Subaru's POV
"Why did you run away earlier?" Emilia suddenly asked me.
I froze in fear.
I can't exactly tell her that I died after she made me a promise. Can't even tell anyone about Return by death, tried with Kazuma and that... purple hand just comes out of nowhere and-
"Hey Subaru," oh right, Emilia just asked me a question. What am I supposed to say, when that purple hand can just come out of nowhere and crush my heart? How is one supposed to justify a fear that could very well be called 'primal'?
"I just... had a nightmare, so I just needed some time for myself, I'm all fine now though, so nothing to worry about Millie," I said, coming up with a flimsy excuse. It seemed to work, so it was fine.
"Where did Millie come from?" She asked, a little surprised.
"It's just a nickname that I made for you," This time I didn't start blushing, as much as the last loop at the very least.
"Waaah," Puck yawned as he appeared from behind Emilia. "It's like when I call you, ah, Lia," He continued, still waking up.
"Oh," Emilia uttered as she nodded understandingly, and then sent me a million-volt smile.
"That smile is the most priceless thing I have ever seen, I'll do my best to make you smile every day!" I couldn't contain those words as I let them loose, making her blush profusely.
"Stop it," she muttered while looking away from me.
"Your smile is amazing, but your innocent blushing face is sweet enough to give me heart attacks!", I said while trying to not blush further. Any more of this and I might die of a heat stroke.
"OH MY, did I hurt you!?" she suddenly exclaimed, very alarmed. Never mind, it seems like the innocent and kind girl would worry for me regardless.
"I'm fine Millie, my angel, you could never hurt me," I said hoping they knew what angels are in this world.
"Stop it," She said shyly while averting her gaze towards the ground at her feet.
"But I really mean it," I said with all the sincerity I could muster. That stunned her as she turned away from me. It wasn't like I was lying, after all. I really, really did mean it!
"What do you think this means Puck?" I asked, pointing to a now more awake floating cat.
"She isn't used to having friends or people giving her compliments, so while she craves it, she isn't good at handling affection and tenses up when she actually gets it," he explained. It seems like partnering with this cat would go a long way in helping me secure dates in the future with Millie.
Kazuma's POV
I walked into the library, with Felt right behind me. Beatrice looked like she was blowing bubbles, the bubbles would then fall down into a basket, giving off a tiny "plop" when it dropped into the basket.
"Oh, you are ready to go, I suppose," Beatrice said without looking over at me and Felt.
"Depends on if you are done with your part,"
"I am, the mana stones are in the basket, and... you're not alone, I suppose," Her tone shifted from a slightly cheerful undertone to her usual cold tone. How preoccupied was she with making those stones?
"Yeah she wanted to come with me, and I am not going to stop her from helping me," I retorted while walking over to the basket.
"Hey Beatrice, do I just hold one of these when I want to transfer mana to it?"
"Yes, but you can also hold onto the basket, and that will transfer the mana you take from the demon beasts into the stones, so there is no need to transfer mana to each individually, I suppose," She explained. Sounds like she tried to make the whole process a little easier, that was nice of her.
"What are you guys talking about?" Felt inquired, as I smacked her hand away from the satchel containing the sandwiches, again.
"I also managed to make a ward stone for you, but if you are bringing her with you should find another, I suppose," Beatrice said with her usual cold and detached tone as she handed me the green gem.
"Thanks, at least we know what to look for now when we have this," I praised while pocketing the gem.
Later in the nearby village
"Some rules while we are in the forest. First of all, we are not killing the Mabeasts unless absolutely necessary, we are just knocking them out, and we back off the instant something looks like too much, also if we get split up, just run back to the mansion," I put down the rules, Felt seemed to understand or she was just nodding along for fun.
"No killing, unless it is in self-defense, don't try to bite over more than I can chew if something splits us up, we meet back at the mansion," Felt recited while flipping the giant knife in her hand.
