Seventh month, thirtieth day. One day left for both the Blood Moon and Grey's attack on the Three Headed Demonic Fronts mafia.
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"Uli… my brother could use magic… did he also have to go through this pain?" Titiana asked inside her mind while trying to focus.
Right now, she and the teacher, Treypak, were on an open field far away from the city.
The Vogel girl sat in a lotus position, holding a crystal full of mana charged into it. Her mission for today's training was the same as the prior day: meditate and focus on familiarizing herself with moving mana inside herself.
The most important aspect for both a gun user and an elemental mage is how well they can move the mana inside them to fire a gun for the former, and cast a spell for the latter.
The faster one can move mana from the human body's reserve point—the stomach—to the desired output part of the body, the better a mage is. Especially for someone who wants to become a gunslinger, moving mana inside their body is the most important aspect when it comes to firing a gun.
Since the body is still unaccustomed to the fact that more mana is circulating through the Green Veins than it used to, the mage practitioner feels every single movement of mana as it travels inside their body.
"Hnngh…" Titiana groaned weakly, her entire face drenched in sweat droplets that fell to the ground beneath her.
She had her eyes closed as instructed by her teacher. This only made it worse for her.
Now, with her eyes closed, she could vividly visualize the hot mana flowing throughout her green veins.
The training consisted of repeatedly draining and recharging the mana absorption crystal to get both the mind and body used to moving mana around, to make that action feel like second nature, and to be able to do it without thinking.
Yesterday, this seemed to be an impossible task for Titiana. No matter how much she tried to absorb mana from the crystal, she felt her insides burning as if lava was being injected into her veins.
Today, though, her body was getting used to the uncomfortable and painful feeling of mana moving around inside her.
However, compared to yesterday, this day was harder for Titiana to focus on her exercise. Today, she heard from time to time the sounds of bodies dropping not too far away, along with feeling the slight rumble they caused.
"Teacher… if I may ask…" Titiana fearfully began, afraid of being struck by her teacher's lightning again. "What are those noises?"
"Monsters," the well-dressed Aries man spoke up. "Tomorrow's the Blood Moon, so it's normal that more monsters will show up now."
Of course, this wasn't Titiana's first Blood Moon—twelve of those every year over her fourteen years of age.
Whenever the time came at the end of the month, she usually had to hide in a public safe salon provided by the town, with guards and the only three mafia families of Trotero allying for a single night to protect the people of the city.
Compared to Djchuri, where Grey found out through his work that the city gives no such protection to its citizens, Trotero and its less conflicting mafias were like heaven.
Here, people are expected to take shelter inside their homes and hope no monsters are strong enough to break through the specialized way houses were constructed in this city.
Most of the defense force barricades itself at the city hall, while only minimal men are ordered to protect the common people.
And those without a home to speak of are completely forgotten, and their corpses will definitely be on the streets for the cleanup employees to take care of.
"Vogel, while I may not be a gun user, I am a powerful mage with basic knowledge in shooting a gun," the horned teacher started, walking in front of the closed-eyed Titiana.
"The principle of firing a gun lies in the creation of the path—the Green Vein with the shortest distance from the reserve to your hands. With this training of pouring and absorbing mana from a crystal, you'll slowly learn to increase the speed of your mana."
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"This is what it has come to…" I muttered under my breath as I became surrounded by a small group of thugs.
"You bet'cha. Ever since you first fooled us, we've been preparing for this," one of the thugs yelled out while trying to be intimidating by swinging a metal pipe around.
While going to the construction site to work, I had this feeling of being followed. I ended up luring these stalkers of mine into an alley.
"I recognize you two," I said confidently while pointing my finger at a Berus with too many animal features and a Miw. "You're from the Something Thunder mafia, right?"
"Listen, you filthy foreigner, we investigated and found you have no relation to the company you lied to us about," the Miw angrily yelled out.
"Why don'tcha act nicely and tell us the truth before we beat you to a pulp?"
"I don't have to tell you anything, not to a group of nobodies that clearly need help from other mafias to gang up against a single person," I commented plainly while noticing the guys who wore completely different outfits.
"This guy's scaled!" I heard being commented around.
"It's not my first time being in the center of a piranha robbery. I've fought my fair share of large groups of enemies, so I do warn you about the crushing defeat you'll experience."
I then took a stance, ready to activate the Body Strengthening techniques necessary to deal with these low-level mafiosos.
Maybe I could even get some good info on the one mafia I want to take on. I'm not too knowledgeable in torture methods, but I have spectated Trudeia and my crewmates at the cargo ship torturing people now and then.
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Inside the city hall.
An elegantly dressed Berus man sat with his legs crossed on a fancy table while reading the newspaper.
"You see, my boy, the TV may give you more news with more details, but that requires paying mages to charge the crystals inside the box. Lichtrey has such a monopoly on TV usage thanks to it being the country of magic that, no matter what, money goes to them from all this TV," the Berus man with a bitten-off ear and a fluffy, well-groomed tail commented with a raspy voice to one of his men standing before him.
"Do you have a TV in your house, my boy?" he asked the formally dressed teenager standing straight behind him.
"My family does, Gaspar, sir. I bought them a good model with what I make working under you," the soft-spoken boy answered.
"That's money that isn't circulating within us. Instead, it is money that those mages from companies hailing from Lichtrey get to keep," he commented with a smirk while reading an article.
"Isn't Lichtrey an allied kingdom to us, Sir Gaspar?"
"I thought I taught you better. While they may be our allies to the outside world, we're just at a point in history when both nations' beliefs align with each other, yet we still can go to war at any point. Isn't that right, master assassin of a brother?" he asked sarcastically while looking from the edge of his newspaper.
In front of him, a Kitsune man with tall, blonde ears sat with his arms crossed, making no movement as he stood still on that chair. If it weren't for the knowledge that he was alive, most people would assume he was a statue.
"We have enough assassins to kill lots of important figures in Lichtrey if they ever decide to start a war against us. We can't defend in a war, but the Gtomikan way is to destroy from the inside," Joe Luciano explained in a monotone voice to the junior mafiosos in the room.
"Kind of like what happens with Pultreiva?" asked the novice mafioso behind Gaspar.
"Pultreiva is a special case. The public in both countries is unhappy with the other one, so we formed this fake war to keep both our countries' people calmer. We also benefit from the fake war, controlling the population numbers on both sides and promoting progress with the excuse of the war," Gaspar explained while turning a page of his newspaper.
"Ooh… crosswords. I love 'em," the Berus man whistled in an unworried and calm tone while picking an expensive-looking pencil from his chest pocket.
"Where is Ghon?" asked Joe, with an almost imperceptible hint of impatience in his voice.
"You know how our brother is. He is definitely handling things with the higher-ups, the Book of Demons mafia. Or he is simply taking his time planning a way to milk more money from our dear citizens," Gaspar commented with a slight smirk before his lips compressed in thought while reading the crossword lines.
"T-tomorrow is the Blood Moon, so Mister Ghon is more busy than on other days," one of the politicians sitting at the table finally spoke up.
"I guess it is… hey, five-letter bird that delivers babies. I already tried crane, but other answers don't align."
"Have you tried… stork?"
"Hm…" the Berus man wrote over his answers. "Oh, I guess you may be right."
"How's defense around the city hall?" asked the man with fox ears. "It's annoying whenever the defenses fail."
"Now, now, brother. Why do I feel like that jab was directed toward me and the guys I train up more than the defective security measures these guys put up?"
"I'm complaining about everyone. A job that requires multiple people to work together doesn't fail because of a single mistake—it fails due to a bunch of mistakes."
"Is that so…"