Lily
Walking through the atlesian facility Ironwood had wanted me to give access to a small anti-Grimm ward, I found myself really appreciating the various weapons I could see in passing, each of which was ready to be turned on me at a moment’s notice. No matter how ineffective such an act would be, I found that it was quite an appropriate level of caution considering the mana source I sensed within the building.
“The Winter Maiden won’t be able to replicate what I’ll do, just so you know.” I casually commented and, to his credit, Ironwood didn’t react to my words just yet. “Mana from different worlds has different traits and, without those traits, one can’t cast the magic of said worlds.” Neither did the soldiers accompanying display any signs of shock or confusion at my mention of other worlds.
They’d been briefed, then.
“I don’t doubt that you’re confident in that considering your desire to profit off our world’s plight but I hope you’ll understand that we have to verify that.” The general told me.
I hummed in response, mildly amused. “Feel free. Who knows, maybe you’ll even succeed.” In all honesty, I didn’t believe in them in the slightest but, if they proved me wrong, at least it’d be amusing to witness.
Even if they did, they’d either have to find an alternative solution for powering the wards rather than using mana crystals or bite the bullet and continue to pay me. The wards were not going to be my primary income in this world either way, the mana crystals were.
Just like how I was going to sell dust at higher prices than it was worth on Remnant in Earth-Bet, I was going to sell mana crystals for more than they were worth, too.
I’d have a monopoly on both markets by default simply because no one else could offer a supply of these things in those worlds and, just like how dust could let a hunter survive what they might not otherwise and I intended for people to know that, I planned for people here to need mana crystals.
I probably could’ve found a workaround to make dust a viable source of mana. Sure, it was volatile and would explode if one attempted to siphon mana from it but it’d have been doable with some effort that I very purposefully hadn’t put into the project.
“Before you set up the ward, I just have one question I meant to ask. Does the fate of this world really not interest you in the slightest?” Ironwood questioned just before we arrived at the testing site.
I almost laughed in response before stopping myself. “I really don’t care. Whether you all live or die is ultimately irrelevant to me.” I assured him, a carefree smile on my lips. “At the end of the day, I’ll outlive this world itself. There’s no reason to care about it beyond some interest in what it has to offer me.”
Ironwood, to his credit, didn’t seem surprised by my answer. “I suppose that is the advantage of someone who can leave Remnant behind without a second thought.”
“That it is.” I nodded. Then, I turned towards the marked area we’d reached. “Moving on, I suppose I’m meant to set up the ward around this area?” I asked, ready to get this over with so I could move on to the next thing in my schedule.
“Correct.” The general confirmed, allowing me to get started while the researchers asked me some questions such as how the ward worked and how much it was meant to be able to endure.
Once I was done answering those questions, I made sure Ironwood didn’t have anything else to discuss with me before leaving. I could at least afford him that little bit of respect after seeing his security measures.
Taylor
“You want me to spar against an S-Rank?” I couldn’t keep the disbelief out of my voice as I looked at my boss’ twin. Missy had, apparently, also asked Lilian to help her grow stronger and now we were meant to spar according to the girl who was teaching us.
“Missy will hold back some of her strength.” Lilian waved off my concerns as if there wasn’t a reason why people thought so highly of S-Ranks. “Besides, it’s either you both spar with each other to practice the melee skills I’m teaching you both or you spar against me and I can promise you that one of those will be infinitely more frustrating for both of you.”
“If she slips up once, I’m toast.” I argued because I really didn’t want to die because Missy failed to hold back.
“Hey! I won’t mess up!” Missy called out indignantly, only making my doubts grow in the process.
Lilian sighed in response. “If she messes up, I’ll be there to prevent her from hitting you. Believe it or not but I wouldn’t be telling you both to spar if I didn’t think I could prevent any accidents from happening. Not to mention the fact that you have aura. Missy could probably break it in a single hit but it wouldn’t involve enough force to severely injure you in the process.”
“I’ll haunt you if I die.” I promised my boss before reluctantly turning towards her twin and assuming the right stance.
Missy seemed a lot less reluctant as she got into a stance of her own and, as soon as Lilian gave the signal, we began.
I was weaker. That much was clear from the start. But I’d also learnt more from Lilian so far and that was enough to even the odds a bit. If Missy went all out, it probably wouldn’t have been enough but, since I could still see every part of her movements, I usually knew what and where she’d strike and that was enough to dodge or at least deflect attacks before counter-attacking.
But, as the fight went on, both Missy and I improved further due to Lilian constantly calling out every single flaw she could see. Within less than an hour, neither one of us was actually landing hits. Not without one of us getting frustrated by the slow pace of the fight, at least.
Despite that, Lilian’s voice never stopped criticizing us and telling us how to improve. We had different flaws but that didn’t seem to matter to our teacher in the slightest. She knew how to put them into words that were concise enough that we both got similar amounts of advice.
