I woke up groggily and sat up, yawning. Then I opened my eyes and looked around. It was still a little dark outside but I didn’t feel like sleeping, so I wore my boots, took fire mana ore, and headed towards the backyard to experiment with it.

I reached the backyard in a few seconds to see Felicia pointing at the wall with closed eyes and scrunched up face. I used mana vision and looked at her. As before, she wasn’t ready to cast the spell. ‘Why can’t she use it? Lack of mana, or experience with magic? Maybe both.’ I shook my head. “Felicia stop, it doesn’t work.”

Felicia let her arm drop and turned to me. She looked at me angrily and said “I can do it and I will.”

I sighed and motioned her to come to me. She looked at me suspiciously but started walking towards me.

The previous day when I learned how to read Rakka, I learned that knowing how to read means knowing how to write too. I even got a whole level from it thanks to my Linguist class.

I crouched and put my hand on the ground. After that, I visualized my knowledge of lightning spell and created a Rakka glyph for it. Then I used my Crafting Skill to carve the glyph to the ground. After a dull light, there was the glyph I visualized. I quickly activated magical lightning with only light property and made the glyph more visible for Felicia to see properly.

Felicia looked at the glyph for a while, then she said “There is more here than what you said to me before.”

I nodded. “I told you. I couldn’t teach you some things because I didn’t know enough about them to do it. But this is not an effort to teach you.”

Felicia frowned. “Why did you carve this then?”

I sighed. “Felicia, don’t misunderstand me but you don’t seem to have what it takes to learn lightning the way Eli and I did.” I looked at Felicia, she seemed calm. ‘She already knew, of course.’ Then I continued. “I want you to memorize this glyph good enough to see it in your mind.”

Felicia nodded. “Fine.” After that, I started waiting while playing with the fire mana ore. I didn’t look at it with mana vision, I only tried to ascertain the minimum amount of mana I can use to activate it. After a few minutes, Felicia cleared her throat. I looked at her, her eyes were closed. She opened her eyes and said, “I am ready.”

I nodded. “Good. Now point your finger to the wall, and push mana to the glyph while thinking about the effect you want.”

Felicia didn’t answer, just did what I said. After a few seconds, there was a brief light and the sound of electricity. There was no lightning, only a small electric current hitting the wall. Felicia opened her eyes and looked at her blue hands. She then turned to me and said “I just put all my mana inside the spell. Why was it so weak?”

I sighed. “I am not sure but I have a theory. I think the cost of the spell is relevant to how much you understand about its mechanism. That’s why you can only make a small current. Eli can manage lightning but she can only use it once while I can cast it many times if I want.”

When I finished, I noticed Felicia squeezing her fists. She looked down and said. “So you say I am too dumb to throw lightning.”

I nodded. “For now. You remember my promise right? I will find a way to help you out.”

Felicia chuckled sadly. “Thanks.” She then looked at me sharply and said “Why do you help me? You already held your side of the bargain. It’s my fault I can’t do it.”

I snorted. “You don’t seem to understand this but we are a team. Three of us will put lives on the line for each other in the future. That’s the reason. There is no way I will let one of us left behind.”

Felicia looked at me oddly. “You know we let you become one of us because you saved our lives and let you stay with us because of the blessing from God of Purity.” I nodded. She continued “Why do you want to be with us? Trust us?” I didn’t answer. She took a few steps toward me. “Is it because of me?”

I shook my head. “It’s fate.”

Felicia looked at me curiously. “What do you mean?”

“It’s better if I explain when Eli is up. Until then…” I put my hand on the ground again and etched the glyph for magical lightning. “You should memorize this.”

Felicia nodded. “Is this magical lightning?” I nodded. “What is the point if I can’t use it because it drains too much mana?”

I smiled at her. “Don’t worry. This glyph doesn’t seem like it’s meant to be understood. I don’t understand it myself and some forms of this spell are nearly as efficient as lightning for me.”

Felicia raised a brow. “Forms?”

I nodded. “You will understand.” I gestured to the glyph. Now that it’s bright enough that I don’t need to use a spell. “Start memorizing. You need to finish before breakfast.”

Felicia sighed and rubbed her temples. “Great.”

After making sure Felicia started memorizing, I turned back to fire mana ore. As I did with the lightning mana ore, I focused my mana vision on the center of its mass. Then before me, was another glyph. While memorizing the glyph, I tried to compare it to the glyph for magical lightning. There is just a tiny detail each glyph had in common. I focused on that part and a word came to my mind: ‘Light.’

When I was done, I turned to Felicia who was playing with magical lightning like a kid playing with their toys. I smiled and started doing the same.

