The tunnel was dark, and reeked of poor maintenance, among other things that were best not thought about. Water flowed down the middle of the man made underground passage. It was green, and thick sludge, full of...something neither of the girls really wanted to think about as they made their way down the stone path, towards the intersection where the last sighting of the monster they were hunting had occurred.
“This is so not fair!” Noelle complained as she held her nose and hid behind the other female member of her three-man team while Asta brought up the rear, despite his lack of long-range combat ability. “Aren’t the Silver Eagles supposed to be handling security for the capital right now? Why the hell can’t they send Solid and Nebra down here to get God knows what on their shoes?”
Sunset led the way, her current mana configuration set to light magic to provide both a quick offensive option and lighting. Thankfully, the humans in the Clover Kingdom knew enough about science to forbid the use of fire magic or lightning magic in the tunnels underneath their own cities. Unfortunately, that meant only people who had the right kind of magic were allowed to take jobs in such places, or in the case of the girls, forced to.
“So uh...could you run this whole monster thing by me again?” Sunset asked as she extended the light her hands were projecting forward. “How does a monster just appear in the most heavily guarded place on the planet?”
Asta let out a groan when Noelle hoped to keep her mouth closed. “So, when there’s a lot of mana released in an area, it tends to have weird effects on the stuff around it. Mostly, it’s just animals, but every now and then, you get stuff like that mutant plant we fought in the dungeon. Sometimes, even stuff like lava can come to life,” he explained. “But it’s more...uh…”
Sunset looked back at him. “A creature of pure instinct that has no real biological drives, so it has no idea what to do and just roams around, sometimes attacking people?”
Noelle looked back at the boy with a frown. “Wait, how does someone like you know something like that?”
“Hey, Hage is right next to an entire territory of high level mana zones,” Asta said before becoming hesitant. “I...was kind of hoping that something would wander into the village one day so I could fight it and show everyone how awesome I was.”
Resisting the urge to smack her baby brother upside his head, Sunset took the information and processed it. “So, this monster we’re hunting, it’s like...a piece of the sewers brought to life?”
Noelle moaned at the s-word. “It better be,” she grumbled before looking around before glancing down at her boots, probably glad that Vanessa had talked the girl into buying back when they went shopping to fill out Sunset’s wardrobe.
“Well, I doubt it could be water,” Sunset mused. From the sound of things, the material had to be in one place for a good amount of time for it to suck up enough mana to become sentient and mobile. “I suppose...something from the metal grate, or maybe the pipes. What else could possibly-”
A loud moan of a million voices cut Sunset off as they came to another interaction and looked down a dark pit that was a dumping site for several runoff pipes. Then, a pair of glowing yellow eyes lit up the darkness, and a muddy, smelly...thing reached up with a filthy, green hand big enough to hold a person like a doll that grasped onto the edge of the falloff before it pulled itself up.
Well inside the orb of illumination coming from Sunset’s hand, the not-unicorn had an epiphany on just what this monster was that the Black Bulls had been called into deal with when the Silver Eagles were supposed to be patrolling the capital in force. “Oh...it’s a...sewage elemental.”
“WAAAAAAAAHHH! I’LL NEVER BE CLEAN AGAIN!”
Sunset moaned as she listened to Noelle cry about her lot in life as she leaned on the edge of the squad bath while Vanessa worked on scrubbing the poor girl’s back of some imagined toxin. Despite being cleaned off before they left the capital via spatial magic, Noelle had burst into the bathing area with Sunset in tow to bring them both into the hot water.
It had been weeks since the attack on the capital, and things had settled into what had almost become a new normal for her. Barring a mission, Sunset would wake up and either look out at the oddity that was the human universe before adjusting her calculations on the movements of the planets if need be, or poke the magical stone they had found in that nothing village a few more times with less intrusive scans. Then came breakfast, followed by a few hours of Noelle’s mana practice, which was becoming even more hit or miss for some reason Sunset couldn’t figure out. And while Noelle did her thing, Sunset tried her hand at building up her body’s natural endurance and resistance. All of which ended with two or three of the squad’s girls sharing a soak in the bath; with the occasional addition of Charmy.
As for the world at large, repairs had just about been completed to the capital to the point that it was hard to tell if there had ever been any damage at all. Like he had told the knight captains, the Wizard King made a speech about how they would stand together against the threat of The Eye of the Midnight Sun. From the information she gleaned from Yami, Sunset knew that the captive the Wizard King had collected wasn’t giving any information thanks to some kind of protection spell on his mind. What was even more disconcerting was that a few members belonging to a group of mages that maintained some kind of magic barrier over the city had disappeared, but nobody knew if they had been killed or turned traitor.
“So, what’re you two doing for our day off tomorrow?” she asked after looking back to see that Vanessa was done clearing Noelle for the moment.
“The two of us will be going to Nairn,” an odd voice replied.
Sunset looked to her left and let out a little shriek before rolling over until she was sitting on her butt and looking at the speaker when she noticed a bird paddling along in the water. “S-Secre! What’re you doing here?”
The bird gave Sunset a half-lidded look. “Getting cleaned up, of course,” Secre replied before swimming over to the side and flapping her wings several times, despite the moisture in the air making them damp a second later. After looking up at the edge of the bath, she turned to Sunset. “Little help?”
“Uh...sure,” Sunset replied before cupping her hands underneath the water and gently lifting the bird out of the bath and onto the side. Once she was standing on the edge of the bath, Sunset resumed her old position, stretching out her back muscles. “What’re you wanting to go to Nairn for?”
Secre tweeted, which Sunset had long since learned was more like a snort for her. “I lived in that little village long before you showed up, you know. If you and the brats are going to check on Orsi, I might as well tag along.”
Oh yeah, Secre probably watched that old man grow up, just like Asta and Yuno, Sunset realized. The bird spent so much time at the hideout lately, watching over that damned stone, Sunset had nearly forgotten that she had ever done anything else.
“Well, looks like it will just be me and Noelle going to the Blackbrier's reopening then,” Vanessa said before she pulled the girl with the skin that had just been scrubbed raw into a hug.
Noelle looked back at Vanessa. “Blackbrier’s...aren’t they those nobles who were implicated in that thieves guild scandal two years ago? Why would I-wait,” she said before frowning. “They own a big wine business in the capital.”
Not affected by the royal’s frown in the least, Vanessa’s smile turned into a grin. “That’s right! It was burned down during the attack on the capital...despite not being anywhere near the troubled areas,” she muttered in a suspicious tone before cheering up again. “But now, it’s back open and they’ll be having a sale to commemorate it!”
“Okay, one,” Noelle replied as she held up a finger. “The wine I drink has a ten year minimum age limit.” Then she broke out of Vanessa’s embrace to turn around and frown at her. “And two, you want to get drunk.”
“Hey!” Vanessa whined. “I only get drunk when the two of you aren’t around. So if you go with me, then I won’t get plastered.”
Noelle gave the woman a hesitant groan before looking over to Sunset for some reason, then back to Vanessa. “Well...it sounds tempting, but I already promised Sunset I’d go with her to meet Father Orisai.”
“Orsi,” Sunset corrected with a little frown.
