Chapter 5: Makoto Takatsuki Trains with Lucy
“Morning, Makoto. Did you wait long?”
“I just got here.”
“Great, then let’s get going.”
When Lucy and I met up this morning, the conversation we had almost made us sound like a couple. Maybe it would’ve felt different if our choice of locale had been anywhere other than the guild entrance.
Still, I found myself looking at Lucy’s face again: Her large eyes, red and sharp. Her slim, smooth nose. Her fair skin and that fiery, elegant hair. She was an exceptionally beautiful girl. And right now, she was in a party with me.
Maybe this fantasy world stuff wasn’t so bad after all! There was just one thing I was curious about...
“Aren’t you cold in that?”
Sure, it was spring now, but the mornings were still a bit chilly. I was wearing a jacket over a long-sleeved shirt, but Lucy was dressed as lightly as ever. All she had on was a top that looked like a camisole and a short skirt. She was technically wearing a cloak too, but I wouldn’t say it provided much in the way of thermal protection.
“I get warm easily, so don’t worry about it.”
“Huh...”
Lucy didn’t sound like it was a big deal to her, but as a growing teenage boy, I had a hard time knowing where to look. To be honest, any style of fashion that showed off a girl’s shoulders or thighs got me hot and bo—
Ahem. I casually turned my Calm Mind skill up to 80%, allowing me to tune out all of those sensual urges. It was then easier to act like I didn’t care. I changed the subject and we made our way to the guild’s bulletin board.
“Any good quests?”
“Hmm, nothing’s jumping out at me.”
I quickly skimmed the board and saw a lot of high-level quests like “Hunt the Griffon,” “Hunt the Minotaur in the Great Labyrinth,” and “Collect Scales of the Fire Dragon.” That stuff was way too daunting for us. The only others were beginner quests like “Gather Herbs” and “Collect Horned Rabbit Meat.”
“Ah, if it isn’t Makoto and Lucy,” said Mary as she clocked in. “Looking for your first quest as a new party?”
“Good morning, Mary,” I said. “Seen anything good?”
“Hmm... Something good for a party of two mages? That’ll be a tough one...” Mary looked like she was having trouble coming up with something. Oh well.
“Guess we’ll go goblin hunting,” I suggested. “It’s a safe way to farm a bit of cash.”
“You’re the expert there,” said Lucy.
“Anyway, Mary, we’ll be heading out, so can you handle the paperwork?”
“Sure, take care. Though I’m sure you’ll be fine, Makoto.”
“What about me?” asked Lucy.
“Just try to listen to what Makoto tells you. And no bickering, okay?”
“What? Where’s this coming from?” Lucy seemed to resent that. Had she forgotten about the infighting that broke up her last party? It was only natural that people would worry, given Lucy’s track record.
We got our paperwork in order with Mary and left the guild. Once we’d walked a ways outside, Lucy asked me something.
“So, Mary’s got a thing for you, eh?”
“Huh?” What in the world was this girl talking about? “There’s no way.”
“You sure? She seems to act pretty nice to you. And only you.”
“That’s just because I’m a rookie.” And probably out of concern for my abysmally low stats. I remembered the shocked look on her face when I’d initially shown her my Soul Book and she’d seen those pitiful stats.
Lucy didn’t seem to accept that excuse.
“Mary doesn’t coddle other adventurers once they hit bronze rank. But I hear talk that she’s been helping you this whole time.”
“Huh? Really?” Hold on, wait—I didn’t know anything about these rumors. “I-It couldn’t be...”
“She hangs out with you every day for dinner, doesn’t she? Before you came around, Mary only drank at the guild once every other day.”
“O-Oh... You don’t say...”
Mary had a thing for me? Mary, the hot older woman? I gulped as I recalled the sight of her large chest. Would she possibly...take the lead for a virgin like me?
No, stop! I must’ve been feeling the pressure after hearing that Fujiyan managed to lose his v-card. Getting this thirsty wasn’t my style.
