Fallen Mage Regressor

The grass had long since grown out of control and taken over every square inch of soil.

Mal's feet sunk into the flora, almost like he was having to swim his way through an ocean of rope. He stopped and twisted the bracelet on his wrist. It glowed a little bit in response.

Although the previous iteration of the bracelet was strong, it had limitations. There were cooldowns, and the control wasn't as fine as he would like.

With any luck, this would change.

A little bit of his energy reached out and touched the bracelet. It writhed, thorns sprouted out, long and thin and twice the size of previous attempts.

Instead of specific subsections, the entire field in front of him sprouted up and gripped at the air. Row after row, creating a perfect square of total turf doom.

It was absurd. It was impossible. A student of his level doing something equivalent would be unheard of. Princess Savaly herself was probably incapable of something to this scale.

The grass receded back into the ground as if nothing had happened. He pushed his internal mana back into the bramblevine and it writhed around, but there was no response. He waited a few more seconds, then tried again.

After testing, he concluderd that he had about five seconds of wait time between usage.

With that done, he waited until the wait time was up, then tried to focus his "targeting" on one specific section.

The grass erupted out of the ground like a volcano in a specific subsection about his width, rising up to nearly twice his height. After a little bit of this, it diminished and slipped back into the ground.

Mal was very, very happy with the results.

Fundamentally, there was still a weakness—they were plants. Enough raw power would be able to overpower any anything made of plants. Not to mention, it was dependent on environment. With this amount of power, he was pretty sure he'd be able to make something work even in relatively low nature areas, but that was still an important limitation to keep in mind.

Mal had to figure out some way of bridging that gap, but that was a problem for another time.

The final thing he wanted to test was control.

It took some wrangling, but he eventually figured out how to manipulate the plants a bit more exactly. Unlike the previous two abilities, his fine control hadn't improved very much, if at all from the previous iteration of the bramblevine bracelet.

Even so, Mal was happy with his progress.

Footsteps. He closed his fist and turned around.

The tomato was halfway rotten. There was a noticeable bruise covering half the surface, and even a foul odor when Mal put it to his nose.

Mal was stunned that it had been put up for sale. Mal was even more stunned that Lusia had almost bought it.

The salesperson was sweating obvious drops of water, coalescing into streams that flowed down the man's chin and onto the stone floor.

Behind Mal, the hustle and bustle of the marketplace was at a medium tempo. He could feel the heat from the mass of bodies, but it wasn't quite to the point where he wanted to run off into an alleyway just to avoid the sheer presence of the crowd.

"Lusia," he said. "You see nothing wrong with this tomato?"

She shook her head, hands folded in front of her.

"None, master."

"You're not concerned about the brown skin?"

"Brown is just a shade of red."

"And what about the smell?"

"Indeed, it's rather fresh, isn't it?"

How exactly has this woman survived as long as she has?

He placed the tomato back inside of the basket and took a few others from the same salesman. Each one, he personally inspected, ensuring that Lusia wasn't slipping any in while he wasn't looking.

Once they were finished, he paid the salesman and they moved toward the next stall.

"While I'm of course happy to spend time with you," Mal said. "I'm still not sure what it is we're doing, or why you required me."

Lusia perked up at something he said before adjusting the grip on the woven basket of goods in her hands.

"I wanted your judgment in case mine erred. I apologize for the bother, but you were the only person I could think of."

"What about your maid friend?"

"I…"

There was the slightest furrow to her eyebrows. Her eyes lost thought, out of focus, like she was staring at something in the distance.

Mal thought about it for a bit before he came to the obvious conclusion.

"It's magic, isn't it?" he said. "You wanted to talk about the status of your core."

"Yes, that's exactly it."

Her voice was a little unsteady, not the firm emotionlessness that he was used to. He brushed it off as her still being in shock over the fact that she could use magic.

When she'd asked him to accompany her, he'd taken a quick look at her core using his newfound enhanced perception. He couldn't maintain it for too long, as the brightness of the mana and the mental strain wore at him rapidly. But in that brief glimpse, he'd seen that it was developing wonderfully. It was a fiery inferno, not unlike the mana that had cured her. Blazing, burning, ready to erupt at any moment. When it was fully formed, even Mal was unsure of how powerful she'd be.

A B-grade? Maybe even A-grade. he thought. She'll be a useful weapon in the coming battles.

The smallest niggling of guilt swelled up before he crushed it underfoot.

"You still failed to explain what we're actually doing," he said.

"As a part of our duties, head servants are expected to organize celebrations on behalf of their masters."

"Oh."

Didn't that mean Mal would have to eat Lusia's cooking? In fact, wouldn't that mean he'd have to eat a large amount of her cooking? In fact, wouldn't that result in his immediate death by food poisoning?

"I intend to make a cake in addition to a fruit spread."

She stopped in front of a vendor stall with some apples on display, then picked up one and took a sniff.

"Lusia, that one has a worm poking out the side of it."

The salesman squawked and grabbed the apple out of Lusia's hand.

"I inspect all of my produce regularly!" the salesman cried. "This has never happened to me before!"

"Lusia has a talent for that sort of thing. Can you recommend some for us rather than letting her pick?"

"Of course, of course."

Lusia shot Mal a funny look before it disappeared in an instant.

