special delivery • meifeng, private, job

IF NOT NOW,

887/4000 ■ @tag ■ SUPER SMALL NOTE

WHEN?

The sun was beating down on the dry road where once could see a path of shimmering light as the redheaded noblewoman used her magic to transport herself to where a job was requested. You'd think that every city would connected within the continent but apparently not because this happened small village happened to be in the middle of no where. It's no wonder as to why it took the job request so long to make it to the Silver Moon Inn. It was because someone literally walked to the Rose Gardens from... wherever this village was. They were a peculiar... Hikari wasn't even sure if person was the right word. Most of her life, she interacted with nobles and all sorts of people of that fashion, so she wasn't quite sure what to make out of the person when she saw their cat ears and matching tail. Very tempting to pull on the tail to see what reaction she could get out of the requester but at the time, she decided against it. Sighing to herself, the holy mage looked at her path ahead and squinted as the sunlight was right above the path. However, upon further inspection, on the side of the road, there was a broken down carriage and tipped over crates. Deciding to stop, the holy mage snapped her fingers and the magic surrounding her faded, putting her in a state of free fall. She landed in front of the carriage and covered her nose. It reeked of death and with good reason, there was a now decaying corpse that was being eaten by vultures. Hikari shooed the vultures away by unsheathing her sword and placed a glowing hand down towards the corpse. Acting as Athena's vessel required her to do tasks that a church would normally do. But since she was always on the battlefield or somewhere in combat, she usually gave people funeral rites when they were unjustly killed. O kind soul, while your life may have come to an abrupt finale, do not think you have lived your life in vain. I wish you eternal peace in the afterlife and may She let your soul have rest. The corpse shimmered a gold light while a beam of holy energy shot into the sky. Looking straight-faced at the corpse as it slowly dissolved into the beam of holy energy, she heard footsteps approaching. Turning to face the sound, she saw a group of ruffians approaching her. Clutching her sword, she cautioned herself.

Oi girlie! What brings a fine gal like you to the middle of nowhere? Hikari had a forced smile on her face as she spoke, What a coincidence. I was asking myself that very question this morning while I was coming here. The seeming leader of the group narrowed his eyes and smiled You know, the minute you stopped to go to the carriage that my boys and I trashed, you stepped in the wrong territory. Hikari smiled at him and stated, So, it was you who did this to this delivery man. The bandits began to holler at one another and high-fived at the acknowledgement of their crime. Rolling her eyes, Hikari said, Then, at least now I don't need to keep up this conversation with you lot. Unsheathing her sword, she pointed her blade directly at the leader. The bandit quick drew his gun and shot a shot at Hikari. All focus on her sword, she sliced the bullet roughly in half to avoid the shot from hitting her directly. It was made easier by the fact that the bullets were made of cheap metal. Jumping up to avoid more gunfire, the holy mage summoned a magic circle underneath her and from it, a swarm of birds came down upon the bandits. She noticed some had very elementary magic and attempted to use it to stop the birds from attacking them. After the magic circle had faded, she dove down and landed right in front of the bandit leader who was barely conscious. Now, I'd appreciate if you told me where exactly did you bring the package that you stole from this carriage. The bandit grinned and said, Girlie, you may be strong, but I'd never rat out- Hikari's eyes narrowed at the man as wings with radiant gold feathers emerged from behind her. Today was not a good day to deal with people like this. It was probably all the travel that was making her annoyed. Clutching the bandit leader's collar, she flew straight up into the air at a high speed.

You are playing with my last threads of patience today. The bandit was legitimately panicking at the height they were at. But, honestly, if you didn't have magic, who wouldn't be. I'm going to ask again: where is your camp? The bandit looked down then at the calm noblewoman holding his life in her hands. Literally. He slowly brought himself to confess the details of where the camp was. Nodding, Hikari placed a sleeping spell on the man as she flew down. It made sense that it was close considering the group of bandits seemed to have walked from there. This shouldn't take too long however. Hikari placed him down next to his group as she flew in the direction of the camp.

IF NOT NOW,

■ 1928/4000 ■

WHEN?

