It’s the first day of the month of Cancer. It is still morning. A few days have passed since the incident with Maxoiliodas.
Sophia almost went to the capital in rage when I told her what happened. If not for the plan I told her, she probably would have gone when I wasn’t looking.
As for the plan, it involves making Maxia and Alfina mages stronger than I am now. Zelfina has her own thing to do so I can’t put her on this. On the surface this might sound like a great and terrible plan at the same time but simplicity is often better than the alternative.
One thing that I found for sure in these last few days is that I am a shit mage in the eyes of most mages. Being able to use magic does not make you a mage, knowing about magic makes you one as it seems. People usually regarded me as a mage due to the fact that I can use very powerful spells and that usually is done by a lot of studying. Some adventurers came to town with a few mages among them. I got all this by talking with them as I was trying to figure out how fast what I was told by Maxoiliodas would spread in the mage community.
All 3 girls are steadily reaching the point where we can actually start to try spells.
Zelfina will need to be able to use spells while fighting so what she needs now is to be able to circulate her mana while fighting. She probably will leak mana when she starts to use spells but that’s not why she is here anyway. If she wants to actually learn magic I will change her training a bit, until she asks I will just use the fact that she can to help her with the normal training.
Alfina and Maxia are almost able to not lose mana when creating their elemental ball. Maxia is doing a little better as she had some experience with magic before but not by much as she didn’t have any experience with elemental magic.
Right now I am talking with Mess, in the living room, who is the resident expert in magic. Sophia and Monica look like great mages but as they said to me, they only know lots of runes.
“The girls are doing great.” Mess says.
“Nothing gives someone who is trying to achieve something more determination than being told you are wrong.”
“Life is not easy.”
“You tell me.”
“So, why exactly did you call me today?”
“The last few days I was thinking about something. I don’t have the affinity for healing magic but I can heal using spells. Why is that?”
“That is a very good question that I don’t know the answer to.”
“... What even is classified as healing?”
“As far as everyone is concerned, healing spells are spells that close wounds and make your body and/or mind better.”
“Kinda strange that I don’t have an affinity for healing magic then. Do you think Ancient Magic encompasses everything and that's why I can do it?”
“Probably not.”
“Why?”
“I only heard about this once but Ancient Magic requires sacrifices from what I know. Also there is the possibility that you only need affinities for when you are using runes”
“... Yeah, I don’t remember sacrificing anyone or anything to use spells. But I think affinities apply. I can’t use other elements for instance.”
“It’s also a shame no one found out you could use ancient magic when you were younger, you would probably have had a lot more time to look for things about it.”
I stop for a moment and begin to think about my life.
“I actually had someone analyse me when I was younger and he said I had perfect affinity for fire and normal for thunder. Any reason why he wouldn’t have told me?”
“No idea. Maybe you learned that affinity after you did something. Most mages only appraise themselves once or twice. I was only appraised more than once because people wouldn’t believe everything I could do.”
“By any metric you are unique.”
“So are you.”
Touche. With this going nowhere I call everyone who I can, including the girls and ask some questions to see if I can get somewhere.
“If you don’t know, you don’t need to answer. Can you use healing spells without the affinity for it?”
“No.” Everyone besides Alfina answers.
“Then how can I use spells that heal if I don’t have an affinity for it?”
No one answers that.
“Does someone know what healing spells are? Any spell that would close a wound of mine would be classified as a healing spell to me.”
“They fill you with energy.” Maxia says.
“And they heal not only the body but the soul too.” Sophia says.
“I hope you two are right. Thank you, now back to training, we still have a lot of time until lunch.” I am pretty sure I can’t affect the soul of another being with fire. Maybe all I am doing is using the properties of the element fire to simulate healing.
Everyone continues with their things. Mess goes back to his room and I go help Sophia. Some people are interested in coming to the city and they don’t really care about living outside the walls as we are already full. I need to check to see if they actually would have enough money to survive after coming here. We don’t want people coming here just to die, it would make the city look bad.
