“To put it simply, when a knight becomes a paladin, they can swear allegiance with a divine entity. This process is called ‘forming an oath’. The oath is a promise between you and a God or a Goddess, and it generally consists of you worshiping said entity and following the conditions they set for you, while they provide you with divine power to protect you from harm and to give you strength.” Honestly, I think I had heard of something along these lines in fantasy books before, so what she explained to me didn’t feel like complete nonsense.

“I see. I think you mentioned losing your powers during your story. Why is that?” I figured I knew the answer to this question already, but it wouldn’t hurt to just make sure.

“I… I swore an oath to protect the people of Rachasia…” Amelia grimaced, as it clearly was a tough subject for her. “I broke my oath and thus lost my powers as soon as I raised my sword against the knights of the kingdom.”

“That seems a bit unfair, considering what the knights did. I feel your rage was pretty justified.” I couldn’t help but voice out my concerns. “You chose a pretty fickle God to worship!”

“I… It doesn’t cease to amaze me how freely you can voice such heresy…” Amelia sighed a bit.

“Hey. I am a witch!” I quipped.

“Indeed. I’d be lying if I didn’t feel betrayed… But the deities work in mysterious ways.” Amelia seemed a bit conflicted about badmouthing the divinity she used to worship.

“So, is there no way to ever get your powers back?”

“I’ve never heard of an oathbreaker gaining a new divinity to worship.” The paladin spoke solemnly.

“Oath… breaker?”

“It’s what they call paladins who break their oath.” She confirmed.

“It’s a pretty cool title!” I quipped again, as my inner edgelord couldn’t help but voice my thoughts once more.

            “Psh…! I can’t say I’ve ever heard of anyone sharing such a thought.”

Luckily, it seemed my adoration for the title of oathbreaker was enough to lighten the mood a bit. It honestly was a cool set of words, but I did wish she would one day get a new deity to worship, considering how important it seemed to her.

“I honestly doubt there would be anyone, but a witch, who would be willing to pair up on a journey with an oathbreaker paladin.” Amelia seemed almost… relieved?

“I don’t really care whether you got an oath or not. You’re strong even without one! That’s all I need to know!” I tried my best to give her a reassuring grin.

“Well. That much, I can assure you of.” She waved her hand a bit dismissively.

I didn’t really expect to gain Amelia’s trust just like that, so it eased my anxiety levels a bit to see she was at least willing to joke around a bit with me.

…

Amelia needed a couple days to recover a bit more. Her wound healed somewhat well, but the low quality of food and water did keep us generally tired while we hid in the hut.

One thing was for sure at this point, though. It was highly unlikely anyone from the kingdom would follow us here. If they were interested in chasing either one of us, I’m sure they’d have done so already.

The only noises in the seemingly endless mist were those of beasts. I remembered making note of the mist thinning out around my torch fire when I was wandering in the swamp for the first time. Normally, you’d expect the fire to draw in attention from the monsters, but they seemed to steer clear from me as soon as I lit the torch up. Maybe the monsters around these parts were particularly weak to flames? It would explain why a feeble bag of skin and bones like me was able to kill the wolf-thing.

We left small torches alight around the hut each night as my knightly companion slept. I did suggest to Amelia about finding the wolf I killed, so we could use its fur as bedding, but Amelia said it might be too dangerous to go wandering too far into the mist.

I didn’t talk a whole lot with Amelia during the couple of days she took to recover, so I don’t really have much in terms of interesting conversations to report here. I think she’s wary of me, even though I haven’t really… done anything.

“I’ll go on a small surveying trip.” Amelia declared after she had recovered enough to move around properly.

“Don’t forget to bring some kind of kindling with you, just in case you encounter something big, and don’t wander off too far!” I mothered.

Amelia gave me a bit of a funny look, but she respected my wishes and grabbed some burnable twigs I had collected from around the house.

As the door closed with a creak, she was gone.

I was left by my lonesome in the hut. I can’t really say I was uncomfortable or anything by myself there. Furthermore, I had grown quite used to solitude over my life, so there was maybe even a sense of peace to it. I was still confused and worried about some things… but they could wait for now, since I had to focus on recovery.

I also had a bit of a project to work on as well! Namely, in the study of magic.

If I wanted to be of any use at all during our travels, I’d need to understand the nature of magic better. What good is a witch who doesn’t even cast spells?!

First things first, the shiny stuff is definitely magical energy or something like that. Maybe, for the sake of convenience, I’ll just call it ‘mana’.

Everything around me sparkles with mana, but some things such as inanimate objects sparkle with a lot less than people for example.

The more sparkles, the more mana something has!

The only thing I’ve ever seen with no mana was that freaky hand-stone at the castle. Outside of that, every single thing I’ve seen has at least a tiny number of the glimmering lights.

Judging by how everything has mana in it, my theory is, that it’s something necessary for things to exist in this world.

