Chapter 6 – Introduction to the Arcane

The ride through Campus Drive had been mostly a quiet one. Particularly due to the discomfort both parties and a rather amused familiar were experiencing. Adam had been distracted for the most part due to Shou fidgeting around in her seat for the entire commute, tugging at her skirt self-consciously. ‘She’s acting really girly...’ Adam had mused over the spectacle.

“Look, I know I said you look good, and all… But could you stop shifting around in your seat so much? It’s distracting.” Adam nagged, trying to ease the awkward tension between themselves. Shousuke had jumped from the revelation, trying to cast away her self-humiliation from her observable behavior. ‘While it’s partly due to the skirt that I still haven’t adapted to even though I said I like the versatility of them... There’s another thing I want to get off my mind.’ Shousuke thought to herself anxiously.

“My bad… I was just thinking about some things that had happened during our drive back to our dorm. Something that might put my identity in jeopardy.” Shousuke had refuted, easing up as Adam decided to lend her an ear. “Remember how Puck had said that my soul and Emilia had merged into one? Ever since I had turned into Emilia, I had felt like the small pieces that makes me my own person had started to drift away from themselves. It’s as if I’m becoming someone else entirely and I’m scared of what might become of me.” Both Puck and Adam had straighten up from the disclosure, uneasiness filling the atmosphere. ‘This is serious...’ They both mutually thought.

“I feel like Emilia’s identity might have started to mesh with mine. Some of the clothes I had picked out weren’t from self preference. Instead, I had felt like I was drawn to it by some exterior and mystical force, like a voice telling me in my head what is right and what is not. It’s like my psyche is at constant conflict with itself. I had theorized that eventually, once both conflicting consciousness coincide, I might become a different person entirely. It feels like that is starting to take precedent, as her emotions and memories have started to take a toll on me.” Shousuke had observed, indistinctive memories flooding her mind, yet she couldn’t make out who or what they were.

“Emilia...” Puck had uttered, conflicted by the existential crisis his daughter was currently undergoing.

“But that’s not all… When I saw Subaru die all those horrible deaths and suffer so much for my alter ego, a part of me felt like it had died. I’ve never gone through something like this and I don’t know what to do...” Shousuke resonated, tears rolling down her eyes as she sulked in her seat. Adam had continued to keep his eyes on the road despite his friend’s issues. This didn’t sit right with him, despite only knowing him for a little while. Yet, they had grown close as friends and as roommates in an unremarkable amount of time. After a long pause, Adam had decided to speak up.

“Shou, if you want my opinion, I think you should live out life however you like. Even if Emilia’s memories and emotions did fundamentally fuse with yours, I think that knowing and hearing both sides of the aisle would overall make you a better person. Those little voices in your head, listen to them and make the judgment call. If you think you’re taking things too far, take a step back and look in the mirror. It all comes down to how you want to perceive yourself as a person.” Adam had added, throwing his two cents into the mix. Shousuke had brighten up at his speech, a smile formed on her face.

“It might not be the wisest speech I’ve ever heard, but it did make me feel significantly better. Thank you Adam.” Shousuke conveyed with a radiant smile on her face, unbeknownst that Adam’s brow had twitched in response. Eventually Shousuke had left out a sigh of relief as she took in a fresh breath of air out of the open window, absorbing the scenery as they sped along the road.

They had made their way across Sand Hill Road to Wunderlich County Park beneath the luminescence of the starry night and moon. The streets themselves were nearly vacant near the woodland preserves during this time yet it had drawn people from all walks of life to do midnight expeditions, street races, and drug trade. Shousuke and Adam had settled for a different matter, they needed to find a good place for target practice. Adam had known just the spot for it and away from society. They had parked alongside a hidden drive encompassing the main park, a hidden trail residing across the way from it. They had tread along the trail as Adam held a flashlight in one hand, a duffle bag in the other. Shousuke had tailed behind him, as she was conversing with Puck about the scenery around her. Puck’s interest was mostly piqued by the overabundance of mana in the air floating around in the air. Shousuke had turned to him, as Adam toted the bag with resilience.

“So what’s the bag for? Are we camping out here tonight or what?” Shousuke’s head tilted with curiosity and impassivity. Adam had turned towards her, fishing out for something within the bag, pulling it out. ‘A tripod? Why does he look like he’s struggling to carry the bag around though?’