***

After an hour or so we heard Eli’s voice from one of the windows. “Breakfast is ready!” I stood up and headed towards the mansion. When I reached the dinner room Eli was already seated. She smiled at me, then behind me, and said “Good morning. I see you woke up early today.”

I nodded while sitting. “Yeah. I woke up early and didn’t feel like sleeping.”

Eli smiled and turned to Felicia who sat across from me. “So, what did you do?” Felicia didn’t say anything just raised her hand and conjured a ball of magical lightning. Eli raised a brow and turned to me. “I thought you said you wouldn’t teach us unless we take your deal. What happened?”

I sighed. “I had to teach her since she can’t reliably use real lightning. I won’t teach you though.”

Eli smirked and held Felicia’s hand. “You don’t need to. I am sure Felicia would teach me instead.”

Felicia shrugged then shook her head. “No, I won’t.” Eli looked at Felicia, surprise evident on her face. She then opened her mouth to say something but Felicia didn’t let her. “Today Victor thought me magical lightning even though he didn’t have to.” I was about to protest but she gestured me to stop. “I won’t take advantage of his kindness.” Eli nodded thoughtfully at that. Felicia turned to me. “Since we are all here, you can explain to us what you meant by fate.”

Eli seemed lost. “What do you mean?”

“I asked him the reason he decided to join us and he said it was fate. He said he wanted you to be with us when he explained.” Felicia then looked at me seriously. “Will you explain?”

I nodded. “Let’s start from the beginning. I woke up in the middle of nowhere, with no idea where to go.”

Eli interrupted me. “I don’t understand. How did you wake up middle of nowhere? Did you get kidnapped?”

I sighed. “You can say that, or maybe not since it was a God who kidnapped me.” Eli opened her eyes wide, surprised. Before she can ask another question I continued. “I didn’t know where to go, so I picked a random direction and started walking. When I was tired, I stopped walking to rest. That’s when I heard a scream.” I took a second to collect my mind and continued. “I ran towards the voice and came upon a rundown fort. There was two-man talking in a language I didn’t know.”

Felicia interjected. “So you used your class.” I nodded. “That doesn’t seem like fate. It’s more like luck.”

I shrugged. “They could be the same thing. And if that isn’t the case, think about this; I could have picked a different way. Then I wouldn’t be able to save you. I could have slept for three more hours then I wouldn’t be able to save you.”

Felicia interjected again. “You would still have a chance. Bandits got caught in the city they went to.”

I looked at her, feeling curious. “How do you know?”

Felicia just sighed and leaned back, Eli answered instead. “Felin, the man that attacked you. He was the one to report the bandits. He boasted about it in the tavern, that’s how we know.”

I nodded. “You still got my meaning. There was too much coincidence to say it’s luck. That’s why I think it’s fate.”

Eli nodded. “I understand why you think that way. But… I don’t know.” She turned to Felicia. “What do you think?”

Felicia sighed and closed her eyes. Then there was a window in front of me.

Status

Name: Felicia

Age: 19

Strength: 70

Dexterity: 70

Agility: 20

Vitality: 20

Charm: 20

Attribute Points: 0

Class: Bodyguard (1 Quarter)-15(%47), None

Blessings

Blessing of God of Purity: Immune to all mundane curses. 99.99% increased defense against curses invoked with a God’s name.

Lesser Blessing of God of Lightning: 5% effectiveness to all lightning spells.

I read the information and looked at Felicia. She nodded at me and said, “I agree to your deal.”

I nodded, smiling. “Thanks. How did you show me your Stats?”

She shrugged. “Just think about who to show and what to show.” I nodded and showed her my Status Screen.

I heard Felicia sigh. She looked at me and said, “You are level 4 and you didn’t even slay any monsters.”

I shrugged and turned to Eli. She was looking down, thinking of something. I thought of asking what she thinks but decided against it. So I asked the other question on my mind. “Eli.” She looked up to me, still distracted. “What do you think about raiding the place? Now that we have crossbows and offensive magic we should be strong enough.”

Eli nodded. “We are in a good position but we don’t know the number of fighters there is. There should be strong fighters since bandits worked with them, rather than forcefully take their money.”

I felt a frown settle on my brow. “That might be true but there might be a different reason too. We won’t know if we don’t go there. I say we complete crossbows for you two then attack the place at night. Crossbows should be silent enough for us to take down many enemies before we are found out.”

Elizabeth turned to Felicia. “What do you think?”

Felicia looked at her hands then to Eli. “I think we should do it. More people are harmed the more we hesitate.” She squeezed her fists. “We can’t let that continue.”

Eli nodded. “Since both of you feel the same way, I won’t refuse. We will prepare and go.”

