“Now what?”

Tafel turned her head towards Alice, who was sitting in a chair and holding a closed book in her hands, resting it on her lap. “What do you mean now what?” Tafel asked. She was lying down on top of a bed with frills and plush pillows adorning it. “Now I sleep. It took me twenty hours to cast ten thousand spells. I’m beat.”

“No, I mean after,” Alice said. “We came here to meet the empress, right? We still haven’t decided who’s right. It’s clear she has no business running an empire.”

“But that wasn’t what we bet on,” Tafel said. “We agreed to check whether she was an evil person or not worthy of being overthrown. Just because she’s incompetent doesn’t mean she’s evil.”

“But you do agree that she shouldn’t be running an empire, right?” Alice asked, narrowing her eyes.

Tafel cleared her throat and rolled onto her side, facing the wall. “I’m tired. We’ll discuss this tomorrow.”

“Oi,” Alice said as she climbed to her feet. She walked over to Tafel and placed a hand on the demon’s shoulder. With a tug, Tafel flipped over onto her back, but her eyes were shut, her mouth hanging open. Alice’s eye twitched. She reached forward and pinched Tafel’s cheeks, stretching them out like a chipmunk’s, but there was no response. After a few more tugs, soft snores rang out of Tafel’s mouth, but they were garbled due to Alice’s hands. Alice sighed and shook her head before releasing her fingers. “Fine, we’ll discuss this tomorrow.”

Alice grabbed Tafel’s blanket and brought it up to the demon’s neck, covering her previously exposed skin. She turned around and was about to settle into her own bed when a flash of light coming from beyond the curtain caught her attention. The watch-sized shield on her wrist expanded as a wrinkle appeared on the forehead. Standing on the tips of her toes, she approached the curtain and swung it open. Her own reflection greeted her in the dark glass. “Hmm.”

There was another flash of light that illuminated a figure in the garden down below. Alice opened the window and leapt outside, landing on all fours as a rune appeared on her forehead. Her eyes turned catlike with golden irises as clawed paws made of yellow aura appeared around her hands and feet. The dark garden appeared as bright as day with the help of her awakening. “Vur? What the heck are you doing?”

The figure in the garden turned its head. “Oh, hi, Alice.”

Alice stood up and shook off the aura surrounding her limbs as she strode towards Vur. “Were you using lightning magic just now?”

“Yeah,” Vur said as he pointed his finger up at the sky. A lightning bolt that was as wide as a tree shot out of his finger tip, turning the night into day for a brief moment before disappearing.

“Why didn’t it make a sound?” Alice asked as she rubbed her eyes. “And warn me next time you do that, please.”

“If it made a sound, then I’d wake people up,” Vur said. “And people don’t like waking up, so I made it not make sounds.”

“Is that even possible? I thought thunder accompanied lightning by default.”

Vur nodded. “It’s possible if you believe.”

Alice sighed. “Why are you playing with lightning this late at night?”

Vur scratched his head and looked off to the side while wrinkling his forehead. His eyebrows knit together, and he crossed his arms over his chest before staring Alice in the eyes. He nodded as if reassuring himself before asking, “What’s the purpose of training?”

“To get stronger,” Alice said. Her eyes widened. “Wait. You were training?”

Vur snorted and puffed his chest out. “A dragon doesn’t need to train,” he said as he placed his hands on his hips. He ignored Alice’s stare and tilted his chin up at the sky. “Mm, but if one were to train, how does that make them stronger?”

“Well…,” Alice said and placed her hand on her chin, tilting her head down. “I’ll keep it simple since it’s you. When people do strength training, their strength goes up. When people study, their intelligence increases. When people do skill training, their proficiency with the skill increases. You shooting lightning bolts at the sky for no reason would be classified as skill training.”

Vur furrowed his brow. “I don’t get it,” he said. “How will repeatedly shooting lightning bolts at the sky make me better at shooting lightning bolts?”

“It becomes more natural,” Alice said. “The more you do it, the faster you’ll be able to shoot them out. The chance of failure greatly decreases as well, and if you aim at a target, your accuracy should increase.”

The wrinkle on Vur’s forehead deepened as he tilted his head. “But shooting lightning bolts is already as natural as breathing? Why do people practice?”

Alice exhaled, trying to suppress the hot feeling in her chest that wanted to boil over into her arm and channel itself into Vur’s face through her hand. “It’s not natural for normal people.”

Vur sighed and stared at the ground. “That’s right. I’m amazing, aren’t I?” He shook his head and clicked his tongue before meeting Alice’s heated glare. “Does that mean training is useless for me?”

“Don’t sound so disappointed,” Alice said through gritted teeth. She unclenched her hands that she hadn’t realized she had clenched and exhaled again. “Even for you, there are some merits to training. You know how Tafel lost to Mary because her portal was slashed apart? She could’ve teleported herself away, but she didn’t. Do you know why?”

“Mary was too fast?”

“That was part of it,” Alice said. “But even if Mary approached her at the same speed, as long as Tafel trained herself to teleport her body away instead of relying on portals, she could’ve avoided Mary’s attack. People have instincts much like animals, but compared to animals, our instincts are horrible. Some people literally freeze up and stop moving when they’re in danger. Training overrides your instincts, allowing you to unconsciously make a better choice than your instincts would in a situation.”

Vur blinked at Alice. “My instincts have never failed me though.”

“That’s because your body is stupidly strong,” Alice said. “If someone who had the same strength as you and a higher level of training competed in hand-to-hand combat against you, they’d win. If Mary challenged you to a swordfight, there’s absolutely no way you’d win.”

Vur snorted. “I can win without a sword.”

“Yes, that’s right, but I’m saying, if you were to compete in swordplay, you’d lose.”

Vur pursed his lips. “Sword are for people without claws to make themselves feel better about not having claws. A dragon would never compete in swordplay because it’s demeaning to them.”

“Sure, make up all the excuses that you want,” Alice said. “It doesn’t change the fact that you’d lose. Mary’s had more training then you, and that’s the important part about training. Whoever has more training wins if all else is equal. You’ve never lost because your natural strength, mana capacity, and gift for wielding magic is greater than all of your opponent’s and their training combined.”

Vur hummed and rubbed his chin. “So…, training will help me?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!”

Vur’s eyes lit up. “If I train my lightning bolt enough, can I shoot down a star?”

“Eh…, sure, if you believe,” Alice said, turning her head away. She sighed as Vur shot another lightning bolt into the sky. Now even Vur, the laziest person that she knew, was training to get stronger. Maybe she’d join Tafel’s practice tomorrow.