"I couldn't help but overhear you two are going into the forest, I must warn you, children, that it is quite dangerous," An old man said as he walked up to us.
"Who are you?" We both asked in unison.
"Oh, excuse my manners, my name is Muraosa," The old man introduced himself, as he tightened his grip on his staff.
"Ok then, now let's go and kill some Mabeast Felt,"
"Wait! You seem wildly unprepared for this, our village might offer something to help you slay the wretched Mabeast," He yelled, and it seemed like he genuinely wanted to help out, but again he could just want to sell us useless shit we don't really need.
"You have far too little water with you, we can-"
"{Create Water}" I cut him off as I filled up my water bottle.
"Well, you don't have much food with-" Felt cut him off as she opened the lid on the sandwich basket.
"Well, I see you don't have any arrows in your quiver, we sell that in the village,"
"Old man I think you have to... sell me some of those arrows," I instantly redirected my answer as I saw my quiver was in fact empty.
I don't understand why it is empty, didn't I fill these with arrows that I made, or was that just a dream. I feel like I can vividly remember Subaru getting the materials for me, but that can't be true because then my arrows would have been here.
"Right this way children," Muraosa gestured for us to follow, and so we did. We went past some children playing with each other.
"I count 6," Felt mindlessly muttered, before we went inside a shop.
"Welcome to my humble shop newcomers, what are you looking for?" A middle-aged man warmly welcomed us, he seemed to sell various tools for hunters.
"These newcomers would like to buy-"
"I would like some leather," I instantly cut off the old man.
"Well, I got some fine leather right here, you can get 2 of these for only 25 copper each," He said while pulling up some good quality leather.
"How about I pay 40 copper for those leather pieces plus some arrows," I counter-offered.
"Well, if I throw in some arrows, that would increase the price to 60 copper,"
"What about I pay you 50 for the leather and a dozen arrows then,"
"I can take that," He accepted as he handed me the leather while returning to look for a dozen arrows to fill my quiver.
"Hey Felt, you wouldn't happen to have any copper on you?" I whispered cautiously to her.
"I do, I got some from one of the maids," she answered in a normal voice.
"Could I borrow some of that, you know I'm good for it, I just don't have any Lugnica currency at the moment," I continued.
"Ooh, well what do I get out of this deal," She asked curiously, with a mischievous smile adorning her face.
"Half of the sandwiches and I pay you back later, plus I make you a meal when we get back, come on you know I'm good for it," I really didn't want to stand here and argue with her, but the faster I could get going, the faster I could get back home.
"Hmm, I don't know, I mean it sounds good, but I feel like I could get something more out of this," Ok that smug tone she got right now isn't something I want to deal with.
"I won't drench you in water and freeze it,"
"Ok, ok, I get it, I'll take the deal," Felt relented as she handed me her money pouch. It contained 20 silver coins and the rest was just copper. I counted up 50 copper coins and we left the establishment with my new stuff.
"Besht deal ehver," Felt said with 2 sandwiches stuffed into her mouth, while at the same time trying to fit a third in there, definitely something Megumin would do, if it was Komekko the food would have already been gone, a deal wouldn't have stopped her.
"Hey Muraosa, could we get to borrow another one of these?" I requested as I held up the green ward stone Beatrice had given me.
"Hmm, yes, but they are very valuable to us, so I would need some sort of insurance that you would come back with it,"
"Would these gold coins work as insurance?" I pulled out 5 million Eris as I asked him.
"What peculiar currency, I have never seen anything like it before, but I recognize gold when I see it, and this would be more than enough insurance for you to borrow another ward stone," He accepted after having inspected my Eris coin carefully, and handed me another green gem, this one had a bit dimmer light than the one Beatrice gave me.
"Here Felt you take the old one,"
"Why do I get the old one?" She complained after swallowing her third sandwich.
"Because I want the new one, and I am in charge here,"
"Who decided that?"
"Me, myself, and I," I answered quickly, handing her the dim one, which she reluctantly accepted with an annoyed sigh.
