"Your willy? Did you mean penis?" Paley asked casually. In contrast, the word seemed to bring great embarrassment to Reben. After all, he was a child.
"Y-yeah," Reben looked away.
"What's wrong with it?"
"There's been blood in my pee lately," Reben explained his concern.
"Any pain in the side of your belly?" Paley asked, already thinking of the possible illnesses it could be.
"Yeah, a lot." Reben winced.
"You might have kidney stones, my friend. Not been drinking much water lately?"
Reben shook his head.
"Don't worry. I can cure it easily. Just in case, though, I'm gonna check if there's anything else wrong, okay?" Paley turned to Reben and surrounded him with the invisible healing magic essence that diagnosed for issues.
After finding no other issues apart from a few small kidney stones, he healed Reben almost instantaneously.
"Your willy's as good as new," Paley joked.
"Thanks," Reben said awkwardly, deciding to stay with him for a bit longer. "Is this where you sleep?" He asked.
"Yeah, the wind's nice here. But don't tell anyone. I come here because I take up too much space from Teerom and Jurie."
"Sure. In return, can you keep my problem from everyone? Adimia will never let me hear the end of it."
Paley made the motion of zipping his mouth in reply. They sat there, watching the stars in mutual, peaceful silence. Reben's usually energetic character had become much laxer and laid back now.
"Everyone's so amazing." Reben picked up the Quimnia's book and turned to the first page, "Amasha's always keeping us guessing with his stupid pranks. Rauba's great at fire magic. Bacha's a genius. Adimia's always happy no matter what. Jurie's always taking care of us. Teerom's the coolest guy in the world. And now there's you, a Quimnia."
"If you're thinking that you're not amazing, I'm gonna have to stop you right there." Paley began.
"But I'm not, compared to you I'm-"
"Everyone's bound to be great at something. It's what you do with that greatness that makes you truly amazing. The person who has the least right to put you down is yourself."
"Hey, you took that from here," Reben pointed to Manoha's personal comment on the cover page.
"You got me." A sudden shiver ran down Paley's back. He looked into the forest instinctively, scanning every dark area between the trees carefully.
"Paley? What're you looking at?" Reben looked into the forest with him.
"Nothing..." Paley brushed it off and went back to talking to Reben. "Do you mind doing me a favor?"
"I don't mind at all,"
"Could you stand with your arms out like this?" Paley showed Reben a t-pose.
"Sure?" Reben did as he was asked, and soon Paley surrounded him in a thin ball of water. "Paley? What're you-" The ball tightened onto the skin around his body, but left his mouth and nose open for him to breathe.
Despite the great strain it made on Paley's mana, he made the skin of water move from Reben to his left. Then, he switched to Earth Magic and changed the water into loose dirt.
It was a shabby replica of Reben's body, but "Good enough," he said to himself and then cast another spell. Illusion magic. He read about it in Manoha's biography - a part where she fought a monster that used Illusion magic.
It wasn't great, the features were distorted, but you could tell that it was meant to be Reben's face and body on the temporary earth statue. It still awed Reben.
"Woah!" Reben tried to touch it, but the illusion warped around his fingers and revealed the dirt below. The spell was still incomplete.
That night, Reben slept next to him in the grass because he was afraid to wake anyone up in the cottage if he went back in. He would later regret it when he woke up in discomfort to Paley practicing his water magic.
"The grass isn't comfy at all. How do you sleep here?" He asked.
"Huh? It's comfy for me," Paley continued creating perfect cubes of water and lifting them as high as possible before letting them fall back into the river.
A loud horn blew in the distance. It was about a mile away but still managed to deafen them slightly. The rest of the orphans, who were relaxing upstairs in the cottage, came out to check it out.
"That's a knight horn, right?" Teerom was suddenly anxious. The knights might have followed them from the library after all. Madella quickly came over with slimy hands from washing everyone's clothes with cheap soap.
"Teerom, Paley, get inside." She ordered and walked off towards the sound of horses' hooves clacking on the ground. Everyone else followed her apart from Amasha - who had too big of a mouth and even worse, was brown and so at the risk of prejudice.
Five knights on horseback approached Madella and the orphans on the path. They were armored in pure white metal plating, with the moon's crest on their left chest plate.
