Nhatduongg

This chapter is quite dialogue-centered. It is really difficult for me to write a natural dialogue.

I'm running out of ideas, help...

Fekal was sitting on the grass with a pen in hand, writing something on a small piece of paper. After a while he seemed to be content with his result which was one side of the piece of paper filled with scribbles. “Here, is this correct?” The goblin raised his piece of paper for the fairy next to him to inspect.

Cirno stopped the things she was in the middle of doing (which apparently was freezing frogs for some reason) to take a good look at his paper, her pupils dashing back and forth like she was giving every line a quick inspection. “Yea, that will do. Although, I think that your writings are a bit ugly.”

“Hey, what choice do I have? I didn’t even know what language it was so I did my best to copy your writings.” The goblin complained. As he saw the writings again, he felt something bugging his mind, like a memory that was about to resurface but just didn’t at the moment. “I have to admit, for some reason those letters are suspiciously familiar…”

“Is it? I thought you don’t know Japanese and have to rely on the whatever-it-was scroll to understand me?” Cirno said confusedly.

“Japanese…” Fekal scrambled his recollections to see if he had ever heard of such a term before. “No, I don’t know what it is. It’s just something on my mind, don’t worry about it.”

The two sat in silence until Fekal spoke, or at least that was what he intended to do. Before he could say anything, a head suddenly popped in between him and Cirno. “Hey, what are you guys talking about?” A feminine voice by goblin’s standards chipped in curiously. “Oh, is this the thing that is used to shoot so much magic?” The new goblin jerked his piece of paper out and examined it, much to his irritation.

She was Edria, a goblin that was younger than him. She was the one that he had accidentally hit while he was testing that ‘danmaku’ spells earlier. Edria was known in the small little group of his as being particularly violent. Despite being a goblin, a race that’s supposed to be weaker than the humans, himself and those who had seen her fighting in battles had come to grow a little bit scared of her.

In the last battle, the one that led to them retreating into this misty forest, she could be seen beating up the human soldiers like no tomorrow. Her abnormal physical strength clearly overpowered that of the humans. When the two lines clashed with each other, the young goblin rushed forward into the middle of the human’s formation and started attacking randomly, creating confusion and panic among the enemy, giving her even more chance to inflict damage as the humans moved around chaotically trying to reorganize. Even when her weapon broke and she was left with her bare fists, Edria could punch through the armors of the enemies and kill them. She would then proceed to take the weapons of those she had defeated and continue with her rampage.

The only reason she was here right now was thanks to some of Fekal’s teammates working together to pull her out of the opponent’s line when the goblins started the mass deserting spectacle and even then, it took quite the effort to hold her down while moving until she had calmed down from her hyperexcited state to walk on her own.

Fortunately for him, Edria had realized that the shot didn’t come from an enemy, so all she did was give him and Cirno a harmless punch, just for the sake of returning the damage.

Unfortunately for him, said ‘harmless punch’ came from the one known as Edria wasn’t that harmless, as evident by the large bump that was on his head and Cirno’s but it seemed that her wound was mostly gone by now.

Maybe she wasn’t lying after all when she said she was a fairy. Fekal thought. As far as he knew, fairies had an impressive healing speed. Sometimes there are those who are different, I guess that’s the same for every race.

“Hey! What are you doing, wai-“ Fekal was cut out of his thought by the sudden action from Edria. She had grabbed his pen and was trying to pull it out of his hand.

“Give me that! I want to try it too!” She demanded. It was as if she was fighting over a new toy that she really liked.

“No! Why should I? I brought this pen along because I’m the only one who is literate here!” He complained but then he lost his grip on the pen and it was jerked out of his possession. “Careful! This is the only pen I’ve got!”

“But you don’t know the letters that Cirno wrote!” The young goblin argued. “We are both the same in that aspect.”

“You- You have a point, but-“

The argument went on for some time but now things had calmed down. Fekal had given his pen and a cut of paper to Edria, albeit reluctantly.

Cirno made no particular comment on the rather childish display that they had.

“Yesh! I’m done!” Edria proudly held her paper up to the sky which made Fekal chuckled a bit and Cirno’s laughing could be heard quite clearly. “Why are you two like that? Do I have anything funny on my face?”

“I don’t think you have anything funny on your face, but it’s another story on your hand though.” Even though the goblin didn’t know the language, it was very obvious that her writings was more ugly drawings than actual letters.

“I can at least read it, so maybe that still works, maybe.” Cirno said but her amused hint hadn’t fade out.

The three remained silent with Fekal looked like he was waiting for Cirno to say something. “So, what do I do next?” Until the goblin decided it was better to just ask.

“Right, I forgot.” The fairy realized. “You would draw the pattern that you want the bullets to shoot and it’s done.”

“That’s it?” Fekal had assumed the process to be more… complicated.

“I don’t know the exact details.” The blue-haired girl shrugged. “I heard that it has something to do with the thing on the backside.”

“You mean these letters we have just copied?” The goblin asked, earning a ‘yea’ from Cirno. “Huh, interesting.”

Fekal looked at the side of his paper that was blank. If she called that the backside then this must be the frontside. He raised his hand up to his chin. Hmm, she said that I have to draw the pattern that I want to shoot the bullets, but I don’t exactly know… “Hey, can I borrow your card again?”

