Chapter 18 – Human city
Having tried to teach Sophia the basics of dark magic, something went completely wrong. Fen wasn't sure what was going on anymore. He had asked her to try moving her shadow a bit, but instead, the girl had somehow shrouded their entire surroundings in perfect and absolute darkness.
"Uh…" Unable to process the situation, the wolf was at a loss for words.
"Does that even count as dark magic now? It feels like I cut a few corners."
"It… definitely does…" Fen seemed to be hugely affected by his surroundings, or the lack of it. He was sweating all over his body.
"Really? Yay!" Sophia was happy, at least.
"It's, uhh, impressive…"
"Still, how does this relate to stuff like curses, corrupting, or mind manipulation? It's just… dark?" She didn't understand the connection.
"Magically created… darkness has these properties… If you're subjected to it… it starts to affect your psyche… driving your mind… crazy… causing extreme panic… eating away your rationality… In this state… the caster of the magic… could easily destroy your mind… even your soul itself… Cursing one, or simply controlling your target… is absolutely no hard feat to do… in this… state." His voice sounded ragged while he was explaining the details of dark magic to her.
"Ah, I see. That's some complicated and complex magic. Not to mention, nasty…" It seemed like she understood. "Hmm? Wait a minute… Fen! Are you affected by my magic as well?!" She finally noticed the wolf's pained complexion.
"…Yes."
"Wahh!" The girl immediately canceled her magic. Their surroundings turned back to normal in an instant. "Tell me that sooner, you idiot!"
"Sorry… it was hard to keep my sanity in the first place, so I kinda…"
"Ehh?! Are you alright?!"
"I'm… better now."
"Scary! Dark magic is scary!
"Yes…" He wholeheartedly agreed.
"I'm so sorry about that, Fen! You should've warned me before…"
"Well, I was going to eventually… You know, once it would've become relevant… Someone decided to overdo it a little bit before I even had the chance to react to what was going on." He was just a little angry.
"Sorry…" Sophia apologized again. "I didn't understand the shadow thing, so I added a little twist from my old world to create my own version of it. It just kinda happened."
"Just happened, huh? Your old world sure was an outrageous place. Just how dangerous was it to live there…?"
"Ahaha…" Hearing that from an oversized wolf native to a world with magic and monsters, she could only laugh it off.
"Man, I'm not a fan of dark magic…"
"Really? I think it's quite fun, though? Trapping an enemy in darkness, robbing their senses, slowly driving them insane… Yeah, scary, but fun."
"Err…" The wolf had the feeling that something inside Sophia had just awakened, something that absolutely shouldn't have.
"Light magic still seems to be more fun, though. Creating light has a nice ring to it." As she said so, a ball of light appeared on top of her palm. "It looks so pretty. Healing magic in that category sounds nice, too."
"Y-Yeah, you should focus on that!" He wanted to prevent her full awakening to the most literal dark side at all costs.
"Ehehe, now I have at least some basic proficiency in every magic category, huh?"
"Now that you mention it… You sure are compatible with magic. Especially for coming from a world where there was none."
"Yeah, that god really went all out with my boosts."
"He did, yeah…"
"I really need to get more info about those boosts of mine. What exactly did change, and how does it affect me? Positive traits and emotions did get enhanced, but so did my negative ones… What does that mean for me?" Sophia was thinking about her predicament once more. "I don't think I have to care much about the changes to my positive traits, do I?"
"Well, I have the feeling you get carried away extremely easily."
"Ahaha, that might be true. Somehow, that's both a good and bad trait, huh?"
"Yes, it's a mixed bag, that one." Fen agreed.
"Though the real problem are my negative boosts… I get depressed, not easily… but extremely strong if it happens… Okay, I think I can deal with that somehow. I do have… some experience with that from my old world." She was used to being down. "My anger to the point of wanting to kill someone… yeah, that's definitely new and no good… I need to learn to deal with that as soon as possible…"
"And you becoming a sadis-, ah, no… forget it." Fen wanted to add something to the table but decided against it, thinking it would be better not to make her aware of it.
"Hmm?"
"No, I didn't say anything."
"Really now?" Her voice changed for a second but immediately turned back. "Well, whatever… What about the other feelings? Will I get extremely jealous or maybe not jealous at all? What if something manages to seriously scare me? I REALLY don't want to get my fear boosted! Actually, there are all sorts of feelings that sound scary when boosted. Negative AND positive ones…"
"While I can understand that you're concerned, I don't think there's much you can do before you have experienced the effect of the corresponding emotion at least once."
