Chapter 5

"Ugh, this sucks."My first week without Roxy around was miserable. The nights were even worse. I'd grown used to her constant presence and occasionally found myself turning, her name on my lips to ask her something or just speak with her, only to remember that she was gone. The bed felt cold without her there and it took forever to get to sleep. When I woke up alone in the morning, without her quietly snoring, drooling face across from mine I felt lost.It wasn't that I'd become dependent on her. It's just that, for the first time since being reborn in this world, I'd found someone I could really talk to. A confidante. A friend. Almost a lover.My future wife.And now, I had to go back to hiding everything. No more talking about Earth, no more English (until I got Sylphie up to speed), no more lessons and sharing knowledge this world simply doesn't have (again, until I could bring Sylphie up to speed).Yeah, I was a little morose, even if I knew it was dumb.Amusingly, it rained for that first week, reflecting my mood. A lot. Probably because of Roxy and I casting two Cumulonimbus spells, honestly—even if the magic had been dispelled, the moisture was still physically in the air, so of course there would be repercussions. Lesson learned: magic can have consequences that aren't immediate or obvious until they happen and I should put some forethought into casting large scale spells. Well, she always did warn me that weather manipulation spells could screw with things on a large scale. Now I had seen it for myself.After the first day of being listless, I forced myself to get my shit together during the day. I could mope at bed time—the daylight hours were for getting shit done. I adjusted my schedule to add new practice exercises to cover all the time I would have spent with Roxy and threw myself into it.I started by going to Sylphie's house and dragging her out of bed, where she had been moping since she heard the news of Roxy's departure. I brought her back home and set her to reading inside while I worked on practice.I prepared an area away from the house by burning a large stretch of grass, then using earth magic to pull the remains down below the soil and leave only dirt so that none of my spells would catch anything on fire. Then, I spent my mornings working through my spell repertoire, casting every spell I knew (that wouldn't destroy miles of farmland) one after another, drilling on speed and trying to cut my already short casting time down.Then, I worked on multi-casting. First, doubles of each spell, followed by different spells from the same school. Then spells from like schools—fire and wind, earth and water, water and wind, fire and earth. There, I tried to work out the best combinations for maximum effect over short time—preferably immediately. Finally, spells of opposite schools—fire and water, earth and wind. For those, I tried to work on lowering my mana consumption.In the evenings, during sword practice, I discarded my wooden practice sword and instead used earth magic to create a stone sword of the same dimensions, weighing many times what the wooden sword did—more even than my actual sword. After a thousand repetitions through each of the basic swings of the Sword God and Water God styles that left my arms feeling like lead, I healed myself. The pain vanished, but that didn't mean my stamina had been replenished or I was any less exhausted, so I took a short break. Then, I repeated the exercise, using magic to fill and cover my body.After a second healing and rest, I started in on practicing using magic while swinging my sword. I set up a rotation to launch attacks on each swing.Swing, wave of fire. Swing, wave of wind. Swing, wave of water. Swing, expanding wave of dirt arching up in front of me tall enough to block an attacker's view and eat a spell or two—a moving shield. Swing, expanding line of ice spikes growing up from the ground, meant to restrict movement.Thrust, fireball. Thrust, gale of wind. Thrust, water ball. Thrust, earth spikes. Thrust, ice spikes.And so on. I made it my goal to be able to cast any Elementary-level spell with every swing of my sword and no real thought on my part. I went on like that until my arms felt like they were going to fall off, my back, chest, and core burned, and my mana felt like it was nearly depleted.Finally, I worked on experimenting with developing working lightning spells. I had the big one, but I wanted something smaller, faster, and less likely to accidentally destroy small towns. So, I reverse engineered an Elementary-level lightning spell that just generated arcs of electricity on my hands—little more than a taser with just a little magic, but enough to qualify as an arc welder when I pumped enough juice into it. Then, I worked on trying to make it ranged. I already had the ultra-long range version, but that generated vertical lightning and I wanted horizontal lightning. Less 'finger of God,' more 'Sith lord.' Well, I'd