I don’t really know what’s the logic of running a steam train underground… I can imagine the cave where the train exits, is like a dragon coughing out smoke due to how much of it builds up around the train.

Seriously.

All I can see is smoke… Or I guess…steam?? … Why does this train even have windows…!? What’s the point when you’re traveling underground anyway?!

Even if the train eventually does go above ground, wouldn’t the windows just be so coated in soot we’d be unable to see through them anyway?

Eh. Maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on the Mhiir’im on this… Apparently, trains are a pretty big deal, and only the folks living underground have really figured out how to even make them. I guess blaming them for…weird design choices is a bit petty.

I read in some books back in Subtherma, that most religions on the surface dislike trains and other methods of moving multiple people inside machinery.

Apparently, it reminds them of dragons…which in turn is some form of heresy.

To be fair, I think back in my world, literature had plenty of comparisons between dragons and trains, so I can kind of see where they’re coming from.

The sound my cold, sharp-clawed finger made against the window glass of the train car we were in felt a bit alien. It was so piercing and snappy. It kept reminding me of the fact that my arm was now made of a metallic compound of some kind.

“Choralium” a fantastical metal that conducts magic like no other, is what my new prosthetic arm was primarily built out of. I guess it would be comparable to fantasy stuff like… Mythril or something like that from the literature of our world.

Amelia and I managed to somehow save a Mhiir’im society from a bunch of weird creeps, and judging by what their beloved princess Fanael said, the men might have been after the choralium deposit Amelia and I found accidentally on our way to the underground kingdom of Subtherma.

For anyone out of the loop, Mhiir’im are like…a type of dwarf… but it’s apparently not cool to call them dwarves…so yeah.

In the process of saving said adorable and vertically challenged people, I made plenty of personal sacrifices. Namely, to my physical being.

Now my whole left arm, the middle finger of my right hand and the entirety of my right leg was no longer flesh and blood. Faint streaks of orange light traversed down the length of my prosthetic replacement parts occasionally as I gazed at them.

My body felt a bit alien. It was definitely difficult to get used to something like this. Not so much because of something like…phantom pain or such! It’s a bit different… It feels…better? Maybe better is the right word! Choralium conducts mana really well, which in turn makes my metallic arm and leg move really accurately. Even more accurately than my flesh and blood limbs.

image [https://i.imgur.com/6YlP7I9.png]

The irony of this isn’t lost on me, since I’m half way there in terms of becoming a magical terminator. My natural parts feel clunky and slow, so ironically, I’ve had to go through extensive physical therapy and muscle training to make sure the rest of my body keeps up with the choralium parts.

I feel a lot better about myself physically. I still can’t keep up with Amelia at all, but I am a bit more in tune with my body now. Furthermore, I feel being in at least somewhat alright shape is essential considering the hellhole this world is.

Speaking of hellholes! Welcome to the second book of my memoirs! I wrote the first one while I stayed in Subtherma, and it has become a bit of a hobby for me. I feel it was a pretty natural transition into writing stuff considering how much I read in general.

Do keep in mind I’m still a total beginner… so if you see some weird sentences or something, let’s say it’s Fanael’s fault. She keeps trying to add her comments to my writing while I’m not looking…

But anyway! To kind of sum up the previous topic, I’m in better physical shape than ever. Nothing incredible, but at least I’m not a walking skeleton anymore.

Amelia still keeps getting on my case over my weight, though… Apparently, I’m still too skinny and pale. Fanael lovingly described my appearance as ‘gloomy as a ghost’.

But to me, this is fine! I am a witch, after all! Witches are supposed to be a bit dark! In more ways than one!

Speaking of, though… It’s not just me and Amelia anymore.

I was sitting in a fancy, well-lit train car as I wrote this.

Amelia was taking a nap next to me, looking as handsome as always. She was gifted cool duotone armor by Fanael and her people as thanks for our help with the Subtherma incident. The train ride was to take two weeks…so there was literally zero reason for Amelia to wear her armor on the train, but judging by how she strongly refused the idea of taking it off made it obvious how much she adored it.

… So, she was clanging around wherever we went.

Amelia recovered from the incident well, and we’ve grown noticeably closer while hanging out and about in Subtherma.

You, however, already know Amelia. I suppose the newer companion who was sitting opposite of me, barking orders at her subordinates, is more interesting for now.

Her royal Highness, Fanael Il Subtherma decided to join us on our adventure. The little princess wore a light dress of red and black. I’d be as bold as to assume they were her favorite colors, judging by how often she donned clothes like this.

The outfit was adorned with golden decorations all over it, making it look…excessively expensive. Royalty sure as hell has a completely unique idea of ‘casual clothes’ it seemed.

Despite having this royal presence to herself, her legs were kicking back and forth while she was instructing her aides in political matters. It was a delightful conflict of serious talk and absolutely adorable people having it.

Her aide was, of course, also a Mhiir’im noble of some kind, who was sitting in place, but her head was swaying from side to side as she wrote, as if she was humming a song to herself in her head…

I wondered if it was just impossible for Mhiir’im girls to not be cute. I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of selective breeding must have happened to create these absolute abominations of pure fluffiness.

You might be a bit confused as to what’s going on and where we are, so if you don’t mind. I could explain what’s happened so far a bit more, but to keep things simple for now, I was on my way to the surface from underground with Fanael and Amelia. Fanael had a score to settle with the golden people, so she joined us. The kingdom of Subtherma is now the Democratic Republic of Subtherma. Fanael is currently explaining to her aide that in a democratic society, they vote for people in charge, instead of choosing them based on their family titles and such.

