“What the heck is going on?” the boy exclaimed, saying what was on their minds.

“I suppose the forest decided that a different challenge was necessary.” she answered, examining the space between the trees. Just as she was wondering if she could somehow manage to sneak through, cracks appeared between them. The forest was warning her away.

And telling her it had far more control over itself than she had presumed.

“I think we should stop here.” she finally said. “At least until Rose gets her class.” Perhaps even until her royal Skill was out of cooldown, and she was able to get her mana back.

“Why?” Rose asked. “Do you think we’ll be in danger if we step through?”

“Oh, almost assuredly. The forest is a deadly one, even if it is acting stranger than I expected it to.” she answered, still unable to calm herself. Even the other three seemed to be on the edge. Wichita called on the notifications she had been ignoring while Rose conjured up a response.

[Forgotten Queen] has reached level 5

Oh well, that was good. The level had likely come from the battle they had fought. But it was a welcome thing.

“So…you mentioned magic.” Tully prompted her. Wichita looked at her.

“Yes, Fae magic. I -” oh fuck, she had barely any idea how to explain this. To understand fae magic, one needed to know so much other stuff. Just luck magic would not cover it.

“Well first you need to understand that the magic revolves around Stories. No, Fae magic is the Stories.” she said. “There is only one thing Fae magic does, as far as we know: it twists reality until it follows our Stories.”

“And being a transmigrator means this Fae magic will support us?” Rose asked.

“For a time, yes. There are a lot of theories about this…that you do not need to know. In short, Fae magic will make you more lucky for a short time after you arrive in this world. If you attain a class in that time, you might even get a better one than you deserve. That is one of the reasons we should try to get your companions a class as soon as we can.”

“Yes, by swearing to you.” Rose’s voice was filled with suspicion again. “How does that work, anyway? Not getting the class till one turns eighteen? What if a child is under threat?”

Wichita grimaced. “The System used to give classes to children, but then…there was an incident. A few of the world powers started to train children as child soldiers, which was apparently not acceptable. So it moved the class choice to eighteen and said it was our fault.”

The Arcana may have been the first to try it out. In their defense, this time it wasn’t even their fault. The Heart beat in their chests since the day they were born. Wichita knew well enough that the Arcana would lust after power, regardless of whether the System offered it.

“The System just told you to handle it yourselves?” the boy expressed his doubt. “Didn’t even try anything else? Would it not be better to alter the System in some way? Like, I don’t know just give Skills that are too weak to matter in a battle?

Wichita sighed. “The System did that, and more. But the practice still continued.”

Rose and Tully rolled their eyes, but the boy had a more exaggerated reaction. Banging his head against the tree was not something she had expected him to do. Even it was very light, almost like a tap. The boy had barely touched it, really. Wichita did not understand why it would do that.

“I would suggest you -”

“Why the heck would they do that?”

Wichita stared at him, holding his gaze. “For it was our culture. Just because the System says we should act a certain way, does not mean we will. The Ar- my species has been here from before the System was even born. Just because it rules the world now does not mean we will change ourselves for it. The System can do what it wishes, we will not change for it. Nor for the humans that demanded such things.”

The bloody species caused enough trouble, with their numbers forcing the System to decide whatever they did was ‘normal’ and ‘good’. Even though the Arcana’s reaction was…overblown, for once they weren’t the only ones at fault. The System and it’s insistence on normalizing the world had to bear some of it.

The boy actually looked a bit guilty after her outburst, something she now regretted having. Wichita should not have done that. The three of them were clearly human, and her words were not kind.

“Can I presume that your species was an enemy of humanity, then?” Rose asked. “Will that be a problem?”

“Calling it enmity is…accurate I suppose. And no, I do not share many of my species’ opinions.” she answered. There, perhaps that would give them pause if the secret of her heritage was revealed. To be honest, she really did not want it to be. The Arcana had pursued several campaigns of extinction against humanity; she doubted they would approve of it.

Wichita thought it was a foolish notion, killing, so many would basically ensure that Fae magic would support the survivors. The human race had long ago reached a level which made it all but impossible to kill them. But it was Arcanian custom to kill anything that stood in their path to power. Just one of the things she and Veruna had thought was wrong with the system.

“So…magic?” Tully asked, her voice nervous as she glanced at the other two. Thankfully, Rose did not interrupt her this time.

“Perhaps it would be prudent if Rose went to sleep while I explained this.” she said. “I can see that you are all tired, and this is a good place to have some rest. I can simply explain it multiple times.”

“Don’t you need to sleep?” Rose murmured, though her mind seemed elsewhere.

“No.”

That, somehow, surprised them more than her outburst. Tully’s eyes widened in surprise as she grew visibly excited.

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“How?” she asked, practically vibrating from it.

“Just…a quirk of my species.” she answered. Wichita did not know how, that wasn’t covered in the books she had read. “Now as I said, it would be wise for Rose to go to sleep. The sooner we get her a class, the better it will be for our safety.”

Rose raised an eyebrow. “Not gonna swear to protect us?”

“I can’t.” Wichita replied, grimacing as she looked the girl in the eye. “I have, what an eighth of my mana left to me? The battle from before cut me down to just 2 mana. If I run out of it, I will die. So no, I would not recommend relying on me until I find a way to refill my mana.”

Rose blinked. “Wait you nearly died? Why in the world would you do that? I thought you were blocking it with magic or something!”

“I was blocking it with magic, it simply wasn’t sufficient. I did not actually have any intention of dying, either, but I did need to save you. In case you did not realize, my class does not offer combat Skills at the moment. In fact, I doubt it will offer any combat Skills at all. The System was rather cruel about it.” Wichita grumbled, her words laced with anger even as she tried to keep it under control.

