Chương 177: [Start of Book 3] 1. A Few More Days

A light breeze carries the distinctive smell of the sea and a refreshing mist of salty water that offers a welcome reprieve from the relentless summer sun. From up in the crow's nest, I have a flawless view of the shimmering blue expanse surrounding the ship on every side as it cuts across the waves. No sign of land—but no ships, either. I hop down from my perch, eliciting cries of dismay from my headmates as I gently land on the deck, having fallen a distance less than our own already diminutive height.

"Blood and fricking acid Mags, you have got to stop doing that!" Allison complains. Hehehe, gets 'em every time. Half my headmates are still deathly afraid of heights—though I don't think Reverie has ever weighed in on the matter, leaving her as a mysterious tie-breaker. I doubt she would be, though—she's not afraid of anything other than existing, and isn't that just a mood? It's been a lot of fun playing with my new trick, thanks to Nipper.

[Skill - Borrowed Power (Astral Burrowing)] You may select one trait of your bonded creature to use as if it were a skill. [Trait - Astral Burrowing] Can create miniscule tunnels through higher dimensional space. It took some getting used to. Distance doesn't always correlate between higher and lower dimensions and sometimes the directions get a little fucky. But I've only dropped us in the ocean once. Okay twice, but the second time was on purpose. Nipper's much better at it, since it comes naturally to him.

The newly hatched Astral Wurm Larva is happily snuggled up inside one of our cloak pockets. Turns out that Grade for monsters acts as a sort of multiplier for their tier, and since Nipper is still tier zero, the higher grade of his new species does nothing for his attributes, so he's as weak as the day he was born. He is also—tinyyyyyy! When he went into his cocoon he was getting pretty hefty—thick around as one of our arms and as long as we are tall. But now that he's hatched, he's back to being palm-sized.

Alas, we have a much more limited supply of mana candles to feed him this time around, but with Fargo's help, we'll get him big and strong in no time at all, I'm sure. Speak of the devil, there he is now. He pretty much fell in with the crew like an experienced deckhand—because he is. Exploring the world involves a shit-ton of sailing, and it turns out that the adventures he's always bragging about actually are real stories—albeit heavily editorialized to make him look good.

I wave to get his attention as he finishes tying off some rope that's probably important.

"Hey Fargo, is that a worm in your pocket, or are you just happy to see us?"

"Maggie! I'm always pleased to— gah!" he jumps and fishes Nipper out of a cloak pocket, frowning.

"You have got to stop doing that!" I cackle menacingly. Nipper may be tiny again, but even with his reduced attributes, he's smarter than ever. I barely even need to signal him these days, since our magical bond gives us an even stronger mental link than before.

"You know," Fargo muses as he hands my partner in crime back over, "that would probably be more intimidating if you weren't staring at the deck while you did it."

"Shut up!" I pout.

"Who asked?!" He chuckles and shakes his head.

"See anything interesting up there?"

"Water," I deadpan.

"We're still on the ocean."

"No storms and no ships then," he notes.

"Good. The captain will be happy to hear it." Maybe we can finally fucking get to where we're going, then. It was supposed to only take a few days to cross the Stebaasa sea and reach Jira's tribe, but we've caught imperial ships trying to follow us a few times now, and Jira's been trying to shake them off. The captain beams at me when I deliver the news.

"About bloody time," she chuckles.

"You must be sick of the ship by now, eh, Little [Baddie]? What are the odds you'd end up with us just in time for your period twice in a row? Hahaha!" She still uses that nickname for us, awkwardly pronouncing the word "baddie" in our language after Allie tried to defend our objective hotness during our first meeting.

"Yeah," I mutter.

"Hilarious. How long, do you think?"

"To the tribe? Shouldn't be more than a few days as long as those hornless inquisition bastards don't catch us out again. Er, no offense." I wave off her apology.

"Nah, having horns is clearly way cooler. We could have had our own if Allie wasn't a bitch about it."

"Oh shut up, Mags," said bitch whines.