settle for a single lightning bolt at the moment, but eventually I wanted a chain lightning spell.And yes, every last moment of that was spent in the rain. I was a Saint-level water mage now. Keeping dry while training was just one more way of training, forcing myself to hold up a third spell continuously while I worked on the others.After my first week spent moping training, I decided I was spending too much time cooped up in the house and the yard. The rain had cleared and it wasn't good for either me or Sylphie to just… languish.That, and I was getting bored. I needed a project. It was just a coincidence that throwing myself into my work was how I dealt with things I didn't want to deal with in the old world, by providing myself a distraction to occupy my mind.Well, I said I'd teach Roxy English, advanced math, and science. Even if she's gone now, doesn't mean she can't be learning while she's out doing whatever. I'll look around the village and pick up some paper. General store should have some, or be able to order it if need be. When I finish, I'll have it bound and mail it off to her once I get her address. A little late for any birthday present, but I'm sure she'll appreciate the gesture. While I'm working on it, I can start teaching Sylphie the basics.Actually, maybe more than just one book. May as well make Sylphie one too. And I doubt I'll be able to fit everything into just one book… Well, better not get ahead of myself. I'll start writing out what I know first, then go from there.Going into town early one morning, I spoke with a few of Roxy's old clients in the small square that passed for a market. They offered their condolences at her leaving and, as she'd guessed, asked after whether I would be filling her shoes. I agreed that I'd do the work she had at the same rates, and that was how I found myself being shuffled off on a cart to a field covered in wilting vegetables.Sighing, I looked towards the owner, an old man I couldn't remember the name of and whom everyone—Roxy included—just called Uncle, at his insistence. "Uncle, did Roxy tell you what was wrong with it when she was here?""Ah, well," he hemmed, scratching at his beard sheepishly. "That she did, lad. Also said there was no point to fixing it, because it was just putting off the problem for tomorrow and she didn't feel right charging for something that wouldn't last."I grumbled and started walking off the borders of the field, pointing my wand beside me. As I did, earth rose in my wake, forming a berm roughly six inches high. It had rained recently, so I wouldn't have to water the crops—but that was part of the problem, really. The biggest part.I made sure it would have adequate drainage at one end so it wouldn't turn into a swamp and that the upper berms would prevent water from running down the hill as it had been, washing away topsoil and leaving roots exposed. Then, I walked the rows, tilling the earth under the plants while carefully leaving the roots intact and covering what was exposed.Returning to Uncle, I accepted my payment. "It's a temporary fix. Might last a season or two and I don't want to have to charge you to do the same thing over and over because you're being stubborn about it. You know you're going to have to either move the field or pay to have it leveled. When do you want to do it?"Uncle sighed, looking over the field as he considered it. "Next spring, before it's time to plant, I think. It'll give me time to save up some money.""I'll give you a discount, if only because I hate leaving a problem only half fixed. Or fixing symptoms instead of the actual problem. Next time you have a problem like this, don't put it off so long, please? It just makes everything worse.""Deal," Uncle nodded, holding out his hand. We shook on it and he gestured towards the cart. "Come on. If you want, I'll give you a ride back into town. Need to go see a man about buying some seed anyway."We made it back into town, pulling over in front of the general store. Before I made it inside, I was accosted by an older woman, bent over and gray of hair. "Young Rudy, would you be a dear and help an old woman out?""What do you need, auntie?" I asked, sending her a smile."Miss Roxy or your mother always takes care of the aches in these old bones…"I nodded, pulling out my wand. "Sure, sure."And that was how I spent the next hour, as word got around quickly that I was doing a healing and people with various aches and pains or cuts and bruises they didn't want to wait on came by with a small silver or so each. Eventually, I managed to get into the general store. "Do you have some paper I could buy?" I asked as I walked up to the counter."How much do you need, young man?"I hummed in thought before holding my fingers about an inch apart. "About this much for now. I'll come back by when I need more."The store owner nodded, heading into the back room. Paper was pretty expensive here and reacted poorly to moisture and sunlight, so it was