Magical Adventure 2

Sorry for this being late, I only finished the Devil's chapter on Saturday, so I didn't have enough time to make this.

Note: This also officially begins my month-long haitus, and the payment pause from that. Patreon will not charge y'all money for this month, and this chapter will be made public on the 1st of May.

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Using staves was surprisingly complicated. Supposedly, priestesses could just pray for God’s intervention and let him guide their spell, but mages like Mennehl had to take a more academic view of things. 

It all reminded Tanya of what little she knew about medicine, picked up more during the war listening to the medical mages than the wiki walks of her first life. What was certain was that her pre-existing knowledge of anatomy helped a lot in deciphering his explanations. And translating it into active magic. “You’re a natural, Tanya!” Mennehl praised, which led to Genivere seething behind him. 

“Thank you, fair maiden.” Said Saien, the knight she had just healed, one of Genivere’s squad. “Your mercy is matched only by your beauty.” He wasn’t serious, of course. Saien was something of a casanova, but culturally this was more of a way to inoculate young girls from being seduced by giving them practice in turning men down, normalizing being flirted with without needing any sort of reciprocation, if she was interpreting the lessons that Sister Leanne and Mennehl gave her on the subject correctly. 

Personally, Tanya thought that they were rather understrength, with only six horsemen in addition to Genivere and occasionally Mennehl as fire support and medical, but that was a fairly typical number of horses for a green commander like Genivere to lead on patrols to keep the roads safe, as monsters rarely gathered in enough numbers to threaten that many soldiers, and while bandits did, forces that large didn’t usually come from nowhere, so reinforcements were able to be called in that event. 

At least, in theory. Tanya was patching up training injuries, as the knights that Genivere led were… not very experienced. The youngest, Saien, was only fifteen, and the oldest, Lowain, was nineteen, with Lowain being the only one that Tanya would personally rate as competent, with the rest being rookies that she’d cringe to see in the trenches. 

That wasn’t to say that she didn’t see troops that green in the trenches of the Rhine, but she cringed internally when seeing the tragic waste of potential they represented. Nevertheless, an actual girl her nominal age, seven, would probably blush and be flattered at the faux-flirting from the objectively handsome boy, so she looked away nervously and made sure to insert a stammer into her voice: “A-ah, thank you, Sir Knight.” She then hid behind Mennehl’s robes so she wouldn’t have to maintain the expression. From how Saien’s smile didn’t waver a bit at her actions and how she heard a few light chuckles from Mennehl, it was the correct response. 

One thing she learned in her second life is that she should have put more effort into seeming like a normal child. A bright child, a mature one, but one that wasn’t… odd. That wasn’t to say that she didn’t put in effort at the Imperial Orphanage, but she avoided the other children. That was strange. Yes, being friendly with everyone was equally strange, given the social dynamics that led to her hiding her food during lean times, but she should have struck more of a balance. 

So she redoubled her efforts to keep her actions within the bounds of childish enthusiasm, and while she’d abandon those efforts if she needed to repeat her joining the military at an improbably young age to get promoted before she became old enough to properly conscript… she doubts that would happen. For one, magic had a lot less to do with innate potential in this world, although it still mattered; apparently she had a fairly standard amount of magic for someone with potential; enough to be trained with it, but not enough to be considered some exceptional prospect. 

Between the greater commonality of magic and the lesser potency of it, even if she was brought to a battlefield it would be to tend wounds, much safer than wading into the thick of it. With her growing knowledge, she may have her worst prospects be some military production facility, which… well, she’d make sure to keep an evacuation plan ready in case Being X decided that it would be funny to have her be attacked. 

After she finished wasting medicine getting trained to heal by tending to those minor wounds, Mennehl brought her back onto his horse and the group rode away from the open grassland they used to train and towards a waterfall that had a lovely pond at the bottom before it proceeded to a stream. The erosion on the rocks revealed some crystalline structures that sparkled in the sunlight, and the mist generated by the waterfall’s impact created a rainbow to complement those colorful sparkles. 

It was a beautiful scene of nature, and while Tanya did exaggerate her awe, it wasn’t faked. “This is the Fairy Falls.” Mennehl whispered to her as his horse slowed to a stop. “According to legend, that pond is the home of a beautiful fairy that gave ancient magical secrets to Saint Latona during her Pilgrimage.” The Pilgrimage of Latona was the primary allegory that outlined most of the local religious myths. Tanya did vaguely recall some kind of fairy story among the many chapters in that tale, something about the virtue of honesty or resisting greed? 

“Pretty…” Tanya said, as a child wouldn’t keep that opinion to themselves. 

