Chapter 156 – Going on a walk with Fen

While Maya was chatting the day away with Princess Anna in the castle's garden, Sophia had stayed behind in their home. She still felt a bit weak after being sick and decided to take it easy. She had slept in till noon and felt like being born anew after finally getting up, but a new issue had surfaced.

"I'm boooored~!" Scratching her stomach while yawning as she walked down the stairs of their mansion, the tiger complained to anyone that could hear her.

"Ah, look who's up." Fen greeted her once the girl had entered the living room, where she spotted the wolf relaxing in front of the fireplace.

"'Morning."

"It's already past noon..."

"Same difference." Yawning again, Sophia then lazily plopped down onto one of the sofas. "Haa... I've slept so much that I'm tired..."

"Sounds like you're doing fine again. I'd love to have your problems..."

"Yep, better than new~. Wait, is something the matter, big guy?" She wondered why he had worded it like that.

"No, everything's fine. After all, it's not like someone shattered my complete view on magic without batting an eye and leaving me completely confused or anything."

"Oh, okay then~."

"You..." Fen looked more than a little upset.

"Okay, I almost feel a little slightly sorry about it."

"Wow, I can almost taste your apology." The wolf's voice was dripping with sarcasm.

"Haha... Oh, how about we do some research to get some answers?"

"Hmm?" His ears perked up after hearing this.

"Let's go on a walk, Fenny~!"

"I like the sound of that!" It wasn't hard to change his mood.

Afterward, the two got ready and left their mansion after Sophia left a note for Maya to tell her what was going on.

----------------

Once they left the capital behind and got to a place no one saw them, Fen turned back to his original size, and Sophia climbed on his back. The tiger was almost back to her original form before changing races. However, the wolf currently still was a tiny bit faster. As the two wanted to get far away quickly, to not get spotted by Aura's detection magic, they went with this approach.

"Ah." The two were already halfway towards Talaga, the city the humans tried to attack a while ago when Sophia had her trademark reaction while still being on Fen's back.

"What is it...?" He stopped running and turned his head to look at her.

"If I simply had stopped time, we could've taken our... well, time."

"Haaa..." He let out a prolonged sigh. "How can you be so scatterbrained...?"

"H-Hey! While true, it's not like you had that idea, either."

"..." Fen had nothing to defend himself. "Anyway, it's only taken us an hour to get far out of Aura's detection range. It's not really that much of an issue."

"Fair enough. We're almost 100km away from the capital. They'll never find us~. Also," Sophia jumped down his back and looked around. The two ended up at a gigantic plain that stretched behind even the horizon and had absolutely nothing on it. "Doesn't this seem like the perfect playground?"

"It does indeed. We don't have to worry about destroying anything here." Fen gave her a satisfied nod. "By the way, what are we going to do, anyway?"

"No idea."

"Really now?"

"When did I ever plan out the things I do?"

"..." He had no reply.

"Something magicy, I guess? Tell me some limitations magic's supposed to have, and I'll try to break them~."

"Hmm, I don't know that many limitations..." He paused for a moment. "That you haven't broken yet."

"Ehehe."

"I wasn't complimenting you." He rolled his eyes. "Well, the biggest limitation's supposed to be your magic power being personal and unique."

"Yep, I obliterated that theory into nothingness."

"Yes, increasing your magic power besides the natural growth was supposed to be impossible."

"Didn't Aura break this rule, too?" Sophia tilted her head. "Her magic power basically exploded during her teleportation accident."

"That is true. But, as you said, it was an accident. It was an incredibly happy miracle that happened in a life-or-death situation."

"Aww, my Fenny's became quite the romantic~. You're really glad that she survived, huh?"

"Of course!" He didn't hesitate for a second. "She used to be my most important... companion, after all."

"Used to be?" The blonde raised an eyebrow. "Companion?" She didn't believe him.

"Curiosity killed the cat, you know?" He was not amused.

"Me tiger, though."

"I'm not seeing that much of a difference compared to our resident cat, though."

"Well, you're basically also just a big and floofy dog."

"Okay..." Fen needed a moment to nurse his broken ego. "Let's not talk about my relationships, okay? I would be glad about that, my dear mighty and ferocious tiger."

