“What do you think of the coach?” David asked with a smirk now that we had left the ‘gym’.

After that little fight with Reeta, the coach had left Victoria alone for a while longer to practice while patting me on the shoulder and saying that it was thanks to me that the beast in the girl was brought out, and that I should be coming more and more to practice with her so she gets a challenge every once in a while.

I didn’t think it would be appropriate, since my current amount of power wouldn’t allow me to do anything to her, but I still complied with her and agreed to see her every day.

“W-well… she’s a bit…” Victoria replied as she looked at her wounded hand, “…Intense.”

“And she went easy on you. She only gave you a little bite mark on your hand,” David said, turning to look at his own arms for a moment. “When I first started training with her, she would leave bite marks and scratches all over my body.”

Steven followed up with a nod. “Yeah, she was also aggressive with me and Brian.”

Today, Steven didn’t have bruises. Reeta hadn’t really interacted with him besides just throwing him to a rack for him to train by himself. As for Brian… Reeta appeared to be somewhat disappointed that he didn’t show up, but when told that he was simply feeling down for being dropped down to the E ranks, she just scoffed and asked why he was higher up in the first place.

“Although, I can’t believe that she didn’t do anything at all to you, Althea,” David said as he turned his eyes my way. “She went harder than everyone on you, and you have no bruises or anything.”

“Yeah… How’s that possible? She hit you hard enough to decapitate someone,” Steven followed up as he looked at me as well. “Is that thanks to that healing magic you have?”

“And I know it’s not just your body, because I have a B ranked body and strength,” David said while narrowing his eyes.

I nodded my head. “Yes, my body isn’t as strong as to be able to withstand such attacks. I simply empowered it with mana and mixed it with healing magic to ensure there wouldn’t be any issues in the middle of combat. One shouldn’t allow a wound or any strike to cloud one’s mind or judgment.”

There was a moment of silence as they looked at me. I stopped walking and looked back since I didn’t understand why they were looking at me like that.

“I had no idea you could do that,” David said with raised eyebrows. “I knew that you were using multiple spells when you created a barrier, rock spikes, and lighting, but I didn’t know you were also empowering your body in more than one way.”

“One should have as many measures as possible while in combat,” I said, slightly tilting my head to the side. “Do you not get taught all that?”

“Well…” David trailed off momentarily with an awkward expression. “Those sorts of skills only belong to people with extremely high mana control…”

“That’s right! Only the higher A ranks and S ranks can do those sorts of things!” Steven said with bright eyes as he looked at me. “You have to teach me how to do those! Or at least take me to whoever taught you that!”

“Yeah… I don’t think that you learned to do all that with Skill Books and other artifacts…” Victoria said with a wry smile.

I considered for a moment Steven’s request. He looked up at me with expectations, but just from looking at him and what my mana senses were telling me, it wasn’t viable for me to teach him anything.

I shook my head. “I can’t teach you anything unless you learn the basics first.”

“Oh,” he said with a pout. “Then you agree that I should go to the lower ranks as well…”

“I don’t know anything about that. All I can say is that it can’t be done without proper experience and knowledge,” I said, turning to look over at Victoria for a moment before looking at David.

“What? You think it can be taught to me?” David asked, somewhat taken aback before smiling and shaking his head. “Don’t even bother. I can’t do a lot of magic. At most just a couple of things at the same time—and it’s just the basic elements.” He flexed his arms and smirked. “Which is why I train so much with the coach. What I can't do with magic, I make up with body.”

“I see,” I said with a nod.

It was good to know one’s talents and foster talents from good to excellent rather than to take the ones that are bad and turn them into something that’s just good.

“Maybe you can teach that to Vicky?” David said as he looked over the girl who was still rubbing her hand.

“E-eh… I think I’ll take it slow as well. I can hardly stand up to fight with someone that’s not trying to hurt me, so it’s better if I don’t jump ahead either,” she said with a smile and a shake of her head.

“Oh well,” David shrugged. “Then I guess we’ll see later if you get to the needed rank that Althea wants out of you, right, Steven?”

