I stared at Gallas in silence. Hati’s leader had once remarked that I had the same name as some being he called “the creator,” and now I stood face to face with a god, who wondered if I was his master, after hearing my name and where I came from. I had wondered about the odds of there being someone else named Miles in this world, but while the name might be a genuine coincidence, both of these Miles existing here and both coming from Earth couldn’t be one. I didn’t know what this meant, but before I could say anything, Gallas suddenly vanished.

“What...?” I said.

‘He just left...!?’ Tomar said in my mind.

This was most mind-boggling. If we assumed that I was someone special in Gallas’ eyes, why would he disappear like that? Fear? Anxiety? It was possible, but it didn’t seem likely to me. And unfortunately I didn’t have too much time to think up theories right now, as we were left with Fae and Shadi in the ritual chamber, who, understandably, looked like they were even more confused than me.

With Gallas appearing unexpectedly and almost immediately gunning for me, I didn’t feel like I could calmly ask them to wait outside, but it was obviously not ideal that they had witnessed all of this. Looking at them, they seemed relatively relaxed, however.

“Are you okay?” I asked them.

“Okay!? That was unbelievable!” Fae blurted out. “I’m so happy you asked me to help you! I just knew it wouldn’t be boring!”

Yea, she’s okay, I thought, and shifted my view to the other girl.

“What about you, Shadi?” I asked.

“I’m good. I’m... more than good actually. I got my Calling!”

She was overjoyed and didn’t seem to care too much about anything that just happened. Getting a Calling will do that to you, as everyone appears a little high on the experience for a few minutes after the ritual, but she also received the one Calling we didn’t know anything about yet. The same one Riala had inside her, and the one Gallas previously prevented us from giving to the boy in Cerus. I half-expected him to kill everyone this time, or at least Tomar and me, just to finally be rid of us.

“I saw that you got it. I also noticed you didn’t listen to me when I asked you to step down from the platform. What were you thinking?” I said, raising my voice.

“I... I was startled, and I wasn’t sure what to do, and then the god suddenly appeared...!” she said, trying to act innocent, but I wasn’t buying it.

“I saw the look in your eyes when you made the decision not to move. You weren’t startled. You should’ve listened to me!”

Her expression changed to one of displeasure as she looked me straight in the eyes. “It was a lie, wasn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“You told us that you weren’t trying to prevent others from becoming Sourcerers, but that’s exactly what you did!”

A Sourcerer... She did use a script, and her mana changed a little. So she really became a magic user? But her conclusion is all kinds of wrong.

“Hold on, that’s not—”

“But I still became one...” she said, now with a smug grin on her face.

“Shadi. Listen to me for a second. The gods don’t want people to get that specific Calling. I actually wasn’t sure what it was, but the last time I saw that sign, Gallas appeared as well, and he prevented someone from getting it! That’s why I was worried, I thought he might do it again, and that he would do god knows what to us!”

If she listened to Gallas’ and my conversation, my explanation would make sense. It should be relatively obvious that he wasn’t happy about this, and that I had been surprised he didn’t intervene. Then again, at that point she had been in the middle of her ritual and had looked distracted.

“I don’t blame you for not being happy about this. You guys aren’t so special anymore now,” she said.

Okay, this reaction seems a bit much... Even Fighters don’t usually get that cocky after the ritual. She was much calmer and quieter before we began. Almost timid.

“I really don’t think Tomar—” Fae began, attempting to help, but she was immediately interrupted.

“And if I understand this right, you were supposed to help me not become a Sourcerer. You must be disappointed as well,” Shadi said to Fae.

“That’s enough,” I said. “Nobody here was trying to keep this Calling from you. And don’t get overconfident just because you’re able to use scripture sigils now.”

We had to reel her in and figure out what we were dealing with. She apparently gave Fae some mana, so she wouldn’t be overwhelmed by Gallas’ aura, but other than that, we didn’t know what she was capable of. Unfortunately, the atmosphere wasn’t great right now. The overall situation might yet turn out to be very good, however. After all, we finally found a proper magic user. Riala’s sign evidently was the “Sourcerer” Calling, we now knew that the gods had a hand in hiding it, and we might be able to learn a lot from Shadi. It was exactly what we needed, to prepare for the fight against Arax.

