Summary
'She' is finally here. The six cogs have gathered and are spinning. But do they all spin for the sake of the same objective? Or does each of them face a different horizon? The mechanism they belong to still cannot be seen.
(Sort of shorter chapter, mostly for plot, exposition, development. That means no battles this time.)
Chapter 5
Two boys stand in front of a bar. One of them has a wide grin on his face, his hand on his waist. He looks up to the bar’s name, nodding while thinking ‘yes, this is the place.’ The other one worriedly looks around, a little anxious, a little scared. The first boy happily opens the bar’s door and starts walking inside, only to have the second boy shyly hold him by his sleeve.
“Is this gonna be fine…?” He asks, his pale face growing red.
“Yeah,” not acknowledging his companion’s nervousness, the boy drags the other inside.
The smiling boy is called Solon. From his messy brown hair to his wrinkled clothes, one can easily get a feeling he doesn’t care about his looks. He is nineteen years old, which is a fine age for entering a bar on their city. He is looking for a particular man, though, he isn’t there for drinking or partying. He sits on a stool by the counter, to the right of the man he was looking for.
The nervous boy is called Isaac. White skin that easily becomes red when he is embarrassed, pink eyes that occasionally become red when his picture is taken, white hair that becomes red when drenched in blood. Luckily, one of the above barely happens, so it’s unlikely for him to ever become entirely red. He is seventeen years old, which means he shouldn’t be at a bar, which is why he is nervous. ‘It should be fine as long as I don’t drink, right…?’ He tries to calm himself as he sits down as well, on the stool left to the man.
The man is a few years older than Solon, but, while only halfway through his twenties, he gives the impression of being over his thirties. A mature, defined face, short hair, tired eyes, wearing a suit. He truly looks like some middle-aged man, if he were smoking a cigarette, he could even pass the impression of being a British secret agent hunting down the mastermind of some conspiracy.
“Took ya long enough, eh?” The way he talks makes the British secret agent image be smashed to pieces.
“Because I almost forgot this appointment,” Solon jokes, shrugging.
“Well, you’ll regret that, as the info I got from ‘em is real hot,” he lets out an ugly snort, which is also known as ‘the way he laughs.’
“Well, I’ll be the judge on that,” Solon just can’t resist to be mean when dealing with that man, but deep down he takes everything he’s saying seriously. If he says it’s good, it probably is.
“‘At least three of the minor gods are on this town, and they’re all gathered on the Leondall mansion,’” he says, grinning. After hearing that, there’s no way even Solon will keep his cool.
“…If you can talk normally, why don’t you always do it?” Solon lost his focus to the break on the man’s speech pattern.
“Ey, shut it, wontcha?” ‘where does this accent even come from?’ Both Solon and Issac can’t grasp where someone would need to grow up to talk like that.
“But then that means five of us are here, right?” Isaac speaks for the first time. His voice comes out in a whisper and isn’t heard, though.
Yes, as a savvy reader would expect, the two are also hosts to gods from another world. Chronologically speaking, the order of awakenings went as Ares, then Solon, followed by Sirin, Erika, Issac and Lui. Ares was the very first to awaken, many months before Solon, which in turn, also awakened weeks before Sirin. The others all happened on roughly the same span of time, within a period of two weeks.
Drag Magna intended to be the first one to leave, and, in a way, he achieved that, but there were two other gods who made peculiar choices based on their own whims, which resulted on those who awakened before Sirin. Galvados wanted to prank a human and drove its influence onto Ares, making her go insane at first. But as she got used to it, it decided to stick to her, as having a host had grown into an inevitability. Solon’s god, called Zearth, entered him the very moment the discussions about entering the real world started, as ‘it takes time for a planted seed to develop properly.’ What sort of fate might be at work, making the two Gods to first enter the world be the ones representing opposites, the gods which rule over Purple and Green.
“But did you have to pay anything for that information or did the cult warn every member?” Solon asks, curious about how hard it could have been to learn of that fact.
“Ev’ryone got warned about it. They know one of ‘em is the girl that bopped that sponsor th’other day, th’other two are unknown. ‘ey suspect it might be ya two.”
“Well, that’s convenient for us. For them there might be three to five of us, while we know for sure there are five,” Solon wears a smug smile on his face.
“That means only one remains… Could it have not descended yet?” Another whisper from Isaac.
“Only time will tell,” Solon shrugs, leaving a few bills on the counter. They didn’t drink anything, so it’s obviously not for the bartender. He’s paying their undercover agent, a man that only asked them to call him Bat.