Surprisingly, there was a small gazebo to the right of the falls, and they settled in for lunch. The horses came first, of course, each one getting their heavy gear taken off, guided to the pond for a drink, fed, and brushed. Mennehl guided her through each step of taking care of his own horse, a somewhat runtier stallion by the name of Skipper. 

She found that she didn’t much like horses, but there was no way she was expressing that opinion in the presence of so many knights. Maybe riding them would be less unpleasant when she’s older… Or maybe she was just seeing how much effort needed to go into caring for them and couldn’t help but compare the process to motor vehicles, which are far easier to maintain. So much horse poop… 

The knights seemed to mostly enjoy the kinds of food she’d expect: they each had a loaf of some kind of thick bread, knives to cut the bread, butter to put on the bread, some peas, and some dried meat. All of this was washed down with some beer, and from the comments she overheard apparently ‘The Captain’ i.e. Genivere, allowed them double the normal beer ration for this outing. 

Genivere, on the other hand, had prepared a proper picnic basket for her and Mennehl to enjoy in the gazebo, which contained a meat pie, hard boiled eggs, some apples, some nicer bread with strawberry jam, and as for the single most luxurious item in the lot: a pepper grinder. There was also a bottle of wine. 

Tanya could immediately tell that Genivere only brought the pepper as a luxury item without putting much thought into how it would be used, but it was alright: Mennehl made sure to serve up some of the picnic food for Tanya, including some wine that was heavily diluted by the clean water from his waterskin. After she was properly served, she was sent away to eat with the men while Genivere got exactly what she wanted: a moment alone with her husband. 

Her share was a slice of the pie, an egg that she sliced in half and grinded pepper on, an apple, and a slice of bread with jam spread on it. It was probably too much for someone her size to eat, but she resolved to eat it all anyway; she wasn’t going to be so tiny this time around! 

It was a little awkward to carry it to the knights, but Lowain laid his saddle blanket down for her to sit on and ordered Haas to help her get set up. “Thank you.” Tanya said politely, before putting her hands together in prayer, as was expected of her. Silently, she offered the usual words she sent upstairs “Fuck you Being X, may your food forever go unseasoned.” Back in the Empire, she was much more profane with her curses, but it was honestly exhausting to keep the proper emotional weight to her words, so she started to just start wishing incredibly petty inconveniences on him and it struck a much better balance of conveying her hatred without needing her to emotionally invest herself in his pain. 

It’s not like there was an impending world war for her to get stressed over; yeah there was that demon king thing, but she was just being paranoid about it; there’s no realistic scenario where it becomes her responsibility to deal with that, and the only ones that she could think of required him to make the same move he did last time, give church members divine vision that they should shove her into danger so she’ll have the choice of praying or dying. 

While she wasn’t entirely sure he wouldn’t do that anyway, possibly by arguing in bad faith that it was different when there wasn’t a literal bomb strapped to her, it seemed a stretch, even for him. 

The knights chatted with each other over martial feats, sparring records, and past events involving girls, exactly the kind of talk she came to expect from the common soldier during officer’s school. It did remind her of that one time she got reprimanded for threatening to kill an insubordinate shitstain during a training exercise despite being perfectly in her rights to actually kill him, as it was the one blemish on her record that was cited to deny her application to War College, thus sending her to work under Shugel… Bah. She should stop thinking about ‘what-ifs’. That incident was merely the pretense to deny her, the actual reason was purely her age and sex, even the one who delivered the news implied as much. Being X’s fault. 

Joining the military early was a mistake. No, this time around she’ll bide her time, learn as much as she can, and maybe become an actual doctor. That might be asking a bit much, but aiming high is hardly a sin. 

Still, she appreciated that they let her eat without drawing her into the conversation: while she did resolve herself to put more effort into seeming like a child, that meant every conversation required that effort, and watching the waterfall was plenty entertaining without needing to watch her words. 

Wait… was that… no, she was probably imagining things. She finished off her meal, only the apple remaining, and pocketed the fruit for later. 

The knights tended to their equipment as she stood up and decided to walk closer to the falls, not having anything better to do until Mennehl and Genivere stop making out, as they probably aren’t going to do anything that involves taking off clothes with the knights within earshot. 

Tanya wandered around the pond, noting that the water was clear enough to see the pebble-filled bottom, the light twinkling off of exceptionally well-polished examples. An actual seven year old might assume the stones were gems, but she knew better. The only question was… was it worth getting her clothes soaked to follow that impulse? 

Maybe in a bit, first she wanted to check for a cave behind the waterfall. Her gamer instincts wouldn’t let that stand without investigating. 