"Ok, so do we go and hunt Mabeasts now?" She was clearly getting impatient.
"Just give me a moment," I said before sitting down on the ground.
I pulled out the leather I had just bought and figured it would be enough to cover half of my arrows. Using my knife I cut the leather into pieces that I then fastened around the arrowheads, before using {Create earth} to fill them with sand. I then simply sew the leather shut, and voila arrows that would only knock out the Mabeasts.
"Ok cool, now let's go," Felt noted before dragging me towards the forest.
"Fine, but I am not babysitting you,"
"Oh please, I don't need your help, it's just boring to be here all alone,"
"Sure, just remember to keep them alive, you can maim them and knock them out, but no killing unless you feel unsafe,"
"Yeah, yeah, I know the rules, let us just get to it," She said as we walked past a perimeter of similar green gems and into the forest.
"Well, we first have to find some Mabeasts," I said as two of them jumped out from some bushes in front of us. They walked straight past us and directly to the bushes we just came out from. They started to sniff around, clearly trying to find prey but they completely ignored us. Good to know these things actually worked.
"{Drain Touch}" I chanted while grabbing ahold of the creature's neck, first it went stiff before it tried to scratch away my hand with it's back paw, but by the time its paw hit me it was already so severely weakened that it was no more than a tiny tap, and it quickly collapsed to the ground. I continued until I couldn't feel its pulse anymore.
The other Mabeast sensed the weakness of its comrade and quickly went over to chomp on it, I then also drained that one. Felt went over to them and lightly kicked both of them, but they gave off no reaction.
"I thought you said not to kill them, didn't you just do that?" Felt asked as I pulled out my adventurer card.
"Yeah, but I needed to test something, and plus I got to drain them of their mana so it still went as planned," I answered while checking the kill log on my card.
Wolgarm 500XP
Wolgarm 500XP
Goblin 90xp
Well, that is the most recent on my card, and it does indeed get me closer to leveling up. It would seem this hunt would have multiple things going in my favor.
"What kind of card is that?" Felt asked when she spotted me holding it.
"Eh, not anything you need to know, just forget you ever saw me holding this," I retorted instantly as I put my card away.
"Ok sour pants, but what are we going to do with these?" She said pointing to the dead bodies of the Wolgarm.
"Maybe we can use them as bait, I mean the second one went to eat the first one the moment I had weakened it, so cutting these two open might attract more of them here without us having to do much hunting," I suggested, which caused her to scowl at me.
"You want to attract a bunch of these creatures close to a mostly defenseless village, what if there is a hole in the perimeter here, and it is entirely possible to be a hole here since these gems can clearly wear out given that mine is dimmer than your freshly new one," Felt spoke with a lot more forethought than I had expected.
"You got some good points," At my words, a smug expression adorned her face.
"So good that you get to help me drag the one that has already been bitten into, deeper into the forest," and with that her smug look vanished.
I pulled out my normal bundle of rope and tied a knot around the neck of the wolgarm with the middle part of the rope, then I gave one end of the rope to Felt and took a hold of the other end.
"But what if we get lost in the forest, how are we supposed to find our way back?" Felt asked, again with all this good sense, it's almost enough to make me cry. Why couldn't I have someone like this in my party, instead of having to deal with the usual trio of crazy, dumb, and horny?
"Carve a noticeable mark into a tree every now and then, I'll be able to see them even if it gets dark," As soon as I said that, she chopped into the tree, leaving a giant X.
"That should work," She said confidently, and I just nodded in agreement.
We started to traverse deeper and deeper into the forest, after a few minutes of dragging we came upon a vacant hill. It was just normal grass on top of the hill, so it would give us a good overview of our bait.
"Do you like this spot, Kazuma?"
"Yeah, let us put the bait up there," I said, taking a look behind us. "Felt, I think this blood trail should make it easy to find our way back if needed," I pointed out as I saw that the opened part of the wolgarm's stomach that had been dragging across the ground had left a trail of dark blood behind us.
