29: Beach day

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The next day, an hour after waking up, Joseph and Agustín come to pick me up in a horse-drawn carriage.

Joseph is dressed in green cloth shorts and a plain t-shirt of the same color, matching his hair color. Agustín wears jeans and a shirt, just like me; the shirt is black with gold motifs in his case and white in mine.

We talk about inconsequential issues until we reach Sabrina's house. When she goes up the carriage, Joseph and I welcome her, but Agustín is speechless. Sabrina wears a red flared one-piece dress, which reaches to her knees.

When Agustín finally comes back from the trance, he says, with a dazed expression "You look beautiful in that dress, Sabri"

"Thank you" says Sabrina, blushing until she almost matches the color of the dress "I just put on something that seemed practical for the occasion"

"It's the first time I've seen you in a dress" says Joseph with a smile "now that I think about it..." he frowns "this is one of the few times we see Xelean without weapons and wearing casual clothes, almost always you wear the armor, or the sword at your belt, or both. Is there a reason why you always go armed?

"Who says I'm unarmed?" I say, raising my left hand to highlight the rings on it as I pull my sword out of my inventory with my right hand. I sigh "but yes, you're right. There is a reason… " and, hesitantly, I begin to tell them the story of my arrival in the capital.

When I'm done, I take off my necklace to show them my unaltered appearance.

"Thank you for the vote of confidence" says Agustín, seriously "we will not betray you"

"I know" I say smiling, while I caress Azur's head, who is happily curled up on my lap "That's why I have told you"

We leave the capital and, following the coastline, we choose a place to hang out. We left the coachman waiting and went down to the beach. Agustín carries a basket in which, according to him, he carries everything we might need.

"I feel a little guilty for keeping him waiting while we go have fun" I say, looking back at the carriage.

"Don't be silly, it's his job" says Joseph laughing "he's charging me 15 gold for the trip and, although it may not seem like much right now, it's more than enough payment to have him at our service all day"

"I didn't know it had cost you that much" Agustín says, frowning "do you want us to split the trip payment?"

"Nah" says Joseph, brushing it off "money was made to be spent. And there's no better way to spend it than to have fun with friends"

We choose a place on the beach and, from the basket, Agustín begins to take out a large number of things. A folding wooden table with four chairs. A parasol big enough to cover the table and us under it. A small fridge in which, surprisingly, there is a large amount of food, including various melons and watermelons; in addition to various kinds of drinks.

I guess it must have some kind of enchantment dedicated to space, similar to the one on the bags or the basket, but different; because, although it can store more than its space would indicate, we can see the objects inside, instead of the black space that is normal to see.

While Agustín is taking things out of the basket, the rest of us are putting them in position.

When we finish setting up the table and chairs, Sabrina puts her hands on her dress and makes a move to pull her it over her head.

Agustín tries to interrupt her by saying 'w-what are you doing?' and lunging at her, but she backs away and pulls her dress over her head, revealing a purple two-piece swimsuit.

"what?" says Sabrina, looking at Agustín with a raised eyebrow "did you think I would go into the sea with my dress on?"

"Ahh, of course..." Agustín says, blushing, and begins to get drinks and food from the fridge.

After lunch, Sabrina invites me to swim and I, embarrassed, explain that I don't have a swimsuit.

I should have thought of it yesterday but, after leaving the guild and having been away from home for so long, I was looking forward to spending some quality time at home.

However, Sabrina doesn't seem to care and wants me to follow her to the sea anyway.

I take off my shirt, to not wet all my clothes, and follow her into the water.

As I walk, I feel Agustín's scowling gaze on my back. He is sitting at the table, taking sheets and pencils from a bag to start drawing weapon designs.

Joseph is trying to convince Azur, who doesn't seem to like the sea, to get in the water.

And the little dragon avoids him, flying away as if its life depended on it, every time Joseph approaches it.

When the water is up to our waists, Sabrina tells me "Okay, now I will teach you how to make the magic bomb and you will try to create it while I swim. Submerge yourself in the water for a moment, it would be nice if you were as wet as possible... It took me a while to think about this method. During the trip, I racked my brain trying to think of ways that you could practice without injuring yourself, until, in the end, this idea came to me. I would have invited you to the beach to learn even without the pretext of celebrating."