As Lusia and the salesman bargained, Mal found himself wondering if he should grow other plants in addition to the magical ones.

It might be nice to make our own goods from scratch as opposed to buying them, he thought. That way if she wants to celebrate—

Hold up.

"Wait a second," Mal said. "Celebration for what?"

Lusia exchanged a few coins with the man and picked up the fruits off the platter and set them on top of the other ones inside of her basket.

"Your midterm exams are coming up relatively soon."

Mal double-checked his internal calendar.

Right, it was the Worm Moon, third month of the year. Midterms were in the fourth month, the Seed Moon. Then there would be a summer break before a return to school.

Mal had been so distracted by recent events that he'd barely paid attention to the school calendar. In retrospect, he probably should have been keeping an eye on that.

Then again, it wasn't like he was concerned about failing. If he did that, he would have to immediately resign from the school out of shame.

No, the bigger challenge would be calculating exactly how to appear in the middle of the bell curve by predicting the average score of each class he was in.

He sighed. More late nights were ahead.

"Besides that," Lusia said. "I have my personal reasons to thank you."

She didn't say anything else, but Mal grasped the idea.

Her core.

It was just as much for herself as it was for him, he'd imagine.

Well, that was a bit of a guess. He didn't know if she was the type to celebrate major events like that. He didn't even remember if her coming of age was celebrated.

Based off how the other maids at home treated her, he expected that would be a no.

A few small brown bags poked out from the edge of his vision. He picked one of them up and shook it around. It made a sound like dozens of tiny pebbles rolling around and hitting each other.

Seeds.

"What type of seed are these?" he asked the salesperson.

"Those? Just some leftover vegetable seeds."

Mal thought about it for about half a second before he made his decision.

"How much?"

The salesperson's eyes widened before the expression was schooled into a professional smile. He quoted a price for a handful of bags and Lusia paid the salesman appropriately.

The evening sun painted the white bricks a vivid shade of orange. By this point, the market had died down to a slow stream of departing individuals and late browsers.

Mal and Lusia's footsteps clicked against the road, the loudest sound around for what felt like half a mile.

"You've been keeping up with your exercises, right?" Mal said.

"I have."

"Good. From what I saw, your core is coming along nicely. It's still unstable, it'll take some time, but the prospects look good."

"Prospects? Are you referring to the quality of my core?"

"Yes. It'll be at least a C-grade. Probably a B-grade. Maybe even A if we're really lucky. You'll have more talent than me, which isn't exactly something I ever thought I'd say about one of my maids, but this is where we are."

There was a small hitch to her steps. He turned to look at her head-on, but her face revealed nothing of her inner thoughts.

"Lusia?" he asked.

"Yes?"

"I thought you'd be a bit more excited."

At that, she stopped and faced toward him. Her eyes widened, it was by a margin that would look ludicrously small on anyone else, but on her, it made her look as if she was in utter disbelief.

"I am excited," she said, her voice a fraction faster than normal. "My heart rate has been unusually elevated whenever I think of my core. I feel a number of reactions associated with nervousness, such as sweating and a strange lightness in my stomach."

Perhaps it was a bit presumptive of Mal to say so, but—

"Even so," Mal said, "it doesn't seem like you're happy."

The evening sun was halfway set. The orange glow on the bricks crept upwards, replaced by a long black shadow.

She remained silent before she spoke again, voice low and unsteady.

"Is…" She forced the words out. "Is it really acceptable for me to receive this?"

Mal had to admit he was a tad confused.

"Why wouldn't it be acceptable?" he asked.

The knuckles of her toes tensed up on the inside of her boot.

A tiny tell. One that Mal suspected nobody else could have possibly caught, save for him.

"I..."

Her voice trailed off. The brief glimpse of cloudiness in her vision disappeared, replaced by that iron resolve he'd become so familiar with.

"I need to go," she said.

Before he could say or do anything, she sharply pivoted on her foot and marched off into the street.

Mal reached out his hand and took half a step before he forced himself to stop.

It wasn't his business to pry into her internal affairs. How she felt, what she was thinking... Hadn't she all but declared that she wanted nothing that could even be misconstrued for charity or pity? She was so ludicrously against it that she'd renewed their contract despite there being no good reason to do so.

I can't keep wasting my time and my mind on that woman, he thought. I tried to fulfill my debt. It isn't my fault that she made things so difficult.

She was just a tool anyway.

The thought rang hollow, and he couldn't quite tell why..

A knock at the windowsill.

He'd long since returned to his room. He couldn't sleep, much to his chagrin. It was midnight, and he'd become very well acquainted with the funny green stain on the wall.

Mal turned toward the noise, about 80% sure of who it was.

"Hemp, I swear to goodness—"

A thud.

His eyes adjusted in the darkness. There was liquid pooling from a heap on the ground.

His heart thundered in his chest.

A cough. Blood splattered across Mal's floor.

When his eyes adjusted and he recognized who it was, the world came to a stop.

"What the hell happened to you, Hemp?"

Her pupils were shrunk to pinpricks when she lifted her head to stare up at him.

"My friends—" she hacked. "The other test subjects."

"Other test subjects—?"

"They're alive. And if I don't show up and turn myself in within 24 hours, they're going to be killed."

A shudder ran down her spine and she collapsed with a wheeze.

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