Nati

I sneezed.

"Bless you!" Mabel yelled, snuggling up to me in the private bath. Saying bless you was common in this world too, but privacy should have been a thing as well. "Maybe someone's talking about you, Nati."

"Or maybe I just caught a cold." I shrugged, soaking myself in the hot water. The air started to get chilly in the last two days, but that wasn't why everyone felt under the weather. While the village was still busy as always, the mood has changed since Hana died.

I was doing my utmost to find better defensive measures and wanted to practice magic as much as possible, but I couldn't do it in front of the orc girl. I wasn't heartless enough to kick her out though. She cried a lot because of the former gladiator, even if they didn't always see eye to eye. She was even more affectionate than usual.

"Do you think the church woman will return?" She asked, and I was sure she would but didn't tell her that.

"She will think twice before she does," I claimed, flexing my arm a bit. "Now that she knows how strong my crossbows are."

"And you were doing magic all on your own!" Mabel yelled, her cheerful voice echoing in the chamber, but it was somehow hollow. Didn't sound happy to me. And she was wrong, it wasn't on my own, and not enough either, but it was a start. "Most wizards need to learn it for years, and you did it only after a month you got here. Could it be a thing that people from another world can pull off? Or is it only you?"

"I have no idea if others on this continent are from another world like me." I shrugged. I sure wanted to know about it too. "But I'm going to practice until I can protect everyone here, so you won't have to worry about a thing."

"I'd rather you save yourself first instead." She shook her head, snuggling up even tighter. I was struggling to breathe. "I saw you facing the Elder, and it looked like nothing stopped her from killing you."

To be fair, she was right. I didn't know, how I survived that either. Thanks to Lambert, who protected me, instead of running for his life, and Charlotte, who took that opportunity, and used the crossbow.

But even after that, I was completely at her mercy, and they both paid a hefty price for helping. Plus all our efforts couldn't save Hana. I started to shake even in the hot water as I replayed that moment inside my head, that feeling of inevitability and inability. I never wanted to live through that again, nor has anyone gone through it because of me. It reminded me of my family from the other world, especially my sister.

I often thought about them, no matter how busy my days were. And to them, I was just as dead, as Hana was for us. This loss put everything into a new perspective. I couldn't have it bring me down though, Hana wouldn't have wanted that either. I needed it to motivate me.

To become better for myself, and everyone.

"Let's go, Mabel. We have a ton of stuff to do." I claimed, leaving the pool. I wanted to ensure, our hair completely dried before we went out into the cold, but it took so long to dry it with the towel. I pondered if there was a better way, and then my eyes got stuck on the blue crystal in my locker. It called for me.

How about magic? As long as I can control my mana, with which the stone could help, I can make anything happen if I imagine it. I could fire infrared lasers from my eyes without anyone's help, so heating the air must have been trivial, right?

"Hey, Mabel. I want you to close your eyes and keep them closed until I tell you, okay?" I proposed. While she witnessed me casting magic on the courtyard before, she didn't see my cheat item. Nobody did. Probably nobody even knew it existed, other than Fenna. And the fox girl certainly didn't know, that it could be used this way. For whatever reason, I wanted to keep it this way, as long as possible. "I will try to cast magic, okay?"

"Woah, cool." The orc girl was suddenly excited. "But why do I have to close my eyes for that? Is that some kind of secret technique?"

"Exactly. It's very secret. Nobody can see how I do it, okay?" I nodded, thankful for her vivid fantasy. "It might take a while though, so be patient. And no spying. I will know, and then no magic for you."

"Fine, do it, do it." She demanded, obediently closing her eyes.

I took the crystal into my hand and focused on its radiating mana. I realized early on, that I didn't have to touch it to my forehead. After some practice, the images automatically flooded my mind, but I still needed to focus for about a minute to make sense of them. While all those things happened around me in the courtyard, it took way longer, but I used the same technique.

Once I got the control part down, with the opening of the soul's eye to the astral world, and tapping into the flow of mana, I thought of a way to increase the air temperature around us. Remembering my physics class, I knew that if the gas volume was constant but I increased the pressure, it lead to an increase in temperature.

It was easy to imagine, the molecules of gasses casually floating and bouncing around in the air, then squeezing them together, confining them into a tighter place. All I had to do was to project this image onto the astral world, and through manipulating the magicules, make it a reality.

