I slept the whole night through, which is eighteen hours. Boss did as well, surprisingly. Was she actually dead or something? I didn't think babies slept that long.
After the black magic remnants had completely dispersed from the room, I had slept and woken up an hour before dawn. It was surprising because Mother and I always woke up half way through the day. For me, to get up early and not feel tired was a skill I had wanted in both lives.
The moment I woke up, I started practicing magic. I was so excited now that I knew how to start it, detect it, counter it, and end it. I guess that as long as you understood the initial procedure then you could do a lot.
Get over the mountain and the fertile valley is before you, basically. There were other mountains in the distance, though, and they were even larger...
My barrier was still up, and during the whole time I was asleep my MP had decreased by five. It was ever so slowly recovering because I had been resting while using it, so the power rate wasn't bad.
The first thing I wanted to try was the oh-so-loved, typical, [Fireball]. Special, I know right?
I held my small hand out in front of me and used chant-less magic to imagine what it would look like and pull on my MP.
The palm of my small hand was engulfed in red from the fire dancing in place above. It swirled around and flickered, a literal ball instead of a flame. More like an oversized marble with how the colors moved.
I used it for ten minutes, moving my hand back and forth to see if that would affect anything. My MP went down half a point every time I moved my hand away, probably cost to sustain it without physical contact. It wasn't very detrimental to me since I had a large mana pool.
I decided to chuck it into the air the same way I launched the [Holy Light] last night. It looked amazing as it contained its own heat, and even prettier when I commanded it to [Shine].
The stars were still out, barely, so it allowed for my awesome self-made lightbulb to coat the room in red rays as if the sun were out again. It was constantly moving almost like a disco ball, becoming a kaleidoscope of red and orange.
I smiled at it and cast a Sub spell, [Split]. The small ball became two and they floated next to each other, throwing double shadows across the room as they caught two angles of objects.
I learned from the second book of Olei-san's that I read that there were four types of spell categories in the order of importance: Main, Sub, Support, and Share.
Main was what I had done before, casting [Fireball], or the defense barrier that I had dubbed [Black Magic Block].
A Sub spell would be something like an order for a Main spell, like [Expand] for the [Holy Light] spell and [Shine] for [Fireball]. There can be many Sub spells to a powerful Main, but for lower class ones it can only have a maximum of three. That is, unless you level up the spell from usage to become something greater or use a Support spell.
A Support spell is kind of like a second life. For example: if a human was low in life force, only half of its soul left, and another human has a full soul of one hundred percent, they could share. The 100% tapers down into 75% and the fifty becomes a 75% so they are equal.
The same applies to magic spells. If I add one more Sub spell to my Main [Fireball] and use up the three slots, then I could cast an ordinary fire based spell and combine it with the original Main. The spell has no commands in it already, such as how it can't be commanded to be a certain shape, size, or have special effects to it.
Then, it would basically be a "spell with two souls." It is one spell but has six slots instead of the original three because there are two fire spells combined into one, and three plus three of the Sub slots.
Also, there is no limit to how many support spells you have.
The last type of spell is Share. Different from Support, it doesn't give away or combine spells or anything of the sort. It shares them. Explains it perfectly, doesn't it?
Nope.
What a share spell does is link. Going back to the life example from before, when they were in their original fifty and 100% states...casting a Share spell would keep those numbers the same. The only thing that changes is their quality. If the fifty drops then the other is unaffected, but if it rises then hundred goes up. If hundred drops then fifty doesn't get affected, if it rises, fifty also experience the effects. If one hundred becomes one hundred and ten, then fifty becomes fifty five. It's a relationship of benefits.
With Share, two fireballs could grow off of each other if only one of them is given MP or lighter fluid is the magic example.
Basically, I thought of it this way:
Main - spell.
Sub - added effect.
Support - second life.
Share - linked beneficial relationship.
Altogether, they were the Spell Types.
After playing around with my fire magic for a while, I noticed the predawn light that became visible beyond the window. The sky was still that navy blue with only the first hint of baby blue far in the horizon. It would take some time, but Glaedis was coming ever steadily.
And so was a person.
I heard footsteps outside of my door, and immediately canceled my spell. I kept up the barrier because I completely forgot about it.
I held my breath uselessly while Boss kept on sleeping abnormally, not waking up no matter what. I reached through the railing and rubbed her small head while smiling lightly, ruffling her short white hair.
They did not pass by. Instead, they paused right behind the wood barricade between us. The metal stub on the door rattled a bit.
Tch-tch-tch, I heard.
The door was locked.
Silence.
I started breathing again, very slowly and lightly, trying to listen for anything that might give up the presence of the one trying to access the nursery.
There was a scratching against the door as if it was a hassle for it to not open. And then, a growl when more footsteps came from the opposite direction the first person came.
