As I walked down the dimly lit street carrying three large bags full of food in my left hand, I exhaled a deep breath out watching my breath become visible from the cold winters air, a smile tugged at my lips as I enjoyed the simple pleasure now crooking my head upwards looking up at the starry sky seeing the two glowing moons in the sky.
This is a sight I must have seen a thousand times already, yet no matter how much I see it. I'll never get tired of it. My smile grew wider as I didn't realize I had started crossing a bridge.
As I gazed up, I looked for familiar constellations from my last world seeing Orion's belt glowing brightly. My mind began to wander about looking for anymore I could recount but Orion was all that I could see. I did wonder at one point if I'm even in the same universe anymore, since I can see Orion I like to think I am but all the other stars are jumbled from here in different places from where I remember.
I sighed as I realized I was having useless thoughts. I don't even have any last attachments there anymore. Why am I thinking about this?
As I looked back down drowning out my thoughts I came face first with a large pile of books being carried by a girl who screamed slightly as we both fell backward.
I landed on my butt but one of my brown bags ripped open spreading all sorts of fruits over the stone-cold floor. I pressed my hand against my forehead removing my black hood realizing it was bruised as the grey hooded girl struggled to get up being crushed by her book.
I placed my two undamaged bags against the grey brick bridge wall and got up, offering my hand for her to get up "you okay? Sorry about that. I was lost in my thoughts and wasn't paying attention to where I was going." I couldn't see her eyes under her light grey hood but I could tell she was looking up at my apologetic face.
"It's fine. I'm also partially to blame since I forgot my void ring to carry my books." She took my hand and I lifted her up from her books and she quickly took away her hand and we worked together to pick them up.
The first one I picked up was a book called "mana nature and principles." It's not a book I've heard of before so I turned it around to see the Goldwheat academy shield on it "are you a student at Goldwheat?" I tried to peek under her hood as I asked but still couldn't make out her face from the darkness.
She kept facing the floor stacking up more books as she replied "I am. I've been there for two years now much like other students. Why? Are you joining this year?"
I placed the last book atop the pile next to my bags "yeah. I'm mostly self-taught but I thought it would be nice to try out proper education." She giggled slightly from my remark and I had an odd sense of familiarity but ignored it.
She looked about the floor picking up an orange handing it to me "since you were kind enough to help me with my books. Why don't I help out with your groceries?" I took the orange with a smile on my face and grabbed my bag from behind me fixing it with alchemy before I put it in between us.
"That would certainly be kind." She stared in a daze for a moment before helping me pick up all the fruits wiping them on my trousers before I dropped them back in the bag.
I wrapped the bag shut after I dropped the last apple in. "Thanks. Good luck in your studies by the way." I picked up the bag with my gloved left hand together with the other two already in it and stood up ready to depart.
"Wait!" As I was about to walk past her she called out and I slowly turned hoping there wasn't going to be some sort of knife. "Thanks again for helping me." Her right hand was stretched out asking me to shake it. This confused me slightly but I had no reason to refuse.
"It's no problem. We both share the blame on this." She giggled again slightly with that vague familiarity but I had nowhere I could place it.
I grabbed her right hand after I lifted up my hood and we stared at each other for a few seconds feeling the softness of her smooth palms against my rough calloused hand. I then felt a strange stinging pain slowly spreading up my hand into my wrist making me stare at my wrist confused while she stared into me still hiding her face.
Incursik's voice then boomed inside my head full of fear "Princess! Let go of her hand now!" Full of sudden fear from his voice I pulled my hand back taking several steps away from the grey cloaked girl "do not let her touch us whatever you do!"
"You okay?" She looked at my wary face confused and worried for me. There was no killing intent no blood thirst nothing that showed she was a threat.
Why Incursik? What's she done? The fear Incursik radiated started to influence me as well as trails of sweat ran down my brow "hey? Are you okay? Can you hear me?" She took several steps closer reaching out to my head's temple but I backed away in response making her miss.
The stinging pain in my wrist then flared to life tearing it apart from the inside as it felt like I had dipped my entire hand in lava. I held in my pain not screaming but speaking constrained "I'm sorry, but I just remembered... I'm in a hurry." I quickly darted off as she stood still questioning my sudden reaction.
I quickly ran tightening the grip on my bags in my left hand as the flaring pain began to slowly spread up my right arm. I sensed inside it to see several golden specs corroding away my flesh from the inside.
I urged my mana to get in its path and the pain finally stopped spreading up my arm. Not bothering to even think about what it was I shot the golden specs out of my arm with a purple bolt of lightning into the sky.
The pain had stopped but my arm now felt hollow and empty. To repair it I willed attrium down to the edges of my fingertips covering silver and purple veins across my wrist and hand. It no longer felt hollow and empty back to its natural weight
Not caring for secrecy I shouted out "Incursik! Explain what that girl did!"
"It's puren. Another energy different from mana and the natural enemy of attrium." I could feel him shivering in fear inside my mind from the simple thought of it. He was a being made of attrium so it only made sense "it shouldn't be possible for regular mortals to wield it though! There's only a handful of creatures that could even control it back in Duatten!"
As I continued running I spotted my new house quickly closing in the distance and started to slow down taking several glances behind me making sure she didn't follow. "When you say the natural enemy of attrium, what do you mean?"
"I mean if even one spec gets on me princess, I'm as good as dead!" His voice was full of fear and rage indicating to never joke with it. "And since you decided to go against my advice and replace a part of your body with attrium. If a spec enters or touches your body you might as well be diving into a volcano!"