The water in the actual fall was shimmering, refracting light like glass to convey the color from the stones behind it. She could easily understand why this place was considered magical, even sacred. Completely independent of whether or not the place was actually magical, of course, but when mages like Mennehl can bind a roaring bonfire into mere paper, it would be equally foolish to overindulge in skepticism as it would be to take all fantasies at face value. 

Now that she was in range, she took out the healing staff she had been using and poked the back of the waterfall, as there wasn’t quite enough clearance for her to walk behind there. Rock, rock, rock… and she’s run out of reach. 

Hm, if she was an actual impulsive child… No, she shouldn’t. 

A horse’s snort from behind her startled Tanya as she barely stopped herself from jumping into the waterfall, which would not have a pleasant outcome for her. Whirling around, she saw… a unicorn? 

She glanced over to the knights, who didn’t seem to even notice the beast, despite Cray outright yawning while looking over in her direction. “Good horse…” Tanya nervously said, keeping an eye on the wicked point that the horn ended in. Fortunately, the unicorn raised its head, looking her in the eye expectantly. 

…Oh! Tanya took out the apple she had in her pocket, offering it to the horse palm up while keeping her fingers well away from the fruit’s flesh. The apple was not up to the standards that she was used to in her first life, there being much less time for selective breeding and genetic modification to enhance the size and flavor of the fruit. The unicorn sniffed the apple again, and found the odor acceptable, eating the runty thing in one bite. Tanya slowly brought her hand up and stroked the horse’s snout, just as she was taught earlier that day. “Good horse…” She repeated. 

The unicorn sniffed at her clothing some more, but she gently pushed it away. “I don’t have any more.” She said, “That was my only apple.” She added for emphasis. She didn’t remember a whole lot about unicorns, but in video games, unicorns were among the few common enemy types that used holy type magic, or healing. 

Still, the unicorn seemed to accept her explanation, leaning into the stroking. Tanya glanced over to the knights again, but whatever they were seeing when their eyes wandered to watch her, they didn’t seem to find anything amiss. So either they saw something entirely different to what was going on, or unicorns were so commonplace that it wasn’t worth the attention that even a deer would provoke from a bunch of bored teenagers. Somehow, she doubted that it was the latter. 

The unicorn was an ethereal sort of white, of course, cleaner than anything appropriate to nature. In size, it was on the small side for a horse; the petite Genivere would probably be the upper limit of what it could bear as a rider. That did bring into question whether or not the unicorn was a full adult, of course, but she suspected it was. More of a pony, really. 

Suddenly, the unicorn turned around, and as a horse needed to be trained to do so without moving position, this also meant it shoved Tanya forward… into the pond. The next few seconds were incredibly disorienting, as the waterfall churned her environment enough that keeping one’s bearings was more or less impossible. 

After an unknown amount of time passed, Tanya managed to get tossed into a calmer part of the pond, and quickly swam upwards, gasping for breath. 

In the time between her getting shoved into the pond and emerging once more, apparently a pack of Mauthe dogs, ferocious canid monsters whose primary claim to fame was speed, decided to interrupt the picnic. 

The horses were in a panic, and the knights were forced to fight on foot. Some preferred spears, the others swords. They did not seem to be doing well, the dogs ducking in and out of the trees. Genivere wasn’t wearing her armor, and seemed to have shed her outermost layer of clothing as well, and Mennehl was not wearing his robe, instead dressed in his pants and nothing else. Neither his Fire tome nor his Elfire tome were to be seen, but he had grabbed his own healing staff and was using it. 

Still, she basically had the choices to stay in the water and probably drown, given how heavy her soaked dress was, or leave the water and potentially have one of those Mauthe dogs rush over to kill her. She’ll need to wait for her moment… 

Now! The dog that was closest to her just got struck down by Genivere’s lance, the knight dancing out of the dog’s jaws. Tanya surged out of the water, and she quickly divested herself of her dress, leaving only the thin linen gown she wore underneath to do a crappy but sufficient job to protect her modesty. Picking up her healing staff again, she scrambled to the top of a convenient boulder to give herself a little breathing room against the monsters. 

As expected, the dogs did eventually notice the much less protected meat and half of them split off to rush her boulder. “Tanya!” Shouted Mennehl, distracted enough that one of the ones on his other side sunk its fangs into his thigh. 

Tanya didn’t have a lot of things she would like to have now. She didn’t have offensive magic, she didn’t have strength worth mentioning, she didn’t have steady footing. 

But she did have a good defensive position and a stick. The first foolish Mauthe dog scrambled up the boulder immediately, and Tanya used the butt of her healing staff to shove it away when it lost all of the momentum its initial leap had in favor of trying to climb. Then she did it to the next one. And the next. One of them managed to get close enough to snap their jaws, ripping a small portion of her gown away. 

