We both stood there for a moment, probably looking quite stupid, two girls staring at each other in shock, a bit like the spiderman meme. But that was broken almost immediately by the buzzing arrival and high pitched chitter of three more pixie/imp things zooming into view.
Soriya took one look at them and her expression got serious. “We’ll figure it out later, we’ve got visitors.” She yanked her gun off her shoulder and took aim at the malicious little figures. “You’re the white mage, so I would sure appreciate some support spells. You know two casters is bad news in a melee fight, right?”
“Well yeah, of course, but what am I supposed to do!?”
“Cast barrier, of course! You just got it, remember?!” Soriya took aim at the figures, and the same bullet time effect happened. This time I could pick out the words of her chant, “Spirits of Water, heed my call and show my foes your fury! Glacies!” The same spinning magic circle filled with incomprehensible sigils blossomed from Diaboli’s muzzle, this time glowing with a cold blue radiance. Time sped up again, and three darts of energy flickered out from the circle and impacted the pixies one after another causing them to stagger in midair and scream angrily.
Soriya grimaced. “Wonderful, they’re resistant to cold.”
One of the pixies buzzed upwards and started muttering and gibbering in it’s high pitched voice, and glowing energy surrounded it as well.
“Oh come on, they cast too!?” She protested.
“Uh… uh…! This doesn’t look good!” I moaned. I held out my hands and made what I hoped were vaguely mystical gestures, but all I got in response was a confused wash from my otherself. What are you doing? What are we trying to do? “I don’t know!” I burst out. “What good does it do to have spells if I can’t cast them?!”
“What?” Soriya jumped forward and swung at the casting pixie, which merely giggled evily and floated out of her reach. “Oh, crap, that’s right!” She glanced around wildly, then pointed at a fallen branch. “There! Pick that up! Use it as a staff!” she dodged under one of the pixie’s as it dove at her and took a wild swing at it. “The world knows you’re a white mage, so you can trick it! Just pretend really hard that the stick is your staff!”
“This sounds crazy, but I’m not seeing options.” I muttered as I scooted forward and grabbed at the branch.
The pixie casting it’s spell reached a shrieking culmination, and a glowing red aura surrounded me. For a moment, all I could feel was hate. Rage and anger and fury at everything! I wanted… I wanted to kill! I wanted to beat those pixies to death! I wanted to punch Soriya for being so stupidly pretty! I wanted to tear out my hair and go screaming mad.
1. My otherself’s voice was cool and calm and oh so quiet, but I could feel steel threading through it. This isn’t us. We aren’t like that. Her voice was cool and soft and quiet in my head and she/we pushed together at the pressure in our mind. The red haze flickered and vanished from my vision and the emotion vanished. I staggered, clutching the stick to my chest, feeling ill.
“Lily! Are you ok?!”
“Yeah… I think? I guess I made my save…?” I held up the stick. “I got the stick! Now what?”
“Now you- SHIT!” Soriya ducked but not fast enough as one of the giggling pixies divebombed her, snatching up strands of her hair in its talons, and ripping. It came away shrieking in triumph, trailing long strands of indigo blue. “Spirit’s curse you, that HURTS!” She shouted after the giggling pixie. “Now you just tell yourself that you’re going to cast Barrier!” She returned her attention to me. “Just tell yourself you’re going to do that, pretend it’s your staff! You can force the world to accept it!”
One of the pixies dove at me, and I shrieked, holding my staff up and flailing wildly. The pixie dodged thorugh my wild strikes and it’s sharp nails tore a furrow in my cheek.
It hurt! It really really hurt! I was in an actual battle here! The cute pink haired girl wasn’t onscreen bouncing eagerly in a neat line, she was me and that hurt!
The same calm sweet warm voice filled my head, and I found myself raising the stick, words that I didn’t know spilling from my mouth.
“Blessed spirits of life, be our armor and protect us!” My pendant flared with white light, and time slowed, the same as it had when Soriya cast her spells. I felt a warm rush of energy flowing up through me, flowing up from my feet from some vast well of power within the earth that I was suddenly aware of, an energy that was warm and gentle and powerful. The light spilled out of me into the stick in my hands, and I felt the stick change, swelling in size, twisting and knotting, the tip curving into a gnarled spiral.
Blessed spirits, it really turned into a jrpg staff! A beginner white mage's staff!
A spinning circle filled with mystic sigils surrounded me, and then glowing gold and white aura flared around Soriya and I. I felt a giggle rising up in me, bubbling out of me in a kind of giddy disbelief.
I just cast magic! I just cast a Holy element! What’s a holy element, we’re a {Spiritist} My otherself replied.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
Soriya pumped her fist. “Yes! Way to go Lily! We got this in the bag!”
One of the pixies zoomed at her, taking advantage of her distraction as she cheered. Without slowing at all, it hit the white aura around her which rippled and parted like water as the pixie dove through it, tearing a long furrow into Soriya’s arm. Bright red blood welled in the furrows, and dripped to the ground.
“Soriya!” my cry was torn out of me, a soft echoing bell tone as both halves of me spoke in unison.
“Fuck.” Soriya gritted her teeth, and when she spoke her voice was tight with pain. “Maybe I spoke too soon. Looks like these are magic attacks. Barrier doesn’t help.” She reached down to the collection bottles dangling from her belt and grabbed a red one with her free hand, popping the cork with a thumbnail and chugging the contents in one go. A silvery light glowed around her, and the wounds on her arms and the missing patch of her hair faded away in a mist of white sparkles.