I then dodged away from Felt's smack as my {Auto-dodge} kicked in. "Idiot, that trail leaves right back to the village,"
"Ok, well then let us try to make this place even more attractive than the village," At that she hurriedly started pulling the dead wolgarm up the hill.
When we were at the top, I took out Chunchunmaru and started to cut the Mabeast open, as I spread out its organs and other innards. It smelled horrible to put it lightly, but Felt didn't seem to mind the smell all that much.
"{Create water}" I chanted as I sprayed down my katana until it was clean before I continued to just wash my hands.
"Whenever you use magic, you use words I have never heard before, but that one obviously was a water spell," Felt's remark got my gears turning.
That's right, all my spells and chants are in English, a language they have never heard. So it might leave me a chance for a surprise attack in the future.
"Rustle rustle rustle," The bushes from where we came started to rustle as multiple wolgarms started to emerge from them. I quickly pulled the rope off its neck and dragged Felt away from the bait.
"Let them start eating, and then I will start to drain the ones eating, you be on the lookout for if something other than a wolgarm shows up,"
"What do we do then?"
"We take cover in the bushes and observe what it does if it is just going to eat like the other Mabeasts I will drain them as well,"
"Munch, munch, CRUNCH," the sound of ravenous eating started.
"Look Felt, they eat just like you, hehe-ouch," Felt stopped my chuckling with a swift punch to the arm.
"I don't eat like that!" Felt angrily protested.
"Ah yes, I think you're right, they don't stuff their cheeks like you, they take it one bite at a- Ouch!" My excellent joke was cut short by another punch to my arm.
"Get to draining their mana you idiot," Felt ordered as she pushed the basket filled with mana stones onto me.
"Fine,
Subaru's POV
"I seem to be missing two of my honored gueeests, does anyone know why they are nooot here with us this morning?" Roswaal requested as he looked at two vacant seats meant for Felt and Kazuma.
"Yes Master Roswaal, Lady Felt, and Kazuma went out to hunt Mabeasts in the forest," Ram relayed the information to Roswaal as soon as she possibly got the chance to.
"Oooh, how interesting, and how would you say they are doing?"
"One moment my Lord, let me see," Ram said before she put her hands to her head.
"They seem to be doing quite well, I count roughly thirty wolgarm laying dead at their feet, with even more coming out of the forest, they seem to be using ward stones to not grab their attention as Kazuma is merely touching them before they fall over dead, and the basket in his left hand shines up a little bit every time he touches a wolgarm,"
"Veryyy interesting, that is enough for now, be at ease Ram," What did she just say, Kazuma can just touch something/someone to kill, and why is Roswaal sitting there with such a satisfied smile.
There is so much that isn't like the last loop, Kazuma and Felt aren't here for breakfast, and it would seem that Beatrice and he have gotten, closer. Emilia also seemed worried about him.
"Now Subaru, whaaat reward would you like to be cooompensated with?" Roswaal interrupted my train of thought with his question.
"Ah yes, I would like to get to work here," As I said those words the entire room went silent like it had last time, only Ram's sneeze breaking the silence.
Hours later, after Subaru had been working hard.
I laid outside in the garden completely out of energy, it would seem that the twins noticed they could push me a little more than they did in the last loop. Maybe I should display more incompetence to repeat the last loop better.
"Hey Subaru, are you tired?" The wonderful words of my angel Millie quickly reinvigorated me.
"Of course not Millie, everything is superb, I have never been better," I cheerfully retorted.
"Oh, so you were just slacking off then?" Her question hurt me, but I guess I would have to explain my reason for lying here then.
"I was simply taking a tiny break to go over what I need to do next when I go back inside the mansion. Why are you out here?"
"I was about to train on my magic with Puck," She timidly answered my question, while being so cute and adorable.