"Sure thing, my overpowered alpha uber wolf friend." The ferocious striped beast played along. "I'll ask the other uber wolf later."

"You..."

"Anyway," Sophia decided to drop the topic. "Back to the limitations of your magic power. Just as Aura, me increasing Ari's magic was an accident, too, though?"

"Not really," He disagreed. "You had no idea what you were doing, but you wanted it to happen."

"Story of my life in this world... "

"True enough."

"You believed that permanently giving away a portion of your power to boost someone else's was impossible. Any other limitations in that regard?"

"A couple, actually. The only thing that's supposed to be possible is to regenerate the power of others if they've run out of magic. Even that's not lossless, either. It usually takes you around twice as much as the recipient's recovers."

"Weird... What about temporarily boosting the power of others?"

"What do you mean?"

"Like, I pour my power into you, making you able to use much more than your own. Once you've, uhh... b-blown your load... only your original magic recovers." Sophia's expression was all over the place while explaining her idea for some reason.

"Interesting wording. Are we a little frustrated?"

"Not at all~. I have especially no need for any kind of load to be blown. Like, at all."

"Understandable. Also, while the walls in the mansion are quite thick, my ears are really good, so... No idea why I even asked about being frustrated..." He turned his head away towards the end.

"W-What?!" Sophia's face instantly lit up. "Y-You... You heard... us...?"

"Way too often… Okay," Fen decided to not further pursue this topic. "No, you can't stack magic like that."

"S-Seriously...?" Her reaction had nothing to do with his latest reply. "H-He... heard... Uuh, I want to die..." The tiger's face got even redder, and she needed a few minutes to recover. "I-l need to stop time for us more often... I keep forgetting about it when we... ANYWAY!" She noticed that she was drifting away again. "Wait, did you say something earlier?"

"Magic no stacky." Fen felt the need to use simple words for his idiot.

"Really? How weird."

"Aura and I tried it out a couple of times in the past. It didn't work. I think that rule actually makes a lot of sense."

"How so?" Sophia tilted her head again.

"Where would you draw the line? You could just run around and get a boost from everyone to pile up a gigantic stock of magic power. Even with just a single partner, you could pour everything you have into them, recover your own magic after a while and repeat it."

"Ah, you're right... It would be like an unlimited battery for magic... Oh? That sounds nice~."

"Battery...?" Fen apparently hadn't heard that word before.

"Ah, it's a device from my old world. It stores... power, or magic in our case, and lets you use it at a later time when you need it."

"That sounds amazing."

"Absolutely. Okay, if that doesn't work... What about pouring my magic into you while you're using it? That way, I'll keep charging you while you can prepare some hyper large-scale magic."

"You can't use magic while someone's recharging you."

"Really? That sounds stupid."

"Well..." The wolf didn't know what to reply.

"Alrighty, I found my rule to break! Let's play around a bit, my dear Fenny~!"

"I'm not sure if I like the look in your eyes. It's like looking at a predator who found its prey. Even so, I'm intrigued..."

"Well, I am a tiger, after all~." The blonde showed him an extra cheeky grin while saying so.

"You win that round, stripey one." He didn't even seem mad about her reply.

"Hehe."

"So, what's the plan? How are we going to play?"

"Hmm..." Sophia tilted her head. "I want to try and overcome this stupid-sounding limitation of not being able to use magic while someone's charging you up."

"How?"

"With force~."

"Yep, turns out I don't like the sound of that." An instinct inside the wolf told him to step away from the tiger.

"How about I forcefully pump my magic into you so that you have to get it out somehow to avoid exploding?"

"How about no?" Fen put even more distance between them.

"Aww..."

"Besides, why would I explode?"

"You don't?"

"As I said before, you can't really go over capacity, so there's no reason to explode."

"Not even if I'm going to try really hard?"

"Why... Why do you want me to explode in the first place...?"

"A-Ah." She hadn't even noticed that her motivation had taken a slightly weird turn along the way.

Afterward, the two took a short break, and once the wolf trusted Sophia enough to go near her again, they tried to think of some safe ways to combine their magic power. The duo wanted to make sure to give it enough thought so that absolutely nothing could possibly and/or horribly go wrong. Neither of them were the type for that, after all.