Mr. Adderson turned out to be quite the capable person in a leadership position, and considering Eirlathion’s deference to him we figured it was indeed probably best to place him in the leadership position for this little escape plan.
He nodded in appreciation to my medical training but seemed entirely dismissive of my martial arts background. He didn’t verbalize it, but I could read it from his body language. This left me with fairly little doubt he had some kind of military or police force training. This was confirmed when Rolwen told him he was a marine. His body language suddenly became a lot more open in regards to Rolwen and he seemed to be taking him more seriously. With a nod, he then revealed that he was an Army man. This almost immediately got a reaction from Rolwen that was nearly identical to Mr. Adderson’s a moment before.
As for Levin, he was a school child in his former life, and the youngest in terms of former life age in the entire group. Of course he was almost dismissed entirely.
I was wondering how he was going to react to Tia’s status as previously being a divine beast from Babylonian mythology. Of course he was surprised, but it was nowhere near as much as I thought it would be. “Heh, well, I guess I’ve seen stranger things since arriving here in this world. I suppose about the only real shocking thing about that is the fact that you were a divine being from Earth.” He said.
After a few more questions about her capabilities, namely her blood healing, high physical durability, and high physical strength, he got a bit more specific with his questions. “So, how are your areal combat abilities? Are you capable of counteracting wind magic or fighting in a zero G environment?” He asked.
“Huh?” Tia responded with a confused look.
“He’s asking if you have a counter to wind magic or gravity magic.” Rolwen said. “I guess that means fairies have abilities like that?” He followed up with a question, to which Mr. Adderson nodded.
“Yeah, dragons and great fairies. Dragons are better at it. Fairies have light and wind magic. Dragons all have wind magic and usually one other type as well. The one we’re dealing with here is a green one, he’s got plant magic.” He explained.
“Just like Asa then.” Rolwen supplied and looked at me.
“Not quite.” Tia said. “He said they have wind magic, not earth. But, he said something about gravity there as well? That means they can use false gravity magic. Asa has true gravity magic. False gravity magic works by overwhelming the earth elemental energy in the area with the wind element. It’s a lot more crude and uses far more energy for the same effect as what Asa can do, but being more crude also means it’s less complicated and accessible at a lower level of spiritual development.” She explained.
“Does that mean Asa’s gravity magic is more powerful?” Rolwen asked.
“No.” Tia said. “It just means she uses less mana in order to use it. But if she has to deal with a wind mage directly opposing her, that’s not going to matter. She will have to directly overwhelm their magic in order to do anything with it. Her energy demands are going to have to rise to match.”
“There would also be another problem.” I added. “I also specialize in reducing gravity. It’s the natural tactic that’s built into the earth kata. Maybe it can raise gravity as well, but I haven’t gotten to that yet.”
“But if you could figure it out then, you’ve got infinite mana or something like that from your void method. You should be able to compete, right?” Rolwen asked.
“I’m not sure about that either.” I said. “My void method is like I have a creek of every energy type running straight through my soul. However, if I want to send some of that energy into the world, I have to use a cup to scoop up some of it. It’s unlimited, but I can’t utilize a lot at the same time. As for them, I would imagine they are more like a water tower. Artificial, and also dependent on outside sources and limited for capacity. However, they have an industrial grade pipe to channel their energy out into the world. Having an infinite supply is not going to matter if I can’t bring it to bear in a situation like this.”
“Huhh… infinite mana, huh?” Mr. Adderson said. “That something you get from having a former goddess as your sister?”
“Uhh… not really, it’s complicated.” I said.
“It comes from a special meditation she knows!” Levin forcefully cut his way into the conversation.
“Uhh… yeah.” I said. “It’s a meditation they taught in the school of martial arts I practice. I have been teaching a little of it to the boys here, but they have not started getting the mana stream to kick up yet.”
“I suspect it has to do with her being in the second strata of her meditation.” Tia explained. “It will likely take them quite a while to achieve the necessary level of advancement to do what she does.”
“She says strange things like that from time to time.” I said. “Sometimes her explanations are understandable, sometimes she is completely unaware that we have not heard the requisite information yet to understand what she’s saying. On that subject, you have not explained to any of us what this whole ‘second strata’ thing is all about.”
“Well, it’s…”
“I don’t think we have time to discuss that right now either.” I cut her off. “We can go into magic lessons once we are safe. For now, we should confine this to information that tells Mr. Adderson what we can contribute to this effort. On that subject, you still haven’t answered whether or not you have any answer to wind or gravity magic.”