"Just keep going, huh?"
"Pretty much."
"Well, I'll probably see some new emotions in action at the human city tomorrow."
"Lots of negative once, I assume." Fen wasn't feeling overly positive about it himself.
"Whatever it is, it's going to be a good learning experience, at least."
"Yes, it also won't get boring, I guess."
"Though I don't know if that's a good thing..."
"It sure is." The wolf had no interest in boring things.
"Everything goes as long as you have fun, huh?"
"The same goes for you, doesn't it?"
"A valid point." Sophia had to agree.
----------------
The two kept talking through the evening about mostly meaningless topics until it was time to turn in for the night. Once the following day arrived, Sophia and Fen resumed their travel towards the human city. The wolf didn't tell her anything, but he purposefully avoided any group of humans he noticed with his detection magic along the way. And so, with some minor detours, the city finally came into view around midday.
"Looks like we have arrived."
"Oh~!" Standing on a hill, Sophia could see most of the city from a distance and became excited about the view. "Now, that's fantasy!" The whole town was surrounded by an about five-meter-tall wall with a central gate for entrance and exit. Outside the walls, the entire area was filled with fields, growing various vegetables and something resembling wheat. Thanks to the elevation of the hill they were on, she could see above the wall. It was just a smaller frontier city, so there was no fancy castle or anything like that, but she found it fascinating, nonetheless. There weren't any tall houses either, but some bigger buildings at least. Not a single one of them seemed to be built with any sort of order or practicality, tough. They all looked different and were positioned all over the place, with shabby and narrow streets somehow connecting areas. "Humans… really aren't very advanced in this world, are they…?" While it was fun to see such a chaotic place, it seemed horribly inefficient and just plain stupid in Sophia's eyes.
"Yeah… they're all idiots after all."
"Ahaha, well, whatever. Let's go. To the gate, I guess?" She pointed at the entrance of the city, where she spotted some humans.
"Seems like it. Okay, we could simply jump over the wall as well… or blowing it in pieces."
"Let's not do that."
Having agreed on a course of action, Fen transformed into a normal-sized wolf. The duo then started walking towards the city's entrance. Once they arrived at the gate, Sophia noticed some guard-like-looking, middle-aged guys wearing some crude metal plates as armor and spears for weapons.
"Stop right there!" The guards spotted the duo and immediately pointed their spears at them.
"What's with that lowly beast next to you?!"
"A-Ah…" She thought for sure the guards were dead.
"Grr…" Normal-sized Fen was not amused and showed his fangs. If not for Sophia, this place would've had one guard less already. He had better self-control than the girl thought.
"Ahh, well… I tamed this wolf. I use him for hunting… and stuff like that…" Sophia told him a story that would make sense in this situation.
"So that filthy thing belongs to you, huh?" The second guard also seemed to have a death wish.
"…"
"Y-Yes…" Sophia answered before Fen lost his temper and had the chance to pounce on him. "I-Is there anything wrong with that?"
"…" The guards didn't seem happy. "What do you want here, girl?"
"Uhm… Enter the town…?"
"Tsk… Show me your ID then, girl."
"ID?" Sophia wasn't expecting something like that to come up out of nowhere.
"Identification! How stupid are you, girl?! To not even know that! I can't believe it…"
"Err…" That wasn't the problem, actually. "Do I… need that to enter?"
"Of course! There's no way we're going to let a filthy girl with an unknown background into our beautiful and perfect city! Especially not if that someone is accompanied by such a lowly beast as that wolf of yours." The guard waved his spear around in front of Fen's face. "I mean, it's no problem for us superior ones to slay him in case something happens. Still, you never know what accidents could happen around such a mindless beast. Ignoring how dirty he is, as well."
"…" Fen was twitching all over while trying to hold in his anger.
"Is-, Is there no other way to enter?"
"Hmm…" The guard thought while he looked up and down at Sophia with a nasty look. "Well, let us get rid of that filthy dog for you first. You won't be needing that there anymore."