Why do I think it’s that important? Well…

The one thing about this world’s magic I know about from my past life, is the magic language of the witches. The witches could write magical sigils to things to invoke spells.

Items with these sigils were like…magical artifacts! The fake magic contract I made for Amelia was a bit like that. I took an everyday item and then wrote the magical command on it.

The sigil was that of fire, and when the paper caught aflame, the sparkles flared up around it for an almost unnoticeable moment.

Just like when they shone around my arm when I carved the symbol of fire on it.

What do both of these have in common?

WELL! The catalyst was destroyed in both! The paper… and my arm!  

Now, this might be complete nonsense to you, so let me simplify it a bit! Basically, there are different ways to cast magic, but the core concept is always the same:

Mana travels through an object in a specific manner in order to create spells. The more mana an object has, the bigger or more effective the spell is.

I found a strange clay jar with an odor reminiscent of pickles. It was to be my experiment subject number one to prove my theory! The vase didn’t have a whole lot of mana, so it was sparkling very lightly.

When I drew a sigil of fire on the vase, it turned completely black and then into gray dust, not too different from ash.

Here is an explanation of this incredible scientific experiment!

The witch sigils allow me to cast spells through other objects without using my own mana, but the effectiveness of the spell is dependent on the mana capacity of the catalyst AND the physical structure of the catalyst.

If I write the sigil of fire on a piece of wood, it will burn. If I write the same symbol on a piece of rock, it’ll turn dark, but it won’t burn, simply because rocks require a lot more heat and energy to burn. The amount of mana they possess isn’t enough to make them catch on fire, so they just get slightly singed or heat up.

If I found a rock with an incredible amount of mana, maybe it would be able to burn!

NEXT FACT! The vase turned into ash. This is simply a guess, but I believe when an object completely runs out of mana, it turns to ash.

Mana seems to be an essential energy that keeps everything in this world together, which makes me really nervous about that horrid stone slab I saw during the trial.

How did it stay in a solid shape without any mana? If I don’t remember wrong, it seemed to be absorbing mana from those around it as well. I couldn’t help but wonder what it was, but I also really wasn’t curious enough to want to see one again.

Ahem. Anyway, a couple last notes from my experiments.

I do remember the witches being able to cast spells without always sacrificing something for it. I don’t remember the exact details, but it had something to do with dark-patterns they had painted on their bodies, those were the kinds I loved to draw on myself as a kid. They looked a bit like crudely made electric circuits, I think. It was a mixture of those and magical sigils, but now that I knew writing magical symbols on your person was a bad idea, I figured I might want to avoid drawing more on myself in the future.

I had no clue if those circuit-like patterns were really a thing in this world to begin with though, so drawing magic commands on items had to do for now.

Casting spells like I did with the wolf should be a last resort in all situations. I needed to keep this in mind. This world isn’t a game, and I would definitely die if I got too crippled by my own spells.

“YVERNA!! I found something bizarre! I believe you should see this!” Amelia burst in through the door in the middle of my musings. She was covered in what was hopefully beast blood from head to toe. She tossed a few dead wolves to the side of the hut as she rushed over to me hastily.

“A-aah…right! Uh? What is this about again?” I got up and adjusted my clothes a bit to get ready to depart.

Speaking of clothes, mine were in tatters. I was still wearing the same outfit I had in the ballroom. The black dress was ripped apart at the bottom, keeping a large part of my legs exposed. Both of the sleeves were gone too. One ripped off, and one burnt to cinders. Needless to say, I looked like a scarecrow. My hair was a mess of dark tangles with some twigs here and there as if to act as a filthy cherry on top.

My high heels had their heels detached, but they were still serving their purpose as shoes to an extent.

At least, I had well matched to visuals with Amelia, who looked quite horrifying in her own way, being drenched in blood and all.

After a brief discussion, we made our way through the swamp. Walking in the wet marsh was quite disgusting, but somehow despite the grossness, it did fill me with a sense of excitement. It was a very new experience for someone who had never really gone to a swamp in their life. This kept me in rather high spirits.

“Hum...hum hum…” I hummed to myself as I followed the paladin through the mist.

            “You seem quite positive despite the circumstances…!” She commented.

“The scenery is pretty interesting! I’ve never seen a place like this before.” I tried             explaining.

“Oh, if only you knew…! There is much more interesting scenery up ahead.” Amelia’s words certainly piqued my interest. I picked up the pace and ran up to her a bit. “It’s just up ahead. I… can’t quite explain it myself.”

At first, I found it strange Amelia was so keen on me seeing whatever it was for myself, but as soon as it came to my line of sight, I understood her words exactly. 

There was a door. A door made from… maybe stone? It was worn out, but had clear signs of rather eloquent design to it.

Now, a mysterious doorway in the middle of a swamp was eerie enough, but this one was standing on top of a metallic staircase.