With that done, the two leave the bar and enter an alley. They look around, ensuring there’s no one around. Once they confirm there are no onlookers or anyone approaching, the two press their chests with their hands and pull out a gem. For Solon an emerald, for Isaac a diamond. The gems spin in midair, hovering over their hands. The gems shatter and two small beings come out from them, a small lion of brown fur and green mane from the emerald, and a small silver robot wearing a crown from the diamond. Respectively, they’re Zearth and Rizelfar.
“What are we gonna do now?” Isaac asks, finally letting his voice out. Now that they’re alone and out of the bar, it becomes easier for him.
“Isn’t it obvious? We’re visiting the Leondall mansion,” Solon answers in a tone of disbelief, doubting that Isaac couldn’t possibly have made such a stupid question in earnest.
“I wonder which of them will be there…” Zearth talks in a soft voice, almost like a young cat’s meow turned into a boyish voice.
“Magna, not, probably,” the machine king speaks in pauses, his voice breaks after each word.
“…Certainly,” Zearth nods, grinning. He finds it funny how that is almost guaranteed to be the truth.
“Hm? What’s up with that guy?” Solon asks Zearth. They don’t know much about the siblings’ relations, but seeing the two talking openly about one of the other gods, he can’t help but feel interested.
“He’s… someone who’s always been distant. We six siblings don’t get along that well for many reasons, but there are two exceptions to that. Rafil, which all of us can’t dislike and Magna, who’s never around for us to ever even manage to feel anything against.”
“Lone, sad, wolf,” the machine king shakes his head, disapproval stamped on its mechanical face.
“Hm, I see. How do you two get along then?” Isaac alternates pointing to Rizelfar and Zearth.
“Fine, enough. Right?’ Rizelfar seemed pretty certain of himself, but became unsure afterwards.
“Our realms are distant, but find some middle ground,” ‘but when it concerns Rizelfar, that applies to every realm,’ Zearth tilts his head, he only now realized Rizelfar has middle ground with everyone.
“Good. It’s nice for siblings to get along,” Isaac is happy that his spirit is compatible with Solon’s. But he feels a little nervous when he thinks about the others, if they’re incompatible, what might happen? “And Solon, how are we getting into the Leondall mansion?”
“Leave that to me, chill, chill,” Solon puts his hand over Isaac’s shoulder and winks. The two gods vanish in thin air, and the two humans return to the main streets and continue their mission.
Solon distances himself from Isaac and makes a few phone calls, always spending at least ten minutes on each of them, at times on heated arguments, at times being very polite and thankful. After each of them ends, he turns to Isaac and does a thumbs up while grinning, and soon after he enters the next call.
He continues walking forward as he talks, and Isaac follows after him, not closing the distance, but always after Solon. After one of the calls, Solon halts for a while, so Isaac can catch up to him. Once he does, he explains as they resume their stride.
“I was using my many contacts and connections to get us an appointment with the Leondall,” he smiles. While he might seem pretty lax, he is a pretty famous individual, which gives his hands quite the distant reach. He is proud of how he manages to use his fame for good.
“…Your boy idol contacts allowed you to meet with a billionaire CEO?” Isaac raises an eyebrow.
“Obviously no, I got a meeting with his daughter, Erika Leondall. She’s a fan of mine and happened to be free this afternoon, so we’re meeting her,” Solon would never know Erika happens to be available most of the time. The fact she is pretty much a rich NEET somehow hasn’t leaked yet.
“...So even the wonderful boy idol’s powers have a limit,” Isaac mocks him, giggling. ‘Hey, who do you think you are,’ laughing as well, Solon grabs Isaac and rubs his knuckles against his skull. Isaac tries to set himself free, but is too weak to manage.
The total time they walked for was 25 minutes, the bar wasn’t that distant from the mansion, it seems Bat decided on that place on purpose, for that very reason. Solon rings the bell. ‘Don’t these places normally have an internal phone system? How old-fashioned,’ he comments to himself.
Galloping can be heard, and soon a knight in armor riding a horse appears behind the front gate. The armor isn’t real iron, but it’s a job done well enough to fool anyone who doesn’t pay much attention. The knight lifts the visor and stares down at the two.
“I acknowledge thee as the Bewitching Flower, but thy companion is not among those who should be permitted within this abode,” without hesitating, without faltering even once, the knight says this painful line.
