Chapter 256 – The start of a break


    John watched the colour-killing wave expand with fascination. “So that is anti-magic?” John wondered as he followed thest few seconds of the short-lived fight. Her dagger simply cut through Maximillian, like John’s Mana de when it was infused with the water element. It was highly doubtful that her weapon worked simrly on a base level, but the end result was the same. The damage to his soul made the king copse, and the fight was over.


    “That wasn’t THAT fucking impressive,” Thana crossed her arms.


    Rave raised an eyebrow, “Ya really have to chill.”


    “I don’t have to do anything, epilepsy hands,” the blood mage pressed out between clenched teeth.


    “Thana, seriously,” John sighed; he felt the perpetualints about Nia slowly getting on his nerves, “just spit out already what your problem is.”


    “You mean aside from the fact that she looks weird, talks weird, has weird powers and flirts with you?!” Thana asked.


    “She didn’t flirt with me,” John pointed out.


    The insane girlughed and let herself fall backwards onto the stone floor. She fell without any cushioning whatsoever and then just lied there. It was probably pretty ufortable. “Ah, maybe she didn’t,” Thana admitted and rolled onto her stomach; “Whatever, I fucking hate people, why can’t I dislike this one?”


    “Disliking her is okay. I can’t force you to like someone,” John shrugged, “but being downright hostile and having no manners is a no-go.”


    “That’s boring, why the fuck shouldn’t I tell someone that they are a punk-ass bitch?”


    “Because,” Lydia intervened, “we have this thing called manners in society. Utilize them.”


    Thana was getting ready for a retort when Jeff cleared his throat.“Well, that marks the end of today’s fight, folks. I must say the end result was rather predictable,”


    “Agreed,” the lizardman at his side nodded. “In case you weren’t aware, this was thest fight before our Christmas break as well.”


    “Oh, Gaia, yes!” Jeff shouted out. “I totally forgot that.”


    “…You are part of the organisation crew,” Dra drily stated.


    “I am not obligated to remember useless trivia, that’s what you are here for!” Jeff defended himself.


    “Schedules and organisation are not useless trivia,” the lizardman grumbled, taking a sip of his beverage.


    The caster with the ridiculouslybed brown hair waved off, “I could care less.”


    “…So you do care? I already corrected you on this,” the lizard dangerously narrowed his eyes.


    “I COULDN’T care less then,” Jeff increased his waving motion as he addressed the audience again. “So, folks, the tournament will resume on the 26th, which means there will be two days off now. That’s all, see you then!”


    The screen disappeared, and Nia found herself back on the tform soon thereafter. “Ya were pretty awesome down there,” Rave admitted and was only acknowledged with a short nod while Nia walked by all of them. The ck parts of her outfit and the weapons had disappeared into the same void they hade from.


    The nk was on her direct way to the exit when Thana stepped into her way.


    “The fuck do you think you are doing, blonde bimbo,” Thana crossed her arms. “First youe several dayste and now you want to fuck off again?”


    “Thana, you are the person somebody should listen to the least when discussing manners,” Lydia spoke up, even as she joined the blood mage in her barricade of the exit. “However, I do agree that you should stay where I can see you, Nia.”


    The pariah’s eyes darted between the two of them. “Sure?” she asked, not a single tone in her voice.


    “Fucking hell, talk to me in a way that I ca-“ Thana’s rant was interrupted by the sound of a book getting violently pped close.


    “Stop attacking the poor girl,” Momo demanded and pushed her chair back. She hovered over the little distance between them (after having revealed the ability in the ‘fight’ against Alexej, there was no reason to hide it anymore) andnded next to Nia.


    The two of them were about the same height, and Momo took Nia’s chin and forced the nk to look at her. “Okay, one after the other, where do you want to go?” the support wanted to know.


    “I was going to walk around a bit,” Nia simply stated.


    “And then?” Momo probed deeper.


    Nia tilted her head as if she didn’t understand the question. “You know you will have to fight again, right?”


    “Oh,” Nia made an understanding, very short sound. “There is no reason to worry. I would find you.”


    “That’s not how worry works… anyhow, you can run around however you like after youe home with us AND if you agree to check in once every three hours,” Momo looked over to the princess; “Sounds good?”


    “That is eptable,” Lydia nodded.


    Nia, however, still looked unwilling. At least that was John’s guess. By all objective standards, the pariah’s expression hadn’t shifted since the start of the conversation. ‘I wonder if they are all like that,’ he thought.


    ‘nks? No, they are not,’ Siena answered; ‘I have met one before, he had been very active with his tongue… sadly I never got to test his skills in bed. I had to keep my distance at all times. He was an unstable fellow.’


