Alice approached Sho and lifted him up to hug him, facing away from the Goddess' statue. While Sho was looking at the statue, he momentarily saw the statue winked, then a trail of light flew from the statue to Sho. Sho then heard a faint voice on his head for a short period
"Before I forgot, one last gift. I hope this helps you in your endeavors."
Sho wondered what it meant or what happened just now. Alice then stopped sobbing and decided to return to the classroom.
"Come one, kitty. Let's go back before you cause any more trouble." Alice said as she started walking towards the door
"Please stop calling me, kitty. I have a name" Sho muttered,
"Eh? Who said that!?" Alice said then she turned around
"Said what?"
"WHO'S THERE!?" Alice turned around again
"Wait, did you just-!?" Sho realized
Alice then suddenly felt she knew what was happening. She slowly lifted Sho and looked at him straight in the eye.
"Did you just talked!?"
"Did you just hear me??" Sho asked, eyes widened and pointy ears standing
Alice threw Sho in the air in shock and backed herself against the walls. Sho on the other hand, was surprised to see himself circling in the air a few seconds later. He panicked for a while, until his senses kicked in and was able to land on all fours. He thought it was probably because of his new feline body.
"Woah! Watch it! You could've killed me!" Sho said
"No, no, no, wait! Spare me, please! I didn't know what I did!"
"Spare you? Wait, what?" Sho asked, tilting his head sidewards as he slowly approached Alice, who was covering his face and body with her arms, trembling in fear.
"Y-you're not, going to eat me? Take my soul?" Alice said
"Eat you? Why the hell would I do that?" Sho said, now sitting in front of Alice, with his tail wagging slowly back and forth.
Alice slowly took a peek and realized soon that Sho doesn't seem to be planning anything mischievous. She soon lowered her guard and began to calm down a bit.
"I-I thought, you were a demon. I-I thought I failed the summoning spell again and summoned something bad." Alice said, apologetically.
Sho felt a pang of sadness coming from Alice. Though he finds the entire experience bizarre, he does relate to her sadness. He wondered how often did Alice failed the spell for her to assume that she did something wrong again immediately. She was just as confused as he is, and he figured that maybe helping her get her bearings would help both of them in this situation.
"Oh, um...no, pretty sure I'm not a demon.. I think.." Sho assured
Alice's eye's widened immediately in surprise and anxiety
"Or, I mean, I'm not here to eat you or take your soul! I promise. I'm not even sure why I'm here to begin with." Sho sighed.
Alice calmed again a bit then tried to reach out to Sho with her hand. Sho was hesitant at first but stood his ground. Alice then petter his head and slowly caressed his furry face.
"I'm sorry for reacting this way. It's just that... we never knew familiars could talk. So I immediately assumed I summoned an evil spirit."
"I see, I understand. Well, I guess that explains why I was brought here."
Alice nodded in reply
"Say, why don't we get back to your classroom. We can talk there, I guess." Sho said
Alice then picked him up and carried him on her arms as they made an exit in the altar. While they were walking the school halls, Sho was finally able to take in some of the details that he missed earlier while he was fleeing.
The halls were made of stone, covered in white paint, and adorned with purple and gold accents. The floor was covered in what seemed like an endless red carpet. It reminded him of walls from palaces during medieval times in games he plays.
"This is a pretty large castle." Sho said
"Oh, it's a school. The largest arcane academy in the kingdom of Satom" Alice replied
While they were on their way back, someone shouted Alice's name and greeted her on the hallway. She turned around and saw two figures approach her.
"Alice! We're so glad we found you." A boy with blonde hair said
"We were worried something bad happened so we immediately tried to follow you." A girl with short blue hair said
"Seb, Mao, I'm sorry I made you worry. But everything's fine." Alice said, returning a cheerful smile.
Seb was the blonde-haired boy with a thin body frame and a pale complexion. He was giving Sho the shy-boy kind of vibes, especially with his innocent-looking face. He wore an olive-covered garb with a brown poncho. Sho was also able to caught sight of what seemed to be a saber or dagger strapped on his waist.