“…Please, no matter how much they pay you for this role, please talk normally, I can’t handle more people that talk weird,” tears almost stream down his face. It’s just acting, though, he wouldn’t cry over such a thing.
“Let the man be, Solon. I’ll wait outside,” Isaac laughs at the face Solon is making, but he figured something like this could happen.
“No, wait. This guy is next in line as my producer, we go everywhere together. If he isn’t coming with me, I won’t be going as well,” a blatant lie, Isaac isn’t at all interested on the idol world.
“If that is the case, then surely I can permit that individual to pass,” the knight nods, lowering his visor. He gets off the horse and presses some buttons on the command panel by the gate. There’s a specific password for each day of the week. What stands out to Solon is how a knight is using a hi-tech panel, the gap between settings ticks him off.
The gates open and the two walk in. Isaac sighs, that lie could come to bite him in the ass later, but he’ll hope it doesn’t. They’re escorted by the knight all the way to the main building, where a different butler appears, to escort them through the mansion. The building is large enough for the two to wonder if the very residents don’t need help at times, they must have a map somewhere. The butler doesn’t explain where each corridor and door leads to, but one would think the Leondall might have ten bedrooms, five bathrooms and at least four kitchens. ‘Probably more to be honest,’ Solon whispers.
“Hey, Solon,’ Isaac whispers close to Solon’s ear, afraid of being heard by the butler.
“What?” he replies in a quiet voice as well.
“Even if we know there’s three of them here… How are we finding them?”
“…won’t we go under hyper resonance when we’re close and simply find out?”
“You can just say you didn’t think that far, you know?”
“No, seriously-”
“Gentlemen, your attention, please,” the butler says. He had stopped by a door and the two continued walking, going beyond where the butler stopped. They only notice when he calls for them. “This room here is what you’re looking for.”
He knocks on the door. A woman with long dark hair opens the door. Her hair is dark, but rather than a proper black, it is reminding of purple. And it looks natural, not any sort of dye. Very odd to say the least. She has a brief exchange with the butler, he explains what the two are and she nods. The butler removes himself and the maid opens the door for the two.
Solon enters normally, waving happily before even seeing who might be inside the room or where they might be. Isaac hesitates for a moment, the maid scares him a little, but as he also can’t just afford to stay on the hall alone, he soon follows him into the room.
The maid on the door, standing behind the two visitors. A white-as-snow girl on her bed, waving to Solon. A butler by the girl’s side, staring at the screen of her computer in sheer amazement. The idol entering the room, thinking about how to find the people he wants to find. The shy weak boy, hesitating on whether to wave or not. From all of their chests, ignoring their own wills, a gem bursts forth and shatters in millions of pieces.
“I can’t believe this!” A small angel, a blonde girl that seems to be eight comes out from the topaz which came out of Erika. She jumps around happily, teary-eyed.
“Hahaha, fate truly always decides the most fun path for the living,” a small demon of eight limbs comes out from the amethyst created by Ares. It isn’t as happy as the angel, but it laughs while holding its sides with four arms.
“I feel this isn’t simply the work of ‘fate,’ however… though I agree on it being a pleasant surprise,” from within a sapphire that surfaced on Lui’s chest, a small merman boy appears, a turtle shell tied to his back like some sort of backpack.
“Intentional, encounter,” the machine king’s eyes shine in multiple colors, almost like a neon sign.
“We came looking for you, he means,’ the soil lion smiles. He noticed no dragons appeared, his guess was right.
“What is going on!?” This is the first time Ares sees Galvados on the real world, not to mention the very uncomfortable phenomenon that was having the gem come out of her.
“Haha, I told you there was gonna be a hyper resonance!” Solon laughs, as if all of that had been within his predictions.
The five siblings gather on the center of the room and spin in a circle, talking to each other. Whatever they’re saying, none of the humans on the room can understand, the language they’re using is cryptic and otherworldly.
The idol walks to beneath the circle of floating gods and sits down, calling for the other people on the room to come as well. Isaac goes right away. Ares hesitates, but getting a small idea of what is happening, starts heading towards them as well. But she stops. She turns to Erika, who’s just as confused as anyone but those two. She doesn’t plan on sitting there unless Erika also does.
In the end, despite their uncertainty, the three joined the two. As they all gather, the gods also settle down, and hover down to the laps of their respective hosts. Ares alone takes Galvados by the neck and lays it down by her side. And with all of them together, being pressed for an explanation, Solon explains everything he knows.
