Lisa Eldhart

“Will you join the Hero’s party?”

The world went fuzzy, as though some psychic entity had reached into my mind and shaken it. I didn't understand the phenomenon, but its meaning was clear. I shook my head. I couldn’t accept this request. “No.”

"Why not? Between your absurd spells and Lisa's power, you could change the world!"

I sighed and stared at my notebook in Professor Eincrad's hand. "I'll consider it," I repeated, solely to get him to give me back my notebook. Perhaps he understood that I was only paying lip service, because he refused to relinquish it. A few paces away, Professor Liden watched the exchange with an unreadable expression on his face.

As I started debating whether I really needed the notebook, Professor Eincrad resumed his pointless efforts to recruit me. "You'll be training together for the next four years, and at the end of it, you'll be able to take on anything. We have the best working on your training regime." He practically vibrated with excitement, and his face shone with a level of enthusiasm that was frankly creepy. "Just think. Once we've defeated the wardens, humanity will be able to expand! We won't be confined to this small area any longer!"

My eye was twitching. That wasn't good. It'd be better if he couldn't tell how irritated I was getting. I took a deep breath, trying to calm my nervous system. "I understand that you're excited about the prospect, Professor, but it simply doesn't interest me."

Professor Liden spoke up. “Don't you want to support your fellow man?"

"Mankind still manages to engage in conflict with each other, even given such a relatively small population. I believe it would be better to resolve all internal conflicts before taking on external ones," I replied evenly. Even as we spoke, two countries were in a state of active war, and the other three were in an uneasy ceasefire inspired by the fear that the war would spill over into their lands.

Professor Eincrad snorted. "I forget sometimes that you're still just a child. Don't you see? If we had more room, we wouldn't need to fight each other. We would be able to avoid each other."

I doubted it. In my experience, people were more than happy to seek out others for the sole purpose of being cruel to them. I didn't understand it, and perhaps if the world were full of people like me, his words would be true, but I was painfully aware that the world was not made up of people like me.

"Professors, I wish you the best of luck, but I'm not interested." I gave up on my notebook and left the classroom, ignoring his calls for me to wait. I probably hadn’t heard the last of it. Professor Eincrad was too enthusiastic for his own good, and Professor Liden would want his own chance at convincing me to change my mind.

Lisa waited outside. She'd clearly been listening to the conversation, and her expression was sour, as always. "Do you think you're too good for us?"

I ignored her, too, and continued walking. She followed. "What are you going to do if we die? You think you'll be able to forgive yourself for your part in it? For not being there?"

I very much doubted I would care one way or another, but there was nothing to be gained by telling her that, so I kept walking. She followed, spewing increasingly aggravating accusations and hypotheticals at me until I closed the door to my room in her face, leaving her to storm away.

***

I opened my eyes and stared at the deep violet sky above us. On one side, it'd lightened to a pale blue. The sun would rise soon. I sighed and sat up, dismantling the spells as I did.

"Do those not require a great deal of mana?" Yuemith asked without moving.

I shook my head. "They're efficient spells. It only takes a little to set up, and then the ongoing cost is well within my ability to maintain." I shrugged slightly. "I have high mana recovery."

"Ah." Yuemith frowned. "Are you entirely human?"

I didn't dignify that with an answer.

Our second day of travel was no different from the first, save for the appearance of identifiable trails made by adventurers and loggers. In the evening, as we ate, I asked Yuemith, "Are those real clothes or just part of your transformation?"

He plucked at the thin fabric. "The transformation, of course. I don't carry human clothing with me."

I'd more or less expected as much, so I withdrew a simple dress from my pack. The bust would be too large for sure, and I wasn't sure about the other sizes, but I assumed that Yuemith could adjust his body if something didn't fit properly. "Try this on in the morning and see if you can wear it."

