Happy...

“I’m fine.” I replied while holding out my hand, stopping him from further burdening himself.

Stopping at my command, he stood there with a worried stare. I tried my best to hide the emotion which had overtaken me mere seconds ago. Acting as though I had always been in a perfect state of calm, I approached the man of odd features.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” He persisted in his questioning.

“I told you I’m perfectly fine, but what about you? What happened to your leg?” I asked him, trying to get the questioning away from me.

“Oh, it’s nothing really. Just a minor injury.”

“How long has it been injured for?”

“A few months, but I’m sure it’ll heal.”

Hmm, if it still hasn’t healed in a few months, then it’s not likely it will ever heal by the looks of it. This might be the perfect opportunity to use my talents and get some praise along the way. Maybe he’ll even feel indebted to me. I let out a laugh to myself, causing him to show visible confusion.

“Come sit here and show me your leg.” I gestured for him to come by the wall next to the troubling alleyway.

Confused, but not questioning it, he followed exactly what I said. He limped over slowly, turning to sit on the wall. As he dragged the leg of his tattered pants up, a strange sight came into view. It appeared as though his whole leg was covered in scars.

“What’s with all these scars?” I questioned, wondering how someone can acquire so many.

“Oh, you must be new to the Capital.” He responded, his response slightly irritating me.

“My question?”

“Oh, right. I'm a slave. Pretty messed up, huh? The only way to become a slave is if you’re suspected of being a spy. Of course, spies are more valuable if they can talk. That’s for the most part, at least. The scars speak for themselves.” He explained as he pulled up part of his ragged shirt.

He revealed hundreds, if not more, scars riddling his body. The unusual sight fascinated me, but also made me want to resolve it. I had never healed this many things before all at once, but this could serve as the perfect test to try it. After all, it shouldn’t be impossible to do so.

“Okay. I’ve decided I will heal everything.” I spoke while puffing out my chest in an attempt to look cooler.

“Heal? Hahah, that’s pretty funny. How do you plan to do that?” He asked.

“With magic.”

“Haha, you can’t get my hopes up like that. Magic doesn’t exist.” He replied laughing.

Slightly annoyed at his mocking, I decided to prove my abilities. As his laughter persisted in my ears, I began trembling more and more. Ah, yes! This is the perfect time to show off some electric magic, I think.

As the odd man kept laughing, a burst of electricity went right by his head, searing the wall behind him. His laughter at the sight slowly dwindled down until it was almost comedic that he was even trying to release any laughter at all.

“Hmm, I think I overdid it a little. But hey, that was pretty good.” I admired my use of the newly learned magic.

Well, I’ll still need to iron out my use of this electricity. I don’t want to kill the person I’m trying to heal, after all. Now I just need to learn the higher level spells for electric magic, and then I can focus on wind magic for convenience.

“‘Pretty good’? You almost killed me!” The man screamed at the comment.

“Haha. Well good thing it didn’t.” I joked about his feared tone. “But now do you believe me?”

“Are you kidding me? Of course, lady! But…can you really heal me?”

“Yeah. It should be simple, I think.” I murmured the last part.

I raised my hand to him with a smile. The wind had become fairly mild and the sun blazed hot to make up for the time it had been slumbering moments ago. As the emerald colour left my hand, I watched as parts of the man were being put back together. After a total of five minutes, all of his scars had disappeared.

“W-wow. I didn’t know this was possible.” He exclaimed.

“Well, a while back, not many people knew about magic. But as of recently, it’s been starting to get more and more well known. I’m surprised you didn’t know about it considering I’ve seen so many magic crystals around here.” I replied.

“T-thank you.” He spoke with heaps of gratitude in his voice.

“Don’t worry. It’s not that big of a deal.” I replied. “Check to see if you can walk.”

With amazement in his eyes and a smile on his face, he was not only able to walk, he could also run and jump. Seeing the sight of the amazed man in front of me made me feel proud at what I had done. Doing it also confirmed to me that I was able to heal multiple wounds at once. I wonder if I can even heal multiple people at once? The thought caused me to become lost in it for a moment.

“How can I ever thank you for this?” His question had snapped me out of my thoughts.

“Uh, don’t worry about it!” I responded, coming up with whatever I could to hide the fact I was thinking about something else.

“No, no, no. I have to do something or else it wouldn’t seem right.”

“That’s really not necessary.”

“Ok, how about this. When your birthday comes, let’s celebrate it together, yeah? You’re new here anyways. It’s not like you’d have any friends around.”

“I have plenty of friends!” The comment had caused me to refute his claim. “Also, what do you mean by birthday?”

“You know, the day you were born.”

“Well that’s today, but why would we celebrate it?”

“HUH? Today? Well of course we have to celebrate it.”

“But why?” My curiosity had peaked.

“Uhh, well, where I come from, we celebrate it to make sure the person feels valued after surviving another year.”

“Interesting.”

“So what can I do for you?”

“Hmmm. How about you show me around the capital then?”

“Alright, but first, I need to stop by my master's place to let him know. I also need to drop this off.” He pointed to his large bag which seemed fairly heavy.

“Fair enough. I’ll wait right around here.”

“Okay. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.” He told me as he took off running.

I guess I have some free time to myself now. There’s no point in looking around the capital considering I’m gonna get a tour. I guess I’ve got more time to learn the advanced spell for lightning magic. It looks as though it’s just a lightning bolt from the image. Hmm. I would like to practice it, but maybe not in this alley.

