Chapter 4 – Aster has a gaze

The space in front of the city gate was spacious, yet humanoid lifeforms were nowhere to be found. I say humanoid lifeforms, since humans aren’t the only beings living in this city.

The Academy City of Ataraxia.

The police office was near the city center, so it took a few minutes to reach the gates. But within those minutes I learned more than my brain was able to handle.

While walking through the streets, I realized most of the town’s population seemed to be rather young. This makes sense since it is an Academy City. Thus, many young students gather in this city and the citizens average age is quite low. When I asked about the student’s parents, Princess Abc replied, that the school has their own dorm rooms.

The city had a medieval touch to it, but elements of industrialization were also prevalent, like for example the use of cars, or electricity, though probably not working the same way as in our world.

We reached the main gate, which was in the west. The Academy lay in the east, and could be seen from the other side of the town. It was by far the biggest building around, not only in height, but it also covered a vast terrain.

The city gate was guarded by soldiers wearing rather heavy armor. Of course, they also used weapons, but instead of the typical halberds one of them held a magic wand that Shelly mentioned before and the other one was using brass knuckles.

“Ah, it’s you Chief,” Mister Magic Wand said and hid said weapon under his robe. Actually, I would have liked to see this thing in action.

“Yes. We’re going out on a mission.”

“Be careful.”

Now that everything was said, and we left the city, I asked one question: “One of them was wearing brass knuckles. Is he able to use magic with them?”

“Are you stupid? How do you know nothing about anything?” Princess Abc exclaimed. Well, I don’t blame her. She still doesn’t know I’m from another world. Shelly on the other hand still is not really convinced about it, but she somehow accepts it. Or she thinks I’m just hiding my own stupidity under some weird sort of lie.

“Yes, though wands are rather common among magicians, there has been a growing trend of using different items. Actually, you don’t need any weapon at all, but it easier to channel your magic if you have an object you can focus on. Spellcasting without any kind of host is high class use of magic. Also, it allows you special kinds of attacks. For example, one of that man's signature moves involves focusing electric energy in his knuckles to hit an opponent with an electric blow.”

We walked a path leading away from the city, as she explained this. The city was hiding behind a mountain range, which is the reason I wasn’t able to see it while crossing the bridge. The path led to a small sort of canyon, that apparently was man-made. In the distance, there was the field I woke up in, and of course there also was - “The Bridge,” I said.

“Yes, that’s also were you were found,” Shelly added.

“They were leaving the city, since they also came the same way, we are right now. It was around noon; I remember hearing the bells in the distance,” I said.

“I noticed the theft of our grimoire yesterday in the evening, after I came back from school. It was the last day, you have to know. Since I wasn’t at home most of the day, they might have also stolen it somewhere before noon.”

“By the way, why are we talking in plural form about the culprit the whole time?” I asked.

“There was a high probability, that Miss Dementia’s younger brother also was involved.”

“And when I was ordered to follow them, she was going with her brother, Raven Way, an Incubus,” Aster added.

After few minutes, we reached the bridge.

“So…what are we gonna do now?” I asked, standing on the exact spot, where I was robbed.

“Now you’ll see something special,” Shelly claimed.

“I am special,” Aster exclaimed.

“I told you about using weapons to focus your magic and about sorcerers that are able to use magic without a host. Aster indeed is special.”

“You know, I cover my eyes for a certain reason. It’s because of my magic. It’s there to suppress it.” He turned my direction. He took of the blind and revealed two sky blue irises adorning his otherwise squinted eyes. It was a color, that couldn’t possibly exist in my shitty world.

“The reason my eyes are like this is because those aren’t my real eyes. I lost them as a child and they were replaced with marbles having a certain spell carved into them that allows me to have a 360° vision within a range of up to five kilometers through every sort of material that normally would prevent you from seeing any further.”

Indeed, I was able to see the small carvings in his eyes, although I wasn’t able to read what it said. After a few seconds, he put his blind he was holding in his hand the whole time on again.

“Follow me.”

“Why do you have this blindfold, if you have this amazing power?”

“I wasn’t supposed to have such an incredible power. But my father, the one who crafted my eyes, made a mistake with those carvings. I was supposed to be a normal person with normal eyes, nothing extraordinary at all. But the eyes use an enormous amount of my mana, that’s why my father also crafted this blindfold to suppress the magic used by my eyes to just be enough to see like a normal living person.”

So, mana does exist? I realized I knew way too little about this world. But I was excited to see, what I might find next.

We followed the path. I knew this area up to a certain point. I found what had to be the tree I woke up under, and we went even further. We left the path at a certain point, and instead followed Aster to what seemed to be a straight wall. It might have been part of the mountain range. The grass was high, and it still was as warm as yesterday. Sadly, I wasn’t able to store my clothing in my Grimoire. Shelly gave me a pair of shoes, since my first pair was still in my inventory, that I had no access to. Having to walk this barefoot would definitely not have been an option for me.

I wonder how high the stats of those shoes are.

The closer we came towards this wall, the more I realized something odd. There were small borders forming what could be an entrance to a cave.

“Is this a cave?” I finally asked.

Aster took off his blinds for barely a second. “So, it really was a cave.”

“Huh? You weren’t even sure of that?”

“Seeing everything within a distance of 5km within a 360° angle is not an easy job, kid.” He tied his blind and then said: “This is the entrance to a cave. It goes around 20 meters underground. The wall at this point has a thickness of 3 meters. They probably use some spell to open it.”

“Take a step to the side,” Princess Abc said bluntly, and Aster obeyed. The Princess took a few steps forward and then unveiled her arms that until now were hidden under her cloak. Though most princesses normally would be described as frail and timid, she was the exact opposite. Her white-clad underarms and wrists were broader than most women’s, and her hands were both covered by thick mitts. Now she was standing right in front of the wall and took one step back. She made a fist and pulled her arm back, and before I was actually able to realize, what she was planning, she had already punched the wall.

A shockwave blew away both me and my self-esteem, seeing her stand at the exact same spot, as before, upright. After the dust flew away, her blond-brunette locks were now flowing out from beneath her cloak, as the shockwave also blew away her hood. She turned around and gave me a proud, yet in this situation intimidating, smile.

Who was this princess? One Punch Man?

“You know,” she said, “to this date not even a mountain was able to withstand my power.”