Despite the obvious lie, Vanessa apparently accepted it with a sigh. “Guess I’ll be drinking alone then,” she said before a devious smile appeared on her face. “So, meeting Asta’s family. That’s a pretty big step in your relationship, don’t you think?”
Noelle stood up and stiffened. “Eh?”
After flapping her wings until they were more dry, Secre looked up at the naked girl. “I could tell you some embarrassing things to ask the old man about if you want to get a rise out of Asta.”
“Y-You too?” the noble asked as she spun to look at the bird.
Quickly losing track of the conversation, Sunset looked back and forth between the two women. “What’s going on?”
Noelle actually managed to look more embarrassed as she sunk back into the water until it was just above her nose. She might have said something, but all that came up were bubbles.
So, Secre answered the question. “She’s had a thing for Asta since you and him saved her from that water mana explosion the day after joining the Black Bulls.”
As Sunset processed the information, Noelle jumped back to her feet and brought her arms up to press against her breasts, with her hands right under her chin. “H-How in the hell could I like that muscular idiot?” she demanded in a panic. “He’s short, and loud, a-and...and, he’s just weird!”
“You seriously never noticed how she acts around him?” Vanessa asked Sunset while Noelle continued to stammer.
Sunset blinked at the question before thinking back to as many interactions between the two that she could remember. Unless they were on a mission, Noelle did seem to put her between them as much as possible, which...meant absolutely nothing to her. “Uh...I’m a pony, remember?” she asked the three other females in her vicinity. “I don’t do your strange mating habits.”
“M-M-MATING?” Noelle shrieked before spinning around to glare as Sunset as she bent over. “That’s like, thirty-thousand miles from where I am right now!”
After giving Noelle a look and moving to the left a bit so the girl’s butt wasn’t right in her face, Vanessa turned her attention to Sunset. “Huh, you know, I keep forgetting you’re not really human,” she said before leaning back against the wall. “So, how do you guys...do relationships?”
The question made Sunset blink. She was the last former pony that anyone should have been asking about the Equestrian dating scene. Aside from the occasional observation of the royal guard during that one week a month every mare had to suffer through, she hadn’t been interested in anypony. But, it wasn’t like she was completely ignorant on the subject either. Plenty of ponies had tried to get her attention when she was Celestia’s student. “Well, it depends on if it’s the mare chasing the stallion, or the stallion trying to attract the attention of the mare,” she began. “Now, it’s different for every tribe, but unicorns...we’re pretty upfront about things. If a mare sees an unclaimed stallion that she likes, she’ll probably approach him with some question about his cutie mark, they talk a bit, see if his dick drops, and go from there.”
There was no sound in the bath, save for the running water as the two women and bird stared Sunset with disbelief all over their faces.
“Uh...we walk around naked back home, remember?” she asked them.
Despite the late hour, Mimosa made her way down the empty halls of the Golden Dawn’s headquarters. With most of the experienced members off patrolling the border with Diamond, the castle that managed to look more like an expensive manor, rather than some fortification, was eerily quiet come nighttime. So, she didn’t think much about the fact that the only thing she had on was a nightgown as she made her way back from the kitchens, having gotten a snack to take her mind off…
Yuno’s hand gripped her tightly as he rose up into the air right before the trap beneath her could spring. She clung onto him for safety, unsure if she was strong enough to hold onto the man by herself.
...other things.
Mimosa felt her cheeks redden at the memory, but it wasn’t the only one. Since the senior members of the Golden Dawn were off securing the border, the newer knights that were still considered too green for frontline combat, despite the recent promotion she and all the knights that had managed to avoid being cast out of the capital received. So, because of that, Klaus had been taking them on mission after mission, several of which had her being in very close proximity with the broody young man. Like when he had to catch her after Mimosa fell off her broom, or she had to heal some of the more grievous wounds Yuno received on a particularly dangerous mission.
The young woman gulped at the memory of seeing him with his shirt off.
Then, an odd sight drew Mimosa out of her memories, and she blinked as Sylph floated across the hallway in front of her. “Huh?” she asked, drawing the fairy’s attention. “What’re you doing here?”
“Oh, hey Mimosa,” the elemental being replied before looking around. “I’m just exploring. Last time I was here, the Golden Dawn didn’t exist, and Yuno doesn’t take me anywhere he doesn’t need to go, so I thought I should look around the place while he’s unconscious.”
Mimosa blinked as several of her preconceptions about the strange creature were shattered so casually. “Huh. I didn’t think you could be too far away from Yuno,” she said. “Isn’t he your...mana source, or...something?”
For an instant, Sylph got a perturbed look on her face, then sighed before she floated over to land on Mimosa’s shoulder. “Well, I got myself into this so...I can go a certain distance from him. Which is wide enough to cover the base. But beyond that, this doll will start to break up,” she said before looking over to the girl and state of dress. “What’re you doing up so late?”
The question, or rather, the answer to the question had Mimosa lock up before she felt herself become red in the face again. “I, um...I was just…” She looked down at herself and gave a pitiful moan. Nothing actually showed through her green nightgown, but just the thought of someone finding out what had woken her up in the middle of the night made her go stiff as stone.
Frowning when she didn’t get an answer, Sylph sniffed the air, then flew down below Mimosa’s midsection. “Oh! You were masturbating,” she said before flying back up to the human’s embarrassed face.
“I-that...I woke up before the dream could finish!” she told the fairy while doing her best not to think of the subject of her dream. It had been just like their last mission, only Klaus hadn’t been there and neither of them had any clothes on. “C-Come on, you know what it’s like!”
Sylph gave her a blank stare as her long hair flowed in the wind. “Not really,” she said before lifting her dress.
Despite the fact that she raised her hands to try and block the sight, Mimosa got a peek underneath the fairy’s skirt and blinked. “Wait...you don’t have anything down...there,” she mumbled as Sylph dropped her dress back down.
“I told you before, this is a doll,” Sylph told her before floating back to land on the woman’s shoulder. “I’ve never dove into a human female, so I don’t know how to configure the nerves properly.”
Not sure what to say to that, Mimosa kept her silence for a few seconds. “...oh,” she replied before looking back down the hall to where her room was located. “So...um...I should probably be getting back to sleep. It’s our day off tomorrow, but after the capitol got attacked, I’ve been thinking about taking a more offensive stance in my training. Klaus promised to work something out with me.”
Sylph didn’t move from Mimosa’s shoulder as she started to head towards the dorms. The fairy just leaned back and kicked her feet as she looked up at the ceiling for most of the journey. When they finally got to the door, it finally spoke again. “I don’t think your parents would be happy about you wanting to sleep with Yuno.”
“W-What?” Mimosa stuttered before she looked over to the little creature as Sylph jumped up into the air and remained at eye level.
“Your parents,” she repeated before sighing and crossing her arms. “I’ve been observing humanity for thousands of years, Mimosa. I know when a girl has the hots for one of my boys. Usually, I’d throw a fit and maybe pull a few pranks on you over the course of a few months, but that damn unicorn got me talking to you little creatures and...I like you too much to get you all screamy. So, I’m just going to be straight with you here. Your parents are royalty, you’re expected to marry nobility, if you try anything with Yuno, they’ll throw a fit at the least.”