‘There are six gods responsible for the world. Or perhaps it should be said they’re responsible for a world. That world balances itself over these gods, and our world is balanced on that world. There might be a world balanced over ours as well, but who knows. Moving on, six gods are pillars. But it wasn’t always so. There was a goddess above them, perhaps a mother to them all. That goddess by herself balanced the world for the longest time, but, for some reason, since time immemorial, longer than this world of ours has been here, she has been gone.’
“And?” The long pause after saying the goddess was gone didn’t mean anything to Ares, though he expected them to connect it by themselves.
“And that cult that’s been going around recently is trying to bring her back,” he believes his explanation was perfect, ‘why are they still puzzled?’
“And by doing that, the other six pillars will vanish, letting her take her rightful ‘throne’ again,” Isaac butts in, noticing the three are still lost. But not even with that comment it has become clear for them. “Ok, let me put it this way. You balance a lot of stuff over a certain support. If you remove that support for a while to put another, what happens?”
“…The first world would collapse and the worlds on top of that would fall all over?” Erika asks them. Isaac nods.
“…Why would they do something that would destroy our world?” Ares asks. She remembers her encounter the other day, that couple that attacked her and Erika and talked as if they belonged to an important group.
“The sheep doesn’t know where they’re heading, only the shepherd does,” Solon shrugs. Erika tilts her head, it seems the metaphor was lost on her.
“He means the leader is aware of that, but the believers have no idea,” Isaac once again has to explain Solon’s words. “Or at least we assume the leader knows.”
“Have you noticed the amount of ‘probably,’ ‘maybe,’ and assumptions on that story? What do you know for sure out of all that?” Ares doesn’t bite into that conversation, it is much too suspicious.
“Have none of you gotten any information from your respective gods? Do you literally all know nothing?” In response to Ares’ hostility, Solon’s shows the edge of his fangs as well. Green and purple, it is inevitable that sparks fly between the two.
“Whoops, hehe,” the young girl Rafil opens a wicked smile. She remembered to tell Erika about the cult, but didn’t explain it with any depth and Erika herself didn’t seem to be very interested.
“Other than what Clay told me, I…” Lui tries to force something to come to him, but he doesn’t remember anything. ‘Did I get nothing explained or did I forget?’
“When I asked you about the stuff that punk told me on the punishment game, you said you didn’t know anything, didn’t you?” Ares grabs Galvados head with her hand and tries to smash its skull. But even in child form, it keeps its usual toughness.
“Where would the fun be if I just presented you the entire plot like that, you need to peel it slowly, for more drama and-”
“This concerns my life, don’t treat it like one your plays!” She continues trying to smash it regardless of how impossible it might seem.
“…” At that moment, a question strikes Solon. He can’t even begin to grasp towards an answer, but he thinks about it regardless. ‘Why does it seem they were all sabotaged into not knowing? Didn’t the gods come here for the sake of stopping the cult?’ He bites his thumb. It’s no use thinking about it, but he can’t help it. “Isaac, don’t you and Erika look like each other? I just noticed.”
“Are you saying every albino looks the same?” Isaac clicks his tongue.
“Uh, no, I mean… nevermind,” ‘Did I offend him? Does he get that a lot? Weird,’ he thinks as he apologizes.
“Ok, let’s say I’m gonna bite into that talk,” still trying to crush Galvados, Ares continues. “Our world could get destroyed, their world would be damaged and they’d lose their jobs. That’s why they come to this world and take over us, right?”
“Rather than taking over, I’d say… No, in your case, that might be just right,” Isaac gets the vibe of Ares’ relationship with Galvados just by looking at them for a while.
“I can see what the gods gain from protecting their world and place, but what does the cult gets from destroying their own world?”
“Our informant couldn’t get anything on that, but he’s trying. Asking the lower ranks about it, all they tell is that they’re gonna save the world by bringing the correct goddess into it. In fact, we only know they’re actually going to destroy the world by doing that because Zearth told me, that wasn’t information we stole,” Solon has realized Zearth was the only one who didn’t attempt to sabotage their host. But as Rizelfar can barely talk, he forgives that one.
“That’s a lot of plot to take… I’ll tell Siririn and see what she thinks,” Erika frowns, typing a message on her phone.
“Wait, who’s that?” ‘She can’t possibly be planning on talking to some friend of her about this, like if it were just a casual thing, right?” Solon thought he took it easy, but this situation has proven to him that there’s always someone above those at the top.