I hope the gods won’t become a problem, but for now we need to get Shadi under control.

The door to the ritual chamber suddenly flew open and a boy and a girl came rushing in. They had been standing with Shadi in the waiting room before, so they were presumably her friends, and after recovering from Gallas’ aura, they came to check on her.

“Shadi! Are you... okay...?”

I wonder what she feels like to them... Her aura appears to be weaker than Ria’s, but stronger than Oryn’s.

“I’m good, don’t worry,” she said, glancing back at them. “So good. Watch this.”

She turned back towards us, a dangerous glint in her eyes.

‘Uh... Miles? Is she...?’

Shadi slowly raised her arms, clearly planning to use a script, and we were her target.

On the surface, this seemed like bad judgment on her part. She had been a magic user for all but ten minutes, she had only ever used a single script, and she didn’t know the extent of our powers. What worried me, however, was that she might be a lot better than us. What if her confidence wasn’t unfounded? Whatever her exact Calling was, they were supposed to be all-encompassing. She might actually know a lot that we didn’t know. She might know exactly what we could do, and that she was stronger.

Isn’t this great... Another enemy we don’t know enough about to be sure that we can beat them...

Mana started to gather in the air in front of her hands and slowly formed a script. This way of using Omega was different from both our method and the one used by the gods. I marveled at this new experience for a brief moment, but snapped out of it just in time to jump to the side and avoid some kind of white ball of light that barrelled in our direction the second her script was complete.

I landed on the floor and looked back at the wall. It was unscathed, so either the attack had been very weak, or it wouldn’t affect stone for some reason. Turning back to the girl, I could see her dissatisfaction.

“Tsk.”

“Shadi!? What was that!?” her male friend, Calom, asked.

“I have the Sourcerer Calling. I will end this right now,” she proclaimed.

We always tried our best not to injure anyone, but we didn’t have any choice here. If she wanted a fight, we would give her one.

“Switch,” I whispered, and gave control over to Tomar, who was frankly better trained than me.

‘We need to incapacitate her for the moment,’ I said from the backseat.

“I know,” Tomar responded under his breath.

Meanwhile, Shadi was preparing her next attack, and when she fired, Tomar easily evaded it. Not by clumsily jumping to the side, but by simply ducking, before getting back up and heading straight for our opponent. In a flash, we were face to face with her. Her eyes grew wide, as Tomar held her left shoulder with one hand, while a ball of water formed in his right. When it shot into her stomach point blank, she toppled over, losing consciousness. Tomar caught her and gently laid her down on the floor.

“What did you do to her?” her other friend, Tyra, yelled.

When Tomar glanced up at them, they looked ready to jump us, until they saw something in his eyes. They understood that it would be downright stupid to attack us. Unlike Shadi, who had seemed somewhat out of it.

“Don’t worry. I had to immobilize her, but she should be fine,” Tomar said, before turning towards our helper. “Fae, please get Reurig here, he should be in the office.”

Looking from the girl up to us, she shook off the shock and nodded. “Okay,” she said, before hurrying past the two Charmers and out of the room.

‘What was that... She attacked us, but she didn’t seem confused or angry. That wasn’t the Mad Calling, right?’

Tomar nodded in confirmation, thinking the same thing. But her behavior didn’t seem normal. She apparently thought she could easily beat us after becoming a magic user, and for some reason she decided to immediately come for us.

Did she want to overthrow us?

‘We need more information. And we need their cooperation.’

“You two,” Tomar said. “Your friend just attacked me. Do you know what that means?”

Both of them furrowed their brows and glanced at each other with worry, before looking at us again, nodding. Tomar understood what to do in this situation. Traditionally, attacking someone in such a way would be grounds for a death sentence. And even under our new laws, it would at the very least result in prison time. If at all possible, I would’ve rather had her on our side, however. The first owner of a magic Calling we met.

“Maybe it doesn’t have to come to that,” Tomar said. “If you care about your friend, you will help me resolve this unfortunate situation.”

They nodded slowly, but they did not look happy. Whatever was going on here, I dearly hoped that we would get some new information out of this girl somehow.