Mimosa blushed with embarrassment. She had thought her emotions had been hidden well enough. “I know,” she said while looking at the ground. “I’m clumsy and nervous, not stupid.” Even though magic was supposed to be everything in Clover, a commoner would always be a commoner, no matter what their accomplishments were.
She sighed and opened the door to her room before walking inside.
“Wait!” Sylph exclaimed before flying in after her. “That’s it? What happened to that stuff like, true love conquers all, or something like that?”
Mimosa looked up at the fairy before she sat down on her bed. “Wait...I’m confused. Aren’t you here to tell me not to get near Yuno? I thought you and him were supposed to be married.”
After rolling her eyes, Sylph let out a sigh. “You little things never listen to me for more than ten seconds,” she grumbled. “Yes! I claimed Yuno and said I’d have him all to myself for five years before letting him have a chance to choose his mate. So until then, he’s mine. But...if I want to...partner him up with someone before then, even if he doesn’t want to...that’s well within the contract too. Like I said, I’ve...grown used to you and Spectacles being around, so...it would make it more convenient for you to stick around after Yuno is allowed to marry.”
“Then what was with that whole parents comment?” Mimosa asked as Sylph’s explanation only made her more confused.
Sylph flew back up into the girl’s face. “Look! I’m seriously considering letting you get together with my Yuno, that that’s the first question you ask?” she demanded.
“Just what kind of freaky magic does this guy have?”
Gauche ignored the comment before finishing off the last of the bandits with a blast of magical energy to the chest. Although he usually left most of the men he tangled with on the ground and dead, because of all that crap in the capital, the Magic Knights were bringing in as many people as they could alive to help hunt down any leads on those Midnight Sun jerks. From what he understood, they tended to pick up losers as members, and bandits that sucked at their jobs so bad that a single magic knight could wipe out their entire encampment fit the bill.
Although, it would be easier to transport the survivors back to the capital if a few of them were dead. At the very least, it would make it so that the guys who were left thought twice about running away.
Gauche looked down at the guy who had talked and stepped on his face after dragging the last of the men over to the growing pile of people too injured to move. “Do you want to die?” he asked.
“N-No!” the man stuttered in haste before Gauche started making one last check of everything he could see.
The bandit camp wasn’t complex or anything, just a bunch of sleeping mats and other things needed to live in the wilderness that were easy enough to move around. As for the location, the hideout was just hidden in an old castle that had more than half fallen apart, with everything placed on the first floor, with the remains of the second floor serving as a roof. They didn’t even have four walls.
If he had to guess, they were probably a bunch of savages from the wild magic region that served as a border between Spade and pretty much every other kingdom in the land. Because of all the wild magic zones and handful of autonomous territories like the Witch’s Forest, nobody bothered to claim the area as theirs, so idiots liked to think they could head up north to live as free men who didn’t have to bend a knee to anybody.
That is, until they found out that living up there was too hard and started trying to raid other kingdoms. Because the Forsaken Realm that bordered the territory they all came from didn’t get much attention from the rest of the squads, bandits usually had the run of the place long enough to set up shop and dig in. Which made locating them that much easier as opposed to a purely nomadic gang.
Since there wasn’t anybody else around, Gauche reached into the satchel he had with him and pulled out the communication box. It was one of the larger models since the Bulls didn’t have the funding to get anything else made, with the exception of Captain Yami’s communication item. He held it in both hands after activating it and had to wait several seconds too many before getting an answer.
The dome on top of the brass box opened up and projected an image of the Black Bulls’s spatial mage. “Finral, I finished the job. They were hiding out at an old fort in the eastern end of the valley. Have headquarters send a wagon for the prisoners.”
Finral’s image let out a yawn. “Do you have any idea what time it is?” he grumbled.
After taking a look up at the stars in the sky, Gauche turned his good eye back down to the womanizer. “Nighttime, obviously.”
“IT’S MIDNIGHT, YOU IDIOT!”
Gauche gasped at the news. Midnight?
Had it really taken him that long to track down the bandits?
Despite Gauche’s protests, Captain Yami had made him take the assignment that took half a week to complete. It had almost caused the mage to miss the most important day in the history of the human race!
“Understood,” Gauche replied before closing the communicator and looking back at the group of robbers. “In honor of this special day, I’m letting you all off the hook.”
“...huh?” the few men that were still conscious asked before one of them managed to use some real words. “Um...special day?”
By the time the man had asked his question, Gauche had taken out his most precious possession. It was a tiny locket with the most important picture in the world resting within it. “That’s right. Today is a special day,” he said before opening the locket. “The day that an angel was born!”
He didn’t have time to wait for someone to come and pick up the prisoners, he needed to rest up, then head out to buy his little sister presents for her birthday.
Although he hated to take a day off from training, especially when it was a day off from his other Black Bull duties besides feeding Yami’s pets, Asta doubted that Sunset would fly him to Nairn if he was covered in sweat. So, he was actually on time for breakfast. Then, when that was all over, he headed out with Sunset to the back entrance of the hideout where all the brooms were kept.
However, the sight of Noelle standing there with a broom both confused and worried him. Despite the fact that he didn’t actually have magic, Asta knew that Noelle on a broom was a bad idea. Brooms were all about controlling your magical power, and Noelle’s had been a bit wonkier than usual as of late.
“Hey Noelle, you going somewhere too?” he asked.
The second he asked the question, Nolle’s face became bright red and she looked down at the ground. “I, uh...thought that...I’d go with you,” she said as her sandals kicked at the ground. Then, she cleared her throat and looked back up at him with a frown. “You got a problem with that?”
Receiving a glare of death from the girl, Asta took a step back while looking at her in disbelief. What did I do? he asked himself in worry before looking over to Sunset for support.
His big sister was dressed in her boots, tight pants and light green blouse outfit, complete with the coat that went over it today, underneath her black robe. Although, there was something missing that made him blink. “Uh, Sunset, you forgot your grimoire….again,” Asta pointed out.
“Yeah,” the girl replied nervously before looking to the back of her body where it usually hung. “I’m thinking, maybe I should just take it back to the tower. I only really grabbed the thing because I was trying to make myself look human. Now that it’s pretty much a non-issue...I just don’t like having to lug a stupid book around with me everywhere.”
Before anything more could be said, Secre landed on Asta’s head. “Well, you should still go get it. A woman your age would look odd without one,” she told the inhuman, getting a little grumble from Sunset before the redhead stormed off with the bird following her to make sure she came back with her book.
With nobody else to talk to, Asta looked back to Noelle. “So, how come you want to come to Nairn?”
Noelle opened her mouth to talk, then froze before her eyes slowly looked around the open area they were standing in. “W-We’re alone,” she mumbled before gripping the broom even tighter.
“Uh...yeah,” Asta said, growing even more confused as Noelle gulped and became red in the face.
Since Noelle was getting all weird again, and it would still be a little while before Sunset got back, Asta found himself in need of something to do. Since he couldn’t really work out, that left… “Oh! Have you seen what my new sword can do?” he asked before calling up his grimoire and opening it up to pull the lighter weapon out.
The royal girl sighed and slumped a bit. “I was there when you got it, remember?”
