The brown-haired old woman wearing black witch hat named Griselda Kisatoa is currently drinking water from the water bag that I just gave her.

"Phew... thank you Shion.. I thought I was done for~"

She says that as she hands over the water bag. Miika takes the water bottle and puts it into the bag.

I met her before when I was still adjusting myself in the Liasr Town. She greeted me when I am checking the magic shop for the first. We had lots of talk about magic so we are more or less acquaintance to each other.

"I don't mind. More importantly, what happened? For you to be fainted here..."

"Well, you see... I was doing a quest from the guild."

She arranges her black witch hat so that it doesn't fall when she says that.

"Doing quest... alone? What kind of quest?"

I reply that way because she should at least get accompanied by other adventurers considering how dangerous this area is.

"I was invenstigating the mysterious monster in Darlia Lake. It is probably a new monster which has not be named yet."

Darlia Lake.... which means that it is the mysterious monster that the guild asked me to kill.

"!? Don't tell me that monster attacked you-"

"Well... by the time I finished investigating, I realized that I run out of provision so I fainted out of starvation. Ahahaha..."

"..."

The elderly woman probably laugh to lighten the situation. But it's hard to laugh when her life was indeed in danger.

"So you're doing this quest alone?"

"Yeah."

"Why don't you ask help from some adventurers to guard you?"

"Well, I thought about that... but you see... I did ask them once and all they did is to hinder my work..."

Were other adventurers in Liasr Guild that bad? Now I'm worried...

"Then.. next time you need bodyguards, you can ask for my help."

"Eh? But asking protection from a kid is a bit..."

I don't want to hear that from an elderly woman who almost die out of starvation... but I won't say that out loud.

"I can assure you that I have some fighting experience. But for now, we will escort you back to town. Miika."

I call Miika who is looking at the surrounding to be wary of incoming monsters or dangerous animals.

Miika looks at me and I tell him what to do.

"I'll watch over the surrounding so help her walk."

Miika nods and walk over to Griselda while I'm still talking.

"We're going straight to Liasr Town."

Griselda looks confused when Miika is helping her to stand.

When Griselda manages to stand due to Miika's help, Griselda asks a question.

"You're... Panthos' slave right? What are you doing here?"

"Um-"

"Former slave. He's not a slave anymore."

I reply before Miika had the chance. People will still think him as a slave if I don't state it clearly. I don't think he can do that so I shall do it in his stead.

"Eh?"

Griselda is looking at me with confusion.

.....

....

...

Before going back to Liasr Town, we picked up the materials that we dropped before meeting Griselda. And now we are walking towards Liasr Town. Miika is helping Griselda walk so I'm the one who bring the materials.

"I see... so that kind of thing happened while I was away. It must have been hard for you two."

I told her the summary of what happened to Panthos from my perspective. Though I skipped some details like the usage of Graize Elixir which reduce the number of Elixir I have left to 3 because it's a pain to explain how I get the elixirs and stuff.

"So you have a name now. Good for you Miika."

Griselda smiles at Miika and he nods back with a smile too.

We are currently walking on the road and I am in front of both of them so that I am able to sense any monster ahead quickly.

I would like to ask about the monster that Griselda investigated. But I need to focus on surrounding so I decide to ask her later.

"...!"

There are two astral bodies ahead of us. They are not monsters. They are...

We walk for few minutes and see two goblins picking fruits on a trees. It's Ean and Milua. Ean is the first one who call out to us.

"! Shion~!"

She calls my name while climbing a tree.

"!"

But then her happy expression disappears once she sees Griselda. Milua also looks awkward after seeing Griselda.

Griselda senses the discomfort of Ean and Milua. Then she smiles at them kindly.

But the goblin kids just avoid eye contact with her and look at me and Miika instead. Miika greets them with a nod and smile.

Then Milua starts asking question.

"A- are you on quest right now?"

"Yeah, we're going to escort her back to Liasr. What about you guys?"

I look at Griselda's smiling face before I look at the goblin kids again while saying that.

"We're.... just finished with gathering ingredients for dinner."

Ean quickly climb down the trees while saying that.