“Sirin is the host to Magna!” Rafil yells, raising her hand and kicking her feet around.
Solon lets out a quiet ‘oh,’ and recovers his composure. Isaac is surprised as well, if she can contact Magna, that means all six have been found and are awakened. Zearth wonders what sort of person might be a human who resonates with Magna. In fact, save for Rafil, all gods are interested on hearing from Magna and his ‘avatar.’
Ares remembers the Sirin person is the one that brought ‘change’ to Erika, so she’s interested as well. Earlier, Erika was showing everything a computer can do, as he had never seen or used one before, and Siririn was the person Erika talked to as she showed all the functions on the chat program they used. He doesn’t know her, but he’s aware she’s Erika’s friend, the conversation log surpassed the 100k mark of messages. Just like that, the entire room went silent. Only the sound of Erika tapping her phone’s screen can be heard.
“Ah, she sent a voice message,” the tension increases. They all brace themselves, as, despite that for different reasons, all of them hold many expectations for that particular person. “I’m playing it for everyone to hear.”
“Eeeeeriiiikaaaaaaaa~!” A desperate voice, somehow they can tell she seems to be crying as well. “Why does everything interesting keep happening while I’m not around? Am I disposable? Am I not important to the plot? Is it because Magna beats everyone in a single blow? This is not faaair!”
“…” Erika pauses it. The disappointed faces of everyone on that circle made her want to protect Sirin’s honor. ‘Might have been too late…’ considering it can’t get any worse than that, she continues the message. The real message ended there, the remaining one minute was only gross sobbing and a tantrum. Not long after that message, she got another, however.
“Drag told me answer properly, so here we go. The threat to the world and the cult isn’t news to me, he told me about it the day we met. I figured Rafil would have told you as well, so I didn’t bother. Uuh, what else? Ah, sure, Magna has a theory. Destroying this world would mean nothing if the destroyer had no need to continue living here. He imagines that whoever is leading the cult believes in exchanging their humanity and becoming a spirit on the base world. The goddess would easily manage to make such a miracle happen. Do you have anything else you want to ask? That’s Drag’s question, not mine, by the way.”
“Anyone?” Erika turns to the people around her. They seem to have a slightly better impression of her now, but still didn’t erase the image of her sobbing from their minds.
“Ask him about the ritual to summon the goddess, how would a human learn how to do that?” Solon requests that because Zearth couldn’t answer it. He has acknowledged Drag Magna as respectable, he isn’t hiding anything from her host like the others.
“Ok!” Erika writes the message and sends it to Sirin. In little more than a minute, the reply arrives in the form of a voice message again.
“Probably the work of an invading spirit. Someone that left the world they came from before they did and planted a seed on some human. Heretics who want to bring down the gods isn’t anything new, this one just might be classes above the rest. But for it to know the secrets to revive a goddess… It could come from any realm. Ancient dragons, armed machines, infernal lords, imaginary beasts, ocean emperors, it wouldn’t be weird if any of these had, among their ranks, a being old enough to have been around for the age of the original goddess,” the person speaking sounds nothing like the girl crying before. While her voice continues to be as soft as before, something about her tone gives her a completely different feeling, she has become much more noble, elegant, appealing.
“I guess that makes sense… Didn’t he forget a realm though?” Solon wonders what Magna might feel towards Green to disregard it as a possible heretical.
“I’m gonna change the topic here, but I think we should all exchange contact information. I believe it’d be for the best to act as a team, considering... we apparently have an important mission to accomplish,” Ares brings out her cellphone.
After the five exchange addresses, they, hesitating a little, ask for Sirin’s as well and Erika tells them after getting her permission. It didn’t last very long, but they end their ‘meeting’ at that point, as there’s a lot left for them to think about and they still have their own lives to resume, a home to return to.
Five split into a pair and a trio, then these groups split into five individuals. Each of them are thinking on it differently, but the common thought between all of them is ‘the fate of the world? On my hands? Until now I was nothing but a…’
Sitting on a swing, alone on the park in front of their home, Lui thinks about the discoveries of the day. To him, it’s still quite hard to swallow and digest everything. Stromhyde chose him on a whim, that’s what he thought. He didn’t think there was a huge conspiracy around it, nor that he had a god dwelling within himself. He also thinks about Clay. ‘She probably isn’t aware of where she’s heading to… She said she just likes being with everyone. I can’t forgive someone who’d dare use the place she found for herself to destroy the world she loves.’ The more he thinks, the more determined he feels.