What the hell is that?!
Shudders racked my body from the essence of it and I unknowingly strengthened the [Black Magic Block], cost myself ten MPs. I didn't know it, but it became uncommonly strong.
Slight scratching sounds blighted the door again, going upwards. The other pair of footsteps were slow and lethargic, carelessly echoing through the halls. I didn't even enhance my hearing to pick up every time they fell and lifted stickily off the ground.
There was an amused growl somewhere above the wood frame as a loud and ignorant yawn was released. It made me scream at that person while feeling an impending sense of doom.
Can you not sense the presence of death there?
How could you be so calm with that THING above the door?! Run for your life, you suicidal maniac!
But the blissfully ignorant person just kept on coming.
And the beautiful thing was that the ignorant person was trying to kill us as well. They stopped in front of the door and brought out a set of keys lazily, jangling around for the right one. A key fit into the hole and turned, and I was screaming in my head while looking around for an escape exit or something, anything, that would save Boss and me from whatever was to come.
I crawled behind the cradle so I couldn't be seen, and started coming up with whatever spell I thought would get rid of the thing.
Would something blatant and vague like [Purify] work? How about [No Trespassing]? [Kill On Contact]? No, that may get the person who's most likely the nursemaid for Boss.
[Barricade]? [Move]? [Deny]?
[Selection]? [Fireball] plus Sub spells [Track] and [Engulf]?
The door opened and in stepped the maid from yesterday, the one on the left that I hadn't paid any attention to. I thought she was more astute and firm with her actions since she was with the Head Maid, but it loons like that was just a façade.
Her uniform was put together sloppily and she only started to fix it up as she approached the cradle. She lifted the little sweet baby out of the wooden thing, not noticing me or caring that I wasn't where I was supposed to be, and slapped Boss's cheek rapidly to wake her up.
"Hey Brat, wake up. We gotta report to the Head Maid or she'll hand me my ass on a letter of forged resignation next time I'm late," she snarled at the clueless baby.
I suddenly wanted the thing creeping in silently with a distorted figure to get rid of her in the worst way possible when Boss cried out in a start. My eyes widened when seeing that. And malevolent intent made my tiny fists curl.
The thing was inside the room completely now. Crawling up the tall wall like a freaking spider. It had six limbs and rattled a bit at the joints, a tattered and torn black cloak hanging on it like a napkin over a meal. Except, that meal was really bony and stuck out in odd places, making the cloak stick out oddly.
My block, which I just realized I was still casting, pinged and shown in the place the creepy thing touched it. What I assumed was its head whipped to the side and it hissed, making the soon-to-be assaulted maid frown and turn her head up. It's glowing red eyes looked like treacherous orbs of fury, its circular mouth was full of lava that fell everywhere and swung out like a camel's spit, teeth rotating on the edges like a shredder.
The maid was apparently the slow type to not scream even when seeing a monster about to claw off her face. The thing jumped at her and her eyes widened, but my domed barrier just happened to encompass her body, only a foot away from the cradle. She slackened her arms and almost dropped the crying baby in her arms. They tightened quickly when she thought that she would die if she stayed in its path, and screamed as loud as she could.
Thank you, finally! I was wondering if you were really that deaf, you stupid cow.
The maid went outside of my barrier while jumping to the side, the baby a collateral damage as she was about to slam face first into the floor. I shouted inside my head the first spell to come to mind and poured an absurd amount of MP into it because I just wanted it to work.
[Float]!
Because I had put in too much power, they both flew into the air at an absurd pace and slammed into the ceiling.
"Kuh!" The maid couldn't breathe as the wind got knocked clear out of her lungs and dust rained down from the painted white ceiling, showing how it hadn't been cleaned in ages.
Her eyes rolled to the back of her head and her arms loosened, releasing the cargo. The baby came flying down sixteen feet, apparently unaffected by my spell. The redness in my cheeks melted away as I chanted another spell as fast as possible.
[Catch]!
The wraith like monster jumped, after bouncing off the barrier that glowed upon its contact, going straight towards the falling baby.
It's going after her!
I already knew that, but seeing it affirmed just made me all the more frantic.
From my second spell, the baby fell into a dip of air and stayed directly below the maid and in the jumping monster's path. I applied the Sub [Bouncy] to it and she flew out of its path just as its claws reached her, swiping through the air and missing as it scraped large claw marks into the floor while tumbling.
You're no cat! You thought you could land on your paw...leg...appendages! Scoundrel! Die!
It didn't die. Instead, it watched the next time the baby bounced on that random place in the air and attempted again like an unwitting and stupid dog.
I was right! You're closer to a dog!
It fell for my trap.
No offense to dogs, by the way.