By the ti Jhin led gumin to a stretch of barren wasteland carpeted in broken stones, it was nearly noon. Fortunately, this world had not yet tipped into sumr, and the sun hanging overhead had no particular ambitions toward cruelty just yet.
"I... I'm saying..." gumin was panting so hard she could barely get the words out, her small hand draped limply over Jhin's shoulder. "We've... we've walked this far already. Surely that's more than enough?"
Jhin unfolded the map he'd purchased from the Adventurers' Guild and confird this was indeed the so-called Rubble Wastes before finally nodding. "We're here. This should be the ideal zone for you to let loose with Explosion magic — sparse population, far from the royal capital, and wide open enough."
"Ah... no good, I'm completely out of energy. Let rest for a bit." The mont she heard they'd arrived, gumin imdiately crouched down to recover, tossing her beloved [True Crimson Fla Staff] carelessly onto the ground. "It took nearly the whole morning just to walk here from Landosol. This place is absurdly far."
"I'm fairly certain the reason it took so long," Jhin said, producing a water skin from his Storage Space and passing it to her, "is because you kept asking if you could blow up everything you laid eyes on along the way."
"Thank you." gumin clutched the water skin and drank deeply from the cool spring water, her urge to cast Explosion magic temporarily washed away.
"Next ti we co, it'll probably only take about two hours. Are you planning to cast Explosion magic before lunch, or after?"
gumin didn't even think about it. "Before, obviously. Lying down after eating with a full stomach pressing on you is miserable."
"You do have your standards."
"Of course I do!"
gumin raised her staff, and accompanied by her impassioned incantation — entirely different from the one she'd recited before — Explosion magic detonated across the Rubble Wastes in a spectacular, thunderous bloom, delivering a small but morable magical shock to every living creature in the vicinity.
Having emptied every last drop of mana from her body and unleashed her explosion, gumin's face wore the sa expression of blissful satisfaction a teenage boy gets after a private mont of self-reward behind a closed bedroom door — though woven through that satisfaction was a faint thread of post-sage emptiness, hollow as the mana now drained clean from within her.
The [True Crimson Fla Staff] was once again casually discarded on the ground by its own owner. Jhin couldn't help but feel a pang of sympathy for it.
She never stopped declaring it was her most treasured magical staff — and yet she dropped it just as carelessly as a wad of chewed bubble gum after it had served its purpose.
Tch. What a deadbeat.
Jhin grabbed the back of gumin's collar to keep her from face-planting into the rocky, pebble-strewn dirt. He had no idea how she usually managed to protect her cheeks through all those repeated performances of kissing the earth, but his curiosity wasn't quite burning enough to sit back and watch her actually slam into the gravel.
gumin had not the slightest awareness that she was inconveniencing anyone. She simply let Jhin hold her up by the scruff and called out impatiently, "Hey, Jhin — hurry up and carry out of the Rubble Wastes. It's about ti for lunch."
"Just haul you along like this?"
"No thanks, sothing more comfortable."
"Carry in arms or piggyback — pick one."
"Piggyback!"
"You're awfully decisive for once." Jhin shook his head in resignation, pulling her around behind him and crouching down. "Wrap your arms around my neck yourself. If you fall off, don't bla ."
"Heave-ho!" gumin draped her entire body across Jhin's back, her arms flopping limply around his neck. "You can stand up now."
Jhin hooked his hands under the girl's soft, springy thighs and rose to his feet. "You were worried this very morning about making a move on Kokkoro. How is it you're perfectly fine letting carry you like this now?"
"Then was then. Now is now."
Jhin laughed. "And what exactly caused this change of heart? So embarrassing piece of history?"
"Don't you dare bring up the embarrassing history!" gumin snapped a warning, then her voice drifted into sothing quieter. "You already know — I can only use Explosion magic. After I left ho, I sought out quite a few guilds. At first they were decent enough to , especially after they saw what Explosion magic could do. They'd be grinning from ear to ear."
gumin rembered it vividly — how excited those guild mbers had been, every last one of them spinning grand visions of the wonderful commissions they'd complete with her help, their mouths overflowing with praise.
"gumin, we have high hopes for you!"
"You're exactly the mage our guild has always been searching for — no, a grand mage!"
"You'll definitely beco a legendary grand mage whose na is sung for generations."
Those sweet complints landed like sugar-coated cannonballs, punching clean through her heart, which was not yet so hardened back then. It wasn't long before she told them the truth — that she could only cast Explosion magic.
Human emotions ride a roller coaster. The higher their fantasies had soared, the harder they crashed when they learned the truth. Warm smiles curdled into cold stares, and the sugar coating on all those cannonballs dissolved away in the heat of what had co before.
"Only one type of magic? That doesn't make a grand mage."
"And here we were believing in you so much. At least we hadn't officially let you join yet."
"Take these Eris coins as paynt for helping us with that commission. We're sorry — you can't join the guild."
After making the rounds through guild after guild, word spread through the remaining adventurers' guilds in Landosol that there was a mage in town who could only cast Explosion magic. The mont they caught sight of her, they'd reject her application on the spot. Eventually gumin abandoned any thought of joining an Adventurers' Guild at all.
Jhin said nothing. He kept walking at a steady pace, carrying gumin forward. He understood that right now, all he needed to be was a listener.
"As a mage, even if I wasn't joining an Adventurers' Guild, I wasn't about to lower myself to those Lifestyle Guilds either. So that's how it was — I just kept taking whatever commissions I could handle on my own in Landosol and got by. Sotis I'd wonder: if there really were a guild willing to take , would my life look completely different from how it does now?"
"And then... I ended up near that cliff and ran into soone with an absolutely atrocious personality, dragging two girls around with him."
gumin glossed over the life she'd lived before eting Jhin and the others in a few light words, but Jhin understood clearly enough. As a frail mage with only one casting opportunity per day, scraping by without a guild and with her commission rewards cut thin, things had definitely not been easy for her.
"Funny thing is — that person was acting like a lunatic the mont we t, questioning my gender, and even recorded that embarrassing history of mine. But when I told him I could only use Explosion magic, there wasn't even a flicker of disappointnt in his eyes."
gumin was no fool. No mage who had ventured out of their hotown to adventure alone could be. Idiots had long since ended up in a monster's belly. On her status card, there had always sat one unspent skill point, held in reserve to learn Teleportation in a life-or-death ergency — a spell to send herself ho.
But when she saw those calm, sky-blue eyes, and heard that voice announce she was joining the guild — that very sa night, she spent that skill point on Explosion magic without a mont's hesitation.
____
👻🔥Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: Oshi No Ko: Co-starring with Kana Arima
🎯 100 Powerstones = 1 Bonus Chapter for everyone
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