Fanael decided that remaining a monarchy would simply provide opportunity for the enemies of Subtherma to exploit the monarchs, just like what happened to her father, so she kind of…overthrew the entire political system of her past kingdom.

This, of course, meant Fanael was not TECHNICALLY a princess anymore either. Her people still called her ‘Her Highness’ though. This seemed to trouble her a bit, but she didn’t really raise a ruckus about it because she probably understood how significant changes like this always took time to fully go through.

I studied magic a lot while I was uh…vacationing in Subtherma.

You might remember I promised Amelia, I’d take her out to eat, but our plans to go stuff our faces with good food had to be put on hold because Subtherma was extremely low on supplies due to all the events that transpired.

We did eventually eat Mhiir’im food! I’ll tell you about it a bit later, for sure.

Sitting there amidst the cloud of darkness, protected only by a thin window glass caused my mind to wander.

It meandered to the changes my life had gone through in such a short time.

The past life I spent being stuck in a hospital and being set aside by everyone close to me did a number on me. I think I might have closed off myself to emotions and people…

Friends… goals… dreams. These were all things, which my mind considered threats to my mental wellbeing in the past. What’s the point of investing yourself in anything, when it’s all going to go away before you even manage to enjoy it.

I avoided people, so I wouldn’t get hurt when they couldn’t deal with my…limitations anymore.

I avoided dedicating myself to anything but stuff like video games and reading because I’d just inevitably feel like a failure if I set myself any greater goals than beating some boss in a video game. Not only that, but I was working with a pretty strict time limit as well…

Thinking back on it now, I think that gloomy mentality of mine was dragged into this world as well. You might remember that… whole part at the beginning of the first volume about me screaming about butterflies and everything I saw around the world with joy and excitement.

I think the reason I had such a wild reaction to it, was because I honestly didn’t believe any of this was real to begin with.

You know. Enjoy it while it lasts and all. I was sure I’d wake up from the dream sooner than later.

But it was different now. I had come to accept that this wasn’t a dream. I was here, and this world was just as real, if not even more real to me, than my past life was.

It was…different. I was invested in this life… emotionally.

And this realization was absolutely horrifying to me.

When you play a lot of video games, you’re kind of hardwired to think that when you see a pitfall in front of you, you’re supposed to jump over it.

But when you encounter a situation in real life where you must jump over a bottomless abyss expanding into nothing but cruel unyielding darkness, it suddenly becomes considerably harder.

When your party mate dies in an RPG, you can just cast a magic spell to revive them, or drag them to the church or a resurrection point to heal them back up again.

Not in here, though.

I feel I have started to understand what I want out of this life, and it isn’t revenge. Not mine, not Amelia’s nor Fanael’s.

Sure, the first impression of the golden people with the princess I met, and that creepy stone wasn’t outright good… Not to mention the whole…murder exile business… I still felt I couldn’t get motivated to dedicate my life to vengeance.

She definitely was an asshole, don’t get me wrong, but I honestly couldn’t muster the energy to hate someone like that in this world.

I had a brand-new life in a beautiful, albeit horrifying fantasy land.

Maybe to Amelia and Fanael this environment was the status quo, but to me, it was a magical wonderland of experiences. Focusing on something like revenge felt redundant when there was so much more I could do with my time…

I never knew Amelia’s daughter Amy. To me, she’s like a character from a book a friend recited to me. I’m not going to lie and start claiming I’m empathetic enough to be able to put myself in Amelia’s shoes about that experience.

Which is why I don’t really care about her revenge.

I experienced what Fanael had to go through to an extent, but none of the animosity in that whole ordeal was directly aimed at me.

I wasn’t the target of the attack. I just…ended up getting involved in it, which indirectly caused me to draw enmity.

So, to emphasize, I never cared about revenge.

I am… trying…and trying to distance myself…

But I can’t. I can’t pull away from the warmth of Amelia and Fanael anymore.

This…friendship.

Love even.

I’ve come to love my friends.

This is a major issue…

If you have some kind of flaw or a weakness in your body or person, it’s generally easy to start working towards fixing it, patching up those little weak spots one at a time.

But I lived a life where my weak spot couldn’t be patched up. My body was inherently faulty from the get-go. It was an awful life of uncertainty and anxiety.

And now, while my body is functional, and I was healthier than I had ever been despite missing a couple of limbs, my weak spot was out of my grasp again.

My friends.

I couldn’t control them, so I had two unpredictable weak spots fully exposed walking around next to me.

Saying I was anxious about the future was an understatement, especially considering my particular weak spots were VERY personally motivated about getting in trouble.

Seriously.

Amelia had an idiotic sense of justice, and she was obsessed with revenge towards the golden princess who killed her daughter.

Fanael, on the other hand, was just far too wild and bloodthirsty in general! Her mother, who passed away on some adventure a long time ago, was definitely the person Fanael inherited her ferociousness from.

Random note on her mom, weirdly enough, I found no details on her death in any books back in Subtherma…

Ahem!

But what I’m trying to say here is, that I’m willing to put myself in crazy danger, simply because I would rather not see Fanael and Amelia hurt anymore.

But deep inside, I just want to spend a happy, long life with them without strife and pain…

It seemed, however, that a long road of conflict was ahead of us until we could truly rest. Fanael seemed to have a bone to pick with ALL the golden-haired perverts! All of them! She only met one!! Why does she need to take revenge on everyone?! I DON’T GET IT!!

