Close call

As she looked at the woman who was staring out of a window with no particular expression on her face, Alice slowly but surely rose out from the bed and silently got herself dressed, as if she feared that she would disturb the woman.

And just a few moments later, Alice then made her way out of the room, not forgetting to leave the surplus elemental stone that the woman had given her behind.

...

As she heard the door to the room close behind her, Beatrice, who had been staring out of the window to this room of hers, couldn't help but faintly shake her head and let out a sigh.

Just a brief moment later, Beatrice suddenly felt the concentration of elemental energy around her drastically decrease, causing her to slightly click her teeth.

"I'll have to get used to this," mumbled Beatrice as she felt the extremely thin layer of elemental energy that was in the air right now.

Of course, the concentration of elemental energy will continue to fall up until Beatrice finally reaches Gollwal Island, where it will stabilize at a low level.

Back when she had first gone back to her home back in her previous life, Beatrice was able to use elemental stones to be able to circumvent this issue, but right now, as she would be staying for a much longer amount of time, Beatrice had to be much more careful of the amount of elemental energy she used.

'Maybe I could do something like that,' thought Beatrice as she looked at the departing Magic Continent through the window.

Even though Beatrice was unaware of how this was accomplished, she could sense that the elemental energy on the continent was being artificially increased.

Although Beatrice wouldn't do something nearly at that sort of scale, as she simply didn't need anything like that, building something like that might prove very useful.

A moment later, though, Beatrice closed her eyes before taking in a deep breath, and began refining some mana.

...

Two hours later,

As she opened her eyes and looked at the surrounding room, Beatrice couldn't help but fall into thought.

'The decline wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, It seems that I don't necessarily need to use elemental stones to refine mana relatively efficiently,' thought as a light flashed through her eyes.

Thanks to the fact that she had become an official mage, Beatrice's understanding of mana had gone far beyond that of her self at the same time in her previously life, which allowed her to cram even more mana into her body compared to before.

But even so, originally, Beatrice had thought that she would have to use elemental stones is she wanted to not completely waste the entirety of her time simply refining mana and not doing anything else.

Thankfully though, this did not seem to be the case, as even in this place where the elemental energy was extremely thin, Beatrice was able to fully saturate her body with around 0.3 points of mana in just under two hours.

Although this was a complete far cry from the magic continent, where Beatrice did not even have to waste any time, and could just silently refine enough mana whilst doing something else, this was still more than enough for her to have time for some other things.

'I guess things won't be so bad,' thought Beatrice as she lightly tapped one of her fingers onto the table, sending it straight through it, leaving a finger sized hole in the table.

...

A month later,

As she looked at the ground, which was getting closer and closer to her, Beatrice, who was still in her room, couldn't help but faintly smile.

The fact that she was on a ship where several official mages were present meant that Beatrice had to restrain herself and continue acting naturally, fearing that she might otherwise alert them.

But once she arrived in the Malto Archipelago, with her current strength, Beatrice would be able to act without many scruples, as other than the mage that would be picking up those two kids, no other Official Mage was present in the Archipelago.

Then, a few minutes later, just a moment after the ship had just landed on the ground, Beatrice opened the door of her room and walked out, quickly making her way out of the ship.

Even as she walked past a very familiar old woman, no change could be seen in Beatrice's expression, as she simply walked out of the ship as soon as possible.

...

As she looked at the young mage that was quickly walked through the corridors of the ship, Skye Higgins couldn't help but faintly shake her head.

"Young people really are so hurried these days," mumbled the old official mage, unaware of the terror that she had just caused Beatrice, who was seemingly unaware of her identity on the surface.

But although meeting Skye Higgins was not on her list of plans, Beatrice still managed to not have her expression change in the slightest, at least up until she walked out of the ship, when a faint drop of sweat appeared on her forehead.

The moment that drop of sweat fell on her forehead, Skye Higgins, who was still paying some attention to that young mage, even though she was currently walking through the ship, frown.

Seeing the expression of the young mage change without any reason as soon as she walked out of the ship, Skye couldn't help but itch to investigate what had happened.

Thankfully, though, Skye was currently quite busy, and did not have any time to investigate something as minor as this.

Of course, if that young mage had intrigued her even a tiny bit more, Skye might have just gone and had a chat with her.

...

Even though she was unaware of just how much of a close call her exit had just been, Beatrice still quickly made her way away from the ship whilst maintaining that same expression on her face, not wanting to show any emotion in the slightest.