“Cough! D-Do you want to store the book now or, do you want to get the last one first? I think we should be able to get the last one without storing this one first.”
Seriously, I should become an actor once my job as the Hero is done. I mean, just look how beautifully and definitely not awkward at all, without my voice stuttering at the beginning and with the most consistent timber of voice, I was able to swiftly change topics. Yep, I was quite normal if I say so myself.
“Uh... I-I also agree with you.”
Welp, it seems we have reached an agreement and with it, we get our “bodies” moving towards our last target. From here we currently are, we are nowhere near the last magic line in fact, we are on the opposite side of it. This happens because of the bookshelf downstairs as the magic lines come from said bookshelf and unless it moves elsewhere, the lines will always be in the same position regardless of mine and Miss Pink Orb current positions. Luckily for us, we can actually see the magic line from where we are (we do have to use Magical Eyes) and while this floor is in complete chaos as I described before, there is a somewhat straight path towards the “destination” of the line. Although, this time around we won’t go through the stairs to reach the other side but instead, we will go all away around it. The idea behind this is to explore a little bit the rest of the floor as if we go through the same path as before we might miss something useful. But, enough of my usual yapping, let’s get moving.
“Hey, have you noticed this?”
Once we reached the middle of the floor, I quickly noticed something rather “odd” and because of it, I felt the need to ask her as there is a possibility that I might be crazy or seeing things. Maybe even overthinking it as I normally have the tendency to do.
“Yes, there is an empty space over there.”
While the orb has no arms or anything that can act as such, I could still see her pointing towards that “space over there”, exactly the one that I was referring to. It’s not that far from us, just a couple of meters. However, in a radius of roughly 5 meters, said area is completely devoid of everything except the floor but with a little bit of dust here and there. Actually, is that ashes instead? From the looks it might be... Ah, I have no clue. Either way, it seems that whatever was there was burned, leaving those ashes behind although, if that was the case I think the floor would have at least a single burnt mark on it, no? Maybe those ashes are just dust and I’m yet again wasting everyone’s time with my usual rumbling of a fool…
“It feels like whatever was there, it got teleported.”
“Oh? Why do you say that?”
“Because of the shapes that are present.”
Now that is a good theory that I can get behind it, even believing it. All the dust present allows us to reach this conclusion as you can see marks on the floor where there isn’t as much dust as the other areas. The contrast or more so if the difference wasn’t that strong neither of us would be able to see said difference as everything would blend rather smoothly. Now, while she said that whatever was here it got teleported, they could’ve been instead simply removed by hand. However, she got this conclusion because of the shape of the entire area, one that is quite round, almost equal to something that we used with some frequency. As anyone should know by now, a magic circle has the shape of, well, a circle, close to being a perfect one in fact, something that also happens here. It does not matter how strong the magic circle is, what type of monstrosity you are about to unleash against those that dare to face you, it will always have a circle like shape to it, just being bigger or smaller depending on the strength of the spell that will be used. But, how can we say that this area has a round shape to it, how did we reach such a conclusion? Once again, it’s all thanks to the dust present here, not only that, but also thanks to all the debris and pieces of destroyed furniture around this area. Indeed, there are several piles of debris that surround this area, helping rounding it out and creating said round shape but the cherry at the top is the dust that is significantly less predominant inside of the area compared to the outside.
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“I can see that but, the magic line does not end here as otherwise we would go through the same process as before.”
And so, after wasting a minute or so in this, wandering what could’ve been here, we once again get our rear ends moving towards where the magic line leads us, towards the end of the wall, right in the corner of it to be more precise. A better understanding of where we are is that, seeing it from the perspective of stairs, we currently are on the right side, all the way down the wall, right where it ends and meets his brother, or sister. I have no clue but I do know that we are close to the corner of it. Without saying anything at all, the moment we reached this area we both quickly understood what we’ll be doing, in this case it is to look for the book. Time does it thing, as always. An unstoppable force that cares and waits for no one, marching towards the end of its life without a single care to those that are left behind, begging at him to stop. But while he does what he was created to do, we on the other hand, we get our eyes working as we desperately look for the last prize of the bookshelf.
……..
……
…
Though, who could’ve guessed? We are not finding anything at all!
Pieces of debris here…Pieces of debris there.
But, no book to be found or even pages for that matter.
“Anything at all?”
Oh, goddess that blessed me, the one that allowed me to become who I am today. Forgive my rudeness but I hereby am making a request for thy.
Please, bless Miss Pink Orb so that she can indeed find what we are looking for. So that we can cut our journey shorter and achieve what we need much sooner.
Oh, goddess that blessed me, will my all belief and admiration towards you and only you, I beg thy to fulfil said request!
“No... I’m sorry.”
God damnit! Here I was praying to my goddess with all of my faith that I have for her, so that she could help me out. All for naught it seems. Ah man, I shouldn’t have wasted such prayer for such an insignificant situation but I do have a reason for this, Miss Pink Orb. Nothing more and nothing less but, something happened on her side, what I mean is that, I can now know how much magic energy she currently has. She still is holding the Spirit Magic stone, still tightly but something happened to her as now I’m able to sense how much magic energy she has. I have no clue what happened but it has confirmed all of my suspicions. Maybe she had a spell in place that was hiding her magic energy, maybe it was something else instead. I have no clue what might have been but that also does not matter, what matters right now is that we are in a timer. Meaning that, her magic energy is decreasing a little bit too fast for my liking, in roughly 30 minutes she might get the debuff Magic Deficiency as her magic energy levels will reach 10%. Since she has physical contact with the stone, I’m able to say this since I have such a connection to it, as if I was the one directly touching her instead. When you are in physical contact with someone or something, monster included, you are able to roughly gauge the amount of magic energy they have and that includes their maximum and even the minimum. However, I can only know of such facts if I’m using Magic Sense as otherwise, I won’t be able to know. Though when I say I, I mean everyone as this is not exclusive to the Hero. Once again, I’m yapping about whatever, wasting precious time that should be used to think for a solution for our problems…
Also, she once again apologised to me -_-
“Sigh! Look, there is no need to apologise. I’m also failing to see anything, should I apologise to you for that?”
“Uhm, n-no?”
That sure inspires confidence. I mean, her tone of voice was weak, just a slight lower timber in this case but the worst part is how unsure she sounded and I can also guess how she looked. Seriously, she shows her lack of confidence left and right without any care, almost as if she wears it as a badge of some sorts, you know? Something to be proud of… Ah, what am I saying? Of course not, this “quirk” of hers, I believe it might be from some type of trauma, maybe from something that she failed to accomplish, something that she truly desired to have/do but failed miserably. Maybe she suffered the harsh consequences of such failing, or she was bullied for it. The possibilities are endless unfortunately and without asking, I will only be guessing what the truth might really be. Either way, while my Heroic instincts and my Hero persona are both screaming at the top of their “quirks” to get to the bottom of her problems and help her out, I simply cannot do that. Two reasons, first of all is that I will overstep every single boundary that she has as I will literally be meddling with her personal affairs not only that, we’ve just meet a couple hours ago, if that much. Way too soon for me to be that comfortable with her. The other reason is of course, our Kiana.
However, just as I was staring at Miss Pink Orb with a little too much intensity, a thought crossed my mind while I did so. A potential solution for the problem at hand.