All the while, she stayed focused, she assessed each enemy, and struck at the ideal time to disrupt their advance. Her life was on the line; it was no time to fake clumsiness or fear. If she survives, she’ll bring out the largest, most distressed fake crying session she had ever put on. 

Twenty or so paces away, the four Mauthe dogs that didn’t split off were now outnumbered, and were relatively easily dispatched. “I’m coming! Genny, we have to save Tanya!” 

“You reckless fool!” Genivere shouted as she started charging ahead. 

“Strike the left one first!” Tanya commanded, her voice automatically slipping into that growl she used back when she was in charge of more men than Genivere could conceive of leading. “On my mark!”

Tanya spun around and lashed out at the Mauthe dog she pointed out with a heel kick right as it approached her reach, forcing it to land on its side rather than on its feet as her other prods had done. “Now!” Genivere’s lance struck true in its moment of vulnerability, immediately killing the monster. Unfortunately, her drippings from the pond caused her to slip and she fell onto the dog on the opposite side, surprising it enough that she wasn’t immediately bitten but it put her in a very precarious position nonetheless. 

She slipped underneath the large hound, abandoning her staff as she crawled rapidly so that the surprised hound was between her and the other dogs. She sorely wished she had a mage blade to hamstring the thing, but the dog instead tried to spin as the other two repositioned to flank her. 

Genivere’s lance found a second target, going around the boulder while Mennehl tried to wrestle the monster away from attacking Tanya, only succeeding in getting it to attack him instead. 

The dog once more attempted to savage Tanya’s delicate flesh, but she used her prone position to her advantage, driving her foot into the thing’s groin and executing a judo throw to keep her face unbitten. Two of the knights, Nol and Kenas, each swiped their swords in a coordinated manner to make sure that dog did not have a leg to stand on. 

Quickly, Tanya grabbed her heal staff again and started the process of drawing out the medicinal magic within in preparation to heal Mennehl’s wounds. Saien used his lance to pry the dog off of the mage, and Lowain came in while riding his horse to kill it with his own lance, his horse’s hooves finishing the job. 

Okay, so first step: Identify the injuries. The biggest one would definitely be the three bite marks, with some claws and bruises supplementing that. Bites first, which place was the most vital? The thigh, start there. She directed the magical energy and thought about the anatomy of the relevant part, guiding the energy to flow down his leg and then back up, picturing blood flow as she sent the energy to his heart and then out towards his right arm, where the second most lethal bite was. Down the arm, back to the heart, then to the other leg, where the shin was bitten. Each time the energy passed through his torso, she held a firm image of how a healthy set of organs looked like, and it might have helped. 

Once the major injuries were accounted for, she let the magic spread out more evenly, going to the heart and then going all throughout his body, letting it dissipate as she cut off the flow of power. Tanya took a deep breath as her numerous minor injuries started to complain, the adrenaline crash making her feel a little light-headed. 

Ah, come to think of it, the back of her head was feeling pretty sore… Mennehl can take over the healing from here. She’ll just… take a nap. 

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When she awoke, she had clearly been healed by Mennehl’s staff, and she was now wrapped up in Mennehl’s robe, as her clothes were drying by a fire that had been started while she was out. Interestingly, the Mauthe dog corpses had vanished, the monsters of the Demon King sublimated into motes of dark magic when killed, as despite having killing living things as their sole prerogative, they didn’t actually need to eat anything, they weren’t made of matter like normal beasts. She did kind of want to see it in person, but alas, all previous times she had seen monsters they were slain by Sister Leanne’s holy magic, which destroyed them completely. 

“Are you feeling okay?” Mennehl asked the instant he realized she was awake. 

“Nothing hurts.” Tanya said, already trying to summon tears. 

“You did the right thing, jumping into the water like that.” Mennehl said softly, “You probably would have died if you didn’t.”

…She should just say it. “...You didn’t see the unicorn?”

Mennehl’s eyebrows shot up into his pointy hat. “Unicorn? There was a-” He paused. “No, I didn’t see any unicorn. What happened?”

Tanya let the emotions of her child body run wild, tears flowing freely as she reframed the events of the battle, making her actions out to be more panicked and less calculated than they really were. She’s not sure how plausible it was, but it was damage control. 

In the end, she was allowed to leave another apple on a rock for the unicorn, and was taken back to the orphanage as was initially planned after the training trip. Mennehl let her keep the halfway-depleted healing staff she had been using, though. 

Given how much trouble the other children make? She didn’t expect it to last the week.