“Stop.” Lilian said at the hour mark and both of us stopped almost immediately. “This was productive enough for now. Your other lessons are separate from each other but hand-to-hand combat will be taught like this from now on. For now, go ahead and do whatever you’d like to do. I have a meeting to get to.”
After she finished saying that, the boss left the room without waiting for us to respond.
I raised an eyebrow at my sparring partner, “She does that to you, too?” I didn’t expect Lilian to just leave like that when her twin was here.
“When she has something to do, yes.” Missy confirmed with a sigh. “It’s really annoying but she doesn’t do it on purpose. Lily’s just bad at remembering to wait for others to say goodbye when she’s busy since she’s already thinking about whatever she has to do next.”
Her answer surprised me but also made me feel a bit better about this usually being the way my training sessions with her ended. If it was just a sign of her being busy rather than her being rude on purpose, that was better than I’d expected.
“Anyways, good spar.” Missy’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts and I looked at her only to see that she was smiling at me. “Didn’t think you’d be this good already. And Lily’s advice didn’t even distract you. I almost stumbled a couple times at the start because I was trying to listen to her.”
“My magic came with a multitasking ability.” I explained, slightly shocked that Missy was still talking to me. Maybe I was biased both because she was just as beautiful as her sister and because I’d gotten used to Lilian’s behaviour but I’d expected her to just leave now that the sparring was over.
Instead, she made some small talk for a bit before parting ways with a smile and a wave on her part while I was still trying to process the difference between the twins’ ways of interacting with me.
Marissa/Mars
“Welcome to my office. Would you like some tea?” My boss asked, having called me to her office for some reason.
I was about to shake my head when a cup just appeared before me. Apparently my opinion was irrelevant despite the fact that she’d asked me about it. “Why am I here?” I questioned, studiously ignoring the beverage I hadn’t wanted.
“Because you’re blaming yourself for what you did while under the Simurgh’s control and I’d rather you didn’t.” Lilian answered calmly.
“You’re not talking to the others about this.” I pointed out just to not have to figure out another way to react to her words.
“And the others are doing a lot better now than they did when I’d just removed the Simurgh’s control.” She countered as if she’d expected me to react that way and already planned out every word of the conversation.
At this point, it wouldn’t have surprised me but I also didn’t really care. Whether I was just dancing to my boss’ script or the Simurgh’s didn’t really matter at this point, did it? I was going to kill a whole lot of things either way.
“We’re all still miserable.” I argued despite kind of agreeing. At the start, we’d all been kind of despondent but, by now, the others were doing pretty well compared to before even if there were definitely still signs of them struggling with the realization that we’d essentially become monsters under the Simurgh’s control when we’d appeared in this world.
Lilian shook her head, taking a sip of her own tea before continuing, “Krouse is getting better quite rapidly since he’s convinced that most of his choices were the best ones he could’ve made at the time even if several others weren’t. He doesn’t blame himself for those even if some of them make him sick to the stomach. Meanwhile Jess is happy enough to be able to walk even if she hates the circumstances that led up to it. Noelle has dealt with greater misery for longer. Luke and Oliver both didn’t do much that they themselves considered to be terrible. That leaves only you.”
‘And Cody,’ I wanted to say but I wasn’t stupid enough to even try to include the teammate who’d gone mad before we’d joined the Travelers Guild.
“The others didn’t vaporize everything they ever fought.” I pointed out, feeling sick to the stomach just by acknowledging it and I hadn’t even mentioned the various hunters I’d had to kill because they’d entered the Gate before Noelle had managed to eat enough of the monsters to calm down.
I’d hated my magic before Lilian had freed me from the Simurgh’s control. I was completely and utterly disgusted now.
Lilian hummed in response, drumming the fingers of her left hand on the table for a few moments before replying, “Is it the violence in general or is it specific to your magic?”
I took a few moments to think about it before sighing, “If I never have to fight another person again, I’ll be fine. I’d still want another magic, though.” Monsters, despite my hatred for how easy it was to kill them, were fine. It was hard to feel bad about killing them when they’d indiscriminately kill any humans they found.
But I still couldn’t forget what it smelt like for a human to be killed by my magic. Nor what it looked like. Really, I couldn’t forget anything about it. Every time I even considered using my magic, those images rose to the surface and I wanted to throw up.
“I’m willing to teach you. Not just magic but combat skills in general. In exchange, if you or your squad ever find yourself in danger that requires your magic to deal with without casualties, you’ll use it. That’s my condition for not just removing you from the raid squad entirely if you refuse to use your spell.” Lilian told me after several moments of silence.
“I’m already sitting in on your lectures.” I pointed out. I was already learning what she taught, after all.
