It’s currently nighttime. The whole caravan’s gonna be camping out in the wild for the second night in a row. Everything has been going well, but it has been a bit boring. Luckily, we’ve been getting along with Bea, who made the journey much more interesting. After telling us about the legend of the Violence Witch, she started hanging out with our group. Me, Carol, and Flanne.

“It’s nice up here. We’re so close to the stars!” Bea looked up at the sky while our group sat around a small bonfire. The path to the capital passed through a lot of mountains. We set up camp in a flat open space surrounded by cliffs.

A place like this made it easy for the soldiers to keep watch during the night. Pretty much the only monsters that can get all the way up here are the ones who can fly. But apparently there’s nothing in this area that would approach a group this big.

“It’s wonderful… Maybe I should stay on night duty again to enjoy the view…” Flanne and Bea got along pretty well, especially when it came to enjoying the various sights. Flanne has always been one to savor the moment. Even out here, she warmed up some tea in the fire and has been taking occasional sips in her usual carefree manner. “At this rate, we’ll arrive at the capital tomorrow evening. It’s a shame it’s ending so soon…”

Easy for her to say. Two and a half days is a lot for me and Carol. “We’re almost there… That’s good…” It won’t be long now until I can finally see Ririna.

“You don’t have any more work today, right, Flanne?” Carol leans forward as she asks that. “You promised you’d tell me about magic yesterday.” That’s right. Last night, Carol made the connection between Flanne and the girl she saw using magic in the Forest of Illusion. Carol has that weird magic around her ankles that she learned how to control the other day, and she wants more. She figured that she could learn more by asking Flanne for some lessons.

“I should be free today, yes.” Flanne looks down from the sky with a relaxed smile. “You wanted to talk about magic, right? What do you want to know?”

“I wanna know how it works. How can I learn how to use magic?” Carol went straight for the kill. She was still looking for ways to get stronger, and Flanne was going to help her.

“Uhmm… I’m also curious about it.” I raised my arm. “Can you teach us how to use magic?”

“Hmm… It’s not really something that I can teach… You can do it if you have the skill for it. You should know, Iroha. Those quick slices of yours are a skill, right?” Slash Flurry… It’s a skill, but it’s not magic, right? It uses MP, I guess… Maybe what she’s saying is that magic works in a similar way?

“Y- yeah…? I’d still like to learn how to do something like that light slash of yours. Can you help us somehow?”

“I’d love to, but there isn’t much I can do. You need a skill to use magic, so you just need to get lucky to get it. If you have the skill, it should come naturally to you.” Flanne shrugged with a resigned smile. “People who claim to know how to get a specific skill are always full of it. It’s never that simple. You know how skills are.” I don’t, actually.

Flanne’s answer was not what Carol wanted to hear at all. She looked down with a frustrated look, but she wasn’t giving up just yet. “What do you suggest then? How do you think skills work? Even if it’s not certain, I’m sure you can still give us some tips.” I would welcome that as well, but I’m not sure how useful it’d be for me since I have the VISS Driver.

“I think my view is in line with the standard one. The skills someone gets are mostly related to the things they’re close to, with some exceptions. Children of blacksmiths tend to get blacksmithing skills. Children of farmers get farming skills. And children who play too much end up getting skills related to their games. That’s how a lot of adventurers and soldiers get started.” Flanne looked to the side, in the direction of the other soldiers. Must be a common backstory. Kids who get into a lot of fights get combat skills.

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“Since there are some exceptions, your best bet is to imitate what magicians and sorcerers do and hope for the best. You probably have some combat skills already, so getting a magic skill isn’t that farfetched.” That’s interesting… So the skills the people of this world get are decided by their environment and their actions, right? That’s surprisingly similar to how the VISS Driver works… It just gives me the option to buy them instead of just getting them instantly. VISS Driver, what exactly do you do?

“Is that how you learned your magic?” Flanne flinched slightly when she heard Carol’s question.

“I guess you could say that… I grew up in an environment with a lot of magic.”

“Hmm… Alright, how do I imitate a magician or whatever? I can’t use magic, so how am I supposed to do that?”

“You can try pretending like you’re using magic. But I’m not entirely sure how you’d do that either… I’ve heard that some of them use incantations, others manipulate some kind of energy in the air, while others say they control a power that comes from the inside. Maybe try them all?” Flanne gave Carol a weak smile of encouragement. “I could never cut it as a proper mage, so I can’t really tell how it works for me. I can use magic on my sword, but I can’t explain how it works. It’s just my skill.”

