Miss Luna had continuously said that Mai needed to get stronger to be more like her, and, as such, Mai did so. She doubled her training in Ace of Spades, learned her scholastic education from Miss Luna, and trained her magic with her and some of the guards of the town of Sabertooth, and eventually the time came for Mai's final trial before reaching the final hurdle before being considered one of the best, an S-Rank. She was not as powerful as Miss Luna yet, and she still had some ways to go, but Miss Luna had also said that there would be a time that Mai would be too strong to be taught by her. Even with this knowledge, Mai still wanted to get stronger. It seemed necessary in order for her to find her Papa.
Of course, Miss Luna was not a member of the hierarchy of Sabertooth. Instead, she found herself in a room with a white-haired lady with pointy, cat-like ears that called herself Itori. She was as powerful as Miss Luna, but since she had been in the guild longer, she held a place of respect. It was Itori that gave Mai her task. Considering that the other members of the hierarchy were humans, Mai thought that she had lucked out in having the fox lady give her the task. That was until the task was actually given. Helping a human settlement that had been destroyed by a vicious storm. With Mai's head peeking over the precipice of the desk, Mai attempted to make a case to have to do anything else, but Itori doubled down on the demands, saying that if any of the humans were to be harmed, threatened, or generally antagonized, Mai would fail the exam and have to wait some time before having to take the job again. Trying her best not to cry, and slightly failing, the God Slayer agreed to the task, not wanting to make Miss Luna sad and to show Miss Luna how much she was growing.
Though it was only a slight consolation, Sabertooth had provided a carriage for Mai to travel in, and the driver promised to return in a few hours with others from Ace of Spades to help in the village's reconstruction. Mai sighed as a small group of humans approached, the rising sun blinding her ever so slightly.
"It is always wonderful to see that Sabertooth provides us with such beneficial aid!" the old man at the center of the party said, his staff shaking against the ground. "This storm was particularly wild. We are certainly used to frequent flashstorms in the area, but rarely have they ever been of this magnitude."
A little girl around Mai's size and likely age came up from behind the old man's robes. "A-and these storms keep avoiding our lightningrods!"
An older woman, still obviously an elder but not to the extent of the warped old man, spoke next. "They started gathering intensity around six months ago, when they began only happening at night, and this last one was the strongest yet! The entire granary was destroyed, several houses collapsed..."
A man with a handkerchief came forwards next. "Since moving to this village three years ago, the storms had never claimed a life. This one took six. Our little boy, Eric, was one of them. He was about to be three." The man held back tears as he spoke.
The old man slowly crawled over, and Mai had to use her energy to not try to scowl in disgust at the wrinkly man's appearance. "Please...while the carriages come forth with supplies, help us out. It would be a marvel. Surely a wizard of Sabertooth would be greatly assisting to our plight."
The man bowed, and looked nearly ready to tip over. Mai now had to try to stifle a laugh. The man was incredibly old and weak, and Mai felt like she could have snapped him into pieces with a single attack. She wanted to. As Papa had always said, the easiest way to get rid of complaints is to blow up those people that are complaining. However, this was not an option for Mai at the moment. The fox lady had betrayed her and said that she was not allowed to do that. She had to work with the stupid, smelly, weak humans.
Mai looked to the ground and quietly mumbled, "Fine."
The old man's wrinkly face morphed upwards into a smile, sending Mai's stomach lurching. "Ohh! Thank the gods! Though I hate asking this of a child, you are a wizard of Sabertooth, so certainly you can help us with some of our plights! We have some survivors in some of the crashed houses that need to be saved! None of us are fit enough to lift the rubble, but perhaps a wizard could!"
The wrinkly guy slowly trudged away from Mai, a single withered hand beckoning the God Slayer forwards. Mai thought she was about to vomit from the sight of the folds on the man's palms, but she held it in. She was a big girl. She needed to prove that to Miss Luna. He very slowly led Mai to a ruined building where muffled cries for help were interspersed with the occasional cough. A few buff-looking men tried lifting some of the beams to no avail. Mai quietly "Tch"'d at the weakness of these humans that were supposed to be strong. "We've tried liftin' the beams up fer the past two hours, Mr. Lecque. Nothin's workin'."
The old man smiled and weakly nodded, as he motioned for Mai to head over to the house. He explained the situation of Mai's presence to the buff guys, but Mai ignored them. She was not happy to be helping humans, but she knew that she would be more unhappy if she made Miss Luna unhappy. What if not helping these dumb, weak humans would make Miss Luna abandon her? She could not allow that at any cost. Even if it meant having to assist beings that did not deserve to live in the same existence as Gods, she had to deal with it.