“Stop being ridiculous,” I deflected. “We’ve got work to do!”
“Hey, you’re dodging the question!”
“Whatever...” I attempted to change the subject back to our quest. “Just make sure that you at least focus on the goblins.”
“Fine, I get it. So, where are we headed today?”
“The same place I always hunt goblins: the outskirts of the Forest of Fiends.”
“Wait, isn’t that kinda far?” Lucy asked. “It’s like a half day’s walk just to get there.”
“Don’t worry, trust me.”
“You sure?” Lucy seemed concerned. Well, she’d understand once she got there for herself. We greeted the guards at the western gate, left the town, entered the forest right outside, and began walking along the beaten path through the trees.
“Come to think of it,” I began, bringing up something I’d been curious about for a while, “Lucy, are you an elf?”
I had an elf as my first party member. Was this something I could brag to Fujiyan about?
“Wh-Why, yes!” Lucy stammered. “I do hail from a village of elves after all.”
“Ah, I had a feeling. Guess there are elves around with red hair and red eyes.”
Lucy looked away when I said that.
“Well, I...have mixed blood. I’m not a pure elf...”
“Huh?”
Ah, guess I’d stepped on a landmine there. Maybe that mixed heritage had caused her trouble growing up, like being ostracized from the elven community or something. If so, then I might have pried a bit too deep...
“Well, my grandpa’s the chief of an elven village, so anyone who tried to get in my face about it...I just told them that I could get ’em kicked out.”
Guess she turned out all right, then.
“But, Makoto,” she continued, “are you worried about me not being a pure elf?”
As she looked at me, I saw her expression of concern. She sure had a wide range of emotions.
“I only ask because you’re the first elf I’ve met in this world.”
“Ah, right, so that’s all.” Lucy looked relieved.
Hmm. This whole “conversing with your party” stuff was pretty hard. Knowing when to drop a line of questioning was difficult for the socially deficient.
After a bit of walking through the forest, we turned to face a creek that flowed by the side of the road. This would do fine.
“Hey, where are we going? You know that’s a river, er, creek, right?”
“Don’t worry—this is the way,” I assured her.
I casually strolled atop the creek’s surface. This was my Water Magic: Walk On Water skill.
“No incantation either, like it’s nothing,” remarked the impressed Lucy.
“Here, this way,” I said, inviting her along.
“I can’t use Walk On Water... Wait, what would you do even if I could?”
“Quit worrying. Just stick out your hand.” But instead of waiting for an answer, I grabbed the sleeve of her cloak and pulled her onto the water’s surface.
“Eek!”
“Don’t let go now,” I warned. “The magic’ll stop working if you do.”
“Hey, it’s scary when you yank people all of a sudden!”
My bad, I guess. Even if a person can’t cast the magic themselves, they can still receive the effect of a support spell like Walk On Water as long as a part of their body touches the magic user. If they let go, the effects will vanish. While I could’ve just cast it on both of us, this way saved more mana.
“I didn’t know the water’s surface could be so fluffy. It feels weird.”
“Hang on tight. We’ll be speeding up.”
“Uh, what does that mean?”
Water Magic: Flow.
“Whaaaaaa?!” Lucy raised her voice in shock. We were floating forward on top of the water. “Are you moving only the water around our feet?”
Heh, she was surprised.
“So, what is this?!”
“You can think of it as an arranged version of Water Magic: Flow,” I explained. “I call it Water Magic: Moving Water Walkway.” It was inspired by the moving walkways you’d see in train stations and airports. There probably wasn’t anyone else in this world who’d use magic like this, making it a Makoto original spell.
“That’s a weird name...” said Lucy.
“Hey, it works. Anyway, we’re going faster.”
“Whoa, wait! I’m not mentally prepa—”
I rapidly accelerated. This was the best part.
“Eeeeeek!” Lucy’s screams echoed throughout the forest.
