Water hits my face and the light of the sun hits my eyes as I wake up naked in my room back at the castle.

“What the fuck is happening and why I am naked?” I ask, shouting at Monica that is with a bucket in her hand.

“You were on fire and you were on fire.” She says dead serious looking me in the eyes.

I then take a look at my hair. It is red.

“I guess I have to do something about this.” I say as steam begins to form around me with the fire generating from my body heat the water drying me.

Being awake I can make sure that fire is not appearing from my skin but this will be a problem if this continues. For now I have things to do.

“You asked one of the questions didn’t you?” Monica asks me in a teasing tone.

“What?”

“You asked her about her marriage, didn’t you?”

“... Yes.”

“Good thing that Lady Sophia finally cooled down , a few years ago she would have actually hurt you.”

I am a little scared hearing that. I can do things that people can’t even imagine right now but I am still not good enough to actually fight Sophia on equal ground.

“What happened and what time is it now?” I ask as I go through my clothes to get something I can use to go around. I receive an eye signal from Monica that I can use my common clothes instead of the fancy dresses that I had on reserve.

“A lot of things and it is still morning. There are also some people I don’t know looking for you.”

“Who?”

“Prince, two farmers, an old lady, a dog, don’t ask, a priest, a lot of knights and two prostitutes.”

I can guess who some of those are but there are some surprises there.

“Are they here in the castle?”

“Most of them are. Some said they would be waiting in other places.”

“Do you have a list or something?”

“No, I was expecting you to know who and where these people are.”

“You are expecting too much of me.”

“I know.” She says with a smug face. I guess she is trying to punish or something.

“Anyway, is there any food here?”

“There is food being given at the courtyard to the soldier, you can eat there.”

“...Only there?” I ask, trying to not sound picky. I get that there may be reasons for it but I would like to eat something good, not army food.

“Unless you have money with you, yes.”

I don’t have any money with me, the plan was to go back today so I didn’t take any money.

Accepting my destiny I leave the room and begin to go downstairs to reach the courtyard.

Along the way I see a lot of the nobles preparing or outright to leave the castle via mages. I guess a night siege during a party is not their way of enjoying the new year.

Good to see that at least some of them are staying to help independent of the reason.

After going down 6 floors I finally reach the ground level of the tower I was at and go to the courtyard by going through one of the doors there.

The place, if empty, would be a big patio as big as a football stadium. This part of the castle shows how the castle is really on reform as part of the place, more specifically the wall and the floor near it that is part of the main part of the castle, are from the white stone that seems to be used in the rich area of this city. The rest of the place is made from some type of stone that is a mix of orange and brown.

All the way to the east of the place are some buildings, probably barracks and stables as I see some horses coming from that direction.

The place is divided into two parts, the east part is where people are going to be treated for injuries or rest. There are a lot of bodies there as well, some alive, some not. Looks like there is a limit to how much mages can do in this situation. A lot more people than I thought were part of the fight.

Everyone on the east side is pretty much just lying down on small clothes with some people taking care of them. There are some nurses, I think. They are not using magic, just bandages or things like that.

I go to the west side where there is a food line where you can get water, bread and some meat from what I see on people’s hands.

This place is also the command post for something. Lots of people giving orders to soldiers and said soldiers going out or returning as well as various tents.

It takes a few minutes for me to get food as some common people are also here. There is probably an area somewhere I can’t see where people can come inside.

After taking my food and making a really bad sandwich using the bread on the meat of something I decide to make myself useful. I guess most of my mana is back, can’t really tell with precision as it is going at full speed and the concentration I needed to make it go this fast is probably what I need to stop it now.

“Hey, who is the one in charge here?” I ask one of the nurses tending to a soldier that lost its arm.

She just points me to one of the smaller buildings. I then walk into the square building made out of stone where I see something I wish I didn’t. Medieval surgery. Seeing someone amputate a leg and remove an organ would be an unpleasant experience even in a clean hospital in my old world but seeing it a badly lit glorified storage room for weapons makes things worse.

