Chapter 32 – Surveying the Situation

  In one part of the world lie endless plains dotted with forests. Human civilization has yet to touch this patch tranquil wildlife. Yet, this quiet scenery suddenly changes as the birds and mice suddenly scatter in all directions. A flash of gray light bursts through the area blinding everything in a five kilometer radius. A teenaged girl with white hair appears in the air roughly landing on the ground. Her appearance resembles a porcelain doll with the combination of her smooth and pale skin. Dressed in light armor made from leather and animal hide, she gives off the presence of a fragile adventurer. Her eyes meekly open revealing her sky blue and pale gray pupils. The gray lights fades as quickly as it came returning the area to normal, minus the sudden addition.

  Senna blinks her eyes trying to return her vision to normal. “This is…?” Senna relaxes her body as she looks around. Feeling something struggle in her hands, she stops clutching her arms close to her chest releasing her grip. Senna looks at the fiery red phoenix in her arms. Contrasting with her bright red body, two pale blue feathers sway lightly atop her head. Upon closer inspection, one of the wings on the 30 centimeter tall phoenix moves strangely. She inwardly feels guilty for pressing her new friend so tightly against her chest to crush a wing.

  “Ow…” Mika groans. A tear forms as Mika tries to move her broken wing. It flaps awkwardly, bending at a 90 degree angle halfway down the wing.

  “Sorry! ! !” Senna immediately heals Mika while setting Mika’s wing to prevent any problems. A white light and a blue mist surround the broken part of the wing. The blood and flesh stitch back together disappearing as Mika’s flaming red feathers shine brightly. “I’m really sorry about that! I panicked!” Taking some distance, Senna gets down on all fours and apologizes with a dogeza.

  “It’s okay…Sis didn’t do it on purpose.” Mika grumbles angrily, but her mood lightens seeing Senna so panicked.

  “Still. I’m very sorry.” Senna presses her head against the ground again.

  “It’s okay! Stop it.” Mika replied feeling embarrassed by Senna’s insistence.

  Senna remains flustered for some time before eventually calming down. She sits back up returning to a normal state. “Say Mika… I’ve been meaning to ask, why are you calling me ‘Sis’ all of a sudden?”

  “Mom…Mother told me that if I do a Blood Contract that they would be my new family. We have a contract, so you’re my big sister now.” Mika explains.

  “Can you explain about Blood Contracts? I don’t know that much other than what was mentioned earlier?” Senna replies.

  Mika nods and starts to explain what she knows. There are various benefits with a Blood Contract. One is the constant connection with their partner. The two of them can always detect each other’s presence and sense when the other is in danger. Another benefit is the possibility to share senses if they wish to. Adding magic to their connection lets them also share their vision and see what is happening on the other side’s end with a bit of practice. They also have the ability to share thoughts and speak to each other with their minds.

  The most important factor that drives people to form contracts is the access to unique skills. Humans that form a contract can quickly learn and develop innate skills unique to their contracted partner. They can learn rare skills and accelerate the growth of their own skills at the same time. However, with the binding nature of a blood contract, most magical races refuse to accept a contract with humans, especially those with ill intent.

  “Pft-HAHAHA!!” Senna starts laughing unable to control herself.

  “What’s so funny?” Mika tilts her head.

  “No... It’s just…” Senna struggles to control herself as she talks to Mika. “I have too many skills already. I don’t think I need anymore… Though, the bright side is that our connection will let you grow stronger than normal.” Senna answers with a grin. {I just hope it doesn’t go too far.}

  “Really?” Mika chirps. Senna gives a happy nod.

  “But if you consider me your sister, then I’m happy to do the same.” Senna smiles brightly. She spreads her arms and shifts forward to hug Mika, but freezes when she remembers what just happened. Reluctantly abandoning the idea of a hug, Senna awkwardly puts her hands down. “Ahem. Also, when we reach my home, I’ll introduce you to our parents and big sister.”

  “Okay!” Mika laughs seeing Senna switch between her serious thoughts and happy thoughts. As they calm down, Mika looks around. “Sis, where are we?”

  “Ahh…” Senna looks around, but doesn’t find anything distinguishing other than grass and trees. Focusing her magic, she focuses her detection skills, but only detects some wildlife in the area. No human shaped figures or clusters to signify a village appear within the ten kilometer range of her [Detection] skill. Senna tries casting and searches for anything she missed, but finds no human activity. “I’m… not sure. The teleportation circle suddenly broke when I touched it. I’m not completely sure why… Ah…” The unexpected level up message comes to mind. She bites her lip resolving herself to view her dreaded [Status].

  “Ahh…” Senna loses strength in her limbs and falls forward. Looking at her ridiculous [Status] screen, her mind starts spinning as she struggles to interpret the results. {What the hell is this?! Am I even human with this?! Even the normal status increased doubled from 10 points to 20 points per level.}

  “Sis? Are you okay?” Mika hops over and lightly pecks Senna’s ear affectionately.

  Senna reluctantly shifts her body when she feels Mika’s touch. “I’m…okay…I just saw my [Status] screen…”

  “[Status]? What’s that?” Mika asks.