"Yeah!" The other guard seemed to have understood his coworker's idea and changed his attitude towards Sophia, although really not for the better. "If you really want to be part of our beautiful city, you have to do some work for that. With a bit of polish, you should become quite the beauty in the future, girl. Our brothel is always in need of new personnel, for reasons, hehe. It doesn't care about the person's background, either. Wouldn't that be perfect for you, girl?" Having an equally vulgar expression as his colleague, the guard tried to place his hand on Sophia's shoulder. A lamentable decision.
"…" Her expression turned ice-cold. Her eyes were glued on the guard's hand as it was trying to touch her. Losing to her accumulated rage, black ooze began to cover the ground around her feet. A moment later, her ice-cold eyes turned towards the guard itself and addressed him in a flat yet sharp voice that pierced his ears. "You really are all the same, huh?" Sophia grabbed his hand that was about to reach her and instantly crushed about every bone in it. She didn't care about how much force she was using. Immediately after, the girl twisted the guard's entire arm in a direction that shouldn't be possible and almost ripped it off. She broke even more bones in the process and threw him onto the ground. He never made any sound as he fainted from shock and pain the moment his fist was crushed.
"H-Hey!" Once the other guard finally noticed what happened, he pointed his spear at Sophia and was about to attack her. Another regrettable decision. He never got the chance to.
"I don't think so." Fen, too, couldn't bear it any second longer. Seeing his companion, Sophia, being about to be attacked, the guard's fate was ultimately sealed in his eyes. He instantly jumped at him and disarmed him. Not caring about this human whatsoever, he used his fangs to take the spear from him. Unfortunately, Fen literally disarmed the guard. Instead of getting rid of the actual spear, he simply ripped out the guy's entire arm. It was the weakest point to attack in the overpowered wolf's eyes.
"G-Gahh…" Noticing that his arm was suddenly missing, he let out a cry before joining his past-out coworker on the ground, lying in a puddle of his own blood.
"…" Sophia looked at the mess with her still ice-cold expression before changing her attention to Fen.
"…" The wolf looked back at the enraged girl in silence.
"…" They continued to stare at each other for a couple of seconds until her eyes turned kind again. At the same time, she gently stroked the wolf's head. "Let's go home, Fen."
"Yes."
Not caring about the commotion forming further inside the gate, the two turned around and walked away from the city.
Chapter 18 – Human city
Having tried to teach Sophia the basics of dark magic, something went completely wrong. Fen wasn't sure what was going on anymore. He had asked her to try moving her shadow a bit, but instead, the girl had somehow shrouded their entire surroundings in perfect and absolute darkness.
"Uh…" Unable to process the situation, the wolf was at a loss for words.
"Does that even count as dark magic now? It feels like I cut a few corners."
"It… definitely does…" Fen seemed to be hugely affected by his surroundings, or the lack of it. He was sweating all over his body.
"Really? Yay!" Sophia was happy, at least.
"It's, uhh, impressive…"
"Still, how does this relate to stuff like curses, corrupting, or mind manipulation? It's just… dark?" She didn't understand the connection.
"Magically created… darkness has these properties… If you're subjected to it… it starts to affect your psyche… driving your mind… crazy… causing extreme panic… eating away your rationality… In this state… the caster of the magic… could easily destroy your mind… even your soul itself… Cursing one, or simply controlling your target… is absolutely no hard feat to do… in this… state." His voice sounded ragged while he was explaining the details of dark magic to her.
"Ah, I see. That's some complicated and complex magic. Not to mention, nasty…" It seemed like she understood. "Hmm? Wait a minute… Fen! Are you affected by my magic as well?!" She finally noticed the wolf's pained complexion.
"…Yes."
"Wahh!" The girl immediately canceled her magic. Their surroundings turned back to normal in an instant. "Tell me that sooner, you idiot!"
"Sorry… it was hard to keep my sanity in the first place, so I kinda…"
"Ehh?! Are you alright?!"
"I'm… better now."
"Scary! Dark magic is scary!
"Yes…" He wholeheartedly agreed.
"I'm so sorry about that, Fen! You should've warned me before…"
"Well, I was going to eventually… You know, once it would've become relevant… Someone decided to overdo it a little bit before I even had the chance to react to what was going on." He was just a little angry.
"Sorry…" Sophia apologized again. "I didn't understand the shadow thing, so I added a little twist from my old world to create my own version of it. It just kinda happened."
"Just happened, huh? Your old world sure was an outrageous place. Just how dangerous was it to live there…?"
