It was another slow day of training for me.

I was left alone at the village with my two pets, it seems that the spirits want to train by challenging stronger enemies. Apparently they wanted to defeat an E rank monster in two months. So they're going to be doing dangerous training, like super dangerous, maybe they'll spontaneously combust before even doing it cause it's so absolutely dangerous.

'Would they actually explode though? I don't want them to die… maybe I should come with them.' I thought, I knew this was just a product of my own childish imagination being hyperactive again, but I can't stave off the genuine fear I felt that they may leave me too.

As for me, ever since the fight with those mud golems, I started to progress really fast with my magic training. I checked my status but there really weren't any changes except for 'Harmless Sweetie' and 'Spiritual Manipulation' having gone up a level. Odd, I wonder what the prerequisites for leveling up are. I don't think it's just constant use, or maybe it is and I'm just overthinking and overcomplicating things.

'I wonder what are the chances of my growth having been hindered by a wall…' I asked myself. Lawod told me that it was definitely possible that I did hit a wall before I even started practicing. Simoy told me that this only happens to someone who has great potential.

They couldn’t really tell me for sure if I did, indeed, hit a wall, as the mana flow of spirits and divorakks weren’t the same, and they didn’t really know how to interpret a divorakk’s flow. They did say that my mana flow is extremely flexible now, though, so they suspect that I actually did hit a wall.

'That said, was I given great potential by one of those deities? I don't really know why but the whole experience is pretty hazy for me…' I hummed as I practiced my magic, I was copying what my mother always did as training.

Using a ball of crystal clear water summoned by Dew, I started my daily training session. Now that I can cast offensive spells, I can finally tweak the spells itselves and not just my casting method. I gave the water the command to 'be sharp when in motion'. I then started to wave my hands in an unstable flow, I'm not that good at keeping a proper tempo and rhythm so it's understandable that the water isn't flowing like how I really want it to. With a sigh of disappointment at my inadequacy, I started to use trees as target practice. It wasn't sharp enough to pierce through the bark but I can tell that it's leaving small marks on it, this is good enough for now.

I 'danced with the flow of a rushing river', my Mama always described it like that, with hand movements that mimicked the gentle flow of a calm river, I manipulated the water and danced the best I could. I probably looked ridiculous, I'm not a very good dancer, but I was trying my best. Dianian divorakks are very close and in tune with the natural elements and the environment, so dancing like a river should come naturally to me after practicing for a bit.

I spun and let the water follow my jittering movements, I mimicked the water's flowing movements despite my inexperienced command, surprisingly I can feel myself finally getting into the rhythm of the dance. It was as if me and the water were guiding each other. With more confidence pooled inside me, I danced with more vigor. I spun, the arc-shaped mass of streaming water that floated by me cut across the trees around me, I quickly then made the water flow upwards by raising my hands into the air. The water above me then turned into needle-like water spikes sharp enough to pierce through unset dirt, and with my palm slamming to the ground, the needle-like spikes dropped down at a speed that could let them pierce through tree bark enough for them to stick. And with another twirl, the spikes that were on the ground swirled around me and spun in a dangerous manner, as I did this, the water formed into a singular blob once again, and I looped back to my first movements, which are just basic hand waves, and did everything from scratch again. I, of course, did all of this with the intention to be as graceful as I can be and move like a river, whatever that actually means. I probably look more like a flailing fish to an outsider, though.

The two animals, whom I named Nawa—the water snake, and Kabao—the earth carabao— were watching me as I trained. They gave small cheers whenever I would perform a move, which greatly motivated me. They were so adorable, I had pets in my previous life, unfortunately I saw every single one of them getting into accidents or being eaten by a stray dog right in front of my eyes. Ever since then I've never wanted a pet ever again.

After a while of doing this, I started to get the hang of it. My movements started to become faster and I could feel myself following a certain flow. As my hands ebbed, the water gathered, and as my arms flowed, the water sliced the bark. Though showy, it was still not enough to cut through. Though, I was successfully making non-stop attacks at this point. My magic was definitely the problem, my proficiency is still not good enough for an actual sharp blade.

I've definitely gotten better at magic, I could hunt small animals using it now, but I definitely am still weak. I'm only as strong as my magic after all. The divorakks aren't really a race renowned for their physical attacks. In fact, we're considered the weakest humanoids in terms of physical arts.