typically stored in secure, cool, dry, and dark areas. It was closer to parchment, really. Since it lacked the chemicals modern paper as I knew it was made with, it was delicate and easily stained, wrinkled, or otherwise ruined. He returned a moment later with a stack about an inch thick. He quoted me a price and I dickered with him a bit before we agreed on a total, after I asked after a bag to carry it in since I didn't have one. I left with a new leather satchel and enough paper to start writing a book.I skipped out on ink, if only because I had a plan. The region was known for growing the Bardius plant—a purple-ish plant that resembled lavender and was used in perfume in the city. In my previous life, I'd dated a particularly artsy (read: hippie) woman who liked making her own inks and I'd picked up a thing or two.Look, don't judge me. She was hot and she put out. I was in college at the time. I could put up with a few eccentricities. So she liked to do her own tie dye and refused to use or eat anything that wasn't all natural. At least she wasn't one of those kooks who refused to shave themselves because they felt it was demeaning or some other idiocy. I could deal with it. I couldn't deal with the rest of her crazy cat lady baggage, so I ghosted her.There's only so many times a man can hear about how many ways society could end (the Rapture, asteroids, solar minimum/maximum, pollution, climate change, nuclear winter, EMP) before it gets tiresome. I was all for being prepared in case of natural disaster because we frequently saw hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding, the occasional (once ever ten years or so) icy winter that shut everything down, and any time the wind blew the power went out… but there was preparednessand then there was paranoia.Live and learn.Anyway!Most simple ink was made of four ingredients: the (usually dried) plant you wanted the ink to come from, gum Arabic (plant gum/sap, doesn't actually have to be that specific type of gum), a mordant (i.e., a dye fixative, the easiest to find in this place being rusty iron, as I knew for a fact we had a few rusty horse shoes in Caravaggio's stable), and thyme oil to prevent the dye from rotting. I was pretty sure I had seen thyme, if not by that name, in my plant encyclopedia and that it grew in the area—thanks, mom! I was a water mage, stripping water out of plants was child's play for me. After that, all you really have to do is boil your flowers in water with your rusty iron, strain it, add gum, let it dissolve and cool, put it in a bottle, then add a few drops of oil and shake well.Voila, homemade ink. And in this case, if I was right, homemade ink that smelled like high-dollar perfume. If I was wrong, I could probably play with it until I got it right.As an aside, pens use a mixture of 25% to 40% dye, suspended in a solvent of 'oil,' usually something like benzyl alcohol—which could be found in some fruits, teas, and common plants like jasmine and hyacinth. That particular fact I discovered on my own, when doing research on the ink the hippie ex-girlfriend made.In case you're wondering, yes, I picked up making my own soap too. From hard wood ash and with fat, because she was that kind of hippie (at least she wasn't a vegetarian. No, she was the 'I'll kill it myself and use every part of it' brand of hippie, when it was convenient, which clicked with me at the time because I enjoyed hunting). I saw no need for it though, since the soap they had here was perfectly serviceable for my needs.On the other hand… I'm a man. Simple and easy to please. Women like that good-smelling stuff and that shit's expensive. But since I'm here at the source, I could make my own while making the ink and send some off to Roxy. Zenith and Lilia would probably appreciate it too. And might as well make some for Sylphie too. In fact, if I get her involved, I can have myself a helper and sell some cheaply in the village for more pocket change. Hooray for undercutting the market. Capitalism, baby! I added making soap to my list for later.Instead of heading straight home, my feet had lead me towards Sylphie's house. I found her just as she was leaving with a wicker basket in hand. "Lunch for your dad?""Mm!" she confirmed happily and I walked with her as she made her way out of town.As we went, I sighed quietly as I noticed we had picked up a tail. A very obvious tail, in the form of six boys following after us. I let them get close before casting a Waterfall spell over the whole group, turned down to freezing temperatures by manipulating the 'temperature' variable. Sylphie looked back at them at the sound of water and shrieks of outrage, just in time to see the boys turning and running away. "Told you I could handle them," I reminded.We passed a lonely little hill with the biggest tree in the area atop it. I hadn't been out this way before during my traveling around with Roxy for her jobs and I had never accompanied Sylphie to