"Ahaha…" Hearing that from an oversized wolf native to a world with magic and monsters, she could only laugh it off.
"Man, I'm not a fan of dark magic…"
"Really? I think it's quite fun, though? Trapping an enemy in darkness, robbing their senses, slowly driving them insane… Yeah, scary, but fun."
"Err…" The wolf had the feeling that something inside Sophia had just awakened, something that absolutely shouldn't have.
"Light magic still seems to be more fun, though. Creating light has a nice ring to it." As she said so, a ball of light appeared on top of her palm. "It looks so pretty. Healing magic in that category sounds nice, too."
"Y-Yeah, you should focus on that!" He wanted to prevent her full awakening to the most literal dark side at all costs.
"Ehehe, now I have at least some basic proficiency in every magic category, huh?"
"Now that you mention it… You sure are compatible with magic. Especially for coming from a world where there was none."
"Yeah, that god really went all out with my boosts."
"He did, yeah…"
"I really need to get more info about those boosts of mine. What exactly did change, and how does it affect me? Positive traits and emotions did get enhanced, but so did my negative ones… What does that mean for me?" Sophia was thinking about her predicament once more. "I don't think I have to care much about the changes to my positive traits, do I?"
"Well, I have the feeling you get carried away extremely easily."
"Ahaha, that might be true. Somehow, that's both a good and bad trait, huh?"
"Yes, it's a mixed bag, that one." Fen agreed.
"Though the real problem are my negative boosts… I get depressed, not easily… but extremely strong if it happens… Okay, I think I can deal with that somehow. I do have… some experience with that from my old world." She was used to being down. "My anger to the point of wanting to kill someone… yeah, that's definitely new and no good… I need to learn to deal with that as soon as possible…"
"And you becoming a sadis-, ah, no… forget it." Fen wanted to add something to the table but decided against it, thinking it would be better not to make her aware of it.
"Hmm?"
"No, I didn't say anything."
"Really now?" Her voice changed for a second but immediately turned back. "Well, whatever… What about the other feelings? Will I get extremely jealous or maybe not jealous at all? What if something manages to seriously scare me? I REALLY don't want to get my fear boosted! Actually, there are all sorts of feelings that sound scary when boosted. Negative AND positive ones…"
"While I can understand that you're concerned, I don't think there's much you can do before you have experienced the effect of the corresponding emotion at least once."
"Just keep going, huh?"
"Pretty much."
"Well, I'll probably see some new emotions in action at the human city tomorrow."
"Lots of negative once, I assume." Fen wasn't feeling overly positive about it himself.
"Whatever it is, it's going to be a good learning experience, at least."
"Yes, it also won't get boring, I guess."
"Though I don't know if that's a good thing..."
"It sure is." The wolf had no interest in boring things.
"Everything goes as long as you have fun, huh?"
"The same goes for you, doesn't it?"
"A valid point." Sophia had to agree.
----------------
The two kept talking through the evening about mostly meaningless topics until it was time to turn in for the night. Once the following day arrived, Sophia and Fen resumed their travel towards the human city. The wolf didn't tell her anything, but he purposefully avoided any group of humans he noticed with his detection magic along the way. And so, with some minor detours, the city finally came into view around midday.
"Looks like we have arrived."
"Oh~!" Standing on a hill, Sophia could see most of the city from a distance and became excited about the view. "Now, that's fantasy!" The whole town was surrounded by an about five-meter-tall wall with a central gate for entrance and exit. Outside the walls, the entire area was filled with fields, growing various vegetables and something resembling wheat. Thanks to the elevation of the hill they were on, she could see above the wall. It was just a smaller frontier city, so there was no fancy castle or anything like that, but she found it fascinating, nonetheless. There weren't any tall houses either, but some bigger buildings at least. Not a single one of them seemed to be built with any sort of order or practicality, tough. They all looked different and were positioned all over the place, with shabby and narrow streets somehow connecting areas. "Humans… really aren't very advanced in this world, are they…?" While it was fun to see such a chaotic place, it seemed horribly inefficient and just plain stupid in Sophia's eyes.
"Yeah… they're all idiots after all."
"Ahaha, well, whatever. Let's go. To the gate, I guess?" She pointed at the entrance of the city, where she spotted some humans.
"Seems like it. Okay, we could simply jump over the wall as well… or blowing it in pieces."
