Chapter 308 (Patreon)

Chapter 308

Sophia and the royal couple went to the castle to tell Menzor, Kira, and  Ari’s parents about their magic changes. Naturally, it caused a bit of a commotion amongst them. The blonde, feeling playful and hiding her own powers for a bit of gaslighting, also didn't help the situation, but things got properly explained eventually.

“Sophia, why has everyone here gotten so strong?! S-Sophia!?” The trio returned to the boat sailing over the ocean, and the blonde immediately got approached by Vivi, who had accepted the invitation to take a look at their travel route together with Nina. She wanted answers on why everyone had so much more magic compared to when she last saw them, but the puma froze the moment she noticed how much the tiger had changed.

“We didn’t know what was okay to tell them, so we just said she should ask you later.” Maya walked up to her while scratching her cheek. “Also, is Menzor still alive?”

“Ahh, I see.” The blonde nodded a few times. “Also, yeah, he only sustained minor brain damage. I’d even say he took it rather well.”

“That does not sound like the king I know.” The cat-girl looked confused.

“That’s just because Sophia tried to gaslight and then stunlock everyone.” Ari just shook her head. "He's still confused over what happened.”

“That makes a lot more sense!” Maya nodded a few times.

“Hello?!” Vivi frantically flailed her arms around to get Sophia’s attention. “What happened to you and everyone else? Especially you! You were totally normal earlier!”

“…” Multiple people wanted to make a remark about Sophia being normal, but they managed to hold back, and most of them were busy trying to hold back a laughter.

“Grr.” The blonde didn’t fail to notice that, though. “Anyway, for starters, I just hid my powers earlier to not startle the entire castle with the sudden arrival of a burst of magic. For the rest, remember how I mentioned that there was something we had to inform Menzor about? Well, it was that.”

“B-But how?!” The puma was naturally a little confused. "I'm not an expert when it comes to magic, I just know that it's fun to use, but that's not how it works, right? Magic doesn’t grow like that, does it? Right?! All of you literally exploded in power! Last week, Sophia was the by far strongest person I met, and now everyone here is twice as strong as she used to be, while I can't even put into words how strong you feel!"

“Yeah, that’s indeed not how magic normally works.” Sophia reacted with a small nod. “You can grow your powers by constantly using magic, but that’s a very slow process and the increase is so small most won’t even notice it.”

“I can definitely notice the change in all of you, though!”

“That’s because our growth wasn’t caused by regular training.”

“Wait, you cheated magic?!” Vivi blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

“I’m not sure if that’s the most fitting description, but it’s also not really wrong?” The blonde tilted her head while thinking about it.

“Is she always this cryptic?” Nina, who was loosely following the conversation, looked at her sister with a confused expression.

“Yes.” Everyone replied to her.

“I had a rather significant accident with magic last week that did some lasting damage to me. A good kind of damage, I want to make clear.” Sophia paused for a second. "I gathered many thousand times my original power in the form of ambient magic and forced it through my body all at once because I wanted to use something I’m way too weak for.”

“You were too weak for something?!” The puma couldn’t believe her.

“I still am.” The blonde just shrugged. “Having so much power pass through me at once caused the magic to kind of force itself through my natural reserves and left behind a very large hole that became my new magic power. Very painful, I want to add.”

“Hold up!” Vivi raised her voice again. “Does that mean that I just somehow have to force way too much magic through my body, like forcing a too big of an object through a too small hole, to gigantify my magic powers?!”

“…” She rolled her eyes at the way-too-familiar explanation. “No, it wouldn’t work for you. The rules of magic wouldn’t allow it.” She shook her head. “Also, you’d die because your body would literally explode attempting it.”

“Why could you do it then?” The puma tilted her head. “Also, why did you not explode?”

“I did it in my domain, the portal place, and Mira’s rules on magic don’t apply there, which made me able to do it. As the overseer of magic we know, the beautiful nine-tailed one, isn’t in charge of my place, I can make my own rules there.”

“So, I could do it when in your place?” Vivi tried to understand what she was saying. “If I overload myself with magic there, I could grow like all of you?!”

“No.” The blonde shook her head. “My domain has its own rules set in place by me. The main rule is that you can’t get hurt in there. Unfortunately, as you’d still explode even in my domain from forcing too much power through you, magic won’t allow you to do it in my place, either.”

“I assume you can change the rules for you yourself freely, but why don’t you EXPLODE when using too much magic?!”

“My body is a little special in various cases.” Sophia didn’t want to reveal too much about herself. “According to Mira, it can withstand a lot more magic before breaking. In the end, it’s only possible for me because of my domain, my ability to change the rules of magic, and having a body that is compatible with insane amounts of magic.”

“…” Vivi’s expression kept changing for a while as she tried to understand the blonde. “Why and how has everyone else gotten stronger, though? I mean, it’s not like every single one of your friends is special and explosion-proof, right?”