However, Lilian confused me by shaking her head. “You are but my lectures are designed for the masses. I’m already giving private lessons to another member of the guild and my twin. If you want to continue to help your friends survive in the Gates without your magic, I expect you to join those lessons since they’re a much faster way for you to progress than my lectures.”
I knew she was guilt-tripping me with the part about my friends but, really, what was the alternative? Break the binding vow to work for her? That sounded like a terrible idea even if I didn’t actually know what’d happen if I did.
“When do I start?” I asked rather than trying to argue.
I’d at least give it a shot and, if violence in general made me sick now, I’d ask Lilian about other positions I could hold in the guild.
Missy
“So, what are we going to do about that world we promised to protect from dragons?” I asked Lily after she came back from whatever meeting she’d had. I’d used the time between training and now to catch up with Ruby a bit – my friend was getting used to being a team leader now, even if it was apparently somewhat difficult – but Ruby was actually kept pretty busy by being at Beacon now so we couldn’t spend too much time hanging out together.
“Nirn,” Lily pointed out the name of the world that I’d forgotten. “And we’re going to have to go over to all the major settlements and set up doors to my Traveling Home which will only let people in if they are trying to inform us of a dragon attack. In order to do so, however, we will have to publicly kill a dragon. Our new nature as Dragonborn is highly respected over there so, as long as it becomes known to the public, we should be able to arrange something like that.”
“The dragons over there aren’t all as strong as the one I fought, are they?” I asked, slightly worried at that thought.
Lily snorted in response. “What you fought was Alduin, the World-Eater. He’s meant to be the end of the world. There isn’t a stronger dragon than him in the world as far as I know.”
What she said shocked me into silence for several moments as I processed what she’d said. Then, I grew annoyed. ‘Of course the one dragon I find is the strongest of them all.’
After I got over my frustration, I realized something. “So that’s why you haven’t ran over there to kill that dragon yet.”
“Yes,” Lily admitted, frowning while sounding as if she were barely restraining herself. “If I could’ve killed that thing, I’d have done it already but there’s a dangerously high chance that I’d die in the process. It’s part of why I offered that deal with Akatosh in the first place.”
“So that thing was called Akatosh?” I decided to change the topic, happy to hear that Lily hadn’t hyper-focused on revenge. It was definitely better than her throwing herself at anything that hurt me.
She was definitely still going to go for it if she felt like she could safely kill Alduin for hurting me but at least she wasn’t going to abandon caution here.
“He was, yes. He’s…probably the strongest deity of Nirn. Akatosh is also the origin of the dragons, hence his choice of avatar when he showed himself to us.” Lily explained casually.
“He’s a god?” I was focused on that part because it felt really weird to know that I’d, apparently, seen an actual god.
My twin sighed but nodded. “A god of time, at that. It’s almost definitely why he approached us instead of any other god. The others probably weren’t nearly as aware of the issue as him.”
“…That world’s really useful, isn’t it?” The more I thought about it, the weirder I found it that Lily chose to make a deal with Akatosh instead of just leaving.
I’d have argued, yes, but she could have talked me out of it just by telling me about Alduin apparently being a winged lizard-shaped apocalypse.
“We can eat dragon souls now, Missy. Eating dragon souls has a whole lot of benefits, including getting stronger in just about every way. Besides that, the magic of Nirn is also interesting and there’s several divine artifacts in Skyrim, the country we arrived in, as of this moment. Yes, Nirn is worth the effort of protecting it from dragons.” With every word she said, I understood why Lily chose to help me make up for my fuck up instead of just talking me out of helping that world.
Apparently, it was a treasure trove of things she wanted and Akatosh had given one of said things to her directly as part of the deal.
“If we can eat dragon souls, what’ll happen when we both work together to kill one? Do we just eat half a soul each?” It was a weird thought but this had been an exhausting conversation and I wanted to distract myself from it.
Lily blinked in surprise and then went silent for a bit before shrugging. “I have no idea but we can test it. Not in Nirn, mind you. Alduin should still be working on bringing the dragons back,” I chose to ignore that part for now because it sounded exhausting to deal with, “But the world Millicent’s from has dragons that I can deal with fairly easily. You can just be next to it when I kill one and then we can see what’ll happen.”
“Alright then.” I agreed easily because I was now curious, too, and Lily’d said eating a dragon soul would make us stronger. However, I stopped for a moment as a thought entered my mind, “Just to make sure, those dragons are the usual ‘hoard stuff and burn people’ type, right?”
“Yes, yes. Don’t worry, there’s no moral quandaries here. The dragon I want to kill literally gained a magic breath by repeatedly eating sorcerers. You shouldn’t have any issues with me killing it.” Lily waved off my concerns.
“Then let’s go.” I decided, satisfied with that answer.
With everything cleared up, Lily took my hand and pulled us to the world Millicent was from.
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