“I brought ourselves something along the lines of target practice. You see, I have all sorts of shit sitting out in the back of the truck, yet none of it being put to good use. I was probably going to give Eddy’s a visit anyways, since I need to stock up on underbarrel railings for my airsoft collection.” Adam disclosed, throwing the tripod back into the bag. ‘So much for self-gratification, I was hoping to put these to use myself.’

“I see, pretty convenient considering the circumstances of what we’re doing.” She had turned to Puck, who was apathetic that the man was taking away his precious time with her. Something had caught his eye though.

“Emilia, it seems like that mana over there seems to be much more active.” Puck had pointed out, seeing the copious amount of mana around a hotspot of some sort. They had gather over to where the mana was emitting, only to have been met with the site of a deer carcass halfway in the process of decomposing. Shousuke had nearly barfed at the reeking smell of it. Adam on the other hand, was critically examining it.

“Looks like it was eaten out by a pack of coyotes a little while ago. Which means we should be careful from here on out.” Adam advised, not being able to see the mana particles except Puck’s manifestation for himself.

Due to Emilia’s contract with Puck, she is also able to see them but only from a limited distance. They flared up in the nightly vicinity with their blue, almost bio-luminescent glow. Yet emitted no light around them. It was quite a peculiar mechanism. Spiritual entities also seem to be feasting on the mana around them. They had the shape of orbs with tendril protruding out of them, but their ethereal nature made them impossible to interact with physically. Which means it was only feasible to interact with them by the aliment of mana. They eventually had drifted away from the carcass, Shousuke giving the dead animal a curt prayer of lament. They had set back on track to Adam’s preferred destination. Slight exhaustion started to burden down Shousuke, as she started to slightly lag behind.

“How much further into the void are we going?” Shousuke inquired, the exhaustion of the day’s shopping spree finally catching up to her.

“It shouldn’t be any farther now. It’s an open, flat ground with nice, juicy targets to shoot at.” Adam had assured, Shousuke decided to not falter since she has made it this far into the expedition. They had eventually stumbled upon an open ridge area with plentiful clearing, with small boulders scattered around the vicinity, and nothing to curtail Shousuke’s purpose of being here. She had turned to Puck, who was meditating with the spirits around him, lightly tapping him on the head. He had jolted from the shock of the motion as he was brought back out into the real world. Adam had went ahead first, setting up a camera on the tripod he had brought, then carrying it in one hand. Shousuke and Puck were left to intake the gorgeous scenery. Eventually they had collected their thoughts and shifted their focus on what they were going to do here.

“So Puck, where should we start?” Shousuke stated, contemplating if magic in this body would work straight out of the body, or if it required training.

“Square one, I guess.” Puck sighed as he collected his thoughts together, putting on a faux instructor demeanor. “From what I could gather from the spirits around us and the discrepancy of how magic works in this world. I can say for certainty that the mana around us, is the essence of life. Just like how in the World of the Dragon Gods, Gates existed to transmit magic, this world needs a channeler for that magic as well. However, that magic is woven and structured by the attributes contained within your soul. In order words, your soul is the channeler of your mana. Mana around us is formed from the very structure of every natural and living organism’s soul. Even the fossilized structures from these so called “prehistoric animals” emit mana. Mana is much more complex than that, as it contains the very essence and characteristics of what made that organism unique. In other words, the characteristic pertaining to that animal. Absorbing mana is mostly done naturally by the organism’s slumber period. As sleep taps into the organism’s inner consciousness and essence, creating a void which attracts mana and allows it to multiply itself exponentially. Mana however is very volatile characteristically. While it cannot be destroyed, it looses its characteristic. Which means that if you channel it through your essence without care, the mana will lose its characteristic when cycled through your body and thus becomes expendable energy and cast away. The majority of mana in this world inhibits this characteristic, but once the organism ceases to live; a miniscule amount of attribute mana is dispelled. You only have a small window of opportunity to siphon the attribute into your inner essence to copy the attributes. After that, it would only come naturally to you on how cast it, but you would need to channel your mana first. To do that, close your eyes.” Shousuke had complied shutting her eyes, the amount of questions that she had were surmount but all would be answered with due time. Adam doing the same as it might grant him the opportunity to see if he an affinity with magic or not. “Imagine your hand reaching out for a waterfall as it splashes against your hand.” Shousuke’s aura had started to flare up, Adam not having so much luck on his end despite the fact that his mind had also imitated Shousuke’s thoughts. “With that, you have accessed your mana, however that is only the tip of iceberg. You see, you have to weave that essence, or liquid into a shape that you can form in your mind. From what my understanding is, our previous attributes had been shuffled about to correspond to our magics in the previous world. Fire magic no longer controls thermal ‘vectors,’ as so the spirits have told me, to the same degree as they would have in our previous world. Ice magic is now its own subcategory under the water magic class, which is now our highest attributes from what I could read from your mana essence. It has taken a more direct approach in this world."