***

After the course we will take has been decided, we started preparations. Eli went to his uncle to get two more bowstrings for her and Felicia’s crossbow with Felicia and I started enchanting one of Eli’s gloves with a form of magical lightning.

They came back with the strings and quivers for crossbow bolts after I finished with the enchantment then I started creating the crossbows. With the woods Eli got me the day prior, I finished the crossbows in a minute. Bolts didn’t take long after I learned Multi Wooden Crossbow Bolt Recipe.

Like that, we were off.

***

We left the mansion gates behind, heading to the Forest of Lona. Felicia and Eli walked while I rode Rosy with some provisions for the trip. ‘I wonder what experiments they are doing there. Are they making mutants with special powers, or are they fusing animals and monsters? I hope we find experiment logs lying around.’ While I was fantasizing about the loot our target has, Eli cleared her throat.

Eli held Rosy and steered us towards Adventurer Guild. Felicia and I looked at her quizzically. Eli said “We should get a quest in case they are gone. It will increase Victor’s clearance. He should like it considering there are some spells in the part of the library for clearance one.”

I sighed. “We don’t have to. I can always make new spells or you can teach me those spells yourself.”

Eli shook her head. “It’s better if you have the clearance. We can’t always be sure I will be with you when we needed to research in the library.”

I nodded. “Well then. What quest are we going to take?”

Eli released her hold from Rosy’s head and answered. “We will take corpur elimination quest. It’s easy to do since corpurs are low-level opponents with no special abilities.”

We walked in silence for a few minutes until we reached in front of the guild. In front of the gate was a man. He looked really cool. I inspected him seriously. He was tall with long black hair that hides one of his eyes, a lean body, and a short sword. Seeing him made all the alarms in my head rang. He was talking to a Villager A. When we got closer to the door I heard them talking about going to Forest of Lona.

I jumped down from the horse and bound her to a pole in front of the building. I got past the man and got inside the building with Felicia and Eli. When we were inside, I took Eli and Felicia to a corner and said “Did you see the man outside?”

Felicia and Eli nodded. Felicia looked towards the door and said “The charmer?” I nodded. Felicia snorted. “Don’t mind him, only an idiot puts so much in Charm. Not even nobles go that route anymore.”

I nodded slightly. “That may be true but it could be because he is confident in his ability. I don’t know you but I know for a fact that someone that cool can’t be a nobody. They were talking about going to the forest too.”

I was about to continue but Eli interjected. “You want to follow them.”

I nodded. Felicia turned to Eli. “Did you feel something?”

I looked at Eli quizzically. Eli ignored me and looked at Felicia briefly before answering. “Not the charmer but the one he was talking to, there was something off about him. Following them might be beneficial. If not for us, for the charmer.”

I frowned. “Do you think villag- I mean the other man will do something to charmer?” Eli nodded. I sighed. “Then let’s take the quest and move on before they got out of my range.”

“Are they still in front of the door?” Eli asked while moving towards a board. She looked through the requests and found the one we need while I used the spell. She turned to me and raised an eyebrow.

I shook my head. “They are moving towards the gate, slowly. We should be able to catch them without any trouble.”

Eli didn’t say anything more. We made it to the reception to take the quest. The woman in the reception looked at the request and said “Quest for a party, or solo?” without looking at us.

“Party,” Eli answered without pause.

The clerk nodded and took out a piece of paper. “I need your identifications.” We gave her our identifications and after a few seconds of writing, the clerk nodded again and looked at us for the first time. “Do you know the consequences of dropping a quest?” Eli nodded. “Then quest is yours.”

We left the guild and made our way towards the gates with haste. I used my new Sense Magnetic Field Spell and said “They are out of my range. We should move faster.” With that, we picked up speed. We exited the city and started moving towards the Forest of Lona.

After a few minutes, I picked up the charmer's magnetic field. I told the girls about my findings and we slowed down.

We walked for three hours before charmer and his companion stopped moving, presumably to make camp just inside the Forest of Lona. I gestured for girls the to stop and jumped off of Rosy.

Eli got close to me. “Victor, what are they doing?”

“Charmer is sitting on something. His friend is out of my range though.”

Eli nodded. “I will move closer and watch. You two try to rest a little in the meantime. If something happens I will get even closer to them so you will know when to act.”

I nodded. “You know I can’t keep the spell for long, so I will activate the spell every fifteen seconds instead. Is that enough?”

Eli nodded again. “Good enough.”

“Good luck.” With that, Eli took off.

I sat on the ground and held my knees. I looked at Felicia who was playing around with magical lightning, like she did every single chance she got, and said. “Hey, Felicia.” She looked at me quizzically. “You were playing around with the magical lightning for a while now. Do you have any ideas for a spell?”

