Basic Thaumaturgy for the Emotionally Incompetent

The cat-thing had turned at a new corner. She stalked ahead, tapping her hand against her thigh, and he followed, careful to keep the crates behind them in view, lest they topple.

His hands brushed against the wall for balance; the dust smelled faintly metallic, mingling with the distant sweetness of fruit left abandoned at the market.

A sharp mew echoed from a shadowed corner, and they stopped. The cat-thing had doubled back. Severa’s head snapped in that direction. “There! It’s trying to be clever.” He squinted. The creature’s ears twitched, tail twirling, eyes glinting in the fading light. It darted again, faster than before, toward a narrow doorway between two shuttered shops. They jogged after the creature for a few seconds, but this time, Severa was the one who stopped first. “We cannot just chase after it forever,” she declared.

You should have said that ten minutes ago . . .

“Do you have any spells that can strike the creature from afar?” She continued asking when she didn’t hear an answer.

The only spell I have is Stupenstone Fling, and how far away is the cat from me? He squinted at the shadow of the creature from afar. Easily thirty meters. I cannot possibly hit the target from here even if I can see it fully, much less when it’s in the shades.

“Nothing that would work from out here,” he finally said.

“Anything that would get you close to it without it noticing?”

That, I do. I have spent years stealing pies for skills like this.

He scratched the back of his neck and let out a noncommittal sound. “Maybe—” He stopped as the implication hit him. “So you allow aetheric spells now?”

Her mouth twitched. For half a second, her whole posture said yes then she flattened it into disapproval so fast it felt unnatural. She said, “I am offering you a chance to capture the creature under my guidance. I’ll have you know I have years of experience capturing aetheric monsters out in the wild.”

He heard two messages at once. One is the same old Severa delegating the mess to a subordinate. That message would have made him bristle last month. The other . . . was an offer of help, however genuine it was. Did she say she has years of experience fighting monsters? From when?

Not like he knew much of what Severa did outside of school to begin with.

“. . . Do you have Stealth spells?” He asked.

He noticed yet another pause from her. Usually, Severa snapped back almost before he had finished speaking as though her reactions were instinctive. Today, though, that delay had been persistent. Her brow furrowed, lips parting as if to speak, then hesitating.

“Can you show me the spells you have?” She finally said.

“They’re . . . not really spells,” he said carefully, as if the words themselves might explode inside the roof of his tongue if spoken too loudly.

She raised an eyebrow. “Show me.”

He hesitated, tilting his head, fingers brushing the edges of his satchel as if weighing the decision. “They’re more like . . . skills.”

“Just show me.” Instantaneous answer. This was the Severa Montreal he knew. ᴛhis chapter is ᴜpdated by ɴovelfire.net

His fingers brushed the satchel again. “I need you to . . . move to a position where you don’t directly observe me.”

Her brow raised higher, but she did as told anyway.

He stepped forward, letting his feet fall softly against the dusted floor. The first skill unfolded around him.