David wrapped his arm around Steven’s neck. The young man didn't seem to mind it anymore as his expression didn’t change from the pout he carried. “I guess…”

“Come on, almost nobody is born a hero. And sadly for us, we weren’t born as such, so if you want to become one, you’ll have to train and train,” David said before he started dragging Steven down the road.

We all continued walking. Right now, they all seemed completely spent after spending time with Reeta, and I was starting to feel the tiredness of running on that ‘treadmill’ as well.

“Say,” David suddenly said. “Now that it’s friday, what do you guys say we go drink something?”

“I can’t,” Steven quickly replied. “I’m still underage.”

“Huh? Really?” David said with surprise. “Then why are you in such a hurry to become powerful? You’re one of the lucky ones that awakened magic in their teens.”

“B-b-because… well…” Steven said as he got flustered. “Just because…”

David narrowed his eyes as he looked down at the young man. “If you say so… Then I guess you’ll drink soda.” He then turned to look at Victoria and me. “What about you? Want to have something to drink? I know that Vicky can.”

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I considered it as well with a frown. If by something to drink he was talking about those terribly tasting beers, then I felt like I would rather say no to him. But I think joining them would be a good way to know a little bit more about this world, so with an uncertain nod, I agreed.

“Awesome,” David said with a smile, turning to look at Victoria. “I know of a place not too far away from here—and don’t worry, it’s nothing too grand, so we can just hang out.”

“O-okay…” the girl said while also appearing somewhat unwilling.

I remembered as we were walking closer to the campus entrance that Nicole probably would want to come over to the room, so I reached for the phone and sent her a message.

A handful of seconds later she replied.

‘You’re going drinking?! I want to go too! Wait for me please!’ her message said.

“Nicole wants to come too,” I said while still looking at the phone’s screen. “She wants me to wait.”

“Oh, okay. We can wait by the entrance then,” David said with a nod.

* * *

“Is that f’real?!” Nicole loudly shouted, but her voice was still somewhat drowned out by the loud music playing in this place.

It was already night time, and people were coming and going on the streets as both students and normal people enjoyed themselves by laughing and talking.

David led us to a small merchant store that could’ve been confused by a normal house if not by the wide entrance, the colorful lights flashing all over the place, and the loud music that was seemingly coming out of nowhere.

There were many other places like this on the way, some bigger, some smaller, but almost all of them were full of people. When I asked David what kind of place this was, he simply said that it was just a store where people liked to hang out. It also served cheap lunches in the afternoon, if I ever wanted to have something good and quick.

Something like a tavern from my world.

I wasn’t too keen on the darkness of this place or the terribly loud music, and it seemed like Victoria was of the same mind as she was also quietly drinking a beer; one of the few that David bought for all of us.

And once again, I was struggling to drink this bitter liquid. I looked over at Steven and he seemed to be enjoying himself as David and Nicole were discussing what had happened earlier today with the coach. Although, I felt tempted to swap my drink with his, since his was a sweet drink, but as a underaged person, he wasn’t allowed to have any of our drinks, so I had to put up with it and finish it by myself.

“Yeah! Althea got punched right in the middle of her face!” David shouted as he also tried to overpower the loud music.

Nicole looked over at me with widened eyes. “I never thought that could happen!”

“It was—”

“Huh!?” Nicole shouted as she leaned over to listen to me.

I wasn’t going to try to shout over the music, especially when it was so terribly loud. As such, I looked around the place, trying to identify where that music was coming from. There was no bard or orchestra playing, so I couldn’t look for people, and the artifact that was emitting such a loud sound wasn’t using magic.

After a moment, by relying solely on my senses, I managed to identify the source of the music. It was a few large cubes that were hooked on the walls.

With a frown of annoyance, I used a similar spell to the one that I used on the first day when Doctor Fraga asked us to talk in public, only that this time, I just wanted to reduce the noise of those things. I focused on the magic as I simply opened my hand and released a small field around our small group.