I have to wait for him to finish as the guy I think is in command is taking something from the chest of a woman.

A few minutes and a healing spell later to close the wounds the people there are looking at me.

“Hey, you were that girl from yesterday.” The guy who was doing the surgery says to me.

“Maybe. I have no idea what you are talking about.” I say puzzled.

“Red hair, fire aura, big sword. It was you fighting at the south gate.”

“Probably.I wasn’t there by my own volition, I was throwed there, so I don’t know where exactly I was.”

The nurses and a male mage moves the woman who was there outside while some other people in common clothes begin to clean the place.

“So, what are you here for? You don’t look injured.”

“Trying to make myself useful. I will probably stay here for a while, liking it or not, and I don’t like the idea of people who don’t deserve being hurt.” There is no way Sophia won’t be dragged to help or help of her own accord too.

“Can you use healing magic?”

“Not the conventional ones.”

“Explain please.”

“I heal using fire and it hurts. Also it probably uses a little of your own energy so if you are almost dead I would pretty much kill you if I used it on you.”

“Better than nothing. Most of the mages are already out of commission and we are out of potions. You can start with the ones near here as they are the worst ones.”

“Alright.”

“Next!” He shouts as the group that just left comes back with a man with two swords impaled in his left arm as well some kind of infection that is turning his body purple. I leave the worst to the medics as I don’t think I can cure this type of thing just yet as they are probably magic related.

I go out and look around to see what I can do.

I start with the people that were stabbed or mutilated. I can’t regrown or reattach limbs but I can probably close the bleeding.

At first they all panic when I set them ablaze but soon enough they start to realize that it’s not normal fire. I remove whatever is on their bodies if I can see it and the fire does its job of making the person heal. A lot of them were just waiting to die so I am a little happy when I see their faces.

Whatever some people were beyond my help. The medics and nurses advised me to not heal them as it would just make their life worse as curse and what was described as magic illnesses can’t be healed by conventional healing which in fact make it worse.

In total I healed around 100 people of the really injured. My mana is still alright so I decide to see if I can just heal the ones with minor injuries in one go.

“Hey, nurse. Can we move everyone with non-fatal injuries to one area? I will help of course.” I ask one woman there. She is probably in her mid thirties.

“I have no idea. I am just following orders.” She says as she changes the bandages of a man.

I then go back to the head medic here so I can make this faster. Luckily for me he just finished.

“Hey, can you tell the others to move some people around for me?”

He looks at me confused.

“Why?”

“I can probably heal most of the people with minor injuries like broken bones, cuts, etc in one go if they are all close to each other.”

“Those are not minor injuries.”

“Doesn’t matter. Can you do it or not? The way things are if I try to do this, people who wouldn’t be able to take it would get caught in the spell. Also healing people individually is inefficient. Most of them could be up and running by now.”

He sighs.

“I will trust your word as I saw a lot of people that would have to pass through me first start to help the others.”

“Ok!”

He then commands the soldier, nurses and anyone who was willing to help to move the people that I could probably heal. Around 70% or close to 400 people by my count of the people remaining were in that group. The rest were all afflicted by some curse or illness I can’t cure. With all the people together I cast a giant healing fire on an area. Some people that just arrived start to panic but the soldier and nurses calm them down and one by one people from the group start to stand up by themselves. Some thank me, others the nurses, others run like the wind outside.

In the middle of all that Mess of all people appears from the flames and comes to me.

“Hello?” I say confused.

“My savior, thanks again.” He says with a smile on his face.

He removes his headgear revealing a blonde long hair going all the way to his neck. His eyes are multi-colored, like a rainbow. Shame he has just an average face. I bet a lot of women would find him very attractive if not for that.

“May I ask how did you find yourself here?”

“I was stabbed by a soldier by accident when I was coming down from your room.”

