I remembered falling, and falling, and pain. Everywhere, pain.

When my consciousness finally returned to me, I opened my eyes to a sky painted orange with the feeling of countless bricks pressed against my back. My relief at successfully arriving at my intended destination vanished almost as soon as it came, since my body also felt like a ton of aching bricks. I tried to sit upright, but a crippling weight pressed down on me.

“Mmm…”

I looked down to see a barely conscious Alice sprawled over me, her head resting dangerously close to my chest. Did she actually faint after all…?

“Um, Alice? Can you get off?”

She stirred atop me, sending a euphoric sensation coursing through my body as her head nuzzled my breast. “Just a few more minutes…” she mumbled.

“No, how about right now!” I yelped.

Alice startled upright all at once. “I’m sorry, Beryl!”

I seriously need to practice that damn spell more…!

Alice rubbed her eyes as she stood up and took a quick look around us. “We’re… We’re back in the city already? Beryl, that was incredible! You have got to teach me how to do that!”

“Yeah, sure. Just let me get up first,” I groaned in response.

I tried to sit up again. A wave of nausea floored me as my arms gave out and failed to cooperate. My whole body felt drained of everything—and not in the fun way. Something… Something was definitely wrong.

“Are you okay?” Alice asked with a deeply concerned look on her face.

“I… No, probably not,” I admitted with another groan. “Can you give me a hand?”

Alice helped me get up enough to hobble over to the closest edge of the street. Each step was agony; every muscle screamed like I just finished sprinting for an hour. When I finally managed to sit down, I tried channeling mana toward my hand.

I felt… nothing.

“This must be what happens if you run out of mana casting a big spell,” I muttered, “and it has to keep drawing from somewhere to make up the difference.”

“Beryl, I don’t want to see you pushing yourself like that!” Alice cried.

“You know there wasn’t a great alternative for me back there!”

“But still,” she pouted.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll be more careful next time, okay?” It’s not like I want to experience this again…

She smiled. “Good. I might have something you can try that will help.” Alice promptly retrieved a thin vial full of a dark, viscous liquid from her rucksack.

I raised an eyebrow. “Why is it bubbling?”

“Trust me: this will recover your physical strength!” She looked away. “Well, it was my first time making this potion, but… it should work…”

So I’m a human guinea pig now? Ugh. I wasn’t getting anywhere on my own at this rate though, and I had no idea how long this condition would last—or if it would ever resolve on its own anyway.

“Fine, I’ll try it.” I reached for the vial, but even my grip faltered as my hand attempted to close around it.

“Let me do it,” Alice offered. “Just hold still!”

That proved to be a lot easier said than done; the liquid she poured had a fiery taste that left a burning sensation as it trickled down my throat, making me want to cough and sputter.

“What did you put in that thing?!”

“Stronger ingredients have a stronger flavor!” she huffed. “Usually. I-I mean, well, that potion might take some time to start working…”

As much as I wished she would sound more reassuring, I would have to trust her and hope for the best. “Let’s not do any of that again,” I sighed.

Alice giggled. “Looking back now, I think that was actually rather exciting.”

“What, the part where that witch tried to kill us?” I shot back.

“Vexina wouldn’t have killed us! At least, not intentionally…”

“That’s not helping!”

“But still, wasn’t it kind of fun?” she asked.

“Kind of?” I prodded.

She playfully elbowed me in the side. “You know what I mean!”

“Yeah, maybe just a little,” I agreed with a laugh. That made me wince; somehow, even laughing hurt right now.

Trying to stare down at my aching legs brought a horrifying discovery. My boots had held up well through our impromptu flight through the forest, but my dress looked as though it had been dragged through a warzone. The skirt was covered with dirt and tears, the fabric now tattered and torn to the point that no one would have guessed it was practically new just a day ago. I could forget about trying to resell this for twenty gold now; I’d be lucky to get even a fraction of that if anything. And considering I was nearly broke with the hundreds of silver I lost earlier…

“Heh. After all that, I’m basically back where I started yesterday,” I mumbled.

“Don’t say that!”

Alice grabbed me by the shoulders and turned me to face her. The rapid motion made me wince as my body ached and groaned all over again.

“I’m sorry!” she said. “Here, just lie down for a minute.”

“There are people staring at us, you know!” I protested.

“Who cares!”

Slowly, Alice lowered my upper body until I was resting over her lap with her arms hugging my torso.

“I’m really glad I met you, Beryl. I really enjoyed today, and… and I meant what I said yesterday,” she continued. “About us going to the Magic Academy. I still don’t know how we’ll do it, or what we’ll run into when we get there, but if I’m with you… I mean, I know we can figure anything out together! Right?”

Huh? As I stared up at Alice, I couldn’t help but notice that something about her just looked… different. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t quite think of exactly what it was that struck me that way. For some reason, she sounded to me like she could have been any other normal girl, full of her own hopes and dreams, feeling lost and alone in a world that had seemingly lost all reason. Was she really the same weirdo I bumped into yesterday? Did I just… get a bad first impression of her or something?

Alice rambled on while staring out at the sunset. “But we’ll save that for another time. Tomorrow, we can take it easy, and I’ll show you around the rest of the capital. There are still so many places I haven’t taken you to yet! And then the next day, we can register our party at the guild. We still have to come up with a name, but then we can start working our way up the ranks! Oh, but I should probably restock my inventory, so maybe we’ll first go gather some herbs in the forest and I’ll make us more potions. It won’t take that long, I promise! And then, and then—”

I gently placed a hand over hers. “Let’s just take this one day at a time, okay?”