As expected, the bust was too large. Unexpectedly, Yuemith refused to do anything about it. "I will not have breasts hanging off my body," he said peevishly, making me wonder why he'd chosen a female body in the first place. Surely honoring Lisa's accomplishment wasn't worth enduring a body he hated.

"It's not your body to begin with, and I guarantee Lisa had breasts." Even if they’d been mostly invisible. I'd seen them in the changing rooms and baths enough times.

Yuemith instead began pinching together the fabric in the front and tugging it in a futile attempt to make it fit properly. I was somewhat gratified to learn that my clothing otherwise fit Lisa's form just fine. I was, chest aside, smaller than her, but not by so much that the dress wouldn't fit. "Why must I wear this anyway?" he asked after concluding that there was no good way of altering the clothing.

"Because your shadow acts strangely, making you look subtly off. Wearing real clothing will conceal some of that, making it less likely that anyone will realize there's anything strange about you," I said.

Yuemith's lips turned sharply down. He glanced from, presumably, my shadow to his own, watching the differences, and finally sighed. "Very well. I shall wear this for now. We can say I've lost my belongings and am wearing yours."

I examined him critically. Other than the poorly fitting clothes, I thought he'd be fine. He bore an uncanny resemblance to Lisa, of course, since he was using her body, but between his golden eyes and his different way of standing and moving, no one would think they were the same person. I doubted anyone in this city knew Lisa that well to begin with. She'd probably passed through it on her way to attack Yuemith, but people tended to pay more attention to the Hero than the rest of his party. That was part of the Hero skill, after all. It drew others' attention to you whether you wished it to or not, and it left a long shadow in its wake.

It was nearing lunch as we exited the woods and saw the city in the distance. Like most cities, it was tall and crowded, a natural consequence of humans attempting to stuff themselves into a small area. I'd asked an engineer once, and they'd explained that it was easier to make a building taller than to expand the multitude of spells that protected a city.

I'd done some work on the issue myself, as part of my graduation thesis. (Or, rather, I'd spent some time exploring the topic and then, when informed that I was meant to have been working on a thesis project that had been due three days ago, that was the notebook I'd stuffed into the professor's hands. The result was the same either way; I'd graduated with the dubious honor of being that girl who'd given an equation to the form humanity had naturally stumbled upon.)

Protection spells typically covered a spherical area. V = 4/3 pi r^3 Before my project, particularly precocious engineers had been aware that they were using a circle, but they hadn't begun thinking in three dimensions. They only knew that sometimes their equations performed oddly, and they didn't know why. I assume they stubbornly stuck to their two-dimensional equations because the walls associated with the spells were, of course, only concerned with the area of a circle.

In any event, for every increase in the radius, the amount of magic necessary would increase significantly. There was, I'd determined, an optimal size for a city based on the balance between mana required to support the city's protection spells and the amount of mana your average person could comfortably offer up toward that protection.

Oh. "By the way, when we reach the gate, they'll want our identification. I'm going to claim I found you in the woods, since that's true, and that you don't remember much of your history, including your hometown or your identification. I hope you'll keep as quiet as possible. They sometimes use truth detectors at gates, and I'd like to ensure we only tell half-truths at worst."

"What do they need that information for?" Yuemith asked without much interest. We'd reached a road now, and there were a handful of wagons ahead of and behind us. There weren't many towns between Terth and the dead lines to the east, but there were a couple.

"A person's ID allows them to be hooked up to the magic collection system. You'll have to let them hook you up manually. It's a system that takes a percentage of a person's mana, generally an amount equal to the average recovery rate. That's what allows the cities to maintain their protections." If you wanted to have excess mana, you could either be lucky enough to be born with an above-average recovery rate, like me, or live in a town rather than a city. Towns were smaller, but they also had fewer protection spells guarding them, so the required mana contribution was lower as well. Some people even lived in settlements, which lacked magical defenses altogether, but such people were typically considered extremists unless they were an officially sanctioned farming community.