  “Ah… Sorry. I just realized how much stronger my body is all of a sudden and my control is really bad.” Senna replies.

  “You can’t control it?” Mika tilts her head. She instinctively understands her body and how it works. To hear that Senna is unable to control her own body is completely baffling to Mika.

  “Not yet. I need to adjust. For now I shouldn’t touch you just in case.” Senna shakes her head with a bitter smile. “*Ahem*…Enough about that.” Senna stands up and takes some distance from Mika. “I’ll take a look and try to figure out where we are.”

  Senna crouches and performs a large jump. However, she severely underestimates her new found strength and her control over her body. A large gale forms from Senna’s jump blasting wind in all directions. Unable to resist the wind, Mika tumbles back several meters. She quickly takes some distance hiding in the branches of a nearby tree. A small quake occurs as the ground crumbles from the force of her jump. In the span of a few moments, an incredibly large fifty meter crater forms from the recoil of her jump.

  As for Senna, she rockets up into the sky unable to control her ascent. {Ahh! I can’t believe this?! How did I mess up with a simple jump?!} In a fluster, Senna swings her arms in front of her intending to cast a hastily formed to slow her ascension. But before she can cast her spell, her swinging arms creates makeshift wind sickles from the air pressure alone. Her body slows slightly as the wind sickles cut high into the air. Still ascending, Senna starts to feel short of breath as the pressure builds with the rising altitude.

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  Abandoning the idea of using magic, Senna simply thrusts both palms out in front of her. The resulting blast of air finally cuts her ascent and starts her descent. No longer panicking, the feeling of pain starts to register throughout her body. Looking at the source of the pain, she sees both arms and legs bleeding profusely. The skin on her arms and legs has burst open revealing her muscles underneath. Beneath the flowing blood, she sees most of her muscles have ripped apart from the strain of her movements. The few connected strands are heavily ripped and on the verge of tearing. Traces of exposed white bone are quickly stained with red blood.

  {Damn it! What the hell is this?!} “Ti…” She starts to cast to restore her body’s condition to before the jump, but immediately closes her mouth realizing how awry everything has been with her new status. “Damn it! No choice! , !” Blue and white light brilliantly shine as her magic comes forth. Her muscles quickly stitch back together as the healing spells take effect. She heavily stifles a sigh seeing her spell perform over five times greater than normal.

  Letting her magic do its work, she twists her body and takes in the landscape. Land extends in all directions leaving her flabbergasted. A mountain range blocks her view of the Eastern horizon and continues to extend and curve to also block the Northern horizon. To the south, the grassy plains eventually transforms into an expansive desert as far as the eye can see. In the western direction, Senna finally catches sight of her target. Past the distant plains is a group of white towers. Focusing [Hawk Eyes], Senna sees traces of other buildings in the area. {There! Some civilization!}

  Senna forms a to break her fall. Though she only intends to form a three meter tall cushion, it still ends up being oversized once again. Landing on a ten meter tall by fifteen meter wide cushion of wind, Senna gives a defeating sigh. She cancels the spell landing on the ground. She sits down to examine the extent of her injuries. Luckily, her healing spells have completely healed her damaged muscles and skin without leaving a trace. Senna examines her body with a mixed feeling. Her spells have been performing several folds greater than normal, but with the current situation just how much greater would it be if she actually casted an Advanced spell with twice the normal magic? A cold sweat runs down her back as she imagines the accidental destruction that would occur.

  “Sis!” Mika flies over in a fluster and lands on Senna’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes. Though I didn’t expect I would mess up that badly. My control is worse than I thought. I keep using too much power.” Senna sighs looking at the newly created crater a slight distance away. She points at the crater and uses a small increment of magical power to cast her spell. “”. A small portion of the hole is filled in with fresh soil from below. Senna casts the spell five times making gradual adjustments. Each successive spell bounces between weak and strong as she tunes her magic. By the 5th spell, the crater is completely filled in with dirt. Giving a despondent sigh, she slumps in place.

  “Are you okay?” Mika tilts her head sensing Senna’s despondent mood.

  “Yes. I just feel like I’m moving away from being human and becoming a monster.” Senna sighs.

  “But Sis is a human?” Mika retorts.

  “I look like one. But my power is too much for a normal human.” Senna sighs again. Feeling Mika’s concern, she spits out a final sigh before focusing on Mika. “Anyways, I figured out where to go. There’s a town full of people in that direction.” Senna points to the west. “Later I plan to go there and find out how to get home. But for right now, I want to practice a bit in this area.”

  “Okay!” Mika answers. She doesn’t care about where they go. Senna is currently the only family in her life and she plans to stick to Senna as close as possible.

  “Good. I’m going to practice a bit. If you get hungry, tell me. I have food. I don’t want to do hunt when I’m still breaking everything.” Senna replies.

  “I can hunt by myself?” Mika replies.

  “I’m sure you can. But I’m going to worry if I don’t stay nearby where I can help.” Senna answers.