“Yeah, but that was before Secre told me it’s secret,” he told her before pointing the tip of the blade at the girl. “Send some of your mana into it, it’s cool!”
Nervously, Noelle held out a hand and a blue glow transferred from it to the blade, where there was a small indention. After a few seconds, the rusty black sword glowed a light blue, and the mana could be seen, pooled along the middle of the blade. “Okay, so what does that do?”
To show her, Asta turned around and slashed at the air. As he did, a crescent blade of blue mana few out of his sword to cut down a branch.
“Huh...so you can do a long range attack if someone loans you some mana?” Noelle asked.
Asta put his sword away and turned back to the girl. “Yeah,” he said happily after securing his grimoire.
Noelle stopped talking and got an uncomfortable look on her face. “Hey Asta...do you...know why you don’t have any mana?” she asked as she reached up to rub her arm.
The question made Asta tense. It wasn’t that he hadn’t been expecting the question from someone on the squad. The answers he came up with weren’t very encouraging. “Not really,” he said before sighing as some of the theories as to why that was came to mind. “There’s been a lot of ideas over the past few months, though. First, everyone I knew just thought I just didn’t have much magic without a grimoire, but when I didn’t get one after everyone else did eight months ago...well, I got to thinking a lot about it.”
“But you never actually got examined by a doctor...although, I suppose Sunset would be a better choice to look into it, considering her mystical knowledge,” Noelle said before tapping her chin in thought. “Or maybe that little thing that Yuno has tagging along with him. Sylph probably knows more about magic than even she does.”
Asta raised an eyebrow. “So, you don’t want to hear why I don’t have any mana, now?”
After getting her attention again, Noelle put on that hoity look of hers as she crossed her arms. “I want to know the real reason you don’t have mana. Not whatever stupid idea you’ve come up with,” she told the boy before obviously realizing something. “Wait, if we’re all going to Nairn and going to be meeting Yuno there, then that spirit will be there too. I’ll just ask her!”
Before he could tell her that his ideas were perfectly fine reasons why someone wouldn’t have any mana, Sunset came walking back out with her belt on and grimoire secured behind her butt. “Okay you two, ready to go?”
Noelle looked down at her broom as Sunset took it and got the thing to fly. “Uh, Sunset? I just realized. Can we all even fit on a broom this size?” she asked cautiously before looking at the long stick.
“Don’t worry, I was talking to Charmy last night and told her what we were up to, so she let me borrow the solution,” the girl said before her hand began to glow with a dull golden light. “Now, don’t either of you move. I’ve practiced on food, but that wasn’t a mobile target.”
Both of the unrelated Black Bulls blinked in confusion before a bright light made Asta look away from Sunset’s hands. The next thing he knew he was in an odd forest, standing in front of two towers that were painted hot pink. “What the heck just-”
“HMMM, LOOKS LIKE I MANAGED TO KEEP ANY DEFORMITIES FROM OCCURRING.”
The booming voice made Asta cover his ears before looking up. The sight of Sunset’s face filling the sky made him let out a scream.
“W-WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO TO US?” Noelle screamed, making Asta notice her for the first time since they had been shrunk.
Sunset got on her knees and reached down with one hand to gently scoop them both up before Asta noticed her magic doing something else before she spoke again in a voice that didn’t threaten to make his head explode. “It’s Charmy’s cotton compression binding spell, just without the cotton,” she told them while Noelle clinged to Sunset’s middle finger. “I’d say you’ve got about an hour before the spell wears off. Unless you use your mana to break the binding early. Now...where to put you?”
The woman looked around for a bit before looking down at herself, putting Noelle in an even worse mood. “I swear, if you stuff us in your bra, I’m going to break this stupid spell and land on you the second we take off.”
“I suppose I’ll stand on the broom,” Secre offered. “They can ride in your hood.”
Sunset didn’t even bother looking at the little people before moving to put them behind her head. “Good idea.”
However, Noelle didn’t seem to like the idea all that much, as she looked over to Asta before her face got red again. “N-No, wait! Not a good idea! That jacket has pockets! You can put us in separate aaaahhhh!”
The tumble that followed as Sunset dropped Noelle and Asta into her hood and let them slide down left the two teenagers tangled up together in a mass of limbs as Sunset’s thick hair came back to block out most of the sunlight. The only good side of the whole thing was that he had managed to land on something soft.
“Asta,” Noelle growled. “Get your face out of my chest.”
Or not, he realized before doing his best to untangle himself. “S-Sorry,” the boy apologized before he finally got off of the girl and onto his back. Although, the way the hood was made tended to make the two of them slide back together.
Then, the world lurched, and Asta guessed that they were up in the air as Noelle let out a cry and rolled over on top of him, making the young man tense up. “Uh...a-are you going to...d-do something about this?”
Noelle let out a groan, before she just sighed and laid her body down on top of his. “If I broke the spell, you’d probably end up somewhere even more embarrassing...or fall to your death because neither of us could catch you in time,” she replied before rolling off of Asta again. But, because of how Sunset’s hood was, they were still right next to each other. “Just...don’t think this means I like you or anything...stupid!”
“Oh-kay,” Asta slowly replied.
Several seconds passed without any talking, making Asta realize just how close he was to the young woman, even though they weren’t on top of each other. Then, Noelle started to shiver a little and Asta realized that the robe of Sunset’s hood was made more to keep out the rain than the wind. It didn’t help that her clothes weren’t made for flying at high altitudes.
“Hey Noelle, do you...want my jacket?” he asked after a few seconds.
Noelle moaned before she rolled over on top of the warm body that was Asta and wrapped her arms around him before resting her head on his muscular chest. “This is just because your stupid sister didn’t put us somewhere warmer, got it?”
“Uh, N-Noelle?” Asta stuttered.
Noelle groaned again and brought her legs up to wrap them around his. “D-Don’t...just...tell me about this guy we’re going to see!” the girl told the boy.
Although she knew being in the Common Realm would have made the village of Nairn was much larger than Hage pretty much by default, Sunset wasn’t ready for just how massive the place was, or how developed. Easily ten times the size of Hage, Nairn was a fully developed settlement, complete with paved streets throughout the town and buildings that topped two floors. At the center of the town was a large city square, with a decorative fountain in the center of that. Although, this being a Clover Kingdom settlement that had some prosperous people in it meant that the church was the largest building in the area by a wide margin. There were also enough people in town to support a thriving economy, as was evidenced by the several shops that dotted the area.
Still, it was a long cry from the capital mountain, with the town being close to the northernmost point in the Common Realm. Most of the places Sunset saw looked very generalized in what they sold and family owned. As for the inns, the rooms they had for rent didn’t look like they had a capacity for more than five people each.
If I had to guess, this is probably a mining town, Sunset told herself as she looked off to the mountains that were within easy walking distance and a complete lack of large farms around the collection of buildings for nearly a mile. Despite it being the tail end of Summer, the nearby range was tall enough to have snow on its peeks and plenty of easy paths up to the top.
After making a quick circuit of the town on her broom and failing to see Yuno, or even detect a source of mana anywhere near his power level, Sunset set herself down and hopped off her broom while Secre flew over to the nearby fountain to perch on the edge. “Okay you two, we’re here-” was all Sunset managed to say before she felt a powerful force hit her from behind and press down on her face when they hit the ground.