Ahem…

To sum it up… I guess I just wanted to say I really liked my new friends… Like seriously, and I was terrified of losing them… Scared of being seriously hurt again.

Looking out the window into the dark smoke the train was enveloped in, I felt a sense of dread.

It was like a premonition that said everything waiting ahead of me in life was black smoke and cinder.

Death and misery.

It certainly sullied the mood a bit.

I suddenly felt a finger poking my cheek. Amelia was smiling at me.

“What’s the matter? You look a bit gloomy.” She smiled gently and gestured for an adorable little servant Mhiir’im who was pushing a food trolley, to hand her something to munch on.

“Don’t I always?” I chuckled a bit. I slowly turned around from looking out through the window.

“There’s a subtle difference between the general gloominess and the real gloominess you emanate.”

“What am I?! Some kinda depression factory?!” I grumbled and took what looked a bit like a croissant from the little servant.

Fanael was still treated like royalty, so we had a really fancy train car reserved just for us. It came with around the clock food service, a bathroom with a huge bath tub and numerous other amenities I didn’t quite understand due to their…Mhiir’im origin.

One among such bizarre oddities was what seemed to be a board game where you had to do tricks with a piece of wood with a string wrapped around it, not too different from a yo-yo.

Fanael tried to explain the rules to Amelia earlier, but it didn’t seem to go too well.

“Well! Sometimes.” Amelia smiled. “But, please do talk. We both know it only harms you to keep things bottled up.”

“Mmmmgh…” I looked away a bit. It was embarrassing to be read by people like this. It’s fine when I do it! But you’re not allowed to! I screamed in my head.

When I mentioned Amelia and I getting closer, this is mostly what I meant. We…talked a lot during the time we spent in Subtherma, which helped her grow a bit more aware of who I was as a person, I suppose. This, of course, applied both ways. I learned a lot about Amelia too, and I hold all that knowledge in the most precious wrinkles of my brain with pride.

“What is it?” Amelia cocked her eyebrow.

“I’m just…worried we’re on our way to another death trap of some kind…” I mumbled.

“Ah…” Amelia nodded and seemed to begin pondering something over.

“What are you so worried about?! You got me here now! I’ll keep you two safe, even if you get a couple of injuries!” Fanael boasted, marching over to us sassily.

“You…don’t really know what we went through before the whole Subtherma incident though.” I sighed.

“BAH! It couldn’t have been that bad!” Fanael laughed and jumped next to me. Her arrogance was a bit annoying. It felt a little like she was belittling what we had to go through before Subtherma…

… But surely, she will grow to understand if this world was to be equally rotten to the very end. She would eventually realize how miserable things can get… I could sense it.

“Somehow… I’ve got a strange feeling about this. Like… we just got a safe little hole to hide in… I don’t understand why we need to get out there just to get ourselves killed.

Amelia smiled a bit apologetically and simply stayed silent, wrapping her arm around me. She sighed deep and nodded a bit, seemingly mostly to herself.

“Thank you for tagging along, even if you’re not fully onboard with it.”

I remained silent, then huffing to myself a bit. “I’d rather follow you and watch you die, rather than never see you again. I hate the thought of you getting hurt…but I hate the thought of having to part ways even more…” I mumbled a bit awkwardly. “Fanael too…kind of.”

Both girls were suddenly awkward over my words. I didn’t really want to guilt-trip them… but yes, I did. My two most precious people were running head long into unimaginable peril, and I was just supposed to shut up and watch?!

“… You’re starting to sound like her.” Fanael pointed at Amelia, blushing a bit.

“Whu? Wha? What? How?” I was caught off-guard.

“You sound like a mom.” She replied.

I slapped my face in my hands. It hurt a bit due to the fact one of them was made of metal. But… She was right. I was saying kind of weirdly mom-like things, wasn’t I?! Like I was scared for my children.

“S-shut up… I’ve never had close friends before…” I murmured.

Amelia gently hugged me against her…but her armor made it slightly uncomfortable. I did appreciate the gesture, though.

“We’ll be careful.” She spoke in a soft yet confident voice. “I promise.”

Fanael simply sighed and smiled a bit, leaning against me as well. She was soft and warm. Much more comfortable than ‘Miss Iron Maiden’ right next to me.

“I recall seeing you studying magic a lot back in Subtherma.” Amelia started speaking softly. “Was that also…because you were worried about us?”

I stayed silent, sighing to myself. I would rather not answer because the answer was actually ‘Nah. I just like magic a lot. I didn’t actually even think about it, but it kind of does work out nicely, doesn’t it?

Silence would conceal the fact that I was just a magic nerd.

I let Amelia and Fanael make the assumption that I was a thoughtful person, even if it was false.

Despite their promises, I still couldn’t fully trust we wouldn’t end up in trouble again.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

While I was nerding out with magic in the library of Subtherma, I also read a lot about the world.

I’m not going to go into a lot of detail…but to sum everything up, this world is a waking nightmare.

I fostered hopes that maybe we just got really unlucky with our encounters so far, but judging by everything I read, that wasn’t the case at all.

About everything in this world was a death-trap. Be it the flora, fauna, or the people, everything was bloodthirsty or hateful one way or another.

Kind of like my past world, this planet was also mostly enveloped in water. Unlike the numerous continents of my world, this one only had two, and the area habitable by the humanoid races on each piece of land was VERY limited.