Hikari continued her flight as she flew relatively carefree through the sky. When she had first learned of this spell, it was a mess most of the time when she tried to use it. She was uncomfortable with how the wings felt because at first, they just felt as one part of her. And having two large parts of your body just appear and disappear whenever you pleased honestly felt strange at first. It had taken the holy mage a good amount of adjusting before finally getting to the proficiency she was now at in terms of dealing with the wings as well as the feel of flying to begin with. Flying just felt… natural to her now. It was a space where no one could interrupt her and she’s free to live how she likes. Not much can harm her other than the occasional bird per say, but she’s free from how other’s may treat her. It was one of the small havens that the noblewoman had left in the world. She looked around, taking in the blue of the sky above her, the crashing down heat of the sun as well as the contrasting cool wind as she zipped by at rather quick speeds through the skyline. She should arrive at the camp in no time to be completely honest. Hikari was rather ready for this day to be over. She had to wake up early and immediately set out for the village because it was so far and due to there being no convenient way to travel there, it was either early travel or risk travelling alone at night. The holy mage doesn’t enjoy travelling alone at all but when it’s dark as well, she just goes into a bad state of mind. It’s something that she hardly ever does. But at least she had the heat of the day to keep her awake. The holy mage always loved the hot weather. It felt nice when every building in Fiore seemed to be motivated to keep literally every single air conditioner on, so having the heat as well as the cold breeze from flying high made the day seem the slightest bit better, however tiny the bit was.

Sadly, not all joys in life remain and Athena had alerted Hikari of a spear that was flying rather quickly at the holy mage. Looking at the sun for a very brief moment of annoyance, the Rising Star was getting rather tired of everything’s efforts to keep her from having a good day. Angrily, she placed her arm overtop of her chest, causing a shield to summon itself out of the Treasury. Spinning, she made sure the center of the shield was where the spear had made impact. The sudden hit caused a slight amount of recoil to the holy mage but the spear had broken after making impact with the shield, causing the earth made object to crumble and shatter into rocks. The aura around the mage had blocked out most of it. However, Hikari’s mood was severely worsened by this. By the spear being made out of earth, that meant there was actually a proficient mage nearby but they also had just attempted to murder her. Another thing to deal with. Flying straight down, the holy mage would stop the instant before she hit the ground and flapped her wings, causing a rather big cloud of sand to poof upwards. The redhead’s eyes shimmered gold for a moment before seeing the source of the spear and a rather large… bear? This heat would make it extremely uncomfortable for the bear to live here so why would it just be here? Flying towards the pair, Hikari made herself stop a couple of metres from the pair before glaring at them. Had this mage even been aware of who she threw the spear at? However, judging by her rather discoloured face and all the sweat on her currently, Hikari could tell she might just be out of it by the heat. She seemed to be having a similar reaction to the heat that the bear behind her was. That probably means the two know each other. Sighing, Hikari looked at the bear and then the brunette and said, I’d really appreciate if you didn’t throw spears at me while I was in the middle of something. She maintained eye contact with the brown haired girl as she said, My name is Hikari. The redhead deadpanned before pointing towards the sky, I’m the girl you just tried to impale.

Looking over the pair once again, just confirmed that this girl and her bear didn’t come to this area often. They were scarily scarce a bag as well as water which was most important around this part. Despite it being so close to the dreaded winter months Hikari hated, it was almost unbearable hot today in this land that they had found themselves in. Hikari only knew what to bring from checking the location on her iLac and what the median temperature was around this time of year for this area. But, other than that, Hikari doesn’t really need to pack because she can simply grab stuff from the Treasury when she needs it, and now seemed like a perfect time for that. Reaching her hand into thin air, a golden portal would show up, and Hikari would grab out a bag of cooked foods of all kinds as well as two canteens of water. She would toss them at the girl, as Hikari had a feeling her suspicion was confirmed the longer she looked at the pair. The two were surprisingly easy to read as the girl had the same nature as the bear behind her meaning it was more like Hikari was only analyzing one being. Now, what is your name? I’m rather curious considering how expertly you made that spear with magic. It was amazingly sturdy. Hikari would smirk as she continued to hover just slightly above the girl to give herself the height advantage over the brunette. It wasn’t entirely for that purpose, it was more that they could see eye to eye without having the holy mage looking up at the girl, lest she strain her neck.