"Don't act like not wanting to change our fricking species is some grave offense." Gamely ignoring her obviously wrong opinions, I hop below decks, taking another dimensional shortcut to arrive right next to Talla. Going through solid matter is a lot trickier, but we've been on the ship long enough for me to have a feel for how it stretches and warps in higher dimensions. Talla visibly jumps when I drop out of thin air next to her." Godshit!" she curses.

"In all Her names, Maggie you have got to stop doing that!" Yes! Three for three! I'm on a roll today.

"Looks like we've finally shaken our pursuers," I explain.

"We'll be back on land in a few days." Talla frowns adorably and tosses her hair back.

"That's what she said a few days ago. And a few before that. It seems like every few days we get a new promise that we'll be arriving in a few more days." She hasn't adapted to life on the ship as quickly as the rest of us. None of the sailors bother to give her any deference as a lady or as a woman, and while she doesn't exactly demand it, she's never really lived without it for any length of time. Even back when she was a ranger, Draga treated her with a lighter hand than I think she realized.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. My stomach twists into a little knot at the thought of his name, as it always does. It still hurts to think about, not that it's been that long since our colossal fuckup got him killed. Better me than Vi, though—she still goes practically insensate whenever he's mentioned unless we've had a fresh dose of mana tincture. And speaking of magical anti-depressants!

"So, is it time for drugs yet?" I ask.

"No respect for the conversational topic, as always," Talla sighs.

"You know I can't administer the dose while you're in front."

"Heck," I curse innocently.

"Poopy doodles! Frick on a stick!"

"You're not fooling anybody by pretending to be Allie, either," she drawls, though there's an unmistakable hint of amusement in her voice.

"Not that anybody even knows the difference between her curses and yours."

"Also, I don't sound like that," Allie adds. That was a fun one to unpack with Talla during one of Allie's language study sessions. This whole time she thought that Allie was as foul-mouthed as I am because she didn't understand the difference between her cutesy swearing and the real thing. Which really just goes to show how fucking pointless it is, but what do I know? Alas, Talla can pretty much tell which of us is fronting at a quick glance these days, and she's the one in charge of our medicine.

Turns out the little ampoules Al left us with aren't his actual gift—their only purpose was to dial in the correct dosage. The real gift is what I can only describe as a metric fuckton of tincture entrusted to Talla, to be administered at her discretion. She was quick to inform us that it's worth a fortune, and not a small one either.

"You do realize that the Alchemist left us with more tincture than my entire family could buy, right?" she reminds me.

"Mother always suspected that it was an artificial scarcity, but that doesn't mean you should take it for granted."

"Yeah, yeah," I brush off her warnings.

"You always say that. I don't see you turning Vi down, though."

"Well, no," she sighs.

"It's impossible to argue that she doesn't need it. I just don't understand—even if that spell was way beyond anything you should be able to manage at your tier, the strain shouldn't be lasting this long." I avoid meeting Talla's eyes, which is easy since I always do that anyway.

"Yeah, haha. How weird." She must have noticed something about my body language, since my tone was flawlessly casual, because she crosses her arms and glares at me.

"Maggie, have you been doing something?" she accuses.

"I told you that you all need to ease off on magic until you've recovered."

"What? Pssh, no," I lie smoothly.

"Allie's afraid of magic, Vi's been sticking to spear practice, and I've been having too much fun playing with Nipper's awesome new teleport thing."

"I keep telling you it's not teleportation," Talla insists.

"It's just a low level manipulation of the astral field—and also a distraction! What about Evelyn and River?" I raise my chin and put my hands on my hips.

"Eve's the goodest girl there ever was, despite my best efforts, and you may be surprised to hear this, but Reverie has been asleep." Don't even have to lie, there. Evelyn hasn't gotten any less belligerent now that she's accepted her new life as one of us—if anything she's worse than ever because now she's decided that she can "fix" me instead of just fighting all the time. And as for Reverie... ugh. She kinda freaks me out a little, to be honest.

She's content to just passively exist in our dreams, but when it comes to actually engaging with anything outside of our own head she just kinda checks out. It would be concerning if it weren't so relatable. Or maybe it's concerning because it's so relatable. Talla shakes her head and sighs.

