The Fearless War

A Mother's Wrath

My eyes opened several times through the night, for every tiny sound, my ears vibrated inside my head and made me stand up as if someone was going for my neck. And the situation didn't get any better thanks to Uncle Miles smashing the mutant's skull and fangs with a small sledgehammer instead of a bigger one to finish the job quickly. For every hit I had to wait to be able to close my eyes again.

At morning, I got up omitting my exhaustion and tried to go down to the first floor of the workshop to get some food. Arriving at the part dedicated to cooking in the middle of shelves full of metals and materials, I found a figure a little common in my life already. I held a frying pan up and moved it sideways until it reached the head part of the figure.

"Already awake Uncle Miles?"

"A little less sound and you could have really hit me eh Oz?"

"What aren't you always on alert?"

"Your dad told you right? Yeah, most of the time I'm on alert, but that doesn't mean I don't rest, which by the way, you seemed to have trouble with that very thing last night."

"So, you noticed.... " It wasn't like I wanted to hide it, but the tiredness was showing on my face. My new senses could be a further advantage to my objectives but if I didn't learn to handle the burden of them, it was going to be nothing more than a stone in my path.

"Well, you can't complain, if you didn't want this you would have avoided fighting a mutant loaded to the eyeballs with mana."

"Up to the eyeballs?"

"Just see what I extracted from the head alone." Uncle Miles put on the base of the cupboard a bag a bit stained with blood and from inside it he took out three stones that looked like gems and metal combined.

"Mana stones?"

"Exactly, and do you know how these differ from the magic stones?"

"That mana stones are unrefined and not suitable for enhancing magic?"

"More precisely, they are magic stones in a wild state, and only small fragments can be obtained from normal animals or monsters. So, I will use these beauties to modify your weapons."

"But I thought it was impossible to use mana stones without refining them with pure mana."

"Are you seriously telling me that? Who do you think I am, Oz please?"

"Do you really want me to answer, Uncle?"

"I plan to use them to help you train your spiritual veins to move mana and manifest magic in your swords. The bad part is that you'll have to accompany me to visit an old friend."

"And how do you think I'll be able to, after I'm killed in my house?"

"Don't worry about that, you already have your father on your side, but I would worry a little about how Lean will take it."

"I've never seen her get angry, any advice uncle?"

"Do you really think I go through life pissing people off?"

Without directly answering his question, I simply made a face with my eyebrow raised as I made a thinking gesture.

"Don't be like that Oz. How do you think that about your favorite uncle?"

Still not answering, I started making myself breakfast as Uncle Miles walked out of the kitchen into the basement. After a while, as I was eating some cheese and steak I had found, Uncle Miles came back from the basement and threw something at me.

"You know I'm not very good with people, but at least I can help you with other things ha ..."

"In that area you are my favorite uncle. And what's this?"

What had fallen into my hand looked like a simple emerald colored gem surrounded by a metal casing.

"Well, I'll just say that magic stones are not just for facilitating or increasing mana management. It will help you a bit with your mother's anger."

"Thank you, Uncle Miles."

As I continued to appreciate the gem, I placed it on my now empty bracelet on my left wrist, it seemed to fit perfectly in the space of the fang that was now inside me.

"Well, you better hurry, I don't know how much longer Charles can control your mother before she comes to kill me."

"Okay, I'll come tomorrow."

"Sure, though you won't be training here as much anymore, since your family knows most of it."

"Please don't remind me."

I finished breakfast and headed straight home. Just arriving I noticed that the atmosphere around my house was more gloomy than usual, it seemed that the winds were stirred up and it was colder than usual even considering that we were close to winter.

When I entered my house, I was greeted by a wind that blew me towards the forest and when I got up, I saw that my mother had taken out a cane that had a green and translucent gem on it, its shape was an octagon but not of great size. Without giving me time to answer my mother continued to say something while the gem on her staff began to glow.

"Oh Wind! Help your guide to move the derailed, Piercing Needles!"

As she finished her chant, in her hand and around her several swirls of wind formed in the shape of giant needles, their color was the same as the gem, but more ethereal.

"I guess you're a little upset mom?"

"Oh, that word won't describe what I feel like. So, I ask you to bear with this for a while Oz."

The 'needles' that were in my mother's hand tightened and moved until they were pointed directly at me, at my mother's instruction, they shot out one after the other and just before they reached me, I launched myself upward and fell sliding forward. Thinking I had managed to avoid them I tried to turn around only to find them spinning on the ground and accelerating with the sacrifice of another that had hit the ground. They started following me and every time I tried to dodge them, I only managed to get rid of one at a time.

"I guess Miles trained you well in this time in secret, eh?"

"Mother if you already know why do you want to skewer me?"

"What, I can't express my concern for my only son?"

