Unlock

After everyone finished eating lunch, the crew finally got to business. Matthias showed his restraints to Sherry and instructed her how to remove them.

"You have to insert your magic and feel out the patterns inside. By tracing the patterns, it should invoke the spell and the restraints would unlock themselves."

"Feel it out? How am I supposed to feel it out?" Sherry asked, perplexed.

Matthias very patiently explained it to her. "When you use magic, you have an instinctual connection to it, letting you know when a spell is successful, when it fails, if it is forcibly cancelled, etc. Skilled magicians have a stronger connection to their magic and are able to feel their magic as if it was part of them."

"I don't feel anything though?"

"…That's because you always fling your magic around recklessly. You don't use it skilfully and rely on your high firepower and seemingly endless mana all the time. If you actually took the time to feel your magic, you'll feel it just like an extension of your body."

Dylan opened and closed his fist, making his mana twirl around his finger. He could sense the mana there, but it didn't feel like it was a part of him. He frowned, judging from Matthias' words, he should have been able to feel magic too. "I don't feel it." He announced.

"Maybe because you're not a magician." Matthias stated plainly. "You may use magic, but in the end, you're just a knight that relies on his body. Like, even when you were dying, you forgot to use healing magic on yourself."

Dylan averted his eyes. Now that he mentioned it, he did indeed not use healing magic despite knowing it. If he did, he could have bought himself more time to escape too.

"How do I feel magic?" Sherry asked, bringing their attention back to the topic.

Matthias closed his eyes to think. "It's something more instinctual. It's just something that happens naturally…Try forming a ball of mana above your palm without actually casting a spell for now."

Sherry nodded and obediently did as she was told. This was easy to do and was the most basic skill that every magician needed to know how to do. Soon enough, a ball of pure mana formed on top of Sherry's palm. "What now?" She asked.

"Mmmm, how about Dylan do the same and touch it against Sherry's." Matthias suggested. Mana under the control of others never mixed together so Matthias predicted that the balls would just reject each other and bounce off.

Dylan quickly formed the ball and had it float towards Sherry's. The balls collided, causing them to softly float backwards.

"How is it? Did you feel the collision?" Matthias asked curiously.

"Mm, I don't know? I knew it collided but I didn't feel the collision." Sherry replied.

"What do you mean you knew?"

"Even without seeing it, somehow I knew that it touched your mana. But that's all. I couldn't physically feel the collision itself."

Matthias' eyes lit up. "You're a genius, Sherry! You can already feel the mana!"

"I didn't feel it though?" Sherry tilted her head in confusion.

"You did! That's what I meant by feeling. I mean, if you could actually feel what the mana goes through, that'll be horrible. If it got sliced by a monster like Dylan, it'll be so painful! Just knowing what the mana touches or goes through is enough, it can allow a magician to cast spells more actually and is especially useful in engraving."

"Oh, that was easy." Sherry muttered nonchalantly. All it took was a some concentrating and she could already do it. Matthias really did make it seem like it was some high class skill.

There were black lines on Matthias face. This was something that took years for him to feel, alright! And that was already very good, he was a known genius in his field!

Swallowing his pain, Matthias continued to instruct Sherry. "Since you can feel it, you can try unlocking these now. Turn your mana into a thin string and insert into the restraints. It absorbs mana so you have to be careful. Find the gaps inside and spread your mana into all the gaps. When you fill the whole thing, the restraints should unlock themselves."

"If all I had to do was fill up the gaps, what was the point of that lesson? I don't even need to feel out my magic for this." Sherry pointed out.

"The restraints absorb mana at a really face pace so only by unlocked if you know the pattern beforehand or can feel out the pattern. Otherwise, you'll just be wasting your mana." Matthias calmly explained.

"I can just fill it up faster than it can absorb it." Sherry said, resembling a muscle brain very much.

"Uh." Matthias saw that Sherry preferred her own method and was planning on persisted on it. He sighed and decided that she'll understand once she experienced it herself. "Do it your way then."

Sherry nodded. "Alright."

She placed her hand on the black bracelet on Matthias' wrist and started to unlock it using her own method. Beside her, Dylan smirked while Matthias just sighed.

Feeling her magic disappear into the void of the restraints, Sherry raised an eyebrow. But she could also feel a small portion of it remain inside the restraints into the gaps that Matthias was talking about. However, even those mana were slowly disappear, only remaining because Sherry was constantly replenishing them.

"This is interesting." Sherry's lips widened into an amused grin. She felt challenged and was more than willing to face and overcome it.

Seeing her burning determination, Matthias sighed and just let her do as she wish. It was then that he sensed Sherry increase the amount of mana she injected into the restraints. If the previous amount was like a small stream, then the amount now was like a raging river pouring relentlessly into the restraints. The situation was the same as earlier but due to the amounts and speed at which Sherry replenished the mana, she was actually progressing and slowly filling the gaps and forming the patterns.

However, Matthias wasn't convinced. "I know she has a huge reservoir of mana but she'll run out at this rate."

"You are underestimating how much mana Sherry has, Matthias. Even though she doesn't use magic much these days, she still meditates and goes through all the motions habitually. Her mana grows by the day, its more than double what she used to have." Dylan revealed with a smirk.