"Subaru, would you also like to train on some magic?" Puck suddenly asked as he appeared from behind Emilia's beautiful hair.
"But I can't do any magic,"
"Sure you can, we just have to figure out what your magical element is first," Now Puck said something I am familiar with.
"Cool, so how do I get to know which element I am?" I asked as I jumped up from the ground in excitement.
"I can fix that, let's see here," Puck said as he put his tiny paw on my forehead.
"So what is my magical element? Is it the burning fire of passion, or am I more of a relaxed cool-guy water-type, or maybe a gentle wind blowing across the plain, or is it solid, reliable rock?" I went on until Puck removed his hand from my head.
"Your element is Shadow or Yin if you want," It felt like Puck's words punched me in the gut, as I fell to the ground in despair.
"What the hell is "shadow" supposed to be, I thought there were only 4 elements," I yelled at Puck while he just floated there with a wide grin on his face.
"In addition to the four base elements, there is also Shadow/Yin and Light/Yang," Puck quickly explained after dropping that stupid grin, even though it was cute.
"What are you guys talking about?" Kazuma suddenly asked as he walked over to us, while he carried a sleeping Felt on his back.
"Has something happened to Felt?" Emilia asked with a worried tone.
"Nothing serious, she is just in a food coma after eating up all of OUR rations," Kazuma was clearly annoyed with her.
"So how did the hunt go? At breakfast Ram told us you were having no problems," I asked, now noticing the glowing basket strapped to Felt's back.
"It went above all expectations actually, I actually lost count," Kazuma energetically answered.
Something here doesn't add up, how does he look so full of energy when he has been out all day without eating much of anything. Maybe it has something to do with that glowing basket on Felt's back.
"Ok, anyway Puck was just explaining to me how magic works in this world, and he just told me that I have an affinity for the shadow element," I told him as he just tilted his head to the side in confusion.
"Sure, but what can you even do with shadow magic?" He gave a very good and reasonable answer, which I was about to ask myself.
"Yeah, what can I do with Shadow magic,"
"Let's see, with shadow magic you can obstruct an opponent's vision, block sound, slow them down, and other such things," I deflated even more as I realized that my magic consisted of only DEBUFFS!
"An easy one to learn would be something like {Shamak}"
"That's a blinding spell, right?" Emilia asked a little unsure, with Puck nodding proudly at her question.
"Want me to show you?" Puck said as he looked at me, and the thought of doing some actual magic got me excited.
"Hell yeah, bring it on!" I erupted, with Emilia hesitating a bit.
"{Shamak}" Was the last thing I heard before everything went black. I couldn't see, hear or smell. The only things I felt were the ground I stood on and my body, but soon it felt like I couldn't even breathe, and then it ended as abruptly as it began.
"So that was Shamak, what did you think?" I could hear Puck talking again, as I looked down, and I was one step away from going into the water. I took a second to collect my thoughts.
"Are you okay?" The woman of my dreams asked in such a worried tone, that I had to make her feel at ease.
"O-of course," I answered with as much confidence as I could muster while flipping around to face the others again.
Then I saw Kazuma fiddling with what looked like a brown card, as a mischievous grin emerged on his face. He was up to something, and if my instinct was right it was going to affect me.
"Emilia, could you hold Felt for me, while I stretch a little bit?" Kazuma asked with an innocent tone.
"Are you sure that would be ok?" The shining embodiment of elegance and beauty questioned as she walked over to Kazuma and Felt.
"Of course, just hold your arms out,"
"Like this?" She asked, putting her arms forth, with Kazuma immediately dropping Felt off into them.
"Ok Subaru, I just learned a new skill, and you are the perfect guinea pig, {Sha-}"
"{Shamak}" Puck interrupted him, as he started to stumble around like a headless chicken, it was hilarious.
"Puck, I owe you one for saving me,"
"Oh, it was nothing, his intentions were clear as day, so I did the old switcheroo on him," Puck said while grinning widely and gesturing with his tiny paws.