Coming to the end of the bar the big strong guys were trying to lift, Mai placed one hand other it. While normally the other would be used as well, she was distracted by a butterfly that flew past, and Mai wanted to catch it. She, in her attempt to catch the butterfly, unintentionally lifted the beam up, dragging it off of the caved-in house. The butterfly had managed to escape Mai's view, and, in a rage, Mai placed her other hand underneath the beam and lifted up with tremendous force, launching it into the nearby forest. Suddenly, that same butterfly, as if to taunt the young girl, landed on her nose, tickling it ever so slightly. The strange feeling on her nose caused Mai to sneeze, the wind from her Slayer magic causing the remaining rubble on the building to flutter off like a sheet flying away in the wind. All of a sudden, a woman clutching tightly to two children was sat in the center of the foundation, looking around with a confused look on her face. She turned to Mai, whose attention was fully focused on the butterfly that had caused Mai to save three humans. If Mai's job was to be saving humans from collapsed rubble, she was hoping she could pretend to try, and once the humans died, she would not be blamed for it. After all, she was just a little girl in these humans' eyes, right? They certainly could not have expected a little girl to contain so much power in her body.
The little girl from the initial welcoming committee ran forth to the woman clutching the children, crying about something. Mai was not certain what it was. Of more import to her was the dastardly butterfly, which Mai had finally managed to catch. She was just about to eat it when the ancient voice of the fossil of a man spoke. Mai was shocked by the sudden sound, releasing the butterfly into the wild in her moment of flinching.
"I cannot express my gratitude enough to you, wizard! You truly have saved us from yet another tragic loss of life! There is one more house that we have our people trapped in, please save them, O lady of Sabertooth!"
The old man pointed a crooked finger at another pile of rubble. Mai sighed, now knowing she could not fake weakness to let the stupid weak humans get the deaths they deserved. After all, this happened because of a storm, and Mai never had a problem with storms. Sure, in the six months since coming to Sabertooth, she had experienced less storms than she was used to with Papa, but they were always her favorite. She rolled her eyes as she downtroddenly walked over to the other pile of rubble. She disinterestedly and slowly heaved rubble off of the pile, slowly clearing away that which the weak humans were unable to budge. As Mai's mind wandered to much more important things like Miss Luna and candies and what candies to give to Miss Luna, she began to space out, her eyes not truly working. This was shattered when she picked up a particularly large melded pile of bricks, revealing the face of a dusty boy. Mai screamed in fright, dropping the pile of bricks. She was about to throw the bricks or use a Tempest God's Bellow on the pile instinctively until she heard a human's voice call from within the pile. "Thank heavens! We're saved, Michai!" The urge to attack the pile grew even more, but she knew that she had to save the stupid humans if she were to pass this exam. As such, she continued to clear away the rubble, though she took more time than she perhaps should have by making a small sculpture of Miss Luna using the fused bricks. Well, it was allegedly Miss Luna. Mai was never a good artist, and even if she were, the materials were limited.
A few minutes after the dusty boy scared her, him and his bigger human crawled out from under the wreckage. The boy wrapped Mai in a hug, explaining that his name was Michai and asking Mai's name, which she reluctantly gave, refusing to make eye contact with the boy. He was a human, and Papa had always said that humans do not deserve eye contact with Gods. A God giving eye contact to a human was admitting a sense of equality, which was certainly not true. The dusty boy removed himself from the hug at the request of the old man Mai had now lovingly nicknamed Wrinkles McOldface in her mind. Mai's entire being was focused on not letting her face twist into one of disgust and disappointment, telling herself that as soon as she returned to Ace of Spades, she would have to take a long, deep bath to wipe off all the human filth and dust filth that the boy had brushed off on Mai's clothes. She had also reminded herself to burn this particular dress, as it contained the taint of human on it.
As soon as Mai finished with that work, a man of the village called out that the carriages had arrived. Mai's eyes lit up and her entire body perked up at the call. It meant she could leave. So as to not draw suspicion, she reluctantly travelled with Wrinkles McOldface and the other filthy weak humans as they came close to the carriage. A man with a shirt that bore the design of Sabertooth on it walked forwards, asking Mai how it went. Mai simply mumbled as Wrinkles McOldface explained that Mai was "a wonderful help! She saved a number of our villagers all by herself! I was shocked when I saw such a young girl lift up something two of our foresters had attempted for hours to even slightly shift! And how she used magic to efficiently save Alice and her boys since she knew that they were in so much danger! Gods, she is such a help! Please, send her over more often!"
The man with the Sabertooth logo smiled and crouched down to look at Mai. "Well, sounds like we got a natural helper on our hands! Since it sounds like you had so much fun, let's have you help us out with the reconstruction to! We'll be sure to bring you back once we get finished for the day! Hey, don't sweat it, kiddo! We'll be back by sundown!"
