Side Story – Natio 2: Headache Avoidance

Natio narrowed his eyes as he looked at the [Veilwalker], leaning against the door frame as he tried to figure out if Adam was merely pretending to be bad or if he actually did not know how to use the mana that now flowed through him.

Like most mortals that bore the same title, Adam had gotten a bit more than the average person in terms of mana. It just seemed that his control over his gift was severely lacking. Can't even summon a fireball…

Even in his current crippled form, Natio could still defend himself. Not from someone like Qhinya, but most other mortals would find it quite hard to beat him. It wasn't because he somehow retained some of the mana he had cultivated while he was a God — the All-Mother took all of that from him, after all — but because he knew magic better than those around him. And she did not stop me from ascending again…

He had begun his journey towards godhood again once he had figured out that Aperio had not blocked it, but his own mindset had been the issue. After he had fallen, he had changed. To most, that much would be obvious, but Natio himself had not wanted it to be true. That this denial had a tangible impact on his life was not something he had ever expected.

When, at long last, he had finally begun to accept his situation, he had actually managed to make some progress again. Not much yet, but it was a start. Goes a lot slower without a Patron…

His progress did show him one thing, however. He was still much better than Adam. Doesn't help that Qhinya is a bad teacher. The Dragonkin might be an expert on Etherical Rejection, easily able to answer general questions of magic and health, but she was most definitely not able to teach.

"You are allowed to help him, you know."

Natio stiffened slightly at the voice of Mister Penbrooks. He had not noticed his approach, the proprietor of the House of Healing being as stealthy as always.

"I'm a janitor now," Natio replied, nodding to the broom that leaned against the wall. "I was never a teacher, either."

"You still know what he has to do," Mister Penbrooks insisted. "Qhinya, on the other hand, does not. She has never known a life without magic, and has not advanced enough to know about the fundamentals Adam has to learn. You, on the other hand, know them well."

"Doesn't mean I can teach him how to do it." Or want to.

"I won't force you," Penbrooks said. "But I will remind you that you are not only a janitor. Up until now it was merely the only useful thing you were able to do without constant supervision."

"Can't really fuck up cleaning toilets, you mean," Natio huffed in reply.

Mister Penbrooks gave a small laugh. "You'd be surprised how easy it is to screw it up," he said. "For you it was more meant as an exercise in humility. Most people would have called for your head, but… Well, suffice to say I know that death only begets more death."

"As do I…" Natio mumbled in reply, eyeing the struggling teacher and her helpless student. He sighed, shaking his head slightly as he saw the magic Adam tried to invoke fizzle out in his hand. "I'll think about it," he said, grabbing his broom again.

"That is enough for me." Penbrooks reached out to give the fallen God a pat on the shoulder. "Just remember that progress takes time."

The fallen God huffed in reply, shaking his head once more before he pushed past the proprietor of the House of Healing to clean the rest of what he had come to call his home.

Days came and went as Natio fell back into the unpleasant but well-trodden routine he had taken on since he had been forced to live here. Sweep the floors, clean the toilets, take out the trash, ignore the other residents, and try to eat while bearing with Qhinya's constant questions. As the days progressed, another thing that remained sadly unchanged was Adam's progress.

Natio leaned against the wall and folded his arms in front of his chest as he watched Adam try to use his magic again. Tenacious, at least. He would be lying if he said that he liked the boy, but the fallen God could not fault his attitude towards learning magic.

"Probably because it was only ever fiction for him before," Natio mumbled to himself as he tapped his foot against the wall.

He had watched him make the attempt over and over during the last couple of days, waiting to see if the [Veil Walker] would figure it out on his own. Adam had not. There had been some tiny amount of progress, but it was not noteworthy in Natio's mind. Not even a fraction of the mana he uses gets out.

It wasn't as though Adam lacked in mana. Once his body had adapted enough — and he had screamed loud enough to wake the neighbourhood — he had gained access to a good chunk of mana. Nothing truly extraordinary, but a very good place to start. More than I had at his age, at least.

Natio had never been a prodigy at magic like Mayeia was, but he had made up for that with dedication. And a Patron… Seeing the current sorry state of his magic also made him wonder how it would have turned out if he had not been chosen by an already established God.

With a sigh, he pushed himself off of the wall, grabbing the broom that leaned next to him in a fluid motion. Natio was about to open the door and head back inside when he saw Adam turn in the corner of his eye.

He waited with his hand on the knob, but the boy did not speak. "Need anything?" Natio asked, looking over his shoulder at Adam.

The boy hesitated before he shook his head and turned back to the unmarred scarecrow. "No, nothing," he said. "Sorry for making you wait."

Natio just gave a grunt in reply and pushed the door open to step inside. He quickened his pace as he spotted Laelia talking to her adopted children. The woman disliked him — not that he could blame her — and he very much liked to avoid contact when possible.

Luckily, the All-Mother's Scion did not seem to want to worsen his day today. She did give him a glare as he turned the corner but returned her attention to her children fairly quickly.

Brenia, Kaam, and Ern themselves did not have a problem with him. Quite the contrary even, they liked to talk to him when he was doing his job. Do they know? He doubted it, but he would not ask to make sure either. That was a good way to end up with some broken bones. Probably.

