D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad

Chapter 2044: Chapter 2044 Spell Practice Part 1

— Kat — (Same time as Green’s deal)

Kat woke unsettled. Something didn’t seem quite right, and for a few moments she tried to work out why that is. When she realised that Lily wasn’t in bed with her, Kat got her answer. A slight bit of panic was had before Kat realised that her girlfriend was just in the backyard. She’d left through the slightly open window and Kat was interested enough in her absence to fly out and see what was going on. Checking on Lily’s mind she was absorbed with a spell of some sort.

Floating down gently beside Lily Kat decided to just sit there for a few moments, waiting to see what was going to happen. She wasn’t expecting it to take all that long, but Kat ended up waiting a good fifteen minutes before Lily noticed her presence. She’d just shot off some sort of black mass that splashed harmlessly against the ground, when she looked to the side and let out a meow of fright. [Kat! I didn’t realise you were here… sorry?]

It’s fine. I was happy to wait. Or if you’re apologising for not being in bed that’s also fine. Clearly you had something important to do… so what is it exactly? That spell was weaker then plenty of others I’ve seen you use.

Lily glanced around a bit her ears twitching as she tried to hear of anyone lurking nearby. After a few moments of that, Lily transformed and let her human body spread out over Kat’s legs as she sighed. “Blegh. I’ve just felt like my paper magic is falling behind. Maybe not in knowledge, I’d say I know more about paper magic… but in practice. Every fight I’m ever in seems to devolve into ’use shadow to do this’.”

Kat shrugged, “I’ve learnt that those sorts of quick and dirty options are often the best course of action. Simple, deadly attacks that don’t take long to use are the key once we get to this sort of speed and Rank. Your shadow is always available, doesn’t need a spell sigil, and can be quite damaging when you want it to be.”

“I know,” whined Lily. “It just feels like I’m barely a paper mage now. I was hoping to sort of… combine my magic? Without getting too fancy about it. Instead I’m just making them both worse. I was hoping to make a sort of… homing paper plane with a shadow bomb payload.”

“And you think that’s ’not too fancy’ do you?” asked Kat.

Lily let out another groan. “Well, it wasn’t meant to be. I started with a paper plane spell but they don’t really do that much damage. It’s better for passing messages honestly, or tracking targets. The damage is pretty awful for how much mana they take. So I was hoping to use shadow magic as armour to give them more survivability… but I quickly realised that I wasn’t getting anywhere with that.

“The point of the planes was never for them to be tough and shadow magic isn’t great at increasing strength either. Intangibility? Possible. Reinforcement? Not really. At least, not at my skill level. Perhaps if I knew more shadow spells I could think of something. Anyway, after I realised that I wasn’t improving the plane much despite it costing twice the mana I swapped it to having the shadows make it razor sharp…

“At least, that was the idea. The problem is that it just doesn’t really work? I’m not sure why but it simply wasn’t working out for me. What it DID do though, was sort of explode on contact. Calling it an ’explosion’ is perhaps being generous. It was more like a water balloon hitting something. The shadows spread out on impact but they didn’t do any damage and I don’t think they would’ve worked as a slow.

“So… seeing that I thought why not just make it a proper explosion? So I was trying to pack dense shadow into the paper so that when it hits it’d explode out… and it hasn’t succeeded so far. Haven’t made enough attempts on that version to give up just yet though,”

Kat nodded slowly, unsure if she wanted to voice the main question in her head. So of course, Lily decided to bite her. It didn’t hurt, and it was more like her silly girlfriend was trying to poke at her leg with teeth instead of a finger… but she got the point. “I’m still trying to understand what called you out so early? I’ve never had you leave when waking up before me, and to jump right into training instead of research? I suppose I’m just a bit curious. Worried too I suppose.”

Lily sighed, “I’m not sure either. I didn’t like it, and you make it sound like I got up and then immediately hopped into work. I was just sort of laying around for like an hour. I didn’t really want to get up… but I felt like I needed to? I dunno. Perhaps it’s a real issue or perhaps I’m just projecting but it felt almost like mental itch I wasn’t scratching. I don’t think it’s mana related because I’m still funnelling extra mana into my shadow… but maybe that’s the issue? I wasn’t using it for paper stuff and that’s what had me feeling off?”

Kat shrugged, “Not sure. I know I was told to use my demonic energy occasionally if I’m just sitting around but since we’ve been in semi-regular combat that really hasn’t been an issue. Heck, swapping back and forth between forms costs me a bit every time. Though… hmm… maybe I should still use up more?”

“Might be for the best,” said Lily with a shrug. “We’re not in a rush and you regenerate demonic energy really quite quickly.”

Kat decided her girlfriend was correct and went to start releasing some demonic fire… only to pause. “Wait… probably not something I should do here. Maybe in the Hub where there’s already demonic energy everywhere or at home where it’s supressed… but I don’t know if just shoving demonic energy at nothing is an entirely good idea…”

“I don’t think you have to worry about that… but yeah I guess if you aren’t feeling odd it’s probably fine. It’s not like you’ve avoided using your abilities for weeks at a time,” agreed Lily.

“Yeah, I feel fine and honestly it’s been an age since I really thought about the fact I was meant to use up demonic energy at all. Then again, I’m usually either on a Contract or training at least a little bit so perhaps it’s more for the demons that just don’t need to use their energy for anything,” mumbled Kat.

“Eh… didn’t you have a bit of an issue at one point?” Lily queried.

“Yes… but I think part of that was psychosomatic. I was worried so it became a problem,” explained Kat. Lily just shrugged at that response and shuffled a bit to get more comfortable where she was. “So… back to your magic practice. Is there anything else you want to do? Or is it just the paper planes?”

“I don’t know… I wish I had my paper book with me so I could double check some stuff. It’s… annoyingly slow at times to get through it all. It’s super thorough but I’m not sure I really need all of that? Or maybe I do? I don’t know. I feel like I have a deeper understanding of paper magic then shadow or space… but I get WAY more use out of shadow and practically no use out of space,” sighed Lily.

“Well… are you thinking about looking more into space stuff?” asked Kat.

Lily shook her head vigorously. “No, no, no. I don’t want to mess with space at all while on this crazy island. Thyme is way better at hiding spatial manipulation and if I accidentally messed with one of those we could be in big trouble. Besides, I’m having enough issues keeping my paper magic useful. No reason to add a third magic just yet. That’s for after the tournament and hopefully when I have more info on spatial things…”

Kat nodded, “Alright that’s fair enough. Did watching Hedera enchant all those arrows help you out?”

“Eh… not as much as I was hoping? I thought that you’d just use the same sort of runes you use when casting the spell but that seems to not be the case. Maybe it’s a bit more complicated then a simple ’yes or no’ answer but the fact that it’s even a question complicates matters immensely. Which I suppose is the reason why not many people take up enchanting. Disappointing I suppose, but I’m happy to work out more. I think Hedera’s enchantments are so basic because she doesn’t really know how they work.”

“What do you mean?” asked Kat.

“Well, I think Hedera just knows to ’carve this here and that will happen’ but not what any of the symbols mean or why she’s placing them where she does. Not sure if she even notices it but the arrows aren’t identically enchanted,” explained Lily.

“Hmmm… that is interesting,” agreed Kat.