War over the best spots was more than common, there wasn’t really a common understanding of… almost anything between the different races of human-like beings on this planet.

This, plus all the monstrous horrors and unexplainable darkness the world had hidden within ensured the average lifespan of people was very short.

About fifty years, just in case you were wondering.

Knowing all this made it very difficult to stay completely confident in our journey. I guess this is what ‘Ignorance is Bliss’ meant.

I sighed deep once more, almost a bit dramatically, causing Amelia and Fanael to glance at me with expressions of subtle worry.

I slowly slid my hands around them and pulled them a bit closer to myself, basking in their warmth…and… Amelia’s armor.

It was not my intention to make them worry too much over my fears… This journey… it was never really about me anyway. I have no personal investment in it. I didn’t necessarily want to go on a journey to begin with.

I just wanted to be with these two, but they were hell-bent on going on this crazy adventure, so I figured I should think of something more positive to not let them grow too worried over me…

Uhhh… positive thoughts…

MAGIC! YES! I like thinking about magic!!

I did practice a lot back in Subtherma.

While we had a long talk about not being burdens to each other with Amelia, I still felt obligated to get more proficient with magic.

While I definitely enjoyed nerding out about it, I also had a more serious reason, which was to not end up becoming a weakness to Amelia and Fanael. I was begrudgingly okay with them being my personal vulnerability, but I absolutely refused to become one to them.

Let’s face it, I was undoubtedly the weakest link of the group in terms of survival skills.

So, I studied like crazy.

Upon the effort I put into studying magic, I made some important discoveries regarding it. Let me tell you a bit about my efforts back in Subtherma, since we still have a while until we’d get to the surface.

As a simple reminder of the past, I was about unable to cast any spells outside…being a human lighter and uh…making my fingers wet, until I started studying magic more formally.

I was provided a practice book of some kind that had allegedly belonged to a witch by the library owner.

With its help, I was able to figure out that you can combine the spell sigils to create more complex magic.

Simply put, the magic words of the witch language representing ‘Water’ and ‘Solid’ could be combined due to their shape, forming a new symbol signifying ice.

This was my big breakthrough before I had my serious talk with Amelia.

After getting the burdens of my heart dealt with, I did indeed go back to studying magic.

I spent multiple nights in the library studying, while Amelia dutifully snoozed the night away next to me. Every so often, I even had a few conversations with Amelia’s goddess while she slept. The deity still could creepily whisper through Amelia’s mouth while the poor knight slept. The goddess turned out to be a pretty nice lady, albeit maybe a bit curt. I wish we could have had tea together sometime.

Perhaps I’ll summarize my conversation with ‘Miss Goddess’ sometime, but right now? MAGIC.

The thing I was so puzzled over, was the fact that in the witch sigil practice book I got, the witch who previously owned it kept on practicing how to draw the sigils as clearly as possible.

But… countless books I read about monsters claimed witches could cast magic without using traditional mana circuits or spell signs. They could simply somehow… make magic manifest without any effort put into it.

What was the point of practicing how well you can draw the sigils…if you can cast the spells without them anyway?

How would spell casting even work without the magic sigils? Like… Do I just shout FIREBAAAALLL! And a fireball comes out?

Nope. Doesn’t work. I did try and embarrassed myself in front of Amelia while trying. And yes, she did laugh at me.

While I was smashing my face against the seemingly impenetrable ice-wall of understanding magic, I got interrupted by Fanael of all people…pretty much in the middle of the night.

“YVERNA! HERE! NOW!!” The gremlin princess rushed into the silent library, causing me to scream and jolt up in surprise, which in turn caused Amelia to bounce up and begin swinging her hand around as if she had a sword in it. She was definitely half-asleep.

“Whuh…?” Amelia began looking around as she finally realized there wasn’t an enemy ambush after all.

“F-Fanael…haven’t you heard of being quiet in the library?” I grumbled at her as Amelia helped me up. I was still missing my other leg at this point, so I still needed to get princess carried around…not that I minded anymore! IN FACT! I reveled in it!

“Shut up! We’ve got bigger concerns now! COME!” The snarky little enemy to all things peace and quiet marched over like she owned the place…which she technically did…

Amelia lifted me in her arms, and we went on our way. “What’s the rush?! The golden lunatics didn’t revive or something, did they?!” I panicked a bit at the apparent haste we had to make.

“No… They are very much dead. I made sure of it… It’s that…vile thing they had in the hourglass…” Fanael grumbled under her breath.

It was as if the air temperature dropped by a solid two Celsius in an instant. I had forgotten the stone. Or maybe I didn’t want to remember to begin with. There was one still in the kingdom, wasn’t there? I never saw it back when it was hidden inside the hourglass, but I could sense the empty void it created around itself even when it was unseen otherwise.

Fanael guided us to a rather decorated building at the outer circle of the city. It had beautiful marble carvings of what looked like snakes of some kind on the supporting pillars.

Without being allowed to marvel at the architecture much more, we were ushered inside. Several men and women were rushing around as if there were a fire in the building.

“Princess! You brought the witch?! Please this way!” An old Mhiir’im man spoke in a voice so exhausted it sounded like he was choking on his own enormous beard.

We rushed through several people crowding the entry to a vast hall. There was a stone pedestal in the center, and on it was…

Nothing.

“At the base of the siphon…” Fanael started.

