“Commander, we ha-“ It was the man Hannah had picked up as a child who opened the tent and let the sunlight into it. Before sleeping, I naturally made sure that our bodies were covered completely by a blanket and only our head sticked out of it. Sadly, I had to give up my favourite position for that, but Hannah´s feelings were much more important in that case.
“Marc, how often do I need to tell you to stop intruding in my tent?” Hannah commented after patting the blanket on her chest.
“Hannah, what is this supposed to mean?” Marc asked angrily.
“What?” Hannah said, slowly stirring to my side while I searched the whole bed for my sunglasses.
“That naked teenager in your bed.” From where did he know that? Solely from my exposed feet? I could only hope so.
“Teenager? Well, at least I´m not a child anymore.” I said dryly while going through the straw with my fingers.
“Mum, I know you have your difficulties with men, but a girl?” Mark asked once more.
“She is the person I have sworn my lifelong loyalty to.” Hannah claimed and warmed my cold heard in the process.
“A girl? Really?” He exclaimed surprised.
“Marc, let it be.” Hannah ordered.
“No? First, we camp here for three weeks and now you are sleeping with a teenager? You are clearly acting strange.” He claimed.
“Here.” Hannah handed me my sunglasses she must have found somewhere and I promptly put them on my nose. “There is nothing strange with me.”
“Did she put you under some mind control spell or what? You never slept with anyone before. Girl, get away from her or else …” Or else what? Surely, he could beat me during the day, but Hannah would step in between before he would come even close to hurting me.
“Hannah, is he trustworthy?” I asked slowly.
“Definitely. If not, I will take care of it.” She stated, which was enough for me.
“In that case, what are you doing here, constable? She has trust in you, so why don’t you trust her back?” I asked and smiled brightly.
“Because I am not acting strange?” He asked a bit angrily.
“Is her behaviour strange though? Just because she never acted like this in your lifetime, it doesn’t mean she never acted like this before.” I said.
“I have known her for far longer than you, Marc. Some races just don’t age like humans do, and she is a member of one of them. Don’t worry, I am not under some mind spell. I would realise that before you do. You will understand eventually why she is the one I am following, but for now you need to trust me.” Hannah said a lot less strictly than before.
“I … okay.” He finally relented and closed his eyes in resignation.
“Marc, no words about this to anyone. If the others have questions, they can come to me.” Hannah said and shooed him out of the tent shortly afterwards. He left unsure if he should say anything to me, but didn´t choose to do so in the end.
“Marc … wasn’t his name Paul?” I asked only slightly surprised.
“Oh, he only played the good man for Sofie because none of us wanted her to go crazy.” Hannah admitted.
“I see. How is she doing anyway?” I asked slightly interested.
“Well, the last information about her is that she joined the academy for real. That was three years ago.” She said while slowly rolling off the hay, probably deciding that it was a good time to start the day.
“I see. By the way, do you want to stay with your troops or do you want to help me out personally?” I asked and got off the hay as well to gather my garments.
“The answer is obvious, isn´t it? And besides, Marc wanted to try leading them himself anyway.” Hannah said, even though I could see she put quite a lot of lifeblood in this troop of paramilitaries.
“Great. I need them to prepare a rather lengthy journey to the front lines.” I said and began to dress myself.
“You want to take care of that demon king?” She asked to which I could only shake my head.
“No, not at all. I´m not very keen on solving the mess the gods created.” I stated.
“But the rise in mana was responsible.” She said, which was right ... in a sense.
“Oh, and the gods couldn’t have anything about that? Sorry, but I refuse to believe that. For them, this whole world is just a playground. And we are the little figures they are shifting around. It isn’t a game I can win, so I simply refuse to take part in it.” I said unhappily as I had no real way of withdrawing from the game at that moment.
“Do you want to get rid of the system?” She proposed. Well, I could do that and sent shockwaves through the world, but no.
“No, that wouldn’t be wise at this stage. It disproportionally benefits the humans and elves as only the intelligent demons get any benefit out of it. I´ll stay passive as long as I can and watch the mess unfolding from the side lines.” I stated. The balance of powers between the humanoid side and the demons was fragile and only held up by the system which leeched of my soul. If I were to get rid of it, this world would be swamped with demons which I seriously didn’t want. And to be honest, I didn’t want to get rid of the system because my power as the saint and the churches power relied on it heavily. Abolishing it was like hacking off my own foot.
“Okay … and what do you have planned?” Planned? Still not much.
