Schemes deriving from love

Chapter 6

“Seriously? That’s all you found? Unbelievable,” Maria clicked her tongue and looked at Mia with a cold face. “Hey!! You can’t blame me! It’s not my fault. The people were just naturally pretty wary of me. Like… right. Like someone specifically warned them not to say anything.” Mia said, and Maria frowned even more. She flicked Mia on the forehead and she yelped. “Good job,” Maria said sarcastically. “Anyways, forget about that. I wanted to tell you something else,” Maria said, changing the subject before their argument got further.

“Right. You said you’ll figure out the mana thing. You found anything? Like, can you actually use the magic sh*t? Hurry up! Tell me!” Mia looked at her older sister in excitement and Maria smirked. “Sure did. For the specifics, I asked Yuna. Other than that, I did the whole process myself. I couldn’t just tell her everything. I still don’t trust her,” she shrugged, making Mia nod in understanding.

“Yeah, sure. Can you teach me?”

“For someone who’s obsessed with anime, you sure know nothing,” Maria snickered. Mia’s eyes went wide and she gasped. Her eyes sparkled and she asked “So you’re saying it’s similar to that? Seriously?”

“I guess. But also a little different. In mana usage, you can take two paths. An elementalist, or an attribute user. In rare cases, people can also get both. Element is pretty much simple magic. Like fire and water. For attributes, it’s basically what you specialise in. Remember how we have our own ways of making money or our jobs? Well, that also effects it.”

“Come again?”

Maria sighed. “Fine, I’ll give you an example. See how I earn money through making contracts and new corporations? Well, because of that I got the attribute to ‘make’ things. Like, I got alchemy. Then for elements, it depends on your personality.”

“Wait, let me answer this one. So if you have two sides of a coin like personality, doesn’t that mean you get dual elements?!” Mia was slowly becoming excited. And it was pretty obvious why. All three of them had two personas. Maria, with her sadistic and hot-tempered personality, Mia with her joyful and manipulative attitude, and lastly Grace who was cold on the outside, but extremely warm on the inside.

“Yup. Based on that, I got the dark and fire elements. But my fire isn’t pure. Because I have the dark element, its mixed itself with the fire and turned it blue. But who cares? Apparently, getting two elements as well as an attribute is impossible,” Maria smirked.

Mia, on the other hand was deep in thought. She was starting to understand it and something went off in her head. She tugged at Maria’s clothes and she looked down at Mia, who was bursting with curiosity. “Hey, you think you can teach me? You know, the way to control it?”

“Obviously, I will. Why would I want to decrease my chances of living?” Maria shrugged. She wondered if Mia had lost her mind. Why wouldn’t she teach them? It’s not like they could separate at this point. And so, she taught her about how to gather mana in her core, creating mana pools and also helped her distinguish her attribute which was hypnosis and manipulation. In other words, it was useless unless there was a given setting.

While Mia was busy practicing her elements which were wind and air, Yuna came around to the back. Maria, who was quick to notice her presence, nudged Mia who snapped her eyes open and stood up, dusting the dirt off of her kimono. Yuna, who was holding a ladle in one hand was yelling at them to come inside. While doing so, she also told Mia to support Maria so she can safely make it inside. For the past three days, they had also checked out the interior of the place.

The place wasn’t big and comfy, in fact it was more on the rundown side. The majority of the house was made of wood, but there were also parts and furniture that were constructed with straws, like chairs, cups, hats and umbrellas. But still, it gave the three of them a long forgotten homey feeling and that’s why they were able to adapt quickly adapt to the house.

Although Yuna’s husband was rarely in the house, they did have a formal meeting and introduction once at least. Although the girls thought he would be at least a bit fishy or reluctant to talk to them, their assumptions disappeared when they talked to him. He was a decent farmer who was formerly a knight. When they started talking, he also told them why he quitted. The main reason was his family. Because the knights stationed at the borders mainly did monster subjugation and were occasionally summoned for wars, his wife, Yuna was constantly worried for him as well as always being on the verge of becoming a widow.

This was very surprising for the three. Even though he could’ve made a good living by just risking his life a little, he left his stable future behind to stay with Yuna. He even became a farmer of all things!! It was easy to see that they weren’t living an good life, but they were happy. The girls, looking at the loving family in front of them that night had felt regret and sadness for not being there for one another. They even questioned themselves. Why were they so against each other? What made them go their separate ways? If they wanted, could they have fixed their relationships? They had thought about this the entire night. In the morning, not only were they unable to sleep, but they couldn’t even come up with an answer.