Sophia was having a very productive day. She caused many headaches and broke some minds by telling outrageous stories and questioning the entirety of magic without giving it a second thought. To top it off, she also made Ari believe that the jaguar might be responsible for turning Princess Anna into a slight M.

"Uhh..." The black panther needed a while to recover from the revelation. "I-I have to apologize to her, don't I?"

"Oh, can I watch this conversation? I bet that's going to be reeeaally interesting~."

"Yep, you're definitely not an M."

"A-Ah." Sophia paused for a moment. "No... I'm not sure about telling her. What do you want to say, anyway? A, it's too late to change anything now, and secondly, she seems happy with it."

"T-That's true... I guess I panicked too much if you're the one with the sensible arguments." Just like Maya, Ari wasn't sure how to feel when the blonde tiger's the voice of reason.

"How about you go S instead? You would compliment each other well."

"That's better..." She was relieved once her reasonable side jumped out of the window again. "How about no?"

"Ehehe."

"Also, yeah, you're right... could we keep this conversation a secret, then? It really is better if Anna doesn't know."

"I had no plans to tell the princess... but if any of the two find out that we are sharing a secret... After the last time, I don't want to imagine the sermon we'll get."

"TRUE." Ari gave a big nod after remembering how Anna and Maya chewed them out after accidentally being a little flirty.

"Did the princess do anything once we left after the hair thing?"

"She was, uhh... pretty clingy for the rest of the day and didn't want to let go of my hair for some reason..."

"Oh, that doesn't sound bad."

"N-No, it wasn't... Rather embarrassing, though. I'm not used to something like that." Ari's cheeks developed a slight blush.

"That's a feeling I know all too well."

"Even so, I still don't understand why Anna acted like this... She was almost as extreme as Maya and she's actually dating you."

"I have the feeling she was even louder than my cat."

"That's just Anna being Anna. Loud is her default setting." That part wasn't out of the ordinary for the jaguar.

"I can't argue with that." Sophia nodded in understanding. "Well, the two of you grew up together, right? Maybe she got a little jealous after seeing you getting along with someone else? I feel like something like that could happen between childhood friends."

"Really...?" Ari wasn't sure how to feel about that.

"I'm usually not that jealous... which is surprising..." She mumbled this part while thinking about her boosts. "But, I don't think I would like seeing the person I grew up, and probably be the closest with, suddenly getting really along with someone else. Wait, didn't the same happen with you when you saw Anna with me?"

"A-Ah, err... r-right! That might be, uhh... true!" She sounded pretty evasive all of a sudden. "A-Anyway, what about you and Maya?"

"What about us?"

"She wasn't the biggest fan of what happened, either, was she? Any aftermath? I would feel bad if you had a fight because of me."

"Nah, it was alright. We had a little conversation about boundaries because we don't want to hurt each other. Still, we came to the conclusion that being a little flirty from time to time is nothing bad as long as we know where we belong to."

"W-Wow... How mature." Ari couldn't hide her surprise.

"Ahaha." She didn't fail to notice her reaction. "We have our moments. Also, it helped that I was able to pull a reversal on Maya~."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, Maya can be a bit of an S from time to time..."

"Mh-hmm. I don't really know her yet, but I noticed that much already." It was pretty hard to overlook, after all. "And?"

"Let's just put it that way, my cat enjoyed Anna being so, uhh... receptive to her teasing a bit more than one normally does. She really leaned into the kink of the princess with her own."

"Really?" The jaguar's voice and expression changed again. While not quite as much, she gave off a similar vibe compared to when she and Sophia first met.

"But, in the end, neither Maya nor I are interested in anything other than being friends with any of you two."

"I-I see..." Her voice and expression softened up again.

"That's why, if we accidentally become, err... a bit flirty again, at least Maya won't raise such a fuss again. Probably... Maybe." There was no way she could be sure about that. "Of course, I'm not implying anything, and we naturally don't have to. Forcing that is the last thing I would want."

"I... don't have much experience because I don't think I was ever flirty before, let alone been in a relationship. I hadn't even noticed that what we were doing was considered flirting before it was too late..."

"Yeah..." Sophia sympathized with that a lot. "That's surprising, though. Anna also mentioned you're quite popular in the academy, so I would've guessed you have some sort of experience."

"Eh?" Ari looked surprised while she tilted her head with a questioning look. "She said that? I'm not popular at all, though. I rarely speak to anyone at school because of my odd hair. I hate the attention, after all. Anna's the one who gets swarmed all the time because she's so popular. But even then, she always watches out for me by making sure I don't get caught up in the crossfire when I'm near her and shields me from them."

"Aww, that's so sweet." Sophia was touched by Anna's kindness but then noticed that something didn't match up. "Wait a moment, the princess was the one who told me... Maybe she isn't watching out for you, but rather keeping anyone interested in you away?"

"W-Why would she do that?"

"Maybe she wants to keep you all to herself?"

"Eh?!" Ari's face turned red again.

"She got jealous when I got close, too, after all. It's basically the same, I would say. The princess doesn't want to share her oldest friend."

"I see…"

"Anna's kinda cute."

"..." She wasn't able to say anything in return.