Judging by the softness and pink coloring that filled her eyes… “Noelle? Please get your butt off of my face,” the redhead asked as the pavement stopped her jaw from opening properly.
Noelle slowly picked herself up and Sunset got an eyeful of her sandals on top of the incoming lecture. “Well...you should have just let me ride on the broom instead of stuffing me in your-wait, where’s Asta?” she asked.
As Sunset rolled over to pick herself up, Noelle went rigid and a disturbed look crossed her face as the girl’s top started to shift around. A shaky hand carefully reached forward and made its way down into the pink top that Noelle usually had completely covered up by her white clothes and knight robe. Not a few seconds later, she pulled Asta out of her clothes and glared at him while her fingers wrapped around his body. “Now you die.”
“C-Come on, you’re the one that broke the spell early!”
“THAT DOESN’T MEAN YOU GET TO CRAWL INTO MY BRA!” she yelled at him after bringing the boy up to her face.
Sunset cautiously reached up and touched Noelle’s wrist. “Hey, careful. I don’t know if he has a normal person’s durability or something more sized for something that small,” she told the other girl.
With Asta’s wellbeing actually at stake, Noelle became tense again and the girl’s grip loosened to the point that Asta had to grab on before he fell through. “So...how much time is left on the spell,” she asked before looking back to the boy with a little frown. “With as small as you are, maybe the rest of your time can be spent cleaning my toenails.”
The question got Sunset to thinking. “Um...I’m not really sure,” she said while trying to think about how much time had passed since she left the Black Bulls HQ. But, there was always the possibility that her calculations could have been a bit off when trying to determine how much mana would be required to hold the spell. “Eh, I’ll just have to undo it a bit early.”
After taking a step back, Sunset held out her hand while Noelle went to holding Asta by the back of his jacket with her finger and thumb. Only, once she had called up the mana needed to undo the binding, Sunset realized something. “Wait, I never actually asked Charmy how to undo the magic.”
“SAY WHAT?”
Noelle winced before bringing the boy back up to her eyes. “Uh...that doesn’t mean he’s stuck like this, does it?”
“OH COME ON! WHAT HAPPENED TO THERE BEING A TIME LIMIT?”
The squeaky voice of her little brother made Sunset need to cover her mouth to keep from giggling. Despite the situation, which she was pretty sure would end once the mana for the spell ran out, she couldn’t help but be a little mischievous. “Well, I don’t see what the big deal is, I mean, you were always shorter than everyone else, right? It’s not like much has changed.”
“Undo the...wait.”
As Asta called up the little grimoire he had with him to draw out his sword, Noelle frowned over at the redhead. “That’s not funny Sunset!” she yelled. “Now, hurry up and break the spell before-” Asta smacked himself with his own sword.
Not a moment later Noelle was laying with her back on the ground while Asta sat on top of her, right between her chest and face. “Hey, touching my sword also undoes magic that’s been cast on-”
“GET YOUR CROTCH OUT OF MY FACE!” Noelle yelled before a large explosion of water knocked Asta into the nearby fountain while his sword clanged to the ground.
For some reason Yuno couldn’t ascertain, Sylph spent most of the trip to Nairn in a bad mood. Normally, he would have just ignored the pixie, but this time her bad mood just didn’t make sense. After hearing Mimosa wasn’t coming with them and spending the day with Klaus was when she went passive aggressive.
So, in the interest of not having an angry wind goddess literally blow someone away whenever she decided to snap, Yuno looked over to Sylph. “Something wrong?”
“Wrong? Nothing’s wrong!” she said. “All I did was graciously allow Mimosa to tag along on our date, and she refused!”
Yuno let out a little groan as the cape of his custom-made imitation Golden Dawn uniform flapped around in the wind behind him. “I’m just going to check on Father Orsi,” he corrected her. How Sylph decided to turn that into a date, Yuno didn’t want to know.
“Exactly!” she exclaimed.
Still not following the spirit’s logic, Yuno decided to drop the conversation when they reached the outer edge of what he could only call a city. Nairn wasn’t anywhere near the size of the capital, but Hage could have fit inside the buildings that made it ten times over.
Although they didn’t have any plans on where to meet, finding Sunset was easy enough thanks to his mana sense. So Yuno descended and landed on the ground to see the redhead using water magic to pull a good amount of moisture out of Asta’s clothes while the Silva Black Bull girl he had met previously was standing off to the side with her arms crossed.
With Sunset busy messing with their little brother, Yuno walked up to the girl. “What’re you doing here?”
“See! Asta brought his girlfriend to meet your dad!” Sylph exclaimed as she pointed at Noelle.
The labeling of the royal made Noelle start sputtering. “W-W-W-WHAT?” she yelled before getting into the fairy’s face, her voice drastically low. “Asta’s not my boyfriend! I...we just...that...how in the hell could I love a short, stupid, loudmouth like him?”
Despite not wanting to get involved, Yuno found himself opening his mouth in defense of his brother. “I wouldn’t call Asta stupid, he just doesn’t have a filter.”
Noelle pressed her lips together and groaned as she crossed her arms. “Okay, I’ll give you a point there.”
“So, what are you doing here?” Yuno asked after the girl’s anger decreased a bit.
The question made Noelle’s cheeks become flushed. “I...um…emotional support?” she asked with nervous grin before blinking, which was soon followed by a widening grin. “Yep, I need to support Sunny. Because there’s something she’s been needing to tell you for awhile now, and uh...friends back their girls up when they need to do stuff like that?”
Not following the young woman at all, Yuno looked back up to the other members of his family when they finally walked up to him.
“Hey Yuno,” Asta greeted with a raised hand.
“Yuno!” Sunset greeted him much more enthusiastically before taking a step towards the boy like she was going to hug him, only to grab the young man’s cape and begin examining his uniform. “Hmm, not bad. Looks a little hot for Summer, and kind of stuff. Can you breathe okay with the collar like that?”
Yuno reached up to stop her from fussing with his clothes. “They’re fine,” he assured her. Then, before Sunset could start getting insistent about poking and prodding him to no end, Yuno turned towards the church.
Secre flew over and landed on Asta’s head. “So, you finally got the uniform too, huh?” she asked out of nowhere.
The fact that the bird was talking in a public place made Yuno blink. Sylph, on the other hand, had a more...understandable reaction. “Holy crap! It’s a human that’s been transformed into a bird and marked with Weg!”
“Oh right, we haven’t actually...crap,” the bird cursed as the Wind Spirt continued to point at her.
Noelle looked over to the anti-bird. “Wait a minute, YOU’RE A PERSON?” the royal screamed. “I-I thought you were just a cute little bird that Sunset gave the ability to talk!”
Before anyone else could say anything, Sylph flew up to Secre and went in a circle, examining the fowl. “Huh...how can you talk, though?” she mumbled. “You shouldn’t be able to-” She glanced over to Sunset, then back to Secre. “Hmmm, did you eat anything infused with her magic?”
“You mean, like fruit from a tree she grew? A few times, yes,” Secre confessed.
