Chapter 76. Family Deals

The family rushed inside the room, bypassing the wry-smiling Miss Gaos, and completely ignoring me, Bo’guth, and even Asteora as they went straight for Nicole.

The older woman who rushed ahead was short with similar features to Nicole’s, from her hair color, to the skin tone. The difference would be on the body shape, as this older woman was much more stout than the slim Nicole, and of course, the way they were dressed was also different, since Nicole was still wearing the armor I used here in the past.

Following right behind the woman were a couple of young men. The two of them also carried similar features to Nicole; however, both of them were taller than the rest of the family, standing at around my same height, and one of them had a darker skin tone than everyone else with wavy hair.

And right behind them all, an older man at about the same age as the woman was slowly walking in. His hair was just as wavy as the other young man, and his features weren’t quite as soft as Nicole’s, but from the fit body that he had, I could tell that they were related. He also carried an expression of something between anxiety or anger, I couldn’t really tell exactly how he felt.

“Are you okay?! Are you hurt?! Why didn’t you tell us you were going to be doing something so dangerous?!” the old woman exclaimed as she gave Nicole a look all over, even licking a finger and wiping away some of the dirt on Nicole’s face. “Where did you get these?!”

“Yeah!” Followed up the young man with the wavy hair, fixing with one hand some of the stray hairs on Nicole. “What was this all about?”

“I mean,” the other young man followed up, not approaching Nicole like the old woman and the young man had done before, “You’re supported on anything that you want to do, but God damn, this is too much.”

The older man, standing a step away, didn't say anything as he simply watched; his eyes going from Nicole, to the rest of the people in the room who were simply watching.

“Ahem,” Miss Gaos cleared her throat, a closed fist near her mouth acting as if she had actually coughed. The family turned to look at her. “If you’d allow me… this is Director Azid’s office—as I told you before,” saying that, Bo’guth raised a hand and waved it with a wry smile on his face. “And the other couple of people in here are his acquaintances: Althea and…”

She paused for a moment as she turned her gaze on Asteora, a wry smile that threatened to break down on her face while she watched how Asteora continued to eat the Dragon Fruit as if nobody had just walked into the office.

“Lady Asteora, SSS Rank Mage, Director of the magic branch for the Arretia Interworld Affairs,” Miss Gaos completed, and Asteora simply took a bite out of the Dragon Fruit.

The family froze momentarily as they looked at Asteora. However, I could tell from the expression on the mother's face that she didn’t quite understand what they were talking about, but somehow knew that Asteora was an important person.

“I’m sorry for barging in like that,” the father said, a deep frown on his face as his cheeks flushed slightly. “But we didn’t know our daughter was going to be doing something so dangerous until she was already gone—something that we didn’t approve of.”

“Yes, that’s right! Why didn’t you tell us anything!?” the mother once more asked.

“E-erm… well…” Nicole trailed off and turned her face to look at Asteora.

Asteora didn’t seem interested in answering anything for her, so Nicole turned to look at me instead. I sighed and shook my head at my old master’s carelessness, but I knew that this is the kind of person that she was, as she did something similar to me when I was Nicole’s age, taking me to train my magic without explaining anything to my mother.

Although, back then, I was set on fulfilling my duty as the Hero of the Holy Gods, so my mother would actually know that I was likely going to be doing dangerous things.

Looking at the family here, who were in turn looking at either me or Asteora, I reminded myself that this was a different world and that such moves weren’t normal, so I took the opportunity to explain the situation.

“My old master, Asteora, has decided to pick Nicole as her next trainee,” I plainly said.

“Huh!?”

“What?!”

And such were the responses from the family, with the father raising his eyebrows and turning his eyes wide.

“Y-you mean like a—an assistant or something like that, right?” the young man with the wavy hair asked, his expression no different from the father’s.

“No,” Asteora finally spoke, putting aside the carcass of the Dragon Fruit as she picked up a strawberry. “I’m planning on bringing out the full potential in magic power from your daughter.”