  “Mmm…Okay.” Mika is a bit displeased at Senna’s overprotectiveness, but doesn’t argue with Senna knowing how concerned she is.

  For several hours, Senna performs various destructive acts to the surrounding landscape as she struggles to get a handle for her newly improved stats. The results give her a pounding headache. Using more than 15% of her overall physical or magical power causes a backlash that heavily damages her body. If she didn’t have access to healing magic and various potions, she would be incapacitated in bed for several months. Thankfully, with the protection of [Magic Body], her body can endure up 25% of her overall abilities. However, at 40% of her total strength, Senna had the unique experience of having all of her internal organs rupture, something she isn’t keen on repeating. She desperately suppressed the urge to faint. Making use of [Blood Manipulation], she kept blood flowing normally through her body as she quickly healed herself.

  {Ugh. How did it reach this point? Why do I have abilities that can override my bodily limits?} Clutching her head, she gives a defeated sigh. {I have to do something. It isn’t funny if I have a breakdown and accidentally kill myself.} Left with little choice, Senna decides to make full time use of her restrictive measures.

  Black clothing and jewelry are taking out from her [Storage]. Black earrings, necklace, and hair tie are used to restrict her magical power. Bracelets and leg cuffs specially enchanted with gravity magic restrict her movement and physical power. These cursed items were created by for imprisoning vicious criminals and prisoners of war. Naturally, these items gradually were disseminated from government use into the Black Market over the years. While Senna’s involvement with the Black Market is near nonexistent, her former place of hire was a favorite location for all sorts of people to frequent. With a bit of coaxing using her specially made food, Senna was able to acquire some of these cursed items when dealers dropped by the Restaurant.

  Senna persistently pleaded with several dealers to acquire a large amount of restraining equipment. Acquiring up to ten duplicates of each item naturally drew a lot of attention, but they averted their gaze with the allure of food. Not surprisingly, these duplicates were not exactly the same. They were all enchanted with increasingly high levels of restraint for each successive duplicate. She promised that it would not be used on others and that she wasn’t trying to con them, so the dealers relented.

  For Senna, being able to restrain her body and magic are of the utmost importance. Every month, Senna’s mood dips making her meek and panicky. Thinking about the timing, she realizes that it matched with the frequency Rimmer used to visit her. During these nights, she relives her time under him and the pain she suffers. At first, she constantly woke up Anahid and her parents with her screaming whenever she had a nightmare. Things were manageable at first with some normal rope.

  However, things took a change when she fought against the goblin village and rapidly leveled up. Her increased abilities allowed her to easily snap any normal restraint in her unconscious state. Accidental release of magic became an even bigger problem, which thankfully never ended up leveling the house. She could not leave things alone especially as she gained more experience and gained an even more ridiculous [Status]. At some point, it would be impossible to rely on Anahid and her parents to restrain her during a nightmare. Not to mention the fact that she might accidentally kill them in her sleep by brute force or inadvertent magic.

  Finished with the magical bindings, she slips on three layers of undershirts that have been enchanted with gravity magic. Each shirt causes the user to feel an increase in weight and decline in movement from the four times greater than normal gravity. Normally, even if four S rank adventurers of similar strength to Guildmaster Vermer were to wear a divided version of one weighted shirt, they would experience some difficulty performing at their optimum state.

  Yet, Senna gives a bitter smile after wearing three undershirts, two pairs of bracelets and a set of anklets. Her equipment was only able to bind about 10% of her total physical ability for each item. She had not anticipated that her stats would break 1000 so easily before she had a chance to acquire more heavily cursed equipment. Senna suppresses the urge to wear the weaker equipment in her [Storage]. Wearing any more clothing would become excessively bulky and hinder her movement in the future.

  With a heavy sigh, she decides to do her best to be careful. Senna sighs. “When I get to town, I need to try and get some new ones. Maybe remake these ones so I have to wear less. Hopefully, I never need to use any ability past my limits. Why do I have to acquire abilities that are hazardous to my health?”

  “Sis, are you okay?” Mika calls out from a nearby tree.

  “Yes. I’m just thinking about stuff.” Senna replies. She collects herself and starts practicing to use fight under her bound condition.

  Author's Note

  Senna becomes a full out OP character. One that even she can't handle properly. She's not the strongest obviously, but she does get a reprieve from such things.

  The chapter is a bit of an info dump, so sorry for that. I plan to do as I have been and briefly repeat stuff when they become relevant. That and I need to edit the Glossary, but I've been busy/lazy to want to deal with it.

  About Chapter 33. I'm currently a pent up ball of irritation. I have been incredibly busy, but still am able to write in my travel time. However, I'm currently experiencing a bit of writer's block. I know what I want to write, but I'm not satisfied with how upcoming events have been written. That means I need to go back and heavily rewrite what I have, which is most of Chapter 33. So the chapter will most likely come out in the following weekend, 03/26- 03/27. I'm really sorry about the delay and thank you for the continued supported. m(_ _)m

  P.S. I'm hoping most readers saw my comment/note in the previous chapter about the wait when I skipped my normal release time.