"So... we need to go home now. See you!"

Without giving me the chance to reply back, both goblin kids run into the forest.

... what was that?

It seems like they are avoiding us.

"I didn't know that you are acquaintanced with them."

Griselda says that as she is looking at the direction of where the goblin kids went to. I reply while looking at her face.

"Yeah, I took a quest of slaying a Sword Wolf that is attacking their village not too long ago."

"... I see."

I see Griselda's somewhat melancholy face looking at their direction when she is saying that.

.....

....

...

Griselda opens the door to her magic store when we arrives.

"Phew~. Home sweet home. You guys come in too. Make yourself at home."

"Uhh... we still need to report to the gu-"

"It's fine. It's fine. I'll just call the guild through tele-stone."

Griselda cut my sentence while going further into her shop.

"Well... Excuse me."

Accepting Griselda's offer, I says that as I come in.

"Excuse me."

Miika who is still carrying the item bag also says that before going in.

I see a wooden interior of her magic shop. It's full of wooden shelves containing various scrolls, talismans and colourful gems of different shapes. Those are magic items that she is selling.

The scrolls are called Gritome. A magic item that contains magic formulas for people to buy and learn. Each Gritome contains 1 spell and it is expensive.

The talismans are called Instamagic. A magic item that will activate the magic embedded inside it if the user complete the requirements of its activation. Even people that does not have Astral Body like me can use it... but these things are also expensive.

The crystals are called Magic Gems. They are usually used as mana tank or materials for magical items. None of them here are as big as the crystal attached to my Emeraldian though. I guess that just how rare Emeraldian's materials are.

While Griselda is talking to someone using tele-stone, Miika is looking around the store.

"Is this your first time coming here?"

"Ah.. yes."

Miika stops looking around and replies my question. Then I get an idea and ask Miika about it.

"Since we're already here, I want to ask something."

"?"

"... before that, how long you plan to carry that bag? Just put it on the floor."

"Oh... ok."

He put his bag on the wooden floor. Though it seems like it does not bother him at all to keep standing while carrying heavy bag. Well, he was once that Panthos guy's slave after all.

"Back to the topic, how much do you know about magic?"

"Umm..."

Miika then told me about Mana concept, Astral Level concepts and the fact that he is Level 1 if he remembers correctly. He don't know how to use any magic despite knowing all that.

I ask more questions to know more about his magic capability.

"You said that you remember about yourself being at Level 1 right? Do you still your remember your aptitude?"

"Ap...titude...?"

"Are you kidding me...."

I put my right hand on my forehead as I can't believe that he forgot some important fundamentals. This amnesia is a severe one indeed.

"Aptitude is the theory to know which attribute your Astral Body is compatible to. You do know that there are 6 different basic attributes in magic, right?"

"Oh... yes. I know the attributes."

"Then state all of them."

I put my right hand on my waist as I say that while standing.

"Umm... Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Light and Dark."

"Yes, and do you know why Astral Level is related to those attributes?"

Miika tilts his head and thinks for a moment before answering.

"... the... the higher the level of an Astral Body... the more attribute that a person can be compatible with?"

His sentence sounds gibberish but I get the overall idea of what he's trying to tell.

"Yeah. It's possible for a person to be compatible with multiple attributes depending on their Astral Level. The number of the level does not only show how much mana that your Astral body contains, but also correspond to how many attribute that person can be compatible with."

I put up the forefinger and middle finger of my right hand before talking further.

"For example, a level 2 person will have the chance to be compatible with 2 out of 6 basic attributes. It can be fire and wind or water and dark or any other two basic attributes."

Then I put up the ring finger of right hand.

"So... level 3 person will have 3 basic attributes that they are compatible with. And all of this are decided the moment we are given birth. We cannot change our Astral Level or even compatibility for the rest of our lives."

I put down middle and ring finger so that the fore finger is still standing.

"In your case, if you are truly right about being level 1. Then you only have 1 basic attribute that you are with compatible with."

Miika is looking at me as I continue explaining.