Every few minutes go outside to check on the girls. They usually are able to do things by themselves but repeating the same thing over and over is bound to make them slack off without knowing so I have to keep an eye on them.
Also during these times I leave the office, Monica takes the opportunity to feel me. She is doing it quite a lot. To everyone she seems normal but I am feeling something strange from her. It’s nothing evil, doesn’t feel like something that is trying to harm me, it’s just the energy around her that feels strange.
I still feel that I should leave this alone so I let her have her way. Sometimes I even let myself enjoy it. Since it looks like I don’t need to have sex now that I walk with a dildo inside myself pretty much 24/7, any action is some action.
After lunch Sophia goes out to interview the people coming to town and accommodate them in an area that we can actually defend in case of emergency. Also to make sure they don’t go to the land that is suited for cattle.
During the afternoon I fly to degrada where I make some requests to the Adventurer’s Guild. I am paying at least 100 Kir for any history book that has recorded history since the Iron Age. More if there is something from before or the book is of good quality. Also books or documents on Ancient Magic.
One funny thing I learned about the guild is that it was some type of private business with money and everything but people just called them the adventurer’s guild so much they gave up on the name. The Institute only managed to dodge the name Magic Guild because Magic Institute is also easy to say by what it looks like.
As I fly back I think about using Monica’s power to find books but then I remember that she can die from it. Let’s make that a last resort.
When I get back to Sagrada I find nothing to do in the mansion or anyone to help so I decide to do some science, if you can call it that.
I haven’t been experimenting with my magic for a while. I need to test more stuff from now on as I won’t have any help with this.
I go outside the city, near the forest, and begin some tests.
My first test is trying to see how far from me I can create a spell. The answer to that still is I can’t. I can increase the size of the spell and make part of it do nothing but the mana forming it is always touching me before I launch it, at least when it comes to fire. Lightning can’t be controlled to that extent, it will always shock me if not used through Yin and Yang.
The next test was me trying to see if I could use normal fire or even fire I created that is now just normal fire as an extension of me. The answer to that is a yes, most of the time. I made sure that I would cause a giant fire in the forest by cutting and burning part of the grass in an area and then made a line of fire using sticks and the grass itself. Once it was set ablaze I tried to make a fireball go up into the air at the end of the line as I touched the start of it.
The fireball was shot a third of the way there and the fire stopped. After a series of similar tests with smaller and longer lines as well stronger and weaker fires I managed to figure it out a little. Fire, even the ones I didn’t create, have it’s natural supply of mana and I can use it. If I try to use them as a medium the mana there is used if I don’t make very precise instructions the moment I cast the spell. These instructions are so precise that I lose focus on maintaining my mana circulation at a reasonable speed so it’s not something I can actually do right now without causing damage.
My last test was to try to make new types of runes. I took a stick and made some circles in the ground with different types of images or things written on it like fireball, a jaiser of flames, the head of a dragon, etc… But in the end I couldn’t put mana on it so it became just a waste of time.
As the sun was beginning to set I went back to the mansion. The other maid was leaving.
As I enter the house Monica is there to greet me. She hugs me and kisses me quite passionately only to suddenly stop after a few seconds.
“I could live with this everyday.” I say to her, I wouldn’t mind one of these every time I came back.
“With what?” She says. I am beginning to think that she has no idea of what is happening. But the fact that from time to time I see a sly smile on her face when I try to figure her out makes me think she is just getting off on me.
“Nothing… The house is awfully quiet, where is everyone?”
“With the exception of Mess and both of us, everyone still hasn’t come back.”
I sit on the sofa in the living room as Monica continues to clean the place.
As I sit there thinking I call Monica.
“Monica, have you ever looked for a book on ancient magic?”
“As a matter of fact I did.”
“Is that book here?”
“No, I burned it a long time ago.”
“... May I ask why?”
“I was a young and very easily angered girl.”
I stop for a moment thinking about a young Monica in rage. In my mind she is a cute loli dark elf with a book half her size.
