Knock Knock
"Rin," Hayden said. When Mr. Leo knocked unlike Rin, he would knock with rhythm. "Come in"
"Hi! Since you can't physically train, as a good cousin I came to help you train differently." Rin said as she entered the room.
'Cousin?' I gave Rin a stare that was translated to 'What kinda things are you spouting out?'
"And before you give me that stare, come on! At this point, you ARE adopted by my Uncle!"
"Whatever" Hayden replied. Even If he didn't want to admit he couldn't help but feel kinda happy. Perhaps It was because It was the first time he was shown such kindness and was cared for like a human being. All the time he was recovering, he had a lot of time to think, which he used to sort his emotions out.
"So you said you liked magic. Even though I can't use magic as well as a mage, I can teach you at least the basics of magic. And I can also use dark magic." Rin stated.
Hayden was too stunned to speak. She was a witch. For Hayden, things seemed to add up now. When she saved him and said she would take care of the lion, he wasn't sure as she didn't have any weapons. After Mr. Leo said It wasn't an ordinary lion but a magical beast, It is hard to kill magical beasts with magic, It made even less sense that she returned alive but he never said anything about It. Because they didn't ask him anything about his identity or what happened too even though he was suspicious.
"As far as I understand you only use a sword. So If you want I can teach you dark magic!-" Rin stopped talking as she saw Hayden's face. He looked... surprised.
"I am sorry. I swear I didn't do any dark magic to you and I don't hurt people!" Rin quickly tried to explain, but she was stuttering.
"Don't" Hayden answered. "You don't need to explain yourself."
Rin had a look on her face, an unexplainable look.
"I- so you aren't scared of me?"
"Why should I be? You saved me and looked after me." You became my first real friend was left unsaid.
Rin sighed in relief which after a moment turned into a laugh. "It was my bad. I guess I kinda should have expected you to react weirdly."
"My reaction isn't weird."
"Comperate to how every single person reacted when they learned or how people think of witches, It is weird. But you also didn't comment on Lion much." Rin explained.
Hayden knew she was right. Witches were hated by almost every race, exceptions being other dark races. But honestly, he didn't care much about It. Dark races who are all hated by light races are also alive beings with feelings. Her being a witch didn't change the fact she helped him in many ways.
Of course, another thing was Lion wasn't a 'regular' dog, It was a demonic being that is banned from the empire. And he knew as an ex-commander of the army he shouldn't receive It kindly. But that was one of many things he learned here. Lion was a good-behaved dog and rarely caused any trouble. Lion was also very nice to Hayden. In his first week of recovery when he wasn't allowed to get up from bed for anything other than the bathroom, Lion sometimes lay in the bed with him as moral support.
"I think It would be good to add that the gun my uncle uses I made It with the help of a friend."
"Really? That's so cool!" Hayden answered. From the first time he saw Mr. Leo use that gun, he was in awe. The way the gun worked and all had interested him so much but Mr. Leo had flat-out refused to explain saying It was a thing for Rin to tell.
"It is! It can only be operated by dark magic though. Rin replied excitedly. "Then... do you want to learn magic or dark magic?" she asked nervously.
'She does have quite an emotional change.'
"I would like to learn both." Hayden answered.
"Perfect! But let me warn you dark magic is not easy to use or learn for nondark races. Of course, this doesn't mean you can't use or learn It. It will just be a bit harder."
Hayden stated "It's okay. I'm ready for a little challenge!"
"First to learn any kind of magic you need to understand how came to existence and how It works. Magic has existed since ancient times. The theory about magic that is currently accepted by scholars is the first two beings which are assumed to be human, drank from a mysterious cave water and got the ability to do magic."
"That sounds like It came from a fairytail."
"Yes, It does but there are some things that support this theory that the schoolers accepted and It is the only theory that had any kind of proof too. After drinking the water everything was normal until one of the beings who drank It which was a woman who was pregnant gave birth to seven babies. Only two of the babies' races were 'normal'. Two Human babies, a baby that looked like a half fish half human—a mermaid—, a hairy baby—a lion that could transform into a human—, a baby with a tail and ears— a cat that had the same ability as the lion—, a baby that looked like a demon but was a dragon and a baby with long ears. Like that, the six races come into existence."
"Now that's even weirder. No wonder I never was taught about these weird things." Hayden shrugged. "Then how were dark races born? Those races you told me about are all light races."
"Ghosts came into existence after one of the woman's human babies grew up and got pregnant by the other human who was her brother. While giving birth she died and became a ghost. One of her female children met a demon and learned dark arts from the demon and she became a witch. She tried to teach her siblings and cousins these arts some of them were interested and learned which after them having their own children were punished by the goodness of creation. Those who learned dark arts were killed but their children became dark beings. That's how dark elves, witches, vampires were born."
"Why did the goodness kill them? "
"Well they knew demons and their teachings were bad but they defied the goddess and still learned It."
"Doesn't make sense to me."
"Anyway, magic was a gift of the goodness of creation as she led the thirsty two humans to the cave. When magic was first used by the two human children they didn't need to learn anything but as time went on magic evolved as It got stronger learning It became more complicated"
"Rin, what does a boring story have to do with learning magic? Where are all those cool stuff we talked about before?" Hayden whined. If he was not here he could have never dared to act like that but... he was with Rin and Mr. Leo was downstairs making lunch for them— they were his family.
"We will eventually come to that but first you need to learn the very core of the thing you will learn and use in the future. Do you know about mana?"
"Come on, of course, I know about It! Not knowing anything about magic doesn't mean I'm that uneducated and swordman also uses mana sometimes."
"Okay okay, my bad. If you have a good amount of mana It will be a lot easier for you to learn and use magic. Here" Rin said. She put a glass ball in front of me. "Put your hand to this. It will show how much mana you have. Also, this can be used for many other things after you learn magic!"
Hayden slowly put my hand on the glass ball. When Hayden put his hand, It shined gold. The gold started from the bottom and went up to the top. For the first time in a while, Hayden could feel his mana back. For all the time he was here he couldn't feel It even though he was alive.
Both Hayden and Rin were surprised when the mana suddenly went down.
"What?" Rin said dumbfounded. "How did this happen?! It is impossible"
'No this shouldn't have happened. I clearly saw my mana, I had It! But now I can't feel It again' Hayden panicked. Even If mana wasn't necessary to use a sword, It did have many benefits. But the thing is this isn't normal... at all.
If someone uses mana It can go down when using It but It will regenerate. Hayden's was there and then It suddenly wasn't.
"Hayden... I think we will need someone more knowledgeable in this." Rin said. " But I'm not sure who can explain this" she hastily added.
When he thought things were going better everything suddenly came down.