Strings Wrapped Around A Bone

That's Unfair! I'm A Support Class

The dirt was pushed aside by leather boots falling into the dead, tilled land. Shiori trekked along behind the blonde girl, with the orange-red one behind her. Trying to amble along, doing her best to ignore the back-and-forth between the two village girls.

"Go home, Nemu. The sun is setting, and Papa and Mama are worried about you!" Enri threw her head back, palm perched on her forehead like a pillar, and she scolded while still marching forward.

"I don't wanna! I want to go with you!"

"Don't be stubborn-"

"I. Can't. Hear. You!" Nemu puts her palms around her ears, and Shiori can see Enri's fist clenching tighter with each word.

The older jerked her head forward, now her hands gripping her hip, "I can't believe you! I'm warning you, if you're being difficult on purpose-"

"I. Said. I Can't. Hear-"

"NEMU!" Enri yelled out, "You're the only one who went out to go play, while the other kids were helping out!" Enri added the last part with a fume, even though her face contorted in guilt. As if she didn't mean to say it aloud.

Nemu's eyebrows wrinkled at her sister's retort, unable to think of a rejoinder. Her hands grip her dress, eyes downwards.

Having had enough with the awkward atmosphere, Shiori began, "Enri-san?" The bystander coughed into her fist, her voice cracking, "I think it's fine that Nemu-chan comes with us." As she said this, the girl's eyes brightened.

"It would be better if she were somewhere where you can supervise her. Also, she could learn some things about magic, too, right? Nemu-chan?" Shiori bumped her chest with her fist, winking at the girl to hint at her side in this argument, dispelling the usual sibling bickering, having to harshly declare her stance as neutral.

It was nostalgic, though the dynamic was switched. Isamu, being the more responsible one than Shiori ever was, managed to get Shiori to keep her job. A tremendous feat.

"Magic?"

...

Um, right... Nemu hadn't told anyone about her talents yet. How is she going to get out of this situation?

A purple substance shot towards Nemu, it bolted at a speed so fast that Shiori herself couldn't move to intercept quickly enough to place herself before the young girl. Thankfully, in the same moment, Suzu materialised and put up a shield. The slimy acid splashes against the hexagonal barrier, bouncing off and dissolving the nearby patch of grass as white-grey smoke goes up.

"Nemu!" Enri screams, rushing back to where her sister is, taking strides larger than the now frozen mage assumed she could.

Her glass attendant snapped Shiori out of her trance, "Bijou-sama, our rude guest appears to be a corrosive smile, alike but unfathomably inferior to HeroHero-sama." The bell's zetsu rotated against her gaiken's rim in a constant motion, a gesture equivalent to a fighter entering into their stance.

"How did this happen? When did it get out of the barrier?!" Shiori, who is now panicking, holds her head in her hands, casting [Dimensional Move] as a puddle of tar emitted violently from beneath her boots, sending her back meters away from the rotting ground. "And why is it a SLIME!?" Shiori winced from her new location as Enri's left foot got caught by some of the residue, the skin sizzling in bubbles.

Suzu had decided not to remedy the fallacy of her master's belief; instead, she picked out the first question to answer. "It seems that due to your presence as a high-level being, the King Slime has begun planning its movement for this ambush since you have arrived, Bijou-sama."