Chapter 9: Chapter IX
(A/N: As promised.)
I didn’t mind that Waver had given
an errand to run before even my first day under him ended, on the contrary, I was quite pleased with the developnt. It helped
cope with the fact that he was helping
on his own di for no particular reason other than his desire to see my ’talents’ bear fruit.
It was an odd feeling, to say the very least.
I wasn’t very used to receiving support like this, and was used to scrounging up whatever I could with my own two hands, more so as William than Henry. It made
feel terribly inadequate whenever I really thought about it. The man had arbitrarily decided to help
and my family. It didn’t matter that he was probably in a position to do so. I decided I owed him one imdiately. No matter how much he tried to fra it that way, our transaction was not in any way fair or equal.
I just hoped that I’d get a proper chance.
"Don’t worry about it!" A slap hit my back, nearly knocking
off balance and I didn’t even need to turn to know who it was. "That’s just how the Prof is, trust . Better to just try to be a good student! At least... that’s what Le Chien tells ? Don’t forget to have fun though. That’s important too!"
"Flat, you should be in a psych ward. Doctors would kill to study the whole spectrum all in one person."
"Agreed," Luviagelita agreed, huffing. "It grates on my nerves to know that soone like this is one of the most talented people in our generation."
"He’d definitely enter a van with a stranger for so candy."
"Of course I would. That sounds like a fun adventure." He cocked his head, poking his chin in his over-the-top way before shrugging and putting both hands behind his head.
That was when the realisation hit . This sonuvabitch really was a shonen protagonist, maybe from one of the fate routes I wasn’t acquainted with. He was even getting weird stares from the passers-by on the street. Passers-by that were most certainly magi considering our proximity to the Clock Tower.
It explained how he was copyi-...no, recreating my edited spells the mont he saw them in use. It wasn’t a copy, because his process was wholly different than mine, but that only just made
look like a bum... I could finely manipulate mana too, at least my own, so that lessened the blow sowhat.
"Well then, you should be glad to have ." I reassured Luviagelita.
She tossed her hair, and jabbed a thumb Flat’s way, "That’s quite presumptuous for soone who can use only variations of one spell so far. Do you think I’m as stupid as he is?"
"Yes, what gave it away? I learnt that in one day," I deadpanned. "if it’s such a casual thing, why haven’t you done it already? To, you know, put
in my place? Should’ve been easy for soone so great. Point and laugh, Flat."
"Because she can’t. Haha!" Flat pointed and laughed.
"Good do-... Good boy."
I would have patted his head, but he wasn’t an ani girl, doing that to a dude would just be plain weird.
"Stop manipulating the simpleton to your dastardly ans."
"So you’re saying I should leave the manipulation to the real creatures of the night, like a banshee such as yourself? Point taken."
I agreed as we rounded the corner onto an oddly well-built street. Even the road was made with paved stone, and the poor lamppost Luviagelita ended up punching when I suddenly ducked my head seed a tad too vintage for this place. The crowd of students from earlier thinned to bare stragglers, hurrying to their destinations.
"Perkele! Kuse muuntajaan!"
So, while the rich lady coddled her red fingers and screeched curses in Finnish of all languages, I turned to the laughing Flat. "Sniff it out, boy. You sll sothing weird?"
Unlike , he didn’t even need the eyes to sniff out mana, he noticed it by instinct and manipulated his own into complex sequences as easy as breathing, as an instinct. My talents were a bit more on the technical side. I need to know the core components first and then I could decipher spells as programs written in a certain code.
I’d long realised that the best way to utilise my eyes to their complete potential was to actually pay attention to my studies... While deciphering visuals in real-ti would be exponentially faster, Waver had told
it was downright impossible to witness the higher rung spellcasting unless it was so sort of special case.
"If you wanted soone to be a dog, we could have asked Le Chien."
"Guy threw a chair at
before even saying hello. He’ll be too busy cleaning out that stink bomb I drenched his clothes with."
Svin Glascheit would rue the day he made an enemy of .
"How did yo-"
"We live in the sa building now."
Flat fisted his palm in realisation. "You shoulda asked
to join! Aren’t we friends?"
"No."
"Boo. Hal’s a anie. Luvia Luvia, help ."
...Where were all these people getting off thinking they could use my mum’s nickna for ?
"There’s the cafe," Luviagelita interrupted us, gesturing to a not-so-auspicious cafe built into the first floor of an apartnt building.