Mai felt her face lose all color at the man's words. There was no way to escape this face, she figured. She looked at where the sun was in the sky, and saw that it still had not even neared its apex. She felt a tear start to well in her eye, to which the man with the Sabertooth logo attributed to "being so glad to help."
WC:2180
Of course, Miss Luna was not a member of the hierarchy of Sabertooth. Instead, she found herself in a room with a white-haired lady with pointy, cat-like ears that called herself Itori. She was as powerful as Miss Luna, but since she had been in the guild longer, she held a place of respect. It was Itori that gave Mai her task. Considering that the other members of the hierarchy were humans, Mai thought that she had lucked out in having the fox lady give her the task. That was until the task was actually given. Helping a human settlement that had been destroyed by a vicious storm. With Mai's head peeking over the precipice of the desk, Mai attempted to make a case to have to do anything else, but Itori doubled down on the demands, saying that if any of the humans were to be harmed, threatened, or generally antagonized, Mai would fail the exam and have to wait some time before having to take the job again. Trying her best not to cry, and slightly failing, the God Slayer agreed to the task, not wanting to make Miss Luna sad and to show Miss Luna how much she was growing.
Though it was only a slight consolation, Sabertooth had provided a carriage for Mai to travel in, and the driver promised to return in a few hours with others from Ace of Spades to help in the village's reconstruction. Mai sighed as a small group of humans approached, the rising sun blinding her ever so slightly.
"It is always wonderful to see that Sabertooth provides us with such beneficial aid!" the old man at the center of the party said, his staff shaking against the ground. "This storm was particularly wild. We are certainly used to frequent flashstorms in the area, but rarely have they ever been of this magnitude."
A little girl around Mai's size and likely age came up from behind the old man's robes. "A-and these storms keep avoiding our lightningrods!"
An older woman, still obviously an elder but not to the extent of the warped old man, spoke next. "They started gathering intensity around six months ago, when they began only happening at night, and this last one was the strongest yet! The entire granary was destroyed, several houses collapsed..."
A man with a handkerchief came forwards next. "Since moving to this village three years ago, the storms had never claimed a life. This one took six. Our little boy, Eric, was one of them. He was about to be three." The man held back tears as he spoke.
The old man slowly crawled over, and Mai had to use her energy to not try to scowl in disgust at the wrinkly man's appearance. "Please...while the carriages come forth with supplies, help us out. It would be a marvel. Surely a wizard of Sabertooth would be greatly assisting to our plight."
The man bowed, and looked nearly ready to tip over. Mai now had to try to stifle a laugh. The man was incredibly old and weak, and Mai felt like she could have snapped him into pieces with a single attack. She wanted to. As Papa had always said, the easiest way to get rid of complaints is to blow up those people that are complaining. However, this was not an option for Mai at the moment. The fox lady had betrayed her and said that she was not allowed to do that. She had to work with the stupid, smelly, weak humans.
Mai looked to the ground and quietly mumbled, "Fine."
The old man's wrinkly face morphed upwards into a smile, sending Mai's stomach lurching. "Ohh! Thank the gods! Though I hate asking this of a child, you are a wizard of Sabertooth, so certainly you can help us with some of our plights! We have some survivors in some of the crashed houses that need to be saved! None of us are fit enough to lift the rubble, but perhaps a wizard could!"
The wrinkly guy slowly trudged away from Mai, a single withered hand beckoning the God Slayer forwards. Mai thought she was about to vomit from the sight of the folds on the man's palms, but she held it in. She was a big girl. She needed to prove that to Miss Luna. He very slowly led Mai to a ruined building where muffled cries for help were interspersed with the occasional cough. A few buff-looking men tried lifting some of the beams to no avail. Mai quietly "Tch"'d at the weakness of these humans that were supposed to be strong. "We've tried liftin' the beams up fer the past two hours, Mr. Lecque. Nothin's workin'."
The old man smiled and weakly nodded, as he motioned for Mai to head over to the house. He explained the situation of Mai's presence to the buff guys, but Mai ignored them. She was not happy to be helping humans, but she knew that she would be more unhappy if she made Miss Luna unhappy. What if not helping these dumb, weak humans would make Miss Luna abandon her? She could not allow that at any cost. Even if it meant having to assist beings that did not deserve to live in the same existence as Gods, she had to deal with it.
