Standing on a chair, Imira steadily hammered the final plank over the workshop window, dimming the interior significantly. Funnily enough, now that night was falling, Ria took this moment to wake up.

“Keep that bangin’ down, ‘lright?”

… So it wasn’t that coincidental.

“Hey, Imira, get down here.” Ria sat herself up, pushing her hair to the side. With a stray nail, she scraped her face, red-orange skin underneath giving the illusion of a deep scratch. “I wanto talk while he’s not around.”

Imira tentatively stepped down from the stool, getting a bit closer, but still standing several steps back. Ria met her eyes, leading to the both of them staring, neither wanting to back down first. However the harsh suspicion in Imira’s eyes granted her ‘victory’ as Ria turned away slightly.

“Were you always like this? You always just followed Rion around, and he liked that so I didn’t think too hard about it…” Murmuring, Ria seemed to be thinking aloud. “I thought maybe he dragged you along, but maybe that’s not the case.”

Imira couldn’t think of a swift response. It shouldn’t matter what Ria thought of her decisions, nor was she compelled to defend Alric. Yet something cutting left unstated turned her insides.

“One can only chase after the future.” There hadn’t been anything incorrect about her choices in the past. To travel unaided through even one Chapter was a luxurious level of ability. However Imira still needed to rely on herself to set things up otherwise.

This thought paralleled Ria’s own history too closely, and the older girl exhibited a rare twisted expression.

“So you would throw away the past? All that time together meant nothing?”

“What did that time together mean in the first place? I’m not your brother, abandoning you. Besides, he had at least one thing right— being born there doesn’t mean I have to die there.”

Now it was Ria’s turn to hesitate.

Imira hadn’t paid any special attention to her family, but the village was too small not to be unaware how everyone felt about each other. You couldn’t stub your toe without alerting half the population, let alone have an argument.

Ria didn’t bear hatred towards anyone, much less her brother. Even if Rian leaving the village angered her, she didn’t hate him for it. So Imira cleverly slipped into the safety of his shoes.

“I just wanted…” Ria started to speak before closing her eyes and leaning back against the wall again, rapidly drained by the direction the conversation took. “Why’d I have t’go and get sick?”

Since the older girl lost the will to continue, and Imira never had an interest in the first place, the conversation came to an abrupt halt. Although seemingly retaining her sanity, Ria still ‘changed’ in some way. She fed off of Alric’s mana, so perhaps she didn’t want to scare away her meal ticket? Even if Alric could ignore the side effects, Imira didn’t wish to turn into a husk, and remained constantly vigilant.

Closing the door behind her, she went in search of Lorn and Harlod. It was unlikely goblins would actually try to siege the house, but at least it was something to do. It wasn’t as if she wanted to simply follow along, but Imira didn’t have any avenues for independent study.

In particular, studies relating to magic.

While her eyes helped her grasp ‘mana fields’, to her dismay, Alric informed her they had little to do with the actual casting of a spell. Seeing a spell-shape would be helpful, if she’d any idea how to form one in the first place.

Alric continued to refuse her on the point that she didn’t understand magic well enough yet, and could endanger herself. Yet she couldn’t even begin to comprehend simply by watching him cast spells and describe their components.

Remaining patient due to past results, there weren’t other realistic options for her at the moment.

Imira just needed to go with the flow.

Right now Lorn was finishing up the last of the windows, a slightly sour look in her eye. It didn’t get worse when she spotted Imira, but it certainly didn’t ease up either.

“You’re sure nothing will get in that way?”

“Absolutely.”

The following silence caused a lecture to resurface in her mind.

The best way to profit from an encounter is to not fight at all. Aim to make the enemy’s sword your own. Of course, few will listen to those unqualified, so you still can’t neglect your fighting strength, or other talents.

It is outside your comfort zone, to properly interact with others. But if you keep letting your social skills languish it’s just going to get worse and worse. Hmm, since we have plenty of coin I shall leave the haggling for supplies to you. That’s a suitable warmup, isn’t it?

Letting her social skills languish— that wasn’t the case was it? Being able to chat up strangers and turn them into long-standing friends in a matter of moments was an unusual level of skill. She possessed an average ability to talk with friends… acquaintances? Alric?

This far in her thought process, she could no longer even attempt to convince herself otherwise.

“What is it the two of you do?” Imira questioned out of the blue. Alric typically asked this question at some point; he hesitated in doing anything other than practicing elocution with her. Molding her speech too soon was ‘overstepping his bounds as a teacher’ and didn’t give her any guidelines to emulate his silver tongue. She could only forge her own path.

Doing things by her own power was fine, it was just…

“We’re farmers of course. The real question is what are you?” Lorn immediately turned the conversation back to her, with increased intensity.

Imira wished she’d crossed paths with Harlod instead. The conversational stakes with him would be much lower.

“Travelers. Alric saw an opportunity in helping you, so he did.” Since she couldn’t defuse the situation, she at least tried to reply properly.