"Anyway," Sophia thought it was enough talking about their girls for now. "I understand that I went a little far earlier, but I'm still super confused about how the different ways of using magic work..." She was still hung up on it.

"Your slight outrage over activation words versus chantless?"

"Yeah. You see, I never learned the theoretical parts of magic. Fen's my teacher, and when it comes to magic, he's a man of action. He showed me the magic, and I had to recreate it. I've also only learned chantless magic. Thanks to that, I really don't get it, and it also totally makes no sense to me."

"You really are something else, girl." The jaguar rolled her eyes once more.

"I'm sorry."

"Well, it doesn't seem to be your fault."

"Thanks..."

"This time."

"Urgh." It was yet another critical hit for the tiger. "That being said, it really still makes no sense to me. If you can condense your magic down to an activation word, what keeps you from going chantless?"

"You can breathe air. What keeps you from breathing underwater like fish?"

"Gills?" Sophia was confused and tilted her head in response.

"W-Well, yeah..." It seemed like the jaguar had hoped for a different answer and noticed that her example wasn't the best. "Then, why don't we have gills on top of lungs?"

"Because we don't? Our body doesn't work like that, after all."

"And there we are. It took a moment, but we reached the answer. Is it so impossible that magic just simply works like that? Activation words and chantless magic are similar to one another but still fundamentally different." Ari tried her best to find an explanation that worked.

"Can't say I'm any less confused." Unfortunately, it didn't help in the slightest. "Okay, magic is all about having a good visual image of what you want to do, right?"

"Yes. That's how we learned it, at least."

"Alright. So, chants are mostly used by people who have trouble imagining the magic they want to use."

"Or if you're lazy and don't want to think." Ari only sounded only half-serious. "Chants are also commonly used for precise magic."

"Eh? I thought it's the most unrefined way to use magic?"

"You're not wrong, but that also has its advantages. Let's say you need exactly 500mL of water when you're trying to cook something. You can imagine the amount and hope it worked out while making sure your mind doesn't wander off and accidentally mess up, or you incorporate the amount you want into the chant and get exactly what you want."

"Oh, that's actually quite clever." Sophia was a certified expert in messing up, and she understood the appeal here. "So, the chant, in this case, is more like reading a line from a recipe?"

"Well, you fancy it up a little, but that's the gist of it." The jaguar-girl gave her a slight nod.

"Wow, with such a chant, I might wouldn't cringe myself to death when using it." Her aversion against them eased up ever so slightly. "Are there any special applications for activation words, too?"

"Err..." Ari paused for a moment. "Your magic's usually more potent that way, and it's quicker than a chant but other than that..."

"Seriously, why are activation words a thing?!" The tiger went full circle.

"Uuh... I'm starting to question it, too..." The black-haired girl was getting more and more corrupted thanks to Sophia's influence. "It's, uhh, also a power thing. you need a certain amount of it to use activation words over chants, and the power needed for chantless magic's supposed to be even bigger."

"Yeah, exactly the same as Fenny said earlier, but again, why?" The tiger couldn't let go of it. "Larger scale magic aside... Let's say you want to create around 10 liters of water with chantless magic. Why would you need more power for that compared to chants or activation words?"

"That's... true?" Tilting her head to the side. Ari had officially become confused over magic itself, too. "My magic power goes down by the same amount as well when doing the same thing with either chants or activation words..."

"See?!"

"Maybe it's really just a limitation by magic itself? Like, you're only to, err... allowed to use magic in a certain way depending on your power?"

"Allowed? By whom?"

"How would I know? A god, maybe?" She simply guessed the first thing that came to mind.

"Eh?!" An image of a grinning Canir suddenly flew through her head.

"Or magic itself decided it doesn't want to be bossed around by individuals with low power and wants them to beg for it?!"

"Wow, that's a theory even I find ridiculous."

"Urgh." Ari needed a moment after getting too hung up on it. "Y-You really know how to trap someone in your pace, Sophia..."

"One of my strongest talents~."

"M-My common sense's starting to hurt... Do you mind if we change the topic for the time being?"

"Ah, according to others, that's a common side effect when being around me for too long. I'm sorry about that."

"It's alright... We can fix that eventually."

"I kinda doubt it, but if someone's able to do that, it's you, Ari." Sophia had little faith in it. "Anyway, sure. I only keep getting more and more confused about magic, and we get nowhere. Is there something else you want to talk about?"

"Hmm... How long do you think their training will go on?" The jaguar gestured at the training fields where the group currently seemed to be playing around with all kinds of magic.

"I don't think they'll stop anytime soon. Like, at all."

"I see. Well, I planned to bake some cookies because I got my hands on a new recipe before all of this happened." She was still pointing at the group. "Maybe now's a good time."

"Cookies?!" Sophia's face immediately lit up. "Do you mind if I tag along?"

"Oh, you can bake?"

"Not at all, but I'm an expert at taste-testing and eating." She almost looked smug for some reason.

"Is that so? Well, sure, I don't mind."

"Yay!"

Having decided on a new plan, the duo got up from the bench they were sitting on, left the training fields behind, and went to one of the kitchens inside the castle together.