I turned bitter as I remembered him telling me not to but was already too late to try and change my body back. "Okay. Any methods you have to share for when I confront her in the future? She's seen my face but I haven't seen hers so she's going to be hard to avoid."
"She's a living poison to our heads. She can likely sense the attrium parts of your body and thinks it's some sort of defect. Puren is basically the highest degree of holy magic made to clean the world like a germ killer while attrium is chaos and evil just like a raging fire burning down a house while Puren's the fireman that can get rid of it with a flick of the wrist."
"So puren is the hero while attrium is the villain that constantly gets their butt kicked?"
"Pretty much" I groaned in audible annoyance "there's no fighting against puren. Just run. Pride be damned, princess."
Getting the idea I finally understood why Incursik was so afraid "what effect does puren have on mana? Please tell me I'll at least be able to protect myself?" I gave a last long look down the lamp-lit street as I stood in front of my home's wooden door.
"Nothing, fortunately. On its own, it's no better than regular mana, so you still have a chance of survival so long as you don't infuse attrium into your spells."
I sighed in relief from his answer and the failure to sense anyone tailing me "at least there's some good news." I turned around putting my hand on the door to open it. "Why didn't you tell me about this before?..."
As I opened the door I saw Incursik in his purple human warrior form with the Afro ponytail sitting on the couch while Ronik hid upstairs looking up at him from the railing and Lupra sitting next to him with Thorn flying an old ornate ork axe up to a shelf.
I stared at him dumbly. While I was out there in fear of that girl he's been relaxing in here with my tame's. Sensing my discontent with him Incursik spoke "your tames were making such a mess princess, that I thought I should help out."
To clarify this I looked at Thorn standing on a shelf who stubbornly nodded in agreement. "You sound nowhere near as scared as you were earlier."
He picked himself up waving his purple gown as he walked about the house "what can I say? Lupra is very good at relief support." I looked at Lupra thinking she was a traitor as she happily looked at me.
"Uncle ghost was funny papa. His body turned all wavey as he was scared." Incursik's back was to me as she said this but I could tell he was embarrassed as he shivered slightly.
I hung up my white coat as I took a few steps forward as I hid a chuckle under my breath seeing the new red rug under the table and all the rock tablets, broken weapons, and other strange items like the skulls of various creatures that now decorated the hanging chandelier.
"Well, I have to admit. You've got good taste in decorating Incursik." He turned back around with a glare that seemed as if I just insulted him.
"Of course I'm good! I'm you remember? Anything you like I like, princess." We looked at each other smiling for a moment until I looked up at Ronik still hiding upstairs.
"What'd you do to Ronik for him to be so scared of you?"
Incursiks happy face then turned to annoyance as he looked up at Ronik who quickly scurried away "he tried to suck me into his core repeatedly and I gave him a little jolt to ward him off. Now he thinks I'm some sort of devil." I gave him a judging look which he easily spotted "you know what I mean princess. I may come from a world of devils but I'm not as bad as one myself."
Taking a few steps forward I dropped myself on the sofa "sure, sure. It's definitely not like you to act like a devil."
Incursik sat opposite me on the other couch [well. Can't really argue with that considering our past now can I?] He spread his arms out as he spoke getting as comfortable as he could.
I couldn't help but laugh slightly at what he said though I knew he was referring to my past life. "No. No, I guess you can not." We stared, smiling at each other for a little while again as we knew if the conversation went on things that shouldn't be brought up will.
Thorn then flew down into my lap and spoke condescendingly as if to mimic Incursik "you're forgetting about the food princess. It'll spoil."
Incursik snorted slightly as I gave him a judging stare standing up "what have you been teaching a two-year-old dragon?"
I grabbed the three bags and headed for the kitchen "I figured that it's not fair for only me to call you princess since I'm not always about. Someone needs to remind you of how effeminate you are." I looked at the cheeky smile across incursiks face letting my lips tug slightly to the side of my face.
"Nothing's stopping you from staying out. You could always join me as an invisible classmate to help me cheat."
Incursik laughed at my suggestion smacking his thigh "I'm not some sort of eagle eye princess. I'm only able to see the world through yours or your tames eyes remember?"
I sat back down on the couch and Thorn climbed up to my shoulder "shame. I would have finally had a good reason to keep you apart from your good looks."
"Please. You are practically looking in the mirror when you talk to me. We don't need your ego getting any bigger or else I'll start struggling to breathe inside your head." Thorn sniggered alongside incursik at the joke while I acted insulted "anyways~ I believe it's time you go to sleep. Lupra worked hard on decorating your room after all."
"What? Are you my mother now?" He chuckled at my remark as I looked down at my feet to see lupra obviously wanting me to "I guess you have a point."
I picked up lupra putting her under my arm as I headed for the staircase when another thought struck me "oh! You know about the mana storms nuclei right? What was that doing to me?"
He gave an unsurprised sigh as he rested his purple head on the back of the couch "far as I can tell it just gave your circuits a rub down. It won't help with your bottleneck but it should help as a warning for when you are low on mana."
Thankful for him telling me I gave him a wave of goodbye with my free hand "alright. If you discover anything new make sure to tell me purple fairy from hell."
He gave a long look at my back as I climbed the stars then smiled secretly "take care of yourself, autumn princess. I'll likely pop in during lesson time to hang out and rescue you from boredom." His purple body then faded away as I gave him one last look still thankful that he's my brother