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Olpi clutched her stomach. \'I feel like I\'m going to throw up,\' she thought as she hobbled away from the others, nearly tripping over the winding, curving roots. She wouldn\'t get up if she fell into the snow. She didn\'t have the strength.

"Keep your head up!" Frey screamed at Elero. Olpi lifted her gaze from the whirling ground as if he was yelling at her. She needed to walk, to move. Anywhere would do. Anywhere meant a small clearing deeper in the white forest.

Celsius\'s smile flashed in her mind. She grimaced not because of him, because of herself. She wanted to follow him so she could take a portion of that smile. \'Maybe I should leave..\'

"And then what?" She threw up her arms and asked aloud. Glancing over her shoulder, no one seemed to hear her. "What are we going to do outside the academy, huh Olpi? Now you\'re talking to yourself." The nausea burned away by her outburst, leaving her breathing hard. She stretched her arms to the sky. "That felt good."

Raw power rose from her outstretched hand into a simple ice-element magic circle. A barrage of icicles pierced deep into the surrounding tree trunks, fractured splinters diving into the snow. One thoughtless, pointless, desperate action led into another.

She compressed another pulse of mana into the magic circle, compositing simple lines and dots with intricate arrangements. "Compound magic: Flash Freeze." She took a breath. "I don\'t need to train. I don\'t need to practice."

She let the magic circle fade, walked over to one of the trees, and flicked it. Cracks skittered up and down the trunk. The tree hadn\'t frozen to the core. The ice was a shallow shell. A heavy crack signalled its collapse, right over her unprotected skull.

Olpi flailed as she fell back, her ankle snared by a vengeful root. Just another reminder of how useless she was. Her back sunk into the icy blanket. She covered her head and neck, bracing for the bladed rain.

It wouldn\'t kill her but it would cut deep. She would then limp back to the others, and they would waste their energy on helping her. Pain she knew, but incompetence? Was she incompetent? Incompetence; was that the name for the sickening nausea stabbing into her gut? She opened her eyes and pulled her arms out of the way.

Two piercing pains; one into her shoulder and the other slicing across her forehead. The jagged ice relentlessly poured.

Olpi\'s bright blue mana flared and, in the process, a faint flicker of green energy danced down her fingertips. A third pain jammed itself into her palm as her magic circle took form. A single droplet of water spiraled and expanded into a riptide shield that swept away the rest of the avalanche. She kicked free of the root and scooted back several feet before catching her breath.

Hot blood nearly dripped into her eye. She pressed handfuls of snow to each cut after removing the shards of ice, suppressing several yelps in the process. She sat back and laughed. \'Why did I even do that?\' she thought. \'What am I training for? The others can take care of themselves. It\'s not like we\'re going to fight another war, or so I hope.\' She leaned back in the snow and spread her arms and legs out, making a snow angel as she stared up at the endless sky. \'If not a servant, what am I?\'

She took out Cerlius\'s dagger and felt the uneven, more-worn parts of the leather grip with her calloused fingers. She counted five nicks in the dulled blade. The wear hinted at its quality, and the enduring enchantment, its power. The blacksmith had probably had years of experience, and took a painstaking length of time to make the dagger. He must have been proud of his creation, expertly made for one sole task. A dagger would always be a dagger after all. Its goal, nor its purpose, would ever change.

Or so the blacksmith intended. Now, the weapon was simply warmth. Nothing but a damaged shell of its former self remained. At least that was better than being a cold, dead piece of scrap metal. At least that was better than rotting away.

Useless.

Incompetent.

"Frey," Elero\'s voice rang out. "This is sparring practice. Shut off your aura!"

"I\'m sorry!" Frey\'s indignant voice responded.

Olpi sighed and walked back to the others, a little weary but nothing a quick nap wouldn\'t solve. \'I have mana, but what else do I have?\' she thought. When she met back up with the others, Frey was covered in a flaming aura while Elero sat a ways away from him. Doevm and Thomas were still out of sight.

"I think that\'s a good stopping point," Frey said as he finally managed to shut off his aura. "This is hard enough and it\'s starting to get cold with all this sweat and rolling around in the snow." As if to prove his point, he started shaking. Elero was worse off, much smaller and skinnier than the giant.

"If you like, I can wash you both," Olpi whispered more to herself than to them.

Frey blinked. "Wait, you want to wash us?"

Olpi nodded. "With magic," she raised her hand and a small spark of mana flew out.

"Oh, with magic," Frey said. "Right, of course, with magic. What else would I expect?" He rubbed the back of his head as Elero facepalmed. "S-sure, knock yourself out."

Olpi sent two magic circles under each of them, one a rising disk of water that spun all the dirt, grime, and sweat away, and the other a wind spell that blasted all the residual water away. "This is amazing," Elero said, examining herself. "Even my hair is dry instantly. You warmed me right up!"

"My hair as well," Frey said as he redid his man bun with hair tie.

"Sometimes I forget how long your hair is," Elero mentioned, patting the giant on the back. "Olpi, thank you for this."

"It\'s no big deal," Olpi said as she plopped back down on the very log that she had watched them on from the start. "Cerlius could have done the same as well if he wanted to, I\'m sure of it."

Frey and Elero looked at each other. "He doesn\'t use magic."

Olpi furrowed her brows. "What do you mean he doesn\'t use magic? I was with him in the academy. He was shooting off spells left and right."

Frey shrugged. "He just doesn\'t, unless something is threatening him or it fits a certain criteria. He just doesn\'t like using it for some reason."

"You\'re serious?" Olpi coughed. "Why? Magic is a part of a mage\'s identity. Without it, we\'re not much better than average people, no offense."

"None taken," said the giant. "Can you do this every time we train out here?"

Olpi shrugged. "Like I said, it\'s really not that big of a deal. Ask any Demi. It\'s one of the first things we learn."

"It is a big deal," Elero argued. "Nobility shell out gold for mages to help them in day to day tasks. It\'s a very common practice, and you\'ve done it for us for free. I haven\'t felt this good in days, although we should probably get back into the cabin."

"I\'m glad to help. If you need anything from me, just ask," Olpi said as she turned back towards the carriage, hiding the uncontrollable smile on her face. \'Yes! I did something!\'

"Alright," Cerlius said after he returned to the group, Thomas with close behind him. "Pray you got a good session in, because that\'ll be our only stop for the trip."

"Our only one?" Elero asked. "Are we in a hurry or something?"

Cerlius glanced up at the sky. Despite it being daylight, a broken piece of the moon hung in the sky, a reminder of the battle. Olpi wasn\'t sure who, or what exactly Cerlius was. He was good. That was the only thing she needed to know. It didn\'t matter if he could resurrect the dead, nor if he kept secrets.

Cerlius sighed: "We\'re in a slight hurry. Just keep an eye out. The world might be a little different than before." Without another word he walked into the cabin.

Five minutes later the group was in the carriage and she was in the driver\'s seat. She whipped the horses and got them back on the road. \'I guess I still have magic, no matter what I decide on. If nothing else, while I\'m traveling with these folks, the least I can do is help them out. Then maybe, just maybe, I might find something out about doing my own thing in this world.\'