Huh. So that’s what a healing potion looks like when you’re in the game. I thought inanely. My distraction cost me. Two of the pixies dove for me, one grabbing at my hair, ripping away a long bloody hank of pink, while the other dove straight at me. It hit my stomach like a bullet, razor sharp teeth biting through my dress and burrowing into my stomach. Agony shot through me from my stomach, and the world spun. I found myself falling, a red stain spreading across my stomach.
I’m falling. Why am I falling? My dress is ruined. Oh… mother will be so mad… she worked so hard to get my dress ready for the festival… I don’t want to go on adventure… like this. The world spun over me and grew dark, the last thing I heard was Soriya’s agonized “Lillyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!” before the world went black.
###
I drifted in darkness, the sound of voices somewhere very far away. A feminine voice that sounded very much like mine echoed softly in the misty dark around me.
“Are you the one? Have you come to help?” it asked.
“I don’t know. Have I? I think I died.”
Soft feminine laughter. “Oh no. No, you did not die. You are my reification! It would take much more than a pixie attack to end your story.”
“But I don’t want to be in a story. They’re awkward and confusing and I’m not supposed to be a girl.”
“Well. Perhaps you can help this story come to a better conclusion then?”
###
I sat up with a gasp, my eyes flying open. Wood ceiling. Flower comforter. My chest was bound tightly with white gauze, the swell of my breasts still obvious. My hands flew to my side, and I let out a hiss as my probing fingers touched bandages wound around my waist. A throbbing ache awakened from my touch.
“Lily! You’re awake!”
I blinked in surprise, looking over, a bit baffled to find Soriya sitting next to my bed.
“What are you doing in my bedroom?” I asked muzzily, feeling dizzy and confused. The pink haired girl in the mirror had a thick bandage wound around her head as well as her torso, and I found myself giggling inanely. “I really am in an anime. The bandages look just the same.”
I found myself buried in a hug from Soriya, her voice broken between laughter and sobbing. “Oh by the elemental graces, I was so worried! I’m so sorry, Lily! I got us into the fight thinking it would be easy, it was the combat tutorial and, and… I’m soooooo sorry! Please forgive me!”
That’s right. The fight. The pixies. I felt a coldness spreading through me. It was strange, I knew it for what it was… I wanted to kill them. I wanted to win. I wanted them dead. But otherme was confused, feeling a strange numbness, struggling with what felt like the spell the pixies had tried to hit me with. I giggled. I’m angry.
“I’m angry!” I laughed. “Pinkie the white mage is angry at something!”
Soriya was openly crying now, hugging me. “I’m sorry! I’m really really sorry, please don’t be mad at me!”
I blinked, focusing on her for the first time since I woke up. Her eyes were red. Really red, from crying. Was she crying because of me? That won’t do, I shouldn’t make her sad! “No, Soriya.” I awkwardly hugged her back, patting her back. “I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at the pixies. I’m mad at me. I want… I want to hurt them. I shouldn’t want that.” My voice was soft and confused. “I’m the goody two shoes girl, right? But I want to hurt them.” I gritted my teeth. “That was the tutorial fight and we just… we screwed around and we lost. And they hurt you! They hurt you! Oh my gosh, are you ok?” I looked her over. She looked… fine, honestly. No injures that I could see. Even her dress was perfectly intact and unstained. I guess the healing potion would have helped? I sighed in relief, sagging back in my bed, and then giving a little gasp and wince as my wound stabbed me again.
Soriya fumbled with her belt, and pushed a bright red potion at me. “Here! Your mom made this! Now that you’re awake, you can drink it. That’ll patch you up.”
I took the bottle in my hands, otherme knowing exactly how to open the bottle with a simple flip. I sat there, staring at the potion in my lap cupped in my hands. This is one of mother’s biggest potions. She must be really worried about me! I can’t waste one of her good potions on my carelessness! I pushed the bottle back at Soriya. “This is one of mother’s good potions. I can’t waste one of those!”
She looked at me in surprise, then let out a choked laugh. “Are you sure you’re an isekai!? That was… no. You drink this.” She pushed the bottle back into my hands. “Your mom was insistent and made me promise. You will drink.” Her violet eyes bored into mine, and I found myself picking up the bottle and drinking under her insistent glare.
A showering of white sparkles and the same aura that surrounded Soriya during our battle with the pixies, and a feeling of the spirits moving around and through me that felt like the spell I’d cast, and suddenly the pain I’d been feeling was gone, the sharp ache in my side, the stabbing throb on my temples, and even the slight soreness in my feet I hadn’t noticed was absent. I felt amazing. Mother’s potions are the best. Everyone in the village says so.
Oh. Do they? I guess they’re right then. I started pulling gently at the bandages on my head and side. They came away easily, though I stared at the strip for a moment, the shocking red of my blood staining the bandage in my hand. That’s right. I’m still mad.
“Lily? Are you ok? You’re just staring at the bandage like you want to murder it…?”
I looked up at her again. “I’m mad. I… I couldn’t do anything! I wanted to help and you were injured and I couldn’t do anything!” I felt something rising in me, something that was half familiar by now. “I wanted to help and I couldn’t do anything, and…!”
My pendant flared white light, and the voice of the world spoke in my head again.
<{Spiritualist} Advanced to level 2. Thanks to the purity of your heart and the strength of your emotions, you’ve gained {Spiritualist:2}. {Heal}, unlocked.>
I blinked, my mouth opening and closing in surprise. “Oh. Well. I guess I can heal now.” And I burst into tears.