"KYAAAH!" Emilia suddenly screamed as Kazuma crashed into her and Felt, tangling Kazuma up with the girls, that lucky bastard.
"Ok, that's enough," Puck angrily said before removing the spell from Kazuma, and I quickly understood why his tone had shifted, he was groping my angel's boobs with his left hand. I ran over to them before Kazuma could do any more damage and ripped him away from the girls.
"What's going on?" An annoyed and sleepy Felt complained while crawling away from my clearly shocked and violated angel.
"Payback!" Kazuma declared as he pushed me off him, "{Concealment}" Kazuma chanted before he completely vanished, and then Puck started waving one paw in front of his eyes before laughing.
"Hahaha, he actually learned it that quickly," Puck continued to laugh as he wiped his eyes, before looking around for Kazuma.
"Hmm, good trick, but I know how to counter these petty tricks," Puck said as he raised his paws above his head and blasted a beam into the air, making it snow lightly. After just a minute I could spot that the snow landed on something mid-air, and wherever it tried to run off to, it would leave footprints behind itself.
Puck shot off multiple icicles closing around what I presumed to be Kazuma, as he made a prison of ice around him, even covering the top with a thick layer of ice so he couldn't escape that way. The little cat then floated down to his little make-shift prison and melted a little hole in one of the sides.
"{Create water}" Kazuma chanted from the inside as Puck dodged to the side before the jet of water froze to ice.
"Subaru, your friend here is pretty creative, he just transformed his own ice cell to his own little soundproof bunker," Puck seemed impressed, as he looked at the protruding ice pillar Kazuma just created.
After a few minutes had gone by, with everyone just looking at the ice prison, a little ice melted away to reveal some of Kazuma's green mantle.
"Puck how about we do a bet," Kazuma's voice came through sounding a little muffled.
"Sure, what do you have in mind,"
"I will try to get inside the mansion, your mission is to put your paws on me before I manage that, does that sound fair?"
"Sounds fair enough to me, let's begin," Puck excitedly said as he ripped away the ice bunker with a wave of his paw, revealing my phone laying there, as it played off its last line.
"How about if you win you'll get some grilled fish," as the recording came to an end. I could also see burn marks on the ground, on the opposite side of where I and Puck had been focused on. With footprints leading back to the mansion.
"Hey, guys!" Kazuma's smug voice came from one of the now opened windows inside of the mansion, with him grinning from ear to ear as he waved at us.
"How the fuck did you get your hands on my phone!?" I yelled at him, with Puck looking rather impressed.
"I don't like losing, but I didn't expect him to have this kind of tool on him," Puck said as he picked up my phone and gave it back to me.
"I want to learn how to do that," Felt suddenly said as she started to run inside, with multiple baskets strapped to her back.
"I didn't expect him to beat you Puck," The wonderful voice of Millie elegantly hit my ears, and just like that all my interests went back to her.
"Neither did I, I didn't even sense him using any magic while inside the ice block, it's like he doesn't have an elemental affinity," Puck relayed while scratching the back of his head.
"But he clearly does have multiple affinities, how else would he have been able to use so many different types of magic," My wonderful little angel argued back.
"I don't know, it's like his magic is out of this world," Puck answered.
"Could I get to try it now?" I shot in, interrupting their discussion about Kazuma, as they redirected their attention back to me.
"Sure," Puck said, floating to the top of my head before he sat down. "Ok Lia, you get some distance from us in case things go wrong," which caused my lovely Millie to wander off to the other side of the field so that I could barely see her.
"How bad do you think this is going to go!?" I yelled at Puck, but he just smacked my head lightly with his paw to get me to shut up.
"It's just a precaution, do you want to do magic or not?"
"I want to do magic, please teach me sensei,"
"Ok then, first close your eyes, then you need to imagine a gate for your mana to flow through," That sounded easy enough, ok a hole for all of my mana to flow through
"UH OH, this isn't good,"