“I wish there was a safe way to experience the past and learn the true history of the world.”
“Why the sudden interest in history? Don’t we have plenty of books about it?”
“There is nothing from the Iron Age and almost everything from the Silver Age looks like propaganda fiction. I will not believe that every single instance where humans fought elves, dwarfs or any other race that aren’t demons was because they were being oppressed.”
“Sometimes I forget that you are not that attached to your identity as a human.”
“Everyone can do bad things, history should not be painted with glamour. Anything built on lies will collapse when one truth comes to light by third parties.”
“I hope you live by those words.” She says, hinting at something. Probably my real past.
“Look, anything I didn’t tell you or Sophia is because I either can’t or someone asked me not to. There is also the fact that you two stopped asking me about my life a while ago.”
“It was by the request of Lady Sophia.”
“Then by my request ask anything you want about me. I will try to answer as best as I can.”
“What drives you forward?”
“Mostly rage, anger and things of that nature.” I have a lot of personal vendettas that are in the back of my mind.
“... That wasn’t the answer I was expecting. You are too calm for that.” She says with the face of someone who is genuinely surprised.
“Nothing good would come from me angrily flailing around every time I got upset, wouldn’t it?”
“Ok…”
“Anything else?”
“Not for now.”
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
“Then I will take my leave.” I say as I go to the office.
There I take a look at the books, I want to try and find something talking about the iron age or the time before it but as I said before most of the history is told as tales. I think the act of history keeping is not really done for the most part. I bet most of the books I read were commissioned by the people that were part of it’s story.
I spend around an hour looking for anything there but I find nothing. Then Sophia calls me for dinner.
During dinner Maxia tells me something worrying.
“Lucia… I think I did something bad.”She says with a very worried face.
“What?”
“I think I killed a dog with a healing spell.”
“Why did you try to use a healing spell in the first place?” I say, a little angry. There is a reason why I said that they should focus on first being able to control their mana before anything else. Spells using my method are really powerful, one wrong move and the smallest amount of mana could create a disaster. I managed to kill drakes when I had a pitiful amount of mana.
“... Curiosity.” She says, ashamed.
“What happened?”
“I saw a dog with a broken paw and tried to cast a healing spell on it but it’s paw became a blob of meat.”
“How much mana did you use?”
“The usual for a weak spell.”
She overhealed the dog. My bet is that he has really bad cancer now.
“You know that the usual now is a lot, right?”
“... I forgot at that moment.”
“Don’t try this again. If what you said is true, overhealing is a thing.”
“Overhealing?” Sophia asks.
“Imagine you are a bottle and your health as water. Overhealing would be putting too much water in that bottle but instead of just overflowing the bottle would expand until it breaks to try to accommodate the water.” All of this is just guess work but seems to be the case. Too much of anything is bad.
“I think I understood it.”
After this we finish eating. As we are leaving the table I approach Maxia.
“Miss, you need some punishment.”
“What?” She says with fear in her face.
I take her hand and slap it with a moderate amount of force. I am not that strong but I can hurt people if I don’t control myself. Her hand is red now.
“Why did you do that?”
“You were lucky you tried it on a dog. Imagine if you did that to a person. The pain you are suffering now is way better than what that dog is probably feeling now if he is even alive.”
She was going to say something but stopped midway. I think she understood the message.
We then all did our nightly preparations to sleep. As everyone was taking a bath and getting ready to go to bed I went through more of the books but again my luck is not helping. I wonder why there are so many random books here. I found more than one book that I am pretty sure is telling the same story. A story about a noble looking for a horse that becomes an adventure on it’s own and he finds love in the end.
There is probably some cultural relevance to this but at this point I don’t really care.
I then go take a bath. As I begin to leave the tub Monica opens the door of the bathroom, which is very strange as I locked that. She then comes near me and kisses my left nipple before leaving. I am still feeling something strange from her.