Yuemith's brows furrowed, but he didn't comment, so I assumed it was fine. When we reached the gates, as evening fell, the guards took in the pair of us and brought us before their captain. He accepted my explanation without much difficulty. Apparently, he recognized me, since I did typically visit once or twice a year, and he readily accepted that the only reason I'd be here outside my usual visits would be the appearance of some amnesic stranger. I wondered what that said about me, then decided it didn't matter. Hopefully, Yuemith would let me foist him off on some other person, and I could go back to my cottage for another six months or so... or until Yuemith ended humanity, I supposed. Whichever happened first.

I was surprised when the captain passed us through without requiring identification for Yuemith, though. He asked me Yuemith's name, and I realized I could hardly call him by his true name, so it was with some relief that I heard Yuemith declare himself, "Mithra." It wasn't exactly a real name, but it also wasn't Yuemith, so that was good enough for me. The captain of the guard nodded, wrote that down, and allowed us passage without requiring that 'Mithra' register his mana signature.

"The security seems appallingly lax," Yuemith commented once we were safely inside Terth.

I considered that and shrugged. "I suppose they don't require more mana right now." It wasn't important to me. So long as it worked out in our favor, I wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. "Come. Our first stop should be an inn. We can tackle everything else in the morning." At this time of year, Terth tended to have an influx of visitors - people fleeing from the cold in the south. Nobles and royalty, mostly, because it cost too much to travel a great deal based solely on the whims of the weather, but it wasn't unusual for merchants to arrange their schedules such that they'd be far from the south in the bright months and far from the north in the dark months. Finding an inn with available rooms could be difficult, so it was best to get that squared away before anything else.

Luckily for us, we found an opening at only the second inn we tried. It wasn't my usual, but the proprietress recognized me anyway, and she was happy to tease me for bringing a friend this time. "This is Mithra," I said. "She's not a friend. I just found her wandering in the woods with no memory, so I've brought her to Terth."

"Oh, you poor thing," the woman exclaimed, and suddenly we had a free meal and a room on the second floor for nothing more than my promise to check and improve their security seals.

Yuemith followed me up to our room. He eyed the pair of beds with dissatisfaction but said nothing. Perhaps he'd grown used to having someone warm beside him as he slept. I could understand that, and I personally enjoyed the deep rumbling purr he'd started doing, but it would be a waste of the proprietress's goodwill not to use the beds provided, so I didn't say anything either. Instead, I unpacked my bag into the chest within the room and examined our supplies critically.

I had some money, but I typically bartered while in the city, so I supposed I'd first have to visit a merchant specializing in enchanted wares. It would be easy enough to make some coin by enchanting some pieces for him. Then we could buy Yuemith more clothes, and then we could find someone more suited to explaining humanity's good points to him. For now, we had a little time, so I told him I was going downstairs to perform the work I'd agreed to in return for our stay. Yuemith nodded and didn't follow, so I left him there.

The seals in question were old, and they'd worn down considerably over the years. They were also inefficient, and I started to wonder whether I'd gotten the raw end of this deal. I took note of each seal's location and the spells inscribed upon it, then prowled about the inn's perimeter, considering how to improve the seals' effects. As they were, I could think of a good two dozen means of sidestepping them just off the top of my head, so I had to wonder whether they were just so well-liked here that it hadn't become a problem yet.

The planning took me deep into the night, so I reluctantly headed to bed before I'd finished. I couldn't start replacing the seals right now anyway. It would leave the inn defenseless until I'd upgraded all of them, and the middle of the night was probably not the best time to remove all of the inn's protections. When I reached our room, Yuemith was already curled up in bed, asleep, so I stripped and climbed into the other bed without even turning on the light first.

***

When the Hero's party passed through Terth, Rigel, captain of the guard at the east gate, happened to be drinking at the bar they chose to patronize, so he had a front-row seat to their evening. He'd heard that the Hero skill came with a lot of drawbacks to balance out the absurd power it offered, one of which prevented the user from getting drunk. Watching them, it seemed likely that was true; when the Hero rose to return to the inn after two hours of drinking, he appeared completely sober, while the other members of his party were barely able to stand.