["Nani?!" Or not, Matthias is not a weeb…yet]

"What?! She already had a monstrous amount of mana before. To double that is not fair!" Matthias complained, feeling slightly envious in his heart. It was no wonder that Sherry never bothered to conserve her mana through the use of skilful manipulation of spells. She'll never run out, so why bother?

Clack, while Matthias was busy feeling aggrieved, Sherry already finished her task and unlocked the bracelet on Matthias' right wrist. At the sound of the heavy metal hitting the table, Matthias' eyes widened and he stared at Sherry incredulously. Was this what it was like to be born with all the gifts?!

"Wow! That was tough. It almost used up half my mana!" Sherry wiped her sweat and said with a huff.

Uu-! She unknowingly dealt another blow to Matthias' fragile heart.

"Thanks, Sherry." Matthias feebly thanked.

"No problem. Should I unlock another one?"

"Yes please."

"Do the one around his neck. You'll run out of magic soon so it's better to do the one that's hard to hide." Dylan instructed.

Sherry nodded and continued to do what she was doing earlier, unlocking the restraints through sheer brute force!

While Sherry was busy doing that, Dylan made some small talk with Matthias. "If you are in a hurry, I can take the rest off for you in less than a second."

Matthias instantly understood what Dylan was hinting at. "No! I will not cut my hands and legs off." He firmly refused once again.

"Come on, it'll be quick and relatively painless. It'll be over before you can even feel a thing." Dylan persuaded half-heartedly.

"No! Both you and Sherry are horrible at using healing magic. I'll just end up sitting there in shock and pools of my own blood."

"We're bad at it but you're not. You can reattach them yourself."

"Magic needs concentration to work, buddy. You're just trying to torture me." Matthias cried.

"You endured Yiv poison, you can deal with something as simple as this."

"That's true but why should I when there's a better option!" Matthias yelled. Having not seen him for a while, his old friend had turned into such a bully. This wasn't the kind and saintly Dylan he once knew! As expected, he held a grudge against him for killing him.

"Look how much Sherry is sweating. She's putting in so much effort of you just because you don't want to deal with a little pain and blood."

Sure, Sherry was sweating but it wasn't as difficult as Dylan made it out to be. She was just doing the mindless task of filling the gaps up with mana. She didn't even need to concentrate to do it. Our little gentleman Dylan just didn't want his princess to suffer the slightest, even she was just tired.

"Sherry, you want me to cut off my limbs instead too?" Matthias turned to Sherry for help against this tyrannical bully.

Sherry smiled and decided that Matthias had been bullied enough. "I'll take them off for you. Don't worry about it."

"See! Sherry doesn't mind, so you have no say in this!" Matthias taunted.

The irked Dylan pulled a dagger out of his storage and pointed it at Matthias without its sheath. Matthias instantly recognised the dagger. It was enchanted by him so that it'll heat up when injected with mana. Dylan mainly used it for cooking when he got lazy. The thinly sliced meat cooked with it were quite delicious though.

Faced against the cooking dagger, Matthias wasn't intimidated. "You bugged me for so long to enchant you a hot knife and you never even used it to fight." He spat, annoyed that he put so much effort into wasn't even used by Dylan for its proper purpose.

The words 'are you stupid?' were written all over Dylan's face. "If I killed a monster with this, I'll never be able to cook with it again. It'll be too disgusting."

"You weren't supposed to cook with it in the first place." Matthias grumbled bitterly.

"But food cooked with it tastes great." Sherry chimed. She was finished with her task so she thought she'd join in on their discussion too.

"Yeah. Paper thin meat slices cooked to just right, dripping with meat juices, melting when touching your tongue and bursting with flavour. If not this dagger, what else can make that?" Dylan added.

Matthias gulped. Though he had just eaten, Dylan's descriptions made him crave for the thin meat slices. "Make some for dinner please?"

Dylan smirked. "So you agree that this is not a dagger for killing."

Matthias nodded like a chicken pecking at rice grains. "Such a superb tool can only be used for cooking."

Dylan and Sherry burst into laughter at Matthias' lack of integrity.

"I'll make some for dinner but you're not having any." Dylan evilly announced.

"What? Why! That's mean!" Matthias complained, rightfully so. He looked at Sherry, pleading for help but Sherry just averted her gaze.

"Because you're stupid." Dylan stated dully. "I feel that you haven't been punished enough for joining that organisation and doing everything by yourself.

"…" Matthias opened his mouth to protest but couldn't say anything to defend himself.

"There were some very options that you could have taken. You could have consulted me and we could have destroyed the organisation together or tell his majesty and have the kingdom do it for us. You could have also been a spy to destroy the organisation from within." Dylan smoothly listed. "And these are just some things that I thought of from the top of head. You had plenty of options and you chose the dumbest of them all: Going along with the organisation's wishes and becoming their lacky."

"…You don't understand. Mother had agents everywhere. If I told his majesty, she would have instantly killed you. Also, there were people following all our friends and acquaintances. Even James from the alchemist's division had one, and I hate that guy!" Matthias revealed. "Every option would have resulted in the deaths of innocent people so I chose the option that saved the most. Even though you ended up dying anyways, at least all our friends got to live."

"You didn't tell me earlier."

"Uh, I forgot, tehe!"

It took much effort on Dylan's part not to send other punch straight at Matthias' face.