‘So basically the magic in this world work more along the lines of D&D, how convenient.’ Shousuke had pondered, thinking about whether or not she would only have a limited amount of casts she could use before she runs out of juice. The only difference being that magic in this world would be powered by the amount of mana you have stored in you, which apparently can be refilled from the mana living beings, including dead ones possess. ‘So Emilia is now compatible with actual ice magic from the water magic tree and not thermal throttling with the fire tree. It suits her character pretty well. I wonder if she’s viewing everything from my eyes in real time…” Shousuke had mused on the notion on what Emilia’s take on the matter was. Hell, what her view of this new world was. It would make for an interesting conversation with her. Shoving her thoughts away, she extended a hand out while opening her eyes. She targeted a tall tree that she spotted within her periphery in front of her about 12 meters away from her. Adam had given up on his end without any luck, only to witness the surge of energy that engulfed his friend. He had set down the tripod camera to capture the action that’s about to take place. She had walked back the steps again, and conjured an ice spear as she imagined an icy realm within her mind. She felt a surge of energy that felt natural to channel with her body. An ice spear as cold as liquid nitrogen had manifested in her right hand. Satisfied with the outcome, she made her debut

“[Ice Spear]” She chanted, as the payload shot forth at an incredible speed. It smashed into the tree and blew straight through the other side. The incredible momentum ruptured the tree, sending tree bark debris everywhere, including towards the group. The camera, tripod and all was immediately knocked down to the ground. Adam and Shousuke had shielded their faces, while getting hit by the small debris. Some of it had pierced through their clothes. Adam’s sleeveless arm left arm receiving the blunt of the tree shrapnel as the pain started throbbing all over his left arm. Shousuke getting a piece of bark embedded into her right thigh just above her socks, causing the girl to hiss in pain.

“Oh shit… Back up, back up!” Adam had cried out, catching the attention of Shousuke as the tree made its descent towards the duo. It was not over yet… They had both instinctively jumped out of the way from the collapsing tree. Shousuke had recollected herself on the ground, staring at the sight in disarray. ‘Holy fucking shit, I did this?’ She pondered as her sight had drifted down towards her hands. Slightly bruised around the her wrist area. They heard a distance explosion a few seconds later. ‘Shit, I need to make sure that no one besides Puck and I, have this power. If someone were to get their hands on this...’

“Emilia! Are you alrig- no, I suppose not. Hold still...” Puck had placed his paw on Shousuke’s wound on her wrist, applying what appeared to be either [Heal] or [Close Wound] from the Evocation/Divine/Restoration Schools of whatever subjected magic school this world had designated the ability. Puck then had his way down to every visible wound on her body, uttering a thanks to this world’s tailors for making such durable and refined clothing for protecting her from most of the ravaging wounds he would have had to heal. He gently pulled out the tree bark enbedded in her right thigh. Shousuke crying out in pain as the wound opened up, making it bleed down her thigh. However, thanks to the heal ability, the blood had become ethereal and was absorbed back into her body as the wound had closed up. ‘Either magic in this world is over powered, or it’s Puck being Puck. I’m still thankful that I had the chance to test out something I would have never able to do with my old body.’

“I would appreciate if you would help me out here as well since I got involved in his mess as well.” Adam had rebuked, Puck scowled at the man but Shousuke had decided to interfere. The camera he had set up was not a casualty either.

“Puck, go heal him.” Shousuke requested, hurt by the fact that her friend had taken most of the blow.

“But-”

“No buts!” Shousuke had interjected, not putting up with Puck’s hesitation and attitude towards her friend.

“Fine… But I still won’t acknowledge any man that is not Subaru!” Puck had sneered, but went on to fulfill Emilia’s request. Shousuke/Emilia sub-sequentially standing up to clean herself off of the tree bark debris. Puck had fully restored Adam’s arm and other injuries, before they hovered on over to Shousuke. Adam wiping down the degree in suit, as stood right next to Shousuke.