At some point during the night the same person or thing that left the gold for me came again, this time it left a small wooden box with a letter attached to it. I quickly read it.
“Greeting my friend. I hope the reward was of your liking. Money isn’t exactly hard to have but that was the payment we received so I hope you find how to use or cash it. Also sorry for the delay of the payment, it took a few more days for the kill to be confirmed than it normally is. Now to the real topic of this letter.
Nobody we know ,that is like us, knows what exactly killed us but due to some investigation me and my colleagues found out a little about what happened. A demon that can use teleportation spells accidentally opened a rift to our world and soon after the gods themselves went to strike the demons. My guess is that a portal to our world will lead whoever passes through it from this side to random places in our old world as pretty much everyone is from a different place.
I along with some people are trying to find our way back home so if you are interested I suggest you get ready as it looks like it will be an uphill battle.
We also found the reason why even normal demons are so fucking strong. This information is not to be passed to any authority or we might have a serious problem. In this world there are dungeons like the ones you would find in a video-game and the demons have one. Monsters just appear there and it looks like that is how they get their food as the bodies don’t just disappear after they are killed.
The dungeon itself needs to be turned on, but ‘how?’ is a mystery as there is another dungeon that isn’t working and doing the same thing the founder of the first one did doesn’t seem to work. If somehow one is found somewhere else you can go, destroy the entrance and call as much support as you can.
One last thing, it’s about the box. We were paid a lot of money, and I mean a lot, to deliver that to you. The person who sent that made a magic contract that would kill him if whatever is inside of it isn’t safe so don’t worry. If at any point a situation where you can be helpful arrives I will contact you again. Have a good day or night.”
I am not really that desperate to go back, but the dungeons look interesting. I also opened the box. Inside I found about 5 meters of magic string. As soon as I touched it it merged with what I had.
I don’t know if I should be worried about someone sending me gifts like this but in any case I appreciate it. I will try some things later with it.
After my usual morning routine of training, breakfast, training the girls and getting touched by Monica in inappropriate places, lunch time arrives.
“Sophia, when is your birthday?” Alfina asks.
“10th of Sagittarius. Why do you ask?”
“I just want to know.”
“Ok…”
“And you Mess?”
“16th of Cancer.” He says after thinking for a few moments. Alfina is taken by surprise but says nothing.
After lunch I give some of my mana to the girls by circulating it on them without them returning it to me. The process is not a 1:1 trade now that they circulate their own mana but I manage to give a good amount. I think a number would be something around 4:1.
The reason for this is that I am noticing that they are being able to hold their spell without using mana 50% of the time, more or less. They need to get the feeling as soon as they can. As for Zelfina, she is somewhat able to do what you would call parallel processing. I can do it to some extent and she is almost there where she will be able to think normally while also being able to control her mana at will like she had a second brain. I am still not at the point where both my lines of concentration are separated as emotions can still affect my mana.
I spend the afternoon still looking for a useful book as I help Sophia with some numbers.
“How old is this library?” I ask Sophia.
“What library?”
“This office. Since when are these books being collected?”
“Around 100 years. Some of these books were from my great grandfather and he passed them to my grandfather who expanded the collection to most of what you see here.”
“Couldn’t he find other types of books? I found around 15 books that have useful information ever since I arrived here, most of it is history and fiction combined.”
“I have no idea. What are you looking for?”
“Anything about the Iron age or before.”
“You probably aren’t going to find anything about it in this kingdom. This land was still demon’s land at that time and anything from them was destroyed centuries ago.”
“Fuck…”
“Why are you looking for records of that age?”
“First because I want to know the history and then because I want to know if ancient magic was still used in the Iron age.”
“Probably.”
“I need to know with certainty. From what I was told, ancient magic was given by the gods when the world was created or something like that, right?” I still don’t know the creation myth of this world and people don’t really care about it from what I saw. There are no tales centered on gods, heroes, not war heroes, or anything like that in literature that I have found, only half-truths about historical events.
“At some point you will probably find it. If not here somewhere else.”
