“88, 99, 100! There, all done!” Mariana stretched to relax her weary arms. “Now what was I supposed to do again after this, Marcus?” Mariana called the man in front of her, who was currently writing on his ledger.       “Mariana!” Marcus yelled without turning around, then he sighed. He raised from his desk and approached Mariana. “Come on, Mariana. How many times should I tell you not to call me when I’m computing something? Now I have to count this again later...”       “Oh right! I’m sorry,” Mariana said guiltily.       Marcus complained about this all the time, but Mariana just couldn’t remember.       “You shouldn’t say sorry anymore if it’s going to happen again...” He sighed again.        Mariana couldn’t say anything

“[Kindle].”     The spell manifested from the tip of his index finger. With it, he lit the wood he gathered and watched it burn — a perfect campfire. For now, he had no tasks left, so he grabbed this chance to catch his breath.     He sat down next to the fire and glanced at the unconscious girl he happened to save. He observed her exposed figure and noticed that she seemed young — around the same age as him. However, he was sure she had no battle experience as she just completely surrendered to the bandits who tried to mug her. Hopefully, she did not develop a trauma.     He observed her some more. He spotted the soft blue glow emanating from her right hand’s ring finger — a water ring. She’s wearing a white long-sleeved linen dress, which appeared well-taken care of despite looking old. She topped it with a brown woolen sweater. Her clothing suggests that sh

"Come on, Sir Ignis. It wouldn't hurt if you tell me, you know?" said Mariana.       Mariana had been bugging Ignis about how he became a fire mage for about half an hour ever since she witnessed him cast a fire spell. She — of course — failed miserably. She couldn't even annoy him, hoping that he'd accidentally spill the beans. The only moment Mariana somehow made her face twitch was when he answered her "no comment."       'What a tough nut…'       It was already noon, and Mariana and Ignis were still on the road. They were lucky that sparse trees covered the road they were traversing. Mariana, however, couldn't understand why — despite the intense heat — Ignis never once took off his robe. Talk about sheer determination, or at least that was what Mariana thought. She just couldn't put herself in his shoes, no matter how hard she imagined.

Wider roads, tightly packed brick houses, numerous horse-drawn carriages, colorful stalls, beautiful decorations, cheerful people walking and running about: are all these real, or am I still asleep somewhere? Mariana thought.  Mariana bit her tongue to check. She instantly regretted it.  "This is real! I'm really in Magna City. Oh, yes!" Mariana threw her fist in the air merrily.  There's so much stuff Mariana wanted to explore here, but she was not sure where to start.  "Should I try the food from that stall or should I check out that magic shop? Ooh, I can't decide!"   "Why don't you try everything, young lady? You'll see more amusing and wonderful items in the marketplace," Robert said, all smiles.  'Oops. I totally forgot about him. I thought he'd leave us once he got inside.'  "I thought you already went on your way. We a

"Have we done something wrong?" "A mage? Here?" "Mom, can I have blue hair too?" "Shh, she might hear you and take you away!" "No, why would I do that?!" I said, whispering to myself. It had been almost a month since Mariana's hair changed from black to sapphire blue, but she still couldn't get used to the attention she was receiving. She had been the talk of the entire Common district, and although the gossip had died down a little, it still had shown no signs of stopping. At first, the gossips were just saying something about a mage investigating in the Common District. This made all the alleyways dead silent, especially at night. This escalated even further when they were now mentioning that suspicious activities must have been happening in Nightingale Inn. Some locals mentioned they saw Mariana leave the inn's door. Soon, the commoners were all avoiding the inn, and it made the owner so furious, he threw me out. Mariana tri