“Incantations, inner and outer energy… That’s something, at least. I guess that will do.” Carol leaned back and eased up on Flanne after an approving nod.

“I’m glad I could help.” Flanne smiled before standing up. “It’s getting late, so we should all go to bed soon. I’m going to check if everything’s alright, then I’ll tuck in for the night.”

“You do that. Me and Iroha were about to return to our tents anyway.”

“We were?” Why is Carol speaking for me? “It is late, so we’ll see you tomorrow. Good night, Flanne. Good night, Bea.” I waved them goodbye, and we walked away from the bonfire. Bea and Flanne put out our group’s fire, and Bea stayed with Flanne for a while longer.

Our tents were a bit more isolated than the others, but the whole caravan stayed roughly together. The tents we were using were the same given to the soldiers, and they were pretty simple. The weather’s warm and the ground is dry and hard, so the tents aren’t even necessary, but they’re nice to have. Especially for us.

“Lend me your bag, Iroha.” Carol dove inside my tent and pilfered my bag for some modern-day amenities that I had packed. “That should do.” She pulled out with her hands full and discreetly carried what she needed to her own tent. She didn’t have time to prepare her own things, so we’ve been sharing what I brought. We’re modern-day girls, so we gotta take care of ourselves and look out for each other, right? “What do you think about what Flanne said?” Carol asked from inside of her tent.

“About the skills?”

“Yeah… I think I may actually be able to learn how to use magic. She told me to try all the different methods, but I think it comes from the inside for me. You’ve seen how I can turn the anklets on and off, right? That’s something I do on the inside… I think… The whole thing is still weird to me.” Carol explained without leaving her tent.

“It would be great if that happened, but do you think learning magic is gonna be that simple?” Even I can’t shoot any fireballs yet. Maybe I should make up some incantations later…

After a moment of silence, Carol spoke again. “I don’t know. Maybe the way we and the people from this world work is completely different…” She poked her head out from the tent and looked up at me. “What do you think? Think I can get a skill that will let me use magic?”

I have no clue… Can she? Does whatever skill system that exists in this world work for people from our world? Hmm… If it does, her odds might be pretty good… If whatever’s on her ankles is some sort of skill, then it would lock in one of her skill trees. So if it’s like the VISS Driver, then getting a skill in the same skill tree shouldn’t be that hard. Something that would allow her to use the same kind of magic on her ankle, but more freely. But then again, what kind of magic is on her? Light magic? Is she gonna become a light magic user like Flanne? I can’t really tell, but…

“I think it’s possible.” A huge smile suddenly appeared on Carol’s face. “If you keep experimenting with the thing on your ankles, you’ll probably get some kind of skill.” That’s how I’ve gotten a lot of my skills.

“You really think so? Hehehehe! You better not be messing with me! I’m gonna figure this out in no time, you’ll see!” With giddy movements, Carol went back into her tent before popping out her head again for a second. “Good night, Iroha.”

She’s so excited… I really hope she can do it now. I don’t want her to accuse me of lying to her and start hating me again. “Good night, Carol.” And good luck. Carol immediately started thinking of how to put Flanne’s information to practice, didn’t she…? She really is a hard worker.

…

Next day arrived, and we’re back on the road.

“It’s been really fun getting to know you two. It’s a shame the trip will come to an end soon.”

“Just because the trip is over, it’s not the end. I’m sure we’ll meet again someday, Bea.” The carriage was going down the mountainous terrain, heading for Ebrilyon’s capital. Today’s the last day, and everyone is getting tired from all the traveling. Bea, Carol, and I spoke to pass the time, but we had talked so much these few days, that there wasn’t much left to say.

The motion sickness was gone, and the sound of the wind cutting through the mountains had become really relaxing for me. Our conversation came to an end, and the silence settled in, but something felt off. Instead of a relaxing feeling, I felt some tension in the air. That’s weird.

I peeked out through the carriage’s cloth and noticed something. Where did the other carriages go? Did we fall behind? The soldiers weren’t oblivious to that fact because they all had very serious looks on their faces. Hmm…

Something was definitely wrong… I was trying to puzzle it out, but then… “E- enemy! An enemy’s approaching!” A panicked shout from one of the soldiers rang out. Of course something had to show up now… The whole trip had been suspiciously quiet…