Kingdom Of The Weak

She was studying magic. While her body recovered slowly, and Charlie"s household took care of the children, Mandy somehow found she had time and ended up studying Charlie"s old books. Some of them weren"t there any more; Charlie had taken most of the basic wind magic books to Mindy and sold quite a few others, but plenty of others, especially those related to water and ice magic, were still there, sitting on bookshelves in a general study area that rather resembled a library.

This very moment, she was reading "A treatise on mana flow adjustment for basic water magic". Charlie, it should be noted, would never have given away, sold, or shown this particular book to anyone. There were just too many hand-written notes in its pages that had nothing to do with water magic alongside various little drawings, and the name "Cynthia" that kept popping up in nice handwriting…

Across from her, Madam Porrin taught the children world geography. She was a tutor hired by Charlie"s family especially for the children. Perhaps they just wanted to keep them out of trouble, or perhaps they thought they"d be less embarra.s.sing when guests came over if they at least had some general knowledge and knew how to behave. Manners and etiquette were also part of their education these days. While Charlie"s own family had no children of similar age, several of the servants" children were likewise attending these lessons alongside the Frontier kids.

"Learn your lessons well, and you could be an excellent butler one day!" one little boy was told, much to his delight. He was the gardener"s son.

Mandy did not want to admit it, but half the reason she was "studying" here was for herself to pick up what she could from those lessons. The whole water magic thing was just an excuse for her to attend Ashdale"s children"s cla.s.ses by eavesdropping and sneaking glances at them over the rim of Charlie"s old study books.

The other half of the reason was that despite her only paying casual attention to the subject matter, she found herself actually able to practice water magic after a while. One evening while she was helping with the dishes, Mandy managed to swirl the water casting a spell using a simply water rotation Sigil. The "excuse" of water magic suddenly became reality overnight. The next day, she ditch dishwashing duty to help with the laundry, and there was a lot more swirling in the buckets afterward…

That was several days ago. Mandy"s skills had only improved since then. Today"s laundry work was finished in record time. Maybe that was why the servants were so eager to help take care of the kids? Some form of repaying Mandy for helping them out with the laundry?

But they would be busy before long. Next Sunday, they were going to have a party, and starting tomorrow, all the servants would be busy scurrying around making preparations.

As for themselves? Mandy immediately volunteered her help and that of the children. Charlie"s family had been most kind to them. Helping them prepare for a party was the least they could do in return.

After all, it wasn"t like they had to fight off ravenous Beast Waves or wrangle giant monsters. It was just decorating a house, and carrying dishes around.

During the following week, the most amazing thing happened. While decorating the hall, Charlie"s mother suddenly turned to Mandy and asked, "What do you think?"

Mandy looked around, somewhat taken aback, then said, "I think it looks very nice indeed, my lady."

"Please, just call me Beth." Charlie"s mom instructed. "Now, I hear a "but" waiting in your tones."

"Um… it"s just…" Mandy scratched her head. "It"s too well-decorated. It looks crowded. There"s just so many things to look at. It kind of feels… suffocating."

"It does, doesn"t it? Less is more." Beth nodded sagely. "Let"s take some of it off."

Later, when they were discussing the food, "Mandy, what do you think about this?"

Again, when discussing entertainment, "Mandy, what do you think about that?"

Furthermore, the issues of whether to invite guests in conflict with one another, "Mandy, do you have any thoughts on the matter?"

At that point, Mandy was flabbergasted. "Uh… I don"t really know either of them, so…"

"Right, right." Beth nodded sagely, and then handled it herself.

Having Charlie"s mom asking her opinion on everything felt a bit odd to Mandy, but at the same time, it felt nice to be involved, to have her ideas implemented, and to have a tangible part to play in preparations as the party took form.

Before anyone knew it, Fryday arrived.

The kids" lessons were ending and Mandy put down her book. In no time, she found herself busy trying to coordinate the Frontier kids in blowing balloons and setting up streamers when suddenly an odd thought occurred to her.

"It"s sunset." Mandy glanced out the window, and spared one moment to look south where Remian was. "There"s usually a Beast Wave attacking right about now."

But there was no Beast Wave here, no blood and death, no screams and fear.

Just lots of balloons and streamers and a party that needed preparing and a whole bunch of kids who needed someone to direct and organize them before they turned into an unruly mess.

Mandy didn"t know it, but on her face for everyone else to see was the biggest smile she"d worn in years.