“No, they didn’t have to go through that ordeal.” She briefly glanced at the others. “They got their new extra magic from me. After my powers increased by over 50 times, I decided to share a bit with them and boost their powers. Or blessed them, is what Mira calls it.”

“It’s possible to share magic power with others?!”

“I can do that, yes.” Sophia scratched her cheek. “Mira, for example, can do it, too.” She skipped over Steph because she didn’t feel like it was important.

“Hah…” Vivi’s confusion reached a breaking point. “Okay, let me see if I get that correctly. Even before the recent events, your magic was way over the top and kind of weird to outsiders. You’re super casual and friendly with Mira, THE overseer of magic, and you two talk about magic all the time. You have your own world, which has its own rules on magic and houses a tame DRAGON, and where the overseer of magic has no power over you. Your body is immune to all sorts of things, like exploding from too much magic that would kill basically anyone else. Now, the magic radiating from you is so powerful that I can only categorize it as yes when trying to guess how much it really is.”

“…” There were a few things in there not quite right, but everything was close enough, so the blond could only react with a nod.

“You’re totally an overseer yourself, aren’t you?!” It took no time at all for Vivi to break her promise with Menzor about not mentioning her suspicions. Then again, she only promised to keep it in if there were no new signs of it being true, so she certainly wasn't in the wrong, as there were plenty of new signs now.

"I am not an overseer." Sophia's reply was instantaneous.

“Then you’re an overseer in training or something along those lines! Nothing else makes sense at this point!”

“…” She hesitated for a moment because she wasn’t sure what to say there.

“I knew it!” The slight pause was a definite confirmation for Vivi. “It was so obvious!”

“Haa…” The blonde let out a long sigh before sitting down in the boat’s sitting area because she was tired already. “Nothing I say will leave this boat, okay? I’m not strong enough yet to deal with the headache Menzor will get from this. Also, I really don’t want to deal with it regardless of that.”

“I promise!” The puma looked right at her.

"A jaguar would never spill the secrets of a tiger.” Nina nodded a few times.

“Really?” Maya tilted her head. “Ari constantly gossips about Anna.”

“Yeah, and you constantly tell us embarrassing things about Nathan.” Vivi also didn’t believe her girlfriend.

“…” The jaguar sister looked incredibly awkward.

“WHAT?!” The princess suddenly got loud as she stared at Ari.

“Okay, let me rephrase that…” Nina scratched her cheek. “I won’t tell anything unless it’s funny and does no real damage. I would never leak important secrets. This one here will definitely stay confidential with me. I also promise that I won’t say a thing about whatever you’ll tell us.”

“I guess that’s fine enough.” Sophia lightly rolled her eyes but also let out a chuckle at the same time. “Oh, and just for your info, I’ll be leaving out a ton of details.” She had not the slightest intention of telling them everything.

“Totally fine!” Vivi didn’t have an issue with that.

“First, I am not an overseer.” The blonde started with the most important bit. “For reasons I won’t specify in this meeting, I have the qualifications to become one. That makes me able to use various skills that only they can. The portal place, my domain, for example, is one of them. Only overseers usually can have their own domain. Me being very in tune with magic also is somewhat linked to my qualifications.”

"WOW!" Even though it was exactly what she had imagined, Vivi still got excited when she heard it directly from the girl in question.

“I have nowhere near enough magic power to actually be considered an overseer. Like, I can't even put into words just how weak I am compared to real overseers. I also have no field to oversee or a title, like overseer of magic or overseer of nature.”

“So, you’re a baby overseer in training like I guessed?!” The puma got even more excited. “I mean, it’s not like overseers just appear with their powers fully manifested, right? Right…?”

“I have no idea.” The blonde shrugged. “The thing is, Mira wants me to become an overseer because it would be entertaining for her. That reason alone is enough for me not to want to become one. I also don't want to have any such responsibility. She said my specialty or title doesn’t matter at all, I could also be the overseer of having fun or something silly like that, but I’m still not really much of a fan of the idea.”

“I’m not even going to pretend to understand that struggle.” That sort of problem was way above Vivi's pay grade.

“I want to train to gain the magic power of an overseer, though. Just without all the responsibilities and whatnot that come with it.” Sophia scratched her cheek again. “That’s why overseer in training isn’t entirely wrong, but also not really correct.”

“Can you do that? I don’t get it, but it sounds a little like cheating.”

"Well, Mira was a little cryptic about it, but she didn't outright say no, so maybe? That's what I'm trying for now, at least."

“The overseer of fun does sound… fun, though.” The puma didn’t know what else to say.

“The overseer of breaking common sense would be a much better fit for her.” Maya disagreed with her.

“Shush.” The blonde didn’t appreciate that. “How do I break common sense more than Mira does?!”

"Fair enough, actually." There was little the cat-girl could say there.

Afterward, they chatted a little longer, and Vivi tried to get some extra details out of Sophia. Still, as the tiger decided against talking about her origin and everything related to Canir, there wasn’t much left to tell soon enough.