Mao on the other hand was the blue-haired girl wearing light leather armor and what seemed to be a pair of silver arm bracers. She looked to be the more energetic person between the three of them.
"That's good to hear." Seb replied.
"In fact, take a look at my familiar! I just found out that he can talk!" Alice said, raising Sho up for them both to see.
"Hello~" Sho said in a nonchalant way.
Seb and Mao looked at each other then back to Alice.
"Alice..I'm sure you had a busy day. Let's get back and take a rest" Mao said
"Huh? wait, didn't you hear him?" Alice said
"*ahem* *ahem* She's right, maybe you just didn't heard me. I am Sho and it's a pleasure to meet you."
But the two didn't hear any coherent language from Sho. All they heard was a rapid succession of nyan and meow from him.
Mao and Seb looked at Sho again and shook their head no in response again to Alice.
Alice then looked at Sho again to see what was wrong.
"That's weird, am I the only one that could understand you?"
"Hmmm, I guess so." Sho said
Mao and Seb saw their short exchange and thought Alice must be having a hard day.
"Well, I guess we'll find out more when we return to the classroom," Alice said
The two nodded, then the group was about to head back when someone threw a crumpled piece of paper at Alice. It was a group of three boys, delinquents, hanging around the hallways.
"Hey! Look at that weirdo talking to her pet!" One kid shouted
"It's Alice! She must've lost all her wits after all those failures in class" The other jeered
Sho immediately furrowed his eyebrows and looked at them with irritation in his eyes.
"Let's just leave them be and go.." Seb muttered
"He's...right, we shouldn't pick fights with upper classmen" Mao said
Then one of the goons casted a waterball and fired it at the three of them, enough for them to be soaking wet. This irritated both Alice and Sho and finally decided to do something about their bullies.
Alice approached them a few meters away and raised her hand in front of her, trying to cast a spell. Please work, she thought to herself. Just this once. She knew she haven't tried doing this before and was scared she'll only make an embarrassment of herself, but she wanted to give it a try for herself and for her friends.
"Oh look, little miss Alice is going to cast a spell boohoo." one of the goons teased
"Oh no, I'm scared! What is she going to do?" The other added
"We know you haven't casted a single successful spell since you started here, girly. Stop trying and get out of here!"
Sho looked up at Alice worriedly. The spell circle kept breaking and breaking as Alice was trying to focus and finish casting. Then he suddenly wished he could do something to help her. Seconds later, a small screen popped out of nowhere in front of Sho. Listed there were the words Skills, Arcane, and Items.
He immediately recognized this setup as the windows he usually sees on rpg games. His eyes widened as he tried to navigate through his skills window to see what he can do. There, he only saw one entry, Enhance.
Without reading the skill's effect, he immediately used this skill on Alice.
Sho meowed loudly that it echoed across the hall, gathering everyone's attention.
Alice then felt a wave of energy surge build up then she suddenly finished casting the spell.
"Firebolt!" Alice chanted
A large ball of flames amassed in front of her and threw it at her bullies. The goons immediately ducked out of way before they were hit. The ball exploded on impact against the wall, creating an explosion and leaving a huge hole in the wall.
The goons were all shocked in fear and took the first chance they can to run away. Seb and Mao immediately ran towards Alice and checked if she was okay.
"What was that?" Seb asked in disbelief
"I don't know. I was trying to cast a minor fire spell to scare them away but something happened." Alice explained
"Whatever it was, that was awesome! You sure scared the shit out of them!" Mao said, patting Alice on the back
The other students around were all surprised. Some were in disbelief, and the others were amazed at what Alice was able to do. They looked at how big the damage on the wall was and started murmuring what spell she casted.
Alice was unsure what happened but she felt a bit great that she was able to stand up for herself for once and did something right for a brief moment of time. She looked at Sho who seemed to be smiling back at her, admiring her achievement. Though, she was sure blowing up a hole in the wall was a step too far.
Their small celebration was cut short when a tall figure suddenly appeared.
"*Ahem.* Did you cause all this?" A deep voice echoed through the hall, as a tall man wearing a black and blue coat stood amid the students.