“Heeeeey, keep your voice down!” I cautioned.
“How do you expect me to do that?!”
We blew through the forest in one swift go.
“Let me rest for a second... I think I’m a little woozy...” Lucy stumbled around and clung on to a nearby tree.
“Sorry, I might have gone a little too fast.” Maybe I went a bit overboard with that practical joke. Guess I’d learned my lesson.
“No, it’s fine. I’m just amazed that we got here so quickly. So this is how you’ve been traveling, huh?”
“Sure have. Fast, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” said Lucy before changing the subject. “So, we’re on the outskirts of the Forest of Fiends?”
“We are, which is why I told you to keep your voice down. We’re surrounded by goblins.”
“We’re what?!” Lucy panicked and tugged on the sleeves of her cloak. “How many are there?”
“About forty-four. The usual.”
“That many?! That’s a lot!”
“Well, that’s just how this area is,” I remarked. “The closest goblin is still pretty far off, though. And given how thick the fog is today, odds are that we haven’t been noticed. We should be fine.”
“Y-You’re used to this.”
“I do come here every day.”
“Yeah, that’s the Goblin Cleaner for you.”
Lucy, please don’t call me that nickname again. It’s embarrassing.
“Anyway,” I said, “let’s just get to hunting whatever is close by.” Clearing out the nearest monsters would give Lucy some breathing room to recite her spell incantations.
◇ Lucy’s Perspective ◇
“All right, just wait right here,” said Makoto before he disappeared into the fog. He was probably using his Stealth skill to conceal his footsteps and presence. I couldn’t tell where he’d gone at all.
“Whew... The Forest of Fiends, huh?” Now that I was alone, I suddenly felt uneasy.
Abruptly, something caught me by surprise.
I heard a sound from far away. As an elf, I had powerful ears, but the noise was faint enough that it could’ve just been my imagination.
Even so... Wh-Wh-What was that?! I waited in shivers, but Makoto returned before long.
“I defeated one.”
“Okay, but I still can’t see,” I retorted. My voice came out a bit poutier than I’d intended.
Just then, I heard a rustle. Was a small goblin watching us?! Oh no, it was going to call its allies!
“Makoto!” I whispered forcefully. Lone goblins were weak monsters, but they could be overpowering if they attacked as a group.
“Don’t worry,” Makoto responded. His voice was as calm as could be. He flicked his wrist ever so slightly toward the goblin, and then all of a sudden, something white smothered the monster’s mouth and eyes. It attempted to hack out a scream, but no sound came out.
Was Makoto...controlling the mist?
The goblin was baffled by its inability to speak. Makoto silently approached and stabbed it in the heart with a dagger. Despite how cleanly the blade was thrust into the goblin’s flesh, there was no ensuing splash of blood. And when Makoto withdrew the sword, it was sparkling clean. The goblin then fell flat, but there was no noise when it hit the ground. Was the sound being silenced with Makoto’s Stealth skill?
So he’s using water magic to contort the mist and also to prevent any of the monster’s blood from spilling, while simultaneously having a skill active the whole time? All without a single incantation? There is just no way...
This guy was doing superhuman stuff like it was second nature.
“See?” he said. As though it were easy as pie! Except it totally wasn’t! Was this what mages were capable of when they trained their mastery? I was in awe.
Makoto’s style felt less like a hunt and more like an assassination.
“I’m gonna go hunt some more.” With that, Makoto once again disappeared into the fog.
“Here’re today’s results.”
Makoto had hunted around ten goblins. His standard tactic was to first approach the monster from behind using Stealth, and then use his dagger to dispatch it in silence. If he was unlucky and a goblin noticed him, he instantly covered its eyes and mouth with Water Magic: Fog.
Not once had he called for me, his partner.
“There’s a lot of fog around here,” Makoto explained, “so I can use all the water magic I want.”
“Yeah, the Forest of Fiends is covered in fog year-round.”