“I had planned showing you something. Do you have magical ink?” I asked, and looked around the tent. There were only a few chests around, a few black curved swords, but sadly nothing that screamed of magic.
“I should have.” Hannah stated after she finished clothing herself surprising me a little bit. She rummaged through one of these chests and retrieved a quill alongside a bottle of blue liquid which thankfully had not much in common with liquid mana.
I took both of these items out of her hand and stared at the magical ink for a little while. It was my first time seeing this kind of ink as I usually used a magical pencil during the few times I made a magical circle in my life. Shrugging slightly I walked past her as she strode out of the tent.
“Do you know a place where there are little to no distractions? Somewhere where you can relax?” I asked and saw her nodding immediately afterwards. She went ahead through the camp with the usual stoic expression she showed to the soldiers while I happily hummed right next to her. The soldiers respectfully kept their mouth shut as we walked past them towards a nearby forest even though I could feel their gazes on me. Hannah truly trained them well.
“Hannah, no matter what you claim, I think you have carved yourself a path in this world.” I said after looking back to the camp which was several hundred metres away at this point.
“A path held up by humans who could all die within seconds…” She said dryly. She wasn’t any different from them in that regard, but being over two hundred and living mostly amongst humans skewed her perception of death a little bit.
“Life is always fickle. Only death is absolute.” I claimed and regretted it nearly instantly.
“That was …” She muttered while looking at me as if I was mentally insane.
“Cringy? Yeah, should have realised that sooner. But I really think you did well during my absence.” I claimed and felt the bark of the first few trees with my hands.
“I don’t know. It was really boring without you.” She told me a bit melancholic.
“Hannah, don’t be so depressed about yourself! You did well. Look at your lightning magic. That´s impressive!” I claimed and thought back about the day eight years ago when she slaughtered herself though hordes of demons.
“… how much did you progress?” She asked slowly.
“Ehh … not that much honestly. There is a limit to what you can do with a simple sword in your hand.” I claimed and stopped for a second to gather my courage for jumping over a little creek.
“You haven´t learned any magic?” She asked with interest.
“Depends on what you call magic … let me show you.” I said and wandered to a nearby large stone. “Do you know what death magic is?” I asked while dipping the quill in the magical ink.
“Don’t tell me you know instant death magic?” I stopped just short of doing the first stroke of the magical circle as she said so and flinched bitterly.
“Please don’t mention that ever again. My disappointment in my own magic is immeasurable … but I picked up a few things while learning my magic on the way.” I said unhappily.
“And those are?” She asked with interest as I painted a perfect circle on the stone.
“A few magical circles for example. Do you know they are freaking weird?” I asked as soon as I finished the inner circle.
“What do you mean? Aren´t these just runes you need to remember and arrange them in a circular fashion?” She asked while looking over my shoulder with interest.
“Not quite … these tunes are in the language of the universe itself. It is just that they are insanely mutilated which makes it incredibly hard for me to read them. Take a normal circle for locking a door for example. While I would write down something like ‘This is a door. Open it only for me’ out of instinct, the needed text you would need to put into the circle would be ‘Door doing doory things. Open do not. For deactivate me.’ See? Completely hopeless to learn when you know the real meaning.” I explained. I was never that interested in magical circles as I couldn’t use them at all, but I picked up the few I found interesting and useful.
“And what are you writing down there?” She asked after I finished the first few words.
“Soul be the base life do. Life define as soul, soul be connected through life … do you want me to mutilate the human language more?” I asked while trying to translate the written words into human language which wasn’t easy at all.
“I could listen to your jokes forever.” She stated and laughed happily.
“That was no joke though. That is seriously the first percent of this circle.” I told her. Maybe my translation was a bit screwed, but otherwise?
“First? How many runes do you need to add?” She asked as I had already filled out around a quarter of the space between the two circles.
“Uhh … a few more hundred? It is a rather complicated one.” I said while looking up towards the sun.
“And how long will that take?” She asked.
“An hour?” I could only hope the sun would stay up that long, otherwise we had to do everything tomorrow.
“And where do you find the space to write so much more?” She asked while I filled out even more of the circle.
“Above the stuff I just wrote?” I explained after finishing the first layer of the circle and started writing over the stuff I just wrote down.
“I give up.” She said and sat down against a nearby tree, completely hopeless as this circle was truly mindbogglingly complicated, especially for me. Out of the three or so circles I learned, this was truly the most difficult one.