“B-but, how can that be? She’s not gifted in magic. It’s better for her to focus on a real career,” the father insisted. “On something that she can actually use to be independent and self-sufficient.”

“There’s no greater independence that having the power to do whatever you want, that is true, however, even if she gets a title or—what do you call it—a degree, it wouldn’t compare to the respect that being a powerful mage brings to her name—besides,” Asteora paused to look at the father as she bit down on the strawberry, “How well do you know your daughter that you didn’t know the great power and potential that she carries?”

“I… well… we…” the father started, but trailed off.

“I know her pretty well!” The mother followed up, her expression turning to a deep frown, “And I’ve seen and told my husband that she’s so far been unable to do anything that someone in her rank should be able to do, even after so many months of training in the Institute.”

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“Hmm… Is that so…?” Asteora replied, her expression as if she really didn’t care about any of that as she reached for an orange fruit that appeared to have a hard exterior—not at all an orange.

“Asteora, you know as well as me that Nicole’s not a normal one,” I said, and the family turned confused to look at me, “Nicole’s a Fire Deviant. Her magic focuses only on fire and things adjacent to it. She can’t do the kind of things that the Academy is demanding of her.”

“What? I—I’ve never heard of something like that,” the young man with the wavy hair said. “Are you sure that it’s not just… y’know, that she simply doesn’t have the skill to do anything else?”

“We’re certain of that,” I said, remembering then that this world has a different kind way to teach magic as I looked at Bo’guth, “We could even try to use one of those Skill Books and see what happens.”

It was when I said that, that Asteora stopped eating the slimy black seeds from the interior of that orange fruit, putting it to the side in the air which kept it floating as if someone was holding it. She turned to look at Nicole for a moment, considering something, before reaching to the side of her clothes and pulling out something that did indeed look like a book—from a Magic Pocket I couldn’t see.

The ‘book’ did indeed have the appearance of a book, with a front that had a simple symbol of a glass of water. However, on its sides, I couldn’t see any pages, and as for its thickness, it appeared to be no more than what a phone would be, so I couldn’t understand why people called it a book.

“This is an F rank water skill, Glass of Water,” Asteora said, presenting the book-like artifact to Nicole. “You’re supposed to be an E rank, which means that you should be able to easily learn and use this spell.”

“E-eh… I’m not sure if I can take that… aren’t those things super expensive?” Nicole replied, hesitating to reach her hand out to the artifact.

“Such a cheap thing wouldn’t be an issue for me. I only have this because someone gave it to me as a ‘gift’ during the development of the System, but I had nearly forgotten about it. It shouldn’t be an issue,” Asteora replied, letting go of the book that softly floated to be in front of Nicole.

“Well… if you say so then I’ll take it. Thank you very much,” she said, grabbing the book from the air and looking at it for a moment. After a while, her expression turned awkward as she looked between the book, me, and Asteora. “H-how do you use these?”

“Hmm? It’s quite simple really. Just use your mana on the artifact until it recognizes you, which is when it’ll transfer its magic pathways to your body, essentially making it so you can use said spell with just a thought,” Asteora replied, “And don’t worry about the kind of mana. It’s going to be fine even if you just burn it with your fire.”

“Okay… here it goes…” Nicole said, focusing her eyes completely on top of the book, before taking a deep breath and setting the tip of her fingers on fire.

The soft fire burned on top of the ‘book’ for a moment, and I wondered if it was going to work at all, since I didn’t sense any change in mana in the air, but Asteora appeared to be completely unconcerned with it as she just watched.

After a few seconds of nothing going on, the book finally lit with a blue light. Nicole stopped casting her fire, looked surprised at the book, and nearly dropped it. But she held onto it while keeping it as far away from her as she could.

The dim blue light of the book shone for a handful of seconds, after which it started disintegrating into blue mana particles that traveled in the air and into Nicole’s hands, who just looked with awe at how the book was disappearing.

Once the book was completely gone, Nicole looked curiously at her hands, before quickly shaking her head slightly and blinking her eyes a few times.