I didn’t completely block their music, however, as I knew that people were still enjoying the music, but I didn’t think that they would need to have it this loud. A second later, the music muffled to a level where it would be easier to talk.

“Huh? What happened to the music?” a man who was dancing closer to us with a woman asked as he looked over at the owner. “Did you lower it? Turn it back up!”

“I didn’t. Let me just…” the owner of the place shouted as he turned to look over at something on his side. “That’s as far as it goes!”

“Really? Argh man,” the man grunted with an annoyed expression.

But the woman he was dancing with just embraced him and continued dancing. “Whatever, it’s still good enough.”

The couple continued dancing and, while a few people also appeared to be somewhat annoyed, almost everyone ignored it and continued with their drinking, talking, and laughing.

“That’s much better. It was too loud for me,” Victoria said before taking a sip of the beer.

“Yes, I prefer it like this too” I agreed before turning to look over at Nicole. “As for what happened earlier today, it was true. It simply showed me that I’m not as powerful as I should be, so I’ll be training harder from now on.”

Nicole looked at me with widened eyes. “Really? I thought you were already pretty strong, and that it was just a matter of time before you got even stronger.” Her expression then changed to a teasing smile. “Does that mean that we’ll be training together even more now?”

“Training together?” David asked after finishing the bottle of beer he had.

“Yes, Althea’s been teaching me how to do fire magic!” Nicole exclaimed and created a tiny flame on a finger.

“Hey!” shouted the owner while glaring at Nicole. “No magic in my establishment! Much less fire!”

The flame on her finger disappeared right away as she raised her hands to her front. “Sorry!”

I didn’t know that one couldn’t do magic in this place. Because of that, I was about to drop the Sound Barrier I placed around us, but decided that as long as nobody noticed, that I would rather keep it there while I was here.

“Wait, so you’re teaching her? Why can’t you teach me too?” Steven asked before drinking his soda.

“Because she—”

“I’m a special case!” Nicole said with a smug smile. “So I get special treatment!”

“What does that mean?” David asked before grabbing another bottle of beer.

“I can only do fire magic, so Althea’s teaching me how to do it properly,” Nicole confessed with the same confident smile she had before.

“What? Are you sure that you’re not just lacking on mana control?” David continued asking.

“Nope. Althea herself said that I’m a Deviant!” Nicole said with a face full of confidence.

The group of people looked at her with doubts about what she said, with David taking a sip from his drink before continuing with his questions. “I’ve never heard of such a thing. Are you sure it’s not just a lack of control? Because I personally don’t have a lot of mana control either, so it’s fine to say that you don’t.”

“Hey! You’ve seen how good Althea is with magic! She wouldn’t make things up!” Nicole refuted, turning her face to look at me, “Right?”

I nodded in response. “Yes. It’s a really rare thing to have, but it does exist.”

I took a sip from the bitter drink myself and took the opportunity while my face was partly covered by the bottle to see how they would react to a Deviant, but it seems that they really haven’t ever heard about it.

I put down the bottle and cringed slightly as the bitter taste of the drink passed. There was a certain feeling of relief within me to know that the teachings of the Holy Gods weren’t being spread to the people this far. Usually, it would be better to have no magic than to be strange—like a Deviant was. But it seems like that doesn’t bother anyone here.

“Hmm… I don’t know… I’m not sure if that’s the case…” David said with his eyes narrowed while looking at Nicole, whose face was still carrying a smug smile. He turned to look at me. “Are you really sure that she’s just not bad with magic?”

I nodded my head. “Yes, I’m sure. I’ve been able to confirm it over the last few days.”

David’s look of suspicion lingered for a while longer on me before shrugging and taking a large sip from his own drink. “Well, whatever. We’ll see later if that’s true or not.”

“Hey! Hey! Have you seen online about this thing…”

After this, their conversation went into normal things that one would encounter every day, from funny things that happened in a class or outside, or just things that they found entertaining. And like this, the hours went by until everyone got too tired and went home. And just like last time, a tipsy Nicole came with me to the room where we once more shared the bed.