“Say, that magic you used…” Adam had decided to speak up, looking over to the remnants of the fallen tree with a pause “… Probably packs as much power as a live RPG round.” Adam had observed, downtrodden that his friend gets to have access to such cool powers.

“That sounds pretty terrifying when you put it like that.” Shousuke had acknowledged, Adam shaking his head in agreement.

“I shot a couple of actual RPGs in Nevada back when I was still in Highschool when my dad took me to a special licensed gun-range. Got to blow up cars and all that shit, but to re-witness that power up-close and personal brings back memories. Still a different ammunition but the power is all the same.” Adam had affirmed. “By the way, where did that ice shard go?” He added, before approaching and skimming his fingers across the frozen surface of the blown end of the tree and tree stump.

“I don’t know… Probably landed somewhere and hit Bigfoot in the rear.” Shousuke had jested, as Adam had his way over to her. A sly grin present on his face.

“I don’t know, the camera man will still find a way to fuck up the footage if that happened and rack up a million views. Hmmm speaking of conspiracy theories, I wonder what you would considered an Inter-dimensional Galatic Vampire by Alex Jones if he finds out where you were from and blame you for all of society’s problems.” Shousuke had giggled at Adam’s remark as they decided to wrap up the disaster after going overboard with her first spell ever. Adam had jumped onboard of that in mutual agreement much to Puck’s disappointment. He had gravitated over where his precious camera was, and had gathered his things before had they headed home. Shousuke had gazed up at the starry night sky with the moon past midnight according to her phone while they were heading back and mused to herself. ‘Although, Emilia’s previous life was subjected to discrimination. I wonder if this world will be more open to accept me as a half elf. The Otaku and DnD communities would be more than happy to make me part of their club. But what about the rest of society? Will they acknowledge me the way that those two girls had back at Nikki’s Fashion? That will be a topic for another date.’

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Sergeant Dylan Murray, a state trooper of 7 years, had made his way over to a 911 distress call about an explosion that rocked the back of a senior gentleman's yard. Apparently the man and his wife had been asleep when they heard a loud explosion that cause the wife to have a panic attack. The man had rushed outside into his yard and had seen something completely unparalleled to anything he’s ever seen. The fence linking his left side gate to the woodland outside had been completely blown up and in his yard was a massive crater. But was not just any crater, the crater he had stumbled upon was completely frozen over with a sheet of ice that did not appear to melt under the humidity of the summer night. The most outlandish feature of all, a rock structure of some sort. It did not appear to be any rock, no this one more of a glowing icicle that had been launched at their yard with the speed only The Hulk could conceive. Another state trooper had already arrived in the scene ahead of him. Dylan had pulled on to the side of the road to respond to the scene. He had turned on his bodycam. He had gone around the fencing of the house to analyze the damage, and the scene had completely baffled him.

“You believing this shit?” The other trooper, Corporal Logan Chapmann added, his flash light beaming on the fencing and the crater.

“You have to see it to believe it brother.” Sergeant Murray had inputted, they had made their way over to the crater. They examined the shard, more specially the detail around it.

“It looks biological, look at the structure embedded on the side.” Corporal Chapmann had pointed out, poking it with a set of pliers, the pliers slightly chipping at the temperature. “God, the temperature emitting from it is freezing cold...”

“Should we take it back to the lab for the forensics?” Sergeant Murray inquired, puzzled by the phenomenon.

“Yeah, give me a second.” Corporal Chapmann added, as he departed towards his squad car to contact the local police dispatch. Sergeant Murray was left to marvel at the sight. ‘Is the military testing out Particle Accelerators? Why ice as an agent though?’ A few minutes later, Corporal Chapmann had come back with a pair of thermal insulation gloves he had in his glove box and a plastic bag. He had reached out to grab it and winced at the shear temperature of it.

“Fuck, this thing is cold even with the gloves on...” Corporal Chapmann had stated, not noticing that the shard was starting to dematerialize right under his gloves. Panicked, Sergeant Murray went to knock it out from his hands as Corporal Chapmann stood baffled. The shard had completely dematerialized out of existence with little blue orbs floating up before disappearing.

“Well fuck me sideways...” Sergeant Murray added, shaken by the display. The Commissioner was not going to be happy about this.