“I hope you are right.”
After this short conversation we continued with our jobs until dinner time. The creation myth of this world clings to my mind and while we were eating I brought it up to everyone.
“So, how was the world created? Nobody actually explained that to me.” I ask.
“The gods created it.” Maxia, Zelfina, Sophia and Monica answer in similar ways.
“Just that?”
“Expecting something else?” Monica asks.
“More information. They just created the world, various creatures including monsters and animals as well the intelligent races and that's it?”
“They might be gods but they can’t do everything, right? If the god of fire could also govern water we wouldn’t need the goddess of water.”
“That’s also the thing, what are their names?”
“We should probably stop this here.” Mess says all of a sudden.
“Why?”
“If you know the name of a god you might accidentally summon it by calling it. That’s why the church only calls them by their titles most of the time.” He says it as if it was the most common thing to know. Everyone except Alfina seems to already know this one way or another.
This is quite a shock to me but it is also a good thing to know. We don’t talk much during the rest of the dinner.
After dinner I spend the rest of the night before I sleep training with the magic string. Up until now I couldn’t use it for anything besides simple movement but now that I have a lot I can actually control it better, like an actual arm, but not enough to actually fight with it. The feeling you get from holding weapons is very different from the almost non-existent feeling you get from the string. It also looks like you can’t use the same strength you would normally have with this amount.
The next two days go by in a flash. Training and work move along nicely and fast. I almost didn’t have to do anything. The girls pushed through are finally at a point where we can start doing something.
By the next morning all the girls are lined up and ready. Ice Cream is also here as I need him for some tests.
“Alright girls, you are all at the point where we can start to actually train interesting stuff.”
“Even me?” Zelfina asks.
“Especially you.”
The other two are a little puzzled but I have to continue.
“The first lesson today is how all of you should be thinking when using spells.”
The girls are paying more attention now.
“Unlike with runes, when using the spells like you are able to now you can use the same spell with different amounts of mana. So instead of thinking of how much power you want a spell to have, you should think about what you want to accomplish when using said spell.”
“Is that what happened when I tried to use a spell before?” Maxia asks.
“Yes. You said you used the usual mana for a healing spell so you actually put an amount in the mana you wanted to use. I only do that when I need to do something very strong. When I create fire, for example, I just think about creating the fire and what it should or shouldn’t do, never how much mana it should use. There is also the fact that until you actually use the spell, as long as it is within a certain range of you, your mana won’t actually be used if it doesn’t affect the world around you too much.”
“Ok, what are we gonna do?” Alfina asks.
“Well… You, Alfina, will test along with me what exactly taming magic is. Zelfina will fight me and Maxia will heal me.”
Zelfina got a little worried with this message.
“Don’t worry, I will not attack.”
Her face goes back to normal.
“So, what should I do?” Alfina asks.
“First we need to see if taming is what it implies. So touch Ice Cream and make a spell like that shine ball you can make that will make him do anything you say if he can. It doesn’t need to have a ball or anything. Just make your mana go to him in a safe way and make him listen to you and only to you.”
Alfina nods, knees and grabs Ice Cream’s head. He licks her a little and we all giggle but she gets serious. Ice Cream is a very good dog and as long as we don’t show ill intent he usually does nothing in return, except lick you from time to time.
After a few seconds I can feel Alfina’s mana starting to circulate a little faster, going out of her body and coating Ice Cream.
“I think I did it.” She says to me.
“Let’s test it then.” I say as I walk a few meters from them. “Tell him to come where I am and stay by my side.”
“Ice Cream, go and sit near Lucia.” She says while pointing to me. Ice Cream barks, stands up and normally walks in my direction before stopping and sitting to my right.
“Ice Cream, go back to Alfina.” I say but he ignores me. I repeat a few times but he doesn't even acknowledge me. “Alfina, call him back but say that he has to jump when he gets near you but to not hit anyone.”