Of course, I had no idea, how much I needed to increase the pressure to start feeling the heat, and I didn't want to squish or suffocate ourselves by accident, so I moved slowly, step by step. It took me about three minutes until I could finally perceive some difference. The air started to vibrate around us slightly and got warmer than before.

"Ooh, I can feel it now," Mabel noted, still keeping her eyes shut tight. What a patient girl. "It's getting hot. Is it your doing, Nati?"

"Mhmm, I'll try to make it even warmer, hold on," I announced and compressed even more air around us, targeting our hair as the focus point specifically. In the next minute, I even had to dial it back a little, because my scalp started to burn. "How is it? Let me know, if it's too much. But it should dry our hair in no time."

I said that, but by the time I finished all the preparations, and reached the ideal temperature, we could have done it with the towels too. But it was me doing magic. Me, on my own.

"This feels nice. Can I open my eyes now?" The orc girl pleaded, and I decided it should be fine. I let the crystal sink into my pocket and kept my hand on it before giving her the go-ahead. "I wonder if I could do magic too, someday. Though I would probably use it to slay a dragon."

"Hahah, you have to start somewhere." I couldn't help but laugh at her ambition. But this was enough to break my concentration, and the air pressure suddenly dropped. If anything, the hot air gave way to a cold breeze, making me shudder. "Well, that was it for now. Is your hair dry?"

"Completely dry." She claimed, looking pleased. "Thank you, Nati."

"Don't mention it." I smiled as we headed out. But before I reached the door, Omerta stumbled right through it.

"Theeere you are!" She yelled, and I was certain, she was still intoxicated. She drank heavily after the funeral too, thanks to finding out about the barrels the dwarf brought. By the looks of it, there was still some booze left. "Gitaut wass right, you're up to sumfin."

"What do you mean? Gitaut?" I asked the orc witch confused, but she didn't waste time before pinning me to the wall. I only saw this move in romantic animes when they confessed, but it didn't fit this situation. I could feel the booze in her breath. "W-what did he say?"

"He saaaid sumfin's guin on in 'ere." She explained with scientific accuracy. "Aand, youu've been 'ere. So dat meenz, you've been dun sunfin, di'ntya. You can't foooool meee, I'm Omerrrta, the warlock."

I couldn't argue with her magnificent logic. I was indeed here and was indeed doing something. But I was unsure, what she wanted to know about it. It was too early to tell, if thankfully, or unfortunately, but Mabel was as good at keeping secrets, as I was in lying convincingly to someone.

"She used magic to dry our hair, what's the problem with that?" She asked, trying to push the drunken witch away. I couldn't add anything.

"She diiiid?" Omerta's eyes opened wide. "Ah heerd, that sheeee's been doing magic dat day toooo, but reeely? On ur ownn nooow?"

"I um, I've been practicing with Alex," I claimed, much less convincingly than Mabel did. The Goddess of Luck was still away, nobody knew where. But at least the witch could not fact-check me on that. I often asked her to teach me, but she was always busy, and by the time I decided to ask Lambert for guidance, he was gone.

"So taat's how'z it beeen huh?" She didn't seem suspicious. No. More than anything, she just seemed extremely drunk. This is how she tried to handle losing her brother, and I couldn't blame her. "You wanna tell me, dat you learned magic in lessss dan a month? Nuuu, I ain't buyin' dat. Sumfin... Sumfin'z goin' on, and ya better tell me."

"Hey, Gitaut, what exactly did you tell her?" I heard Mabel yelling. The shaman in question was nearby too. He stood by the entrance as if he tried to avoid peeking inside the private bath.

"I only told her that I felt a fluctuation in the mana, centered inside that chamber and that it wasn't the first time." He explained, adding. "All I said, thought I saw Nati go in there earlier, and it might have been her doing. I didn't know she'd charge in like a boar."

"Quit yer yappin' arrredy. I need to know." Omerta insisted, but at least she released me. Now she leaned against the wall on the other side, as if she tried to take a good look at me. Drunk or not, she quickly noticed my hand wrapped around something in my pocket. "Hooooh? Wazzat?"

"It's none of your business," I claimed firmly, but I wasn't good at it. At the next moment, she charged in again. As I instinctively raised my arms to dampen her impact, I also pulled out the magic stone with it. She lost her balance, headbutting right into my stomach, which knocked out all the air from my lungs. I dropped the crystal too.

"Huuuuh? Izzat..." She noticed the artifact, but she passed out before she could say anything else. This was too much for Gitaut as well.

"I'm sorry!" But then he noticed. "Is that… What I think it is?"