Chapter 141 – Changing the use of magic

Sophia and Maya got somewhat close to their friends Ari and Anna. Because of that, the couple felt the need to talk about some rules or guidelines. Neither of them wanted to do anything stupid, after all. As clearly neither of them had any feelings for the princess or the jaguar-girl, the two ultimately weren't that bothered with the other having a bit of fun. As long as it stays in moderation, of course.

"I wonder what they want." Two days passed since the couple last visited the castle, and a messenger had arrived at their mansion a while ago to inform the group that the king wanted to see the entire group.

"Anna and the queen mentioned Eluna arriving, right?" They were currently walking towards the castle, and Maya tried to answer the tiger's question. "Maybe it's about that?"

"Ohh, the bakery granny slash previous magic instructor, huh? Ah, that's why they asked for the wolves, too? To get the full brunt of our magic. Sorry for getting you involved in those tedious things." Sophia glanced at the wolves.

"I don't mind."

"Yeah, the lawn in that garden's very comfortable." The two were pretty okay with accompanying the couple for their very own reasons.

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Arriving there, the maids directly guided them to the training grounds in the backyard. There, King Menzor and a few of his military personnel were having a conversation with an older, gray-haired woman with horse-like ears. It was Eluna, the owner of a bakery in the beastfolk city, that Sophia saved from getting attacked by some humans. There, it then turned out that she was actually a magic instructor in the castle when she was younger.

"Ah, this group's more to my liking." Sophia spotted Kira chatting with her daughter, Princess Anna, while Ari stood next to her and decided that she would much rather join them. "Hello~."

"There they are." The queen answered her first. "We've been waiting."

"You can't expect me to respond to a messenger in the middle of the night."

"We send him around nine in the morning, though?"

"Exactly what I just said." It was basically the same for the blonde.

"No wonder you get along so well with Ellie..." Kira could only sigh.

"Speaking of which..." Sophia glanced around and noticed that her favorite tiger was nowhere to be seen.

"She's having a nap."

"Aww..." She seemed ever so slightly envious. "Would anyone mind if I go and join her?"

"Yes," Menzor had overheard her and immediately joined their conversation to not let her run away. "We need you to show some of your magic to Eluna and explain a couple of things."

"But Fenny's way better at explaining things, and he actually knows what he's doing." She wanted to push it to the wolf. "I just think of something fun... I have some new magic to play with."

"I'm not familiar with the creation of new magics, but..." Ari glanced at Sophia. "Isn't there some sort of middle part missing... ?"

"Yep, that's the part where I mess up, cause a catastrophe or two, and then be the one who's the most surprised that my idea worked out in the end."

"Is that the normal procedure?" The jaguar tilted her head.

"Actually," Aura took over. "When inventing completely new magic, it's not that rare to fail, mess up, or cause a cataclysmic event from time to time."

"I-I see..." Ari needed to let that sink in. "Okay, you two... Can I suggest something? The next time you talk about inventing new magic, how about you simply say it involves a lot of trial and error? No need to phrase it your way. It only makes people nervous." While saying so, she gestured at Eluna, the king, and his military personnel, who all had a rather complicated expression.

"O-Okay." Sophia and Aura could only weakly nod.

"Is that black-haired jaguar the friend of the princess our idiot wanted to keep?" Fen whispered to Maya as he was watching the spectacle.

"Yeah..."

"I can see why now. She's good."

"Yep."

"I, uhh..." Menzor faced the blonde. "You're the leader of your group, and I saw you using magic the most. I'm also well aware of how powerful the wolves are and hoped all of you could demonstrate a thing or two. When it comes to actually explain the process, I was more thinking about Maya. How do I say it without..."

"She's the only reasonable one here whose words make any sort of sense?" Sophia finished his sentence.

"I'm sorry..."

"Fair point." The tiger and the wolves didn't feel offended in the slightest.

"Me?" The cat-girl pointed at herself. "I don't think I'm good at teaching, either."

"You seem to be quite successful with my daughter, though."

"That's just because I figured out how Anna, uhh, works."

"What's that supposed to mean?" The princess in question wasn't sure how to interpret her statement.

"Because we're friends, and I got to know you."

"Oh, I see. Ehehe."

"Wow." Sophia was impressed by how Maya was able to instantly talk her way out of it.

"I really don't care how ridiculous it's going to be." Eluna addressed the group. "I just want to see this supposedly real magic with my own eyes."

"Someone's motivated, huh?" Sophia looked at the older horse-woman. "Oh, what's up with your magic power? It's much higher than the last time I saw you."

"I told you that I'm hiding my power so that all those muscle heads don't get the wrong idea around me. As I most likely want to use magic soon again, I reignited my full power. Although..." She glanced at the blonde's group. "Compared to you lot, I might as well still be the same as before. It makes literally no difference."

"Ahaha, I know that feeling." Maya sympathized with her.