"Let's not do that."
Having agreed on a course of action, Fen transformed into a normal-sized wolf. The duo then started walking towards the city's entrance. Once they arrived at the gate, Sophia noticed some guard-like-looking, middle-aged guys wearing some crude metal plates as armor and spears for weapons.
"Stop right there!" The guards spotted the duo and immediately pointed their spears at them.
"What's with that lowly beast next to you?!"
"A-Ah…" She thought for sure the guards were dead.
"Grr…" Normal-sized Fen was not amused and showed his fangs. If not for Sophia, this place would've had one guard less already. He had better self-control than the girl thought.
"Ahh, well… I tamed this wolf. I use him for hunting… and stuff like that…" Sophia told him a story that would make sense in this situation.
"So that filthy thing belongs to you, huh?" The second guard also seemed to have a death wish.
"…"
"Y-Yes…" Sophia answered before Fen lost his temper and had the chance to pounce on him. "I-Is there anything wrong with that?"
"…" The guards didn't seem happy. "What do you want here, girl?"
"Uhm… Enter the town…?"
"Tsk… Show me your ID then, girl."
"ID?" Sophia wasn't expecting something like that to come up out of nowhere.
"Identification! How stupid are you, girl?! To not even know that! I can't believe it…"
"Err…" That wasn't the problem, actually. "Do I… need that to enter?"
"Of course! There's no way we're going to let a filthy girl with an unknown background into our beautiful and perfect city! Especially not if that someone is accompanied by such a lowly beast as that wolf of yours." The guard waved his spear around in front of Fen's face. "I mean, it's no problem for us superior ones to slay him in case something happens. Still, you never know what accidents could happen around such a mindless beast. Ignoring how dirty he is, as well."
"…" Fen was twitching all over while trying to hold in his anger.
"Is-, Is there no other way to enter?"
"Hmm…" The guard thought while he looked up and down at Sophia with a nasty look. "Well, let us get rid of that filthy dog for you first. You won't be needing that there anymore."
"Yeah!" The other guard seemed to have understood his coworker's idea and changed his attitude towards Sophia, although really not for the better. "If you really want to be part of our beautiful city, you have to do some work for that. With a bit of polish, you should become quite the beauty in the future, girl. Our brothel is always in need of new personnel, for reasons, hehe. It doesn't care about the person's background, either. Wouldn't that be perfect for you, girl?" Having an equally vulgar expression as his colleague, the guard tried to place his hand on Sophia's shoulder. A lamentable decision.
"…" Her expression turned ice-cold. Her eyes were glued on the guard's hand as it was trying to touch her. Losing to her accumulated rage, black ooze began to cover the ground around her feet. A moment later, her ice-cold eyes turned towards the guard itself and addressed him in a flat yet sharp voice that pierced his ears. "You really are all the same, huh?" Sophia grabbed his hand that was about to reach her and instantly crushed about every bone in it. She didn't care about how much force she was using. Immediately after, the girl twisted the guard's entire arm in a direction that shouldn't be possible and almost ripped it off. She broke even more bones in the process and threw him onto the ground. He never made any sound as he fainted from shock and pain the moment his fist was crushed.
"H-Hey!" Once the other guard finally noticed what happened, he pointed his spear at Sophia and was about to attack her. Another regrettable decision. He never got the chance to.
"I don't think so." Fen, too, couldn't bear it any second longer. Seeing his companion, Sophia, being about to be attacked, the guard's fate was ultimately sealed in his eyes. He instantly jumped at him and disarmed him. Not caring about this human whatsoever, he used his fangs to take the spear from him. Unfortunately, Fen literally disarmed the guard. Instead of getting rid of the actual spear, he simply ripped out the guy's entire arm. It was the weakest point to attack in the overpowered wolf's eyes.
"G-Gahh…" Noticing that his arm was suddenly missing, he let out a cry before joining his past-out coworker on the ground, lying in a puddle of his own blood.
"…" Sophia looked at the mess with her still ice-cold expression before changing her attention to Fen.
"…" The wolf looked back at the enraged girl in silence.
"…" They continued to stare at each other for a couple of seconds until her eyes turned kind again. At the same time, she gently stroked the wolf's head. "Let's go home, Fen."
"Yes."
Not caring about the commotion forming further inside the gate, the two turned around and walked away from the city.