"You're Madella, the owner of these orphans, right?" The leading knight asked. The knight next to him was eyeing Jurie perversely.
"I do not own the orphans. I own the orphanage." Madella was trying to hide her anger.
"No need to be complacent. You've raised some fine girls. We might come back later to have some fun. With coin of course." The knight eyeing Jurie said in a condescending tone.
"Get to the point," Madella was becoming increasingly furious.
"They're bad people," Paley said to Teerom and Amasha. However, even darker than the knights auras was the darkness surrounding Teerom at that moment, "Teerom?" Paley grew worried.
"They lay one hand on her..." He clutched his fists, "On any of them..." His eyes were widening with hatred.
"We're not here for the girls. Rest easy." The leading knight had no interest in sexual gratification like his subordinates, "We're here to dispose of a monster."
"A monster?" Madella asked, shocked. There hadn't been any monster activity in these areas for decades.
"Fulguron, ever heard of it?"
"I have, but don't they reside in caves?" Madella had learned about a variety of monsters in her school days.
"Yes, but something had attracted it to the mana zone here."
"I'm certain that there's no mana zone anywhere near here."
"There's one in the forest. The trees have become overgrown. It's become a mana forest. We're going there to take care of it, but the lord isn't willing to pay us. Since you're nearest to it, you would like to be kept safe, right?" The knight's smile was audible.
"I thought you knights were supposed to honor your people." Madella retorted.
"We do honor you. What greater honor could there be than bringing us a night of joy? What do you say, Madella? Pay us, or give us the girls. My men will treat them nicely, I promise." The perverse knight finished.
"As if we'd agree to any of those options!" Amasha shouted from the door of the cottage.
"Amasha!" Madella lost her crumbling composure. Amasha didn't know of the world and its laws. Particularly that one must never oppose those of a higher class.
"Piss off, brat," One of the knights replied.
"You knights are meant to be heroes! Not pieces of crap!" Amasha approached them, turning red with anger and fear.
"Kill him," The leading knight ordered in a bored tone. One of his subordinates rode his horse elegantly towards Amasha. "Shit-stained brat." He sneered and took out a big white sword.
"Wait." Paley approached calmly from the cottage. The knight stopped himself from cutting Amasha down, "Let's make a deal,"
"Another little bastard?" The perverse knight groaned.
"Do not kill him, there's no need." Paley began, glaring at them with icy eyes, "Take me instead. I'm a Quimnia."
The men broke out into a burst of ugly laughter. "A Quimnia? You're one funny kid," The leading man rode over and hopped off his horse. "Prove it then," He grabbed Paley's hair tightly.
"Let him go-" Amasha began, but Paley shushed him with his hand. "I'm out of mana right now," He lied. His goal was to make them believe he was lying so that they would take him with their guard lowered. Then, Paley could dispose of them without anyone from the orphanage seeing the gruesome business.
"You're too entranced by your fantasies, buddy. I'm gonna have to refuse your offer. We don't want one of our own. Do you understand business? People prefer to buy stained scum like your little brother. We're taking him." The leading knight got back on his horse and swiped up Amasha.
"Let me go!" Amasha bit into the knight's armored forearm. 'Really? You really think that a different color is inferior?' Paley gritted his teeth. He didn't take into account that almost everyone was prejudiced against people of color. His lie had no chance of working.
The knights kicked their horses and went full speed into the forest.
"Amasha..." Madella dropped to her knees. Paley began to take to the air, but Madella grabbed his ankle.
"Take me with you." She begged.
"No. It's better if you don't come with me." He said in a soft voice, "No one comes with me. I'll be back." He flew off into the forest.
"Paley!" Madella shouted after him, "Promise me you won't harm them!"
Paley was ready to kill. His magic was brimming with rage, but he managed to hold his fury in and calmly followed the horse trail off the knights. 'I should've disposed of them right then and there." He thought as he reached the beginning of the mana zone.
Mana zones are areas where a ton of magic energy is concentrated, causing animals and plants to become bigger and stronger in a matter of months. The forest transitioned from regular trees to massive, thick trees with vines hanging off their branches. Thick foliage created a a half-roof that blocked out a lot of sunlight.
The grass grew up to a meter tall here. Large magically imbued animals began to appear as Paley flew deeper into the mana zone. He could feel an enormous magical presence as he continued. Bloodstains and broken armor also became more common on the trees and grass.