meet her dad at work, but I'd seen it in passing a few times from a distance. I figured that the shade would make it a nice place to sit in the coming summer months and the elevated position would give me a good view of the surroundings. Essentially, the perfect place to sit down and write a book.We chatted as we walked towards the forest where Sylphie's dad was stationed as a lookout on a watch tower overlooking the woods and I brought up the soap making project to Sylphie, who happily agreed to help. We made it to the watch tower and met up with Sylphie's dad, Laws.Laws was a man with shorter ears than his daughter, golden hair, a lithe but muscular build, and the sort of good looks one saw on bishonen characters—your quintessential half-elf. I wasn't jealous, not really. Paul was a decent looking guy, if more rugged than Laws, and Zenith was an absolute hottie—and so far, it seemed I had inherited the best of both of their facial features. Even the little 'beauty mark' (read as: mole, since I'm a guy) under my left eye from Paul. It seemed Sylphie might have won the genetic lottery. I'd have to wait a few years for her to sprout up and confirm that, though. With her partially-elven heritage, she may turn out closer to Roxy's build than that of Zenith or Lilia."Papa, your lunch," Sylphie called up to the tower."Ah, I'm always troubling you Luffie. How are you today?" he asked, a hopeful tone to his voice, his eyes cutting over to me inquisitively as he did."We're fine," the girl smiled up at her father as he invited us up.Laws focused his attention on me and I waved before starting the climb up after Sylphie. "Good afternoon, Laws.""Thank you for looking after her, Rudy."We spoke for a while, mostly about what Laws did here and about my father. Eventually, Sylphie tugged at my sleeve and I looked over to find her looking down and a bit bored. "Sorry, guess we're boring you. Laws, do you mind if I take Sylphie to play a bit?""Go ahead. Just don't approach the forest," he nodded, a small smile crossing his face."There was a big tree on the hill we passed to get here. We'll be there. I'll try to bring her back by sundown, so if you don't see us by then that's where I'd start looking first. Of course, if we actually run into the kind of trouble that makes us that late, it might be faster to follow the explosions," I chuckled.I had absolutely no compunctions against going straight to lethal spells if shit truly hit the fan, and I wouldn't be holding back. I'd make sure everyone heard any dustup for miles. I was just five, so if I actually got into a real fight, I didn't like my chances against other people. No, the best option in that case would be sudden, overwhelming, lethal force applied repeatedly over a wide area until the problem went away.We said our goodbyes to Sylphie's dad and started heading back towards the tree. "So, what do you want to do today?" I asked as we walked."Can you teach me a new spell?" Sylphie asked, turning up the cute knob seemingly to eleven. I winced as the moe scored a critical hit. Reaching out, I pulled her into a side-long hug, earning a squeak as she tensed up for a moment before eventually relaxing. She still wasn't used to touches that were friendly and didn't involve pain and it occasionally made me want to go find all the brats in the village that had bullied her and pick on them a little. Being with me (and Roxy, when she was here) was helping though, so I felt like she would get over it eventually. Kids were pretty resilient."Sure, that sounds great. How about an Intermediate-level water spell?"Sylphie considered it as we walked. I had to let go eventually so we wouldn't stumble, but when I did, she quickly put her arm around me and returned the squeeze before letting go. She didn't exactly move away after she did though, so our shoulders occasionally brushed while we moved. After a while, she asked, "Could you show me how to make that lightning spell?"I hummed quietly, regarding her from the corner of my eye. Sylphie looked nervous, afraid I would deny her out of hand I suppose. "Sure, we can try. Can't guarantee anything there though. It doesn't actually have an incantation. It's all feel."The way Sylphie's ears wagged and perked up from their droopy state was absolutely adorable. I had long since marked it as a tell for an emotional barometer, in the same way dogs wag their tails or hold their ears. Kind of cool that she has muscular control of those when her dad doesn't.We made it to the hill and spent the rest of the afternoon 'playing.'In that time, I explained and demonstrated the Arc spell several times, but Sylphie had yet to produce results. After seeing her get frustrated, I forced her to try something different instead of banging her head against a brick wall. Unsurprisingly, she cast the spell I'd originally had in mind on the first try, and not long thereafter had it down to silently casting.When the sky started changing colors and the sun