“... Ok. Speaking of that, what did you want to talk with me about?”

“What do I do now?”

I just look confused at him.

“I know nothing about this world. The church made sure that I had as little contact with the world as possible. They were scary.” He says in a cowardly tone.

“What can you do?”

“Magic. All types and basic elements.”

“Ok for starters, come with me.”

I walk along with Mess to the head medic.

“Hey, this person can use any type of spell. Make him help.”

Both of them look at me surprised.

“Is it true?” The medic asks.

“Yes.”

“Good. I am almost out of mana. I hope you are ok with a little gore.”

“I way past that point.” Mess says in a tone of defeat.

“Mess, I wish I could really do something about your situation now but we have to clean this.”

“I understand. The mission comes first.”

“More or less that.”

With this I leave Mess there. His situation will need a lot of discussion and we are not in a position to just sit down and talk. The fact that this place is how it is means that a considerable amount of damage was done to the city.

My fire will continue for a few minutes without my help so I decide to go look for Sophia.

First, I go to the group of soldiers in a tent on the westside with some maps on the walls. They are probably commanders or something similar going by their fancy armor.. There are various maps of this city there.

“Excuse me.” I say while stopping them from talking.

“What do you want, girl? We are occupied.” A completely bald man with a goatee, probably in his forties, just a little taller than me shouts.

“Sorry, but I am looking for Sophia. Fancy armor, white hair, can use light magic, using a rapier for some reason.”

“You know her?”

“I live with her.”

“Sir, this is probably Lucia, the girl that lives with her.” One of the men there says to the first man.

“Yes, that is me. Do you know where she is?”

“Sorry. I don’t know her exact location but she is probably somewhere along the walls of the city as that is the area most affected by the siege.”

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

“May I ask why?”

“In case more demons attack she is probably one of the best people for the job.”

I sigh for a moment. As much as I want to go look for her, I will not go around the entire city just to speak for a few minutes.

“Is there anything I can do to help? I guess it will be better to wait for her to come back than go around a city I know nothing about.”

A woman dressed in a white body suit covering everything but her eyes makes her presence known.

“You should come with me. We need answers.” The woman says to me.

She didn’t make a sound. I didn’t notice her until she wanted to. She is very slim, a little shorter than me and with white eyes.

“What?” I ask, confused.

“She is part of our intelligence division. They probably want to know what you know about all this as we don’t have much to go on.”

I don’t sense any ill will from them but I also didn’t sense the woman so I guess I have to be ready for anything.

“Sure, lead the way.”

As soon we leave the tent she vanishes again.

“I am going to pull you. Be sure not to trip.” She says to me while I feel her grabbing my hand.

She guides me inside the castle, through lots of corridors and doors until we reach some kind of library where lots of people dressed from commoner clothes to armor or fancy noble clothes.

The woman reappears as we enter the rooms.

“She is here.” She says.

“Good work.” A man in commoner clothes says as they salute each other.

“You must be Lucia. We have some questions.”

“Fire away.”

“Let’s sit first.”

I am a little on the edge here but I go with it. I follow him to one of the unoccupied tables.

The man has short dark-brown hair and eyes. He is around 180 cm talls.

“So, how did you get the information that we were going to be attacked?”

“From the one source that you probably wouldn’t believe me even if I could tell you.”

“So you are saying that you can’t tell?”

“I have no idea. Usually I can’t say anything they tell me so I guess this is the same.”

He looks at me puzzled. I told the bishop that the gods saved his life but I wasn’t specific. So to some level I can tell about my interactions with the gods to the people of this world.

“Ok, what do you know about all of this?”

“You are going to be a little more specific than this.”

“We didn’t detect the demons until they were already here but you knew they were coming. How did this happen?”

“I saw the bishop that I had a little fight with in the party summon the demon I fought. My best guess is that the church tried to use the demons against me.”

“You realise what you are saying? The church has been at war with the demons since their very beginning.”