“Commander, we ha-“ It was the man Hannah had picked up as a child who opened the tent and let the sunlight into it. Before sleeping, I naturally made sure that our bodies were covered completely by a blanket and only our head sticked out of it. Sadly, I had to give up my favourite position for that, but Hannah´s feelings were much more important in that case.
“Marc, how often do I need to tell you to stop intruding in my tent?” Hannah commented after patting the blanket on her chest.
“Hannah, what is this supposed to mean?” Marc asked angrily.
“What?” Hannah said, slowly stirring to my side while I searched the whole bed for my sunglasses.
“That naked teenager in your bed.” From where did he know that? Solely from my exposed feet? I could only hope so.
“Teenager? Well, at least I´m not a child anymore.” I said dryly while going through the straw with my fingers.
“Mum, I know you have your difficulties with men, but a girl?” Mark asked once more.
“She is the person I have sworn my lifelong loyalty to.” Hannah claimed and warmed my cold heard in the process.
“A girl? Really?” He exclaimed surprised.
“Marc, let it be.” Hannah ordered.
“No? First, we camp here for three weeks and now you are sleeping with a teenager? You are clearly acting strange.” He claimed.
“Here.” Hannah handed me my sunglasses she must have found somewhere and I promptly put them on my nose. “There is nothing strange with me.”
“Did she put you under some mind control spell or what? You never slept with anyone before. Girl, get away from her or else …” Or else what? Surely, he could beat me during the day, but Hannah would step in between before he would come even close to hurting me.
“Hannah, is he trustworthy?” I asked slowly.
“Definitely. If not, I will take care of it.” She stated, which was enough for me.
“In that case, what are you doing here, constable? She has trust in you, so why don’t you trust her back?” I asked and smiled brightly.
“Because I am not acting strange?” He asked a bit angrily.
“Is her behaviour strange though? Just because she never acted like this in your lifetime, it doesn’t mean she never acted like this before.” I said.
“I have known her for far longer than you, Marc. Some races just don’t age like humans do, and she is a member of one of them. Don’t worry, I am not under some mind spell. I would realise that before you do. You will understand eventually why she is the one I am following, but for now you need to trust me.” Hannah said a lot less strictly than before.
“I … okay.” He finally relented and closed his eyes in resignation.
“Marc, no words about this to anyone. If the others have questions, they can come to me.” Hannah said and shooed him out of the tent shortly afterwards. He left unsure if he should say anything to me, but didn´t choose to do so in the end.
“Marc … wasn’t his name Paul?” I asked only slightly surprised.
“Oh, he only played the good man for Sofie because none of us wanted her to go crazy.” Hannah admitted.
“I see. How is she doing anyway?” I asked slightly interested.
“Well, the last information about her is that she joined the academy for real. That was three years ago.” She said while slowly rolling off the hay, probably deciding that it was a good time to start the day.
“I see. By the way, do you want to stay with your troops or do you want to help me out personally?” I asked and got off the hay as well to gather my garments.
“The answer is obvious, isn´t it? And besides, Marc wanted to try leading them himself anyway.” Hannah said, even though I could see she put quite a lot of lifeblood in this troop of paramilitaries.
“Great. I need them to prepare a rather lengthy journey to the front lines.” I said and began to dress myself.
“You want to take care of that demon king?” She asked to which I could only shake my head.
“No, not at all. I´m not very keen on solving the mess the gods created.” I stated.
“But the rise in mana was responsible.” She said, which was right ... in a sense.
“Oh, and the gods couldn’t have anything about that? Sorry, but I refuse to believe that. For them, this whole world is just a playground. And we are the little figures they are shifting around. It isn’t a game I can win, so I simply refuse to take part in it.” I said unhappily as I had no real way of withdrawing from the game at that moment.
“Do you want to get rid of the system?” She proposed. Well, I could do that and sent shockwaves through the world, but no.
“No, that wouldn’t be wise at this stage. It disproportionally benefits the humans and elves as only the intelligent demons get any benefit out of it. I´ll stay passive as long as I can and watch the mess unfolding from the side lines.” I stated. The balance of powers between the humanoid side and the demons was fragile and only held up by the system which leeched of my soul. If I were to get rid of it, this world would be swamped with demons which I seriously didn’t want. And to be honest, I didn’t want to get rid of the system because my power as the saint and the churches power relied on it heavily. Abolishing it was like hacking off my own foot.
“Okay … and what do you have planned?” Planned? Still not much.
