小嫂子的味道

"Now, how do I know all this?" she asked as her usual smile appeared on her face.

"It\'s simple. Back in my time, I had the same problem, even worse I guess; if we\'re seeing it in terms of magic. You can use elemental magic without a magic circle or an incantation, but I was not even capable of that. Think about it for a second.

"I was unable to use magic in the world where the powerful ruled the all, the time when the world was burning in the flames of war caused by the five kingdoms," she paused for effect.

"So? You found a way to deal with it, right?"

"How can you be so sure?"

"Otherwise you wouldn\'t have that wry smile on your face while telling this," I stated.

"Well, your reasoning is a bit weird, but you\'re right. My mana was just like yours—different from the rest of the world—but I did find a way to deal with it, and so can you," she pointed at me and then levitated close to my face.

Her eyes, her body language, her expression, everything was screaming for me to ask her \'How?\'. And so I did, though not exactly in the way she would have expected.

"Tell me," I said.

There was a look of disappointment on her face, but it didn\'t last long. She edged back and then, with her index finger, pointed at my right hand. No, it wasn\'t my hand she was pointing at, it was what I held in it: the Requiem sword.

"It\'s not that you cannot use magic, what you can\'t get your hands on is the magic circles. As for why this is happening," she gestured toward me, addressing my whole body. "It\'s because of your mana. I think you know this by now, but it is different from the norm," she paused to reconsider. "Very different," she corrected.

"That is also the reason why you aren\'t able to use your magiken with a sword other than Requiem. Your mana is dense, too dense for the magic circles to process, too dense for the swords to withstand. Now, don\'t get me wrong here; having dense mana doesn\'t necessarily mean it will be more powerful too. It\'s just the type that changes, not the overall properties," she leaned back in the air, as if shifting comfortably in a chair, an invisible one that is.

"Then what makes the Requiem sword different from the rest?" I asked.

Req\'s face broke out into a wide grin. "Her being the Requiem sword is enough to make her stand aside from the crowd. She doesn\'t need a reason to be different, she simply is. She can withstand your mana because she is the Requiem sword."

Her wordplay confused me a bit, but mostly I was anything but glad. The theory I was building up in my mind was right. The runes in the magic circles were not suitable for the type of mana I had, which meant that if I created a magic circle of my own with runes made especially for my mana, then I\'d be able to use the spells.

I can\'t say I wasn\'t relieved by knowing this. At one point I thought I won\'t be able to do it at all. Though this set my mind at ease, I was more than inclined to know about what she had in store for me.

"So, how do I use it? Draw magic circles out of my blood or something?" I asked. I wasn\'t used to adding humor to my conversation, so it came out as dry as possible. She didn\'t chuckle at it, of course, but what she said later made me realize that it was not because my joke was lame.

"Well, that could be an option. I\'ve tried it a handful of times, but it isn\'t the best thing out there. The blood makes a mess and if you used more than necessary or more than what your body could keep losing, you\'ll get dizzy real quick," she paused.

"Therefore, I suggest the other, more efficient way," she said and pointed at the sword in my hand.

I matched her gaze and lifted the sword. Saying that I didn\'t have a load of questions would be wrong, hence I won\'t say it. I kept quiet and looked at her in hope of an answer. She was expecting this, as it didn\'t take her too long to speak again.

"You see, I said that I wasn\'t able to use magic before. But after I found Requiem, it was no longer a thing of concern. With her help, I could cast spells and destroy kingdoms all I wanted without worrying about how thick my mana was. She had the power to withstand it, and Requiem is one of the few swords that can allow the user to cast spells through them."

"And what exactly do you mean by that?" I asked. This was rather a new piece of information. In the novel, the Requiem sword did nothing of this sort. Leon completely stopped using it after a while, so I don\'t have much info, to begin with.