“… You found a stone with a hand print on it…” I finished her sentence, which caused about every single head in the room to turn to me.

“Y-you knew of it?! Tell me everything you know about it!!” Fanael rushed to me in a wild flurry. “It was right there!!” She pointed at the empty stand. “And…now, it’s gone.”

Amelia carried me to the pedestal. There was what looked almost like a burn mark on it. Some sort of dark, brittle ash had formed around the spot where the stone had touched the marble platform it had supposedly been on.

I used my new sharp metallic claw to scratch the ashen surface a bit. The ash was the result of the stone drawing out all mana from the object it was touching. I went a bit overboard and punched the pedestal. Its surface cracked like the shell of an egg, and a bunch of gray ash flowed everywhere.

The people in the room coughed, and then an uproar of murmurs and confusion began spreading.

“Tell. Me. Everything.” Fanael reiterated in a sharp tone.

Soon, we were more comfortably seated in what seemed like a quite posh office room. Fanael was sitting behind the table like the tiny C.E.O she was. The room itself wasn’t particularly bizarre or notable in any way. There were some big seemingly hand-drawn maps on one of the walls. My completely uneducated guess was that they were probably the maps for the cave systems Fanael had explored.

There were some miscellaneous pieces of treasure, gemstones, some mining gear and a few worn out weapons. There was also a pair of really worn-out boots of some kind on a pedestal. Maybe they were Fanael’s first adventuring boots? I guess the more notable thing about the room was a bunch of science-looking people with ledgers staring at us intently as we sat there with Amelia.

“I’ve seen one of these before, and while Amelia and I were sneaking around the town before Fanael had been saved, I could sense the presence of one of these stones within the mana siphon.” I started. “We never actually saw the stone that had been brought to town, but it was easy enough to tell it was there.”

“H-how so!?” One of the scientists, a man with a beard ALMOST as immense as the older guy piped up.

“I’m a monster, so I can detect mana.” I began.

“How’s that going to help with anything?” Fanael questioned.

“Those rocks seem to absorb mana into them and…they do it so ravenously, that it creates this strange…dark zone around them.” I went on.

“C-can you elaborate?! Please if you could draw an example or something…!” One of the female researchers was basically sweating a waterfall as she spoke. I… don’t quite know why to this day.

To my surprise, a chalkboard was brought in! I grabbed the chalk with my choralium hand, which seemed to surprise some researchers. Maybe they expected me to crush the brittle white piece or something… Either way, I began doodling on the blackboard.

“Basically… I see mana as these…sparkling twinkles everywhere. The more something sparkles, the more mana it possesses! Pretty simple right?” The people began writing wildly into their notes.

“And…does the stone look somehow different?” Amelia had started figuring out what I was trying to lay down.

“Yes! There is a circular area around the stone where no mana whatsoever exists. It keeps pulling all the sparkling particles towards it, and if you’re within that gray area, all of your magic energy gets sucked into it, which in turn…well…” I looked at the door, leading to the room where I just punched the pillar into a pile of ash.

“It drained all the mana of the pillar itself…!?” Fanael seemed like she had seen a ghost.

A side note. I was actually kind of excited about getting to play the role of a teacher for once. It was a bit…uh…nice. In a really narcissistic way.

“What a horrifying construct! I’ve never heard of a mana siphon capable of draining ALL mana from a subject! Not to mention! An inanimate object!!” One of the scientists went wild.

“Indeed!! The fundamentals of Magic insist the object siphoning the mana must have enough magic capacity to store the mana it absorbs! There is no record of inanimate objects ever being capable of such!”

“I think they’re somehow really evil too. It’s like…instinctive… but I can tell they’re basically a death sentence if you end up touching one, even if I’ve never seen someone directly touching one.” I shook my head. “I encountered one in the kingdom of Rachasia when I was about to get exiled for being a witch.”

“T-there was such an evil object in Rachasia?!” Amelia jolted up a bit.

“The golden princess brought it with her…she was trying to manipulate me into touching it to get pardoned for my ‘evildoing.’”

“Those golden scum are linked to these?!” Fanael punched a desk she was sitting behind. “What the hell kind of lunacy are they planning on?!”

“I can’t say… I also don’t know why the stone would disappear. I can’t say I had a lot of motivation towards looking too hard into it. Just seeing one makes my skin crawl.” I sighed.

The little scientists in the room seemed noticeably bummed out by the fact, that this was essentially the extent of my knowledge.

“We already figured out the rock was the source of the mana siphoning… But we never could have imagined it did it to such an extent. No wonder the people who carried it here got hospitalized…” The princess grumbled. “We thought it was just exhaustion…”

“T-they didn’t directly touch the thing, did they?” I gulped dryly, starting to feel a bit guilty over not warning the princess about the stone properly in advance.

“No. We don’t touch unknown substances directly. It goes against all scientific standards.” The sweaty little scientist remarked. I managed to sigh of relief a bit.

“This does explain why the prongs we used to carry it here withered into dust so fast…” One of the male scientists mumbled. “What an incredibly sinister power…it can drain all mana from a subject in a matter of seconds.”

“Was there a strange purple image on the stone here too?” I asked a bit quietly.

“A strange hand with eight fingers in total, yes…” Fanael confirmed. One of the scientists brought his paperwork to me and showed a recreation of the drawing to me.

Now that I could really look at it, it did indeed have eight fingers. At the tip of each was a crudely drawn eye. The image was an unnervingly accurate recreation of the image from my memories.

