Chapter XVI: “I’m Throwing A Flashbang!”

"Whoa… nice shot." Lucas turned around when he noticed the light arc made contact with the Hawk. 

The cries the beast made was enough evidence for Lucas to believe that it had been taken care of. Even if he didn't get the kill, if the pest was gone, then everything was good. 

"Wait… so you're saying you didn't hear us?" Lena asked Kenneth. The two were in a separate Link, thus making it seem like she was talking to herself. 

"I guess we were too invested in fighting the hordes, hehe. My bad." Placing his imaginary hand behind his head, Kenneth made an apologetic gesture. 

"Well, you guys seemed to have handled it well. I'll give you credit for that one." 

"Anyway, where's Tyrone? Did you head here on your own?" 

"No, I had him follow close by. He brought your body the whole way, you know. Give him a minute."

As if he was waiting for her words to finish, Tyrone’s body vaulted over the edge of the roof. On his back was Kenneth’s body, the arms wrapped around the dog’s neck. 

Tired from the journey, the dog brought the toddler’s unmoving body and laid it beside Lucas. Moments later, Kenneth’s legs and arms started twitching as his main consciousness was sent back to its original husk. 

Handing over the walking stick in his mouth to Kenneth, Tyrone helped assist the toddler in regaining his balance. His posture was a bit slumped, due to him being out of his body for an extended period of time. He had been with Lucas the whole night and had therefore his senses adapted to his older brother’s build. 

Once he was able to stand up properly by himself, Kenneth looked to his siblings, who had been waiting for him. Lena had taken her place beside Lucas and was playing with her Light Magic, occasionally casting small balls of light and throwing them like a baseball. 

“Is that a new spell?”

“Huh? Oh, you’re back in your body?” Startled, Lena stopped what she was doing and turned to the tired-looking toddler. “I’ve thought of making a spell that allows me to momentarily blind my enemies. You know, like a… uh…” 

“Flashbang?” 

“Yeah! Albeit I’m having trouble making the ball explode and release light. It disappears too quickly and the whole thing just fades back into the air.”

To give Kenneth an insight into her problems, Lena once again created a ball of light in her hands. Keeping a tight grip on it, she threw the ball into the air. 

For the first second or so Kenneth thought it was pretty okay. The ball held a good stature and didn’t look like it would just disappear into thin air. 

But that changed when the spell started dimming. The light was now no brighter than a lamp, and Kenneth could feel the mana inside beginning to dwindle. 

“See? I don’t know what to do with it. No matter how much mana I gather into the small ball, it always disappears before I can even think about releasing the light inside.”

“I’ve got a small hypothesis on your spell. But I’ll need you to help me by casting it for me a few more times. I think I can help you with your problem?”

“Really? That’d be great!”

“Go ahead then, make one of those balls for me. But don’t throw it yet and just keep it in your hand.”

Doing exactly as he said, Lena began concentrating her mana into the palm of her hand, and soon light began to gather. This continued until the light molded itself into the shape of a small softball. 

Moving closer to Lena, Kenneth began examining the ball of light. 

***

“I think I’ve figured out the problem behind your spell.” Taking a nearby water bottle Lucas had scavenged, Kenneth placed the head into his mouth and spent a whole minute just drinking its contents. 

“Really? What is it?” Lena asked. 

“Your problem is that you put too much focus on the exterior of the ball. Now hear me out.” As Kenneth said this, his body lost its strength and fell over without resistance. Beside him was Tyrone, who placed his body in between the floor and the toddler’s body, preventing him from injuring himself.

“It’ll be easier to explain here. Anyway, let’s continue. Let me paint a picture for you. If I throw a rock into lava, it’ll melt, right? Now let’s imagine your light ball as the rock and the air as lava.”

“Surely the rock will at least be able to handle a few seconds before it melts completely, right? Then why is my spell breaking so quickly?” Lena tilted her head. 

“Let’s not forget what time of day it is.” Kenneth pointed his sister’s attention to the sky above their heads.

“Ah! It’s currently night!”

“Yeah, many people already know this, but even mana shifts depending on the environment. Just like how Ice particles are abundant in snowy regions, the same goes for the element of Darkness. But let’s say it's currently daytime. Then I have reason to believe that your spells will be much stronger. You’ve noticed it too, right? You feel as if you’re weaker the closer the time reaches night?”

“Uh-huh. But I never thought it was like this.”

“You’re in luck. The sun should be rising soon. We should be able to test your spell in action. But before that, let’s head back to my first sentence.”

“Wait, there’s more?!”

“Of course. For instance, you need to work more on the shape of the ball itself. When you threw the ball earlier, I noticed there were a few times when one side would poke out, thus making it disintegrate faster. My advice is to create a tougher exterior on the ball and keep the “flash” part inside the shell.”

“Yes, teacher.” 

Lena’s last words were meant to be sarcastic. It had been a few hours since she had been working with Kenneth on a way to modify her spell to work properly. And during that whole time, The intelligence her little brother obtained from reading books would shine through, reminding her once again of how much of a geek Kenneth was when it came to mana and spells.

***

It was a new day. The sun was shining, and the virtual world had now changed to fit the time. 

In one of the rooms of a certain abandoned building, the sleeping bodies of Kenneth, Tyrone, and Lucas could be seen. 

After taking apart some of the beasts using Lena's Light Sword, the siblings were able to secure some food. Their stomachs later found the ingested meat to be disgusting, and would wake up throughout the night at random intervals to barf out yesterday's dinner. 

