"You look like shit."
"I know."
Grayton and Vincent were sitting face-to-face amidst the bustling cafeteria hall. A lot of overlapping conversations could be heard across the hall, intertwining into a constant, inaudible background noise. An annoyed look rested on Grayton's face as he endured the aches from his bruises while he ate. One of said bruises was a very noticeable bruise on his left cheek, which had been tormenting him with a dull ache since morning.
"The whole class thinks you got into a fight." Vincent continued, picking at his food tray.
"I know." Grayton absentmindedly replied. His mind was occupied with recalling last night's events and reflecting on what he could have done better.
"Could I have done a backflip to dodge that one?" Grayton pondered, envisioning one of the many times he was hit. "No, just because I can empower myself using mana doesn't make me an acrobat. Maybe I could have blocked ?No, a hit from him would have staggered me too much to recover before the next attack, even if he ruled it non-fatal. Maybe-"
"Are you going to tell me about it or what?" Vincent asked, staring at him eagerly.
"I know." Grayton answered without thinking, which earned him a flick on the head from Vincent. "Ack!"
The gesture not only snapped him out of his train of thought but also allowed him to finally notice Vincent's wounded hands. Both of his arms appeared to be covered in thick white bandages up to his elbows.
"I swear, this guy..." Vincent shook his head scathingly. "Getting drunk on all that fun, huh?"
"Fun, you say?" Grayton thought as he rubbed his sore cheek.
"I'm eating." Grayton protested through a mouthful of food. "You go first; what's with your hands?"
"Ugh." Vincent winced as if his question reminded him of a bad memory. "Stainless steel."
"Hmm?" Grayton inquired silently as he chewed.
"I tried messing around with stainless steel in the lathe, and guess what?" Vincent clapped and winced when the motion immediately reminded him of his wounds. "Stainless steel and lathes don't mix! If you're not careful, they turn into these long, stringy ribbons that go around the lathe and—agh! Why do I even bother? You wouldn't even understand!"
"Yep, you're completely right!" Grayton smiled, shamelessly giving Vincent a thumbs up. "I don't understand at all!"
"Hah, whatever." Vincent shrugged as he slouched into the chair. "Point is, these ribbons were sharp, and I, in my stupidity, attempted to clean them out without gloves, and my hand got stuck in that jumble of metal. There, done; now it's your turn."
"Sure." Grayton swallowed. "I'll start from yesterday afterschool."
----------------------------------------
"And you put up with that from afternoon till night?" Vincent asked. "You really are one crazy bastard."
"It's not like we went non-stop." Grayton said, waving his hand in a gesture of dismissal. "I ran out of mana a few times, but aside from that, he was careful not to do enough damage to incapacitate or limit my movement... Thinking back, his control over his mana is a bit scary."
"I don't get it, if it's his mana, shouldn't it be natural to be able to control it like second nature?" Vincent crossed his arms.
"It... doesn't work like that. I was struggling to maintain simple barriers for more than a few seconds, but he," Grayton paused for dramatic effect. "He threw around four wings with pinpoint precision like it was nothing! Now that I think about it, the overall shape and aesthetic with the feathers and whatnot were probably an intentional choice as well... Just who is that guy?"
"You're asking me." Vincent scoffed. "Well, in any case, I'm happy for you."
"Hmm?" Grayton raised his eyebrow, slightly taken aback by the remark.
"I mean, it seems like you've got a lifetime of fun ahead of you." Vincent commented. "You were always complaining about how boring your life was, weren't you?"
"I guess so..." Grayton said. "Maybe normal life would be less boring if I had more friends..."
"And that's something I don't get." Vincent sighed. "How do you not have any other friends? You've made it clear that you understand how to get closer to people, but when you talk to the others, you just seem so... bland!"
"How so?" Grayton asked. Now he was intrigued.
"Here's my take on it, so tell me if I'm wrong." Vincent said before he continued. "I don't know if you're trying to not stand out or you simply aren't interested in making meaningful relationships, but you seem to be trying your best to be "normal" when someone you don't know talks to you. You're probably aiming for superficial relationships that don't go above making small talk every now and then, right?"
"Vincent is... surprisingly perceptive." Grayton noted it in his mind. "Or maybe it's natural for him to know that much, knowing how long he's known me? I wouldn't know."