In particular, their mage, a woman named Lisa Eldhart, was so sloshed that she ended up remaining seated. The Hero paid the bartender a few coins to offer her water until she'd sobered enough to return on her own before leaving.

Rigel sighed and moved to sit beside her. He'd make sure she made it back safely once she could walk again.

"Can you believe it?" she was saying, apparently happy to rant to thin air or perhaps unaware that she'd lost her audience already. It was difficult to decipher her words, but Rigel had spent enough time in bars with drunken subordinates to be well-versed in drunken speech. "Course, I can't blame her. After what happened, of course, she wouldn't come see me off."

"Who?" Rigel asked. "What happened?"

Tears started streaming down Lisa's face. "Ciel! I exposed her research and made everyone hate her.... but I swear! I didn't - I didn't - I just wanted everyone else to see how brilliant she is! They're so stupid! Idiots! All of them! Instead of recognizing her brilliance, they made her leave! All because it was incon-incon-a problem!"

Rigel hummed thoughtfully. "If it's the Ciel I know, she doesn't live in the city. She's a few days from here, so there's a good chance she doesn't even know you're here."

Lisa turned pleading eyes on him. "Really? You think she doesn't hate me?"

"I have no idea, but at the very least, it's got nothing to do with her not being here," Rigel said. If this was a possible grudge from before Ciel'd moved east from the capital, it was at least a decade old. He had difficulty believing that the woman he spoke with once or twice a year, who rarely paid enough attention to her surroundings to notice people even existed, would hold a grudge for even half that time. "I'm sure she's forgotten all about it by now," he added confidently.

However, rather than reassuring her, this seemed to upset Lisa all over again. She pulled out a notebook with a worn cover and pages that had gone past yellowed and on to burnt-looking. Lisa carressed it reverently, then slid it over to him. "I shouldn't take this with me anyway, in case we don't..." She looked down. "She did this for me."

Slowly, over the next hour, she revealed how she'd gone to University as your typical proud, arrogant nobleman's daughter with a handful of spells already under her belt. "But I couldn't use familiar magic," she said, staring down into her glass of water. "It was frustrating. I didn't understand how perfect idiots could form familiar bonds, but I, the most talented student in decades, couldn't. And then, one day, she left me that notebook."

Tears had started dripping down her cheeks again. "I didn't tell anyone at first. I figured she was waiting to use it for her graduating thesis. But maybe she already understood that it was research the world wasn't ready for yet... When Professor Liden started pressuring her too much, I brought it to him. I wanted him to see that she was too important to send to the front lines. Instead..."

Rigel couldn't understand the rest of her words, but he got the gist.

"I know it's wrong, but I loved her and... I think, at least, she loved me too. We never spoke the words, of course, but..."

Rigel listened to Lisa pour her heart out for another half hour before helping her back to the inn where the Hero's party was staying. The next day, she gave him a small smile as they departed through the east gate. Over the next few weeks, Rigel deciphered the text in the notebook she'd imparted upon him, and though there was a lot he didn't understand, he thought he got the basics well enough.

Standard theory said that familiars were creatures from another plane of existence that could be contracted out to assist a mage. A powerful familiar was often seen as a sign of a powerful mage, though there was much that wasn't understood about them, and so it wasn't the only indication of power. Not having a familiar was more common than having one, even among powerful mages, so it was more a matter of having something extra.

In other words, lacking one was something a student might worry about, but it made no difference once one entered adult society.

If Ciel was to be believed, though, a familiar was nothing more than an imaginary friend given form. For most children, imaginary friends faded as they aged, and so, typically, familiars only formed as a combination of powerful magic and some manner of mental illness. According to psychological studies, she said, the most typical cause of such illness was trauma.