I went across the street and into the other alley. Let’s see how fast I can learn this. Maybe I can even master it before he gets back. The thought of my amazing skill caused me to chuckle to myself.

It would seem this may not be as fast as I hoped. The words of this book still can’t get the idea across at all. Whoever wrote this needs to be fired, and possibly executed immediately. It’s like they didn’t understand how to describe things at all. It says “Imagine a flash of light”. That’s literally every electric spell in here! At least the picture showed what a lightning bolt should look like. Maybe I should just stick to the pictures. The book’s age really is showing. its incompetencies shine through far brighter than any flash I could imagine.

Looking at the picture, it seemed like I had to picture the lightning bolts which came down during storms and adjust them to the sizes that I wanted. This picture was pretty straightforward and was probably the easiest one I had seen so far. If I had tried to learn from the words in the book, I could have had something way different. I threw out my arm and brought the image to life in front of my eyes. A large lightning bolt appeared, the light of which seemed to engulf the dead end in front of me.

“What is that?” A familiar voice asked from behind me.

Turning around, I saw the strange man again and smiled at him. “Oh. You’re back earlier than expected.”

“Wait but what wa—.”

“What was what?” My smile grew wider as I stared daggers into him.

“Uh, nothing.”

“Ah, I see.”

“Anyways, I got back far quicker than I thought thanks to this fixed leg.”

“Oh, so then it's working fine. That’s good.”

“Yes. Thank you again.”

“So, I think it would be difficult calling each other ‘you’ all the time. Maybe we should exchange names? You are giving me a tour, after all.”

“Oh, right, I thought we had by now!”

“Well nice to meet you. My name is Celestia.” I tell him with a slight curtsy.

“Nice to meet you. My name is H-Hibiki.”

“H-Hibiki? That’s a strange name.”

“Hibiki!”

“Well it’s a little better, but still strange.”

“That’s what everyone says.”

“Shall we get going, Hibiki?”

“Yes, let's.”

Hibiki began by taking me to a garden filled with radiance. The blessed flowers shone brighter than any I had seen before. The trees spanned great lengths, as if they had been growing there since the dawn of the world. The path looked familiar. I must have passed it while I was in a hurry looking for a place to sell the ring. To think I didn’t even notice such a lovely place.

Next on our agenda was a place with a view. Since the Capital is on a cliffside overlooking the ocean, I had been looking forward to seeing it. But I realized it would be impossible as the large castle was located at the edge of the cliff and restricted access to the ocean. The behemoth of a building blocked even a speck of the beautiful blue which I heard looked far different than simple lakes. Not only was there a castle blocking the way, however. The Capital was also surrounded by walls.

However, Hibiki had managed to find a place which was at just the right angle to make out the ocean. Seeing it now, the vast distance of water spanning far out into the horizon was breathtaking. The grey sand which separated the land from the ocean looked as though it was made of the purest marble to have ever existed.

While it wasn’t all that strong, the breeze that was blowing past me in this area had a hint of salt to it. I had only ever heard about this in books, but to experience even a tiny fraction of what I had read made me far more excited than I thought I would be. Maybe this birthday thing isn’t so bad. I guess that would make sense though. After all, it was a celebration about me.

As the sun began to fall behind the horizon, Hibiki had one last destination he wished to stop by on his tour. A cake shop. It was decorated and created inside and out with solidified sugar. In the case of an emergency you would be able to eat your way out of the shop. Apparently Hibiki had ordered a large cake ahead of time. The size of this cake was far greater than any cake I had ever seen in books.

The cake’s massive size made it look very expensive. It’s décor only added to that thought, each layer being more extravagantly designed than the last. The three layered spectacle was just as heavy as I’d imagined it to be. As I was struggling to pick it up from the counter, Hibiki helped me pick it up and carried it for me.

“Are you sure you should pay for something like this?” I asked out of concern, remembering his status by a look at his clothes again.

“It’s fine. I have to do this. Besides, my master is very kind and has paid me enough to buy things like this.” He responded by easing my worries.

“Okay. If you say so.” I accepted his resolve, but knew he wasn’t exactly telling the truth.

Moving to a location where it was far easier to eat, we ended up reaching the garden again, the same place where this enlightening tour had first started. We took a seat on a bench where Hibiki started to congratulate me with an odd phrase. We ate the cake, enjoying its perfection.

“Somehow we managed to finish the whole cake.” I spoke.

“You’re right!” He agreed.

“Well, it’s getting late. We should probably go our separate ways. If you have time, we should meet again tomorrow.”

“That would be great. I should have time in the afternoon. How about around four, if that works?”

“That should work perfectly.”

“Well, goodbye Celestia.”

“Hey, Hibiki?”

“Yeah?”

“When’s your birthday? After all, if we celebrated mine, we should celebrate yours as well.”

“Hmm. It’s October 31st.”

“That’s quite a bit away.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll come back to the capital just to celebrate it with you! You should be grateful.”

“Haha. Thank you oh mighty and noble Celestia.”

“See you tomorrow Hibiki!”

“See you.”

We talked as though we were old friends who had met long ago. I guess there are just some people in the world who you get along with at your first meeting. I never assumed it to be true, but I guess with Fae and now Hibiki, the idea was becoming more and more true.

Well I guess it’s time that I find myself a cozy inn with all this money. I’m stuffed after eating all that cake. Maybe if I can find a large enough inn, I may be able to practice wind magic inside. It would be a new record to teach myself two new magics in one day! Maybe I’ll even get a book written on me, hopefully one with far better wording than that in the book about electric magic. Let’s just hope the inn doesn’t get damaged too badly.