“You know that the Church is the Church of the Gods, right? I am pretty sure that it means all the Gods, not just the ones we like. The gods that the demons worship must be part of their beliefs too, ain’t they?”

His expression up to until now was that of a smiling innocent man but that changes. He is now serious with a slightly murderous aura around him.

“You really aren’t just a dumb girl who happens to be powerful. Let’s stop with the sweet talk. Tell everything you know.”

“Is that a request or threat?” I say letting my mana go out of control just a little so fire begins to form around me.

“Take it as you will.”

At this point there is at least one person in this room capable of just killing me so I will play along.

“Besides personal information, what I told you is pretty much all I know. The Church is trying to kill me for some reason, they even brought along someone they trained just to kill demons to fight me.”

“Who?”

“A boy my age they call the Messiah. He is helping the injured right now.”

“Why?” He asks genuinely confused.

“He was pretty much kidnapped by the church. He likes them as much as I do. He is just more of a coward and would flee if given the chance. I gave him that chance yesterday.”

“I will look into that later.”

“Do you know where that bishop is? I want to finish the job.”

“He along with a lot of the people from the church just vanished a few hours ago. The ones that remained in the city are just common people.”

Back to normal, I guess.

“Anything else?”

“What are your intentions?”

“Kill the church and destroy the Maka Kingdom’s military and royalty.”

“I mean your real intentions.”

“Besides that? Probably make my own country if this one doesn't fix itself by the time I finish with my personal things.”

“Is that a declaration of war?”

“I don’t know. Are you saying that you are so incompetent as a country that even with absolute power on the top you can’t make it better?”

He looks at me angrily, unable to respond.

“Are we done?” I say standing up.

“No we are not. Sit down.” he says in a menacing tone. “We found nothing about you in the Maka Kingdom. How can you prove that you are from there.”

At this point I get they are trying to truly interrogate me. Fuck this.

“Heat Wave!” I shout while clapping my hands, creating a wave of heat that pushes everything around me to the sides and burns some papers. I hear some people getting knocked into walls, shelfs and the ground.

“I will be going. Have a good day. If anyone tries anything against me I will take that as a declaration of war and trust me, I can make sure that no one wins in the worst case.”

The people there that were not affected by my spell don’t move until I leave the room.

I find the nearest windows and jump flying myself to the courtyard I was before. There I go look for Mess.

“Hey, we are going!” I shout to the doctor as I grab Mess and pull him away.

“Hey, we need him.”

“Well you just lost him. Thank the Intelligence Division.”

Mess is just confused but just go with me. This boy must not have balls.

“Where are we going?” He asks me as I go towards the exit of the castle with him.

“The city, I am not going to stay here more than I have.”

“...Ok.”

We leave the castle and reach the royal district. There we look for a park or a plaza where we can sit down.

After a few minutes walking we see a small park with some benches open. There are lots of flowers in the grass and people make sure to not pass through those parts. There is even a fountain where you can get water.

“Ok, now what do you want to do?” I ask Mess as we sit.

“I have no idea.”

“Just to be clear, I am not talking about now, I am talking about what you want to do with your life.”

“I still have no idea.”

“There has to be something that you would like to do or did your life in our old world was so good that you didn’t care that you died?”

“To be honest I think I was pretty good, I was going to die anyway so when I woke up here for a few months I thought that it was my heaven.”

“Care to explain?”

“I was the son of a very rich man, he paid a lot of money to keep me hidden from the media and the public. At some point I became really sick and even with everything you could want no amount of money could heal me or help me get treatment so I just enjoyed life as much as I could to not feel regret. I was almost dying on a park bench like this one when I got killed by that light.”

“I don’t know if I should feel sad or angry at you.”

“I always did what people asked me to do, my life was enjoyable because of it but I never saw anyone order me like the church. People can be really scary.”

“You never faced adversity besides your sickness even in your old life, right?”

