Ice sword

    In the morning both Yuki and Eric come out of their rooms at the same time. Yuki had a long face with dark circles under her eyes while Eric had a good mod after playing all-night games.

"Morning!"

   When their eyes meet Eric greeted her while Yuki narrowed her eyes and answered in a low voice.

"Morning..."

("Why is he acting like nothing happened?")

("Why is she acting like she didn't sleep all night?")

   Eric didn't pay her any mind and started walking towards the kitchen while Yuki looked at his back. He prepared something quickly and packed them so he can eat his breakfast outside.

  He then went out and headed for the forest. When he reached it, he looked at the place where yesterday was a stone statue just to find that there was nothing today.

("Well, I guess someone took her. Should I change my eating place?")

   Thinking so, he entered deep into the forest and find a glade where someone left a picnic table. He then sat on the bench and started to eat his breakfast.

    While doing so he thought about the light from yesterday and the girl that turned into stone. He then thought about the first day when he meet Alice and seen for the first time a magic circle.

    At that moment a ridiculous thought come into his mind and he held his hand and thought about the magic circle that he had seen on that day, and tried to remember every detail of it. He closed his eyes trying to not miss anything and wanted to make that circle appear.

   To his surprise, when he opened his eyes a magic circle that glowed faintly appeared in front of his hand. He looked at that magic circle with a serious expression and tried to not lose his concentration.

  Although the magic circle appeared, nothing come out of it and he knew that something was missing. He tried to think about the sword that Alice held the other day but still, nothing come out. With a slightly annoyed face he almost give up but he then remembered about a little detail he forgot. Eric narrowed his eyes and spoke in a low voice.

"Ice sword!"

    In the next moment, a white-blue sword come out and he hold it with one hand. He took it closer to his eyes and touched the blade with his left hand.

"Wow, I didn't expect it to really work..."

    Eric looked amazed at the sword in his hand then put it away and tried to cast other spells but without any success. Although he couldn't cast anything else, he still spent the next few hours experimenting with his newly discovered ability.

* * *

  While Eric made the new discovery, Yuki was again in the parallel space training with Alice and Clarissa in hand-to-hand combat. Currently, Clarissa was fighting with Yuki in a 1v1 battle and, after a long time, Alice finally announced that they will take a break and Yuki laid down trying to catch her breath. Alice approached Yuki and handed her a water bottle.

"Good work here, you're surprisingly good at this!"

   Yuki took the bottle and drink half of it.

"Thanks! Although I didn't practice any sports, I had a good physique since young."

"This is good then but..."

"Mmm?"

"I can feel that you are distracted and it seems like you didn't have enough sleep last night. Did something happen?"

  Yuki suddenly remembered what she heard last night but she wasn't sure if she should tell Alice about it. She couldn't hear too well what they were talking about and she could also be wrong about what she heard, so she hesitated a while but finally told Alice about what happened.

    Alice thought for a while then asked Yuki again to make sure.

"Are you sure that you didn't hear wrong?"

"That's the problem... I'm not sure..."

"Well... we will know after we catch and interrogate him!"

   Alice wanted to go out but Clarissa stopped her.

"Alice, wait! He can just deny it and we will never learn the truth, we also aren't so heartless to torture a possibly innocent person. For now, I think the best idea is to follow and catch him red-handed!"

    Alice thought for a while but before she could take a decision Clarissa made another suggestion.

"If you're not sure you can go and ask Irra about how we should proceed!"

   Alice looked at Clarissa's eyes for a while and finally accepted.

"Fine... I will go right now! You keep training Yuki for now, I will be back shortly!"

    Alice left in a hurry while Yuki and Clarissa looked at her back.