(A/N: As promised.)
I didn't mind that Waver had given me an errand to run before even my first day under him ended, on the contrary, I was quite pleased with the development. It helped me cope with the fact that he was helping me on his own dime for no particular reason other than his desire to see my 'talents' bear fruit.
It was an odd feeling, to say the very least.
I wasn't very used to receiving support like this, and was used to scrounging up whatever I could with my own two hands, more so as William than Henry. It made me feel terribly inadequate whenever I really thought about it. The man had arbitrarily decided to help me and my family. It didn't matter that he was probably in a position to do so. I decided I owed him one immediately. No matter how much he tried to frame it that way, our transaction was not in any way fair or equal.
I just hoped that I'd get a proper chance.
"Don't worry about it!" A slap hit my back, nearly knocking me off balance and I didn't even need to turn to know who it was. "That's just how the Prof is, trust me. Better to just try to be a good student! At least... that's what Le Chien tells me? Don't forget to have fun though. That's important too!"
"Flat, you should be in a psych ward. Doctors would kill to study the whole spectrum all in one person."
"Agreed," Luviagelita agreed, huffing. "It grates on my nerves to know that someone like this is one of the most talented people in our generation."
"He'd definitely enter a van with a stranger for some candy."
"Of course I would. That sounds like a fun adventure." He cocked his head, poking his chin in his over-the-top way before shrugging and putting both hands behind his head.
That was when the realisation hit me. This sonuvabitch really was a shonen protagonist, maybe from one of the fate routes I wasn't acquainted with. He was even getting weird stares from the passers-by on the street. Passers-by that were most certainly magi considering our proximity to the Clock Tower.
It explained how he was copyi-...no, recreating my edited spells the moment he saw them in use. It wasn't a copy, because his process was wholly different than mine, but that only just made me look like a bum... I could finely manipulate mana too, at least my own, so that lessened the blow somewhat.
"Well then, you should be glad to have me." I reassured Luviagelita.
She tossed her hair, and jabbed a thumb Flat's way, "That's quite presumptuous for someone who can use only variations of one spell so far. Do you think I'm as stupid as he is?"
"Yes, what gave it away? I learnt that in one day," I deadpanned. "if it's such a casual thing, why haven't you done it already? To, you know, put me in my place? Should've been easy for someone so great. Point and laugh, Flat."
"Because she can't. Haha!" Flat pointed and laughed.
"Good do-... Good boy."
I would have patted his head, but he wasn't an anime girl, doing that to a dude would just be plain weird.
"Stop manipulating the simpleton to your dastardly means."
"So you're saying I should leave the manipulation to the real creatures of the night, like a banshee such as yourself? Point taken."
I agreed as we rounded the corner onto an oddly well-built street. Even the road was made with paved stone, and the poor lamppost Luviagelita ended up punching when I suddenly ducked my head seemed a tad too vintage for this place. The crowd of students from earlier thinned to bare stragglers, hurrying to their destinations.
"Perkele! Kuse muuntajaan!"
So, while the rich lady coddled her red fingers and screeched curses in Finnish of all languages, I turned to the laughing Flat. "Sniff it out, boy. You smell something weird?"
Unlike me, he didn't even need the eyes to sniff out mana, he noticed it by instinct and manipulated his own into complex sequences as easy as breathing, as an instinct. My talents were a bit more on the technical side. I need to know the core components first and then I could decipher spells as programs written in a certain code.
I'd long realised that the best way to utilise my eyes to their complete potential was to actually pay attention to my studies... While deciphering visuals in real-time would be exponentially faster, Waver had told me it was downright impossible to witness the higher rung spellcasting unless it was some sort of special case.
"If you wanted someone to be a dog, we could have asked Le Chien."
"Guy threw a chair at me before even saying hello. He'll be too busy cleaning out that stink bomb I drenched his clothes with."
Svin Glascheit would rue the day he made an enemy of me.
"How did yo-"
"We live in the same building now."
Flat fisted his palm in realisation. "You shoulda asked me to join! Aren't we friends?"
"No."
"Boo. Hal's a meanie. Luvia Luvia, help me."
...Where were all these people getting off thinking they could use my mum's nickname for me?