Sylph nodded. “That must have caused it...unless there’s been an interdimensional disturbance lately that I’m not aware of. Either way, exposure to extradimensional energies probably caused the curse to loosen up a bit. Although, considering your intelligence, it might be a mutation caused by the harmonic nature of Sunset’s magic. Oh, if it’s the second one, I wonder what would happen if you were exposed to other extradimensional energies.”
“Wait...I’m confused, I thought you could always talk!” Asta said. “Didn’t you say something about not wanting the Wizard King to know you could-OW!”
After pecking him in the head once, Secre settled back down and groaned. “No, I said that I didn’t want him to know I could talk, not when I regained the ability too,” she told them. “Besides, idiot, I can still write.”
Sunset snorted. “That’s debatable.”
“My point is,” Secre went on. “If I had wanted to get a message to someone, it would have been easy. Now come on, we need to find Father Orsi.”
Seeing the bird had a point, most of the group began to move.
With the exception of Noelle, who was still standing in the street, stunned. “Wait! That’s not-I mean, how? It...you’re a person?” she asked the little bird on Asta’s head.
“And what’s Weg?” Sunset mumbled.
Finding the older priest that had been in charge of the church back in Hage didn’t take long. Because the church was so large, there was a good deal of people working as members of the staff that did everything from cleaning the pews, to helping take care of the sick and injured that came to them for healing. The town had its own nunnery, although where the church stopped and the women’s only club started, Sunset wasn’t too clear on. The only thing she did manage to learn for certain from the old nun with the scar across her left eye named Theresa was that it was the nuns who managed most of the children.
“It’s a little hectic, since we’re celebrating a child’s birthday today, you understand,” she told the group before they walked into a small room with a carpet big enough to cover everything and a fireplace that was empty.
Sitting next to the window, surrounded by several children that couldn’t have been over ten on all sides there wasn’t a wall, the aging priest that had run the orphanage Sunset had stayed at over two years after arriving in Clover sat on a stool, reading a book to the kids. “And so, this evil tribe of monsters that wanted to take all the magic in the world for themselves summoned up a demon to do their bidding,” he read in a hushed voice, putting a good amount of tension in the atmosphere as he did. “But, the demon was too strong for the monster to control, and they were consumed by the very creature they had hoped to use to steal all the magic. But then, the demon turned his attention to the lands of the newly founded Clover Kingdom. He blocked the light out from the sun, and moved to destroy all of our grandparents, when a hero appeared. This man managed to protect all the people before destroying the demon. And because of that, he became known as the First Wizard King.”
As Asta’s eyes shined from hearing the tail, Sunset saw that Secre looked about ready to throw up, while Sunset herself just wondered how the story could have changed so much from the one that Secre said actually happened. Yuno seemed pretty indifferent about the whole thing, while Sylph rolled her eyes.
Come to think of it, I wonder how much Sylph knows about that event, Sunset thought to herself.
As the children finished cheering for the Wizard King’s victory, Father Orsi looked up and blinked. “Oh my,” he said as he noticed the three teenagers standing at the entrance to the room.
Yuno cleared his throat. “Sorry for taking so long to get here, Father. There was a mixup with the mail at the Golden Dawn’s headquarters.”
“And the Black Bulls don’t really do regular mail,” Sunset told him, remembering what happened to the mail bag when Luck poked it with a stick.
As the man stood up and let out a gasp, the old Theresa looked down at the boys and girls. “Alright children, Father Orsi has had some old friends show up. Now, we’ve almost got lunch ready for you all, so how about everyone come with me and give them some privacy.”
“YUNO!” the older man cried as he almost ran over the children in his rush to lunge at the boy with outstretched arms, which Yuno promptly dodged to let the man run into the wall behind him. Something that didn’t seem to affect him much, as Orsi turned right around and gave a tug on Yuno’s robe. “Look at you, a magic knight! And a member of the Golden Dawn, no less.”
A second later, Asta was proudly standing behind the old man, who saw him after he moved into place. “And check me out, old man. Notice anything different?”
Orsi took one look at Asta, then moved his attention over to Sunset for a moment, then back to Asta. “Honestly Asta, you shouldn’t be imitating a magic knight. Now, give Sunset back her spare robe. Still, it is good to see you again. I’ve asked around and we might be able to find a position for you here.”
“THIS IS MY ROBE!” Asta yelled at the man. “AND WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED TO ALL THAT FAITH IN ME YOU HAD WHEN WE LEFT HAGE?”
Feeling a tug on her dress, Sunset looked down to find one of the older girls trying to get her attention. For some reason, the child in the purple dress, with the short blonde hair and purple eyes tickled something at the edge of her memory, but Sunset didn’t understand why. Still, she smiled down at the girl until crouching to get on level with her. “Yes, sweetie? Do you need help with something?”
The girl gasped happily. “You are the unicorn girl my brother showed me!”
Sunset blinked in confusion at the bizarre statement that just came out of nowhere. “Say what?”
“Oh crap, it’s the criminal!”
“Somebody get the Magic Knights!”
“But...he is a magic knight!”
Gauche ignored the comments coming from the people all around him as he headed towards his destination. What did those idiots know about anything?
Despite his current circumstances, Gauche Adali had once been a noble. Which, he still was, he supposed. He didn’t really know if his title had been stripped from him or not. But since his little sister Marie was more noble than any other noble in the realm, it must have meant that his title was still there.
Unfortunately, just because he had a title to his name didn’t mean he had money. When he had been a child, and Marie even younger and possibly cuter than what she was today, his parents had been ambushed by bandits and died in an accident that followed. The convoluted story was so full of holes that Gauche had seen it for the lie that it was even before he had his grimoire. What stunk even more was how his parents had left everything to another noble who specialized in legal work.
So, kicked out of his house and forced to survive on his own, with his baby sister to take care of, Gauche turned to stealing food and beating up other people for money. Despite the fact that he was poor, he was still a noble, which meant his magical power was rather high. Eventually though, while Gauche was beating the money out of the son of the local lord, mages in the magic defense corps arrived to arrest him.
Gauche went to prison and Marie went to live in an orphanage in Nairn.
Then, after he had broken out of prison in an attempt to reunite with Marie and go on the run together, he had the misfortune of running into the newly minted Captain of the Black Bulls squad. Yami had completely overwhelmed him, but after hearing a bit of what was going on in the man’s life, he offered Gauche a position in the Black Bulls with a stipulated pardon.
“Mr Gauche, sir!” a man to his left called out, breaking Gauche from his reminiscing to make him look, the Black Bull turned his head to his left and winked a few times before groaning at his own stupidity. He had almost missed the Nairn toy store!
“Right this way, sir!” said the owner of the little shop that was packed between two much larger buildings and nearly ninety-percent windows as he invited the man inside. “We have several items fit for only the cutest of little girls, all ready for your perusal.”
Gauche hurried towards the shop. “Show me immediately,” he told the man in the green apron with the dark hair and stubble as he walked inside the store.
The interior of the store didn’t seem like they had put much money into building it. In fact, the back wall looked like it was just the wall of the alley, and the shop had been put up as a rush job that only had a single shelf of toys in the center of the store, with two more built into the sides. Still, it had toys for little girls, so Gauche decided to take a look.