But we make up for it in our excellence in magic.

In fact, talented divorakks could unravel the earth itself and easily bring forth raging hellfire to raze entire forests to the ground. Of course all these are possible for talented divorakks using their core attributes, a divorakk with earth as their core attribute wouldn't be able to summon a riptide out of nowhere, nor can they slice dragons in half with invisible blades of wind.

I kept practicing, pulling off consecutive attacks that never seemed to stop. If I kept going I'd probably be able to break through the bark in around an hour or two. A stone wall would break when enough cracks form after all.

As I went, I thought about ways how I can move better, and tried to perform them. In a way, this is also kind of like an experimental test run for my own individual fighting style. I ended up modifying the dance to have flowing movements that were quick and precise, as this better fit my physique. Unlike my tubby self, Mama was slender and could do this dance for hours without breaking a sweat.

The original dance that my Mama would perform was focused on speed and power, as such, it had big and fast movements that were also heavy, but the accuracy is questionable. Mama said she relied on the size of the water to hit targets, as the attacks were fast, but slow enough that experienced foes could easily dodge it. My improvised dance definitely didn't look as good as my mother's yet but it was effective and felt more natural. 

I practiced more, making my movements more fluid and flow better to achieve the same effect my mother's dance would have. Which would be an unending barrage of attacks that also serve as an impenetrable defense. She told me that she wanted to teach me how to make my own dance someday, so this can be practice for when she does.

'Now that I think about it… how did they even get captured? Are humans really that strong?' I wondered as I sped up my movements, it was a continuous loop, so I didn't really have trouble maintaining it while drifting to thought. 

I wanted to at least cut through the bark today, so I kept going with the intention of cutting through it. I targeted the same spots on the trees that I was practicing on, it seems that over time it's getting sharper. I'm slowly, but surely, finding it easier to cut through the bark. 

Until at last, with a final spin, I cut through the bark of the trees that stood around me. I stopped and brought the floating mass of water toward my gasping face, savagely gulping it all down within seconds. Letting out a loud groan of satisfaction, I dropped down to the ground to take a minute of rest and to catch my breath. I've never had this fierce of an exercise before.

I looked behind me and saw that the two animals were training as well, they probably felt inspired watching me train so hard. Look at me being a good role model, this kind of thing never would have happened before.

Currently, the carabao was charging at the snake, while the snake would form a circle and a hole full of water would appear.  The carabao would then put significant effort to not fall in, while the snake would create numerous holes in a certain pattern. Surprisingly the snake was winning, the carabao kept falling into a hole whenever he would try to avoid one. It seems that the places where the snake put Its holes were strategic and not just an odd pattern that water snakes like doing.

'Nawa is surprisingly intelligent.' I thought.

'Huh, that move seems awfully familiar… nevermind I'm probably overthinking things again.' I brushed the thought aside as I decided to train my wind magic next. This was going to be harder to train than water magic as it wasn’t a specialty of mine. And unlike water, it disperses quite easily so I'd need a good grasp of wind magic before I start making blades out of it and making a dance like I did with my water magic.

I used Gust and started gathering up the air around me, to gauge the wind's power I gave it the command to pick up anything it can and swirl it around me. I could see tiny twigs and leaves being caught up in my tiny whirlwind.

I then started to give the wind simple commands such as 'do a flip' and 'do a little dance'. The wind around me got stronger and it swept across the floor before bouncing off the ground and made the debris it picked up whirl around me, if I didn't know any better I would think that it was alive.

I then commanded it to condense at my palm, when I did, it brought the debris along with it. I focused my strength and then gave it a command to shoot at a nearby tree.

It didn't really do anything, the debris went flying everywhere, though. But it didn't do any damage to the tree itself.

I sighed, disappointed, I don't really know what exactly to do with wind magic. My Mama always said that water magic would most likely be my specialty because I was a Diancia. Diancias are apparently known for their masterful water magic and arts, and that our family is bound to have at least one water-attribute user each generation. Back then I didn't know the significance of the name, now it makes so much more sense. I've always wondered why I was the only one out of all of my friends with a last name.

