The gang leader looks over at the draconid woman. She just had to make things so difficult for him and his crew! He isn’t powerless however, he simply isn’t a frontline hand-to-hand fighter. His work is in the backline.
Magic. It is a technique making use of something filling the entire world. Mana.
Each human and demihuman has pools of mana within them. The gang leader is aware of the mana within his body and can move it around precisely. This is what made him able to learn magic. Using his awareness of mana, he moves it through his body into his right arm. It must be a precise amount of mana every time he casts a spell.
Not enough mana and the spell won’t activate. Too much mana and the spell structure burns out and rebounds on him, the caster. Using mental visualization, the gang leader feeds the mana into a precisely arranged mana circuit within his arm. This circuit is a design that will help control how the spell manifests; its shape, its size, its attribute, etc. His right arm starts to glow.
The draconid woman is dealing with the last of his men right now. She thoroughly humiliated all of them.
Fucking whore… We’ll see how you deal with this. Let’s see how strong draconids really are.
“Troud Lathim!” He shouts out this incantation in precise pronunciation. He imagines the properties that he wishes the mana to have. In half a second, a spike of ice the length of a short sword floats in midair. The draconid woman notices him. She acted immediately. She covers her head with her arms against the ice spike. The gang leader smirks.
Idiot.
Another half second later, the ice projectile launches.
Crash!
Angelidis’ eyes are closed when she hears the sound of impact. However… she doesn’t feel pain. She opens her eyes and looks at her body for a wound. Her arms, her torso, she even touches her face. She then looks towards the man who spoke the incantation.
She sees the mage still standing there, but he has a dumbfounded expression on his face. A woman is standing next to him. She is holding his right arm downwards. Around him, Angelidis can see a spot where ice hit the ground as well as the shards spread around the impact crater. That woman pushed his arm down which changed the trajectory of the ice lance.
If Angelidis had been hit with that, she would have broken a limb at least. She is faster, stronger, and more agile than humans and beastkin. But, her skin is not tough enough to withstand something like that spell. She watches in surprise as the woman pushes the man’s right arm behind his back.
She then pushes him onto the ground on his belly. Angelidis is relieved. She wasn’t expecting a mage to be among the members of a mugger crew. The woman looks towards Angelidis while holding the mage down. She is a human wearing oddly large clothes and shoes. She looks quite poor. Her hair is almost bald and she has no eyebrows or lashes.
But, she was fast enough to sneak up on him and even pinned him down. Not bad…
“What do you wanna do with this guy?” The woman asks her respectfully. There are not many humans in this neighborhood, and even fewer who would be kind to a demihuman. Angelidis is surprised.
“...Right, you can let him go for now.” The human woman pauses for a moment and complies. She lets go of the man’s right arm, stands up and backs away from him. As the man frantically tries to get up, Angelidis walks towards him and kicks him in his leg. He falls back to the ground on his back. She then pummels his arms, legs and belly. She is careful not to break his bones, but she does bruise him hard.
“Ah, aaahhh!! S-Stop!! W-What are–” He becomes quiet when Angelidis pinches the furry ear atop his head. It feels a bit like a mother scolding her child.
“No talking from you. You’re going to listen. What I just did to you and your friends? That’s me being generous. But, if you come back to where I work and where my friends work, I will tear off your balls and shove them down your throat. I’ll tear off their balls and shove them down your throat as well.” Angelidis points to the guy's friends, still out of action, either unconscious or in pain. The leader notices once again her jet black claws.
“Do you understand? Anything other than ‘yes’, and the beating will continue.”
“Yes. Yes.” The man only says yes and becomes quiet. He feels even more humiliation and pain now. But, if he returns anywhere near here, this draconid woman will kill him. He can see the coldness in her narrow slit pupils. He isn’t willing to let him and his friends die over a beating. She didn’t even break any bones…
Angelidis walks away from him and dusts off her hands. She pulls her hood back up and waves at the human. However, another man walks up slowly behind the human woman. Her face shows caution, but the human woman introduces him without turning to look at him.
“Don’t worry, this is my friend, Ajax. My name is Shaula.”
“Hi, nice to meet you.” Ajax greets her as well. Angelidis is relieved and greets him back.
“Nice to meet you, Ajax, Shaula! My name is Angelidis. Thanks for your help, that could have been really painful for me…”
“Don’t worry, we stayed out of it because you looked like you had things under control, but that guy looked weird to us when he did… whatever it was he did.” Ajax explains their reason for interfering. But, he doesn’t know what that man was doing. Angelidis answers him.
“Magic. It isn’t all that rare, but now even muggers have it. That was so annoying.”
“An ice lance, Shaula ran out right when she heard the name of his magic.”
“You understood his incantation? Wow, that’s amazing! I have no idea how magic works, I just put my hands up because I didn’t want to get hit in the head by whatever it was.”
Both Ajax and Shaula look at each other. The words that that animal-eared man had said were ‘Troud Lathim’. Two simple words but packed with meaning to them. Within those two words was a description of exactly what that spell would be. The temperature of the ice, the length and shape of the ice spike, the speed at which it would fly, etc.
The reason they understood the spell incantation is because of their language comprehension power. Incantations are the words of a language specifically designed for magic many thousands of years ago. The incantation words have ultraspecific meanings. This is how spells that were initially multiple paragraphs of incantation were shrunk down to short phrases. Magic became more usable in combat due to this.
Ajax and Shaula put aside their curiosity towards magic for now as they walk with Angelidis. She pauses in her pace. Noticing their clothes once again, she realizes their circumstances. They don’t have anything in their pockets, no sound of coins bouncing around as they walk. There are many humans in poverty in this city, but these two have helped her. She feels a bit sad seeing them.
So she opens her mouth and offers something for the debt she owes them.
“Look, Ajax, Shaula… Want to join me in a meal? That fight made me a bit hungry, let’s all get something to eat. There’s a bar nearby that sells good, cheap wine.” She smiles wide at the two of them. Ajax notices her sharp teeth as he answers her.
“...We really like the offer, Angelidis, but we don’t have any money. We just ate too, we couldn’t impose on you like that.” Ajax politely declines her offer. However, Angelidis does not accept that.
“You two will come with me to eat. I’ll pay you back for your help with good food. Honestly… I just feel like getting drunk around people. Please don’t leave me alone in a bar, I’ll feel like an alcoholic.” Angelidis pleads to the two of them. Seeing her honestly earnest expression, Ajax wants to say yes. He looks over at Shaula.
In truth, this is a perfect opportunity. She had wanted to ask about things in this world and this could be the least awkward way to do so. It’s just that… Shaula feels awkward seeing Angelidis’ earnest plea to them.
Even the loner Ajax is a social butterfly compared to her. Around strangers, she speaks only when she needs to, no further. Now she will have to be around an opposite personality. A true extrovert.
She sighs and nods yes towards Ajax.
“Alright, we are in your care, Angelidis.” Ajax accepts Angelidis’ invitation to drink. The three of them head to Angelidis’ bar. It is the only one in the neighborhood still serving customers at this time of night.