“Check out all of these cute and fluffy stuffed animals!” the storekeep said as he threw his arms wide in the direction of the shelf on the left. “Any one of them would be perfect for a little girl. They all just love stuffed animals.”
While what the man said might have been true, as of late, Marie had become very specific in her desires for what she wanted. So, Gauche leaned in to take a look at the fake creatures to see if he could find something to suit her tastes. “Hmmm,” he said while inspecting the merchandise.
Now that he had a close look at the things, they seemed...rather poorly made. The eyes on the large duck, giraffe, and something that might have been a hamster wearing glasses while crying looked awfully derpy. Most of the other animals had either beady little black eyes, or poorly made faces. However, the most egregious offense of all was that there was only a giraffe, hamnster, bunny, penguin, cat, duck, some kind of marshmallow thing, and a few others that defied description.
Gauche could already see what would happen if he brought such things to Marie…
Tears filled the little angel’s eyes as she sifted through the pile and came up with nothing before turning back to her big brother. “This isn’t what I asked for big brother,” she said before starting to cry.
The mental scene made Gache round on the shopkeep in a fury. “What kind of crap are you trying to sell me here?” he demanded. “NONE OF THIS IS WORTHY OF MARIE’S ATTENTION!”
After jumping away in fear, the man backtracked to a large table near the back of the store that had a gigantic playhouse sitting on it. “W-Well, how about this, then? I’m sure that your little sister will play with this for hours, imaging herself living in such an opulent mansion. With her big brother, of course,” he added with a smile.
Gauche gasped at the image it formed in his mind…
Marie smiled as she waved at her big brother, standing on a field of flowers with the yellow doll-house in the background, the size of a normal one. However, her smile soon faded as she looked around, then turned back to her big brother. “But...where are the unicorns supposed to sleep, big brother?” she asked before turning around to look at the house. “And doesn’t this remind you of where we used to live when we were allowed to be together? Just looking at it makes me sad.”
“UNACCEPTABLE!” Gauche shouted before a mirror appeared in front of him that he focused his magic into. A second later, a beam of purple light shot out of the mirror, destroying the offensive thing.
Then, after turning towards the cowering sales associate, Gauche stomped over to the man, a frown darkening his features. “Last chance. Show me something my Marie will adore, or I burn you shop down for violation of Code Six-Sixty-Six. Wasting the time of a magic knight.”
Gulping heavily, the man quickly got up to show Gauche a costume on a display mannequin. It was a little pink dress with wings on the back and a halo accessory. The sight of it made him gasp at the idea of his baby sister actually looking like an angel.
However…
Marie looked back at the fake wings sitting behind her, then over to her big brother. “How am I supposed to ride a unicorn if these things keep catching the wind?” she asked before gasping in horror. “Do you know how many little girls die from falling off horses, big brother? You don’t want me to die, do you?”
The horrible thought made Gauche take a step back. He frowned at the offensive thing, all of the offensive things all over the store. “This place is an affront to everything Marie is! A trap just waiting for her to enter and be consumed by,” he said before gathering his magic power. “AND IT MUST BE DESTROYED!”
The sales clerk screamed in terror before Gauche began unleashing his wrath of the little shop of horrors until all of the offending material was reduced to ash. Then, making his way out of the collapsing ruins, he turned towards the largest building in Nairn and approached the church with nothing but money in his satchel.
It was all Sunset’s fault, of course.
After Marie had seen the horse-girl through the magic mirror Gauche had given her so she could talk to her big brother, she had insisted on seeing the creature and asking it questions. Ever since then, Marie had been obsessed with unicorns.
That, Gauche could understand. Even forgive. Marie was a little girl, and little girls lived for cute and cuddly things. Which was what Sunset was, as long as she wasn’t talking.
However, on the one day that he needed that damn horse to stick around long enough for Gauche to drag her to his little sister’s birthday party...she had up and left for parts unknown with Asta and that royal brat.
And now, he could practically hear Marie going…
“Hahaha, weeee! Go faster Sunset, faster!” she cried out in joy between the clip clops of hooves coming from down the alley next to the church.
Gauche blinked as he looked around the corner in time to see a four-foot creature that remotely resembled an equine with a horn on its head skid to a stop a few in front of him. “Okay, Marie I think that’s-oh, Gauche, glad to see you finally showed up,” the little talking horse-creature said in a voice that was much too sweet in comparison to her usual one before looking back at the girl. “See Marie? Now, don’t you have something to tell your big brother?”
Hesitantly, the girl got down off the unicorn before running over to Gauche to give him a hug. “Thank you for getting Sunse to come to my birthday big brother! This was the bestest birthday present ever!” she said happily. “I love you big brother!”
Sunset gave a little giggle before smiling in a way that looked in no way cheerful or kind. “Yes,” she said through her teeth before her smile turned to something more cheerful. “Now, I bet the two of you want to spend some time together before the day ends, so I’ll just check in with the church, okay?”
Unfortunately, Gauche found himself unable to contain his happiness and a second after Sunset turned to leave, he felt the pressure erupt from his bloody nose. The loss of blood flow to his brain caused him to fall backwards and quickly lose consciousness.
“AH DANG IT!”
Watching the scene in front of him with disbelief from the stone back porch the church’s rear entrance had, Yuno didn’t bother to hide his emotions as the little amber unicorn ran around with the laughing girl riding on her back, using a saddle Sunset had just made out of thin air. “So...that’s what Sunset...really looks like?” he asked.
“Crazy, right?” Asta replied as the girls went out of view. “When we found out she wasn’t human, I always imagined Sunset as this giant, fire breathing dragon. Not...little Miss cute horse.”
Noelle rolled her eyes as she stood off to the side. “My mermaid idea was much better,” she grumbled.
Well...this doesn’t bode well for my dreams about her, Yuno told himself. He could already see himself having nightmares about waking up next to a woman with the head of a horse.
Not that Sunset had the head of a horse. It looked rather...adorable, but not something that he would want to…
“Hello, baby brother,” the tiny equine asked in a seductive voice as she approached him with a pair of bedroom eyes on her face. Then, she turned around and raised her tail to reveal-Yuno cleared his throat, ending the unwanted fantasy before it got too...weird.
“So uh...does she go around like this all the time, or…” Yuno left the rest of his question unasked.
Asta laughed. “Nah. But, you know Sunset and kids,” the other boy told him.
The comment made Yuno chuckle a little. Despite her bad attitude, Sunset adored small children and always had a hard time saying no to Hollo and Aruru. Even Rebecca had become the other redhead’s permanent sleeping partner back when they had all been alive.
Thinking of the dead members of his family made Yuno look back to the old woman they had met on arriving in the church as she approached them through the rear exit of the church and into its back yard. “By the way, Father Orsi had another child with him when he came here, didn’t he? How is Nash?”
“Yes...that one,” the old woman said before sighing. “I’m afraid that there hasn’t been any improvement since he came here two months ago. I saw children like him during the war, grown men even, sometimes. They see or do horrors that they can’t deal with to the point that their minds just stop working correctly. Sometimes they recover, and sometimes...they don’t.”
