'Fuck, her mana pretty easily penetrated my body. It would require a lot of concentration to prevent it from infiltrating my body. If we fight, it would be better to not let her touch me in the first place,' Akeru instinctively analyzed.
'Wait... if she could pretty easily influence my stem cells in such a short time, she could easily cause massive injuries to any organ even if I go into full concentration. The only way to combat it would be to release mana constantly from my body, which is clearly inefficient. What type of monster did I create?'
"So? Say something." Mimosa had an annoyed expression as her words dragged Akeru out of his thoughts.
MUNCH MUNCH
Everyone on the scene turned their heads towards the sound.
Erza, who had somehow gotten a bowl of popcorn out of nowhere, was munching on it.
"What? I am hungry, duh. Have you not heard of the phrase 'If you're hungry, eat' before?"
'Why popcorn of all things? Wait!' Akeru recalled Erza's statements when they were watching Miko and Takuma.
Erza gave him a secret thumbs up, her gaze seemingly saying, 'Good job on providing quality entertainment. '
'Wait! Mine and Mimosa's relationship isn't like that!' Akeru wanted to say that to her. However, he realized that if he said that now, everyone would definitely take it in a wrong way, so he wisely decided to remain silent on that matter.
"Well, you know how it is... how common it is to get injuries here and there... so, it is quite natural to use my stem cell reservoir," Akeru nervously said.
'It seems that she has gained a spell which would quickly help her to access the stem cells. Though I could do the same, it takes me a large chunk of time to find those cells if I haven't marked the location beforehand. Also, I could search thoroughly due to doing this on my own body, unlike her.
I guess the only way to achieve what she is doing is to directly replicate her spell. I would ask her later about that, though chances are that it would be too complex to be time efficient. If it is time efficient, then I would learn it. The mana expenditure of my method is ridiculous, which makes it impossible to use without the mana method, unlike her.'
"And, by doing that, you are leading to those reservoirs decreasing in number, you know that right?"
"We live only once, no need to be that conservative in expending that, no?"
Mimosa's expression didn't change even slightly.
"We will talk about this later."
Akeru could only nod helplessly at that.
After some more explanation, the group finally headed towards the knight's headquarters.
Akeru gave away the bag he had prepared beforehand to the person in charge, and after some more talk about his mission to the person in charge, he was done with those procedures.
He was currently waiting for Finral to pick his group up - which, apart from him, comprised of Luck, Noelle, and Asta.
"Woah, is your arm already healed?" Asta asked with awe in his tone.
He had not witnessed such an incredible display of recovery magic before this, so his reaction was understandable.
"Hehe, it is all thanks to my sensei that I was able to reach this level. I hope she would be proud of me." While saying this, Akeru had a sad expression on his face and was looking at the sky, as if reminiscing something.
Asta, being the dense guy he is, directly asked the question in his mind.
"Is your teacher dead?"
"Huh, no, in fact, didn't we just see her off a few minutes ago?" Akeru gave a weirded-out look.
Akeru was sad about what the future held for him, especially the meeting Mimosa had scheduled with him.
"I didn't know that you refer to Mimosa as 'Sensei,'" Noelle said with a grin on her face.
She is definitely going to use this fact to tease Mimosa the next time she meets her.
"It was a joke."
Just as Akeru said that, Finral came to pick them up.
"Did you guys just increase in number? Is your long-ass mission done, Akeru?"
"Yeah, did you miss me, senpai?"
"No."
"Tch, if I were a pretty girl, you would already be fawning over me by now."
Finral rolled his eyes. "You clearly aren't, so let's not talk about pointless things."
The group went through the portal, and the familiar base came into view.
"I am finally back," Akeru said while stretching his body.
He is definitely going to sleep like a log today.
"Now that I think about it, I have not seen your room yet despite living here for 2 months," Asta said with a puzzled expression.