Req looked thoughtful as she touched her chin with her fingers and wandered her eyes idly. Then, as if reaching a decision, she shot a look at me and said. "It\'ll be quick to just show you," she moved closer to me, and then levitating around me, she stopped and stood behind me.

I hesitated for a bit, but then decided it would be best to at least see what she was talking about. I wanted to use magic. No, I wanted to use it so badly that I cannot describe it in words.

I mean, though I may not look like it, I was a fantasy author in my previous world. Being in a world where magic existed but not being able to use it is so much of a torture only us, authors\' can understand.

It is like holding candy in front of a kid who likes sweet things, bringing it close to his mouth and giving it to him to eat, but pulling it back just as he was about to lick it. What I was feeling was similar to what the kid would have felt at that point.

"Hold it up," Req said from behind as she wrapped her arms around me and made me lift the Requiem sword at a certain angle.

"Straight. Like you are pointing it at your target," she made some adjustments and by the end of it, I was holding the sword straight with both hands with its tip targeted toward where the human dummies stood.

"Now close your eyes and focus, just as you do while trying to summon the magic circle," she said, and I followed.

I shut my eyelids and then, in the black of my mind, I visualized the custom magic circle Ryfin had shown to the class. I had it remembered and burned in my memory; since I could not summon the circle, memorizing it was what I did.

Soon the image of the circle became clear. In a pitch-black atmosphere, a sky-blue colored magic circle formed in the air.

There were runes inscribed on it, each containing a piece of information on its own. I could not understand what they meant, as I have not learned the rune language. But despite that, I could feel it.

It took some time—perhaps a minute or two—but by the end of it, the image I had created in my mind was as clear as the water from a river that freshly came out from the melted ice on the mountains.

"Now let your mana flow," Req whispered in my ears. "Let it out, shoot it through your hands, but make sure to channel it through Requiem as you do while using magiken. Then, when you feel like your mana is about to burst out from the tip, imagine the magic circle coming into shape there. Visualize it taking shape in the real world."

Her words were tricky, and she mostly explained what Ryfin had already told us, but with a different approach. As for me, I can say I understood what she meant by that and I hope that I got it right, to be honest, I wasn\'t so sure.

As stopping here would be of no use, I did what she\'d said. Channeling my mana in my body, to my arms, and then into the sword. I did all that while maintaining the image of the magic circle firm in my mind.

Then there it was. A spark. A burst of energy. A feeling so strange yet so thrilling that it sent a chill down my spine and raised my goosebumps.

I opened my eyes just in time to see a shining, blue light coming from the end of the sword. There before its tip, floating in the air, was a brilliant magic circle dyed in sky-blue. All the runes, shapes, and patterns it had been the same as the ones I\'d visualized in my mind.

For a moment it felt like time had stopped for me as I was entrapped by the beauty of it. But as they say, good things come to an end. I felt my mana draining a bit as it was used up by the magic circle.

At the same time, a sharp, piercing sound was heard. As if someone had scratched a blackboard with a piece of chalk. Then followed the light, a beam of white. Its shape was not even and had many edges and pointed corners throughout. Which only made sense as it was nothing but thunder.

A ray of lighting was shot out from the magic circle and toward the human dummies. It ripped the air apart as it closed the distance at a speed so great I could not see or sense or hear or suspect.

The lighting struck the dummy in the stomach, then followed an explosion. The point of collision was surrounded by black smoke and white light. When the smoke settled, I saw that the upper half of the dummy was completely blown away and was lying, at a distance, on the ground. The remaining part of its body was burnt to a crisp, with charred marks covering it all over it.

If there had been a human, there would have been blood and a new entry in the book of the dead. But since it was a dummy, there were none of these things.

I looked back at the sword, only to find that the magic circle had closed long ago. It made sense, as it had fulfilled its purpose and was no longer needed.

Then I turned my head to Req, who was peeking from behind my back, her head beside my right shoulder. She was all smiles, giggling like a child who\'s just successfully dismantled a pen and put it back together without breaking it.