"But the thing is, you suck at acting normal." Vincent said bluntly. "To others, you act more like a cardboard cut-out of a human than an actual person. Not to mention that smile you put on that you probably think resembles a polite smile is stiffer than a 2-day-old corpse and, in my opinion, plain stupid if not downright creepy!"
"Ouch!" Grayton exclaimed, jokingly clutching his chest as if in pain. "Talk about harsh!"
The gesture earned him another flick in the head. "Ack!-Again?!"
"Will you please take this a little seriously? At first, people would think you're just an awkward person, but after a few days of that plastered smile and the bland topics?" Vincent continued to rant. It seemed like he had been waiting a long time to address this matter. "They would, at best, get bored of you and move on, but the majority, who aren't as dense as a neutron star, most likely had their feelings hurt by your constant rejection to open up."
"Rejection, huh... I guess that's one way to take it..." Grayton thought before he arrived at another conclusion. "No, that's the most natural way to perceive my attitude; how have I not realized this before?"
"Friendships, even the superficial ones, consist of give and take, Grayton." Vincent scolded him.
"Why didn't you tell me until now? Half the school probably thinks I'm an antisocial weirdo by now!" Grayton complained once the realization started to set in.
"Because, I wasn't sure until now!" Vincent yelled before suddenly stopping himself and looking around to see if anyone noticed his outburst. Thankfully, the cafeteria's busy atmosphere allowed such a loud exclamation to go unnoticed. "I considered the possibility that you didn't want any new friends or that you were simply that bad at talking to people."
"What kind of person do you think I am?" Grayton pouted, though deep inside, he couldn't really blame his friend.
"An idiot?" Vincent joked, letting a more lighthearted mood return to the conversation.
"Clearly." Grayton sighed. The two continued to chat until recess was over and parted ways after school as usual.
----------------------------------------
"So what I'm getting is that every potion has one fixed ingredient that can't be changed using my formula?" Grayton asked as he flipped through the pages of Keyla's research notes.
"Y-yeah. For example, a potion of regeneration will require troll blood for one of its components." Keyla nodded. She seemed to be more at ease now that they were talking about something she had an interest in. "O-oh, that's not all; I also discovered that the missing factor was sentimental value!" She exclaimed proudly.
"You can find it on..." Keyla leaned into the desk and sifted through the pages Grayton was holding for a moment before separating one from the batch. "This one."
"Good job; that's a lot of progress in two days." Grayton said, reading through the page. "But sentimental value, huh? I never would have guessed... Wait, how does that even work?"
"Well, the ingredients that w-would fit into this value category would b-be things like the blood of a firstborn or the heart of a b-beloved pet." Keyla explained.
"I see." Grayton nodded. "Seeing her describe something like that as if it wasn't unethical in the slightest is kind of unnerving, though. Well, I should expect similar, if not worse, from other witches."
"Well then," Grayton smiled. "Why don't we test it out? Since we, or at least we think we have all the theory down, might as well."
"S-sure! What kind of potion do you want to make?" Keyla asked enthusiastically.
"Uhh, what are my options?" Grayton asked.
Upon hearing the question, Keyla hurriedly scurried over to the other side of the room and reached into a bookshelf filled with notebooks, pulling a few out after a cursory glance. "Here."
Grayton flipped open one of the books and saw an organized list of various potions and their ingredients. On each potion recipe, one of the ingredients was highlighted in yellow, which he assumed to be the fixed ingredient.
"What an organized girl... Diligent and hardworking as well." Grayton thought as he scanned through the list. "Shame, she'd be a model student if she were a normal human. Well, at least she won't be stuck at the bottom of the hierarchy anymore once she perfects the formula."
"Still haven't heard from your friend?" Grayton asked. By now, he was getting worried as well, since the witch's capture or betrayal would lead to a lot more problems for him.
"O-oh no, actually. She visited me earlier today." Keyla answered, to his relief.
"So? What's the situation?"
"Oh, uh, it's all good, actually. She came earlier and-" Keyla hesitated. "Y-yeah no other witch k-knows about what's happening."
"Hmm?" Grayton continued to read through the list, pretending to brush off the witch's slip of the tongue. "I wonder what she decided against telling me... Should I pry it out of her with the contract?"
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
He shot the fidgeting witch a quick glance before deciding against it. "No, that would be a poor decision."
