Mathias doesn't know where this came from, he has never felt something like this. It's usually him being scared all the time before his sister comes to the rescue, but now this warm feeling inside his chest suddenly appears.
It's like something rumbling inside of him, like a gathering violent storm.
Feeling the blood inside of his start to boil, Mathias glares at the three guys wanting them to apologize for what they did to Faran. That kick sent Faran coughing repeatedly as the air inside his lungs got forced out.
But all Mathias got was the guys laughing at him as if he was a joke when he was clearly serious.
The guy that kicked Faran has a beefy body with neat short brown hair, he's wearing bright red woolen clothing and undergarments. Not only that, but the dagger in his hand is also polished and shiny, showing that he's from a middle-class family.
"What? Are you trying to fight?", the guy said while giving Mathias a huge grin.
Fueled by the anger inside of him, Mathias was about to stand up but Faran beats himself and stands in front of him with his arms spreads to the side trying to protect Mathias, "Luke, I'm sorry! I'll get out of your face immediately, just don't hurt him"
Upon seeing the commotion, the other townsfolk saw the commotion.
Even though they saw how Luke was treating Faran, most of them don't seem to intend on doing anything as they watch the fight as if it was a show. It makes Mathias frown as some of them should reprimand these three guys.
"Oh? If that's the case, come kiss my boots and I'll let you go", Luke said with a devious grin.
Mathias finds this way of the limit as he stood up with his rough breathing intending to fight back against Luke. But Faran hold his chest, stopping him in his tracks, "Don't do anything stupid, Luke is a Mage. It won't end well for you if you fight him", he whispered quickly.
But since his mind is clouded, Mathias ignores Faran and still tries to push forward.
Just f him gritting his teeth alone show the aggression that he's going to do if he lays his hand on Luke, and the expression he's wearing right now insinuates Luke's anger, "A foreigner act so brazenly here? I think I need to teach you your place around here", he said, stepping forward with the dagger in his hand.
On the other hand, Faran was surprised to feel the strength Mathias is capable off.
From a glance, Faran knows that he's bigger than Mathias's skinny figure which is malnutrition despite Mathias being taller, but the strength he was capable of surprised him completely, 'How can he be this strong? He's skinny and is not even a Mage or Knight"
Luke reaches behind Faran and pushes him out of the way.
While gazing at Mathias that doesn't seem to be intimidated despite him being a Mage and also holding a dagger, he puts his hand on Mathias's shoulder, "I can still forgive you, pal. All you have to do is kneel before me and kiss my boots"
But instead of replying, Mathias grabs Luke's arm with a slow movement.
'This guy, he's not even a mage and on top of that, he's also very skinny. Why act tough when you clearly are not?', Luke thought in ridicule, he doesn't expect anything from Mathias that seems as harmless as a rabbit.
Just as he thought of that, Luke's eyes widen feeling the strength from Mathias's grip.
"I also told you to apologize, so apologize...", Mathias mutters as he glares at Luke, his glare alone sent a wave of electricity that travels throughout Luke's body. It made him unconsciously take a step back.
Upon seeing Luke's body stiffening, his friends at the back frowned.
"What's wrong, Luke? Beat him up!"
"Yeah, what are you waiting for? Just blast him with your spell, that'll teach him a lesson!"
But while the tension is rising between Mathias and Luke gazing at each other for a solid half a minute, a voice interrupted the quarrel that should belong to an old man, "Hey! What is going on here?", the voice called out to them.
Glancing to the side, they saw an old man wearing humble light green woolen clothes approaching.
Realizing that the village head has come to ease the quarrel between the kids, the townsfolk went back to their activities knowing that it's over. The village head looks at the five of them with a frown before his eyes land on Luke.
"Go back right now or I'll tell your father that you're creating a commotion", he said warningly.
Upon hearing his father being brought up, Luke's expression turns pale as he instantly nodded his head repeatedly, "I'll do as you say, Sir. Just please don't tell my father!", he pleaded with an innocent look.
Waving his hand, the old man sent Luke and the others away.
Although they were supposed to go right now, Mathias suddenly stopped them, "I told you before and I'm going to repeat it once more, apologize to Faran before you leave", he said with a low tone, not intending to let Luke and his goons leave before apologizing as they should for kicking Faran.
The village head frowned in response, "Mind your business kid, you're just a foreigner here"
Giving one last mocking look to Mathias, Luke and his friends left.
Looking over to Faran that has his held down all this while, the Village head then said, "Faran, he's your family's guest so you're responsible for him. I want you to make sure that he minds his manner here"
"Yes, this won't happen again...", Faran replied and bowed before pulling Mathias away.
Mathias blinks his eyes a couple of times feeling his mind cleared once again, but he was still not willing to leave as they were not in the wrong. But he decided to just follow Faran upon seeing the expression he was wearing.
Night finally came again, and Mathias is inside his room looking out of the window.
