Chapter 5

“Alright, time to test things out,” Syorin said, her face beaming with excitement. It was a sunny day, and the four of them were in the woods not far from the town. They chose a secluded spot, away from where the woodcutters were working.

Kakashi pulled out his controller and pressed the E button. His vision changed, and a display similar to the one he saw yesterday appeared. All three girls stopped moving, with the exception of their heads.

“Based on your ability, what can you tell about us?” Neila asked.

Kakashi started by reading out their full names, stats, and abilities.

“So, based on the things your abilities tell you, I have the best physical prowess, while Astill had the best magical abilities?”

“In my vision, your attacks are considered heavy attacks, while Neila’s are considered light attacks.”

“That tells us nothing new.”

“I never heard about my own abilities’ name, though…” Syorin murmured.

“I don't get mine as well,” Neila said.

“Well, you two never need to use any names for abilities, right? Only my spells have proper names.”

“True.”

Kakashi took a step into the sky. He could control his movements freely when in this mode. His eyes focused on the text written on the right side of his vision. Choosing ‘settings’ would allow him to change the battle settings. For result, he set it from ‘death’ to ‘faint’, and set the battle mode from ‘battle’ to ‘training’. Doing so removed the result settings completely. He then set the pain level to ‘minimal’.

He then took a look at the option below that. ‘Party’ allowed him to change the composition of his party. He could add and remove members, but he could only control a maximum of five people at a time. He tried it out by removing Neila.

Neila immediately moved away from them, out of the barrier, turned around, and could move again.

“I can't go there?” She tried walking back close, but the barrier prevented her from entering. It's only visible to Kakashi. To everyone else, the barrier was invisible.

“You're no longer part of the party, although I think I can re-add you.”

Kakashi re-added her and moved her to be next to Syorin.

“So you can control who's in and out of battle?” Syorin asked.

“I think so.”

“Seeing you float like that without any magic looks weird.”

“Does flight magic not exist?”

“It exists, but typically uses more effort.”

“I can only fly when I'm in this mode.” Kakashi did a loop in the sky before going back to the ground. “Can one of you try going against me?”

Immediately, Astill switched hostile. Kakashi couldn't control her, but she couldn't move because Syorin hadn't moved yet.

“Can we move independently?”

“Hmm…” Kakashi tried looking through the party settings, but there was no option for independent movement. “I don’t believe so…”

But since Astill could switch to hostile so easily, there may be other states of mind where he couldn't control them.

“Can we try a battle?” Neila asked.

“I’ve already set it to training mode… Maybe try a light slap.”

There was no actual move or ability called Light Slap in Syorin’s arsenal, but she moved anyway. She lightly slapped Astill in the cheeks. Astill glared at her, but her anger quickly faded away.

“It didn’t hurt.”

“Like at all?”

“Try it yourself.” Astill smacked the tip of her staff onto Syorin’s head. “Your head rings when I hit it.”

“It did no- Wait… you’re right, it didn’t hurt.”

“Isn’t that great?” Neila asked. “We can train as much as we want this way.”

“You’re right. Let’s try a proper battle.”

“You’re expecting me to handle you two at once?” Astill winced.

Kakashi tilted his head. “You can’t? You’re the strongest mage here.” After he said that, he recalled the fact that mages often lack close-combat skills. From this range, Syorin could handle her easily.

“Are you an idiot? I can’t just throw around magic like explosives,” Astill said, but Kakashi ignored her.

Instead, he looked into Neila’s list of abilities. Her main damage came from her explosives, which would harm her if she threw too close, unsuitable for this scenario. She could use some magic, but they were all low-level ones. Astill had high magic defense, so none of those spells could hurt her. Neila didn’t have a focus. It looked like she studied whatever spell she could study, so while her arsenal wasn’t as powerful as Astill’s, it was much larger.

Not that she could use any of those spells in battle, though.

Kakashi tried examining Astill’s skills, but realized that he received a lot less information now that she’s hostile.

“Astill, can you try being my ally again?”

“...”

Astill switched back, allowing Kakashi to check her stats. Her focus was fire magic, which was unsurprising. However, something else caught Kakashi’s attention. She claimed not to know dark spells.

Yet she had a number of them in her arsenal.

“What is your focus, Astill?”

“Why do you need to know that?”

“If I know, I can help you reach your peak strength.”

“Bold claims for someone who just met me yesterday.”

“Come on, just tell him, not like it’ll hurt you or something,” Syorin said, urging her on.

“I don’t want to hear that from you! But fine, it’s fire and ice.”

Kakashi checked her ice spells. Either she hid them from him, or she was straight up lying. She did have ice spells in her arsenal, but nowhere near as powerful as her dark spells.

“What do you want with me?”

“No… It’s just… Why fire and ice specifically?”

Astill groaned. “Do you really need to know that?”

“... Maybe not.” He moved on to the last member of the party. Unlike the other two, Syorin’s magical ability only extended to several basic spells, most of which weren’t offensive. Spells that increase her defense, create water, allow her to communicate with others, and many basic spells like that. Ninety percent of her spells were things an average person in a fantasy story could use.

But the last ten percent.

Are these numbers correct? Why are these healing spells so powerful…

The description given to him stated that the spells could heal a lot of things, and the most powerful one cost a quarter of Syorin’s current mana pool. Mana itself restores quite quickly. They expended most of their mana in the fight the day before, but all of them had returned to full by the morning. He could also use items to restore mana.

Wait… if she can heal… Then why not… Kakashi shook his head. Maybe she couldn’t heal the old lady… or maybe these spells have a high cost or specific requirement that isn’t listed. Or maybe… she’s fulfilling both roles? But…

“Did you read something about me?” Syorin asked, bringing Kakashi back to the situation at hand.

“No, sorry. I got distracted a bit.”

“You’ll get us killed.”

“Sorry…”

“He won’t actually,” Syorin said, coming to his defense. “The enemies are also stopped, remember?”

“Not when it’s their turn. You really are an idiot.”

“I just forgot about that!”

The two glared at each other.

“Those two are always like that…”

Kakashi jerked his head.

“... What?”

Realizing she hadn’t been drinking, he let out a breath of relief.

“Neila.”

“Yes?”

“Please don’t touch alcohol ever again.”

“Just what is wrong with all of you!?” She wailed, her voice disappearing into the forest.