Before long, one of the potions on the list caught his interest. It was labeled Potion of Weightlessness." The short description in the notebook revealed that the potion required relatively expensive materials, which made it perfect for testing his formula's effectiveness. However, there was the matter of its fixed ingredient. Grayton read deeper into the recipe and found that the potion's fixed ingredient is the boiled essence of a... Gigalion?
"Hmm, how hard is it to kill a gigalion?" Grayton asked, imagining a ravenous, boulder-sized lion roaring in his head.
"K-kill? You mean pick? It's a plant." Keyla replied. "I-it's like a dandelion but way bigger. Their actual name is the Herculean Salsify, but most just call them gigalion."
"..." Grayton facepalmed. "I'm an idiot."
"Well, anyway." Grayton continued, eager to put his misconceptions behind him. "How hard is it to get one of these?"
"Why? Do you want to make a... Potion of weightlessness?" Keyla spoke from the other side of the room, sorting out another set of notes into various binders. "I don't have any in stock c-currently, but I could just buy some."
"You remember the potion ingredients by heart?" Grayton said, caught off guard by her guess.
"I-it's nothing... really." Keyla bashfully shook her head. "There's o-only one recipe that needs the gigalion. W-well not really, there's another one, but it requires just the stalk, and it's not on the book you're holding."
"See? You do remember every recipe!" Grayton said, genuinely amazed by the witch's ability. "She even memorized where it's written."
Keyla turned away, not knowing how to respond to the compliment yet unable to downplay it any further.
"Well, then." Grayton said, assuming a more calm demeanor. "I think this potion would be perfect to test out the formula. Go and buy enough gigalions for a few potions; how much will they cost?"
"Careful." Grayton berated himself. "I have to avoid seeming like an awestruck idiot who can't help but say what's on his mind. Though having an image like that can be useful, it's not what I'm going for right now."
"I usually b-buy from witches from other countries, so the c-currency is different. B-but the market price is approximately... 4 kromer when converted?" Keyla explained.
Grayton pulled out his brown wallet from inside his coat and took out 16 paper bills before handing them over to Keyla. "Here, go and buy as many as you can."
"Oh? O-oh! Alright." Keyla took the bills after a momentary hesitation.
"What? You thought I was gonna make you pay for it?" Grayton smiled before turning toward the exit door. "I'll go now; tell me if anything goes wrong."
"And now I make my exit." Grayton thought as he pushed open the door. Once he reached the bottom of the stairs, he was greeted by a slight chilling sensation on his nape, signaling Charles's presence. However, something was off. As he stepped into the grassy field, not once did Charles try to speak up or make a witty comment. Instead, the shade continued to stay out of sight, barely allowing Grayton to sense a smidge of his presence.
"Hmm? He's following me but not showing himself?" Grayton thought, immediately noticing the change in behavior. "Did I do something wrong? No, even if I did, Charles isn't the type to throw childish tantrums like that... What could it be?"
He didn't have time to ponder it for long as Charles materialized from within a patch of tall grass once he had walked a fair amount of distance from the treehouse. This time, he took the form of a murder of eyeless crows. Some of the crows perched on the ground and grass, pecking randomly at the ground, while the rest flew around the area while cawing loudly. One of said crows landed on Grayton's shoulder, letting its icy-cold talons dig into his coat.
"The precision and control that must take..."
"What's all this, Charles?" Grayton asked. His voice was completely drowned out by the caws the swarm of crows produced. Fearing his voice couldn't be heard clearly, he attempted to repeat what he said in a louder tone.
"A simple distraction, nothin' more." Charles whispered in his ear before he could say another word.
"For what?" Grayton said in a harsh tone, irritated by the constant assault on his ears.
"Yer a smart fella, ya must have known the little lass is hiding somethin' about her meetin' with her friend." Charles said.
"I won't fish it out of her with the vow if that's what you want." Grayton said. "Unless... You already know what happened?"
"Was a touchin' reunion." Charles said, confirming his suspicions.
"So what's the issue?" Grayton asked.
"I'll keep it short." Charles said. "Miranda, her friend, apparently came up with a plan to off ya, freein' her from the vow. She even mentioned ties with the Purple Rose."
"Purple Rose?" Grayton asked.
"Basically the witch's equivalent of the Pinkertons." Charles explained.
"Charles, I have no fucking idea who or what the Pinkertons are." Grayton deadpanned.
"Seriously?" Charles's crow avatar tilted its neck. "Jeez, what'd they teach ya in school these days, huh?"
