Chapter 432: Avalanche
After a night of rest, Anko felt pretty good.
Things were much less stressful after Malz apologized, and they both found themselves thanking Ferro for keeping them together. The next morning, they resumed their walk toward the southeast, marching through the freshly packed snow while Ferro produced a consistent stream of heat in front of them to make walking easy without setting everything on fire.
In truth, Anko had been terrified of winding up alone. She’d already spent most of her life alone on the streets of Norneau, even now, and even if she was just a half-demon, she looked enough like a full demon to draw the ire of anyone that didn’t like demons...
Although being able to cast spells with the suit-thing Kiryu had given her was going a long way to helping her confidence that she could take care of herself-
A thin, precise bolt of magic suddenly lanced outward, disrupting her thoughts as, nearby, a rabbit made its death cry.
Malz pointed it out to Ferro before they went to retrieve it, with Malz looking particularly impressed by herself as she inspected the perfect hole she’d shot into its chest.
"Right in the heart. How’d you do that?" Anko asked as Ferro removed the body to start dressing it.
"I’ve been putting sigil core functions into the suit, it’s pretty easy once you’ve memorized the system. That’s a very weak spell, so even an untrained mage could resist it with mana alone, but I was able to make it target-seeking once cast. I was thinking of calling it magic mis-"
"What? You can do that?!" Anko interrupted. She had a pretty decent idea what ’target-seeking’ meant, but more importantly she’d spent so many hours setting up her sigil core that she hoped it had to be more than just a damn test. The notion of the sigil core codes being useful had slightly escaped her, and when Malz and Ferro talked about the sequences and what they could do, they descended into what seemed like another language entirely, quickly boring her.
"I talked with Ferro about it last night. Or did you not overhear that while you were eavesdropping?" Malz asked with her sardonic voice. That was a word Anko had gotten used to in a hurry, after accusing Malz of sarcasm and learning the difference, back in the desert.
"Nope!" Anko answered. "Or if I did, I probably forgot after you told us about your boyfriend’s massive-"