“I had planned showing you something. Do you have magical ink?” I asked, and looked around the tent. There were only a few chests around, a few black curved swords, but sadly nothing that screamed of magic.
“I should have.” Hannah stated after she finished clothing herself surprising me a little bit. She rummaged through one of these chests and retrieved a quill alongside a bottle of blue liquid which thankfully had not much in common with liquid mana.
I took both of these items out of her hand and stared at the magical ink for a little while. It was my first time seeing this kind of ink as I usually used a magical pencil during the few times I made a magical circle in my life. Shrugging slightly I walked past her as she strode out of the tent.
“Do you know a place where there are little to no distractions? Somewhere where you can relax?” I asked and saw her nodding immediately afterwards. She went ahead through the camp with the usual stoic expression she showed to the soldiers while I happily hummed right next to her. The soldiers respectfully kept their mouth shut as we walked past them towards a nearby forest even though I could feel their gazes on me. Hannah truly trained them well.
“Hannah, no matter what you claim, I think you have carved yourself a path in this world.” I said after looking back to the camp which was several hundred metres away at this point.
“A path held up by humans who could all die within seconds…” She said dryly. She wasn’t any different from them in that regard, but being over two hundred and living mostly amongst humans skewed her perception of death a little bit.
“Life is always fickle. Only death is absolute.” I claimed and regretted it nearly instantly.
“That was …” She muttered while looking at me as if I was mentally insane.
“Cringy? Yeah, should have realised that sooner. But I really think you did well during my absence.” I claimed and felt the bark of the first few trees with my hands.
“I don’t know. It was really boring without you.” She told me a bit melancholic.
“Hannah, don’t be so depressed about yourself! You did well. Look at your lightning magic. That´s impressive!” I claimed and thought back about the day eight years ago when she slaughtered herself though hordes of demons.
“… how much did you progress?” She asked slowly.
“Ehh … not that much honestly. There is a limit to what you can do with a simple sword in your hand.” I claimed and stopped for a second to gather my courage for jumping over a little creek.
“You haven´t learned any magic?” She asked with interest.
“Depends on what you call magic … let me show you.” I said and wandered to a nearby large stone. “Do you know what death magic is?” I asked while dipping the quill in the magical ink.
“Don’t tell me you know instant death magic?” I stopped just short of doing the first stroke of the magical circle as she said so and flinched bitterly.
“Please don’t mention that ever again. My disappointment in my own magic is immeasurable … but I picked up a few things while learning my magic on the way.” I said unhappily.
“And those are?” She asked with interest as I painted a perfect circle on the stone.
“A few magical circles for example. Do you know they are freaking weird?” I asked as soon as I finished the inner circle.
“What do you mean? Aren´t these just runes you need to remember and arrange them in a circular fashion?” She asked while looking over my shoulder with interest.
“Not quite … these tunes are in the language of the universe itself. It is just that they are insanely mutilated which makes it incredibly hard for me to read them. Take a normal circle for locking a door for example. While I would write down something like ‘This is a door. Open it only for me’ out of instinct, the needed text you would need to put into the circle would be ‘Door doing doory things. Open do not. For deactivate me.’ See? Completely hopeless to learn when you know the real meaning.” I explained. I was never that interested in magical circles as I couldn’t use them at all, but I picked up the few I found interesting and useful.
“And what are you writing down there?” She asked after I finished the first few words.
“Soul be the base life do. Life define as soul, soul be connected through life … do you want me to mutilate the human language more?” I asked while trying to translate the written words into human language which wasn’t easy at all.
“I could listen to your jokes forever.” She stated and laughed happily.
“That was no joke though. That is seriously the first percent of this circle.” I told her. Maybe my translation was a bit screwed, but otherwise?
“First? How many runes do you need to add?” She asked as I had already filled out around a quarter of the space between the two circles.
“Uhh … a few more hundred? It is a rather complicated one.” I said while looking up towards the sun.
“And how long will that take?” She asked.
“An hour?” I could only hope the sun would stay up that long, otherwise we had to do everything tomorrow.
“And where do you find the space to write so much more?” She asked while I filled out even more of the circle.
“Above the stuff I just wrote?” I explained after finishing the first layer of the circle and started writing over the stuff I just wrote down.
“I give up.” She said and sat down against a nearby tree, completely hopeless as this circle was truly mindbogglingly complicated, especially for me. Out of the three or so circles I learned, this was truly the most difficult one.