“Stromhyde,” he calls for his god. A god who has been silent ever since Solon asked if they didn’t know anything at all.
“Yes?”
“That world I see in my dreams, that’s the… foundation world, right? The world we’re leaning on,” he finds it hard to find a word to use for it, it’s a complicated concept.
“Yes, that is the world we hail from.”
“The reason you came to me is because you want to save it, right? Even though you’re all ‘if they die, that’s just how much worth they had,’ you want to save your people, don’t you?”
“…A baton pass of governing deities doesn’t count as rules of nature,” Awkwardly, Stromhyde answers his question in a soft voice.
“I’ll protect it. Your world, the world Clay loves and… everything.”
“…Even if you have to pay a high cost for it?” His tone is somber.
“Whatever it takes, I’ll protect everyone,” he feels happy. ‘This time you didn’t hide anything, right? But from the point I started losing my memories, I figured the stakes were high,’ touching the scar over his eye, he smiles.
Within the apartment building, Ares thinks about it while on her bath tub. She heard something about water making it easier for people to think and get good ideas, so she’s as submerged as she can without being in danger of drowning. ‘Saving the world… saving two worlds, actually. Maybe more, who knows. For a masked rider wannabe, I guess that isn’t a bad mission…’
“Are you really gonna go that far for my sake? I thought you’d start helping the cult the exact moment you heard that reviving the goddess would wipe me out,” Galvados talks to her, but from its tone she can guess it is only half-serious.
“Tempting deal, I won’t deny, too bad the price I pay is losing my world as well.”
“You probably would find a way to survive around that. I mean, nothing so far managed to kill you. Your parents, street thugs, hunger, spirits… the night terrors I inflicted on you… You’re like a cockroach, you just don’t die.”
“…I guess I was the fool for thinking you’d end that without being gross,” she laughs, shaking her head. She actually believed something nice would come out of the devil’s mouth. “But thanks. Is that why you chose me? Because we’re both monsters that won’t die even when killed?”
“Hmm, when you put it that way, I did think you were pretty hot.”
“Don’t say such things while looking at a woman’s naked body,” her retort makes Galvados lose it. It’s the first time it laughs at something she said with actual intent to make it laugh, quite the landmark for the two.
The girl meditates, her fancy brand clothes now gone, a ragged karategi having taken their place. It’s her old uniform, the one she got when she started practicing at age seven. While old and the fabric having lost the white tone already, having become closer to a moldy yellow color now, it always helps her relax.
She is aware she is sheltered, spoiled and quite dumb at times. She admires Sirin and Ares, as they know what it means to fight, to struggle to seize something. As she inherits everything, she doesn’t know what it truly means to desire something, how reaching out your hand to grasp something feels like. But now she thinks it has come to her, a chance to learn that. None of her servants or father can interefere on this, none of them can build countless bridges for her to win this ‘contest.’ She feels stupid for calling it a contest, but that’s just the first word that comes to her. She’ll work hard, she’ll give her best to save the world. That’s the battle that was allowed to her, so she won’t expect to continue being saved.
“Rafil, do you have something like a tome with every spell on the world?” She often sees artifacts like that in games. The entire setting for this sounds something right out of a game or cartoon, she feels it wouldn’t be weird for Rafil to have one of these.
“I am not allowed to give it to anyone else. But I can hand you this,” a topaz appears on Erika’s hands. When it shatters, a book falls on her hands. It is mostly blank, but a certain page has Absolute Zero written on it, another has Battle Cancel and Illusion Mirror. Much to her surprise, there are pages for Sagitta Flame and Poison Shoot as well. “Just make your own. Pay attention, learn how the system works and you’ll be fine. It’s likely there’s a spell for every situation. Magic is the true key to victory.”
“Thanks, Rafil!” She wants to give her a hug, but she stopped having a physical form quite some time ago. ‘Maybe next battle.’
A boy arrives home. A small house, one bedroom, a kitchen and a bathroom. The bedroom has no actual beds, his father and him sleep on mattresses on the floor. The kitchen has an oven and a compact refrigerator. There’s a counter a pair of stools, that’s where they have their meals. His father was sitting on one of these stools, reading the newspaper. They have no living room, no couch, no television, that’s the only place for sitting on the entire house.
“Hey, dad. Guess who I saw today?” Isaac asks. His father lowers the newspaper and only stares at him, waiting for the answer. “That’s right, my little sister.”