Everyone within the guild had wondered why a rookie like Makoto would choose to hunt in a place as dangerous as the Forest of Fiends, but I guess I’d found the answer.
“It’s because I don’t have a lot of mana. I can only rely on gimmicky spells like these.”
“I don’t think they’re gimmicky...” If anything, they were impressive. His magic might have been at an apprentice’s level, but he made up for that disparity with hard work and ingenuity.
“Anyway, Lucy, can you show me your magic next time?”
Oh boy, here we go.
“V-Very well.”
“If I remember correctly, you said that your magic incantations take time to cast.”
“Yeah...” I confirmed. “At least three minutes per spell.”
“That’s, uh, pretty long.”
Oh no, did he give up on me already?
“Well, no big deal. I defeated all the goblins nearby, so the rest probably won’t notice your magic in time to retaliate.”
“You thought that far ahead?” I asked.
“I mean, we came all this way... And I wanna see what king rank magic looks like.”
Makoto had sparkles in his eyes. I guess it was like the look of a really hopeful kid? Wait, did Makoto always have this side to him? I’d always clocked him as being a bit more subdued.
“Well, I’ll get prepared,” I said as I set up my staff.
I couldn’t afford to screw this up. After I had my public blowup and left Jean and Emily’s party, there wasn’t a single person remaining in the Macallan Adventurer’s Guild who’d still adventure with me.
I began my incantation, though it was for nothing more than a low rank fireball.
“Wow,” Makoto murmured. Phew, that managed to surprise him. The ball of flame grew ever larger. Eventually, a fireball as large as a house was floating above my head.
“Uh... Don’t you think that’s a little big?” Makoto looked slightly nervous, but I had to focus on my magic and couldn’t answer him.
My hands were shaking. It was all I could do to keep this raging inferno molded into a spherical form.
“Fire Magic: Fireball!”
I unleashed the gigantic ball of flames forward. Bang! It crashed into the ground and rocked the soil beneath our feet with a deep rumble.
“Gyaah!” “Gweeergh!” “Gyaaaaaaaargh!”
I heard a number of goblins cry out with their dying breaths. A flaming pillar roared skyward as though it intended to scorch the heavens. With my body drained of mana, I felt a bit tired. But man, that was a relief!
“Phew... Whatcha think, Makoto?”
“Amazing. The Great Forest’s trees are supposed to be strong against fire, but they’re being burnt to cinders.”
Makoto sounded impressed. It’d been a while since I’d used a fireball at a whole ten percent of my strength. And damn did it feel nice! But uh, I think those flames might’ve been going a little harder than I expected. Was it just me?
The evil trees of the Forest of Fiends were notoriously difficult to burn. And yet, here they were, lighting up like matchsticks.
Um, uh? Wait, I might’ve overdone it.
And so, we had a forest fire on our hands.
◇ Makoto Takatsuki’s Perspective ◇
“Chef, get me a soda cocktail.”
“Same here. Make it extra hard.”
Lucy and I wearily took our seats at the same old skewer stand.
“Comin’ right up. Don’t see you orderin’ drinks too often, Makoto.”
“Well, I’m exhausted. I wanna get drunk.”
“Somethin’ happen?” asked the chef.
Well, the magic Lucy had unleashed started a wildfire in the Great Forest, so we had to scramble all over to extinguish it. A job that mostly fell to me, by the way. Lucy had just run around in a panic the whole time. Also, the flames had eventually drawn out a lot of tough-looking monsters from the Forest of Fiends, which definitely hadn’t helped our nerves.
We’d returned to the adventurer’s guild to find pandemonium—everyone was talking about how they’d seen smoke over the Forest of Fiends. They were worried that a powerful new monster had shown up, since those notoriously hard-to-burn trees were on fire.
Mary and Lucas had really laid into us over the incident, and they’d banned Lucy from using fire magic in the Great Forest ever again. We’d just been let go from an hour-long lecture, finally.