Rigel wasn't surprised that it'd caused outrage. No one wanted to admit to mental illness or possible trauma, and simply having a familiar might then open up suspicion that one's family might have been less than ideal, meaning it wasn't only the mages with familiars who would hate the research's conclusions, but their families as well. The truth became immaterial when powerful and wealthy people's reputations were involved.

Lisa'd probably had a happy childhood, especially if she'd grown up sheltered enough not to realize that sharing that research would never have helped Ciel's position.

In any event, when news came back that the Hero's party had failed and been killed by the Warden of the East, Yuemith, Rigel quietly resolved to use his connections to get Ciel's research spread across the city in honor of their fallen heroes.

And when Ciel appeared with an unregistered person with a strange mana signature who looked almost identical to the now-deceased mage, Rigel had to stifle tears at the idea that her death had been so traumatic that Ciel would create a familiar over it. Clearly, not only had Ciel not held a grudge, but she'd held strong feelings for Lisa until the end. He mourned the relationship that had been ended before it'd had a chance to really begin.

***

Lisa didn't like Ciel the first time they met. Her appearance was unusual; she had pale skin, white hair, and deep blue eyes that almost seemed to glow. She wasn’t unattractive, per se, but she did stand out in a population that tended toward darker coloring. That might have been forgivable, but the other girl was quiet and had an expressionless face, so picking on her was a safe pastime. Even if Lisa went too far, Ciel wouldn't say anything to anyone. She was, in that way, a favored target for her classmate's aggressions. Training to become a mage was stressful, and relieving that stress by picking on the weakest link was a time-honored tradition that the teachers did nothing to prevent. It was, by their inaction, even encouraged.

Ciel wasn't really a weak link, though. Even though they called her names, left tacks in her shoes, put glue on her seat, wrote slurs on her desk, and committed any number of pettily vicious crimes, Ciel never appeared bothered. If she thought anything at all about the bullying, she didn't let it show. Lisa began to watch her, learning Ciel's subtle expressions in hopes that there was an entire inner world of agony that she was simply hiding.

Instead, she discovered that Ciel's main feeling about the bullying was exasperation. Lisa realized that the truly harmful pranks never worked as intended, and she slowly had to accept that this was because Ciel avoided those pranks. In other words, she only got hit by the other pranks because she didn't consider them enough of a nuisance to prevent. That was even more aggravating, so Lisa redoubled her attempts to damage Ciel, but the only damage done was to Lisa's mental state.

Lisa went too far, once. The trap she’d set for Ciel was more violent than petty, and even she’d known it was a bad idea. In fact, she’d meant to disarm it, but Ciel reached it first. To Lisa’s horror, Ciel had spotted the trap and called everyone’s attention to it. She’d patiently (and correctly) explained the trap’s effects. Then, surprising and disgusting all her morbidly curious onlookers, she’d activated it.

Ciel’s arm and side were heavily burned, and she’d screamed in agony until healers had arrived and taken her away. Two days later, once the healers released her from the clinic, Ciel called everyone’s attention to herself and announced that the next time she spotted a dangerous trap like that, she would locate the culprit and have them experience it instead.

No one doubted her. Anyone crazy enough to do that was capable of anything.

Alongside that was Lisa's lack of a familiar. At first, she hadn't cared. Not all mages had one, and there were plenty of strong mages who lacked familiars. However, one day, their absolute dunce of a classmate, the boy at the very bottom of the class, who was scraping by solely because his father had enough sway to prevent his expulsion, entered with a beautiful leopard at his heels.

Lisa stopped bothering Ciel. Instead, she focused all her efforts on creating a familiar bond. She studied all the literature, sparse as it was. She looked at all the relevant spells. She practiced creating golems and summoning elementals and meditating until she found her grades dropping because she had no mental space to spare for anything else. And yet, no matter what she tried, no familiar appeared.

"I don't understand what I'm doing wrong," she muttered to herself one afternoon in the library. No one else was around. "Why could he get one? How can he possibly be better than me?"

