7.0 - Silica’s story

Silica

My name is Akari Midori and where do I start? I will start at the beginning when I believe it all started. It all began when I hit puberty or late puberty towards the end of grade 9. As my body changed and developed, I noticed a shift in how people perceived me. Back in middle school, I was just an ordinary person, not particularly popular. But something changed. Maybe it was an aura I exuded or an inexplicable magnetism that grew within me. People started to adore me, and it felt like I could do no wrong in their eyes. The only person who treated me the same was my sister, Tina. Maybe this is what people call becoming a woman. With the change men's eyes wandered more and more downward from my face. I thought it was normal.

However, it wasn't until halfway through my junior year of high school that my life took an unexpected turn. I found myself wandering the streets of an unknown world, completely naked, with only an empty house in front of me. It took me a month to navigate and familiarize myself with the area. During my exploration, I encountered Sensei Grignard, who became my mentor in magic. He taught me how to harness my magical abilities and even summoned my sister and friends from the student council to this new world. It took another two months for Tina, Luke, and Anna to acquire their bronze badges from the adventure guild. Progress was slow, but we were making steady strides.

Tina, my younger sister, was the first person I brought to this strange world. Having my closest friend as my sister was a no brainer as I wanted to share the experience with her. She excelled in magic like myself and quickly got her badge in two weeks. During our first quest, everything changed. Her first goblin took us by surprise, and we managed to kill it. However, she got minor injuries, nothing magic couldn’t cure. But the pressure of hurting and killing a goblin got the better of her and she is no longer able to use spells to attack. She doesn’t like leaving the new shrine and hardly goes out to town. I’m afraid she hates this place and the feeling about monsters. I got her a pair of fox ears, which she treats as a precious gift. She looks so sweet with them on!

I formed the student council in my freshman year of high school and happened to meet Luke and Nakamura. Luke being the discipline committee, acts all strong and tough but he’s harmless. Nakamura begged to join for popularity reasons and become the media director. Anne was one of my old-time friends. I decided to make all three of them join me in this new experience.

Luke was a quick learner but he’s a blockhead. Single minded type of guy. He was quick to learn the combat but had no strategy, but I can work with that.

Nakamura was useless… no magic capacity, terrible at close range. Great at giving up. Useless for going on adventures with. Maybe I should block him and remove his memories of this world. Took him two months to get his badge, I think it was out of pity… in the end, he was still useless in battle.

Anna, my old time friend, also had low magic capacity and was bad at close range combat. But she had heart and tried. She had good strategies though she wasn’t able to follow through with the requirements to make it work. She was an optimist and tried her best.

Guild Master Toco and Master Grignard told me about Nephilim’s more, but they didn’t know too much about them. I had to go to the capital to figure out more. However long that would take. I received a great sum over 100 platinum coins from my inheritance from my last silica. How was I supposed to spend all that?

In about 10 months of coming to this world. One month was trying to figure out what to do. Another month was training Tina, Luke, Nakamura, and Anna. It was basically only Luke and I wanting to do quests and go on an adventure, and well he’s not the best conversationist and did I mention a blockhead… my days were growing more and more boring each day. I wanted to travel the new world. Do I summon random person? No, my passive charm spells attracted everyone and how could I trust them?

The first week was the hardest being all by myself. I was lucky, I arrived in such a nice town as Moonlight! The people here are all so friendly, calling me goddess Silica. I swore to myself if anyone got summoned to this world, I would help them out.

Three months later, on the first day of my senior year, someone caught my attention. It was a male student, seemingly unaffected by my aura. I was on a quest to recruit members for the student council, but in truth, we didn't really need anyone else since Tina was going to become the Vice President anyway. He caught my interest with his resistance to my magic.

As I approached him, he was lost in thought, staring out the window, completely unaware of my presence. Curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to test him using my direct charm magic. I cast a ray of mist over him, but to my surprise, he remained unaffected. It seemed he possessed a high resistance to magic. Intrigued, I focused my gaze and intensified my magic to the maximum. What happened next was both laughable and unexpected. His head slipped off his hand, and he accidentally banged it on the desk. I almost burst out laughing. A mist of magic engulfed the room soon after, similar to how I used to summon Tina. My charm is not an invitation to the world. It appeared that he was someone who could evolve in magic. He was a Nephilim like me, someone chosen by the gods.

To my astonishment, not only did he appear, but 14 other individuals followed suit, entering the room one by one. And then there he was. He was cute. Unknown to me, he was a Nephilim, another child of a god like me. What surprised me, even more, was his tremendous magical abilities, surpassing my own. He learned and grew stronger in magic at an astonishing rate. I didn’t expect him to summon his entire class! He learned magic in under 3 days! How is that even possible? It took me 10 days but still, I didn’t fully spend every hour working on it like he did. He was an interesting guy that liked to have fun. We often played tic tac toe and connect five. That was a good idea to learn the basics of magic. I don’t think many people had the magic capacity we did at the start. So, I only think it is possible if you’re a Nephilim or have a high amount of magic. He was resistant to my charm spell, the first person unaffected like my sister Tina. Even my parents treated me differently. He has treated me like an equal senpai like everyone else. He is also cute for a younger guy.

"Hey Akari, are you and Mackenzie dating?" Tina asked me one day.

"No, no, we're just friends," I replied.

"Why were you kissing him then in the middle of the guild hall? If you’re going to lie, don’t do it in the middle of the hall. do it to your room” Tina questioned further giggling at me.

"It was part of our magic training, I insist," I explained. She didn’t believe me.

We did some quests together and I was quite a bit stronger in terms of magic but if both excelled at it, it felt like he was my equal. We had similar goals as adventures as we wanted to learn magic and explore the unknown world. He is probably the only person I know that understands who I am now. It takes a Nephilim to under a Nephilim. He is slowly gaining leadership qualities and expressing himself more and more. Kendra on the other hand, glared daggers at me all too often. She and mackenzie are always together. Always arm width apart when they are not training. Are they dating? I have to find out. Kendra is an ideal swordswoman, she had skills that Luke can never reach. She was also unaffected by my charm for what ever reason. Was that from being close to mackenzie?

We took a quest that was done by my ancestor. I thought this could bring me closer to understanding the truth. There were potentially so many goblins in that cave it could have been a death sentence. In the heat of battle, I was struck by a hobgoblin and knocked unconscious. The next thing I knew, Mackenzie was carrying me, holding me tightly. It was kind of nice getting held that close, but embarrassing. His determination for revenge on my behalf after the raid on the labyrinth was evident. He and Kendra took it upon themselves to decide to take revenge and made a raid group without my consent. How could I get mad, it was for my sake. I had no choice but to agree.

Despite his imperfections in life skills and his lack of eloquence in speeches, I couldn't deny that I was slowly liking him. Is this love?