"Bakasta, did you forget that the positions of the rooms change on a daily basis? How are you supposed to identify his room? There are a lot of similar looking rooms here."
"That does make sense."
'I forgot that I needed to talk about getting my room.' Akeru made a mental note as he headed towards the door of the base.
Akeru opened the door and set foot in the building after more than 2 months.
However, the first thing he saw inside the building shocked him.
No, it wasn't a scene of Vanessa without her bikini.
It wasn't either a scene of Charmy who had forsaken food.
It was just a man sculpting a 5-foot statue.
The figure in the statue was of a young girl.
However, that wasn't what shocked Akeru.
It was the gaze of the person who was sculpting the statue.
His gaze unsettled Akeru.
It took him a few moments to discern what emotion his gaze held.
Love.
Initially, it seemed like love; however, if one dived deeper, they would have a clear picture of his exact emotion.
Obsession.
It was obsessive love.
To Akeru, it looked like for the man, only one thing existed in his world.
As far as Akeru could recall, he hadn't seen a person having such strong emotion in his life yet.
'I wonder how it feels to obsess over a person.' Akeru was amazed that a person like Gauche could exist.
"Oh, I just remembered. You haven't met these two yet, have you? That scary-looking guy is Gauche, and this big guy is Grey. Guys, say hello." Finral introduced the two to Akeru.
Gauche glanced in their direction for a moment before ignoring them completely.
Grey just puffed smoke, not replying.
Akeru's eyes narrowed for a moment.
'It's quite hard to tell whether she is under transformation. The mana responsible for it has completely integrated around her, making it seem natural. How interesting.'
"Hehe, it seems you are not as respected as I thought you were before, senpai~," Akeru jumped on the opportunity to tease Finral.
"Tch, it is what it is. Anyway, Magna is out now, so I will show you your room," Finral said with a neutral expression.
He was quite used to such scenes happening throughout his time here, so as of now, he doesn't care much about "seniority".
"Well, I will see you guys later then. Good Night!" Akeru said to the other three as he followed Finral to the hallway.
"Right, I completely forgot that it would be a pain in the ass to find your room," Finral groaned as he recalled the fact that rooms here seem to have their own will.
"Can't you just create a rift to the room? It's probably in your memories, no?"
Finral, who was about to say something, tilted his head as he made eye contact with Akeru.
"Hmmmmmmm, let's see, okay." Finral made a contemplating face as he decided his next words.
"Seeing that you are knowledgeable about this subject, a question for you. Let's say I have a memory of a place in my mind; however, if that place was spatially shifted to some other position, will I still be able to go to that place?"
Finral's abrupt question made Akeru stop.
Blink.
Blink.
He thought for nearly half a minute before answering.
"Yes, you would be able to. In fact, if you couldn't, then spatial magic, at least for acting as transport between two places, would be nigh impossible."
"Oh, why do you think so?" Finral's interest was piqued at Akeru's response.
He had thought about the question on a whim, not really expecting an elaborate answer on the matter, just a simple yes or no.
"Well, I could just give you an example to explain. Earth's rotating, no? Which means that every place's spatial coordinate is continuously changing. So, your spell probably tries to find the relative coordinate of that place in your memory with respect to your current location."
"Damn, that's one way to think about it. You are completely right," Finral nodded at that.
Before he could give his words on the matter, he noticed Akeru's puzzled expression.
"What is it?"
"Umm, how does your spell define a 'place' then? We can't use spatial coordinates clearly to locate that place initially. So... maybe a landmark? For example, a creepy street or a hot lady's shop, hmm?"
Finral's lips twitched at the examples given.
"Well, I guess, yeah. My spell probably somehow looks for those places with those landmarks as references to find their current coordinate."
Finral noticed a shift in the atmosphere.
He could instinctively feel that Akeru was going to say something mind-blowing in the next instant.
"If you could use places as landmarks, then why not use literal people as references to create a portal directly next to them?"
***
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