Nothing really looked out of place at first glance. Two large panes of clear glass provided a view into a rustic establishnt with only a scarce few custors scattered about oddly on the dark wooden tables. An older, casually-dressed man stood behind the furnished counter, wiping a ceramic cup with a navy cloth.
When we entered, a woman with dirty blonde hair done up in a ponytail greeted us with a smile but I could spot the dark circles under her eyes even without lifting my aviators. She managed a weak smile and bowed her head.
"Welco to-"
I tuned her out, leaving Luviagelita to steer the conversation, and this ti, actually did lift my aviators, if only briefly. I imdiately caught faint traces of mana, those sa wisps and flickering trails that were left as the residue of so spell being cast. They felt distinctly... electric, in nature this ti around, and even seed to buzz.
"The professor did say he would take a look but... are you sure you children are up for it?"
"I’m 18," I narrowed my eyes at the rude woman.
Luviagelita gently cocked her head, a hand on her hip, "The very sa. I’m here to make sure this fool isn’t a wasted investnt. We co in place of Lord El-lloi II."
"Uh..." The waitress seed stump for a mont, "Of- Of course. You can look around, if you want. Please tell us if you find sothing of issue, the electricity bill will run us into the ground."
...Had Waver sent
as so kind of magical handyman?
Flat raised a hand with a big smile. "I’ll have so coffee in the anti! All this investigation stuff is very boring. Co get
if you find sothing, kay~?"
Contrary to what one would expect, I let out a relieved sigh as he bolted to the counter. It would leave
a precious few monts of peace to actually do sothing productive. The mont she gave
leave, I floated over to the back and entered the storage where I found my answer.
I was right, there was so spell working... specifically on the main electric panel on the far end of the room. Doing a once-over to make sure no one was in the room, I pocketed the Mystic Eye Killers and gave my eyes free reign.
In real-ti, the spell was parsed, down to its atomic structure, the make was discerned, and the process was disassembled. I then assigned its various base components nas and burned them to mory for later use, probably not in this particular order.
The spell had been siphoning electricity from the main circuit to sothing past a door just beside it. That explained the ’electricity bill’ and breaking it was as simple as inserting a chaos agent into the written spell.
A programr’s worst nightmare, a single wrong character could cause the whole program to malfunction... or just straight up crash. Inserting one was easy for an outsider, as simple as pressing a key, finding what was inserted on the other hand... was not so straightforward.
I entered two dozen in under a second.
With a snap of my fingers, the spell crumbled in on itself.
"As I’ve said before, those eyes really are quite the sight." Luviagelita said with a smile, crossing her arms under her... breasts. Was she trying to get
to look? Was that it? She did that way too much. Like damn, I knew I was a hot catch cause of Yvette but, damn.
"If you’re trying to get in my pants, it’s working. I’m going to complain to my mom."
That provoked a slight blush... but I was willing to bet it was more out of embarrassnt than anything. She averted her gaze. "...I was rely stating a fact."
I hid my beautiful body with my hands, "Stop violating
with those hungry eyes, you degenerate."
Unfortunately, instead of getting embarrassed more, she just laughed at .
"So, what did you find?"
"You’d think the one with years of experience would be the one to ’find sothing’, I guess your education’s about as aningful as Flat’s character developnt."
"Very funny. Now, out with it."
Boo.
"It’s so kind of siphoning spell, I think. Sounds like sothing I’d do honestly but I didn’t expect for magi to commit electricity theft... Again, the humans could just add a hidden wire instead of running complex codes for it." I scratched the back of my head, eying the odd wooden door beside us.
The hinges were rusty, and the design was undeniably vintage. The door actually seed about the oldest thing in the whole establishnt.
"...I didn’t expect you to actua-... Ugh, another Flat." She rubbed her forehead.
I feel her reaction would have been a lot more pronounced if Flat’s shonen protagonist ass wasn’t part of my class. This sucked. I needed my ego fed more. No amount of glazing would ever be enough.
"Let’s go find our electricity thief. Any bets this one’s also ind-?"
I was cut off by a loud crash... from beyond the door.
-
Hope you enjoyed.
Drop a comnt or so PS... preferably both. 200 for bonus chap? I know... I’m being cheeky.
Join the discord if you wanna yap or beta read, or both;
sdiscord/invite/MSJgg9DE2M
Reviews
All reviews (0)