"Cursed?!" Nagisa said out loud.
Odo signaled him to quiet down as he shut the bedroom door behind him. They sat down at the small kitchen table. Nagisa understood from Odo's serious look to quiet down and prepare dinner before he would offer an explanation.
"Nagisa, there is something you must know about this world, our world, Ashen," Odo began to explain with a serious expression.
"Humanity, or humans in particular, can not all be trusted, there are multiple movements behind the scenes, in all of three human kingdoms. The ones we have to be cautious about are the ones who are in bed with the demons," Odo went into detail.
"Humans working together with demons?!" Nagisa interrupted Odo.
"Yes, and Risa was working on information gathering, but got too close. The curse has put afflicted her with two things, first, a strain on her magic, which suffers at her own life force by usage. The other one involves the same consequence if she attempts to speak about any information regarding the topic itself. She was a prodigy scouted by a secret group which not even I am not fully knowledgeable about," Odo continued and Nagisa gulped at his story.
"Tria is the least corrupted one in this regard, and has managed to hide away her identity, only I, the king and a few others know about it. However in the kingdom Velika or the final one, Renfel, the corruption is stronger and it is seeped in the roots of the higher ranks," Odo paused for a moment.
"The human-demon cultists firmly believe in one thing. If we help them break the barrier for them to be able to cross over their continent to ours and fully break the banishment… it was the demons' promise, that some of the humans will be spared and even offered immense magic power and immortality," Odo concluded.
Afterwards Odo briefed Nagisa on some other details as well meanwhile Nagisa managed to finish dinner in cohesion to the conclusion of the story.
Nagisa realized now mid-way, why he had found Risa in the grass away from him. She must have wanted to keep it away from him, to protect him. Nagisa clenched his fists, it was time for him to protect her not the other way around.
"You better treat Risa well, and keep all of this a secret," Odo got up and prepared to leave.
"You are not staying? I have some more questions, since this means I have even more enemies!" Nagisa urged for Odo to stay.
However Odo shook his head.
"Be careful Nagisa, I do not know why they summoned you guys, but you 'heroes' do not sound like the answer for this continent's problems, hence even from the library books, every time a summon has occurred, most contents have been stripped away and have been filled with mostly lies," The front door was shut and Odo took his leave.
Nagisa went to Risa and served some light herbal soup with bits of potatoes, meat and vegetables in it. Risa remained quiet, she heard the entire topic, and both knew better by now that she was not allowed to brief any light on it.
"Rest for today Risa, I will be heading towards the library and commence practice on my own," Nagisa smiled and helped lay her down again carefully, since she was still feeling weak.
Risa smiled and both knew that their smiles were gently masked with lies as both felt worried about a range of different things and kept it rather to themselves.
* * *
Once Nagisa had reached the library, he collected all information he could find on Wind Magic, Arcane Magic and of Heroes summoned to Ashen.
The information about "Heroes" being summoned and their accomplishments seemed limited, but all too positive of their deeds. The books informed how they helped protect and nurture into bringing the three kingdoms further along with their magical advancement. Nothing about what happened to them or why they disappeared in the end.
Arcane Magic was scarce as well. The books only mentioned it being a myth or of an ancient sort, nothing else. Nagisa dug deeper into the historical sector, and found more information about demons, the Shadow Tournament, the Holy Grail and the magic behind the protection of the walls.
Nagisa noted down in an old rigged journal some bullet points about the most vital things he could find about the three. He took a good look at what he had taken notes of, and read out the following bullet points in order:
[Demons]:
- Banished many centuries ago to the other continent across the ocean.
- Lower levels are summoned across to our continent and disturb our peace.
- They can penetrate the walls at times and be summoned through various rifts.
[The Shadow Tournament]:
- An unknown format of a tournament. It requires all races to participate in a near to bloody deathmatch.
- Can be held upwards to an entire month of time within the tournament realm itself.
- Combatants are summoned through an unknown teleportation spell to an unknown location.
Depending on one's placing, the race may funnel the magic given to them through the participation of the Shadow Tournament into their Holy Grail.
[The Holy Grail]:
- Protects a kingdom by coating its walls with ancient magic that is repellant to demons.
- Makes it harder for them to penetrate through and disturb the peace of one's people.
- Ancient relic.
- Has a protector who is in charge of protecting it day and night.
After summing up all the crucial details neatly, Nagisa slammed shut his journal. He asked the town's librarian if he could borrow the book about Wind Magic, as it was the only one he had yet to skim through and she nodded.
"Anything for the youngster who takes such kind and good care of our beloved Risa," The old lady smiled and saw Nagisa off.
Returning to the big white oak tree, he chose once more to resume his training in peace. Nagisa brushed his hand against the wooden sword, starting from its grip to the top of its edge. He closed his eyes and lifted his palm a few millimeters and focused.
< Enshrouding Wind >
The wooden sword began to have a faint white misty color enveloping it. Drops of sweat began dripping down Nagisa's forehead, his hands began to numb.