    John chose to not tease the nightmare elemental for being cooperative for once. Trying to imagine the blonde with anything resembling normal human behaviour didn’t make her seem any less weird. The way she breathed alone seemed off. Breasts, modest in size, rise and fell, seemed like they were at a higher framerate than anything around her. The way her long ponytail swayed in an invisible breeze that seemed rather jerky didn’t help either.


    At second nce, it looked more like a cat was ying with her hair.


    Her whole being just looked off; she was neitherpletely magical nor grounded in reality. She seemed stuck between, like a horrible dissonant sound that had taken the shape of a beautiful woman.


    “Really confusing,” Rave mumbled, she must have had simr thoughts; “I am attracted and weirdly repelled… she has really cool hair though.”


    “It is certainly just two levels below yours on the anime hair scale,” John admitted. “Which makes her rank 3 in total.”


    “Ya have a rank list of anime hair for people ya know?”


    “No, I have a rank list of anime hair for people I want to sleep with,” he whispered back, “or slept with already.”


    “Mind filling me in on that list?” Rave purred. That his girlfriend of all women purred when he described attraction to another woman was just the greatest thing.


    “Well, you are number one, Gaia is number two, then we have Nia, followed by Undine, Smander -when her hair is on fire-, Thana, Siena, Sylph, Nathalia, Momo, Aclysia, Smander -when her hair isn’t on fire-, Gnome and finally Lydia,” John fulfilled her request.


    As Rave pondered over that list, John turned back to the discussion at hand. “How about we go now? Nia, I want you to meet the rest of the crew, and there is also good food at home,” John baited her.


    “Food?” that piqued Nia’s interest. “Is it better than rations?”


    “Ya have no idea,” Rave giggled. “We have a master chef at home.”


    They went on their way. On their way back, John tried to speak with Nia again, “So…you are immune to magic?”


    “If I will it,” Nia nodded, expressionless. The reason why John led with that question was because they were currently using the mana street, which he found confusing for a moment.


    “So, the reason why I can’t use Observe on you, is because you don’t want me to?” John asked.


    “Observe?” Nia tilted her head quizzically.


    “Didn’t Lydia fill you in?” The answer to that was a shaking head. John told her about his powers in the barest of terms, basically the parts that were mostly public at this point anyhow.


    He trusted this neer because he trusted Lydia, but that didn’t mean that he was willing to give her anything from the get-go. He knew too little about Nia to just throw ‘ssified’ information at her. “So, I wouldpletely understand if you wouldn’t let me Observe you,” John said.


    “You can now,” Nia stated after blinking.


    John furrowed his eyebrows, “You are going to let me do it just like that?”


    “Yes. Shouldn’t I?” the nk blonde’s hair fell slightly downward as she tilted her head a bit further. The confusion was vacant from her face, but John could practically see the question marks flying above her head.


    “What if I had bad intentions?” John pointed out.


    “Do you?” Nia asked.


    “No.”


    “Then it is fine, isn’t it?” The question was asked with suchplete nkness that John wasn’t sure if he was being mocked or if she literally had no idea what could go wrong.


    In a way she reminded John of Aclysia when she was still young, incredibly na?ve. Except Aclysia had literally been just a few days old, while this one was… well, time to see how old she was or if she was this na?ve.


    ‘Her level is only about half that of Maximillian’s,’ John thought; ‘Well, I guess if you meet yourplete counter, the level difference bes way less important.’ “So you are with the French?” John wondered.


    “Yes,” Nia answered. Personally, John had expected a ‘Oui’ there.


    The conversation suddenly halted as John expected her to say something further. She didn’t. Nia just stared ahead, clearly away from someone else, someone rtively small, with arms in a ck robe crossed over her chest.


    Thana was obviously trying to developser eyes right now, and John was notpletely certain that the idea wasn’t going to work eventually. Wondering about what exactly he was going to do, he walked over to Thana as they arrived at the mansion.


    “Going to have another scolding with me? You can fu- THE SHIT ARE YOU DOING?!” Thana started off nice and easy but was suddenly lifted off the ground.


    John threw her over his shoulder and was now carrying her around. “Our neer probably feels awkward enough without you being a socially inept insane person,” John told her and lightly pped her on the ass. He brought her inside, she was giggling and cursing as he did, and threw her on the couch. “You just sit there and behave, and maybe I will do something very bad to you tonight,” John said and turned away; “And no TV!”


    “Well you certainly know how to treat a bad girl!” Thana shouted after him as John went back outside where Nia was getting talked to by Rave.


    The techno-lover probably could have spoken to a piece of furniture instead. To Nia’s credit, she was keeping eye-contact at the very least. Continuous, almost unblinking eye contact. “Come,” John grabbed Nia by the hand with a reassuring smile, “I will introduce you to everyone else as well.”