were pedaling Tristan realized that in the short time he had known AI they had already become friends. And not just fake friends like he had anticipated earlier, by now he genuinely cared for the single-minded Human girl.

Tristan was surprised to see how fast he had learned to trust Ai. Being with Ai felt for him as natural as being with Abigail, it was probably because Ai and Tristan also spent their time with training and gathering knowledge.

The past week they had spent a lot of time learning magic after school. Ai would teach Tristan to feel mana signature of others and he would help her develop a new magic, they were nowhere near close to that goal yet, but thanks to her special ability Ai was able to progress quite fast in comparison to others.

A smile appeared on Tristan face as he thought about it.

“Yesterday, you said that your aunt doesn’t cook well, so I thought I might treat you to some real good food.” Ai said as they were almost out of the Great Park.

“That sounds good, so we’re heading to a restaurant?”

“Something similar.” Ai said as they entered a big shopping district and they had to dismount from their bikes.

The streets were filled with shops and little cafés. Although, it was almost winter the temperature was still high enough to enjoy a coffee outside on one of the many tables filling the pedestrian area of the shopping district.

They parked their bikes and Ai lead Tristan through the pushing of the crowd directly towards a small, crowded shop, called Holly Crêpe.

“Looks like it’s as crowded as usual.”

“So you come often here?”

“Not really. I just came once before and since then I wanted to come here with a friend.” Ai blushed a little as she let these words slip.

“Cool, next time we should invite my annoying sis too the more we are, the merrier, right?”

Ai nodded, as they finally stepped forwards since they were next in line. They gave their orders: Hot Chocolate and a strawberry Crêpe and Hot Chocolate and a chocolate Crêpe.

“Let’s go outside and do some window shopping, while eating!” Tristan suggested as they had received their orders by the friendly elderly lady attending the costumers.

“Sounds great!” Ai responded with a big smile and rushed outside the shop, followed by Tristan.

While hurrying outside the shop Tristan bumped into a blonde girl wearing a dress in pure white. It came close to a miracle that Tristan’s Hot Chocolate didn’t spill on the blonde girl’s white dress, but just on the ground.

“I’m sorry…” Tristan tried to excuse himself as fast as possible, but was lost in his tracks as his eyes met the blue eyes of the girl he had bumped into. Was he under her spell? Tristan didn’t care; all he wanted is to keep staring at her deep blue eyes that reminded him of a clear mid-summer night sky.

“Are you ok, Clair?” Kayles voice brought Clair, who stood there like petrified in front of Tristan, back to the real world.

“…”

“Erm, … It’s not your fault.” Clair said in a gentle tone, while stepping closer to Tristan. “I was the one who got too excited when I heard about this shop, which caused me to not pay attention and I ended up running into you.”

“May I replace your Cacao?” She added with a smile brighter than the morning sun, stepping even closer to Tristan.

“…”

‘Hey partner, did you notice that bulky man over there?’ Schattenklinge asked and pointed towards Dietrich, who was standing slightly behind Kayle who was reaching a handkerchief to Clair.

Schattenklinge’s words caused Tristan to finally snap back to reality. Thanks to the fruits of his training of sensing the mana signature of things he had started with Ai, he soon realized they meant trouble. They were leaking so much pure mana, it made a chill run down Tristan’s spine.

“Thank you very much, but I don’t think that will be necessary.” Tristan answered with a fake smile.

“… But I really don’t mind replacing your Cacao.” Clair insisted, a little annoyed that he didn’t take on her offer.

“No, really I didn’t want to drink it anyways.” Tristan said as he reached for Ai’s hand and pulled her into the crowd behind him.

“Tristan, hey Tristan, wait!” Ai complained as she was dragged by Tristan into the crowd, where the two of them soon vanished from Clair’s view.

“What’s wrong with him?!” Clair’s lips curled downwards as she watched Tristan holding Ai’s hands while vanishing.

“Indeed, something was wrong with that youth…” Dietrich added with a serious voice, glaring at the spot Tristan and Ai had vanished.