"There's the cafe," Luviagelita interrupted us, gesturing to a not-so-auspicious cafe built into the first floor of an apartment building.
Nothing really looked out of place at first glance. Two large panes of clear glass provided a view into a rustic establishment with only a scarce few customers scattered about oddly on the dark wooden tables. An older, casually-dressed man stood behind the furnished counter, wiping a ceramic cup with a navy cloth.
When we entered, a woman with dirty blonde hair done up in a ponytail greeted us with a smile but I could spot the dark circles under her eyes even without lifting my aviators. She managed a weak smile and bowed her head.
"Welcome to-"
I tuned her out, leaving Luviagelita to steer the conversation, and this time, actually did lift my aviators, if only briefly. I immediately caught faint traces of mana, those same wisps and flickering trails that were left as the residue of some spell being cast. They felt distinctly... electric, in nature this time around, and even seemed to buzz.
"The professor did say he would take a look but... are you sure you children are up for it?"
"I'm 18," I narrowed my eyes at the rude woman.
Luviagelita gently cocked her head, a hand on her hip, "The very same. I'm here to make sure this fool isn't a wasted investment. We come in place of Lord El-Melloi II."
"Uh..." The waitress seemed stump for a moment, "Of- Of course. You can look around, if you want. Please tell us if you find something of issue, the electricity bill will run us into the ground."
...Had Waver sent me as some kind of magical handyman?
Flat raised a hand with a big smile. "I'll have some coffee in the meantime! All this investigation stuff is very boring. Come get me if you find something, kay~?"
Contrary to what one would expect, I let out a relieved sigh as he bolted to the counter. It would leave me a precious few moments of peace to actually do something productive. The moment she gave me leave, I floated over to the back and entered the storage where I found my answer.
I was right, there was some spell working... specifically on the main electric panel on the far end of the room. Doing a once-over to make sure no one was in the room, I pocketed the Mystic Eye Killers and gave my eyes free reign.
In real-time, the spell was parsed, down to its atomic structure, the make was discerned, and the process was disassembled. I then assigned its various base components names and burned them to memory for later use, probably not in this particular order.
The spell had been siphoning electricity from the main circuit to something past a door just beside it. That explained the 'electricity bill' and breaking it was as simple as inserting a chaos agent into the written spell.
A programmer's worst nightmare, a single wrong character could cause the whole program to malfunction... or just straight up crash. Inserting one was easy for an outsider, as simple as pressing a key, finding what was inserted on the other hand... was not so straightforward.
I entered two dozen in under a second.
With a snap of my fingers, the spell crumbled in on itself.
"As I've said before, those eyes really are quite the sight." Luviagelita said with a smile, crossing her arms under her... breasts. Was she trying to get me to look? Was that it? She did that way too much. Like damn, I knew I was a hot catch cause of Yvette but, damn.
"If you're trying to get in my pants, it's working. I'm going to complain to my mom."
That provoked a slight blush... but I was willing to bet it was more out of embarrassment than anything. She averted her gaze. "...I was merely stating a fact."
I hid my beautiful body with my hands, "Stop violating me with those hungry eyes, you degenerate."
Unfortunately, instead of getting embarrassed more, she just laughed at me.
"So, what did you find?"
"You'd think the one with years of experience would be the one to 'find something', I guess your education's about as meaningful as Flat's character development."
"Very funny. Now, out with it."
Boo.
"It's some kind of siphoning spell, I think. Sounds like something I'd do honestly but I didn't expect for magi to commit electricity theft... Again, the humans could just add a hidden wire instead of running complex codes for it." I scratched the back of my head, eying the odd wooden door beside us.
The hinges were rusty, and the design was undeniably vintage. The door actually seemed about the oldest thing in the whole establishment.
"...I didn't expect you to actua-... Ugh, another Flat." She rubbed her forehead.
I feel her reaction would have been a lot more pronounced if Flat's shonen protagonist ass wasn't part of my class. This sucked. I needed my ego fed more. No amount of glazing would ever be enough.
"Let's go find our electricity thief. Any bets this one's also ind-?"
I was cut off by a loud crash... from beyond the door.
-
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