Chapter 416: Thera's Perspective

Walking to the clinic, Thera watched her aunt, not seeing anything amiss. Despite how she’d acted while drunk, she seemed like her usual self, chatting with familiar faces on her way to work and exuding an overall positive atmosphere.At least that was what she told herself, but she was having trouble really believing it. For as long as she could remember, her aunt had clearly held interest in her uncle, to the point that as a child she’d even once asked if they were ever going to have kids when she was longing for a friend, getting what in hindsight seemed like a thoroughly uncomfortable explanation from her that they weren’t like that, along with a separate talk from her mother giving a few more details.

She loved Sonya and she wanted her aunt to be happy, and she certainly put on a happy face enough that Thera never really considered otherwise, but if all she was really doing was suppressing her feelings…

She wasn’t well practiced with anything like that, but then she did have all day to try and figure it out. With Ben planning on being out late, they’d even have the perfect time for a bit of privacy in the evening, just the two of them.

Deep in the woods, Thera practiced her new magics with Aso after leaving the clinic for the day. Since her goal was raising her non-affinitied ones she couldn’t put off practicing, even with everything else she had to be working on, so she busied herself with it, expanding her senses out with her newfound empathy to take in the emotions of the creatures around her until she could sense anything large enough to be a challenge, crystalizing her mana to probe at them, not treating it like an attack, but instead an annoyance, and once it got their attention, luring them back and holding them off with her barrier while Aso went for the kills, letting the other girl get just a bit of practice with her own skills as the hours passed.

“I still can’t believe you came back with three new magics,” Aso sighed as she tapped at a floating spear of mana that Thera was keeping up. “Genuinely, how?”

“Ahem, I just got kind of lucky,” She told her weakly, knowing it wasn’t much of an explanation considering the rarity of any non-affinitied branch.

She understood what he’d said at the time, as well as his reason for wanting her to get the skills, but since doing so had lost him the chance to learn plenty of new skills of his own she needed to put her all into training it to meet his expectations, namely awakening the skills. She knew she was powerful so she understood how useful it would be for her to get something like that, but she wanted her results fast enough to prove it was worth it.

On her head was the circlet Ben had made her before, helping her train her skills all at once despite the general discomfort it caused to her mind. Since they were all lower level she probably wouldn’t have too much trouble raising them for the first bit at least, but she couldn’t help but look forward to getting them all to the fifth level so she could just focus on her telekinesis from there.

There was so much to do and so little time to do it all before the next wave but she wanted to try to manage it all somehow, on top of every other thing there was to do in life. She wanted to make sure she was visiting other towns to practice her life magic and she still needed to figure out what she’d be saying to her aunt in a bit, and besides that…

She pursed her lips, as she activated her earth magic, trying to put a spell together and feeling it completely fail as thousands of points of mana left her without achieving anything, thick enough in the air that Aso sensed it and looked at her curiously.

She didn’t want to admit it to herself, but the fact that she couldn’t but Ben could left her feeling jealous. Magic was her thing, seeing him reach the pinnacle of it before she did filled her with complicated emotions that she didn’t particularly like that she was feeling.

She knew that he’d be happy to help if she just asked so it was just something for when she saw him next. For the time being all she could do was focus on other things, so with that goal plain in mind she stretched out her empathy again, looking for her next target as she came head first against the bloodlust of a monster, freezing her in her tracks.

Empathy was a magic that let one feel the emotions of others or allowed the holder to force their own feelings on targets, and usually that was nothing. It was surprising to realize, but unless there was a certain stimulus to promote it, most living things felt very little at a given time, but not so for whatever she’d just brushed up against.

“I feel like I might regret this, but…”

She crystalized her mana and shot it off in the direction she sensed, hitting the beast that was flying above her before she could see it and luring it back, directing Aso to get ready to attack above as they saw just what was coming down on scarlet wings. A demon, its eyes full of bloodlust and madness as it locked onto them to attack.

Bigger than either of them, the edge of each wing was clawed, looking ready to tear into what it could, but unfortunately for it, there was only one, letting Thera easily act as she ripped stone from the ground and entombed all but its head, trapping it.

“Aso, take the kill, it will be good for you.”

Since Thera was on a job beyond the master path, the experience she would gain would be negligible, but that wasn’t true for her friend. Every bit of experience Aso could gain would be valuable to her, so she wanted her to get it.