“Strength is wasted on him. He has the skills to join the Church, yet is on this fool’s errand.” With a loud smack, the final nail was driven into the wall. Hammering it a few times with her fist, Lorn turned around to face Imira properly. “Then he drags a burden along with him. He should repay that blessing by serving the Church, and cleanse the land of non-humans. At the very least he should take out a few dozen goblins. Surely that’s not too much for him.”

“Do not judge those outside your reach, nor can they judge the Patriarch; Your voice is only as loud as your fist.” Living this close to a town, Lorn certainly attended services at least on occasion. Her misinterpretation of the scriptures was intentional, venting at Imira for reasons known only to herself.

Lorn didn’t dare retort against lines of scripture

"In that case, there's nothing more for me to say to you. Just go back to that weak elder sister of yours. Harlod and I are more than capable of taking care of things here. After all, this is our house, and I'd hate to give the impression that taking care of our own home is outside our reach."

"I don't disagree." Imira spun around and quickly retreated, glad to be out of the conversation.

Although it seemed she quite soundly failed in emulating Alric's charming persona.

Back at the room, there wasn't much for her to do. Rummaging through their packs, she retrieved a full meal of fruit, vegetables, dried meat, cheese, and some bread. Told if he wasn't present to cook to eat a little bit of everything to remain nutritionally balanced, Imira knew even though she was feeling rather hungry, it would be hard to swallow it all.

Surprisingly, so perhaps it should be expected, Alric was a good cook. Despite living in a fishing village all her life, she still could only barely tolerate the cuisine. So while durable trail foods were a step up from constant fishy flavors, they were a large step down from what she'd gotten used to in the past few weeks.

She needed to learn to cook; Alric wouldn't always be around to make her meals.

Would he be open to teaching her? Every part of his lessons had some purpose. Was cooking left out intentionally, or did he just judge it as less important than other parts of the curriculum? Or would she be taught to cook later on?

Imira blankly stared at the book Alric brought back for her while inhaling food, trying to keep it from touching down on her tongue. Coming to no conclusion, the day wore on her more than she initially realized; for as soon as she lay down a heavy fog settled on her mind.

Closing her eyes, she slept soundly on the floor.

The next day had Imira pacing back and forth inside the room restlessly. There wasn't much space to practice with her spear, she couldn't wrap her head around the book, she didn't want to leave the room and attract the attention of Lorn, but while she didn't want to stay in the same room as Ria, there was the expectation that she was supposed to watch over the older girl.

Settling down on the opposite side of the room, she practiced using her eyes. A rather dull, and slightly painful process, she kept going. White, speckled haze covered her field of vision, and beyond the walls were the weak shapes of Lorn and Harlod. Indistinct as everything else was, she struggled to look at them through the twisting strands of other objects in the house.

Wait, but she wasn't meant to try and 'look past' other objects. How was she meant to see multiple things in the same spot, at the same time though?

Had this been explained in her lectures? While she recalled most everything, Imira wouldn’t dare say she remembered every word, much less understood everything that came out of Alric’s mouth. All subjects contained simple and esoteric aspects to them, intertwined in strange ways; it could be that what she needed to begin to envision the world properly had been shrouded in double meaning…

Perhaps…

When a day was at its end and Alric regaled her with the various stories he knew, how many of those were about those multifaceted characters and conflicts due to ‘the duality of man’? Were these innumerable tales of fantasy meant to lead the way, or just stir her creativity? In either case, it gave a hint.

Picking up her spear, she held it over her head. While weak, its signature grew incredibly familiar to her. A spearhead made of some metal slightly more intense than steel, Imira could even see barbs inside of the socket, helping to anchor the haft, which was quite ordinary. Looking closely revealed a trend of boxy threads, although there were more exceptions than those that followed the pattern, it definitely existed.

Only the roof and something familiar, by reducing variables Imira felt ready to discover on her own. She channeled the power in her eyes.

The strange sensation of foggy figures fighting against one another in her mind began, recognizing one pushed the other to the back of her mind; they were both there though. That direction was not merely a roof or her spear, it was both—

“Gh!” With a suppressed grunt of pain, she collapsed, reflexively contracting into the fetal position as her body tensed. Her knuckles whitened around her spear, pulling it closer to her in an unyielding grip. There was a vague sensation that this stress was more than she should exert, but Imira’s mind was filled with nauseating and chaotic backlash.

Everything collapsed, she couldn’t withdraw power from her eyes, because she was her eyes. Her normal vision blurred as the world turned to what she’d been looking at earlier, physical objects overlapping. Ria, tables, the chair, all jumped from their locations to center view, trying to return where they were meant to be visually, but there is only one point to be.

Shivering with each phantom jump, her body gradually relaxed, splayed out on the hard floor. Finally recovering her faculties, the burning sensation of bile lingered in the back of her throat, and the pain of her death-grip finally made itself known in her joints.

All on top of a slightly dazed and pained state, she tried thinking several times before realizing she would accomplish nothing more that day.

Bringing out the rations, Imira set a portion aside for Ria, she would have enough energy to feed herself if she focused. Though lacking an appetite, Imira took a bite of an apple.