She held her head in her hands and started to cry, stress and exhaustion boiling over.

There was a thud behind her. Lisa stiffened and wiped furiously at her face, only to realize that she hadn't been alone. She caught a glimpse of Ciel leaving the library and felt even further despair at the thought of Ciel, of all people, hearing her breakdown. Eventually, she moved to leave, and that's when she noticed it. There, on the ground, was a notebook - the same kind Ciel was always scribbling in.

Lisa glanced toward the door, then picked up the notebook and opened it.

At first, she thought Ciel had been mocking her. The book was full of notes about familiars. However, as she read, she started to realize Ciel's true purpose. The book explained, in careful, detailed, easy-to-understand notes, the true origin of familiars.

Naturally, Lisa didn't just blindly accept Ciel's conclusions. She performed her own research, verifying everything. In the end, she had to conclude that Ciel was correct. A familiar was an indication of trauma or mental illness. That was why Lisa couldn't obtain one. It had nothing to do with her power or suitability as a mage.

Ciel had performed all this research and then casually, in a way that made it seem like an accident, provided it to Lisa at her lowest moment. Tears welled up in her eyes again, this time for an entirely different reason. She'd been awful to Ciel for over a year now, and yet Ciel had given her this anyway.

From that day on, Lisa made it a point to discreetly defend Ciel. She used the power of her family name to put an end to the worst of the bullying. She did her best to spend time around Ciel, talking to her about her day and her hopes and dreams and her childhood and everything and anything she could think of.

Ciel never replied, but Lisa could tell she was listening. Ciel preferred to listen rather than talk, and Lisa was happy to accommodate. (It helped that Lisa preferred talking to listening. They were well-matched in that way.)

Over the years, Lisa realized that her feelings had started to evolve. She denied it for as long as possible, but she eventually had to admit that dreaming about kissing your friend wasn't exactly friendship.

Naturally, she didn't tell anyone about this. It was unthinkable. As the daughter of nobility, it was her duty to marry a man and bear his children one day. However... when she compared the men around her to Ciel, she felt that her future looked bleak. She tried to imagine going day after day, waking up to anyone else's face, and couldn't. It sounded utterly miserable. She tried cautiously probing Ciel for her thoughts on the matter by bringing up the subject in class. "I heard recently that one of the servants here got fired for being unnatural," she announced to her friends, making sure to keep her voice pitched low enough to express how scandalous the subject was while loud enough for Ciel to easily overhear. "I just don't understand how anyone could ever think that was acceptable."

As her friends laughed and made rude, snide remarks about the totally imaginary servant, Lisa kept an eye on Ciel's expression. She didn't seem to have any interest in the topic, so at the very least, she probably didn't strongly feel one way or another. That was something, at least. Then, Caitlyn, one of Lisa's friends, called out, "Hey, Sea-rat, what about you? Maybe that's why you're such a freak."

Sea-rat was one of the stupid nicknames for Ciel. Even when Lisa had disliked Ciel, she hadn't found that one funny, and she glared at Caitlyn, who held up her hands placatingly.

However, to her surprise, Ciel responded. "I've never considered it before, but it hardly matters. Even if I preferred women, I wouldn't prefer you."

Caitlyn's face reddened. "Why you -"

Another of Lisa's friends, Sarah, stepped in. "I bet you do like women. You're probably excited just talking to us. Probably get off on seeing my chest in the baths."

Ciel looked Sarah up and down. She had an admittedly perfect figure, with wide hips and enormous breasts. She was the most sought-after girl in school because her body was incredible. Even Lisa had to admit that much. Compared to her own washboard body, if Ciel did prefer women, she'd naturally like Sarah more than Lisa. However, what Ciel said was, "Breasts are bags of fat that exist to feed babies, but there is no scientific evidence that size relates to ability to perform. I have no further interest in them, and I find it strange that you're imagining me 'getting off' at all, let alone to thoughts of your breasts."