"Whatever it is you're doing, cut it out. We don't have an unlimited supply of tinctures, and it's not healthy to keep relying on them. It's not just chaos mages that can lose their minds from overdoing it with magic." Naturally it goes unsaid that I have also been quietly practicing my chaos magic from the beginning. Quiet little things that can plausibly be written off as part of our [Pyrothaumaturgy] skill.

Magical signals for Nipper, focusing raw magic to practice my fine control, and most recently trying to detect whatever weird curse Al left us with—though I've had no luck with the last one.

"Sure thing, boss," I reply with a lazy salute.

"I'll let Vi know to come back when she's feeling up to it, I guess. In the meantime, I've gotta feed Nipper. Little guy's gotten shy now that he's tiny again." Talla waves me off and goes back to her reading as I retreat to the captain's quarters. Jira's been letting us stay in here for the trip, since there's basically no privacy anywhere else. Last time we stayed with the rest of the crew, but last time Vi nearly started a brawl. There's probably other reasons too, but I don't really give a shit.

It works out fine for me, because Nipper's not actually shy in the slightest. I lure him out with a little mote of magic and let him enjoy the treat while I look over his interface through our bond. [Nipper: Tier 0 Astral Wurm Larva]** - Level 2/10 [Attribute Total]: 13 [Traits] Magical Constitution Matter Conversion Limited Pyropathy Astral Burrowing As Fargo predicted, [Limited Pyropathy] is an inherent trait now, despite it not really fitting in with his spatial domain.

The curse that granted it is gone, and while I could probably reapply it if I wanted to, there's not much point. Maybe I can make another one later, but I'm taking Fargo's warning about overusing them seriously. Especially now that I've felt for myself just how much Nipper depends on his magical reserves. There's a very good reason why I've been so obnoxious about using [Astral Burrowing] at every opportunity, and it's not just because it's fun scaring the piss out of people.

As long as I'm visibly using that one, nobody but my headmates will realize that I'm actually focusing a lot more on the others. [Magical Constitution] Requires magic to survive and converts all matter digested into magic. When I first saw it, I pretty much wrote it off as useless for us to copy. It's just the trait that separates the regular animals from kickass magical monstrosities like Nipper. But then I got thinking. Hey, we're a regular animal, aren't we?

And who said that only non-sapient beings get to be magical monstrosities? I fish one of the mana candles out of the huge sack that Talla's mom left us. These things have been our trump card since the very beginning. Weirdly dense bundles of magic condensed into physical form and scattered across every surface of the convergence point where we first arrived in this world.

Unfortunately, we got ripped the fuck off by the "generous host" of a noblewoman putting us up in the city, but even the fraction of our original haul that she left us with is a serious treasure trove.

"Bottoms up!" I declare, before swallowing the entire thing whole.

"Blegh, I still can't get used to that," Allison complains.

"Are you sure there isn't a better way to do it?" I wash it down with some water. Even though it vanishes before it gets halfway down, that is not comfortable.

"Has to be digested," I croak.

"So unless you want to try going in from the other side—""Ew! No thank you," she interrupts me.

"Whatever, as long as it's not me that has to do it. And we're definitely not wasting them by doing this, right? We only have so many left." Switching over to the other trait, I shrug my shoulders. [Matter Conversion] Slowly converts stored magic into biomass.

"I can see why Nipper is satisfied for so long after just one candle," I reply.

"It takes a really long time to get through even one of them this way." This trait is the real sleeper. Nipper uses it to get bigger, produce his silk and glue, and probably provide energy for his body. For us, it helps us to heal faster, grow our hair—which has gained a whole inch in like a week—and should even help keep us from passing out in extreme conditions like Vi's emergency healing skills. Or blood loss.

Sure, it might cause a smidgeon of extra magical strain on us at all times, but that's a small price to pay and it's not just me saying that. Even Eve agrees that the extra magical reserves that we can convert into physical ones at will are a wise investment. Me, though? I'm looking forward to seeing what else I can make of it. After all, Nipper has a secret that only I know. He didn't actually get any smaller during his transformation. He's just putting all that biomass somewhere else.

And won't it be interesting to see what he does with it?