CH247 Thera’s Perspective

Thera did her best to suppress a headache as she let herself be dragged around the competition grounds by Steph. It was only the first day of it and somebody had already attacked Ben, and an extremely powerful person at that. As much as she liked to tease him about his poor luck, that really was too much.

Still, uncle and Will are going to be with him for the rest of the day, it’s fine. He doesn’t need me to babysit him, no matter how much I want to.

As things had calmed down and the plans to meet up with the others later had been made, Steph had insisted on going around to look at everything with her again, something Ben seemed to approve of as well since he didn’t do anything to help as soon as the other girl got her hands on her.

I guess all humans really are very touchy.

The way that both she and Ben insisted on grabbing onto her as they went around seemed to make it clear enough, not to mention the fact that they immediately greeted the other two with a hug as soon as they saw them. She supposed her own race was similar, though on a lesser scale, but she didn’t particularly mind. Having gone her whole life not being able to touch any but a handful of people had left her used to a certain level of distance, but it wasn’t like she wanted it to exist and was more likely than not the reason she didn’t resist the touch of those she knew would be unaffected.

“So anything else you want to see Thera?” Steph asked, pulling her from her thoughts. “I think most of the stalls are going to more or less start closing soon, maybe we could grab a quick bite?”

“Um, are we going to eat with the other two? I’m not really sure what’s happening there.”

“Ah, good question, I guess we’ll have to decide when we meet up but it doesn’t hurt to put it off a bit and ask them when we see them. In that case, did you want to meet up with Ben and Will for a bit?”

Even as she put the offer out, Thera was able to pick up on the fact that Steph was far less excited about that option and Thera didn’t dislike the girl so much to take it. She was with Ben all of the time, and Steph was presumably almost always with Will. Combined with the fact that she’d straight up said she hadn’t been able to make friends since coming to the world because of the difference in her status to those around her, she decided to keep things going just a little longer. After all, despite how uncomfortable their first meeting had been, since then Steph had been nothing but friendly and had even helped her train to get her life magic in the forest, a fact that probably contributed to her being able to keep Ben alive. Beyond all that though, it wasn’t like she was against the thought of developing their friendship, it was just that she wasn’t good at it, but with the hope of being able to go without her cloak in the next few years, she wouldn’t mind working a bit more on her people skills with someone who seemed like she’d be patient with her as she did.

“Well, if you don’t mind, there is one more place I would like to see first,” she said, taking the lead this time as she dragged Steph to one of the tables she and Ben had already been to, much to the other girl’s delight. As much as Steph was enjoying their time together, without Thera taking any initiative it felt like she was just forcing her companionship on her. By taking an active role in the decision making it felt more like they were truly hanging out.

After a while of weaving through the slowly dying crowds, they made it to exactly where she wanted to be. The last table they went to last time, staffed by various races with similar octopod body types, where the person running the table met her with a wave of a tentacle.

“Haha, I thought you’d be back,” He said cheerfully. “Curiosity got the better of you?”

“Um, yeah you could say that, but I thought my friend here would also be interested,” Thera explained, ignoring the way Steph lit up as she called her a friend. “So any chance you still have that one? Or would you just tell me what it is if you remember? Honestly, I’m just super curious.”

“Ha, not only did I save it, but I used it as a little test for the enchantment your friend showed us. You’re free to find out what it is, but only if you use it first and let me know if you feel anything from it.”

“Sure, I guess that’s fine,” She said, not really understanding the point. “Just don’t blame me if you made the enchantment wrong and the entire thing breaks. I really can’t stress how bad my mana control is.”

“These are the risks we take to entertain ourselves,” He said, shrugging his many tentacles before he put the crystal ball on the table for her to touch, explaining just what they were to Steph as she did.

As she took it in her hands and carefully ran her mana through it, she was pleased to see the entire thing didn’t immediately break, but less so for the effect. She barely felt anything from it.

“Uh, I’m not really getting anything, just a small pleasant feeling,” She admitted, curious as to what it could be that both she and Ben might have to deal with often enough that it wouldn’t have an effect, let alone something Ben felt the need to hide. “Can you check if I destroyed the enchantment, just to be sure?”

“Looks like it’s fine,” He said after a hesitant glance. “But you did destroy three-quarters of the sacrificial enchantments after just a few moments. And here I was thinking the amount I put was overkill. Anyway though, why don’t you flip it over and see what you got.”