The reassuring click of the door to his room closing behind him, followed by the slight hum of magic as the privacy enchantment took, was a sequence of things that never failed to calm him. Natio knew, of course, that anyone of sufficient strength could easily ignore these measures, but it still helped.

There was also the hope that Laelia held the same values as her Goddess. Everything he knew about the Creator made it quite clear that she valued personal freedom very highly. Highly enough to strip my divinity, at least. He wasn't sure how that translated to her followers, however. Or if that even extends to privacy…

There was a good chance the Scion saw it as necessary to keep an eye on him and make sure he would not do anything stupid. Not that I could. Natio was very certain Mister Penbrooks had the ability to be anywhere in the House of Healing in a matter of seconds, and he was strong enough to stop most troublemakers. Hides it well, though.

If it wasn't for his [Identify] skill and his general knowledge of magic, Natio was sure he would have never guessed Kairo Penbrooks was actually a magic user of fairly high standing. Don't get [Chosen of Ice] for nothing…

Natio placed his broom by the side of the door before he threw his hands up and let out a long yawn as he stretched. Readjusting to mortal life had been hard, but he found that sleeping was actually something he enjoyed now. No dreams of the past haunted him like they had in the beginning; now it was just a nice relaxing black after which he felt like a new man.

This time, however, that was not the case as Natio found himself awoken by a knock on his door. He groaned as he turned on his back. He did not remember actually going to bed, but he obviously had. Just without changing clothes.

Natio gave another groan as he righted himself, rubbing his eyes and mumbling as the knock on his door repeated. "Yeah, yeah," he mumbled. "I'll be right there."

He climbed out of his bed, shaking his head and steadying himself on the wall as the world spun around him. "Not again," he groaned, holding his head with his free hand. "Never thought being good actually makes you sick."

A few stumbling steps brought him to the door, his hand wrapping around the broom. Just in case whoever was on the other side needed some… percussive maintenance.

"What?" he asked as he opened the door.

Natio's grip on the broom tightened as his eyes landed on Adam. The Human lowered his head as Natio glared at him. "What do you want?" the fallen God asked, making no effort to hide the annoyance in his voice.

"I-I would like to ask for your help?" Adam stammered, his words sounding more like a question than anything else.

"Help with what?" Natio asked, narrowing his eyes slightly. "Made a mess?"

The Human looked up at him, the confusion clear on his face. "No? I… I wanted to ask you to help me with my magic." He hesitated for a moment, putting his hands in his pockets before pulling them out multiple times. "Miss Il'Jheem said she doesn't know where to start teaching me and you seem to be watching me every time I train and then Kairo said you are actually good with magic so I thought maybe I could ask for your help."

"Of course he told you," Natio huffed in reply. "And you just believe him? I'm a janitor, not a magician."

"H-He said that something happened that made you not want to use magic," Adam stammered. "That it could help with your recovery."

"I have nothing left that is worth recovering," Natio spat. He had to grab his head a moment later as a splitting headache raced through it. "Fine!" he exclaimed, his eyes fixed at the ceiling where he was sure the infernal Creator was watching. "I'll help you. Get your things."

"Now?" Adam asked, taking a step back.

"Yes," Natio replied, pulling on the robe that hung beside his door. "Now."

He was not actually certain that the All-Mother was watching him, but he would not disregard the idea. Especially when he got a headache or something similar as soon as he started to fall back on his old way of thinking.

Natio stepped past Adam, glancing out the window at the sun that had barely started to rise. "I'll wait outside."

Surprisingly, it did not take Adam long to join him. Probably because he did not actually go and get anything, Natio thought with a sigh. "Do you have a focus?"

"No," Adam replied in confusion. "Qhinya said it's not needed to do magic."

A slap rang through the empty courtyard as Natio's palm slammed against his forehead. "Stupid Dragons," he mumbled as he stepped past Adam. "She might not need one, but you do."

Natio rummaged through his pocket for a moment before he found the key to the equipment shed and pulled it out. He knew they had various foci in there, he had just never bothered to actually use any of them. His desire to practice magic had largely vanished after he had been struck down, doubly so because he now needed a focus to perform even the simplest non-System spells. And using the System isn't really magic anyway.

Most people had even stopped calling the System-assisted spells magic, as you did not need to be a magician to use them. You merely needed to remember the words to get the System to do what you wanted. And don't mind sounding like an idiot.

Natio looked at the various foci strewn across the shed before he picked up two crystal tipped staves made from [Glimmerwood]. How these had ended up in the House of Healing was not something he knew, but he did have a few suspicions. Mister Penbrooks was a fairly talented mage, and the various healers that scurried around were all just a little bit too good at their job to be normal.

Guess the order did survive, he mused to himself as he handed Adam one of the staves. "There, take that."

"And what do I do with it?"

"If you would have let me talk," Natio said, inspecting the staff he had picked for himself, "I would have told you."

It would take time to teach Adam anything, but maybe, just maybe, Mister Penbrooks had been right. Perhaps this was something he needed to do — something that would help him get back on his feet.

GamingWolf

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