"Whatever, even if I don't know what they are, using the context, I can safely assume they're some sort of hit squad?" Grayton asked.
"Not just your average hit squad." Charles said. "A privately run hit squad. Meanin', as long as they kill ya before ya can even get two words out, and trust me, they definitely can. Hell, I don't think even I can keep ya alive if they're paid a good sum to put ya in the ground."
Now that raised a few alarm bells. "What?"
"I said what I said." Charles shrugged using his wings.
"Well, that's worrying. And it's not like we can do much about it... Wait, something doesn't add up!" Grayton said. "How did they not notice you? If you were close enough to eavesdrop, they should be able to sense your presence even if you were suppressing it."
"Yer not the only smart fella around here." Charles laughed. "How long do ya think I've lived, kid?"
"You were pretending you could only suppress your mana to a certain extent..." Grayton realized.
"Yep!" Charles nodded. "Provin' that was the whole point of this."
The murder crows suddenly stopped whatever they were currently doing and flew into the air above Grayton and started to fly in circular arcs, forming some sort of dome. Charles's crow avatar then flew from Grayton's shoulder and dived headfirst into the flying amalgamation. All the crows converged at one point in the middle and formed a big black bubble of tainted mana that violently burst after a short delay, splattering the miasma all around the area and Grayton.
The splattered droplets soon started to move and merge at another location in front of Grayton, as if drawn by a magnet. And as the droplets came together one by one, Charles's usual humanoid shape slowly took form.
"Had fun showing off?" Grayton sarcastically asked when the process was done.
"Totally!" Charles exclaimed proudly.
"Of course." Grayton chuckled. "Well, anyway, there's nothing we can do to prevent it from happening. But just in case Miranda ends up still going ahead with her plan despite Keyla's objections, I need you to be on alert for any hiding assassins so I can portal away at the first sign of them."
"Just what I had in mind." Charles nodded.
"So, same place?" Grayton asked as he conjured a porta behind him.
"Same place." Charles confirmed.
"I'll race you there." Grayton cheekily said as he allowed himself to fall backwards into his portal. The last thing he saw before he entered the portal was Charles chuckling while shaking his head.
----------------------------------------
???
"Hä? Zat is veird." A man dressed in a lab coat murmured, sitting on an office chair behind a comically long desk that stretched along the walls of his room. His voice was smooth and was neither high nor low in pitch and instead rested somewhere in the middle. His head was covered in completely grey hair despite his age as a result from a mixture of genetics and stress.
On his desk were various opened letters and stacks of paper documents that stretched from one end to the other end of the desk. In his hands was yet another document containing some sort of general situation report. The room he was in was no bigger than a standard bedroom, and the door leading into the room was blocked by the desk, meaning that you had to climb over the desk and a few stacks of paper in order to access the door. Thankfully, the wooden door opened outwards, so it was still functional.
"Vhy are ze vitches suddenly so aktiv in Cornucopia town?" The man muttered to himself, reading the document with his pair of completely dead looking eyes. "Schure, it is just a few times but it is still too frequent to be explainet as just 'passing by'. No one vants to touch Cornucopia since ze truce... Are zey up to somesink?"
"They haf got balls, profoking anoser territory war if zey really are tryink to pull somesink." The man bit his nails as he muttered. "Oh, and zere is zat new guy in the All-seeing Eye recruitet... Ach, vhat a headache. So many Probleme in zat gottverdammten city..."
"Actually... ich habe eine Idea!" The man's brown eyes lit up as he spun around in his office chair, as if he arrived at some sort of enlightenment. He outstretched his right arm and an empty sheet of paper flew into his open hand. He then pulled out a pen from his pocket and started to write on said paper in a frenzied manner. "I vill just send a few promisink rookies to do a surfey and vhen zey inadvertently find some troubel, I vill toss ze responsibility to ze guy in charge of ze Dummköpfe! I am a Genius!"
"Ja... zat is korrekt! But who should I send?" The man abruptly stopped writing and started to tap the butt of his pen repeatedly on his chin as he mused. "Zat newbie wif ze kicks is definitely coming but his friend... Since zis mission is concernink ze vitches vould it be distasteful to send her alonk? ...Nein, I do not care enouff; I am sending her as vell. Zat girl with ze teleport can come as vell; she should be able to get zese Dummköpfe out of troubel if ze need ever arises."