“Sure,” The fairy handed it to him causally.

“Thanks, is this the spell that you used on us earlier?”

“Yes, it’s one of my favorites! I call it Ice sign ‘Icicle Fall’”

The goblin examined Cirno's slip of paper carefully, taking in any details. He then recalled about the battle that they had, specifically the moment when the fairy had used this spellcard to rain enormous number of icicles upon them. Fekal compared the pattern that was drawn on the paper to the pattern that the ice was shot out to see if there were any similarities. “I think I’ve got this.” As he said it, he reached out his hand to yank out the pen from Edria, surprising her. “Give me this.”

Strokes and lines started appearing on the blank frontside as Fekal began penning the spell that he had in mind. Each time the nip left the surface of the paper and a certain shape was formed, the goblin could feel a tiny amount of mana, the same amount that he would use to fire a bullet, being sucked out of his body. The first times that it happened, he was somewhat startled but then it became of no concern for he was drawing slow enough for the mana to come back to full as he switched to the next shape.

Cirno and Edria observed the very focused goblin making his first spellcard curiously, with an additional impatient coming from Edria. “When are you going to finish?”

“Almost…” He replied while his hand was still busy drawing. A few more seconds passed and with a few more strokes down, he carefully put the pen away and picked up the piece of paper from the wooden board that he had used to make drawing easier on the grass. “Here goes, what do you think?”

The fairy studied his results. “You know, so much for that intense look on your eyes, I had expected something more.” She sounded unimpressed.

“First time,” Fekal gave his excuse. “I will call this Gold Sign ‘Rain of Coins’.” The goblin remembered Cirno naming her card so he might as well do the same, he even copied the fairy’s naming format.

Right as he said that, the slip of paper on his hand glowed, but it was near impossible to see that because the light emitted was very faint. The thing that could be noticed, though, was having another small mana portion drained out followed by letters being magically printed on the top left corner of the front side which spelled how he named the card, in goblin’s script.

“Huh? Why did-“ Cirno said, if one could see the inside of her head, they might actually see a loading bar trying hard to reach the other end. “Ah! You also need to name it for it to become a spellcard, I completely forgot… he he.”

At which the goblin made a face, he wondered if the fairy was a little dumb, but he didn’t say that out loud. Fekal glanced at the slip of paper that he had worked on for the past few minutes. So this is a spellcard? He then wanted to do a thing. “Hey Cirno, how do you use it?”

“Uhh… you… uhh… do like this.” The fairy held up her spellcard into the air. “And you call its name and… it just works?” She said uncertainly.

“Right…” Fekal made a face again. The goblin guessed that he couldn’t rely on Cirno in the magic aspect.

Edria then interrupted his thought process. “You are done with the pen, right? Can you give it to me, please?”

Fekal saw the young goblin’s right hand open before his face and decided that since she had properly asked him this time, he might as well do what she wanted. “Here you go, do you know how you are supposed to draw it?” He asked half-expectantly

The young goblin made an innocent smile, her look completely betraying the appearance that she had on the battlefield and was the only clue that he needed.

“Alright,” Fekal moved closer to the young goblin. “You should begin with this…”

For some reason, he felt as if he was babysitting Edria, a funny thought that he quickly dismissed.

Edria was admiring her handiwork; she had finished with her own spellcard with some guidance from the goblin.

Truth to be told, Fekal himself was pretty curious about how his card would shoot. He had imagined the pattern of bullets in his head, but a part of him still wanted to cast it for real and that had led to him trying to follow what Cirno said, holding it up and shouting its name, only for nothing to happen.

“You know what? Can you use that spellcard of yours again? What was it, Icicle Fall?” Fekal asked.

“Of course! Who’s the target?” The fairy replied excitedly.

“Uhh… no one? Just use it on those trees over there.”

“Using a spellcard on nobody? Alright…” Her voice had lost all of the excitement and was replaced with disappointment. “Ice Sign ‘Icicle Fall’.”

The slip of paper that was on her hand dissipated after glowing white and soon enough icicles started to materialize around her general position and flew in a crisscrossing pattern. The goblin, however, paid more attention to the energy that the fairy channeled into the card and how it moved on the surface of the paper right before it disappeared.

Fekal took note of it in his mind and sought to replicate the process but still didn’t work even when he had projected his mana onto the paper. So he had to shout out the name after all? “Gold Sign ‘Rain of Coins’.” His assumption was correct when the card glowed and balls of light with golden color appeared around him.

The light bullets formed into lines horizontal to the ground and the lines moved together, making a pattern that slightly resembled a fan. The spellcard lasted for half a minute and by the time it ended, the goblin feel the presence of a lot of audience from behind.

The rest of the group had stopped the various jobs that they were doing to admire the magic ‘show’ that Fekal put up. Loud clapping rang out and the more eager members of the group quickly ran in, either asking for a re-demonstration or the method to make a spellcard itself.

Fekal stood in the middle of attention awkwardly, answering any questions that came in to the best of his ability.

Suddenly, everyone could see something very bright from the corner of their eyes, and Fekal seemed to realize what it was. “If you all wanted to watch it again so badly then here goes!” Edria shouted with her spellcard glowing. “Random Sign ‘All-Direction Attack’!”

Chaos ensued.