“You could say that.”

“So you really don’t want anything?”

“Probably to live a normal life.”

“You are going to need some balls for that in this world, especially if you have as much power as I think you have.”

“Please don’t say that. I want a quiet simple life if possible.”

We stay in silence for a few minutes.

“I miss entertainment.”

“What?”

“All there is to do is read. You can’t even hear good music here.”

“I know the feeling.”

What to do. This man was ready to die and now he is here. An empty husk just living.

“Oh, there you are. I was looking all over for you.” I hear a familiar voice say to me. It's Jack.

“Hello Jack, hello Jackelinne.” I say waving at them.

“Who are those?” Mess asks me.

“Jack here is one of us, the girl on his side is his fiance.”

“Hello Jack, you may call me Mess if needed. Same goes for the lady.”

“Miss Lucia, my grandmother wants to meet you.” Jackelinne says to me.

Guess that explains the old lady looking for me.

“May I ask why?”

“She wants to thank you personally before we leave.”

“For what?” I don’t remember doing anything.

“We also have no idea.” Jack says.

“Do you mind?” I ask Mess.

“No.”

“Ok, where is she?”

“In an inn in another district. We can get there via carriage.”

“Just to be clear, I have no money with me.”

“Not a problem, we have the money for it.” Jackelline explains.

With that all of us go find a carriage that would take us to the residential districts and soon enough we are going to the place. It is somewhere to the northwest.

“I never asked but what you used to do Lucia? In that other place if you catch what I am saying. You too Mess, if you feel comfortable.”

“I was an accountant for the mafia.”

“I was rich and sick.”

“... Well… I was just a really overworked office worker.”

Jackelline is just confused but tries to not interfere.

“How do you think the others are?” Jack asks

“I don’t know. It's been just a little more than 24 hours since I saw anything besides my home.” Mess says.

“They are probably alive and well in a peaceful place. I don’t think many people fall into my category of lifestyle.”

With that we just stay in silence as Jackelinne wants to talk but know she can’t as we are talking about something that she shouldn’t even hear about.

Half an hour later we arrive at the place Jack gave the name to the driver.

Various hotels almost identical only differentiated by colors and signs are everywhere here. They are made out of bricks and have 5 floors each with the occasional one with one more.

Jackelline guides us to an orange hotel where we go all the way to the last floor, there she uses a key to open a door and we see an old couple drinking tea.

The room is quite big, it’s just a big room that could be used as a house. Kitchen, dinner table, sofa, bed, everything is there.

“Grandma, she is here.”

The old lady stands up from the sofa and takes a close look at me. She is 160 cm tall, long white hair going to her shoulders. If not for her skin she could pass as someone younger. Besides the vision she doesn’t show any signs of having a weak body. She is at least in her sixties. I don’t have much experience with seeing older women so I can’t really tell. She is using a really simple common dress for everyday use.

“Yes, you are her. Almost didn’t recognize you with your new hair.”

“Hello.”

“Hello my dear. I am Catharina and I would like to thank you for saving my life.”

“Well, thanks, even if I don’t remember how.”

“Well, to tell the truth neither does I. Harold is the one who saw you.”

“Cathy, they are telling me to give the girl some tea.”

“Sure. Please everyone sit down, we have plenty of tea.”

I am confused and amused. Jack and Jackelline are just confused. Mess is Mess.

We sit down on the sofa and at the table as Catharina pours some tea to all of us.

I use this moment to take a look at Harold. He is an old man with most of his hair only being on the side of his head and a really short amount. He has a big mustache. He is probably taller than I am but I can’t tell how much as he is not standing up. He is using black cotton pants and a white shirt.

“Harold told me you can shoot fire and that you can fight. I bet you have no trouble with boys.” Catharina says to me in a very cheerful tone.

“You could say that.”

“Cathy!” Harold shouts.

“What my dear?” She asks in a very lovely voice.