Coming to the end of the bar the big strong guys were trying to lift, Mai placed one hand other it. While normally the other would be used as well, she was distracted by a butterfly that flew past, and Mai wanted to catch it. She, in her attempt to catch the butterfly, unintentionally lifted the beam up, dragging it off of the caved-in house. The butterfly had managed to escape Mai's view, and, in a rage, Mai placed her other hand underneath the beam and lifted up with tremendous force, launching it into the nearby forest. Suddenly, that same butterfly, as if to taunt the young girl, landed on her nose, tickling it ever so slightly. The strange feeling on her nose caused Mai to sneeze, the wind from her Slayer magic causing the remaining rubble on the building to flutter off like a sheet flying away in the wind. All of a sudden, a woman clutching tightly to two children was sat in the center of the foundation, looking around with a confused look on her face. She turned to Mai, whose attention was fully focused on the butterfly that had caused Mai to save three humans. If Mai's job was to be saving humans from collapsed rubble, she was hoping she could pretend to try, and once the humans died, she would not be blamed for it. After all, she was just a little girl in these humans' eyes, right? They certainly could not have expected a little girl to contain so much power in her body.
The little girl from the initial welcoming committee ran forth to the woman clutching the children, crying about something. Mai was not certain what it was. Of more import to her was the dastardly butterfly, which Mai had finally managed to catch. She was just about to eat it when the ancient voice of the fossil of a man spoke. Mai was shocked by the sudden sound, releasing the butterfly into the wild in her moment of flinching.
"I cannot express my gratitude enough to you, wizard! You truly have saved us from yet another tragic loss of life! There is one more house that we have our people trapped in, please save them, O lady of Sabertooth!"
The old man pointed a crooked finger at another pile of rubble. Mai sighed, now knowing she could not fake weakness to let the stupid weak humans get the deaths they deserved. After all, this happened because of a storm, and Mai never had a problem with storms. Sure, in the six months since coming to Sabertooth, she had experienced less storms than she was used to with Papa, but they were always her favorite. She rolled her eyes as she downtroddenly walked over to the other pile of rubble. She disinterestedly and slowly heaved rubble off of the pile, slowly clearing away that which the weak humans were unable to budge. As Mai's mind wandered to much more important things like Miss Luna and candies and what candies to give to Miss Luna, she began to space out, her eyes not truly working. This was shattered when she picked up a particularly large melded pile of bricks, revealing the face of a dusty boy. Mai screamed in fright, dropping the pile of bricks. She was about to throw the bricks or use a Tempest God's Bellow on the pile instinctively until she heard a human's voice call from within the pile. "Thank heavens! We're saved, Michai!" The urge to attack the pile grew even more, but she knew that she had to save the stupid humans if she were to pass this exam. As such, she continued to clear away the rubble, though she took more time than she perhaps should have by making a small sculpture of Miss Luna using the fused bricks. Well, it was allegedly Miss Luna. Mai was never a good artist, and even if she were, the materials were limited.
A few minutes after the dusty boy scared her, him and his bigger human crawled out from under the wreckage. The boy wrapped Mai in a hug, explaining that his name was Michai and asking Mai's name, which she reluctantly gave, refusing to make eye contact with the boy. He was a human, and Papa had always said that humans do not deserve eye contact with Gods. A God giving eye contact to a human was admitting a sense of equality, which was certainly not true. The dusty boy removed himself from the hug at the request of the old man Mai had now lovingly nicknamed Wrinkles McOldface in her mind. Mai's entire being was focused on not letting her face twist into one of disgust and disappointment, telling herself that as soon as she returned to Ace of Spades, she would have to take a long, deep bath to wipe off all the human filth and dust filth that the boy had brushed off on Mai's clothes. She had also reminded herself to burn this particular dress, as it contained the taint of human on it.
As soon as Mai finished with that work, a man of the village called out that the carriages had arrived. Mai's eyes lit up and her entire body perked up at the call. It meant she could leave. So as to not draw suspicion, she reluctantly travelled with Wrinkles McOldface and the other filthy weak humans as they came close to the carriage. A man with a shirt that bore the design of Sabertooth on it walked forwards, asking Mai how it went. Mai simply mumbled as Wrinkles McOldface explained that Mai was "a wonderful help! She saved a number of our villagers all by herself! I was shocked when I saw such a young girl lift up something two of our foresters had attempted for hours to even slightly shift! And how she used magic to efficiently save Alice and her boys since she knew that they were in so much danger! Gods, she is such a help! Please, send her over more often!"
The man with the Sabertooth logo smiled and crouched down to look at Mai. "Well, sounds like we got a natural helper on our hands! Since it sounds like you had so much fun, let's have you help us out with the reconstruction to! We'll be sure to bring you back once we get finished for the day! Hey, don't sweat it, kiddo! We'll be back by sundown!"
Mai felt her face lose all color at the man's words. There was no way to escape this face, she figured. She looked at where the sun was in the sky, and saw that it still had not even neared its apex. She felt a tear start to well in her eye, to which the man with the Sabertooth logo attributed to "being so glad to help."
WC:2180
