Chapter 75 – Trip 'Preparations”

Yuki spent the rest of the class experimenting and practicing with infusing elemental magic into his spells. The concept itself seemed simple but the actual process was much harder than Yuki had anticipated. But by the end of class, he managed to do it to an extent.

“Healing magic is being difficult,” he said as he again failed to impart earth magic into his spell. “Why can I do enhancements but not healing?”

“I can’t really help you with this, I’m sorry,” Mabel replied. “I don’t have an earth affinity, and since I’m a Priest healing comes as natural as breathing.”

“I know,” Yuki said. “I wasn’t hoping for help. I need to figure this out myself.”

The bell rang the school day officially ended. Waving goodbye to Mabel, Yuki left class and began the trek to the Dormitory. He mulled over his struggles as he walked.

‘Healing magic was always a problem to begin with.’

It was the one aspect of support magic that Yuki just didn’t seem to be able to do well. He could do some healing spells that could help heal scratches and alleviate pain and soreness but anything larger than a really bad paper cut was difficult if not impossible for him.

‘But I can enchant things and enhance people really easily. And I was able to imbue elemental magic into those spells.’

This brought up another topic that Yuki was very interested in. The process of imbuing the elements into a spell was difficult and time consuming. It took lots of mental preparation and focus as well as a clear and concise image of what it was you wanted  your spell to do.

‘There has to be a way to simplify this. Simple using an existing spell and adding elemental magic into it is just to inefficient.’

If Yuki had to summarize what was done when one imbued elements into support spells, he would say that it was simply just editing spells to include a script that relates toward the elements. And if this was correct, then that just meant that Yuki had to alter the spells manually and memorize the new ones that used elemental power.

‘The problem is that I don’t know if elemental spells are possible. Elemental magic is just using mana to manipulate the elements; there aren’t any visible spell circles that are used. And the mana changes according to the element that is being manipulated.’

But if his hypothesis was correct, then he knew why it wasn’t already done before. It was simply because no one knew the magic tongue and so just simple edits would be impossible.

‘I’ll try this out tonight. I need to do some research with Ancestral Knowledge.’

Yuki opened the door to his room and when he entered he was greeted by a flying Akira who half tackled him with a hug.

“Welcome back,” she said, pulling away. “I was so bored.”

“Well you’ll be happy to hear that you won’t be bored for the next two days,” Yuki replied.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, you weren’t listening?”

“I told you I was bored so I just went around cleaning and organizing the whole place,” she said. “I wasn’t really focused on what was going on your end except for a little spike of annoyance in the morning.”

“That was probably because of that guy,” Yuki said. “Anyway, we’re going on a school trip like how we used to back on Earth.”

“Where?”

“Fenrir, a town at the border of Libra. It’s right next to the Madeira River.”

“But why there?”

“It’s a big tourist spot and the headquarters of mainly large guilds. The Guild Management Department is also located there. It’s also a popular hunting city.”

“We’re going hunting?” Akira asked, her eyes lighting up.

“Of course,” Yuki answered, sitting on the couch. Akira sat next to him. “This hunting ground is much better than the one we always go to.”

“How so?”

“The monsters that live there are much stronger. They average at around rank B according to my research with low rank As scattered here and there. And tougher monsters mean more money.”

“So we’re going on a vacation then?”

“Basically.”

“Then we have to plan!” she exclaimed. “We don’t have that much time to do it. We need to look for popular places and restaurants and stores and things like that.”

Akira stood up and began to pace around the room as she began to mutter to herself. Yuki only caught bits and pieces of her conversation but heard the word research.

“Akira, calm down,” he said, standing up.

“But we can’t go on a trip without knowing what to see or where to go,” she explained. “Otherwise we might get lost or miss out on a lot of things.”

Yuki walked toward her and lightly chopped the top of her head with his hand. She glanced up at him with confusion.

“Some of the most enjoyable trips are the most spontaneous ones,” he said. “Don’t get so worked up over planning an itinerary. We’ll just go there and have fun. That’s all a vacation is for.”

“But,” Akira started.

“Shush, we’re just going there unplanned. Alright?” he asked, his finger on her lips.

She nodded.

“Good, now let’s just do some basic preparations like clothes and things like that since we need those,” Yuki said.

“I do want to know something,” Akira interrupted. “Are you going to go around as a human when you are in the city?”

Yuki thought about this for a while. If he walked around as a human then his actions in the city would be easy for people to follow and report which was not something he wanted. Especially when he goes to hunt. However, he’ll have to be careful about when he removed his disguise and would have to find ways to separate himself from the main body of students.

“I’ll try to go around as an elf,” he decided. “It’ll be much more comfortable and free. I’ll try to find places where I can be alone and then I’ll remove my disguise. You can come out at those times as well.”

“Mmm, alright,” Akira agreed. “Seems good. Let’s get on with the packing then.”

They spent the next couple hours finding clothes that they liked and various items that they thought were necessary. Then they packed some of the things that Yuki would be using in a small duffel bag that he had bought in the city. They put the rest of the items in Yuki’s ring.

“I want a ring like that,” Akira said as they were packing.

“I can enchant yours easily if you want,” Yuki offered. “It’ll take a couple of minutes though.”

“Maybe some other time. I don’t need it right now,” she said. Yuki nodded and resumed packing.

When they finished, dinner had come upon them and like always Yuki cooked for the both of them. They ate and exchanged idle chatter about school and their predictions about the upcoming trip. Yuki washed the dishes when they finished and checked the time. It was 21:00.

“I don’t feel like training today,” he said. “Support class tired me out.”

“Then let’s go to bed,” Akira said.

Yuki went to the bathroom and got ready to go to sleep. When he came out, Akira went in and did the same. He laid down on the soft bed and later felt Akira do the same.

“Ready for tomorrow?” she asked.

“Yup. We need a break,” Yuki replied. “We’ve been working nonstop the last couple of weeks.”

“Well we have the entire weekend to ourselves now. Let’s make the most out of it.”

“Date, part two,” Yuki muttered, his eyelids heavy.

Akira didn’t respond right away.

“I didn’t think about that way,” she said quietly.

“Mmm, well that’s what it seems like to me,” he said without much thought. “Good night, Akira.”

“A date, hmm~?” she repeated. Yuki could hear the smile in her voice. “Good night, Yuki. Sweet dreams.”

“I don’t want dreams.”

Then they fell asleep, side by side.