The chef chuckled. “Ha ha, sounds like a mess.”
“Well, we’re not laughing. Coordinating as a party’s tougher than I expected. Isn’t that right, Lucy?”
Lucy didn’t respond. When I looked to my side, I saw her slumped over in gloom. But then, she cautiously opened her mouth.
“Hey, Makoto...are you mad?”
“Huh? Mad? At what?”
“Well, you got wrapped up in this all because of my magic...” she said, trailing off.
“I don’t really mind.”
“You don’t want to disband the party?”
“On our first day?” I told her that it was unthinkable, but apparently, Lucy had numerous first-hand experiences of being kicked out of parties on the first day. I didn’t know people could be that short-tempered.
“Well, I think you’ll be fine if you just lower your magic’s firepower.”
“...That was my lowest,” she responded.
“Um?”
“I can’t contain its strength any more than that.”
So, that ridiculously huge fireball was the minimum for her.
“That wasn’t even a Mega Fireball,” she explained. “It was just Fireball.”
A line from a manga I’d read long ago crossed my mind. This was only ten percent of her power? Was Lucy actually the Great Demon Lord? No, probably not.
“Well, maybe you could cast spells other than fire magic?” I said, suggesting a different direction.
“I-I can’t use anything else...”
“Come again?”
Lucy showed me her Soul Book. Unique Skills: Fire Magic (King Rank), High Wizard, and Elementaler.
“I’ve heard that the High Wizard skill lets you cast magic from the water, fire, wood, and ground elements,” I pointed out.
“I’ve only done fire magic training...”
Fire magic was the gold standard for offensive magic. People typically learned that branch of magic first unless they could only use one element like me. After all, fire magic was strong and worked well on just about any type of monster. However, not being able to use anything but fire magic felt like such a waste. She was making her poor little High Wizard skill cry.
“What’s this Elementaler skill, then?” I asked.
“It’s a skill that a lot of dwarves and elves have. The elementals are important to our religion, after all.”
“So, you can’t use elemental magic?”
Lucy stayed silent and looked away... Guess I didn’t need to press further. Oh well, I kinda figured she couldn’t.
“Elemental magic is hard, you know,” she explained. “Sure, you use the elementals’ mana instead of relying on your own, but controlling it takes a lot of work.”
“Ah, that’s gotta be a tall order when you can’t even control the spells you make with your own mana.”
“Guh! T-True...”
It was a shame. And she had such powerful skills too. Heck, I wish she could’ve lent me one, though saying that out loud wouldn’t accomplish much.
“Well, how about we focus on training your fire magic?”
“Yeah...” We clinked our glasses and nibbled on our skewers. Lucy gave a slight nod before sluggishly dropping her head to the desk. She might have drunk too much. She did ask for an extra hard cocktail, after all.
Our early days of coordinating as a party were ones of trial and error. Lucy had a few constants: her magic incantations took a long time, but the resulting spells were deadly if they struck the target. As such, our core strategy was to use me as a decoy to lure enemies out while Lucy provided the finishing blow.
However, in practice, we came across one more constant: Lucy’s magic was incredibly unstable. Sometimes, the ball of flames would fall apart; other times, the ball would fly off in a random direction; still other times, it would just explode and nearly burn us both to a crisp.
“So what about other magic?” you might ask. Well, we tried it, but her complete lack of practice showed in the astronomic length of time it took to complete an incantation for anything other than fire magic.
“It’s not happening. I can’t do it.”
I’d been playing cat and mouse with a giant rat in the southern forest for around ten minutes, but Lucy’s ground magic just wasn’t activating. At that point, I gave up any hopes for its combat potential.
“Water Magic: Ice Arrow.”
The giant rat’s feet slipped and it tumbled with a flop. Then I finished it off by hurling my dagger at it. The blade sliced into the rat and ended its life.
My magic wasn’t strong enough to defeat even a lone rat, so every time I fought, I had to go through this process: stop monsters in their tracks first, and then finish them with my dagger. It was a hassle, I swear.