"I assure you there are better ways to communicate that message."

Unable to convince her to stop the swarm of needles against me, my mother kept summoning more and more winds, and my senses distracted by dodging the attacks that saturated my ears failed to hear the chants my mother performed that made many winds gather at the tip of the staff.

When the needles ended their existence by hitting other areas as I dodged them, I was able to rest for a moment and my back bristled only to realize that behind me a small storm had generated.

"Oz dear, I think if you manage to dodge this, I will consider letting you be on your way."

"I hope you keep your promise mother, because I already have my goals in mind."

"Huh, I hope you're still as confident after this. Stormy winds!"

My mother had just finished shouting the end of the chant which caused her staff to release all the mana turned magic towards my direction. It was nothing but a sphere of winds so compressed that it generated a storm within it. I knew that even if I tried to dodge it, I could only delay the inevitable.

I took a stance on my legs as if I were grasping a shield, like the stance the golem had within my spiritual dream. The moment the sphere of magic approached in front of me. I felt my spiritual veins burn as if they were hungry and I let myself be guided by that unknown instinct and charged forward.

As I collided with the sphere, my body ignited in heat and from my right hand I could literally feel the mana from which my mother's magic was composed being absorbed. When that process was finished, I could realize that I had stopped in place and my body had all the mana inside, it was something new to me. It was not a feeling of discomfort, but it did generate a certain emotion as if I should not keep it locked up.

"I hope you didn't think that was all dear Oz."

My mother before saying a feint to make me cautious seemed to have made a surprised face as I absorbed her magic completely. Being that I had only let myself be guided by that momentary instinct I didn't know what to do with the absorbed mana. While I was questioning myself, my mother finished another spell and started chasing me with more compressed storm spheres, unlike the first one these were smaller and seemed to move more unpredictably.

"Aren't you a little tired of this mother?"

"Why would I be? I'm just trying to teach my son a lesson."

Without letting me rest, the spheres kept chasing me around my house and the outskirts of the forest, as I ran my body still had a weird feeling and when it reached my left side, my body had distributed the mana completely.

At that moment I felt lighter, and I could dodge for a while more easily the magic thrown at me. That improvement didn't last long before the stone Uncle Miles had given me started to glow. It was glowing like my mother's staff and as if reacting to the mana inside me, it started to move everything towards the bracelet where the stone was.

My body calmed down and I could notice that I had no more mana inside without knowing how I did it, the doubt was interrupted when the stone exploded and generated what seemed to be a sphere around me, raising not only air I could notice how small stones were mixed in the current that surrounded me.

As I was analyzing my surroundings, the spheres of magic crashed against the current and dissipated leaving only the sound of a storm moving away. When I saw that the wind casting with magic would no longer influence me or cast my new instincts again, I approached the house again and saw a bit of despair on my mom's face.

"I think that's enough mother."

"Well, it looks like Miles helped you again."

"Meh, it's half and half on this one."

I couldn't tell her everything but at least it would take away some of the guilt or bitterness by telling her that I had a hand in the outcome of the fight too.

"It looks like you've grown up more than I expected Oz. I just hope you're not keeping things from us anymore as to what you want to do. And don't even think about bringing up the excuse that no one supported your grandfather."

"You totally saw right through me, mother."

"Your father may have in a bad way distanced himself from your grandfather and most people branded him as a lunatic, but Oz, I know how he cared for you and supported you, I saw how you enjoyed hearing his stories. That's why I can be sure that the aims you have will be the only ones right for you."

When I heard that, my emotions calmed down and in response the air dome around me fell as it ran out of remaining mana. The stones that were in the stream scattered and I could see that on the ground around the house there was not so much damage on the ground to have been able to lift them with the air dome, so I could not explain where the stones came from.

"So, there's no problem with me wanting to go be a knight in the capital?"

"From my side there is no problem Oz, plus for lying to your father and me, we will have your uncle pay your tuition at the academy you attend."

"Fair enough."

I could only imagine the look on Uncle Miles' face when he would get the bill for my tuition every time it had to be paid, since if we even put his name on it without his knowledge having the same last name, he would be forced by law to pay if he didn't want to be prosecuted by the law.

"Come, I think your father will have finished preparing dinner by now, I must also remove the barriers I put up in Eve's room."

"Barriers?"

"Ah, I didn't tell you, let's just say she's grounded because you were left alone in the woods."

"Okay..."

After that experience being the first time, I experienced my mother's anger, I could know with certainty that the order of the house was merely maintained by her strength. I hoped with all my might that I would never again do something so stupid as to earn her wrath. Upon entering the house, I could see a surreal scene, my father was cooking with a face of total devastation and as I scanned the dining room I saw his reason for his face, in one corner were his cases of home brew destroyed, apparently my mother had not only punished Eve.