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“Umm…” She looked to me with a somewhat pleading gaze. “Well… I think… you are the only way I might be able to resist that. If you can’t, then…” She suddenly dipped her chin sorrowfully.
Mr. Adderson nodded as though he came to a conclusion. “Well then, I guess that settles our arrangement.” He said. “We got you two girls as med support. I don’t know who is typically the de-facto leader of you lot, but if things get harry you all follow Rolwen’s lead, especially the kid. Well, the kid kid.” He indicated Levin with that statement. He did not look happy about being singled out like this.
“As for those two over there.” He indicated Eirlathion and mother. They had been sitting quietly and watching us converse with Mr. Adderson until now, but they immediately perked up when they realized they were being talked about. “Who here’s the best at playing ambassador with them?” He asked.
“Asa, definitely.” Rolwen answered instantly without hesitation. This was quickly backed up with nods from the other two.
“Great. Do you know what they can do?” He asked.
“Eirlathion is a plant mage.” I explained. “Mother is his apprentice, but I don’t think she’s very good at magic yet. She got some kind of spirit augmentation that raises her physical abilities, but I don’t think it’s any higher than my abilities. Tia is probably stronger than her actually. Her best ability is probably that she can run fast.”
“Alright.” He said and paced a bit while thinking. “Well, in that case, she can hold onto the kid and run if things go bad. He can take Rolwen, and if you get tired he will take you as well. Goddess girl here would probably serve us better if she could move on her own. Don’t engage any enemies though.” He gave Tia a harsh stare with those words.
“If any enemy shows up, all of you have the duty to just run. If we’re facing a fairy, she can run some interference.” He added, indicating Tia. “But, your primary job is to just shake them off long enough for the others to get out. Nothing more. Only act if they are in serious trouble. If things go bad, you follow my orders first and foremost. Rolwen can clarify if he sees something relevant.”
“Asa’s pretty good at intelligence analysis too.” Rolwen said.
“Hm. Well, if she sees something off the battlefield then we can consider it then.” He said. “Once the enemy shows up though, you follow what I just told you. All of you understand?”
We all nodded.
“Great. Asaren, was it? Ok. Go start explaining what’s up to your parents. We’re moving out as soon as they’re caught up to speed. Whatever you tell him, make sure your father there knows to obey Rolwen.” He said.
Heh. Eirlathion obeying Rolwen. Even just an hour ago I would have though that would be an impossible hurdle to clear. Since Mr. Adderson showed up though, Eirlathion seems to have misunderstood something about his association with the boys. I am still not certain what that misunderstanding is, but something tells me it has caused him to elevate his standing of the boys quite a bit. That’s going to make my current task much easier, but something tells me capitalizing on his misunderstanding is going to make things much much harder when it comes time to start straightening out his confusion.
We really don’t have the time to straighten him out right now though, and having him get in line quickly is very important right now. Well, guess this is the time for short term gain and long term difficulty then.
So, without explaining much of the context, I just told them the gysts. That we would be moving out soon, I had been asked to talk to them about what’s going on, they had to protect Levin and listen to Rolwen, Tia would be moving on her own while I stuck close and they could carry me if necessary.
As I both hoped and feared, they seemed to take it all in stride with a simple nod coupled with a look of almost worshipful awe toward Mr. Adderson.
[Ah, yes of course.] Eirlathion said while cautiously looking at me and then looking at the boys as though he felt he had to be very careful about how he approached them. [But, umm… Asaren. Can you explain what is going on here? What are these two… um… Levin and Rolwen, do you know much about the past lives these two lived? I do not want to say something that is disrespectful to…]
[It’s alright.] I said to him. [It would take time we do not have to explain everything. For now, I will tell you that Rolwen was an elite soldier of sorts, and Levin was nothing but a child. That is all you need to know for now.]
When he heard this, he almost seemed to actually cringe away from Levin as though fearing a single wrong move toward him could result in Mr. Adderson coming down and blasting him into nothing on the spot.
Great. Somehow I just knew he was going to take it that way. Well, I didn’t lie. And, in a way, this really did make things more convenient for now. So long as he did not do anything unreasonable in trying to protect Levin and mother, this should work out fine.
With that settled, I told Mr. Adderson they understood what was going on and we got under way toward the edge of the forest.
This was all a good plan, but it had only one major flaw. I would have to have a word with Mr. Adderson somewhere along the way. Things should work out though so long as this flaw did not crop up before we started to approach our destination.