“Does this symbol mean anything to you?” Fanael asked.

I shook my head in response. “It doesn’t… I don’t recognize it at all.”

“Ghhh… So, we’re back to the beginning…” The group of scientists exhaled in unison.

“Could I maybe inquire on something?” Amelia quietly lifted her hand.

“Mmmh… Go ahead.” Fanael nodded.

“What is…the general purpose of a mana siphon?” The knight made a pretty good question! I actually didn’t really know what their purpose was either.

“Uh… Generally, siphons are used to store a low to moderate amount of mana in specific items.” The big beard-scientist spoke. “Mana bombs are created with siphons by overloading a mana crystal with excess mana.”

“Oh… That’s how they’re made? Intriguing!” Amelia seemed to realize what was up right away! WHAT?! MANA BOMBS?! What’s that?! I wanted to basically scream out my questions.

“Um… What are…mana bombs?” I asked in a much more reserved manner, getting several odd looks from the scientists. “I have amnesia! I know basically nothing about magic!” They exchanged even more confused glances with each other.

“The reason she’s missing limbs, is because she fought against our kingdom’s enemies despite not knowing magic.” Fanael began explaining my situation. Suddenly, the group began exchanging completely horrified glances at me.

“Y-you mean…you used your body as catalyst…!?” The sweaty female scientist whispered out so quietly it was difficult to hear. “W-why would you go to such an…insane extent for people you don’t know at all…?”

“I…honestly have been wondering the same thing…” I sighed. “I think there’s just something wrong with my head.” I wiped my brow a bit melodramatically.

The group of little scientists began mumbling and chattering to themselves. One of them caught a glance at me, and I winked at him a bit. He began chuckling a tad, which rapidly developed into full-blown laughter.

“W-what’s wrong with you?!” The sweaty lass whimpered.

“H-how rude! To laugh at someone’s sacrifices like that!” Another one began trying to calm the giggling lunatic down.

“Now, now!” I clapped my hands together. The sound was a bit unusual due to the prothesis. “I would probably laugh, too, if I heard my home was saved by a monster who doesn’t understand the tiniest bit about magic!” I grinned. “It kind of paints a picture of the kind of situation your king put you in!”

The group stared at me in silence… Was it maybe too early? You know…to make jokes about the king being an idiot…? The silence was drawing longer, making it all the more awkward.

“Puha….!” A high-pitched giggle started from behind me, then turning into adorable laughter. Fanael seemed to find it funny at least.

As if her laughter granted permission to the rest, the group began howling with laughter. I don’t know if it was a catharsis of sorts, but some people were in tears as they went on. To my understanding, the subterranean tribes all lived with rather utilitarian norms for their society.

Everything had to be done for the greater good, and the benefit of individuals was always valued lower than the benefit of the masses. The whole situation with the king must have been a very frustrating experience for numerous people, so getting to joke about him was probably a pretty good way to relieve stress.

“God…what an oaf did we bet our lives on…!” They laughed out loud for a good while longer. I don’t know if all the tears they shed were tears of laughter.

After the laughter finally died down, the princess made a royal decree, that it was okay to make fun of the king for the events that transpired. It was clear he was going to be made into a scapegoat… but then again. He did kind of deserve it.

The response to the brand-new royal decree was welcomed with another bout of roaring laughter.

With the mood lifted, the group of scientists got a lot more casual with me in their conversations.

“Uhuh… So, uh…! Mana bombs, right?!” The sweaty scientist lady tossed her coat off after wiping herself in it like it was a dish rag.

“Hum?” I tilted my head as the little scientist climbed on a little stool next to me to stand on my eye-level.

“You asked what mana bombs are before that whole…exposure segment!” She grinned. She was suddenly a lot more…confident in her social output. Maybe she wasn’t comfortable being very …official in the way she behaved? “Ah! I’m Afita, by the way!” She introduced herself.

“Oh…OH! YES!! Please tell me everything about magic!” I beamed, then grabbed her tiny hand to shake it. “Yverna!”

“OKAY! SO! MAGIC BOMBS!” Afita began narrating, while the rest of the group began discussing things I couldn’t really participate in. Amelia sat next to Afita and I to listen in, even though it was clear from her expression that she had no real interest in what we were talking about.

I beamed with excitement, and Amelia graciously brought me some of my notebooks to write down everything Afita explained to me. I explained to her my troubles over casting magic, and the language of witches. She seemed genuinely interested in the subject too, pondering it aloud.

“So, the reason you knew the siphon was in the hourglass thing, was ‘cause you can see mana?” She mused to herself. “But not only that, you can also manipulate it without a catalyst…” She continued.

“Yeah… I can kind of move the magic sparkles…” I began waving my hand around, which, in its usual way, caused the mana to flow around a bit like water.

“Say.” She glanced at my dark metallic arm. “Have you tried to move the mana around with that?” She questioned.

“Eh?! The prothesis? N-not really no.” I mumbled and began concentrating similarly to when I moved the magic energy around with my body normally…and to my immense surprise, the way the little shimmers moved was…PRECISE!! “W-wha…?!”

“Yeah…! See, that’s a choralium arm! It’s basically a damn magic catalyst as it is! The circuits on it greatly promote mana flow.” She continued, but I felt a bit out of the loop.

“M-mana flow?” I repeated while marveling at the glimmers moving around my new arm.

