My back hurts and the way this crazy lunatic was driving did not help at all.

The princess ... Aurelia and I fell asleep while reading last night. Problem is that we were sitting and leaning against a tree, which is not the most comfortable position to sleep in.

We also leaned against each other which was a reason for awkwardness, when the others found us like that, after waking up.

Please fill in various comments on how adorable we were as much as you like.

“WE’RE HERE!”

“Thank fucking god.”

The cart came to a sudden halt, accompanied by exclamations of varying degrees of profanity.

I don’t exactly know why I expected to be standing in front of a gate, but there was none, and so I was disappointed. The only thing resembling some sort of border to separate the village from the “outside world” was a bridge leading across a small river.

The village itself wasn’t that big, it really was a village. I imagine if addresses were a concept utilized in this world, each of the houses’ address would probably be “Crema” and then a number after that.

Or are addresses a concept in this world?

Clearly, I should pay more attention to my surroundings.

The trick is to describe just enough so everyone gets a good grasp at how everything looks, while not boring them with every minute detail.

Anyway, completely ignoring the complex infrastructure of this ... outpost of the magic race, we got out of the cart trying to look all cool and heroic despite the pain of having hit every single inside surface of the cart, with every inch of our bodies.

Shelly was discussing something with the old crazy lady, when Raynard asked: “Is that Blackwood Forest?” while pointing at what was undoubtedly Blackwood forest.

“That undoubtedly is Blackwood Forest,” Aurelia replied.

“Doesn’t seem too black for me.”

“It’s made out of wood,” I chimed in, earning confused looks from both of them. What even was this conversation.

“Truth be told, I didn’t think when it said near the forest, it meant ... that close,” I added.

The forest was actually stretching into the village, with a lot of branches hanging over some of the houses. It was as if the village made a small dent into the border of the forest.

“Summers tend to get rather hot in this area. Sure hope, they don’t have a problem with forest fires,” Shelly said, after joining us.

“FOREST FIRE!” Someone shouted off in the distance.

“Should we do something?” I asked. We, excluding myself, in this case.

“Let’s go!” Aurelia exclaimed, let’s undoubtedly including myself.

She crossed the bridge and everyone else followed suit. We ran along the edge of the village to the general direction of the forest, until we saw the smoke rising not too far from us. We came across a few panicked townspeople desperately trying to get water from the river to where the fire was. They weren’t very successful.

The fire thankfully wasn’t too deep into the forest, while at the same time not being near any building. Around what appeared to be a cemetery, burnt grass left an interesting smell next to a couple of half burned bushes.

“Okay, I think I got this,” Aurelia said, throwing her bag to the side.

She took a fighting stance and began to box the air between herself and the burning bushes, which would have looked ridiculous, if it weren’t for the fact that she seemed to punch water out of thin air. Actually, I think that was exactly what she was doing.

Raynard seemed similarly confused as myself, but he did not have the audacity to ask what was going on, so I did it instead.

“Shelly, is she actually punching the humidity out of the air?” I voiced my theory.

“Oh, yes that is what she’s doing. Phew, I thought I would have to explain it to you, but you seem to be rather perceptive.”

“Does that even make sense?”

“Why wouldn’t it?”

“Oh sorry, different world, different standards. Humidity does not exist in my world.”

“Oh, what a shame, so water magic is rather difficult, right?” Raynard said.

r/woosh

“Anyway,” I turned to Aurelia, “do you need any help, or...?!”

“No, don’t worry. I got this. At least now I get around to doing my daily training.”

“Don’t worry, I take it from here!” another voice exclaimed from somewhere behind us.

A short-haired girl, wearing pants, maybe a bit older than us, came running from one of the buildings behind us. At first glance you probably wouldn’t consider her pretty, at least I needed a bit to realize, that she was simply beautiful in a natural way, that would never find its way onto a playboy cover.

I wonder if those ... Nevermind!

Blood drained from my face, when an image most would not consider suitable for public display appeared in my inner eye. Even though there was basically no connection between those two, I probably would never be able to look at that girl normally again.

She came to a halt, only a few steps short of reaching our group. I noticed she was wearing gloves for some reason when she spread out her arms in front of her. Her body began trembling, and that was when Aurelia also noticed her presence. I tried figuring out what she was doing when I realized that her gloves had dampened. It took not long after that for drops to fall out of the sky.