But then, I felt a gaze on me. What did Lucy want?
“Makoto, I know you skip incantations because of your high magic mastery, but I think your spells activate too quickly even for that.” Lucy was clearly discontent as she stared me down.
“Well, anything seems fast compared to magic that doesn’t come out after ten minutes of incantations.”
“Guh...” Lucy instantly teared up.
I wasn’t bullying you! Please don’t cry!
“So,” I asked, “has your magic mastery gone up?”
“By one point in a whole week...”
“So, your mastery should be at 11 now, right?” The required mastery level for incantationless casting was 50, so she still had a long way to go. “By the way, I’m at 91 now. I went up by a level.”
“Now that’s just messed up! I heard that mastery rarely ever increases once you hit 50! How is your mastery rising at the same pace as mine?!”
Beats me. Maybe because we’d been training together the whole week? Or maybe it was because I always trained from just after waking up in the morning until I fell asleep at night?
I sighed as I skinned the giant rat. As always, my dagger sliced through things like butter. It felt satisfying to use. I owed the goddess my thanks.
“That dagger sure cuts well,” Lucy perceptively pointed out. “Are you using some kind of skill on it?”
“This is a magic weapon.”
“Hmm. So you use a dagger despite being a mage?”
“Is it that big of a deal?”
I preferred to keep the origin of this weapon a secret—the fact that I’d gotten it from a goddess, that is. Even Fujiyan warned me that I should “indeed refrain from telling a soul.” Though it’s not as if I was dying to let people know that I was a believer in a wicked deity.
“Let’s call it a day. I’m gonna go out to hunt some goblins, so let’s meet up at the usual place.” I couldn’t make enough money to eat if I gave up my farming to train, so I’d been keeping up my goblin hunting. Still, the training meant that I had less time to hunt, which cut into my earnings. Yeah, this was kind of a pickle, huh?
“Okay... I’ll be practicing magic back in Macallan...” Lucy dejectedly dragged her feet toward the town.
Hmm, she looked really down. What did people do to cheer girls up at times like these? Maybe I should ask someone with the Waifu Game Player skill. Someone like Fujiyan.
Same day, that evening.
“Good work today, Lucy,” I said.
“Yeah, same to you, Makoto. Sorry I’ve been making you do all the hunting.”
“I told you, don’t worry about it. We’re a party, so we’re supposed to help each other.”
As usual, we were at the stall area in the guild’s entrance. But unlike usual, all the seats at the skewer stand were full, so we ate dinner at a different store for a change of scenery. Tonight’s entrée was a chicken and vegetable sandwich that Lucy said she loved, with a side of soup. I also ordered what I thought was a juice, but for some reason, the drink I actually received was alcoholic. The old lady running the store said she gave me “a little something extra” and shot me a wink to boot, but I absolutely didn’t need any extras.
“For cryin’ out loud, why doesn’t anything work?!” Lucy turned her second glass bottoms-up and furiously scratched her head. She was taking her failure rough, but I guess it was better than getting gloomy about it.
“Well, it’s a marathon, not a sprint,” I said as I nibbled on my sandwich and levitated the ice in my glass for fun. I then popped one of the floating ice cubes into my mouth. Ah, cold.
“Are you showing off your incantationless magic to twist the knife or something?” Lucy asked bitterly.
“I’m just training.”
“I swear, the casting speed for your magic is almost godlike. I’ve never met anyone who could pop out spells that quickly, even in the elven village.”
“Maybe, but my magic’s power is almost nothing. That’s something I was kind of hoping you could balance out...”
Lucy didn’t respond. Instead, she made a bizarre whining sound before gulping loudly to chug the rest of her drink. Guess she was a bit gloomy after all.
“Heyyy, Makotooo...”
“What is it?” I asked.
“Refill, ma’am.” Another drink was given to Lucy.