"Which is perfectly fine. The most important thing is to know your aptitude first. Because one of the basic requirements in learning magic is to have a required aptitude with the magic that you are learning. For example... "

I want to take any magic scroll just to show him examples. But all of them are at the upper part of the shelves so I have a bit of a trouble part reaching it even with standing on my toes.

But Griselda picks a red magic scroll that I am trying to take. Then she hands it over to me with a smile.

"Here you go."

"Thanks."

After thanking her, I return to look at Miika and show the red magic scroll. It had the title of the magic written on the outside part of the scroll. I explain to him further using this scroll.

"For example, if you want to learn this "Flame Wheel" magic, you need to have an aptitude in fire attribute just like the magic name suggests. If you don't have the right aptitude, you won't be able to use the magic no matter how much you learn."

Unless you are me who learn magic just for the sake of learning it because the whole society in this world revolves around magic... only to be able to use this unfathomable power called Overtake. Honestly, I still don't have any idea how this power suddenly show up despite me being level 0.

I give the red magic scroll back to Griselda and continue talking to Miika.

"So... I wanted to teach you on how to use magic but I cannot start unless I know your aptitude. Which is why I wanted to bring you here yesterday but..."

I look at Griselda and it seems like Griselda guesses what I am about to say.

"You want to check your aptitude right? Come here."

"Is it alright? I meant, you collapsed earlier so I think you need to rest now."

"It's fine if it's just checking aptitude. Your name is Miika, right? Touch the orb on that table."

Griselda walks further into the store while Miika is looking at me as if he wants my permission.

"Just follow her instruction."

Miika nods at my statement and walk towards the purple orb sitting on small blue pillow lying on the table.

This reminds me of the first time when I first got my aptitude check.

Not too long after my birth, one of the maids bring the same orb, which is called Astral Measurer, into my mother's room. When I touched the orb, nothing happened even when a minute passed.

The maids, including Kaina and Nelsia, starts looking at me with sad look. They said something to each other but I didn't understand them because I haven't had the chance to learn the language of this world.

I was worried that I might have messed up something important. But I still remember...

At that time, my mother just hugged me with a smile. She talked to the maids and it seemed that she managed to calm them down. Her presence truly soothe my mind. Even after I learnt about the harsh truth about my non-existent Astral Body, I can accept it calmly because my mother told me that she accepts me for who I am.

The windy sound that is brought by Griselda's Astral Measurer when Miika touches it. It proves that Miika indeed has a mana inside his body unlike me.

I look at the purple orb and there is currently a weak green light glowing inside it. Then Griselda says the result in front of us.

"Level 1. And the aptitude is Wind Attribute."

Wind huh... the same attribute of magic that Panthos used. What an unpleasant coincidence.

Then Miika looks at me with worried face.

"Um.... sorry."

"? Why are you apologizing?"

His sudden apologize baffles me.

"I guess... I won't be that useful in magic as expected."

Oh, so he is bothered by his low Astral Level. I guess that's the normal reaction. However...

"Alright. I'll tell you this now. Magic is indeed an important thing to learn. And Astral Level is the indicator of how much you can learn that important thing. However.... Astral Level is not everything."

Miika is surprised by my sudden statement. I continue talking regardless.

"Sigh... You can say that you cannot use magic other than wind magic. You can say that your mana reserve is lower than usual capacity. But so what? There are other ways that makes you useful. And if you still want to learn magic despite all that... then work hard to achieve what you want to achieve with magic."

I lightly put my right fist on his chest.

"You... are the only one who can prove your own worth."

Miika widens his eyes as if he realizes something after my statement. And I just realized how pretentious my statement sounds right after I said it.

Geez, I am supposed to be hating males not supporting them.

"Shion..."

"Hm?"

I realized that his worried expression is already replaced by his determined face. He grabs my right fist with his right hand.

"I... will work hard! So that I can be useful to you!"

"Uh... sure."

You are already way more useful than expected though. I meant, you helped me defeating all those monsters today...

But I feel like I will ruin this moment if I say that so I just keep that statement to myself.

Griselda is grinning while looking at us. I don't really get why she is grinning like that but I feel like she is misunderstanding about something.