Yuno didn’t like the long pause, but didn’t have a chance to ask her about it before Sunset came trotting back into view, carrying an unconscious magic knight in her mana and the girl with blonde hair on her back.
“Sister Theresa, big brother did it again!” Marie called out from the pony’s back.
The old woman let out a long sigh. “I know that you all have to get back to work in the morning. But please, indulge an old woman and have dinner with me in private. Stay the night, even. I know a shortcut to get the four of you back to your headquarters in the morning without any trouble.”
Although it was probably rude to ask, Yuno looked back to Sylph as she ‘slept’ in the hood of his robe to avoid the children trying to play with her like she was some kind of doll before turning his attention back to the nun. “What for?”
“Lilly wrote to me about the three of you,” she said as Sunset passed her, making the unicorn look up to the older woman before setting Gauche down so that someone else could come and get him as well as lead Marie away.
Then the old woman let out a little laugh. “Well, told me about two of you. I’m afraid that I didn’t get the chance to speak with her about the girl who could use multiple types of magic, face to face,” she went on as Sunset resumed her human form. “But, it would be a blessing to know the three children that she raised.”
After that, none of them could tell the woman no.
Despite the late hour, Nozel flew into the entrance of the camp that Fuegoleon had moved most of his knights to to operate better in the northern regions of the kingdom and let the mercury construct beneath him dissolve before putting his grimoire back into it’s pack. Although, calling it a camp was a bit of a misnomer, as the field base was actually set up inside of a cave, deep within one of the tallest mountains Clover had.
With brooms and spatial magic to move them around, the accessibility of the location didn’t matter much to magic knights.
Tents were still set up to help keep the men warm at night, although most of the cooking was done with fire magic and whatever else they could use to keep the cave from filing with smoke. The spatial jamming spell in the center of camp got a frown from Nozel, what with it being the reason he had to fly all the way out to the middle of nowhere by himself instead of just jumping through a portal.
After letting the sentries get a good look at him, Nozel moved to the back of the cave, where the biggest tent was waiting for him, the Vermillion crest emblazoned above the entrance. He nodded to the extra guards standing watch before going inside to see Fuegoleon sitting at a desk, looking through a stack of papers with a disgruntled expression on his face.
The interior of the tent might as well have been the office of a well-to-do manor house, for all the luxury it had. A dark red carpet covered the ground, while velted seats sat in front of a fire that burned from nothing but the Crimson Captain’s mana as it floated in the air. Even the cot in the corner of the tent looked a few steps above what people were to expect when on campaign.
“I see they finally put you where you belong,” Nozel said as he moved to take a seat in front of the fire, secretly thankful for the warmth it provided his feet. Sandals were not a good thing to wear in the cold.
Fuegoleon looked up from the old reports and snorted. “Says the delivery boy,” he said before looking up at Nozel. “We expected you hours ago. What happened?”
The question made Nozel sigh. “With the Silver Eagles having to take care of mundane security, it’s had a detrimental effect that has begun to show in some squad members...acting out,” he said before looking around the room. “Not that it looks like I should have been in such a hurry to get here. Do you have the latest batch of reports for the Wizard King?”
“Considering I’m supposed to look through months of old reports to find an incident that might have been tied to a terrorist group we didn’t even know existed a few weeks ago?” he asked before pausing. “No.”
Nozel frowned. “You expect me to stay overnight in one of your tents, then?” he asked. The insult to his sensibilities made the man want to shred Fuegoleon’s tent and throw the lion out into the cold.
The question got a snort from the other man. “There’s a town not far from here. You could always buy a room at the inn, if that suits your fancy,” Fuegoleon said before yawning. After he closed his mouth, the redhead got to his feet. “This warm air is making me a bit sleepy. I need to breathe something fresh.”
Despite not being offered to accompany him, Nozel rose up out of the chair and followed the redhead to the cave’s exit. The cold air assaulted his body, but Nozel managed to ward if off with a good deal of mana control. Still, it annoyed him to no end. “Sending a captain to collect reports. The Wizard King is being far too cautious.”
“Spatial magic can be intercepted as well as any courier,” Fuegoleon replied. “And with the leak still unplugged, we must be more cautious than ever. This isn’t like a war with an enemy we can see.”
Nozel frowned. “You’re not speaking to your little brother,” he said before looking around. “Who I notice is absent from your camp, along with your sister. Did she not find the atmosphere to her liking?”
“Mereoleona said she had some thing to teach Leo before dragging him off somewhere,” Fuegoleon replied before turning his head to the east. “By the way, if you really do mean to rent a room at an inn. You had best hurry, it looks like a storm is moving in.”
After following the man’s eyes, Nozel spotted a town in the distance, just on the edge of his vision. “A bit early in the year for rain.”
Fuegoleon gave a tiny shrug. “The mountains in this region play tricks with the weather.”
“Just hurry up and collect your reports,” Nozel told him before heading back inside. If he was lucky, he would be back home in time to get a little sleep before dawn.
Secre groaned as she cursed her luck, her body aching from where it had been sleeping for...possibly a few hours. While the boy’s hadn’t been much interested in doing more than saying hello to Orsi, she had wanted to check and see if he was getting along alright. Which meant following him from a distance as best she could. And since a bird going into areas with low ceilings, like living quarters, was just begging to be hit by a broom, she had to settle for checking on the old man through his window.
Which was how she got locked outside the church and separated from her group.
Not that she hadn’t spent hundreds of nights out sleeping under the stars. She was a bird, after all.
But, it seemed her body had gotten used to sleeping in the little beds that Yuno and Sunset had made for her at their respective headquarters, because her joints were aching. Not only that, the air felt oddly cold the point where she thought it could start snowing.
Then, when Secre saw the first bit of snow fall from the sky, she knew something was very wrong. It was the end of Summer. Even if snow was common in a region so close to the mountains, it didn’t do more that fall maybe once a year in the middle of Winter!
Within seconds, the ground was absolutely covered by the snow and when a flake touched her, she felt a fleeting sensation, as if something was trying to pull her along somewhere. There was magic in the snow, a compulsion spell. Weak, so weak it couldn’t even affect her. So then what would be the point of-Secre’s thoughts were cut off when she heard a door open in the town below and looked to see a small child walk out into the streets.
Another door creaked open shortly thereafter, and another boy of perhaps ten came walking out of the small building. Followed by another, and another. Then, the doors to the church opened, and over a dozen of the orphans walked out into the streets to begin heading North, joining a train of children that was coming out from everywhere in the town.
Okay...this is bad, she told herself before looking around.
Finding the spell’s caster wasn’t hard. He was standing on a broom, hovering over the center of town with an open grimoire. He was a boy, under the age of twenty and very scrawny, dressed in a skintight white suit. For a moment, Secre thought to fly up and go after his feet, or maybe an eye. If she hit him fast and hard enough, he might have been knocked from his broom and…
Or, the mage powerful enough to affect a while town with his spell might kill me with ease, the bird told herself before looking back to the open door of the church and took off towards it. However, when she got inside the large cathedral, then there came the problem of actually finding the people that actually knew she could talk, not to mention figuring out how to open their doors.
I should really start asking Sunset if she could turn me back into a human sometime soon, Secre told herself as she began to look around the oversized church.