Felicia frowned. “I have one but can’t show it right now.” Felicia sat close to me. She looked like she just remembered something and said. “Now that I took your deal, will you tell me how you threw Felin away like a pebble?”

I nodded and gave her a fallen branch. After checking Eli’s position I raised my index fingers in a way to face each other and started an electrical current from one to the other. Next, I looked at Felicia. “Touch the current with that branch.” As soon as she did, the branch broke at the middle and one piece flew away above Felicia’s head.” I stopped the current before checking Eli again. Then started looking at Felicia’s shocked face.

Felicia looked at my fingers then broken branch and asked. “It pushed the branch away. Why?”

I shrugged. “No idea. I saw this in a movie and tried to replicate it. And it worked too, even better than I hoped even.”

Felicia looked at me quizzically. “What is a movie?”

I sighed. “It’s a kind of a story, with moving… pictures.”

Felicia nodded thoughtfully. “It sounds like a good thing. Can you make one?”

I frowned. ‘Can I? Come on! I am smart, I should be able to replicate it! No?’ I sighed. “I don’t think so. It’s not even a priority anyway.”

Felicia came closer. “What if I make it a personal request?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Personal request? I never saw you make a formal o-“ I jumped up quickly to stand. “Eli moved closer to the charmer, we should go there,” I said and started jogging towards Eli while trying to be silent as much as possible. In a few seconds, we reached Eli. That’s when I picked up other people converging on charmer with Villager A on the lead. I looked at Eli and whispered. “Two more people with the one before.”

Eli nodded. “Can you pick-up anything else about them?”

I shook my head. “I can only sense their movements.” I held my chin. “One of them seemed to move faster though, without wanting it I guess.”

Eli sighed. “An agile one. Where are they?”

I used the spell again to make sure of the directions then said. “If I am charmer, they are this way.” Eli nodded thoughtfully. “What are we going to do?”

Eli shook her head. “I don’t know.” She then looked at me inquisitively. “What do you think we should do?”

I took a second to think. ‘What are they going to do? Are they going to kill charmer or will they do some shady business with him? Or maybe they are with the ones doing the experiments and are intending to kidnap him.’ I shook my head. “I think we should wait and see.”

Eli looked at Felicia who seemed to watch charmer without any interest in our conversation then turned to me. “We will wait then. I hope they don’t kill charmer before we can do anything. I don’t want his death on my conscience.” I nodded. She looked forward and said “We should get closer. Try not to step on any branches or leaves.” With that, she started moving towards charmer with Felicia in tow. I too followed them and after a few seconds found myself peering from a bush towards charmer and his new friends. We were quite a ways away but close enough for me to hear him murmuring something under his breath.

When the charmer saw Villager A he stood up and asked. “Where have you been?! I was afraid something happened to you.” He said with some dramatic flair. ‘Is he an actor or something?’

Villager A snorted. “Be afraid for yourself.” Charmer cocked his head at him questioningly. Before he could ask the other two showed themselves. One of the men, the agile one was wearing brown pants and a white shirt. The other one was wearing black pants with sleeveless jacked on a sleeveless shirt to show his bulging muscles. Charmer took a few steps back and turned enough for me to see his face, that’s saying ‘shit.’

Charmer quickly looked around to find a way out but he didn’t have a chance. He could only take a few steps before tripping on Agile’s feet. He rolled a few times and with surprising alacrity, stood up on his feet. He seemed to have understood there was no way for him to run away if what he said next is anything to go by. “What do you want from me?” He said desperately. “If you want my money, I will give it to you. No need to do something hasty.”

Three men laughed at him before Villager A said. “We will have your money but we won’t let you go.” He pointed at the agile man and continued “You can’t run away either as you learned the hard way. You can’t win a fight against us too. So come with us quietly, don’t make us harm you unnecessarily.” He cracked his knuckles. “Or do fight back. I always wanted to beat someone handsome.”

Charmer for his part seemed horrified. “Why are you doing this? You don’t need me! Just take my money, I swear I won’t tell anyone about you.” The men just laughed at him while closing on him.

Villager A and the third man held his arms and started dragging him while Villager A said. “Don’t push us, just come quietly. Then we won’t have any problem.”

Eli turned to us. “Let’s follow them. It looks like the cave is close by.” We nodded and started moving.

We walked for a few minutes before seeing the cave. The cave looked inconspicuous from outside, just a big enough opening to let people in side by side.

We watched as Villager A and charmer go inside while brute and agile stayed out, sitting on a woodblock. After a few seconds Eli turned to us and with a determined face, said “It’s time we raid the cave.”