***

Roughly around that time, Mindy also had a big grin on her face, but hers looked a lot sillier. She was stumbling around the Guild Hall, wondering what was in that cactus nectar drink her crew gave her, thinking about how she tried her hand at the Ballista and scored a direct hit on Spike"s tailroot…

She made her way back to her corner of the Guild Hall and found Remian poring over her books. He was frowning and turning pages, comparing notes from one book to the next, and muttering to himself the entire time.

"No!" Mindy stumbled up and tried to stop him, but only managed to trip over a bench and nearly fall flat on her nose. "Remian! Don"t work! Celebrate! Must drink… nectar!!"

"Not now, Mindy. I need to figure this out." Remian said, comparing three different books at different pages.

"Stop… studying! No practicing wind magic tonight!" Mindy proclaimed, one finger pointing to the sky imperiously, and then fell over backward in a swoon.

"I"m not practicing wind magic." Remian a.s.sured her. "Quite the opposite."

"You"re not-practicing not-wind magic?" Mindy blinked blearily.

"Exactly. I"m thinking about anti-magic." Remian a.s.sured her. "You see? Thinking, not practicing. And anti-magic, not magic."

"Oh." Mindy thought about that. Or at least, she tried. She really tried. But in the end, what she found herself saying was, "That"s okay then."

After that, she tried to help him. Or at least, that was what she thought she did. She wasn"t quite sure, exactly, what happened in the end, only that when morning came, she had a throbbing headache, and she found herself lying down on the bench with her head on Remian"s lap.

Even then, Remian was still awake, eyes puffy, but reading and frowning and muttering to himself.

"Ugh… my head. Do you have any magic for that?" Mindy groaned, squinting at Remian.

"Actually, yes, there"s a certain potion for it. Charlie brought some on his last shipment. Want some?" Remian offered her a half-filled mug.

"What"s this?" Mindy sniffed the contents. It was some brown liquid that smelled bitter.

"Coffee, with milk and a bit of sugar." Remian told her. "If you"re old enough to drink liquor, you should be able to manage coffee."

"n.o.body"s old enough to drink that stuff." Mindy shuddered. "n.o.body could ever be old enough!"

But the coffee was warm, and it made her feel better, kind of. Mindy preferred cocoa, herself, but coffee seemed to help clear her head. "So what"s so important you haven"t slept all night?"

"Yesterday, I fried all the magic devices on Charlie"s airship with an anti-magic burst. Accidentally." Remian told her.

"That"s awesome. It takes some serious power to do even a little bit of magic negation. Dispelling magic is tough enough when you target something specific, and you need to know a lot about what you"re targeting, but to unilaterally wipe out everything in a radius… universal anti-magic like that is either a talent or something done using very expensive equipment." Mindy remembered.

"That"s what the books say." Remian agreed. "But based on what they say… what I did shouldn"t be possible. My light barriers were extremely flimsy by that time; based on how they looked, I was probably running low on mana. So how did I generate so much power in a sudden accidental burst?"

"Isn"t that what you do? Sudden, super-boosts?" Mindy pointed out.

"Even if it"s an out-of-control overload, the power has to come from somewhere. But I didn"t have much left. I already started out with a super-boosted Light Barrier. Then, I raised another dozen barriers in less than a minute."

"Casting at that speed, una.s.sisted, no sigils, no tools, no helpers… that must have been an immense mana drain." Mindy nodded. "I couldn"t do that even with Tier 1 magic, and your Light Barriers are probably somewhere in Tier 3. That"s an amazing amount of power. A total waste, but an amazing total waste."

"Thanks." Remian said dryly. "The point is, I couldn"t have had much power left at that point. So where did the power for the anti-magic burst come from?"

Mindy fell silent. "I have no idea. Maybe ask Charlie. If he doesn"t know, he might at least have an idea of where to find an answer. Either way, there"s no point digging through my books; those books don"t have the answer to that. If they did, I"d have read it by now."

With a sigh, Remian put down the books and patted Mindy on the back. "You know, I think you"re right. I really didn"t find any answers in those books."

"You should have gone and partied with the rest." Mindy told him, then. "You wasted a perfectly good excuse to have fun."

"Sorry." Remian said apologetically. Then, he put down the books, left the coffee to Mindy, and made for the cave.

"Where are you going?" Mindy asked, puzzled.

"I"m going to sleep!" Remian declared, and did just that.