Standing before Yuri, clad in practical red and black leather armor, was a young man with ruffled raven black hair and a sword at his side.

The man wore the expression of a an old man who caught his granddaughter stealing a cookie, a sort of amused but sighing smile.

Yuri gratefully took the hand that the man was offering her, and was pulled up from the ground after having fallen right on her butt earlier.

“Buuuu…why does only Yuri get helped up..”

Complaining while getting up, Mako slowly straightened out her nuns outfit while pouting.

“Bad children shouldn’t be so cheeky.”

Walking over to Mako, the Raven haired man pinched her cheeks hard enough that they turned red.

“Awa awa awa shtap!” Mako attempted to resist the pinching while crying “It wasn’t me this time, I swear! It was Yuri! Just ask herrr!”

Mako immediately pointed her finger towards Yuri without any hesitation, attempting to shift the blame away.

“Yuri…? You mean this cute young girl over here? Somehow I have a hard time believing that…so stop trying to shift the blame again, you will receive even more punishment if you don’t tell me the truth!”

Sternly directing his words to Mako, he began to pinch her cheeks twice as hard, causing her to spasm in pain amusingly.

“Um…actually..it was my fault..the rampaging fireball..i made it..”

Yuri braced herself to be yelled at, or worse, get her cheeks pinched like Mako. Instead all she felt was a pat on her head, looking up she saw the raven haired man smiling warmly at her.

“It’s good for young girls to be honest, unlike this big girl over here, you at least seem to show some promise..”

Yuri tilted her head slightly in confusion while the man continued to pat her head.

“Uhm…aren’t you mad? I mean the room got completely destroyed because of me..you seemed so mad when you thought it was Mako..?”

Glancing over at the mans sword, Yuri was worried that this unfamiliar mans kindness was only the calm before the storm, and that the man would start running after her at any moment now.

“Well you admitted it was your fault, didn’t you? And besides, I’m sure that it was mostly Mako’s fault, as she probably didn’t even explain things properly right?”

Throwing an accusing look at Mako, the man smiled slightly at Yuri, while Mako shifted around worriedly, his statement obviously hitting the mark.

Surprised that someone rational had actually appeared, Yuri had began to suspect that all the citizens of this world were complete airheads like Mako. It was also the first time Yuri had seen a real swordsman before, as those had long since ceased to exist in Yuri’s world. Like most boys and men, Yuri admired the stories of knights and swords.

Eyeing the swordsman with admiring eyes, Yuri’s daydreaming was cut short by Mako’s interruption.

“Hey hey~ Hiki…stop showing off so much, you just made another girl fall for you~”

Mako grinned at Yuri mischievously.

Yuri’s face turned a dark shade of pink once she realised what she looked like. Being patted on the head by a tall fairly handsome young man, whilst she, who now had the body of a young girl, was looking up at him with an easily misunderstood gaze of admiration.

“Y-you..S-stop it with the jokes, I’m a m-man, damnit!”

Stammering while backing away from the man, Yuri didn’t understand why she was reacting this way because of a small joke, she cursed her new female hormones.

“Hey, Mako. You should really stop teasing the new nun disciples, or I will punish you again..” The man sighed.

“Oh, she’s not a nun” Mako smiled.

“No..? Well then I shall start by introducing myself, I am Hikaru, knight and personal guard…or more like babysitter….of Mako”

“Ah, I’m Yuri, the only human to ever posses only a single mana, please to meet you”

Smiling awkwardly, Yuri added in a joke to her introduction to break the awkward atmosphere, mostly for her own sake.

“One mana…? Mako is this true..?”

Speaking with a serious tone, the swordsman named Hikaru glanced over at Mako.

“Ah yes, we just checked earlier, because she wanted to learn some magic,, how unfortunate..i think it must have something to do with her being from another world..who knows”

Mako muttered while observing Yuri like some sort of rare animal.

“…Another world? What are you talking about? And how could someone with only a single mana be able to create such a fireball, although unstable, it had more power than what ever the strongest mages could muster up without any mana amplifiers..”

Hikaru looked at Yuri.

“Who the hell are you, miss Yuri, if I may ask?”

“Please don’t call me miss…i used to be a man you know..”

Pouting slightly, Yuri was sure she would never get used to being seen as a little girl.

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

“….?”

Hikaru watched Yuri with a confused expression while she continued to pout.

“Perhaps I should explain Yuri’s situation to you Hiki, so sit down, it’s quite a tale!”

Plopping down on the floor, Mako patted the spot next to her, motioning for Hikaru and Yuri to sit down.

–

“Such an unbelievable story..”

Muttering to himself, it was not Yuri’s arrival to this world that baffled him, but the fact that the petite young girl in front of him used to be a 28 year old man.

“Sure is!” Mako smiled brightly.

“But that still doesn’t explain how that giant fireball was created?”

Although Yuri’s story was amazing, it was certainly not unbelievable. Everything they had explained made perfect sense, considering that magic existed, besides Mako wasn’t the type to be a good liar.

“Well, you know the knife I told Yuri to keep? It seems to have a very biiiig amount of mana, so much so that it broke the ball” Mako pointed at Yuris knife.

“I see..once again you give away something valuable without a second thought…be prepared for extra punishment later..”

Hikaru’s face was a perfect poker face as he said that, which was slightly scary considering his words.

“…I’m sorry…”

Widening her eyes at his statement, Mako’s face paled as she muttered.

“What was that?”

Hikaru raised an eyebrow, pretending not to hear what she said.