Asteora nodded, taking a small glass cup from the food tray and floating it over to where Nicole was. “That should’ve given you the knowledge to use that spell. Go on, use it as it is intended to be used. It should produce a small amount of water.”

“Yeah… yeah, okay. I can see clearly how I should do it… though…” she trailed off looking down at her hands.

“What is it?” I asked, concerned that perhaps such a thing wasn’t good for someone like Nicole.

“It feels so weird… it feels like I've done that spell a bunch of times already, despite having no memory of doing it,” she replied while still looking at her hands.

“That is because that’s the way that those things are ‘coded’ into the Skill Books. It’s something like a transference of muscle memory, but in this case, it’s more of a mana memory. For people who develop the spells themselves without a Skill Book, the system simply identifies the way that mana moves and compares it with something that’s been previously recorded. It’s like how everyone has a different voice, but when you say a word, it is easily able to be recognized by others simply from the sound that you make,” Asteora explained.

“I see…” Nicole replied, her expression showing that she wasn’t really paying attention to what Asteora said.

My master, however, didn’t seem to mind it, and simply gestured with her hand to the glass floating in the air. “Nevermind that. Try to use the spell.”

“Okay. Here it goes…” Nicole replied, pointing the index finger of her right hand to the glass.

A second later, a small torrent of fire appeared from the tip of her finger, filling the glass with fire that quickly disappeared into the air.

“Eh!?” Nicole exclaimed. “W-What happened!? I’m sure I did it exactly as my mana was telling me to do it!”

I didn’t react as surprised as Nicole or the other people in the room did, like Bo’guth, who had his eyes wide and mouth in an ‘o’ shape; or how the family was looking amazed at the small magic spell.

The reason for that was that I did sense the movement of the magic, but the mana never transformed from the fire element. The girl probably did try to make a glass of water, despite the fact that there’s simply no water in her mana.

Asteora smiled. “You did exactly as how the spell is supposed to be done. But as a Fire Deviant, you just don’t have the mana to do any other spell that isn’t fire. Anything that you learn from a Skill Book will turn that spell into fire, regardless of what it is. So… never try any healing magic on anyone. You’ll just burn them.”

Nicole jolted back terrified, giving me a glance. “E-eh… okay… I’ll keep that in mind.”

Asteora finally stood from her seat and looked over the family. “It is clear, as you can see, that Nicole is a special kind of mage—one that doesn’t appear very often, even in Arretia. As such, she cannot have the kind of generic teachings that are done in those Institutions, and needs to be under the care of someone that can properly teach her.”

There was a moment of silence from the family as they looked at Asteora with awe and respect, after which I noticed the father get another deep frown as he looked slightly down. “But… how can I trust my daughter to you when… when you take her into dangerous places like a Magic Red Zone without letting us have a word about it? Or when she returned completely covered in dirt and soot?”

“Oh, um, well, the soot is from my own fire that I used on the Dark Beasts… and the dirt is from sleeping on the ground,” Nicole said, quickly wiping her face with her hand, but missing the few spots that still had dirt.

“You’re missing every bit,” the young man with the wavy hair said as he approached the girl and softly cleaned away the spots. “You also smell like a hobo.”

Nicole pursed her lips. “Well that’s what happens when you run around all day without taking a shower for days.”

I frowned and felt compelled to make sure that I didn’t smell terrible, but resisted the urge to do so as I think it would make everyone feel awkward, but I kept in mind in case someone wanted to get close to me.

Asteora sighed and plopped down on the couch again, the orange fruit floating down to her hands. “I cannot force your daughter to do anything like I would if this was Arretia. But she’s an adult, so I think it’s up to her to decide what she wants to do.”

As Asteora pulled the slimy black seeds out of the fruit with a flick of her finger, making it appear as if the seeds were flying by themselves, we turned our attention to Nicole.

She looked down for a moment; at her hands, the armor she was wearing, and finally up to me.

“I… want to train with Asteora and Althea.”