"How do people normally learn it?" I ask surprised.

"No one learns it 'normally' since no one is interested in learning it when it's much more efficient to spend that time on other things" says Sabrina, looking at me with a condescending smile, as if she thought she's explaining the obvious "Why would any wizard be interested in learning advanced combat magic when the capital is a relatively safe environment and when sorcerers, in general, have a secure, steady and well-paid job offer by the kingdom? Furthermore, advanced combat magic is prohibited within the capital, because it is highly dangerous. That's why the magic academies needed the walls before the ban."

"But I've seen you use it..." I say, more and more confused "Besides, if nobody is interested in it, then why did you learn it?"

"I learned it to be able to help a friend whose childhood dream was to go to the labyrinth, but it's not just that..." she says nonchalantly, swimming on her back around me as she speaks "I like magic in all its forms, and this is a spell that requires a lot of control and precision, let's just say that... I couldn't resist trying to do it... And just to clarify, you saw me use it in the capital only inside the labyrinth, where of course, the ban does not apply"

"But..." I say without understanding "If you had to think about this method recently, how did you learn it then?"

"I don't have an affinity with fire, that takes away a lot of the risk. Besides, I learned it very little by little, doing simple calculations and experiments, until I was sure I could do it" she says and, looking at me with a mocking smile, adds "A method that doesn't work for you, because as we saw during the mana control training, patience is not your forte. But don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that there aren't people who seek to learn to fight with magic, it's just that they are very few and self-taught... It's not something that is taught in academies. But it's enough of talking, listen to your wise teacher and dive into the water for a moment I'm going to teach you the spell, but for your safety, I need you to be as wet as possible"

Sabrina teaches me how to make the mana bomb while, on the beach, Joseph is still trying to convince Azur to get in the water and Agustín is under the parasol drawing.

The spell is similar to the magic bullet. Only in this case do you have to expand the size of the sphere and form a second sphere inside it, which has to press against the first. The trick is to keep the pressure up to a certain point, and when the double sphere is fired, let the outer shell break, releasing the contained force in an explosion.

I practice the spell by forming the sphere underwater, as Sabrina instructed me. While I'm doing it, I can't help but think that it's lucky that Sabrina came up with this method, because more than once the bomb exploded in my face.

However, when this happened, most of the explosion was absorbed by the water thanks to her idea and, although it did some damage to me, it was nothing terrible.

When I finally manage to cast the spell, after using up much of my ring's mana pool and three potions, we hear Joseph's joyful cry and stare at him in shock.

He comes running towards the water with a rabid Azur in his arms, who is struggling and trying to get out of the grip. We see Azur manage to wriggle free in time, changing size just as Joseph reaches the water, causing the latter to trip and fall face-first into the water.

Laughing at the sight of his wet face, we return to the parasol where we see the designs for shields and daggers that Agustín had been preparing.

While Agustín shows me the designs and their advantages, Sabrina looks at him with a broad warm smile, a smile that he doesn't notice because he is so focused on his explanations.

In the end, I ended up deciding on a straight dagger design, with a double-edged blade 18 centimeters long.

The magic bomb resulted to be not as good as I imagined. When I learned it, I could see that it costs 180 mana per projectile. In addition, it needs the user to concentrate for 10 seconds.

I currently have 260 mana. So, in a fight, I could use the spell only once….

Seeing the cost of the spell, at first, I didn't understand how Sabrina can perform the bomb if the mana cost is so excessive. But then I remembered that having higher affinity, her spells cost half as much mana as me.

I know that the mana cost decrease leveling up the spell but still it's…it's a little frustrating. When I started learning magic, it seemed like a great thing to me, but the more I learn about it, the more limitations I find on it.

However, I think the trip was worth it because it had been a long time since I celebrated anything.

When we got back to the capital it was already late afternoon.

I walk into the house tired but smiling, while I think that tomorrow I should pay Ozy a visit to thank him for his recommendations for the trip.