To emphasise how powerful Diancias are, my mother even told me a story about my late great-great grandmother who submerged an entire city in water, after the water disappeared, the only thing left was my great-great grandmother and soaked buildings. Apparently my great-great grandmother had done that because the city had stolen my great grandmother and Grandpa Lindsay from her. She didn't have the best temperament, but her killing every single thing in that city was justified as she first segregated the innocents to the criminals, before proceeding to drown all the ones that had committed any atrocious crimes. As apology for the soaked items, my great-great grandmother compensated them by taking down one hundred mid-rank dragons and giving them to the city. According to my mother one hundred mid-rank dragons back then were equal to a whole kingdom's treasury, but the price dropped because of my great-great grandmother's actions. Even now, mid-rank dragons were half the price of what it was back then, apparently.

I remember my father explaining to me that Diancias don't have a good sense of monetary value and item value, which is why he handles the village's finances and even helps my mother in arranging barters, trades, and purchases with the neighbouring villages. He told me that if my mother handled the finances, we'd be in massive debt within a week, or be the sole reason why the value of certain items in the whole region to rocket to astronomical values due to hoarding. In fact, my father told me that a major and the only requirement to date a Diancia was to be good at things related to finances, because the last time a Diancia was let alone to handle a village's finances, the prices of robes, dairy, and weirdly enough, small trinkets—rose so high that no one could afford them. It's a good thing that Grampa Lindsay met Gramma Lucia, or else I doubt that problem would have ever been resolved.

That said, though, out of curiosity, I asked her what would happen if none of the children in a Diancia's generation were born with the water attribute. She told me that, that was near impossible, as Diancias have a very high chance of being born with the water-attribute. And that in the off chance that a generation of Diancias didn't have water magic, the Goddess herself would bestow the attribute to the Diancia that was compatible with it the most.

So she has always told me that I didn't need to focus on my wind magic if I didn't want to, as my true talent would show itself when I use water magic.

'I mean, she's right but I'd still like to develop my wind magic. It wouldn't be nice to let my other attribute die out and just specialize in water magic. The Goddess, Lady Diana,  says to never be wasteful, ignoring the wind-attribute to focus on just water would be wasteful.'

I started gathering up the wind again, this time, I wanted to experiment a bit.

'If I remember correctly… I read a book that said something about low-frequency sound being lethal to living beings.' I thought.

I used Gust two times, I coated the first Gust with another layer of wind magic. I ordered the first Gust to vibrate at an extremely low frequency, the mana didn't understand at first so I had to describe it by telling it to make a sound deep enough that it couldn't be heard but felt, I then told it to go even lower than that.

I'm not completely sure it worked, cause I used the second Gust that coated the first one to make a barrier that would prevent sound from escaping, I basically just told the mana to make the second layer of Gust keep the first one silent at all costs. I didn't want to accidentally kill myself, after all.

'Well-' I cut off the thought before it could bloom into something more annoying to kill off. Not here, not now, maybe when it fully sinks in, but not now.

Maybe it was because of the reset, but it just isn't processing that my family is gone. Every day I wake up and I instinctually look for them, knowing full well they're gone. I can barely hold myself together, so I can only imagine the absolute shit show that would ensue after the ground shattering realization that my family is gone. Well, as long as I can scrape by and keep myself alive until my grandparents come in to save the day, I'll be okay. Lots of psychological and emotional scarring but that's not a very new thing for me to experience, so still okay.

I was a bit hungry so I decided to test the ball of what I assume to be extremely deadly wind magic by using it to hunt. I don't think dying by sound is particularly, painful so Lady Diana would most likely approve of this, it would count as euthanasia then.

I hid in the bushes of the forest, waiting for an animal to test my spell on. After a couple of minutes I saw a large mouse deer, unlike Earth's mouse deers, this was a mouse the size of a deer. They're considered pests in my village because they always ruin our crops, so much so that we have specialized barriers just to make sure they don't eat our harvests.

'An absolute unit of a mouse deer, I'm so sorry. May you terrorise housewives and be a complete menace to society in mouse heaven… or, I don't know, become the next new hero in a light novel.'

I readied my spell and aimed it at the mouse deer, I really hoped that this would work.

I then shot the mouse deer.

It was a direct hit!

