Chapter 40 – Half-baked magic

Maya had gone to the lake next to the group's campground to train her water magic. As Sophia wasn't allowed to go out on her own anymore because this usually ends up in some sort of disaster, she tagged along.

"Eh? How do I use water magic again?" The cat-girl had already forgotten how she managed to do it the last time.

"You sure are hopeless, huh?"

"..." She glared at Sophia. "Okay, I'll figure it out on my own!" The remark had rubbed her the wrong way.

"Really? Okay, great." Sophia focused her attention on the lake again and concentrated on its water surface.

"Hmm," Maya wondered about the suspicious lack of a reaction. "You're planning something, aren't you?"

"Just a little something. I have an idea but yet to flesh out the details... Anyway, don't mind me."

"S-Should I be worried?" She already was.

"Not at all. It's perfectly safe. Probably..."

"Worried, it is!" Maya definitely had a bad feeling now.

"Don't worry about it and focus on your water blades."

"F-Fine." She tried to concentrate on it for a couple of minutes but ended up glancing at Sophia all the time. "Okay, just do it already! I absolutely can't focus on my training otherwise."

"You sure are demanding today. Well, whatever... Have you ever heard of surface tension?"

"What's that?"

"Hmm," Sophia pointed at the lake. "Ah, do you see how those insects are floating on the water?"

"Yes?"

"That's not only because those insects are really light. That's important, but the main reason is the surface tension and how they distribute their weight over their long legs. The water... particles form strong bonds which are hard to break. Well, in relative terms, of course. This causes those insects to stay on the surface without sinking. That's also why drops of water are rounded when they fall. The water wants to say together... Roughly speaking, that is."

"Okay?" The cat-girl wasn't exactly sure she understood what Sophia meant as she tilted her head while her tail also resembled a question mark.

"Long story short, I want to walk on water." She wasn't entirely sure what she was talking about, either.

"Huh? That's too short of an explanation... Wait, are you serious?!"

"I always am!"

"That's rather doubtful... At least, I hope." Maya was confident in saying that the girl's joking around most of the time. "Do you really want to walk on water?"

"That was the plan. Sounds fun, doesn't it?"

"It does, sure... but is there any reason for it?"

"Being fun is the only reason I need."

"Right... So, what are you going to do? If you're telling me that you can use magic to make yourself lighter to help not breaking this surface tension thingy, I'm going to get angry." The cat-girl had an intense look. "You're going to teach me that right now and here!"

"Why would you need something like that?"

"That doesn't matter! Every girl would kill for such magic!"

"You might have a point there." Sophia instinctively felt agreeing to her claim. "Not that you need it, though." An image of yesterday's bathing disaster flew through her head as she turned red. "Y-You look perfect... Ah-." This definitely wasn't the word she wanted to use. Or planned to say out loud at least.

"T-Thank you very much..." Maya got a bit embarrassed, as well. "S-So, is that what you're planning?"

"N-Not at all." She was happy the topic wasn't picked up. "I'm going to mess with the surface tension of the water, making it way stronger."

"I really don't get it, after all, but okay."

"Ahaha, I actually don't entirely understand it myself, but that never stopped me before." Sophia was glad that magic in this world was relatively forgiving so that she could scrape by with her superficial knowledge of most of these things.

"So, what do you have to do?"

"Ehm, imagine the water surface as strong, and hope for the best?"

"That's some half-bakedness if I ever saw one. Does it really work that way? I feel stupid for always putting so much work into my magic."

"No, putting work into it definitely is the better approach. I probably wouldn't have stopped time on accident if I were a little more diligent... brr..." Sophia shivered, just remembering the incident. "Well, I'm not the type for that, though."

"You sure aren't."

"Alright, let's give it a try!" Sophia approached the lake and kneeled down to touch the water. "Okay, hard water surface... strong enough to withstand a person!" Mumbling about her ideas while trying new magic for the first time, as usual, Sophia poured her magic power into it once she had a good enough image in her head. "A-Ah." Looking at the lake, she quickly noticed that she might've made a slight mistake.

"You-, You've frozen the lake, Sophia..." Maya, too, looked at the sparkly, frozen-up mass of water, or rather, ice now. "I don't think that's what you wanted to do, right?" 

"Err," The culprit scratched her cheek. "Oops."

"That's not the reaction you should have."

"Ahaha! S-So, how do you like my demonstration on how putting work into your magic is important?"

"You don't honestly think I would believe that, right?" Maya just stared at her with a disapproving expression.

"I-It was worth a try."

"That's fair."

"Well, I did imagine a hard water surface, capable of people to walk on... That's pretty much ice, isn't it? I definitely did that one way too half-heartedly."

"I got to admit that it's pretty impressive, regardless."

"Yeah, I did a solid job here."