Growtreeeatgrowfrustrationeattreegrowgreen… as it touched her tongue words shouted inside her head for a moment, before changing to the color green, and the smell of fruit— the actual taste of apples appeared for several brief moments, but vanished amongst the waxing and waning sensations of chaos.

An ill person confronted with a pungent meal of fish, with the symptoms of earlier resurging, Imira stopped eating. She would sleep first, and hopefully when she woke she could eat again.

Hearing footsteps outside, Imira woke with a start, spear already in aching hand. Trying to track the muffled movement she strained to activate her magical sight, but hesitated and stopped herself at the last moment. Letting down her spear for but a second, she rubbed her face to try and wake herself up faster.

“Tadaima~” Alric opened the door with a singsong tone, competing in volume with the table legs scratching the floor as he gently forced the barricade aside. “A wedge might’ve been a more reliable option there. Well, I doubt there’ll be any problems.” Speaking aloud, she heard him replace the table and approach her and Ria.

“...Good Morning.”

“Mmn, it is a good morning isn’t it.” Nodding his head up and down, he looked pleased despite the delay. “Easiest goblin bone to break?”

“Middle ribs due to uneven fusion.”

“Best herb for reviving consciousness?”

“Tiger’s Bloom, applies orally, though it causes mild pain.”

“Rilem zikel lumash,

Belal koman amas arôl-oram…”

“Omer-ar deb or nil datan

Akur akir akam!

Akur akir akam!” Imira sung alongside him in a child’s soprano, but did her best to give it appropriate depth. Finishing the verse, she quickly stopped even as Alric continued humming along. Chanting in a somber dwarvern dialect alleviated embarrassment, but singing out loud for all to hear… she’d never do so of her own volition. Of course Alric himself wished to continue the song as usual, but he didn’t expect it.

“Now…” A light, metallic tink! tink! tink! sounded as Alric tapped his silver cheek. He was inspecting, not just thinking. He did it when conversing with strangers the most, initially she thought it merely to signal to the other party he was carefully considering something they said; as a means to give them a chance to change their minds or clarify what they said.

Although it seemed to be coming up without meaning recently, Imira’s gut said if she focused a little more, she could figure it out and pass this trial.

Casting a gaze back towards the closed door of the workshop, his gargantuan form knelt down in front of her. Instinctively suppressing a wince, she recognized he gently engulfed her weapon hand with his own. In a wave, she felt pressure on each knuckle in turn.

“Now, while it may not seem like anything major, would you tell me what happened?” Hunched on his knees, he looked straight into her with silvered eyes. His pressure was restrained, allowing her to make her own choice, although that could be seen as its own form of persuasion.

Alric treated her well so far, but he might just be waiting for something; then again, if she denied him, who knew how that—

“Always, always like this. It’s a bit of curiosity for your wellbeing. If it makes you feel like this, you needn’t share.” Unlike his usual retorts, he showed absolutely no sign of disappointment, sadness, regret, or any emotion at all. Unlike usual, it was a flat, dead, tone, suitable only for information transfer. From the vibrant Alric, the dissonance was chilling; even if he meant to indicate he wasn’t playing emotional games.

“It’s—“ Imira had to fight against her own intuition after hearing that voice. Something that was incapable of caring, talking to it was like saying your thoughts deserve to be discarded. “I was using my eyes.”

He didn’t respond, showing neither surprise nor expectancy. Instead, he reached into Inventory and took out his flask and threw in a few shade bean leaves. Muttering under his breath, he cleaned out a beaker, before pouring the infused water back and forth a few times, gradually removing the plant matter.

“Try this.” She only had time to start to think before he explained. “Now that we’re this close, I can pick up on the bile. No wonder you were a little off, this should help your throat. Hold it in your mouth near the back for a bit.” He only told her how to take the tonic he casually prepared, letting her continue as she wished.

“I’m not supposed to simply ignore other objects in my vision, so I tried to see it all at once.”

“And you threw...no, tense muscles, a loss of appetite? Did you manage to eat anything yesterday?” All of a sudden, it seemed as though Alric came to a conclusion. “Aah, no wonder, although it is somewhat curious you suffer like that unaided.

“It’s partially my fault for not explaining it and thinking to warn you. Trying to fuse two objects in your mind, it crosses wires not meant to be crossed lightly. A sane, human mind normally can’t do anything to a point that would cause a problem, but it seems the addition of your magic sight is capable of forcing the matter.” It seemed like he had even more to say, but he kept it to himself. “Of course being able to see through solid objects while mentally maintaining their stability is a challenge, it’s more getting used to an abstract notion rather than improperly combining datasets in your head. Mmhm, just don’t worry about it, but I recommend against trying something like that when you’re uncertain of your surroundings. Ah, and keeping a hold of your spear is a good idea as well; the chaos tends to lead one to jump from any sense or emotion to the next through the most apparent link. With strong attachments you can form a stable loop.”

Alric began prattling on, somewhat slower than usual in case she was suffering from any after effects. His words wound back on themselves, reinforcing and reminding her of what came before. It should have been hard to follow, yet she felt his words coming to her with much greater ease than before.

Mmn, mmn, things are going well.