This time, it was Sarah who turned red in embarrassment while the rest of their friends giggled. Lisa felt her stomach sink as both Sarah and Caitlyn looked at her expectantly. As their leader, it was up to her to avenge them... but they were the ones who'd involved Ciel in the first place, so it felt unfair to blame her for turning that back on them. She smiled tightly. "Ciel clearly has no interest in such pursuits. She likely finds a book on the scientific method sexier than anyone at this school." She forced a laugh, and the rest of the girls followed suit as Lisa led them away. As she glanced back, she saw Ciel returning to her book, apparently already putting the conversation out of her mind. Lisa's smile turned more real, more natural. Good. She'd expected that a comment like that wouldn't bother Ciel, even while it would be considered rude by everyone else. Lisa felt glad to know that she'd reached such a point in her understanding of the other girl.

It didn't bother her that her friends would have turned on her in an instant if they knew. That was right and just. So long as Ciel didn't mind, Lisa was more than happy with the situation. Maybe, after school ended, she'd work up the courage to approach her about progressing to something more. For the time being, she settled for going to Ciel that evening in the library, when no one else was around, and sitting beside her. "I wouldn't mind if you looked at me that way," Lisa said quietly.

She received no response, not that she’d expected one. She took a deep breath and plunged onward. "Would it bother you if I thought of you like that?"

Ciel gave a slow shake of her head and continued reading.

Lisa beamed at her, heart bursting with happiness, and then, before she lost her courage, pressed her fingers to first her lips and then Ciel's cheek. "Thank you," she said before rising and hurrying away.

Of course, her plans fell apart when she was chosen to join the Hero's party. She felt torn about it, because on one hand, it meant she'd be separated from Ciel, but on the other hand, she wouldn't have to marry. Then, as she was returning to Professor Eincrad's office to give him her answer, she overheard him and Professor Liden arguing with Ciel. Apparently, Ciel had been invited, too, but she'd turned them down. Lisa felt a sting of disappointment. Why would Ciel do that?

As Ciel left Professor Eincrad's office, Lisa followed her. "Do you think you're too good for us?" she asked with genuine hurt. "What are you going to do if we die? You think you'll be able to forgive yourself for your part in it? For not being there?"

Ciel's face tightened, and Lisa immediately felt guilty. Ciel never did anything without carefully considering things first. She must already know that possibility and had weighed it against whatever reasons had caused her to turn down the offer. Given their close relationship, this was probably a painful decision for Ciel, and here Lisa was, throwing that pain in her face. She didn't know why Ciel had turned down the offer, but it was almost certainly a good reason. Ciel felt things deeply, and she did everything in the way she felt would turn out best. Lisa knew this by now. She understood Ciel better than anyone. She took a breath and let it out, expelling the disappointment.

In all honesty, it was better that Ciel didn't join. Ciel was brilliant, yes, but she wasn't athletic, nor was she powerful. Her mana regeneration was off the charts, but the pool she had to draw from was so pitiful, she could barely perform mid-tier spells without growing winded and needing time to recover her equilibrium. More than once, she'd failed tests for having been unable to perform all the spells within the time limit. In other words, far from being the thing that let them defeat the Demon Lord, having Ciel with them would be a liability.

Lisa had to make up for her thoughtless remarks. "What if we encounter an erupting volcano and need you to design a countermeasure? What if an attack throws us into the sky, and we need you to design a spell on the fly to keep us from dying when we hit the ground? What if..." She offered up absurd hypotheticals, trying to make the first one seem like nothing more than another inanity. To her relief, by the time they reached Ciel's room, her friend merely looked exasperated again. Lisa smiled at her as Ciel closed the door.

Even if they were separated, their hearts would still be connected, Lisa was sure.

And in her dying moments, she reflected that she was glad Ciel hadn't come. Yuemith was so much stronger than any of them had ever suspected; having Ciel with them would only have provided another corpse for the dark beasts to feast upon.