“Hey now Fudo, you’re making it sound as if I died or something.”

I turn around and to my surprise, I see Lance laying there on the bed next to Fudo… Thank… Thank god.

*SNIFF* “You… *SNIFF* You didn’t die?”

“Hey now, don’t start crying you big baby, need older brother to take care of you?”

“I-I’m not crying, something just flew into my eye… And you Fudo! Why did you phrase it like that!”

There’s an awkward silence, before the three of us break into laughter… I’m glad these guys are okay.

I look at Lance again and see that the left half of his face is entirely wrapped up in bandages.

“What did Fudo mean by sacrifice though?”

His smiling face turns a bit more melancholy.

“Mr. Ito was too far away to save Fudo, so I jumped in front of the goblin’s blade… I’m lucky the creature only took my eye… After that Mr. Ito quickly killed the mutated goblin, he then gathered all the other students and explained the situation. He gave them the choice to continue or to head back to the academy. They decided to continue, so they send me and Fudo back first. Not long after though, we were reunited with our classmates in this infirmary, turns out, they’re hopeless without me and Fudo there. Heh! Serves them right!”

“So your eye… Is there any chance?...”

Lance shakes his head.

“Aaw, don’t be so serious Reo! Now I can finally live out my dream: wearing a cool eye-patch and becoming the pirate-king!”

“But couldn’t they heal you or something? I heard that the best support Machia can even reattach entire limbs.”

*SIGH* “Sadly no, amazing cartridges like that only work right after the injury, the tissue still needs to be somewhat alive…”

Oh right… Miss Sato also said something about how she couldn’t heal the scars on my palms because I was too late or something…

“Then why didn’t you guys bring any support Machia with you?”

“The school-board thought that the wood support-Machia class would be enough. Apparently Mr. Ito did fight to have at least one higher level support-Machia with us, but his request was denied, we’re only the wood class after all…”

“Those elitist bastards… But, what happens next? Are you guys still stuck in wood class? Even after carrying the entire team up to the fifth floor?”

“Well, we did fail to conquer the entire tower, so Fudo and the rest won’t be able to get promoted. But it’s not all bad news, they at least recognized my bravery and put me into the wood [III] class… Well, I’m guessing they were just covering their ass in case I was going to sue them, but still…”

I step back to look at both Fudo and Lance.

“I’ll catch up to you guys soon, and don’t worry about that eye Lance, I’ll find a way to fix it, I won’t let you use it as an excuse when I finally become stronger than you.”

“Well, you’ve made miracles happen in the past, guess I’ll just have to trust you… By the way, that was a wink just now, not a blink… I guess it’ll be a bit harder to tell from now on.”

The three of us start laughing again, much in contrast to the other students who are clearly still in pain. Until Fudo suddenly speaks up:

“And you Reo, have you been training hard for your promotion exam? We’re expecting you to immediately skip wood class [II] and join us, no pressure.”

“Oh, you don’t have to worry, I made a literal killing while you guys were gone. I now have enough resources to even get into the bronze class if I wanted to.”

Now Lance joins in:

“Sure you do, mister ‘can I please borrow your fireball cartridge?~’”

“Aah Shuddup, I’ll prove it on Friday you bastards. By the way, what am I even supposed to do for the exam? I’m hoping they’re not going to quiz us on theory… I’m like the opposite of a sponge when it comes to Mr. Ito’s lessons.”

“Y-You don’t even know that?... Seriously, how did you even get admitted here… *SIGH* Well, you don’t have to study, it’ll just be a simple talent-test and after that, I think you’ll just have a mock-battle with one of the teachers.”

“What’s a talent-test? No wait, what even is a ‘talent’? I’ve heard Mr. Ito talk about talents before, but I have no idea what it means…”

They both stare at me in shock, but then Fudo suddenly looks kind of proud and starts explaining things, I guess he’s happy with the fact that he knows more than me for once:

“It’s quite simple really, every Machia has a certain talent, you could even call it an aptitude. It decides which type of magic you’ll be proficient at and which magic you can unveil from blank cartridges. Not to brag, but I actually have a pretty rare talent, the beast-rook talent.”

“R-Right… Sounds powerful… And what does the ‘rook’ part mean?”

I remembered that that bodyguard of Thompson also had a rook talent or something like that…

“Just means I’m like super good at defense, all magic-types that are under the ‘rook’ group are. Only my Beast magic is like even more super good. Sadly, that also means there don’t exist any attack-oriented magics for cartridges under the ‘rook’ group.”

So that’s why I couldn’t find any cartridges that held offensive water-magic? Could it be that water-magic is considered a rook-like talent? Still, that explanation was a bit lacking… I desperately look at Lance for a more thorough one.

*SIGH* “Yeah, so like Fudo already said, combat-Machia’s are further divided in what talents they have. The magic of their talent will cost a lot less mana to activate and is usually more powerful. While Machias can technically also use every other magic-type, when it comes to higher level cartridges, the mana-cost will simply be too high to use in actual combat. By the way, I myself am just a common wind-bishop.”

I look at him with a confused expression.

“Oh right, so, a bishop is like someone who’s like super good at ranged magic attacks.”

This cheeky…

“Still, it’s actually not that weird that you don’t know about talents since they only teach it during practical lessons… But come on, most five year old’s know this….”

“Oi, that hurts you know, I’ve just never been that interested in the world of Machia…”

Actually, I was just too jealous to even dream about that world…

“Relax, you’re not the only dumb one in this group.”

Fudo instantly reacts with a: “Hey!”

“Who said I was talking about you though?”

We all start laughing again before I finally say goodbye and depart for the black-market, it’s time for me to claim my ‘free’ cartridge try-out session.