…

"Ah, well, actually now that I think about it. This is another world, it would be stupid to think the laws of science from Earth would apply here." I muttered, the moment it hit the mouse deer a deep wave of sound inaudible to the ears resounded throughout the forest, I could hear some animals in the distance crying out and causing a ruckus. But I don't think it caused any damage.

I mean I was perfectly fine, I just felt very sick for a second but I was still alive. It's most likely the laws of Earth don't match up to this world's. I'll probably have to experiment a little to find some alternative wind-based offensives.

Sighing, I continued practicing my wind magic. I tried thinking up of ways I could use the wind to attack, wind blades were out of the question as I wasn't skilled enough.

'Maybe… No, that only works in anime. Creating invisible tentacles made out of wind maybe? No, I'm not good enough to be able to do that just yet. I can't secrete poison gas either so using that as an attack is out of the question.' I thought long and hard. I really can't think of anything right now.

'Cannons? Hm, maybe a bomb? Vacuum… Urgh! I'm not gonna get anywhere if I keep thinking about stuff from my old world.'

'Well there were those low-tier wind attacks… Wait, I have an idea.' I jumped up from my position and prepared myself, I used my wind magic once more and felt it swirl around my whole body.

I prepared to cast a spell, I kept it going and made it go faster, when I was at my limit I had a mini whirlwind around me strong enough to ruin a bush. I then condensed the wind at my palm and kept the wind spinning to the best of my ability. In my hands was now an ever spinning ball of wind, I took a deep breath, focused, then shot it at the tree.

I looked on in shock as I felt the shockwave of the wind’s impact hit me, I made a whole branch go flying! This was an important milestone. I’m never going to forget this day, ever!

“Well I’ll try my best not to forget.” I happily muttered, remembering that I’m an extremely forgetful person. Well I’m not as forgetful here but I’m definitely as easily distracted.

I skipped toward the broken tree branch, a stupidly bright smile on my face. I wanted to collect the branch and show off to Simoy and Lawod, who’re probably out there talking to each other about weird spirit stuff while the newborns are getting beat up by monsters.

“Ooh, pretty rock!” I exclaimed as I saw a strangely ornate black rock on the ground, I decided to collect it along with the branch as proof of my victory against that stupid tree!

Actually, wait, shouldn’t I be apologizing? Is tree abuse against Lady Diana’s teachings? I’m not very well versed in the laws of tree-ology or anything about them really. I just know that some of them can make delicious fruit that can serve as snacks for both me and my pet carabao. Unfortunately, Nawa only wants to eat fish and nothing else. Well, more for me and Kabao I guess.

I skipped towards the village, the sun was very high up in the sky now, and I don’t really want to die of heat stroke. I was feeling pretty good with myself and the progress that I’ve made, so the stupid smile on my face earlier grew wider as I put an extra pep to my step.

I hummed in happiness, thinking of what my family would say and all the praise I would get when they learn that I’ve been practicing diligently.

“When Mama and Daddy see how much I’ve grown, they’ll be super proud of me!” I excitedly said, I was jumping up and down to try and let go of this overflowing excitement my child-like body and mind can't handle.

… oh yeah.

‘I miss them.’ the thought and feeling of missing them repeated in my head like a broken record, my tears welled in my eyes as I thought about how much I wanted them back.

I brushed off the tears that fell from my eyes and stopped them from falling.

"Not here, Clay. Get a grip." I lightly slapped my cheeks flushed and slightly damp with the moisture of a few tears shed.

I stopped skipping and just briskly walked towards the razed village. The smile I had on earlier has disappeared and I’ve stopped humming.

‘I have no time to sit down, be lazy, and be sad. I have to get stronger so I can help my grandparents beat up those humans that took them away…’ I thought.

I can’t really lie and say that I don’t have any doubts that they’re safe, I’ve been having nightmares lately and all I really want is to sleep in-between my parents again. I wasn’t very fond of it before but I miss it now, it made me feel safe, warm, and comforted. The forest's ground made me feel cold, dirty and damp. Even with the spirits around me, I can only feel the deathly loneliness attack me and eat away at my very soul as I drifted off to another nightmare.

I just wanted to go home.

This forest isn’t home without them.

I want them back.

I need them back.