“Since we’re already here, you two want to go look around some more?” Lance asked after he finished his cake.
“I do want to look around a bit more...” Ciel replied.
“I want to watch some magic duels,” Aria said.
“If we happen to see one,” Lance said. “As for me, I want to look around for some Magic Tools. We should be able to find a couple of different stores that sell them while we’re walking.”
“Oh, there’s one nearby!” Ciel pointed at a nearby building.
“Huh. I didn’t know about that shop…Thanks, Ciel.”
The trio went around the city and visited the stores in the cities, starting with the Magic shop that Ciel pointed at. They also visited a few other stores, looking at the wares they have on display.
One such place that they visited was a boutique. Aria was somehow eager to check it out and tried out different clothes on Ciel.
Right now, Ciel was wearing a simple, but elegant white dress, her cheeks a little red.
“Um…How does it look?” she asked shyly.
“It looks great on you,” Lance complimented her. “I’m surprised at how good your fashion sense is, Aria.”
“Cute…” Aria muttered, her eyes sparkling.
“Thanks…” Ciel said.
“Miss, I’ll buy this too.”
“Wait! Aren’t you buying too many clothes for me?!” Ciel tried to stop Aria. “You haven’t bought one for yourself yet!”
“There’s no problem.” Aria smiled.
“Lance, please stop her!”
In the end, Lance managed to convince Aria to buy only three sets of dresses, one of which includes the white dress Ciel was already wearing. Lance and Ciel were directed to the counter, but it seemed as if Aria still had some questions for the employee.
“Do you happen to have…” Lance didn’t hear the rest of what Aria said.
“Unfortunately, no,” he heard the employee say, “but I can introduce you to…”
He saw Aria nod a little to what seemed like a question made by the employee.
“I wonder what she’s asking...?” Lance whispered to Ciel. "What do you think?"
“Perhaps she's...Ah, it seems she's done.”
After visiting the boutique, the trio were now walking back to the academy. The things they bought were kept in Lance’s magic bag aside from Ciel’s white dress, which she decided to wear on the way back.
“That was a nice change of pace…” Lance said.
“Mhmmm.” Aria nodded.
Ciel had a more complicated expression, however.
“The prices were way higher than what I expected…”
“I was perplexed myself when I first came to this part of the city,” Lance said.
“Hmmm?” Aria tilted her head. “It’s always been like that though?”
Lance coughed a little.
“Well, setting that aside…The academy will give you an allowance if you perform well in your studies.”
“We have that kind of system?” Ciel asked.
“Yeah. The lowest they give is equivalent to what the average citizen earns in two months.”
“That much?!”
“Personally, I think it’s too low,” Aria said.
Lance rolled his eyes. “Not everyone is as rich as you, Aria…”
“An allowance huh…” Ciel muttered. “If I save it, I can buy some books from bookstores.” I can also send some back home.
“Ah, you do like reading.”
“I do.” Ciel smiled. “It was quite tiring going all over those books in such a short timeframe, but I had fun learning new things.”
“By the way, do you have a specific field in mind?” Lance asked.
Aria also seemed to be curious as she moved a bit closer.
Ciel looked into the distance.
“I want to be a Magic Doctor,” she said.
“Someone like Lettie huh…” Lance muttered, causing Ciel to widen her eyes.
“You know Lady Lettie?!”
Lance nodded. “Rose and her go way back in their academy days. She usually visits our home. That’s how I met her.”
“How nice…I want to meet her too…”
“You must be a big fan of hers.”
As they passed by an alleyway-
“..me...lp...elp….Help me!”
“Did you hear that?” Ciel asked as she looked around.
Lance pointed to an alley.
“Seems it came from there.”
“We need to help that person!” Ciel took off.
“Ciel wait- She’s too fast! Aria, please go on ahead!”
Aria nodded before taking off, leaving a lagging Lance behind.