< Enshrouding Cloak >
Nagisa's mind felt like he was beginning to blank out. The same faint white misty color started now enveloping his body as well, but only for a few seconds before both enshroudments gave out. The next second Nagisa fell flat onto the soft grass, panting heavily.
"The second day of accomplishing Stage-1 did not make it any easier, if anything it feels harder than before…" he breathed out heavily.
For the next couple of minutes Nagisa closed his eyes and felt the wind and the giant white oak's magic, it was truly a soothing feeling of an invisible yet gentle breeze brushing against his cheeks.
"Risa did mention about a week ago something with Mana Replenishment, did she not?" Nagisa propelled himself upwards by kicking off with his feet to pull up his body.
He pondered towards no end, how could one bypass it all "Mana Replenishment" and the answer he found out was not one that was very much to his own liking. Having a high aptitude for magic or being born from either a royal or noble family.
"Miyuki would surely have a laugh if he saw the sorry state I was in," Nagisa laughed at his own unfortunates.
One thing was for sure, Nagisa gripped his sword tightly, he needed to do all in his power to prepare for Miyuki and the others. This included everything else the kingdoms had in store, but also the demons and protecting Risa at any cost. For this sole reason he had to discover what his Arcane trait had in store for him and what possible power it could grant him or manifest into.
"In 7 more months the examination will commence, and I must pass by any means to protect myself including those dear to me, as it is now, I will fail," Nagisa firmly confessed loudly to accept his current reality.
A great man once said: only self-awareness of your current limitations will allow you to grow and shatter the things holding you back from your true potential self. The very first steps were acceptance and admittance. Only then could you move on realistically to shackle the bounds that restrain you and tap into the hidden potential essence.
"Wait, I got it!" A dashing Nagisa began sprinting through the woods.
Gulping down half a sandwich that remained from his previous library trip, an idea had suddenly hit him.
"What did Risa always say? Hone all three, your body, magic and mind! That is the answer to everything!" Nagisa repeated something Risa taught him in the past.
The sprinting young boy hurried across the entire small village, past its small lake, beyond the small farms, all the way until its center where Odo had his blacksmith.
"Why are you all out of breath for? Maybe I ought to give you the same advice I gave to Risa. Relax," An unmovable Odo hammered away at his anvil.
Odo was underway with his latest work at hand and took a quick look onto the heavily breathing Nagisa before continuing to hammer on.
"I… Odo… Ah…" Nagisa attempted to speak and Odo chose to interrupt his work with a sigh.
Odo then reached to pour him a cold and never-changing temperature glass of water, which was drawn earlier this morning from the small village's enhanced well. Nagisa hurriedly snatched the glass out of Odo's hand and gulped it down in one go.
"Ahhhh… I feel so refreshed and glad to be alive!" A rejuvenated Nagisa overexaggerated and Odo shook his head.
"So, what have you come to ask of me?" Odo inquired immediately.
Nagisa shifted his gaze with utmost seriousness for the matter he was about to express.
"I want you to teach me how to forge all swords," A dead set Nagisa stared at Odo all serious.
Odo stared down at him for a good long minute to see if Nagisa would break. However the young boy did not yield for even a second. Only until the very last second did Nagisa think he had overstepped his boundaries, it all boiled down to a single drop of sweat dripping down to break down the silence entirely.
"Haa!" Odo made a scuffed remark and half a laughter.
"I do not take disciples, you already know this," he marched back to his anvil to take up his hammer.
"If not for me, then for Ris…" Nagisa pleaded interrupted.
"For Risa?" Odo turned back and waved his head, then reached out his hand with an open palm for Nagisa to take the hammer.
"I will not do it for Risa's sake, but for yours," he gently smiled back at Nagisa and in return the young boy broadly grinned back to take the hammer.
"What made you change your mind?" Nagisa asked and Odo went down to the same length as Nagisa by lowering his knees.
"He has potential, Risa said, and I will see it fulfilled to not wrong her," Odo roughed up Nagisa's hair.
"We begin today with the basics as an introduction and tomorrow at sunrise with the real deal, if you slack once or fail I will whack you good, understood?"
Odo took a spare hammer as he had given Nagisa his main as a token to accept him officially as a disciple from here on out.
"To start with…"
* * *
Nagisa found himself dead tired back at home before he even knew it. Risa welcomed him, and he filled her in on how her earlier advice had helped him to convince and undertake being a disciple of Odo.
She laughed at the entire endeavour and then discussed the training and other parts of the day. He cooked dinner like always and then they headed straight to bed. Nagisa helped Risa take her medicine and change clothes with his eyes closed.
"Thank you for everything Nagisa," Risa said as he laid her down in bed with a smile on her face.
"No thank you for everything, Risa" Nagisa said back to her.
"Oh, I forgot to mention a thing earlier, Odo had a fascinating talk about how the structural magical bonds matt…" Nagisa was interrupted.
Before he had known or realized what was going on, Risa had pulled him down, swiftly against her, pressing her cold, soft and gentle pink lips against his, and their lips touched as she had kissed him.