Once he was done with writing his request, he lazily pointed a finger upward. The piece of paper flew right above his finger and folded itself into a paper bird. "And... Sent."
The man did a flicking motion with his finger which prompted the bird to 'come to life', flying and moving like a real bird. It circled around the room before the man opened the door, allowing it to fly outside to its destination.
"Ah~ how I hate zis job.”
----------------------------------------
Grayton Laurentius, 1 week later
Grayton channeled mana into his legs and jumped high into a backflip, dodging Charles's sweeping wing. This unnecessary maneuver allowed Charles an opportunity to attack Grayton while he was still in the air, and he launched another wing attack, this time in a straight, piercing motion.
In response, Grayton made a scissor motion with his legs and used his core muscles to pull his upper body out of the attack's trajectory. However, the limited range of movement that came with being in the air made him unable to move his legs out of the way, resulting in Charles's attack to clip one of his thighs. Despite the attack knocking him out of position, the experience he built up in his training so far, combined with his improved mana control, allowed Grayton to twist his body mid-air like a cat into a position where he would hit the ground on all fours.
He made cushions out of mana on his palms and feet to break his fall. This allowed him to quickly get up before Charles could launch a free attack despite the throbbing pain in his left leg. Throughout the week, the training had slowly become harder and harder, and at this point, the interval between each attack were as short as Charles wanted them to be, and he could attack as many times as he wanted before giving him a break.
"Are ya tryin' to show off, kid?" Charles asked. "Ya could have completely dodged that sequence had ya just ducked."
"I've gotten good at dodging your attacks." Grayton said, panting between his words. "But I don't want to 'just' dodge. I want to dodge in a way that belittles my opponent the most. I want to be able to outmaneuver them so much that it infuriates them."
"I've never seen someone use so many words for 'I want to look cool'. Yer gonna be fighting undyings mostly anyway, what's the point?" Charles scolded him. "Oh well, I get it, though. That feeling of being untouchable as you dance through your opponents is pretty great."
"Must be nice having powers like yours." Grayton commented. "He can phase through people and control his shape at will; I can't think of a more demoralizing ability if used correctly."
"This body is a curse, and you know it, kid!" Charles shouted, pointing all 4 wings at Grayton.
"Uh oh, did I strike a nerve?" Grayton thought as he braced himself. "Looks like I have to show him something good."
He made no attempt to dodge the attack. Instead, he outstretched his hand toward the incoming attack and formed a disk with his mana, prompting a confused look from Charles.
"Have you not learned? That amount of mana won't be enough to block this!" Charles said as he launched all of the wings in a piercing motion. Grayton squatted lower and bent slightly forward once he saw the attack coming.
Just a moment later, the 4 wings landed on the disk, but instead of shattering like Charles expected, the disk held. As soon as the wings impacted the disk, they caused ripples to spread through the disk, some of which clashed with each other and cancelled out some of the force. However, it did not stop there; Grayton started to slide backwards as soon as the attack hit. At first, Charles shrugged, thinking Grayton had been flung away by the remaining force of his attack. However, the flaming orbs behind his mask widened when he saw Grayton continuing to drift backwards in the same position without falling.
Charles looked down at Grayton's feet and saw something inconceivable: The boy had materialized wheels under his feet, allowing him to convert the force of the attack to push him back in the same direction, further dampening the force of the attack on his body. Once he was out of Charles's range, Grayton added ridges to the wheels, slowing him down before he dematerialized them completely.
"Hahah! Yes! I did it!" Grayton clenched his fist as he celebrated. Distributing force around mana constructs was something he could only theorize about, until now.
"Kid..." Charles glared at him. "If ya failed just a single part of that, ya would have broken your arm."
"I know." Grayton smiled. "But it was cool, wasn't it?"
"Tch, totally crazy." Charles tried to seem displeased, but he couldn't stop himself from chuckling. "I shouldn't be encouragin' reckless stunts like that, but I guess I'm just that bad of a teacher, ain't I? You pass."
"Pass?" Grayton raised his eyebrow, confused.
"Means we start killing Undyings." Charles explained. "That was the whole point, remember?"
"To be honest, I completely forgot," Grayton laughed. "I was too caught up in it, I guess."
Charles bellowed loudly upon hearing that "Only someone as crazy as ya could enjoy something like that! Hahaha!"
The two laughed together as they made their way to their next destination.