Aya shot up from the bed covered in sweat and took a couple of moments to calm her breathing. The lights were still off in the room, so she knew it was the middle of the night. Not that she was really focusing on that. No, her mind was on her recent nightmare. She found it hard to make sense of the imagery, but in half the dream figures kept coming forth. Every one made fun of her. Most of them were people from her last life, and in the dream, she was stuck in an even younger-looking version of her current body. It was horrible, they teased her as a breastfeeding baby and other things. There was also a recurring theme of slimes showing up to attack her in great numbers but she didn’t want to think about that part. She leaned forward to place her face in her hands and began muttering to herself.

Her thin blanket had fallen exposing her naked body to the air, and she could feel the chill of the air. Made worse by the sweat clinging to her skin, but she ignored the sensations. As if she was trying to convince herself, she said to herself, “I’m not a little girl. I’m not a little girl.”

Over and over she repeated the line until her breathing calmed. Grabbing her blanket she wrapped herself, and rolled over. She was still tired, but she was having a hard time going back to sleep. The nightmare was still on her mind, as she couldn’t exactly dismiss it from her mind. Now that she was calmer, she had also become aware of the fact that she needed to pee. Something she was trying to ignore, as she could not actually do anything about it. Her door was locked, and there was no toilet in the room.

After a while, she managed to push her concerns out of her mind, and even fall asleep. Next thing she knew after that was that she was uncomfortably cold and breathing hard from another nightmare. The lights were still off, and it took her sleep-addled mind to connect the cold with a cause. The moment she connected the cold with a cause, her body flushed with heat. If the lights were on, an observer would have said she looked embarrassed. There was nothing she could do about the problem, so she slipped out of the bed and made herself comfortable in a corner. Feeling somewhat comfortable, she leaned back against the wall, and muttered to herself, “This is going to be a long night.”

Umeko had just left the basement with Lily to help with making lunch when Arlie entered the main room via the backdoor. She noticed Lily, and asked, “Has lunch been started?”

“No, I was just about to help Rose in the kitchen.”

“Great, while I was out I got some cheese that is hard to come by.”

Lily froze for a moment, and Umeko had a feeling something was wrong a moment late those thoughts were confirmed as Lily said, incredulous, “Cheese!? Are you alright?”

Confused she asked, “why is buying rare cheese concerning?”

Lily glanced over, and sheepishly scratched her cheek, “I guess you haven’t seen the pantry, but there isn’t any cheese in the pantry. As for why, well Arlie hates cheese. She absolutely refuses to eat any dish that has cheese in it.”

Arlie sighed, and replied, “That is not entirely true. I am just extremely picky about cheese to the point that there is only one dish with cheese that I will eat. Not that it is native to this world. It’s native to my original world, and it is called Pizza.” Producing something out of nowhere like she has done in the past, she continued and I happened to find the perfect cheese for some nice homemade pizza. I also grabbed some nice meats, and veggies to top it with. I grabbed some fish for you Umeko while I was out as well.”

Umeko was excited to hear that she had gotten some more fish, “Sounds like your trip went well, and before I forget, I found three balls like the one you used on that girl earlier in the basement.  I read the one, and it said ‘Wendy Marvel,’ who is this person and why are they in a sphere?”

Arlie dropped her ingredients on the table, her face changing completely. Then without even answering the question, she ran off. Heading straight down into the basement that they had just left. Umeko wasn’t sure, but it seemed Arlie had left in a panic.

She came back a few moments later, she came back cradling the balls and she seemed relieved. “I take it those are important to you?”

Arlie nodded, and said, “They were among my first creations, and therefore these three are in a way, my children. I created these three not long after, I created the first dragons. I’m sad to say that I completely forgot that I put them in these capture balls.”

Confused she tilted her head and was about to ask a question, but Lily beat her to it. “If they are that precious to you, how could you put them in balls and forget about them!?”

Arlie slumped, a bit and scratched her cheek and replied, “I have no excuse really. As for why I put these three in capture balls, well two of them are battle maniacs seeking ever stronger opponents and third, well she has a good heart, but sometimes it gets her into trouble. You see, she followed the other two intending to keep them out of trouble. Well long story short, they dragged her into a mess none of them were truly prepared for. They pissed off some rather powerful figures, so I hid them away to keep them safe.”