"You were included in that, cat." While Eluna's magic power was on the higher side compared to most of the beastfolk, it could in no conceivable way even remotely be compared to that of Maya.

"A-Ah."

"Hmm... I don't even know what to show off." Sophia tilted her head. "Sure, my magic's extreme, but in the end, the only interesting thing is the fact that I can use every type."

"Oh, you're learning already, huh?" Ari smiled at her. "I would've guessed you're going to blow up the training field as a demonstration."

"I-I'm not that trigger-happy, okay?!"

"Really?" Way more than a single person retorted to her at the same time.

"Urgh..."

"In the first place," Eluna didn't care about Sophia's idiocy. "I still can't really believe that anyone's capable of using more than two or three elements."

"Anna, can't you use four of them by now already? Maya was teaching you the other day, wasn't she?"

"Yeah, but she only made me wet so far."

"..." Sophia, Maya, and even Ari only stared at the princess with a slightly complicated expression.

"What...?" She didn't understand their reaction. "A-Ah!" A moment later, her face suddenly turned bright red. "I-I meant because she drenched me with water magic! T-That's the only way Maya makes me w-wet! You're all p-perverts!"

"Okay... Maya, no more making the princess wet in the future, okay?" She couldn't not use this chance.

"Uuh..." Anna's blush only intensified.

"I can only promise not to drench her with water anymore. Everything else is outside my range of influence." Maya was immediately onboard with the teasing.

"Well, fair point. Anna has to sort that out herself."

"Come on, you two, she didn't do it on purpose. It just happens, after all." The jaguar-girl had to add something, as well.

"Ari... Thank you very mu- Wait a moment!" She was touched for a moment but then stopped mid-sentence. "Y-You mean me being accidentally ambiguous, r-right? You didn't just play along with the two, right?!"

"..." The black-haired girl paused for a moment. "Sure."

"A-Ari?!"

"Ehehe." Everyone seemed to enjoy playfully teasing the princess.

"S-So unfair!" She squirmed around for a moment, with her face being flushed even deeper.

"Hormones, huh?" King Menzor had a rough understanding of what the group was talking about and whispered those words to his wife.

"Hey!" Every single girl around him instantly unionized and collectively glared at the king.

"I-I'm very sorry!" He instinctively knew that immediately apologizing was the only way for him to get out of this alive.

"Alright," The blonde glared at Menzor for another second before trying to concentrate again. "Putting if, and or how wet Anna currently is, where were we again?" She had completely lost track of the topic.

"Hey!" The voice of the princess changed a bit. It seemed even she had a limit to being bullied where she stops enjoying it.

"Okay." Noticing that, the blonde stopped. "Anyway, ah, right... You have problems believing anyone not being bound down by elements, right?" She looked at Eluna while saying so.

"Yes. I would really like to see someone using magic without any sort of restrictions. Magic capacity aside, I just can't imagine someone having such great powers."

"So, you simply want someone showcasing every category of magic? Well, that's pretty easy."

"Sophia, that's not something you should call easy." Ari tried to give her another tip.

"It really is, though?" She only tilted her head in response.

"Even if it's like that for you, it's pretty unbelievable to us. Also, you gain little to nothing calling it easy, and you might not have to deal with people being overwhelmed."

"I-I see... I'll try to keep that in mind for the feature. Thank you, Ari..."

"You're welcome~."

"See?" Anna recovered from earlier and addressed Maya. "Ari's mom-mode is something else. She isn't angry in the slightest, but you still want to rethink your entire way of living."

"Yeah..." The cat-girl nodded in agreement.

"She could be really useful to help our Sophia to get along better with the normal folk." Fen had addressed Aura at the same time. "I bet that would make her happy."

"She sure would, daddy~." She had to take a jab at him for being so invested in the blonde's ability to make friends.

"S-Shut up."

"Heh. Also, isn't it mostly your fault that she is, well... how she is." It was no secret that the male wolf's view of the world wasn't compatible with almost anyone else. "Well, it most likely would've ended up being the same if I found her first, though." She was one of the few beings compatible with Fen's way of doing things.

Afterward, once everyone finished up their conversations, Sophia briefly showed off every category of magic. The four basic elements were pretty self-explanatory. For nature magic, she simply let a few roots appear from underground, and for light, the tiger created a small ball of light that resembled a lightbulb from her old world. As dark magic was a bit troublesome and dangerous, Sophia only created a tiny orb of black nothingness on top of her palm and immediately let it vanish again. To finish it off, the blonde pinpointed Ellie's location in the castle with her detection skills as a demonstration of uncategorized magic.

Seeing all this, Eluna needed to take a break to let it sink in while muttering about something along the lines of having wasted her entire life. As one of the most famous magic instructors, it had affected her greatly. Menzor also was glad about the break because he needed to do something about the throbbing pain in his forehead area.