He concluded that the knights were either injured or dead. Not that he cared.
Then he found it. The Fulguron was an enormous light blue panther-like monster about the size of a house. Its fur was constantly charged with electricity. It was a lightning magic type.
Below its right paw was the perverse knight, screaming and begging for help. His legs hung from a tree behind the Fulguron, spilling gallons of blood onto the overgrown roots below.
"Kid!" The knight noticed Paley watching apathetically from the air, "Save me! SAVE ME! PLEASE!" The Fulguron lifted its paw and swiftly crushed the knight.
"Paley!" Amasha shouted from atop the tree which held the knight's legs.
"Hold on, I'm comi-" Paley began, but froze when the Fulguron locked eye contact with him. He held his ground, showing no sign of submitting, but the Fulguron appeared to just sneer and ignore him.
"Oi! You don't want to eat me? You don't want all this magic power?" Paley taunted, trying to divert its attention from Amasha.
"I do not wish to fight you. I know your kind all too well, you'd taste disgusting. Besides, I do not wish to be eaten." The Fulguron spoke without moving its mouth.
"So you can speak?" Paley said and prepared a Firebolt in an instant and blasted it toward the monster. It missed.
The Fulguron seemed to become electricity as it dodged the attack and returned a shockwave of electricity across the ground. It traveled up the trees in an instant and converged into Paley's body.
"PALEY!!" Amasha screamed in terror, but Paley had just enough time to create a shield of water which negated the attack. The Fulguron growled and jumped up to Amasha. "My children have been hungry for too long," It wrapped its paw around Amasha and sped off at lightning speed.
Paley had no idea why he could understand the Fulguron, but he wasn't about to let it feed Amasha to its cubs. He activated Dyaahn breathing and charged himself with air magic, blasting forward after the Fulguron.
It began discharging electricity continuously in horizontal waves to cut the bases of the trees and make them fall. Paley swiftly analyzed a path through the falling obstacles, ceasing his air magic and instead, putting everything into strengthening his body.
He landed on a falling trunk and jumped to the next trunk, swinging across the vines. Three trees fell in unison ahead, so he had to dive and slide across the trunks, jumping up to catch onto a vine and swing forward.
The Fulguron's electricity discharge had become much weaker as he chased further and further. With less falling trees in his way, he could wall-run across the trees, using a vine to swing across whenever there was too large a gap between the trees.
His body screamed in agony from the mana debt, but he pushed on, running, jumping, sliding, and swinging from tree to tree. The Fulguron came into view in the distance, approaching an enormous hole in the ground. Its fur was now relaxed, telling Paley that it could no longer discharge electricity.
Since he was sure no more trees would fall, he switched to air magic and flew forwards as fast as he could. He was closing the distance between him and the Fulguron quickly, catching up to it as soon as it reached the hole. But he had stopped focusing on Dyaahn breathing and wasn't aware of how low his mana was at this point.
The air blasting from beneath him stopped and he fell into the hole. Below, he saw the Fulguron's nest, a dry, grassless circle where its eight children resided surrounded by broken pieces of wood. They were the size of elephants and looked the exact same as the mother Fulguron.
Each one had a voice of its own, ringing in Paley's ears. "Food!" "I'm starving Ma!" being the most common things they roared. "I must get rid of the de-" The Fulguron started to speak, but Paley landed on its eye.
It peeled Paley off its eye and squeezed him in its paw.
"I no longer sense any magic energy from you," Its fur had begun to rise as it recharged its lightning magic. "You're not of their kind, are you?"
"What kind?" Paley struggled for air, losing consciousness.
"The worst kind of creature imaginable. Demons." The Fulguron's words didn't reach him. He was out cold. The Fulguron threw him aside into the wood that walled the nest.
"Do not eat that one. It's disgusting."
"Paley!" Amasha screamed, watching as the little Fulgurons stepped over Paley's unconscious body towards him. "Rip him apart in fair portions for all of you," The mother Fulguron ordered and put Amasha down in the middle.
"Paley! Please wake up! Save me!" Amasha tried desperately to get away from the salivating Fulgurons. The mother Fulguron had paralyzed the lower half of his body with lightning magic, so he had to pull himself along with his arms..
"PALEY!!"