“Hey,” I said, “don’t cut yourself off. Finish your sentence.”
She must’ve been drunk. Lucy seemed to like alcohol, but she couldn’t hold it well. Once she’d gotten halfway through her fourth glass, she continued speaking.
“My goal is to be like my mom,” she admitted.
Hm? This was the first I’d heard of this.
“Well now, what does your mother do?”
“She’s a mage. A super-strong mage.”
“Oh, neat,” I said. “Is she a famous mage?”
“Uh... Yeah.”
“What’s her name? Is it someone I’d know?”
Lucy stayed silent. Did she not want to say her name?
She answered me with a question instead. “Makoto, do you have a goal?”
A goal, huh? Well, I did technically have one. It was a bit embarrassing, but I figured it’d be weirder to hide things from your party.
“Clearing the Seafloor Temple,” I answered honestly. Lucy, however, blanked out the moment she heard those words.
“Uh... You mean the absolute hardest dungeon? The as-yet-unreached dungeon?”
“Yep. I guess I’d say that’s my goal for starters.” The goddess was in the Seafloor Temple, after all.
“F-For starters?! You’re nuts!” exclaimed Lucy. “They call that place the Last Dungeon!”
“O-Oh... I, uh, didn’t know that.” C’mon, Goddess, you had to pick the final level?
“Why there of all places? You could pick any other unreached dungeon! Celestial Tower is said to grant eternal life to those who complete it, and Hell’s Gate is said to have priceless treasures and powerful weapons sleeping within. But nobody knows if the Seafloor Dungeon even has anything worth the risk!”
Wow, this place was getting trashed. Hey, Goddess? Might wanna work on your dungeon’s PR.
Oh, shut up! I can’t interact with the human world, so cut me some slack!
A vision of the goddess pouting appeared in the back of my mind.
“Well, the Seafloor Temple is underwater. I figured that I might be able to make it there if I raised my water magic mastery enough.”
Incidentally, this conversation doubled as information gathering for my final destination. If adventurers only avoided this dungeon because it was underwater, that’d be pretty convenient for me. I had no problem with the stuff.
“Maybe... But the Seafloor Temple is in the Central Sea. There are monsters all throughout the ocean surrounding the dungeon too, like water elementals who twist the tides, water dragons, sea monsters, and even the Ruler of the Ocean, Leviathan. A mere human would be swallowed whole.”
“Well, I could always use Stealth to get around any monsters.”
“You’re not sneaking around the elementals. They’re everywhere, and they love their mischief.”
“Hmm, didn’t know that.” I gulped down the last of my berry-flavored cocktail. Damn, it was a little too sweet for me. “So, what are these elementals?”
“Fire, water, wind, and ground. Those are the four elements that make up our world. Or, so go the teachings of the Old Deities.”
“Hm?” I just heard a phrase that caught my attention. “The Old Deities?”
“Uh, they’re considered wicked gods by you humans, I think. Do you know the Titans?”
I did. I was a believer of one, in fact.
“The Old Deities got along well with the elementals,” Lucy continued in an uninterested tone, “but the ruling gods nowadays hate ’em. That’s why elemental magic isn’t widely practiced.”
“Guess I gotta do something about those elementals if I wanna make it to the Seafloor Temple, then.”
“Well, that’s just what they say. I don’t know what it’s really like. They are folk tales. But really though, an apprentice mage aiming for the Seafloor Temple? You’ve sure got a death wish.”
“Hey, might as well shoot for the stars.”
“Y-Yeah! You gotta shoot for the stars!” Lucy vigorously agreed all of a sudden. “Let’s hit the grindstone again tomorrow, Makoto!”
“Uh, yeah, sure.”
We spent the rest of our meal eating, drinking, and chatting. Just like we normally did.
The only unusual moment was when someone actually came to talk to a party of two troublemaker mages.
“Hey, Makoto. Got a minute?”
We turned to see the two people from Lucy’s previous party—Jean and Emily.
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