Even though the incident earlier created an awkward feeling between him and Faran, he decided to not think about it as he would leave tomorrow morning to meet his sister. Looking through the bookshelf once more, he doesn't find anything that interests him.
Feeling a little bored as he waits until the dinner is ready, he sat on the chair roughly.
But he knocked the wooden table in the process and made the drawer pulled open, Mathias glances at the drawer before finding another book there. Grabbing the thick book, he then looks at the title on the cover.
'Mana Channeling Manual'
Upon reading the title, Mathias's eyes instantly light up as the book interest him greatly.
'Great! This must be something related to the magical side of this world, I hope this is really what I think it is!', Mathias thought before he puts the book on the table before he started reading it, and he soon finds that it was exactly what he expected.
Mana Channeling Manual book turns out to be a manual to check one's elemental affinity.
From the introduction of the book, it seems this is a commonly distributed book to find more mages amongst humanity's ranks, and in order to do that one needs to try and find out if they have an elemental affinity.
'My previous self has little knowledge about this, I wonder if this body has an elemental affinity'
With the foreign memories inside of him, Mathias didn't find anything regarding his previous self to try out the Mana Channeling Manual to see if he can become a mage. Knowing this, Mathias is hopeful that he might be able to become a mage.
If he becomes a mage then the chances of him surviving would greatly increase, and he wants that.
About ten minutes later, Mathias finished reading the manual.
The rest of the book is an explanation of each element that one can have which is the thing that makes the book pretty thick, the manual itself only takes a couple of pages and it's not that hard to understand even for Mathias who is oblivious about this world.
Closing his eyes while sitting on the chair, Mathias follows the instruction from the manual.
Mathias finds the manual easy as all he needs to do is to close his eyes and focus, search the warm sensation inside his body, and pull it to his palm. The book explained that the warm sensation should be obvious for those that have an elemental affinity.
Just as he closes his eyes, he surprisingly finds this warm sensation in about a minute.
With his mind, he tries to guide this warm sensation slowly from his torso, to his arm, and finally to his palm. Upon managing to do that, Mathias opens his eyes before he gasps seeing a beautiful white-silvery energy dancing in his palm.
"So this is magic...", Mathias mutters in awe, he was marveling at the white-silvery energy.
But that doesn't last long as he loses his focus and the white-silvery energy disappeared, but that is enough to put a smile on Mathias's face as he jumped to the bed excitedly. Now he knows clearly that he has what it takes to be a mage.
A couple of minutes passed, and now Mathias is lying on the bed silently.
'Did I catch a cold? I'm feeling dizzy...', he thought with a frown.
While laying down on the bed with his right arm over his face, he caught a glimpse of something.
"I've never seen a full moon two days in a row, this world is surely weird", Mathias mutters finding that the night is covered by yet another full moon, it should be impossible but the evidence is right there in the sky.
Hearing the muffled sound from the outside, Mathias face up again before looking at the full moon.
'Dinner is probably ready, I wonder what she made to take this long...'
But just as he was wondering about the dinner that took quite a long to prepare while looking at the full moon, he suddenly saw a faded shadow of a creature coming out of the full moon abruptly.
Mathias was surprised to see this as he rubs his eyes expecting him to be hallucinating.
Looking back at the full moon he saw nothing as if everything is normal, he then sighs and stood up as he blame his tiredness for that weird faded shadow. But then suddenly a growl rings inside his ears which caught him off guard.
Following that growl, his head started throbbing in pain.
A siren suddenly started wailing loudly inside his ears which amplify the throbbing of his head, and under this pain, he frowned while holding his head and falls to the wooden floor, 'What's going on...? I'm perfectly fine a moment ago!", he exclaimed inside his head.
But just like a wind passing by, the ringing and the pain inside his head vanish just like that.
Soon enough someone knocks on the door.
"Mathias, come out, dinner is ready", Faran's voice seeped through the crack of the door notifying him that dinner is ready, he then knocked a couple of times more fearing that Mathias might be asleep.
Upon hearing this, Mathias replied, "Yes, I'm coming!"
After replying and hearing the sound of Faran walking away, Mathias uses the table to help himself to stand up. Panting heavily, he leaned against the table while looking around the room weirdly. It was still a surprise to him, suddenly experiencing something like that.
Walking over to the bed, he looks out to the full moon again before he frowns.
'Why am I feeling uneasy like this...?', he thought inwardly.
Meanwhile, at the exact time this happened, there's a commotion in the middle of the town.
Townfolks are gathering around the Urban Wishing Tree as many of them cover their mouths in shock, everyone that was outside of their houses saw the same thing and immediately stopped doing their own activities.
"What's happening...?"
"Are the city going to be hit by a disaster?"
"Mommy, I'm scared"
The chattering of the gathered townfolks attracted the village head to come out of his house.
Since his house was at the center of the town, he instantly saw the Urban Wishing Tree and his eyes instantly widen in fear, "Am I dreaming? W-Why are all the leaves of the Urban Wishing Tree fall out like this?"