“And then, you forgot about them! That’s not exactly keeping them safe.”

Umeko decided it would be best to stop this, and interjected, “Perhaps we should stop to make lunch, and you can lecture her later.”

Lily glared at her, and said, “Go put Arlie’s cheese away. We can have her ‘pizza’ later.”

Umeko realized she had been dismissed and went to do as she was told. Somethings were scary, and she didn’t want to be in the middle of this. At least she didn’t have to worry about them throwing fireballs at each other, but that didn’t mean she was comfortable being in the same room as two immensely powerful beings when one is mad at the other. The aura alone was starting to get hard to bear.

Meanwhile, a young girl found herself the focus of unwanted attention. Her mother had finally noticed her state of dress, and exclaimed, “LILY! Put some clothes on. You can’t just undress in the middle of the room like that.”

“Its totally fine, and she is quite clearly testing my gift to her. Anyway, I find it odd how much you try to deny half your lineage. I think it is about time, you take your own clothes off,” said Erosi. Her appearance hadn’t changed, but her smile gave off a very unkind feel. Lily had a feeling that mommy was in trouble, but she couldn’t push off her curiosity, and while a part of her told her this might be stupid she asked anyway.

“What lineage are you talking about?”

Erosi looked over, and her expression softened, while behind her Dewari vanished. “Your mom has been hiding it, but she came from a long line of nature mages. She even started down the path of a nature mage, but later ran from it.  Nature mages like lust mages aren’t all that inclined for wearing clothes. Both classes actually benefit from not wearing clothes. Although Nature mages benefit more than a lust mage in that regard. 

Of course, your family also has a long-standing relationship with me. As a result, most mages in your bloodline have been rare variants. Your grandmother, for example, had a lust variant advanced class, by the time she retired to raise your mother.” then she glanced back to Ivy and said, “Speaking of her, she was very disappointed when you ran off. Disregarding both your heritage and your talents. If you hadn’t you very well could have been an A rank if not S rank mage by now.”

Lily looked at Mom and had to wonder why. She knew her Mom was barely level forty at the moment, but if Erosi said that she could have been an A rank or S rank by now that meant she had seriously hurt herself by not taking advantage of her heritage and talents. Lily knew that to be considered S rank you had to pass a trial of ascension and exceed level one hundred. As for A rank, tradition placed being one at level ninety, but it was possible to be one earlier if your skills were advanced enough and you passed a test. Lily thought her mom was very stupid not to use something that could have gotten her that kind of power. Especially given the respect that would have granted her.

Erosi suddenly returned her attention to Lily, and while Ivy tried to say something she was cut off with a glare. Erosi took a lecturer’s tone and began, “Now to answer your questions, your family bloodline has a natural affinity towards nature, lust, dimensional skills. It why you got that particular variant of the dimensional mage subclass. Although I did push things in that direction a bit since you would need the spells that came with the class. Now onto nature aligned classes. I fully expect you to unlock one as your secondary subclass when you get high enough in level so you will need to know this. All nature classes come with a skill called Nature’s Embrace. It provides massive bonuses to stats that scale depending on how few barriers are between the holder and nature. In other words the less you wear the stronger you become. The skill doesn’t provide any natural armor though, so it is best to be careful. Most nature classes do learn some useful skills or spells that provide natural armor, and Nature’s Embrace does evolve into a better skill once you gain enough experience with it. Common evolutions of the skill will focus on a particular environment making the holder practically invulnerable in a specific environment, such as the forest. Outside of that environment, the evolved skill isn’t any better than the basic in fact it is slightly worse. So think before you specialize in that fashion.”

The lecture continued for several hours on the basics of nature magic and their skills before Erosi was happy, and by then Lily was rather tired. As for her Mom, she had not gotten many words in edgewise, and Erosi had chosen to curse her. Her mother was no longer able to equip clothing, at all. Something she was quite embarrassed about as she awkwardly followed Lily home. Lily didn’t bother putting her dress back on, and while she could have teleported back on her own, she chose to stay around and enjoy Mom’s embarrassment.