“Ice Cream, come here and jump once, but be careful to not hit anyone.” She says. Ice Cream goes and does exactly what was commanded.
“Just one more. Tell him to follow the next command I give him.”
“Ice Cream, Lucia will say something, do the next thing she says to you.” He barks and moves until he is in front of me.
“Ice Cream, go and lick the person you love the most.” Ice Cream calmly walks towards Alfina and begins to lick her again, only stopping when Alfina asks to.
“He listens to me like a very good boy.” Alfina says while petting his head. He is commanded to be more calm but his body still acts on his own a little. His tail is wagging at high velocities.
“Alfina, go wash yourself a little and come back.” I think it’s for the best if I don’t dry her with fire this time.
“Ok…” She says as she goes into the house with Ice Cream following her from a distance.
“Alright, now for you two. Alfina managed so far so you two will probably be able to do more things. Zelfina, I want you to circulate your mana as fast as you can and imagine that everytime you hit me with your rapier a spell will activate on me.”
“What should the spell do?”
“For now try to think that it will make me heavier.”
“And me?” Maxia asks.
“You will have to wait a few minutes.”
Maxia goes to the wall near the mansion and Zelfina begins to charge me with her rapier. Every stab and slash she does to me I receive with my arms. Her rapier wouldn’t do any real damage in a fight but is very good for training for something not made for it.
As she attacks she doesn’t say a word and every so often I feel a little heavier but the effects don’t stick around for more than a few seconds. A few minutes later, after Zelfina runs out of breath from attacking me non stop. I call Maxia to heal my wounds. I use healing fire to stop any bleeding from happening but the cuts are still there for the most part.
“Alright Maxia, remember, you want to think about closing these wounds and only that. Think of you as a bottle, you healing as the water inside the bottle and me as a cup. You only need to put enough water to fill the cup, not more, not less. As soon as the cup is full, the bottle will close itself so no more water comes out.” I say a little more to her because she used her spell once and I know the result and also the fact that she is a little nervous from what I can see.
She touches my arms and I feel my wounds closing soon after. Alfina also comes out of the mansion. She was probably watching from inside of it along with Ice Cream. The spell on him is gone, so I guess there is a time limit. Alfina didn’t notice it yet and is giving some simple commands to him that he would follow anyway.
“Alright girls. All of you seem to be able to use spells now so I will give a test.” I start marking a 4x4 meters square in the ground using Mira. “I will make a square like this one outside the city. Your test will be to make me leave the square in a way that doesn’t involve my duties like working or protecting other people from harm. All of you can use any means necessary but there is a special rule. Zelfina is your leader and any plan she comes with you have to follow as best as you can.”
“When do we start?” Zelfina asks.
“When you say you are ready. Just remember, I will hurt any and all people that try to remove me from the square but I promise to hold back as much as I can so no one gets seriously hurt but will get hurt to some extent.”
They all stop for a second to process what I just said.
“Also, think about what you want to do with the magic you have and give names to your spells, that way you don’t actually need to think about what you want every time you use a spell. It also can make it strong depending on what it does.” The normal Heat Barrier has the same potency whether I call it’s name or not. Calling it’s name seems to make it appear faster but by a very small margin.
“If we move a certain way we can also make spells more powerful, right?” Maxia asks.
“Yes, while doing other things can make it weaker or outright not happen from what I know.”
“Alright, we will prepare and call you later.” Zelfina says.
“Ice Cream, let’s go.” Alfina says as she begins to follow Zelfina and Maxia somewhere.
“If you manage to do it I will give all of you a present.” I shout. They don’t turn around but their body motion shows that they are a little more excited now.
I wonder what they will do and what spells they will be able to think to make me move. I can probably think of a few spells for them but it’s for the better they think about it themselves. Not everyone thinks the same way and the way I think something works might not be how someone else sees it, independently of who is right or wrong. This can probably affect a spell.
For now I will continue my search in the office, hoping I find anything. I haven't checked every single book yet but in case I reach that point I better start to read anything I find and hope for the best.