"You foolish fool, ugly urchin, mad monkey - why did you give your name away like that?!"
Mira fumed during lunchtime as we hid ourselves deep in the woods on the Magi Academy's premises for a little chat.
"Are those insults in this world?"
"Yes, you obese octopus"
"That's like… real cringe"
:WHACK:
I fell straight to the ground as Mira landed a brutal kick on my balls.
"Now, THAT's cringe, huh?"
"You little brat…"
I felt like summoning a trout and slapping her face with it - Monty Python style.
As I looked up though I saw a massive ball of fire descending upon us, almost like an asteroid.
"Watch out!!!"
Forgetting my pain, I instinctively jumped up and launched myself at her. I barely managed to push her out of the way and we just about escaped from being crushed and burnt to death.
"What the hell was that?!!!", I shouted at Mira on the ground, pointing at the not-so-small crater that the fire ball made.
"Oops. I think we shouldn't be here"
"NO SHIT! What's going on?!"
"The seniors must be having combat practice in the woods now. Let's get out"
"Combat practice?"
"No time to talk, unless you want to die"
Mira then got up first and started to run away from the scene and all I could do was run after her.
Fack. My balls still hurt.
There was an endless stream of fireballs dropping left and right as if we were under artillery attack on a battlefield.
"Why are they attacking us?!"
":Huff, Puff: This must be area bombarding magic. These combat practices are no joke"
"They fight to the death?"
":Huff, Puff: Normally no. But sometimes they let loose a beast and the task is to catch it or kill it within the given time. This guy must be running out of time or just trying to show off :Huff, Puff:"
We kept on running but the fireballs kept on raining down and I could tell that this girl was ridiculously unfit, croaking like an old man who's been smoking for his whole life only after a minute of running.
"I… I can't… anymore"
Mira finally gave up and stopped running. Her legs could barely hold her up and she was sweating death. Her face was completely pale instead of a blush from exercise that I would have expected.
Damn, I gotta think…
But I didn't have time to think as I saw another group of fireballs make a big arc in the air and it looked like this cluster was going to drop near us again.
I wasn't particularly fit or strong myself, but seeing that the little mage was a rather petite girl, I swept her off her feet and flung her onto my back.
"Hold tight"
"What…!!! What are you doing?!!!"
"Piggyback"
"... at a time like this?!!!"
"Shut up"
As expected, she was very light and I had no problem carrying her on my back and I just continued to dash forward in no particular direction.
"Which way is back to the school building?"
Mira didn't answer though.
"Mira?"
Still no answer.
"Did I do something wrong?"
Then suddenly I felt a heavy pressure on my throat - I'm getting rear-naked-choked?!
"Wha… what are you doing? Kek…"
"YOU FOOL! VILE VERMIN! HORNY HORSE! PERVERTED PIG!"
The girl's choke was surprisingly strong and I naturally fell to the ground - face down, and Mira naturally fell on me. She didn't get off my back though and started to throw punches on my back with her tiny fists.
"HOW COULD YOU!! HOW DARE YOU!!!"
"Ouch! Ouch! Calm down!!!"
Right on time, the biggest fireball yet landed a few meters from us and we got blown into the air by the shock wave. Belying her rage, Mira held on tight to me this time so we flew through the air together, and luckily - or not so luckily - landed on a big, wide, and sturdy branch of an unusually thick tree.
Only the silence filled the air after that except for the rustling sound of the leaves in the gentle breeze.
"Hey, whatever it was, I'm sorry"
I tried to break the ice as we sat quietly for a few minutes on the tree, with Mira drawing endless circles on the bark of the tree with her finger tip as she kept her back turned toward me.
"I hate you…", Mira grunted.
"What the hell did I do? I was trying to save you"
"I hate you… You really are a horrible Demon"
I carefully crawled toward her but she wasn't turning to face me.
"Hey"
"Leave me alone…"
"Seriously, I'm sorry"
But as I tapped on her shoulder to get her to turn to face me so I could apologize properly, all I received in return was a stinging slap on my left cheek.
"DON'T TOUCH ME!"
"Aw, come on!"
"You… you…", Mira was so mad that her voice was trembling and she was… blushing?
"STOLE MY FIRST PIGGYBACK!!!"
Huh?
"Excuse me?"
"Don't make me say it again! Oh, my precious, precious first time… to a demon…"
"You've never had a piggyback ride before?"
"What do you think I am?! A slag?!!"
"That doesn't make any sense at all"
"You… demon…"
Mira then took a deep breath, held it for a good ten seconds and let it out with a one big, slow sigh.
"You… really don't know?"
"Heck, no! In MY world, we get piggyback all the time when we are kids"
"Wha—?!"
"Yeah, like my Mom and Dad used to carry me on their back when I was a kid"
"Oh my…! That's incestuous!!!"
What the fuck?
"You Humans are truly evil", Mira literally shuddered in disgust.
"Look, I think there's some misunderstanding here. A piggyback is a child thing from where I come. What does that mean in this world?"
"Now I don't even want to tell you"
"Why not? I must understand these cultural differences if you don't want me to make the same mistakes again"
"Just don't… don't ever do it again"
I wanted to ask more, but seeing how dejected this normally energetic girl looked, I decided against it and just kept my mouth shut.
"And don't you dare tell anyone about what happened today"
"That I gave you a piggyback?"
"OH SHUT UP! NEVER, EVER, speak about it again!"
"OK, I got you"
We sat on the big tree branch for a while longer like that. I looked up to the sky and there were some massive birds flying across, kind of size that I had never seen before in my time, almost like prehistoric flying dinosaurs. Then I looked down and realized we were at least good four or five meters off the ground.
"How are we supposed to get down?"
"This is too high to jump", Mira answered.
"Don't you have any magic that can like slow us down as we fall?"
"I… ahem… specialize in offensive magic"
Something about her felt a little off.
":Sigh: I guess we gotta try to climb down then"
Then Mira looked all fidgety.
"What is it now?"
"I'm… not good at climbing trees…"
Luckily, I spent a lot of time climbing trees when I was a child and also did some indoor bouldering during high school as well. I looked at the trunk of the tree and it looked very sturdy with thick hard bark and a lot of branches sprouting out.
"You wanna get on my back? I will carry you down"
"Cocky Cockroach…"