She watched patiently as the other girl held up her own staff, prepared to use the fire magic she had to finish it, only to feel herself hesitate, unable to fire her spell.

“Aso,” Thera told her calmly. “You’re just feeling the sorrow, you need to be able to push past it. Try not to think, just fire the shot.”

Word hadn’t spread about demons being part of the system beyond a mere rumour, so she advised the girl in the simplest of terms, trying to motivate her. Even if it was going to be hard, this was an important thing to be able to overcome in order to keep herself safe if there was ever an emergency, she didn’t want her friend to ever be unprepared if she wasn’t around.

Still, the girl didn’t shoot as a second ticked by, and then another, until it looked like she’d resolved herself. Eyes tight shut, she fired off her spell, the effect making the beast before them scream as its face was cooked and it slowly died.

Aso collapsed to her knees, hyperventilating while Thera rushed to her side, wanting to comfort her but not being able to touch her friend.

“Aso, look at me, you’re okay, you did great. This is just a mind effect, remember that’s all it is, okay? Just take a moment and breathe.”

Slowly she called down, able to spit out a couple words.

“That really sucked.”

“It definitely does the first few times, but it gets easier,” Thera agreed, even as a tinge of worry nagged at her. The invasion points had only been open for a day, but still one had made it out near Stonewall. It was a testament to how many could get through in that time, as well as to what adventurers might have to deal with if they ran into one unprepared. “Come on, that’s probably enough for today so let's head back. We should probably tell the guild about this anyway.”

She got home later than she’d planned, talking with the guild taking a bit longer than expected since it had been thought they might have a bit more time before there was a chance of any demons being seen, but eventually she was able to get back, finding dinner almost ready as her aunt cooked.

“Did your hunt go well?” Sonya asked cheerfully, expecting that her niece had simply lost track of time.

“Ugh, kind of? I got a couple levels but we also encountered a flying demon and Aso struggled a bit after we killed it so it was kind of a mixed bag.”

The cheerful look on her aunt's face quickly turned to concern with the news as she let out a sigh. “There’s going to be a lot more of that for a while too. I’m just glad you’re alright.”

“I can handle it, don’t worry.”

She still felt a slight effect when killing one, a wrongness to the act that nagged at her mind, but it was ignorable. Any demon seemed to feel nothing from the system effect despite the fact that they should be under it as much as anyone else, and if they were willing to kill so easily despite it then she would do the same.

“I know you can, I just want you to be okay,” Sonya told her as she served dinner. “Still, Aso usually does gather quests alone if you aren’t with her, right? You should probably have a talk with her about either finding another party to work with or not going out if you aren’t around.”

“Yeah, I guess I’ll need to.”

“Um, aunty? Can we talk about something a little personal if you don’t mind?”

“Hmm? Of course Thera, what’s on your mind?”

“I know this is a bit personal, but can I ask, what’s keeping you from talking to uncle about your feelings?”

“Um, what do you mean?” Sonya asked, playing dumb as Thera just stared her down.

“...Aunty, you made it pretty obvious you aren’t happy with how things are between the two of you yesterday, so why aren’t you telling him? You’re beautiful and a hard worker and you always treat people well, plus you’ve known him for how many decades? There has to be a reason it hasn’t come up.”

“...I’m never letting Ceselee make me drink so much again,” She muttered before focusing on her niece. “Thera, you really don’t need to worry about me, love. I’m fine. Obviously nothing’s going to happen so if I said something about it last night, well that’s just the drink talking.”

“Except it’s obviously not. Every time I see mom she won’t stop asking if anything’s happened yet.”

“...That reminds me, I definitely treated Pel far too lightly when I saw her,” Sonya grumbled before sighing. “Look Thera, I don’t think I need to tell you that your uncle is skilled, and I’m, well, not. He has his goals and ambitions and all I’d do telling him is just make things different between us. If I can’t stand beside him as an equal then nothing’s ever going to happen, that’s really all there is to it, even if I want to.”

Insecurity. She knew her uncle was powerful, with at least one awakened skill to his name, and her aunt had none. Was that really what was holding her back? A feeling of not being able to measure up?

She wanted to ask more and to reassure her aunt, but it was obvious that Sonya was done with the talk as she rushed to change the topic, trying to forget what was said and enjoy their little night together, even if it kept rattling around in Thera’s mind.

She loved her aunt, she didn’t want her feeling like that, but she had no clue what she could do.