Songbirds

It was decided that when Sofia reaches level 10, she would get a knight to escort her to the capital. This was the compromise Henry and Sofia agreed upon.

House-magus recommended to leave as soon as possible, but the Duke had insisted that Sofia's amnesia was way too bad and her body needed to rest more. Eventually house-magus had given up as the Duke had promised that at some point, Sofia would meet with the other "flexible mana pool" owners.

The practice with fountain was going to be continued carefully.

It was next day morning. There was no theory today. It was the Day of the Golden Dragon, the seventh day of the week. Today the house-magus was with Sofia at the garden. They would investigate if it was too dangerous for her to continue training the mana control and release for now.

It had rained during the night as usual and the garden was still muddy and the smell of the rain hadn't left the air yet.

The magus and Sofia went close to the fountain. Lisa stayed twenty spears away. She had gotten few scratches on her cheek from the last time air show.

"Let's proceed carefully miss Rivermore. If you have headache or feel nauseated, just tell me right away. You understand?"

'I feel like that all the time...'

"Yes I do understand. Do I continue?"

"Well, we came here to test how bad situation this is. Continue, please."

Sofia put her hands on the dragon head. Nothing was happening, again.

They tried few more times, but there was nothing happening.

"Uhm... M-Martin. You sure this is not dangerous?"

'Open logbook. Status.

Mana pool: 2.03/1.15 *** times the average.

WARNING*** Mana pool has been overcharged! Release the extra amount of mana within thirty-two hours! Not following the suggestion may lead to an explosion.'

"Martin!"

"It is fine. Let's just try one more time or are you feeling ill miss sorceress."

"A little bit, but... I think I can manage for now, but just get ready if something happens. I am a bit scared."

A slight aura of pressure was forming around Sofia. It was nothing unnatural, the same had happened to her when she used the "illuminate" or tried to control her mana.

The spell illuminate wasn't yet mastered. All she could do was make it flash for now, but it did activate. Just like a matchstick in the wind, the light just vanished the moment it had started. Now Sofia was starting to question if it had anything to do with her mana pool.

"Hmmh... Jump into the water if it feels overwhelming. I start to cast six tier red magic "mana-burn" if it get's too close to being harmful. I am quite well trained with that spell, so just calm down young sorceress, there is nothing to be afraid of. Last time you did this for two days right? So there should by any means be still space to stretch your mana pool. So everything is fine."

'I am not convinced, but ... are you magis also same nutcases as the sorcerers. Have I understood something wrong from this world... this is dangerous!'

A bird landed on the other dragon head on the right side.

Sofia still had her hands on the dragon head statue in front of her.

Tsirp Tsirp KurKur**

"Ah. That is the Blue Dragon Kingdom's perching bird, Siika-bird. Even though it sounds like that, it can grow to weight almost half a boot of sand. Remarkable and quite exceptional creature if I may say so.

'This person doesn't have such a good concentration doesn't he... damn magus.'

"Martin, what do I do now... I don't feel this is a good idea anymore."

Everyone was watching the bird. It had dark brown feathers and small but sharp peek. It's wings and tail were glorified by white lines and its head had a single white feather on it, like an antenna. To Sofia it looked ridiculously stupid. She giggled a bit.

'Looks like a remote-controlled KFC.'

BOTOMMM!*

'Level up!

10% more mana pool and strenght.'

Feathers flew in all directories and the bird was no more. Lisa was holding her ears. And Sofia had slight tinnitus. The magus just stared the place where the bird was a second ago. His mouth was open like he was going to say something, but no words came out. Only a slight "aaaaa" could be heard.

'Status. Using preferred units.

Level 7, 2% -- Mana 100% -- Stamina 79%***

Height: 165cm Weight: 39kg

Left arm healing process ongoing -- restarted, half-ready.

Four ribs healed.

Small internal wound healed.

Pain numbing in, -25%.

Control on automatic.

Strenght 01.05 times average.

Regeneration 10.50 times average.

Endurance 00.90 times average.

Total mana generated 05.00 times the average.

Mana pool 01.25 times the average.'

Rest of the day was spent with theory. And no more fountain-training was allowed until Sofia had gotten help with her mana control. She was allowed to learn only tier one spells that didn't posses elements that could lead to a disaster. But she had her hand full with "illuminate" already.

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There was an issue that had made Sofia wonder. She had read a lot. She now could use almost one spell. And now she had this ridiculous mana-problem. There was a lot progress from when she was still level four. Well, she had gotten three levels, but they had happened while she doing slight physical exercises, or something physical had happened to her and now as she had demolished the song-bird. She had come to conclusion that to earn experience, one needed to A. Get hurt, B. Use ridiculous amounts of mana in sort time period or C. Kill something and then there was the D. option -- she could eat a soul.

From this she had understood a main key for leveling -- normal studying and safety-first thinking did work against her need to get strong. Same time as this made her finally break a smile, which had made worried Lisa buzz around her like a dog who's owner had come home from long day work, it made her also slightly worried. This did mean that she has to risk her life. He has to risk Sofia's body to survive. Sofia was happy and sad at the same time.