“So you need us to fight for you.” Rose said, sounding surprised for some reason. Wichita grimaced, that just sounded like she was going to use them as meat shields. And she was going to do that, in a way. But she didn’t need to say it like that.

“That is not entirely accurate. I will of course be contributing to the fight. But yes it is likely that you will grow more powerful than me, and quickly. I can support you with my knowledge and with the Skills the System grants me, but I doubt I will remain a viable combatant. I will remind you, however, that I am a Legend class Monarch, I will be useful.”

“I think we can all agree that we aren’t going to leave you behind just because you aren’t a combatant. A Queen is probably useful in many other ways.” the boy said, surprising her. Wichita had expected that to be a harder sell.

“If Miss Rose would be kind enough to sleep, then I could guide her about choosing a class.” she said. “In fact, that might be a good lesson on Fae magic.”

Rose grumbled under breath and looked at the ground. Wichita looked at it too. “Is there a problem?”

“No, it’s just…”

There was clearly a problem. Rose had been procrastinating going to sleep, something she really needed to do. Wichita did not agree with the System’s silly, idiotic insistence on only showing one class options once they went to sleep, but she did not have a choice in the matter. The forest would only wait for so long. Did she not understand the urgency?

“Is there something I can do to help?” she offered.

“Not unless you’ve got a bed stashed somewhere.” Rose snapped at her, kneeling down while she felt at the forest floor. Wichita suddenly understood what the difficulty was. A human needed comfort to sleep. The floor would not do.

“Oh, I can help with that!” she said joyfully. Enchanting was something she was good at, something she had trained for.

“What?” Rose said, shifting uncomfortable on the ground. Tully and the boy, whose name she really needed to get, were looking at her with sympathy.

“I can’t get a bed, but I can make the floor feel like one.” she said, walking up to her. “There is no need for you to get up, I can work around you.” Hmm, how should she go about this without wasting too much mana?

A border and comfort enchantment of course. There was little enchantment could not do that magic could. And that meant she had a wide variety of things she could do — as long as she had suitable resources. Thankfully, mind mana was easy to get in small quantities, just about any sapient would have some around. Wichita just needed to manipulate it to form an illusion.

“Do you mind if the enchantment gets some information from your mind?”

“What?” Rose’s asked, her voice betraying her alarm.

“I just need it to be able to get what you find comfortable, it would reduce the amount of mana I need to waste. The enchantment will transform the area into whatever is comfortable to you. I can even make it visual if you wish.”

“I — just the information about what I find comfortable? Can’t I just tell you that?” the girl asked nervously.

“Even if you tell me, it would not matter. The mana is the one that needs to know. Don’t worry, more malicious enchantments would require more mana than I currently have at my disposal.” That should put her concerns to rest. Wichita wasn’t really lying even. Bounding the mana into an enchantment this large was a bit costly to her mana pool. Why hadn’t she taken the mana shaping classes? Arcana had spoiled her with its thousands of mana wells refilling her mana faster than she could spend it.

“Yes.” she said finally, sounding more hesitant than Wichita would have liked. “With the illusion, please.”

The next few seconds were awkward as Wichita just hovered over the girl, shaping mana around her. Ten mana and a single enchantment later, it was done. The enchantment wasn’t Master work, but it didn’t need to be. Rose seemed quite satisfied with it.

“This is weird.” Tully murmured.

“What is?”

The younger girl looked up in surprise, apparently having not seen her coming.

“I don’t have enough physical presence to make noise as I move.” Wichita explained. “I apologize if I caused you any distress.”

“No, I was just surprised.” Tully said, suddenly looking very awkward. Wichita had difficulty getting a grip on the girl’s personality, on any of them really. Rose was the easiest with her suspicion, but the boy spoke far too little for her to get much of anything.

“I thought I would explain Fae magic to you while we wait for Rose to fall asleep.” she said, looking at the fidgeting girl. “I think it will take a while.”

“I think it would be better if we didn’t stare at her.” the boy said, making Tully jump. Wichita had seen him coming.

“Yes.” she agreed. “Fae magic, as I said before, is based on Stories. There isn’t much I can really explain it to you, it can’t be controlled through normal means. I would not suggest relying on it either, it only keeps to its own rules when it suits its whims.”

“If it only follows its rules when it suits its whims, then are they even rules?” Tully asked.

Wichita gave her a wry smile. “Yes, well the Fae told us they are the rules of Fae magic, so we call them so. But that is not relevant.” If she were honest, she still did not know what to explain to them. Perhaps it would be better if she started from the beginning.

“To truly understand how magic works, you need to know what mana is. Mana is the not just the fuel of magic, it’s a substance that can turn into anything that can be in that instance.” she said. Now she regretted starting from here. This would take it in the wrong direction, and she would not be able to explain how Stories worked, at least not well.

“Take the air here for example. There is a slight possibility that this entire passage could combust and kill us. A powerful enough Fae magic could manipulate mana until only that possibility remained in its eyes, meaning that mana would immediately do that. Of course, the same can be done by a powerful enough Iridorian mage, but they would have to use their own mana instead of what is present here naturally.”

Wichita looked at the expressions of the two, who seemed equally horrified and excited, and wondered if she should continue. The next part should be calming, but people reacted differently to learning how weak they were. At Tier 1, the lot of them barely had Stories. Fae magic was only an important thing because they were stuck in this bloody forest, and because they were transmigrators.

A yelp emerged from where Rose had fallen asleep, taking the choice away from her.

The girl was examining the air with far more interest than most would bother. The System had shown her what class options she had. And now Wichita would have the pleasure of directing a prospective subject to greatness.

What did the System’s description say? Raise others to greatness? Well, perhaps her Story would help with it too then. Perhaps, if she was really lucky, she would get experience from it.