“Mmm…” She crossed her arms and pondered for a bit. “Basically. Normally, magic tools like your arm have pre-determined spells bound to them. We basically write ‘FIRE!’ or something on it, so when you just make mana flow through it, fire comes out.” She explained. “But yours has no specific spells carved into it. All that’s carved on it are mana-circuits to promote the flow of energy through it. We don’t understand how magic functions for monsters, so we made it more a tool that allows for improvisation, than fixed solutions.

“Huuuh…” I nodded and moved the mana around with the metallic arm. The precision was insanely impressive. It was like that glimmering substance in the air had suddenly become an extension of my arm!

“Yah! Try flowing some mana into one of the lamps! They’re lit by magic!” The Mhiir’im girl guided me.

I did as told, flowing a bunch of mana into a nearby lamp…which in turn burst into a ball of light and exploded! Sending burning shards around everywhere. “HYEEEEKK!! SORRRY!! SORRY!!!” I screamed apologies as Amelia rushed around to put out all the fires.

I got a bunch of shocked looks from everyone…which then slowly veered to my side, contacting Afita instead… and soon her fellow scientists were already on her case for telling me to do such dangerous things.

An argument about uncovering the secrets of witches ensued, which I was gently carried out of by Amelia in the infinite grace of her strong arms.

Fanael followed us out while grumbling to herself.

“Sorry about them. They’re usually a bit wild like that… I did tell them to try to be polite and careful around you two…but it’s clear old dogs can’t learn new tricks.” The princess lamented.

“N-no…! It’s fine. It was kind of my fault anyway. I put far too much mana into that lamp…!” I mumbled. Amelia was chuckling to herself a bit, but I wasn’t quite sure as to why.

“Mh… Well. Either way. I appreciate all the info you’ve provided us with. While this won’t really put us in an advantageous position with our enemies, we can at least investigate some of their operating methods now.” She crossed her arms.

“Sorry for not being able to do much more.” I glanced at Fanael solemnly.

“It’s fine. You know, we got a saying here in Subtherma: ‘If you can’t find the answer with help! Put in more effort and figure out the answer yourself!’” She declared. It felt like a bit of a…redundant statement, but I decided against critiquing it. “Speaking of which. What kind of plans do you two have from now on?” She asked all of a sudden.

Amelia and I exchanged a glance, and we soon stopped by at the same park we had our dramatic talk in. Amelia placed me on one of the chairs to sit down, then sitting next to me. Fanael followed suite. “We’ll recuperate for a bit…and then surely continue our journey above ground.” Amelia spoke softly.

“What specifically are you two on a journey for anyway?” Fanael asked a bit bluntly.

Amelia glanced at me as if to ask for permission, at which I nodded. “… Revenge.”

“Hm.” The princess nodded and pondered for a moment. “See… I’ve been planning a political reform of sorts.”

“Mm…?” Amelia and I both let out some confused noises, mostly because I, for one, had no clue to what this had to do with our revenge.

“It’s called…’democracy’”. She began explaining. I obviously knew what she was talking about, but Amelia seemed completely out of the loop. “It’s a system some overworld tribes have been experimenting with. It essentially boils down to a society without a king or a royal family, but instead all people of political importance are chosen by the people, not by heritage.” She continued.

“Sounds like it’d be quite chaotic…!” Amelia crossed her arms.

“Mmmh… I just don’t want… the idiots of my bloodline to ruin our people further.” She grimaced.

“I… I think it could work.” I piped up a bit awkwardly. “I…know the basic concept of democracy to an extent too… And I think you Mhiir’im would be a pretty suitable match…since you already…KIND OF prioritize the greater good in your everyday life a lot.” I huffed.

“You think?!” Fanael slapped her hands on the chair and beamed at me with excitement. “I think it’d be a great system too! But like Knighty here said, it’d be real chaotic if anyone who got elected could simply suggest whatever the wind brought into their stupid mouths.”

“K-knighty…?!” Amelia frowned.

“Um… From the way I remember seeing it…!” I pondered. “Instead of every person and politician kind of… saying their thing, there are like several political factions, that have different opinions on stuff. People speak more through the factions, than as just individuals.”

“Factions, you say?! Do elaborate!!” Fanael basically crawled on my lap. Oh, god… she was so cute when she was excited about something…

“L-like…there were people who are like… concerned over religion… people who believe in more direct solutions… people who like to approach things more indirectly… people concerned over nature and self-sustaining… uh… Stuff like that.” I mumbled. Do note that I WAS NOT a political person in my past life. All I could really say, in terms of politics, is that I think people deserve free healthcare. I hated how maintaining my pointless life ruined the lives of my parents…

“I see! The members of each faction would be voted on by the people, and then maybe the hierarchy within the faction would be voted on by the faction members themselves…! Yes! It makes sense.” The little bundle of joy beamed with excitement. “Perfect…!” She nodded eagerly.

Amelia and I exchanged a glance. “So, how does this discussion intertwine with our plans?” Amelia finally asked the question we had both been pondering on.

“If I can set up the political structure… My presence will no longer be needed here.” Fanael began speaking. “I don’t want our nation to be bound by being reliant on the royal family anymore, so I intend to leave the kingdom as a form of shock treatment. Dad will also be exiled for his stupidity.” She spoke rather emotionlessly about her father… But she still did call him ‘dad’.

“U-um…so you want to…” I was starting to get a bit hopeful.

“I would like to join you on your journey for revenge. I have a personal enough reason to wish to spill the blood of these golden perverts after all.”