Ciel arrived at the scene to see an injured woman lying on the ground. The sight froze her as she saw the blood surrounding the woman.
N-No! I can’t freeze up! Ciel shook off her shock as she approached the woman, barely managing to keep herself from puking due to the sight of blood.
“I-I need to help her.”
She put her hand on the woman’s next to check her pulse.
“She’s still alive. Now I u-um….right. I need to check where she was injured,” Ciel said.
She tore the clothing to see that she had a large cut on her back.
“This….Ah!” She said as she put her hand on top near the injury.
“I beseech the elements to grant me thy power: Heal!”
Heal, as the name implies, is a beginner level invocation type spell that allows one to close wounds, albeit they leave scars, though they can be removed through other means. This is one of the spells that all students learn first.
Please work…
Her hand started to glow as Mana began to form in her hand and started closing the woman’s wound.
“It worked!”
Ciel entered a trance-like state as her gaze never left the woman’s wound.
Once the woman’s wound completely closed, she sighed in relief before remembering that the woman lost a lot of blood. She turned the woman over then grabbed a rejuvenation potion from her pouch, making the unconscious woman drink it by supporting her head.
The woman’s ragged breathing started to normalize shortly after as Ciel sighed in relief.
“Thank the goddess...” She said while smiling a bit. She tried to stand up, but it seems her legs have lost their strength.
She put her hand on top of the pouch.
“This magic pouch really is handy. I have to thank Lance.”
The pouch was a smaller and easier to make variant of the magic bag, designed to put potions and ingredients inside. It can’t fit anything bigger than a vial, and can’t carry as much, but it works more or less the same.
That was when she noticed the state she was in.
“My dress…” Her hands trembled a little as she saw how bloody her clothes were.
Ciel shook her head before checking at the unconscious woman once more.
“She’ll be fine…I just hope Aria won’t be too angry when she sees my dress later…”
Just as she sighed in relief-
“I’m surprised you were even able to move after seeing that much blood for the first time.”
Ciel was startled by a female voice behind her as she tried to stand up, staggering a bit before she finally regained her balance as the woman slowly walked towards her, stepping out of the shadows while clapping her hands.
She was a red haired woman with golden eyes that was clad in dark clothing.
“W-Who are you?” Ciel warily asked the stranger.
“My name? Ah, you can call me Elise, but enough about me, I want you to come with me.”
“M-Me?”
“Come now, grab my hand,” she said.
“I-I still need to help this woman,” Ciel said as she pointed to the woman.
“Oh...her,” she said as she muttered ‘Teleport’ and sent the woman somewhere else.
“W-Where did you-”
“I sent her to the plaza where people could find her immediately. Now, come with me,” Elise said, with the last part being a gentle and serene voice.
The next thing Ciel knew was that she was standing right in front of the woman and was about to hold the hand she was extending.
She slapped the woman’s hand away.
“No!”
Elise clicked her tongue.
“Only three weeks and she’s already developed a resistance against hypnotism…”
Ciel, who was slowly backing off, heard what she said.
“H-Hypnotism…? No, stay away…!” Ciel asked as she was fumbling through her pouch to get something.
“I wanted to do this the easy way, but oh well…” Elise suddenly disappeared from Ciel’s vision.
“Where-”
“I’m going to have to subdue you.” Ciel heard Elise’s voice behind her.
Just before she managed to grab her, Ciel quickly jumped away as she threw a vial on the ground between them.
“A rejuvenation potion? What are you-” Was what Ciel last heard before the woman was engulfed in an explosion.
Ciel quickly stood up, nearly tripping but managed to regain her balance and ran away.
After a while...
She suddenly slammed into something hard while running in an otherwise clear alleyway and was pushed back, falling to the ground.
“O-Ouch…! I was sure this wasn’t a dead end…” She said as she stood up. It was then that she noticed a thin wall made of mana.
“Huh?” She slowly extended a hand to touch it.
“A…barrier?”
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