The salesman seemed unusually entertained by the result as he told her to look at what it was, and with some hesitation she did, feeling Steph looking over her shoulder the entire time as the words ‘young love’ were revealed on the bottom.

In a flash she flipped it over, the same as Ben had, but too slow for the girl beside her not to see exactly what it said as Thera watched Steph’s happy smile grow wide as she put the crystal down.

“I’m not in love with Ben.”

“Nobody said you are,” She told Thera cheerfully, not believing her for a second.

“My dark resistance is 42, it just didn’t seem to have much effect because of that.”

“I don’t believe that gave you any issue earlier, and it’s still more empathy based than dark,” The octopus chimed in, seeming just as entertained by the results.

This is dumb, sure being with Ben makes me happy but that doesn’t mean I’m in love with him. It’s just a stupid broken crystal, I’ve already decided that I’m not going to worry about that sort of thing in life, it’s not like I changed my mind, I would never choose to be in love and this is so dumb why is it stressing me out so much?

Steph thanked the seller as they walked away, Thera ignoring any question she was asked as they went to finally meet up with the other two girls as a question popped into her mind.

Wait, if Ben didn’t feel anything from it then who’s he in love with?

After meeting up with both Amy and Yuzu, the decision was made for all of them to go back to Thera’s room at the embassy after grabbing some food from the stalls set up around the city to take advantage of the festival.

Even though the other two girls had a very nice residence in the city, they couldn’t use it due to the unfortunate fact that they had too many servants working for them. While Ben had made sure to give each girl an amulet to be on the safe side, there was a chance that someone working there would fall under Thera’s charm, a far less significant risk in the embassy so long as she wore her brace.

The room she had was plenty large at least, meant for housing diplomates or any people of note while they visited the city, meaning that on top of having a bed and a small kitchen, there were also plenty of places to sit and relax as they did, taking a load off as they picked away at their food and chatted.

“I’m so so sorry,” Yuzu said again over the meal, showing just how much more talkative she was when she was only amongst women. “I just meant to warn Uliel, but honestly his soul looks a little scary on top of that and I guess that came across and so on top of what skills I saw he had… Well, I didn’t mean for things to turn out that way!”

“Really, it’s fine,” Thera said, brushing her off again, but finding a question as she did. “But what makes his soul scary? I mean, I get a few of his skills honestly, but his soul?”

“Um, I was told pretty strongly not to talk about his skills…” She said apologetically, but Thera didn’t back down. Now that she knew that a soul mage thought something was wrong with Ben’s soul she couldn’t.

“In that case, I will. Is either sacrilege or his partial demonic body interacting with his soul in a dangerous way?” With the way Ben shared the details of his status so easily she didn’t think he would care, but she would apologize later to him about revealing it if he did. She was sure he would be far more interested in whatever Yuzu had to say than keeping it a secret anyway.

The others looked shocked, even Steph who hadn’t known he’d gained a skill from the organ transplant until she’d heard Ben say it to the archmage, but Yuzu quickly got over it and shook her head.

“No, it’s not those ones.”

“Then what? His crafting or enchanting? He definitely levels those up unusually fast so I could see there being something weird going on there. Or is it one of his mind skills? I know he has some weird ones. If I had to guess it would be focus, complex mind, or parallel thought given what those ones seem to do to the inside of his head.”

“Do you just know all of his skills?” Steph asked as Thera shrugged back.

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“He tells me every time he levels one up so even if I don’t remember the levels I at least have an idea of what skills he has.”

“Um, well you’re right about the mind skills,” Yuzu admitted. “And it’s nothing bad, it just seems like as they level up they interact with his soul on a deeper level than most skills. Sorry, it’s a bit hard to explain if you can’t see a soul. Other than that though, it’s just how dull his looks.”

“Yuzu, that sounds pretty harsh,” Amy pointed out in a far kinder way than she had been to Jake earlier.

“Sorry, it’s just, usually a soul is bright with mana. Not to say Ben’s isn’t but it barely twinkles with any affinitied mana, only the pure stuff, it makes it look dull and muted in comparison to a normal person. It’s not a problem now that I understand why; he doesn’t have any good affinities, right? And some unusually good resistances too?”

“Nothing above five I think,” She confirmed.

“That makes sense, no wonder it looks like that. Of course, yours looks plenty unusual as well Thera, it’s honestly beautiful,” Yuzu beamed and leaned in, leaving Thera feeling like she was being stared into. “I’ve never seen a soul shine so bright with its magic, it makes me wonder how it doesn’t tear you apart.”