Last night was a haze for Andrew. He could barely remember what parts did happen and what didn't after he woke up. What he does know is he fell asleep the moment he laid down on a bed. He didn't know which room he went in last night and it didn't matter to him what consequences he had to put up with afterward, the only thing in his mind was rest at the time.
He entertained the sweet idea that he wandered into one of the girls' rooms and slept there next to them, somehow forgetting how they reacted to his invasion and thinking that they would just accept him sleeping next to them.
But reality is often disappointing for Drew as he woke up to nobody, the only warmth that embraced him was the blanket. He stared at the wooden ceiling, and then at his surroundings.
The guestroom Drew was in is the same one as Melissa's with some differences. Like in Melissa's room, the walls were beige, blending well with the lacquered wood ceiling and floor, and the 2 windows on side of the room were draped by yellow curtains to also blend with the wall. There wasn't a lot of furniture in this guestroom, just a single armchair next to a small bookshelf, a coffee table, and a wall clock above it all.
Drew suddenly remembers what he's supposed to do today, making him check the wall clock to know the time. He finds out that it's early in the morning and, rather than going back to sleep, Andrew leaves his bed and goes to open one of the curtains to look out the window. What greets him is the familiar white snow of winter.
He could see that a layer of snow had already blanketed some parts of the ground and the roof of Aranea's house.
"The cold and snow finally caught up to here. I wonder how bad it is in Mires right now," Drew muttered to himself, his breath fogging up the window.
Other than his beloved friends and family on his mind, Drew also thought about Adela and how he needs to prepare himself for any situation against her.
'It's not just her I need to worry about, there's also the Capital Knights, and I might end up fighting against other Anti-Mages.' He dreaded the idea of having to fight either Erize or Cecilia. It tears his heart just thinking about confronting one of them in a serious fight.
'If it does come down to it, I'll need to outpace Cecil's incantations and overpower Erize's raw strength … no matter how you look at it this is a bit impossible for me.' a different kind of dread sets into Drew. He remembers the time where he, Erize, and Cecil were all still students back in the Military College.
'Cecil's deft understanding about incantations allowed her to shorten the reciting of a spell from an entire sentence to a single word.'
Drew walks out of his room and made his way downstairs. He then, while still occupied with his thoughts, went to the kitchen and started preparing breakfast.
'Erize is a Cerenian blessed with a large capacity to store vis, making her outlast other mages in both physical and magical endurance.'
He takes a frying pan off its hook and places it onto one of the stove's lit burners and started cooking.
He moves around the kitchen like he knew where everything was.
'How am I supposed to compete with either of them, but if I don't at least try then I'd have no chance against either Adela or her accomplice.'
The crisp sound of bacon frying further causes Drew to lose himself in his own thoughts. He ended up making breakfast for everyone and is currently plating it up, and serving it onto the table.
'Delayed-Incantations could work. I don't necessarily need to be faster than Cecil, I just need to outplay her. It'll probably take a few more clean hits, but it's better than playing on her field.' Drew pours himself a mug of coffee, something he only enjoys in rare instances.
While staring blankly at what's in front of him, which in this case is the table he had laid breakfast on for the girls, he starts thinking about besting Erize. Drew knows that Erize wouldn't fight him, but now it's not about the idea of having to confront her or Cecil. To Drew, he's using the image he has of the two to set an obstacle for him to overcome.
'Fighting Erize will be a test of endurance on both aspects. The only solution I can think of is to egg her into exhausting herself, but is that going to work?'
Rather than continue mulling things over, Andrew decided he should start actually preparing. He sets off looking for something in Aranea's abode, casually exploring the first and second-floor hallways with nothing really catching his attention. That was until his eyes laid on a heavily locked door on the first floor that was under the stairs.
It wasn't just the large wrought-iron lock that caught Drew's eye, but also the door itself. It's a reinforced wood door made from hardwood and the same wrought-iron material that the lock is made of. The door itself looks like it's used frequently, and Andrew surmised that this is the house's workshop.
He wonders how he's going to get inside, but luckily for him, the owner of the house is already awake, and she sees him while walking down the stairs.
"You're up early, but what're you doing?" Aranea asked yawning while looking over Drew from the stairs.
Meanwhile, Andrew got a full view of Aranea, who was wearing a peach lounge-dress nightgown with transparent sleeves, and a silver necklace around her neck. The light frills that dotted Aranea's nightgown gave her an almost cotton-candy softness to her appearance.
"I, -I was hoping to use your workshop. Also, Aranea, shouldn't you get changed first?" Andrew asked as he shuts his eyes close. There's a slight panic in his voice after laying his eyes on the witch.
"Change? But I'm not going outside today because It's cold, and sure give me a second to open the door," Aranea replied to Andrew as she walks up to the door.
She normally wears her nightgown for most of the day as it was much easier to breathe in than her usual clothes. That's why she wasn't bothered at all about Andrew seeing her in it.
She drew out the rest of her necklace by pulling the silver chain, taking out the key that served as the necklace's pendant. She inserts the key into the keyhole and opens the wrought-iron lock.
"Here you go. By the way, why do you want to use my workshop? Feel free to use anything there, but not too much," Aranea says to Drew in her usual soft-spoken voice.
Drew could not tell if this was Aranea's usual voice or just her tired voice.
"Thank you. Also, there's breakfast on the table if you want," he tells Aranea before going inside the workshop.
Entering the workshop, he sees that it's no different from the room he slept in as it had the same design with the exclusion of windows. Naturally, the workshop had more furniture than the room Andrew slept in, and all of it served a purpose.
Filled bookshelves lined one of the walls of the workshop. The wall next to it had a desk that's clearly Aranea's workstation, with the two tables to its right serving as a means to avoid her desk from cluttering with books.
Going further inside the room and turning around, Drew sees the bulk of Aranea's alchemical equipment laid onto a third table. He looked over a box that was on the table and saw a collection of glass phials in it. Next to the box was a wooden cabinet, which he opens one of the drawers of and sees large 6-inched long hollow needles stored in them.
He can use the phials to store liquid vis that he can use as a substitute rather than having to consume vis from his own body. To do that though he stabs a needle through a cork of a phial, in doing so any excess vis in the air will condense inside the hollow needle and will then drip down into the phial.
Andrew continued to look in the workshop, and he finds an assortment of ink bottles with varying colors. He thinks how he could draw magic circles on small pieces of parchment to instantly cast a spell, but sadly he doesn't have proficiency in making magic circles.
Sure, he could easily copy one as he did with the circle on Melissa's back, but the spells that he intends to use required him to draw an original magic circle.
He may have given up on the idea of using magic circles, but he thought of another way he could use one of the bottles of ink, and it involved runes.