“I’M SORRY, PLEASE, not the extra punishment, I’ll be good, I swear!”

Maku clung to Hikaru whilst begging desperately.

The sight of Mako clinging to Hikaru while crying only made her even more skeptical of the fact that she was actually the real Bishop.

“Hey, Hikaru, is she really the master Bishop? I mean if all she does is waste money..how hasn’t she been removed from her position?”

Asking Hikaru, Yuri tried to make it sound as a joke, although she was genuinely curious.

“Well..she was chosen by the Orb, I believe Mako should have told you about it?”

Yuri nodded, while Hikaru attempted to push Mako off of himself.

“The orbs decision is final, and we have to wait until the orb appoints a new one, so until then…we are stuck with this..”

Finishing his sentence, Hikaru looked at Mako with fish like eyes devoid of sympathy.

“Ah..i see now, it’s not like you chose to have her..”

Yuri nodded now that everything made sense.

“One more thing, Yuri. I assume the only time you had seen a runic spell was when Mako showed you, correct?”

Yuri nodded at Hikarus question.

“Due to the nature of runic magic, it should be impossible to create a working spell without at least days of practice and memorisation, for your first time, that fireball was incredibly stable, not to mention powerful…”

Hikaru squinted his eyes at Yuri who tilted her head in confusion slightly.

(That was incredibly stable…?)

Yuri thought to herself, not daring to say anything after wrecking the room other than tilt her head slightly.

“Did you do anything special when you drew the symbols..?”

Hikaru eyed Yuri with curiousity while she was thinking to herself.

“Hmmm…well…i couldn’t really remember a lot of the symbols that Mako drew…so I just added a bunch of similar looking ones that I remembered from my world..?”

Yuri had reused the runic symbols that were still etched in her mind after that incredibly successful giant rune stone heist. Not because she thought it would do anything, but simply in order to make her spell not look completely horrible, since she thought it wasn’t going to work either way.

“I see…”

Hikaru stood up and slowly drew his sword. Which caused Yuri to jump back in fear, before she realised she wasn’t going to get killed.

Hikaru drew some runes on the wall by etching with his sword.

“This is the runic spell for water stream, it’s a very weak spell, not intended for combat, it’s something a lot of the more magical endowed knight learn, in case they run out of fresh water. It’s also one of the only spells I know so don’t get your hopes up”

Hikaru smiled at Yuri, causing her to feel a slightly uncomfortable feeling in her chest.

“Now you try to copy this spell, but replace some of runes with similar ones from your world”

Yuri did as she was told, and slowly etched the modified runic spell with her knife, replacing some symbols with the ones she remembered from her world.

“Now, don’t activate it yet, Mako, can you copy the spell Yuri just drew, exactly as she drew it?”

“Sure sure~”

Mako quickly got to work and copied Yuri’s spell next to the other two spells, quicker than both of them.

“Alright now let’s see..”

Hikaru traced his fingers over his spell and activated it, a small stream of water began to flow down the wall and collected into a small puddle on the floor.

“This is what the water stream spell looks like, now let’s try yours Yuri”

Yuri swiped her fingers across the her runes and activated the spell. Instead of instantly activating however, it took a few moments before it began to flicker in a familiar red glow, which slowly subsided.

As soon as the last flicker of red disappeared, a giant pillar of water shot out from the wall in a straight line, seemingly defying the laws of gravity. It flew towards the opposite wall and smashed into it. A moment later and the pillar of water slowly began to subside, the place where it hit the wall, had a hole where there once was a wall. The distant chirping of birds could be heard from the distance while the trio stared at the giant hole in the wall.

“…..right…..now Mako activate your copy of Yuri’s spell”

Attempting now to think about what would happen if one of them had stood in front of the spell, Hikaru motioned for Mako to activate her spell.

Mako activated her spell, but instead of a giant burst of water, the spell simply disappeared, leaving a single water droplet on the wall.

“Pfft-”

Yuri held her hands over her mouth while suppressing her laughter, while Mako pouted and looked away.

“Well that explains it…mostly I suppose..”

Hikaru nodded as if he figured something out.

“So..what does this explain exactly..?”

Yuri couldn’t really see what conclusion they could get from this demonstration other than that her spells were unstable and that Mako sucked at magic.

“Well I have a theory..but it is only a theory..”

“I believe that the reason why Mako’s spell didn’t work, is due to the fact that you are able to invoke an incredible amount of mana from your knife, while with Mako, her body wont let her use more mana than she possesses”

He glanced over at Mako.

“So it’s not that you are terrible at magic, but simply due to the fact that spell required more mana than you had access to”

He lightly patted Makos head to comfort her, which slightly irritated Yuri for some reason.

“Now as to why Yuri’s spells are more powerful…there’s a high chance that the runes from Yuris world are part of the original runic spells..they were more powerful but also a lot more risky to use..now as to why those exist in your magic-less world..that’s something only the gods know…and the fact that it took more mana than Mako had..is a bit terrifying..as Mako’s mana capacity is one of the highest in all the lands…”

Lightly furrowing his brow, he continued.

“Well..i had one time heard that when you incorrectly draw a runic spell..it causes it to draw more mana..which is why it doesn’t work..so while the runes you used were powerful..they were used randomly..causing the mana cost to skyrocket…but since the knife possesses an indeterminably high amount of mana..it doesn’t seem to matter…so you and only you are able of using magic of this kind..”

“….I really am awesome aren’t I~¨ “

Yuri grinned while admiring her knife, carefully cleaning it on her skirt.