Chapter 25

I shook her hand. The smaller girl introduced herself after as Ruri. Both of them revealed their faces now, but they kept the hoods of the cloak up. I could see the older one had white hair beneath, and the younger one had a blue, like lapis lazuli. I had a million things I wanted to ask them about, but we didn't talk much more due to how dark it was becoming. They made me promise not to tell anyone about them back in the town, but it wasn't like I had anyone to tell anyway. I guess they trusted me since Ruri didn't detect a lie. When I started to leave, Ruri asked if I would come back tomorrow. I told her I would and she seemed happy. Katsumi, on the other hand, did not.

I made it back to Mapleharrow just as it was getting too dark to see anything. Despite failing my objective of finding some wood, I was feeling pretty good. The town was dead silent. The only lights on were from the tavern and church. I headed towards Maw's kiss. I wanted to eat something and go to bed. All that traversing hills and forest was exhausting. I still wondered what had happened to the monster in the woods. I would try to remember to ask Katsumi tomorrow.

Why hadn't Katsumi and Ruri told them it was safe in the forest? The two of them had an odd dynamic, too. Katsumi Seemed to take orders from Ruri, despite obviously being older and her guardian. Maybe Ruri was a noble's daughter or something, and they were in hiding.

I went to my room and opened my backpack. I had placed the food from my make shift pockets inside the larger pack compartment on the way to Maplehallow, but kept the last of my money in the other pocket on me. I took account of my things. 1 silver, 4 copper, soon to be 2 copper if I wanted to stay another night. The backpack, an axe, a half full canteen, the knife under my pillow, 8 potatoes... as I removed the potatoes, I noticed there were other things in the bottom of the bag. 4 cooked sausages, probably leftover from breakfast at Sonia and Dugel's, a very small pouch with 4 silver inside, and a pendant with one of those old time balancing scales etched into it. I had no idea what that was about, though. Sonia must have snuck it all in before packing it for me.

I had a mix of feelings. Comfort in knowing I could last a little longer with the food and money, that disgust with myself that they were doing too much for me, and a feeling of helplessness. Even now, I was still being taken care of by others. When was I ever going to be able to provide for myself. All my friends became damn successful heroes, and I became a useless parasite that takes advantage of a poor farming family.

No. I'm not going to just sit on these things and waste the opportunity they give me. I'll earn them. I'll become a person worthy of receiving them. I ate the sausages so they wouldn't go bad and repacked before heading to bed.

I crawled into bed with this new motivation burning in my chest. Things weren't good or bad yet. They were waiting for me to make them something. My only current concern was the nightmares. If I woke up screaming again and disturbed everyone else, that would be pretty demotivating. The fact it was even something I had to be concerned about was already a bit dampening. I didn't see a solution too it either. I wondered if this town a drug store. Or, what was it called? An apothecary? Or maybe there was a monarch that helped with this sort of stuff. I would have to look around tomorrow.

...

I dragged myself out of bed like a zombie the moment light came in from between the window shutters. I had hardly slept at all last night. Every time I was about to fall unconscious, I was jolted awake. I kept worrying about having a nightmare and never actually slept.

First stop was the river upstream in town. I splashed the cold water on my face to wake up. I had everything I would need today. Canteen, axe, food, and I brought the medallion just because I thought it was cool. Weren't scales like that used to measure the weight of things like gold? Maybe it was a good luck charm for riches. Despite my sleep-deprived state, I was feeling pretty good.

I figured I probably shouldn't be spotted entering the forest, so I planned to head north until I was out of sight before dipping into the tree line. As I made my way through the town first, I passed the church. There was a guy preaching outside it with a group of people around him. He didn't seem like a priest or anything, though. As I got closer, I could hear what he was shouting more clearly.

"How much longer will we sit and wait for things to get better!? When do we take our fate into our own hands!? The guards are cowards! The mayor's bounty on the monster is too low for any adventurer to accept! We need a real leader! One who isn't afraid to help his people! No more! Today we will chop trees! Start with the ones closest to the town! If anyone hears or sees the monster, call, and we will ALL come and TAKE IT DOWN!"

The surrounding crowd was a decent size. I wondered if he was the guy from the notice board calling himself the hero of Mapleharrow. It seemed like he was more trying to usurp the mayor, than slay a monster. Wasn't my problem, though. Anyway, he was right. If there was no monster, they should cut trees and get things back to normal.

I left the town and saw a mill in the distance, I thought I would dip in behind it, but when I arrived, there were a group of people making circles on the ground with pieces of wood and rocks. One of them stood up and smiled at me while extending his hand. A starwing fae boy that looked similar in age to me.

"Hey! I'm Kazuo." He declared more than said.

"Uh, Hi. I'm wil- Sam. I'm Sam." I shook his hand.