It started raining.

At first the fire did not seem to recede, but that was because the rain was spread over the entire village. The girl did a few motions with her hands that reminded me of waterbending, after which the rain concentrated around the trees that were still on fire and it started to look more like a waterfall rather than simply rain.

Several townspeople started gathering around our group not minding the rain at all.

The girl ended the rain simply by putting her arms to her sides, after the fire was put out.

And then everyone clapped.

Yeah.

That happened.

“Wow, of course Misha did it again!”

“Thank god for this blessed child!”

Though I still wasn’t sure whether that Misha-girl was an outstanding magician, or everyone else simply sucked. I didn’t have any comparison yet.

Hey, could I have done that thing?

[You would have died of mana loss before extinguishing the fire.]

Well, that’s good to know.

“Hey, Shelly, do you really think, it was a good idea to take me along?”

“Yeah, no need for an inferiority complex, I think she’s at a pretty advanced level. Also, she definitely is older than you. Wonder how she learned that, out here though …”

I turned back to face that girl, Misha, to take a closer look at her, but Aurelia was just one step ahead, and was already approaching here.

“Wow, that was certainly impressive,” she said.

Misha turned around and took a stop forward while saying “Thank you, your moves were also pretty darn cool.” She staggered a bit forward and inelegantly grabbed the princess’s shoulders, to not fall on her face. Out of reflex, I leapt a few steps forward, even though the princess ... Aurelia had everything under control.

“Oh my, is everything all right?” she asked.

“Yeah, sorry, I might’ve overdone it a bit. No more magic for the day, I guess.”

“Well, hopefully there won’t be any need for that.”

She took the words right out of my mouth. Honestly, I really wasn’t sure how to join the conversation with how the princess expressed basically what I would’ve have said.

“I’m Misha, by the way. By the looks of it, you guys don’t seem to be from around here, I suppose?”

“No.” I finally took the opportunity. “We’re from the capital of Ataraxia. We’re here for a mission issued by ... someone for sure,” I said, realizing that I had no idea what I actually wanted to say.

“That person was me!” A voice broke away from the crowd, that had slowly started to dissolve, to either get back to work or to inspect the damage.

“Pastor Ignacio!” Misha called out to a man that appeared younger than one would imagine a pastor to be. His skin was a tad lighter than Raynard’s and his hair was cut extremely short. Also, he wore short pants and a long-sleeved shirt, which seemed unfitting for someone called a pastor.

Actually, he looked pretty damn fresh for a pastor.

“I just heard about it from the others.” He took a look at the charred remains of some trees nearby. “Turns out you taking on magic was a good choice,” he said suggestively, bopping his head towards Misha’s work.

“Thank you. If it weren’t for my sister, I probably would never have considered it. Also, you are a formidable teacher.” She smiled at him warmly, and I wasn’t sure whether to read that as romantic attraction considering their possibly uncomfortable age difference.

“Pastor Ignacio, did I get that right?” Shelly took a step forward and upon receiving an affirmative nod, she stretched out her hand. “Hi, I’m Shelly Farnsworth, and I am the supervising teacher for this mission.”

“Ah, of course.” He grasped her hand but contrary to his rough exterior, this movement appeared rather gentle. “Thank you for coming. I hope you had a good journey. Sorry for the uh, little incident. I hope that does not taint your image of our community. Yes, I submitted that mission, because we might have an, umm, supernatural incident, we are not equipped to deal with.” He gave Raven who was simply watching the scene with an overprotective arm on my shoulder, a weird side-glance. “And you are already defying my expectations ...”

I did not know what to make of that expression.

“I’d like to make a suggestion?” Misha said, directing everyone’s attention towards her.

“How about discussing this at our Inn? You sure’d like to check in and have a meal while at it.”

“Misha is the daughter of the inn’s owner and works there part-time. So of course, she is obligated to do some promotion,” he joked.

“And that promotion is surely appreciated,” she came back at him, looking for support from our group.

“I think that sounds great!” Shelly said. “We’ve been traveling for two days, so to have a meal that is not over an improvised campfire would be a nice change.” She followed Misha who already was going to our new settlement, the pastor next to her.

“Only two days from the capital?”

“Yeeeah, it was one hell of a ride.”