In that same abandoned room, the first person to show any sign of movement was Kenneth. His eyes itching from the sunlight, the toddler brought his forearm to his head in order to block his view of the now rising sun.

It took Kenneth a bit of moving his arms before he was able to find his walking stick, which was coincidentally placed a few ways away from his makeshift mattress. 

Having gathered the strength to stand up, Kenneth stared out of the broken glass window.

"It's a lovely day. Perfect day for a walk." Kenneth said as he attempted to stretch his limbs. Though to his dismay, he could not move them a few inches from their original place without unbalancing himself. 

"Oh, right. I did promise Lena I was going to see her spell in action. If she follows my guidelines from yesterday, then maybe she'll be able to cast it properly."

After washing up, Kenneth headed for the stairs in the corner of the room. There would always be a tight feeling gripping on his chest whenever he saw stairs, probably because of yesterday's incident. But Kenneth just shrugged it off and climbed the whole flight as fast as he could. 

A quick jog up, and soon Kenneth could feel the cool temperature inside the building begin to get hotter. The sunlight shone through the cracks in the ceiling, and the chirping of birds was enough for him to estimate the time. 

Of course, Kenneth did not rule out the possibility that the perpetrator of said chirps were beasts sent to scout on the siblings. He had not once let his guard down the moment he woke up. 

Right as he climbed the stairs, Kenneth caught sight of a charming blonde woman. Her back was facing him, so he wasn't able to see her face, but in her hand, she held a small ball that glowed brightly. 

"Good morning, Lena." Kenneth chose to break the silence between the two. 

"Good morning, little brother. Did you have a delightful rest?" Lena turned to him, holding her arm which contained the ball, out. 

"I see you've improved. In a short span of time, at that."

“You think so? I believe it’s just the sunlight, as you’ve told me. I woke up early to practice and found myself a bit more vigorous than usual.”

“How about you show me then?"

The already made ball in Lena's hand suddenly glowed brighter, as she began channeling more mana into its weightless structure. 

Just as she was about to throw the ball, she stopped and turned to Kenneth. 

"I think you should look away. Wouldn't want my little brother to end up temporarily blind." 

"Gotcha." 

Doing as she said, Kenneth turned his body to the side, and buried his eyes into the crook of his arm. 

"Here we go! I'm throwing the flashbang!" 

*bang!*

A short explosion rang across the area. In the middle of it all a light ball had simultaneously exploded, releasing the mana inside it and spreading it all over the place, akin to a shrapnel grenade. 

The sound wasn't as loud as Kenneth had thought it would be. His hearing felt fine, and his eyes seemed unaffected by the light. Still, he kept his face hidden for a few more seconds just to be safe.

"That was awesome! Even when I hid my face in my arm I could still see the light." 

"Hehe… thanks. I was working on a way to help the light inside spread a bit more farther, and I eventually reached a distance of twenty meters." 

"Whoa, really? Does that mean anyone inside twenty meters will be blinded?" 

"Well, only if they're in clear view of the flashbang. The effects also weaken the longer it goes. I'm still unsuccessful in keeping the light from spreading any farther without it dissipating immediately." 

"Still, that's wonderful. This could be very helpful in our fights from here on out." 

"Mhm, I totally agree!" 

***

After some more fun testing Lena's newly created spell, Kenneth had decided to wake up Lucas and Tyrone, who were still sound asleep in their beds. 

It was today that Lucas wished he didn't tell younger brother to wake him up. Without his permission, Kenneth had opened up a Link between them and did his best to make his older brother's morning hell. 

With a combination of loud screams and Mental Puppetry, Kenneth made sure to mess with his older brother in the worst ways possible. On one occasion he had used his Puppetry to raise one of Lucas' arms directly over his head. And when he felt the time was right, he would cut off the supply of mana, therefore dropping the entirety of the limb on his face. 

A small quarrel ensued between the two later on, where Lucas had constantly chastised and berated his younger brother, while Kenneth would just play it all off as a harmless prank. 

But anyway, once the siblings had woken up and eaten some more monster meat, they had once again set off into the city in hopes of slaying more magical beasts to finally put an end to the simulation. 

Later...

The siblings had scanned a large portion of the city, and so far had come up with no good results. There were no noteworthy encounters. When they did find some beasts, they were quickly able to defeat it with the four teaming up. 

Tyrone wasn't able to move as much as Kenneth had hoped to due to the dog carrying the toddler's body on his back, but he was still able to provide some helpful assistance with his Earth spells. 

"We've gone through the whole city, and found nothing. Is the simulation glitching?" Lucas questioned. 

"That's not likely. Perhaps the monsters have been reduced to just a few stragglers." Lena replied. 

"I'm more inclined to believe the second statement. Though that begs the question… where are these last few beasts?" 

"Maybe they're outside the city?" 

"I don't think the area renders out far enough. You guys said you spawned in a forest, yeah? The virtual world should only stretch out until the farthest edge of the forest. I'm pretty sure I only designed the simulation to not take up a large amount of space." 

"You say that, little brother, but isn't this city "large" enough for you?" 

"Oh, don't get me wrong, but this is big. In fact, if I didn't accidentally skip a few parts on the control screen, then maybe I would've gone for something smaller, like a small town or village. Though I still would've gone for a more urban location." 

"How do you accidentally ski- nevermind. Let's just head for the last patch of land we haven't reached yet. We're bound to meet some more beasts there." Lena proposed.

"I was thinking the same thing. But beasts or no beasts, I think we've had enough training for now. The only thing keeping me from yelling "A.I, stop!" is the fact that I want to see your Flashbang in action against enemies."