From what she had experienced so far, breaking bones wasn't really in the favorite thing nor was throwing up around hallway. Now the mana usage was also problematic. The mana she was using to cast the spell "illuminate" didn't even go close to the amount needed when she talked with her scythe. But that scythe would literally make her fall asleep. There wasn't more mana for here. And even if she could store more mana temporally to use it to speak with the scythe for long time, she was absolutely lost with this "stretching mana pool". She didn't want to spent next few days laying on bed, even though it did have its merits.

She had come to the conclusion that the fastest way for her now to level up, would be talk with that thing -- her scythe. She didn't have any idea what sort of creatures where outside of the mansion, except the ones she had been shown from the books Lisa had taught her from. And Sofia wasn't really into soul-cannibalism either nor she wasn't murderer. She wasn't going to go on rampage in the night and stab people and then eat their souls. The whole idea was quite sickening to Sofia. Why did she even come up with something so horrible like that?

Lisa was sitting in front of her. They were having midday dinner at the third floor. It was chicken stew. Not songbird-stew.

The room was the third living room that the mansion had. It was way smaller than the other two, only five spear wide and had one small table inside it. There was few violins on the wall and a piano in the corner. This place wasn't as clamorous as the other two, but had more warmed atmosphere. Few paintings about battles hanged on the walls.

One of them had enormous amount of ships painted in it, many of them were on fire and seamen were jumping into the sea with horrified faces. The lower part of the painting was showing the underwater image. There was an enormous creature under the ships. It's torso looked like it was a squid, it had huge fish tail with and seven heads. It had from arms. The heads reminded Sofia from a dragon. Lisa turned around to check what was capturing Sofia's attention.

"Ah, that is the sea-hydra. The painting and a real sea-hydra have nothing in common. That one is way too big. But that battle did happen. It was one sided. The hydra didn't stand a chance."

"So that is painter's own design?"

"Yes. It's not that uncommon sea monster. About once or twice they are reported to attack small ships, but that is all. Never heard that they actually sink one. Normally they don't even manage to get through the wood. And they don't have seven heads. That is absurd."

"How many heads do they then have?"

"One of course. Miss, how hard did you hurt yourself before Oakwoods pick you up?"

"No, ah, I was just wondering that doesn't hydras normally have multiple heads?"

"I don't know. So far those creatures are called sea-hydras. And that's that. Never heard of any monster to have more than one. But I am still young, so I cannot give young miss any reliable words about the topic. That is what I think."

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A horse was like a lightning. It was breathing as much it could, but still its rider was pushing it to move its legs faster and faster. It knew that there was something important it had to do. Was there something chasing them? It didn't sense anything, but the rider was shouting something. And thus, it did push itself to the edge. The heart was pounding on its ears when the huge-house came to its sight. The rider stopped it in front of group of people with question marks on their faces. Its legs didn't respond anymore and it couldn't breath. The man on its back, whom it had traveled to hell and back and back to hell called war, descended, the horse let its legs fail.

Running in the hallway. At least ten people run past Sofia and Lisa. Sir Tulian stopped before the women.

"Do you know where the Duke is? There is a messenger form capital. There is an emergency!"

"Um, probably in the third floor of the west side. Or..."

"Thank you!" Lisa and Sofia glanced at each other. Sir Tulian was starting to run again.

"What has happened?" Sofia asked as the man had such a scared face on him.

"The crown Prince Lucian has died! There has been an another assassination! I hate this damned post war time. Every day.... such horrible news."

"What!" Lisa screamed and the book she was holding slammed on the floor.

"Huh? How?" Sofia was confused as the Prince was Ron. The chameleon-Prince as Sofia called him in her mind. The real Prince was long dead. This isn't what Ron had told her and Henry that he was going to do.

There was no answer to Sofia's question as sir Tulian was already running far away.

Two weeks ago, when the Duke and the Prince had told their true identities as Henry and Ron, the fake-Prince has told them that he was going to continue as the Prince for some times now. Ron had told Sofia that during the final year of the civil war, the real Prince had died during a hunting trip on the Duke's lands when they were meeting in purpose talk about late-war strategies and what to do with all the traitors. Either boil them or grill them. At that point, the war had died into small skirmishes around the farmlands, but it was said to be won and over considering the nobles.

But there had been someone after Princes head. For the Blue Dragon Kingdom's fortune Ron was one of the guards who was with the Duke and the Prince back then. They told Sofia that the assassins had made a suicide-attack to get the Prince. And there had been many. No guards survived, only the Duke and the Prince. Only Henry and Ron.

To Sofia, these news meant that Ron, the one of her kind, a traveler from another world, had died.

'Piip piip!

New mission activated: "The Prince who died twice and lived once".

Investigate the death of the Prince.

This is not forced quest. There is no penalty.'

But Sofia disagreed, there was, mental penalty. This was something, just like the assassination of Eleina, that she needed to look into. She owned that to Eleina and the Duke, those who helped her. She believed that kindness should be returned with kindness, even though Sofia did admit being bad at this herself. But in comparison to what she was weeks ago, her head was clearer now.

Maybe, some of the frustration she felt, was directed to herself.

And her powerlessness.