The Grind (1) - 11

This was definitely not the question that I had been expecting from her.

After all, I thought that she would ask about the school shooting thing first.

"You should already know that being a mage is one of the worst jobs at the start of the game due to the slow exp gains, and you knew that you could get magic related jobs down the job line for other jobs like swordsman, so why did you choose mage?"

You see, the reason she was confused was because I had originally put the "Brawler" job as the job I would choose on my plan.

"It's just because I realized that there are certain benefits to being a mage, especially one that's grown as strong as me in this short amount of time." I said, reminding her of the fireball I had just conjured.

"But what about PKers?" She asked, not able to hide a slight sliver of worry that creeped its way into her voice.

"I'll be fine... Now, onto you, what was up with those jocks?"

"..."

"C'mon, mom will find out anyways, you know she has the means."

"That doesn't mean that you'll find out." She replied, her voice a little agitated.

"But I was the one that solved your problem." I pointed out.

She looked at me with an expression that I had seen too many times from her in the past.

She was disgusted with me and she was fidgeting a whole bunch with her hands, but, she really couldn't blame it on me, our parents had just raised us up that way, telling us that family was everything, and that we have to do anything and everything for our family.

"What were you going to do if they went too far?" I asked, in a slightly raised voice, as I couldn't take that look on her face anymore.

It hurt.

Well, I guess I was a little naive for thinking I could change things this quickly, but, seeing this expression on her face, I could only reaffirm my goals.

I would definitely change the future of my family, even if I had to die trying.

Dad, Mom, I wouldn't let them die again. As for Aurora, well, I wouldn't push her away, ever.

"You don't know anything!" She suddenly yelled, shattering my thoughts.

Instead of responding, knowing her fragile state of mind, I grabbed her shoulders and peered into her eyes, waiting until her heaving chest calmed down.

With both hands, I used my thumbs to wipe the tears that had started falling down her face.

"I don't, but that doesn't change the fact that you are my sister, and, in that moment, I had to protect you."

Cupping her face in my hands, I waited until she feebly nodded before letting go.

"Now, onto these wisps, there's actually a really easy way to clear them without that much work." I said, trying to get her mind off these things.

"R-really?" She asked, her mental state presumably still in shambles.

I mean, if just one mention of her problem was able to bring her to that state, I knew that it had been weighing down on her for a long time.

Just, there was one problem with her.

After all, I had known her for a lot longer than she thought, so I knew...

There was actually very little problems after all, the only problem had been her acting.

I could see through it easier than looking through my own eyes.

And, with this, I confirmed my theory, those guys had just been sacrificial pawns used by my family to test me.

It honestly didn't matter where they had come from, all I knew, and needed to know, was that they had probably been paid by my dad, and then used by my sister to test my loyalty to the family.

You see, although my sister put up that kind hearted act on the outside, her inside was colder than both my mom and dad combined when using people outside the family.

Just, at this point in time, she hadn't realized that it was I who now had the coldest heart.

All of them still had a few trusted people under them that they wouldn't use without a major reason, but I was different.

I wouldn't, no, couldn't trust anyone except for family.

That would be the only way that I could change my future.

(A/N: To answer your questions, yes, there's character development, and yes/no, this isn't a harem.)

...

"Do you understand the plan?" I asked, to the still, "trembling" Aurora.

"Y-yes..."

"Then, what are you waiting for?"

"O-okay..."

Watching her leave, I could only sigh, a little bit sick of the act.

But, it wasn't my job to interfere with my family's plans, it was my job to show them that I was worth it.

So, I concentrated and focused on the spell I had to use.

It wasn't even a hard spell, as it was a spell that all wizards learned in the beginning.

And the spell's name was, "Releasing Mana".

Yep, just channelling pure mana out of the body.

After all, by definition, wisps were slightly sentient blobs of mana that feasted on the mana in their environment.

So, if I created a blob of high density mana, all the wisps in the area would be attracted to its location.

And that was where Aurora was, with her job being to focus on attacking all wisps that came, as none of them would attack her with all their attention being on my mana.

Seeing the first wisps arriving, we started our grinding spree.

...

Once again, Aurora was collapsed on the ground, breathing heavily, but this time, I was right there next to her, in a similar sorry state.

"Well, that was productive." I said, as soon as I was able to manage to spit some words out.

"Yeah, I gained 10 levels, what about you?"

"Only 5..."

Well, this was "expected", as I had only lured in the wisps, instead of directly killing them.

But, she would probably learn this later, parties could be set to contribution mode, or equal sharing mode, and we had been on the equal sharing of exp party mode.

It was just that I had that one title which lowered my already abysmal leveling progress due to having two legendary classes, to something even lower.

I mean, we had completely killed all the wisps in the forest 5 times over, having a little bit of rest in between each "round", as the forest couldn't respawn them fast enough for us.

Usually, this would have given a regular player at least 20 levels, but Aurora's exp gains were cut in half, and mine were cut in fourth.

So, know that our levels were just a little bit under those of the wisps, well, Aurora's was, we needed to move to a different location to effectively level.

And, I had just the perfect one in mind.

A level 25 area: Bracken Ridge.