I, for one, was overjoyed. Fanael was strong, smart, and she was a good friend, even if every so often she worded things crudely. I did discuss with Amelia a long time ago, how we definitely needed more allies to go along on our journey, so this was perfect.

But somehow, Amelia didn’t seem too excited over it.

“Mm… Fine. But I have a condition for you to come along.” She stated sternly.

“Hum…? What might it be?” The Mhiir’im princess put her hands on her hips defiantly.

“You must…” Amelia clenched her fist.

“I must…?”

“YOU MUST LET ME PET YOU, LIKE YOU LET YVERNA PET YOU! I FEEL EXCLUDED!!” She roared out her declaration with gusto of such magnitude, I’m sure it made the windows of the buildings around us shake a bit.

A complete silence ensued. Fanael stared wide-eyed at the sacred pact the paladin seemed to follow. Said pact seemed to have something to do with petting cute things. Somehow, I felt this uh…sacred vow had nothing to do with her new goddess either.

To my surprise, Fanael’s reaction was strange. It wasn’t at all what I expected. I thought she’d potentially start laughing or something, but the little princess instead went beet red.

“W-hhha… t… kind of perverse request is that…?!” She hissed through her teeth.

“WELL!? ARE YOU GOING TO ACCEPT THE CONDITION OR NOT?!” The paladin was like a wall of steel. There was no getting around her!

Now, to be fully honest, I couldn’t really figure out why Fanael was so averse to having Amelia pet her. I somehow figured this wasn’t the right time to ask, but I put the thought behind my ear for future inquiry.

“Ghhh… V-very well…” She basically snarled. Face red like a tomato, the little royalty awkwardly placed herself on Amelia’s lap, who seemed overjoyed.

Gentle, yet eager, petting ensued. Somehow, the faces Fanael made while she was getting petted by Amelia felt somehow…inappropriate to look at. I decided to avert my gaze and let the conversation continue on.

“W-welcome aboard…” I added, which marked the end to the discussion. We had gotten ourselves a new ally, and a strong one at that! Fanael’s magic and swordsmanship would surely prove a powerful asset.

… And the power of her immense cuteness would surely help us recuperate mentally from any future traumatic events. In turn, we’d help her on her journey to uh…probably bathe in more blood.

“S-so…anyway…” The princess huffed quietly and swatted Amelia’s eager petting hands away, to the dismay of the knight. “Please give me some time…it’ll take a while to establish a new political system. So, figure out something, HOPEFULLY NOT PERVERSE to do while I prepare everything.” She glared at Amelia, who looked a bit too happy with the advantageous position she had managed to get herself in.

“Yeah. I still have plenty of things I want to learn about magic. Amelia and I did intend to go on a restaurant tour after the businesses in town open up again too.” I explained.

“Mmh… Invite me on the gluttony tour as well. I’ve lost far too much weight due to stress” Fanael nodded. “I’ll make time for it.” She grumbled, still clearly unhappy about the petting arrangement.

“Sure thing! Also! Where do the guards in here get the tattoos from?” I suddenly piped up.

“Hm? There’s a doctor in the castle who specializes in tattoos… How come?” Fanael slowly crawled onto my lap from Amelia’s, which seemed to calm her down considerably.

“Well… In my…very lacking memories, the witches had mana circuits drawn or…branded on their skin or something.” I began.

“Ohh! Hmmm…” Fanael began thinking. “I see… Interesting. Yes… Maybe it could work. Instead of actual spells…another set of circuits that enhance mana flow?” The princess was quick on the uptake.

“Yes. I’m guessing that people don’t normally draw mana circuits on themselves because they can’t see the flow of mana in the first place, so it wouldn’t make any difference…or alternatively, if they made specific spells on their body, it’d get the same results I lost my limbs with.”

“You’re pretty much correct.” Fanael nodded. “Us non-monsters do not have the ability to manipulate mana anywhere outside our bodies to begin with, so even if we enhanced our mana flow with circuits, it’d make no difference, even if we could somehow figure out a way to see mana anyway.”

“Can you introduce me to the tattoo…person?”

“Of course! You’ll probably have to wait a bit, though! The restoration process is still heavily underway. We should get the supplies early next week. I could start asking around if the doctor would be willing to tend to you then!” Fanael smiled a bit.

“Sounds like a plan!!” I grinned. “Also! Please come see me sometimes in the library! And remember to take breaks from work! Maybe join me for tea overnight, if you end up doing all-nighters.” I smiled, to which the princess beamed with adorable joy, and we shared a little high five.

Amelia seemed a bit jealous about it. Which is precisely why I asked the princess to join me at night! I was REALLY CURIOUS at this point! What the hell was this weird aversion to Amelia?! I had to know!!

With that, we eventually parted ways. I was taken back to the library, and Amelia went out for a jog. Fanael of course, had to return to work.

My reminiscing was interrupted a bit as Amelia suddenly stood up and rushed out of the train car we were in. Yes. She was jogging inside the train too. She went back and forth the entire length of the train a good hundred times or so.

Apparently, her routine had become something some Mhiir’im children considered a game, so she always had an army of energetic miniature people running after her.

Fanael’s aides returned again, and she needed to sort out more political stuff I couldn’t really understand. I was glad to be of some kind of help at the beginning of her whole political reform plan, but at this point every word the Mhiir’im nobles were letting out of their mouths was total nonsense to me…

So, I decided to simply nap for a bit…

Only to remember I can’t sleep.

Damn…