"Welcome, Sam! Great to have another member. Are you new to ritual magic?" He said eagerly.

He was a very happy guy, overflowing with excitement. It felt like he was a strong wind that was threatening to snuff out my tired, fragile soul. But there was another part of me that found his attitude contagious.

"Man, I am... VERY new to it." I said with no particular emotion put in.

It wasn't like I wasn't interested, I just didn't have the energy today to be excited about anything.

"That's great! You'll learn a ton of useful stuff. If you want to try something simple, I have a few supplies left. Or you can watch some of the other members. Oh! If you do try something, don't go above a rank 3 spell. That's like, our only rule. That, and don't take other peoples stuff without asking. We don't need anyone losing a finger or a hand."

Losing a finger or a hand? Would that be from the spell, or the punishment for stealing? Whatever. I wasn't in a particular rush, and I really was interested in magic, so why not?

"I'll just watch for now, if you don't mind. I don't really know anything about ritual magic."

"That's Totally fine! Let's take a look at some people's work." He turned and led the way.

I couldn't help but look at his wings as we went. They had that similar purple and silver night sky, imagery, as Anna's had. I hoped she was alright. Most of the people here were human, with a few exceptions, including Kazuo, but the ages were quite varied. The youngest looked to be maybe 12, while the oldest had to be over 25. We came up to an elf girl that looked about 14 in human years. She was carving a circle split in half into the dirt using a sharp rock. We stood for a moment watching, until Kazuo made me jump by practically shouting.

"What are you trying today, Maria?!"

She didn't even flinch. Probably used to it.

"Trying to make ice still. If I can figure it out, we can keep food from rotting way longer. As long as the components aren't too expensive, I guess." She said in a very calm and focused tone, completely the opposite of this psycho beside me.

She carved one side with an elemental symbol, then used the symbol for water. In the other side, she wrote elemental again, but also wrote wind. I had talked to Sarah a lot when she was learning magic and considered myself to be rather knowledgeable for someone who couldn't even use it. If ritual magic was the same, then this should produce a cold or even slushy water. Kazuo made me flinch as he blurted out some more words.

"Need any components? I can ask around."

"No. I got everything I want to try today. Thanks though."

"No problem! What will you be using?"

Components? I watched as she grabbed a few things beside the circle as she spoke.

"Well, for water, I obviously got a bowl of river water, and for wind, I wanted to try something stronger, but it's such a hard one. I usually just use a substitute component, but those are expensive and I keep failing and wasting them. So yesterday I climbed into our barn and found some owl feathers. And for the final item, I found an opal in the river. It represents hard water. Ice."

"Wow! Are you sure you want to use an opal?"

"Yeah. This is the best chance I'll have to make this work. They’re not that rare around here anyway."

"Good luck!"

She nodded, and Kazuo stepped back and stood next to me again. He suddenly started talking a lot quieter as Maria placed the items and hesitated.

"For ritual magic you need to write symbols the same as magic, but there's no mana so you can't draw them in the air, and you can't use mana as components. Ritual magic is more like a natural spell of the world. You speak the world's language and give it the appropriate offerings to get the result you want. For big spells, it can take years to get the items right for the spell you want. Especially when the circle and the components are consumed, whether the spell works or not."

"Actually, I have a bit of knowledge about normal magic. Why does it take her 3 components for a rank 2 spell? A spell cast with mana is always 1 infusion per rank."

He nearly yelled, but caught himself and to let Maria focus. "! Ye-. Ahem, yeah. For normal magic, you can put in mana to make a spell, and it comes out more how you visualize it, feel it should, believe it will, or whatever you want to call it. For ritual magic, you don't have that connection to the mana to influence it. You have to tell it what you want using the symbols, feed it with the components, and add one extra ingredient to guide its creation. Before Maria starts this spell, What do you think it will create?"

Hmm. Water for water was about as basic as it could get. A feather for air I could see, but I could also see it being open to interpretation. Though, what really represented air in the first place? Then the opal? I was too tired to think.

"Wouldn't it just make a floating, soft, opal?"

He cupped his hands over his mouth to hold back his laugh, and I briefly thought about punching him.

"Yeah. Maybe."

Then why the hell did you almost burst into laughter!? I thought. He continued.

"It's hard to say. She believes the items represent those things, and you can see how they might fit, but you can also see them as something else. Unlike mana, it's not guided by the person creating it. You have to figure out the language of the magic. You can pray for an outcome, but not the monarchs or even the gods have influence over it. It's completely devoid of mana, after all. Isn't that exciting!?"

I actually thought it was. Maybe if I had the energy to think more, I would've been brainstorming ideas of spells myself, but for now I just watched Maria who was saying a prayer silently before placing the opal. The moment she did and removed her hands from the circle, the entire thing lit up.