“They are saying to tell the girl to find the elf who lost an arm. Also to find ice cream.”

Everyone besides the both of them are really confused right now.

“You hear Harold. You should probably go find this elf and this ice cream thing.”

“What is happening?” I ask.

“Harold can talk with spirits, they help us a lot so when they ask for our help we return the favor. Usually by saying what they want to other people.”

“Like ghosts?” Mess asks.

“No! These are nature spirits. There are a lot of stone and metal spirits here.”

“You can also hear them?” Jackelline asks.

“No. I can only see them. Harold can only hear them.”

“The perfect pair.” Jack says.

“You flatter me too much Jack.” Catharina says.

We all finish our tea before leaving.

“Thanks for the tea.” We all say as we leave.

“Thanks for taking your time to come here.”

“Cathy! Our girl should stay here.” Harold shouts.

“Why!?” Jackelline shouts back.

“Yeah, why my dear?”

“Because Jack also needs to go with the girl and our granddaughter cannot defend itself.”

Jack is confused.

Jackelline is in panic.

“Jack can just not go, right?” She asks.

“My dear child. The spirits never let us down, they know what is best for us. Let’s not interfere shall we? Thanks for defending us and good luck.” Catharina says while grabbing Jackelline and closing the door with her still inside.

“I think we should go before your girl starts to feel murderous intent towards us.” I say to Jack in a low voice.

“I hope she doesn't have it in her but let’s go.”

With that all 3 of us reach the street where we walk to an empty alley on the other side of the street where we can discuss without anyone eavesdropping on us.

“So, what do you think is going on?” Jack asks me.

“My best bet is that one of the gods can use those spirits and is trying to have us fix something again.”

“I don’t think so.” Mess says.

“What do you mean?”

“There was no divine energy there. If gods are involved you can feel that if you were trained.”

I stop for a second to try to put my thoughts in place. I never saw anything about nature or elemental spirits in books so I have no idea what is going on.

“Jack, what do you know about those spirits?”

“Back home they say that the spirits grow along with the land and if the land is dying they will try to save it.”

“Are they known to be vengeful or something?”

“They steal crops from time to time.”

“So no. Ok.”

“Who is this elf anyway?” Mess asks.

“Probably Maxoiliodas the head of the Magic Institute. I cut his arm a few months back.”

“Isn’t that a big deal?” Jack asks me, a little worried.

“It is all in the past now. The problem is the ice cream. Does it even exist here? I never saw or heard any mention of it anywhere”

Both of them agree with me.

“Let's just go to the institute and look for ice cream later.”

“How are we going?” Jack asks.

“Flying. Hold my hands really tight.” I say while grabbing both of their hands.

They harden their grip and I cast a few spells on them to make sure they don’t fall. I magnetize their hands to mine so we can’t separate and make sure to fly at a slow speed. Creating thrusters away from my body is somewhat hard but I manage. Mess and Jack didn’t enjoy the trip one bit.

After 10 minutes, more or less, of flying we reach the royal district. I ask some directions and find the institute. It's a small old building surrounded by lots of shops that you can’t see normally even from the air, you have to walk to it going through an alley.

We do this and reach an old wooden hut that once we open reveals what I think is another dimension or rift to another place.

As we enter the place we find ourselves in front of a big castle. The kind you would see in children's cartoons. Behind us is a forest with colored trees. There are some people guarding the gate but before they can even walk to us we hear an explosion coming from the forest followed by a girl screaming.

“Ice Cream! Stop!” A little elf girl screams as she tries to catch a blue dog that looks like a husky, just a little bigger. This girl is not even 10 years old. She is your stereotypical elf, Green eyes and blond hair.

The dog looks at us and starts to run towards the castle with the girl chasing him.

“I guess we found ice cream.”

“And here I was thinking I could eat something.” Jack says in a joking tone.

“You can still eat it.” Mess jokes.

We all laugh a little and begin to walk to the castle.