Ruby’s Desire

**Rodrick**

That fucking brat!

I parried thirty arrows from that bastard, and then he pulled something like this!

When did he become able to do that?

There was only one possibility. He must have awakened like his godforsaken Father Wilhelm Yuwen. Of course, nothing would change from my sudden realization that my arm was, after all, very much still severed along with half of my god Damm right shoulder.

I could only angrily gnash my teeth while I slumped my way to the Bandit camp. That twink of an elf better be able to put my arm back on, or I would give him hell.

The only thing that kept me going was the thought of Olivia’s smile. Once I’m done here, I will be able to see her again, maybe just the two of us, forever.

No!

Not ’maybe’, I will. It had to work.

When I reached the bandit camp, it was utterly deserted aside from a single tent where a flicker of light showed through the flaps. As I made my way to the tent, I could make out two voices. One that I knew, the elf sounded as snobby and haughty as they came. But the other voice sounded annoyed and rather… grim? Well, whatever I will see once I’m in. I swept the flaps aside and stepped into the warm tent.

“Ah, we have a visitor. Necromancer Gram Turner, this is Sir Rodrick Rosenberg, Sir Rodrick Rosenberg, this is the Necromancer Gram Turner.”

The Other man, Gram Turner, a tall man with sunken cheeks and raven black hair to match the look, briefly looked at me with doubtful, baggy eyes before focusing back on the elf.

“Now that he is here, will you finally tell me why we had to retreat? My forces couldn’t even do any damage to them yet.”

“Well, I had hoped that Sir Rodrick might clear that up for us. Sir Rodrick, what was that beam of light that hit you?”

Only now did Gram seem to notice that I was holding my severed right arm in my left hand. However, the only reaction I got from him was a slight widening of his eyes.

As for the elf, he seemed courteous and friendly, but it was all a sham. Depending on my answer, he might even kill me. And he could as much as it pains me to admit. That twig just stood there as nonchalant and unbothered as one could be, but I saw no opening. There wasn’t a single scenario where I could see myself winning.

I bit down so hard that my teeth were close to breaking before I managed to calm myself down and was able to retell what happened.

“My, my, and here I thought you wanted to trick me by withholding information. Well, good job, Sir Rodrick, for dodging that last shot then…”

“Dodging!? In what world could one call that dodging!? He shot through a tree and still shot my arm off…”

I shoved the bloody stump of my right arm in front of his face to bring my point across. But the elf’s smile never wavered in the slightest.

I was so angry that my face blended with my crimson hair despite all the blood I had lost. And he keeps saying ‘Sir’ with his snarky voice. He was clearly trying to mock me.

“Calm down. Calm down, Sir Rodrick, or you might get a nosebleed.”

I had to use all my will to resist the urge to break the elf’s thin neck.

“Gram, would you please be so nice and reattach Sir Rodricks’ arm?”

“Sigh, Fine, but it won’t look pretty.”

**Ruby**

Five weeks had passed since I told Otto my secret, and so far it seems like no one else had found out… well, except, of course, Rika.

I wasn’t so sure if she knew, but last week I overheard her talking with Teresa’s Mother about her pregnancy and how the baby was doing. It was nice to hear that Teresa was doing well and that the little girl had already gained a lot of weight, but now I also knew that Rika was aware of my pregnancy. Because as much as Rika liked to gossip about relationships, she didn’t really like babies and had an outright fear of getting pregnant. At least this would be her go-to reason when anyone wondered about her still being single.

Thankfully, Rika and Otto should be the only ones since no one had changed their attitude towards me…yet. My belly was thankfully also still relatively flat. Though one might be able to see a slight bump from the right angle.

Anyway, enough about all this boring pregnancy stuff; let’s instead focus on something interesting, like magic, and how my magic students have progressed. Three have gotten really close to forming their core, while the rest were still trickling behind. They were Earth Magician Felicia, Fire Magician Matt, and Water Magician Juan. Juan and Matt were both 23 years old and from the same region in the southern part of the kingdom, while Felicia was 49 and came from the northern coast. And of course, all my students except for Benjamin were from a noble family.

With all these similarities, one might believe that Juan and Matt would understand, maybe even like each other. But much like their respective elements, they didn’t get along. The rest of my students thankfully got along very well, and they would try out new things together and discuss their progress.

I hoped that the other students’ attitude would rub off on them, but alas, maybe in another life.

Because the formation of their core would still take some time, we were currently deep into non-attribute magic. All could already form simple shields, but the quality was still lacking. Felicia’s held the best, but it still couldn’t compare to my own. Hers could withstand a simple sword strike, while the others couldn’t even handle a swing of my fist.

To form a good shield, the structure needed to be even and without any weaknesses. I preferred a honeycomb design (Hexagons are the Bestagons) and encouraged all my students to use the same. Felicia’s shield was even and well-structured, but a bit too thin for my liking. The others’ shield, however, had a lot of imbalances, where one side was way thicker than the other, or had a few random holes in the shield.

But overall, the progress was good. If they continued like this, they may even be able to use them in battle.