slipped halfway below the horizon, I helped Sylphie to her feet and took her home. Laws had already returned home by the time we got there and we met with Sylphie's mother. The woman pulled me into a hug and thanked me for taking over Roxy's self-appointed role as Sylphie's instructor. We sat around their table and talked for a while, going over Sylphie's lessons and the girl giving a few demonstrations of things safe enough to use indoors. Eventually though, I had to go home.Turning to Sylphie, I sent her a smile. "I'll see you tomorrow. I'll be by in the morning.""Y-yes!" the girl agreed readily, earning a giggle from her mother and a laugh from her father.I left Sylphie's house and headed for my own home. By now, it was full on dark, so I pulled out my wand and cast a fireball a foot from the tip of it. Then, I wrapped it in a wind spell that would feed it and tethered the wind spell to myself so it would follow. Finally, I moved the light around until I settled on putting it over my right shoulder. Satisfied with my handiwork, I took off down the road.It was a good twenty minutes or more before I managed to make it back home—mostly because I wasn't really in a hurry and was taking my time to eyeball the Bardius fields and remember who owned which so I could ask for permission to harvest some later. As I made my way through the front gate, I saw Lilia sitting out on the veranda. Faintly, I heard the thumping of a bed against a wall and the sound of Zenith's cries from inside. Cutting off my fireball, I dropped down to sit beside the maid. "Sorry for making you wait up. Or were they keeping you up again?"Lilia gave a quiet little sigh. "A bit of both.""Well, why don't you go in and get a bath? I can wait."The maid shook her head. "They ran out all the hot water again and I would have to clean the tub."I palmed my face. "Again? Really?" Grumbling quietly, I stood up and offered Lilia a hand. "Come on, let's go fill the tanks and get inside."The maid accepted the hand up and we walked around the side of the house. I tied another fireball to myself and climbed up the ladder to the upper platform. Popping the cap on both tanks, I filled them up and heated the one for hot water up to a boil. Making sure everything was closed tight, I climbed back down and walked with Lilia towards the front door. "I'll clean the tub up for you. Sorry about them."Lilia shook her head. "Thank you. You don't have to apologize though." She hesitated before asking, "Are you sleeping any better?"Blinking, I looked up at her. "You knew about that?"The redhead smiled. "I know almost everything that goes on in this home. Your room is nearly directly above mine. I've heard you tossing and turning recently."She didn't need to say it for me to hear the implied, 'since Roxy left.' I wondered where this was coming from as we entered the house and made our way up to the bathroom. Lilia was nice enough with my parents, but we had never exactly been close. I wouldn't say she avoided me, but I always had the feeling she had something against me. I probably just creeped her out, so I gave her a pass on that since her instincts telling her something was wrong with me were right. "Lilia?""You really are Paul's son," she sighed, running her hand through my hair as I set about cleaning the tub with fire. "Try not to pick up your father's bad habits. You already have his stubbornness and his way with women. Don't add running away from your problems or resorting to violence first.""Ah ha ha," I chuckled weakly. "Yeah… I was wondering when you'd bring that up."Lilia shook her head. "I wouldn't have. I thought Miss Roxy may be taking advantage, but decided to hold my tongue because you didn't seem bothered by it. Later on, I assumed it was the Greyrat in you and you were simply a very early bloomer."I shrugged a bit. "If there was any taking advantage, it was mutual. We had fun, but it didn't get to the point where you'd have to worry about her getting pregnant.""And you've also been consorting with Laws' girl."Blinking, I considered the woman's absolutely dry delivery. "Lilia," I asked, unsure, "are you… teasing me?""Perhaps."Sighing, I poked the woman in the stomach, drawing a ticklish flinch from her. "I didn't think you were capable. Actually, no, I thought you just didn't like me."She took her time answering, and when she did it wasn't exactly a denial. "I see much of your father in you, from when he was younger and we shared the same sword school. It was… a relief when I found you with Ms. Roxy."And just like that, my good cheer died. I turned on the water and stood. "I'm going to go to bed now. Good night, Lilia."Lilia watched silently as I left, closing the door behind me.How am I supposed to fix a problem when I don't even know what the problem is? Putting aside whether it's mine to fix or not, since if I want any sort of treatment from her beyond 'polite but cautious,' it kind of is.Damnit, Paul. What did you do to piss her off?