"Pun intended?"

"L-Let's say... yes." Sophia awkwardly turned her head away.

"Yeah, we'll leave it at that."

"Thank you very much. Okay then, let's give it a try." She took a cautious step forwards and entered the ice. "Seems like it's really thick enough to walk on."

"You don't believe the lake's frozen solid, right? Like, all the way to the ground?"

"Well, I used my magic on the surface, so... I don't think, uhh, hope so." Sophia wasn't entirely sure.

"You'll have killed a lot of fish if not."

"That's true. Hmm..." She closed her eyes for a moment. "Yeah, it's fine. I can still detect some fish, so they're alive. Ah, want to try fishing for one as lunch? I've heard about ice fishing before, and it seemed a little fun."

"We can?"

"Should be doable, if-" She stopped mid-sentence and looked at the cat-girl. "Maya, what's your opinion on eating fish?" She knew that actual cats loved to eat fish, but for cat-beastpeople, it might be a different story.

"I like them?" She just tilted her head, not understanding what she was going for. "Not my absolute favorite, but they can be quite delicious."

"O-Okay."

"Sure?'' She still didn't understand her.

"Let's find a good spot." Together with the other girl, Sophia walked towards the middle of the frozen lake, but she suddenly stopped while looking down. "Uhh, any interest in… frozen fish?" She pointed at the ice, where a group of fish was frozen solid in. "Looks like there were some casualties."

"Well, they're still fresh, I guess?" Maya looked a bit awkward. "We shouldn't waste it, right?"

"That's true." Frozen fish wasn't anything new to her, so she didn't mind. However, it was slightly different from what she usually got from the supermarket in her old world.

"How do we get them out, though?"

"What would you do, Maya?"

"Eh? Let's see..." She gave it some thought. "Maybe melt the ice until we can reach them?"

"Sure, give it a try."

"What?! Me?'' Maya was surprised. "Okay."

"Oh, but don't overdo it. Else, we'll end up taking a swim in ice water. Personally, I can do without that."

"Nice, I love it when there's no pressure! Ah, l just had an idea." The cat-girl concentrated on the area around the frozen fish. A little while later, a ring of fire appeared around them and melted its way into the ice. After the flames died down, a perfect circle had been cut into the ice, separating the block of fish from the rest.

"That was the beginning of your fire tornado, wasn't it?" Sophia thought she had seen this magic before.

"Yes, or chantless version of my trap? Well, I thought the ring would be quite fitting for separating the ice." She looked proud.

"Yep, good job." Sophia liked her approach. "I'll take over then." While looking at the separate piece of ice, she used water-based magic to pull it up. Once it was high enough, the girl pushed it out of the crater Maya had created. "Let's bring it to land."

"Yes." They pushed the block of frozen fish towards the shore and left it there. "What now? Thaw and grill them?"

"Sounds like a plan to me. I prefer an actual campfire, so let's gather some wood." Having agreed on that, the two quickly gathered everything for the fire and got back to the block of ice. Using a little magic, Sophia freed the fish before Maya got them ready. Grilling them on a stick over an open fire got them done in no time.

"Well, that was some unexpected way to have lunch, not that I'm complaining." Maya marveled at the way the two had acquired their food.

"Life's full of surprises."

"No kidding!" Maya wholeheartedly agreed, especially the last two weeks were just one big surprise after another.

Once the two had eaten their surprisingly delicious meal, the cat-girl wanted to continue training her water magic, namely learning the water blades she wanted to before.

"Want some help now?"

"Well, sure, why not." She had gotten less stubborn after eating.

"Great." Sophia thought about a good way to teach her. "Oh, how about this!" Thinking that showing her would be the best starting point, she did just that. Creating a ball of water in the air, she slowly formed it into a thin layer by shaving off the sides, somehow resembling a blade.

"Hmm," Maya tried to copy her. She managed to create her own water sphere but forming it into a blade caused the cat-girl some difficulties. Once Sophia showed it to her some more times, she was finally able to do so. Afterward, it was just a matter of shooting it at a high enough speed. Using some innocent trees as a training target, Maya got the hang of it after about an hour or two.

"Good job." Sophia praised her once she saw the cat-girl had successfully learned her new attack magic.

"Yeah, it actually wasn't as hard as I thought it would going to be. Thanks for teaching me." Maya sounded grateful.

"Hehe, you're welcome. How about we go back to the camp? It's starting to get late after all." She looked at the sun that had begun to set.

"That's a good idea. I could also need a bath after all the training I had, so let's hurry with that. Not to mention that the area around the lake got rather cold for some reason. Warming up in a bath sounds great."

"..." Sophia also froze up.

"Come on, let's go already!" Maya grabbed the petrified girl's hand and dragged her back to the camp while being in a cheery mood.