Chapter 2: Muscle Magic is Amazingly Strong

Chapter 2:
Muscle Magic is Amazingly Strong

 

“ALL RIGHT, looks good.”

We had rolled our clothes out over the small mossy cobblestones at the base of the waterfall just to make sure they were completely dry. Now we were ready to head off again, as while tumbling we’d happened to see a way out of the forest. While we got dressed, I heard Filia’s familiar sigh—which somehow cut through the intense pulsating of the waterfall behind us.

“I really thought I was going to die. If I hadn’t so cleverly—though unconsciously!—used wind magic just before we hit the water’s surface…things could have turned out quite dire.”

It was just as Filia said: she’d reduced the impact of our landing on the water’s surface with a skillful application of magic, even though she’d apparently been halfway to

passing out. Thanks to those incredible techniques of hers, we clambered out of the basin without a single scratch, and yet…

“Welp, guess that wasn’t quite enough thrills for me. Fall again?” I asked, giving the cliff a friendly smack. Didn’t seem right or satisfying to have such a chill landing, ya know?

It wouldn’t be hard to climb the sheer cliff again—a breeze, in fact! Besides, I could carry Filia on my back. From there, the waterfall bros could fly again.

“I absolutely, positively, definitively do not want to do that! And anyway,” she added, shaking her head sharply, “our clothes just dried. That would be terribly inconvenient.”

Hmm… Well, she had a point there. Before Filia lit a fire with her magic, her clothes had been sopping wet, so I hadn’t even been able to look at her until just then. But now Filia’s clothes seemed to be dry. More or less…

As my eyes tracked down, Filia broke into a grin. “Ooooh, Yuri, you perv! Not that I don’t understand your interest, what with my otherworldly cuteness. You’re utterly captivated, hmm?”

“Okay, if we’re not climbing back up the cliff, I think it’s about time we head out. How about we get going?”

“Excuse me, are you really going to ignore me?”

No matter how I reacted, she would tease me. Reacting at all, then, was a loss. Filia looked at me, taken aback, as I walked past her over to the path.

Something else was on my mind, honestly. It’d been over a decade since I came to the forest, huh? Weird. Any memory I had of my life before the forest was all faded and blurred now, too. I was leaving my home for a vast world teeming with possibilities and weirdness.

Hell yeah.

 

***

 

“Wow, the scenery sure looks different,” I said.

Within minutes of leaving the basin of the waterfall, the terrain changed from mossy stones to short grass, and the air brushing against our skin went from humid and damp to light and refreshing.

“Whoa, we really did get out of the forest!” I added.

Filia responded with a long, relaxed, “Yeah!”

And why not? The green earth stretched on farther than the horizon, and there was a kinda “we made it” feeling to the air itself. Yeah!

“Don’t get me wrong, Yuri, I do love the forest—of course I do—but don’t you just feel more secure with a wide-open view? No real chance of a monster surprise attack! Just green and green and green!”

“Huh. Guess so! Hey, sorry to ask Filia, but can I have some water?”

Now that we were out of the trees, I was feeling thirsty, maybe because of the exhilaration. I wish I’d taken a drink back at the basin, but my mind had been elsewhere. Filia didn’t look at all displeased or reluctant, and she poured some water into my hands. I cupped them and sipped.

“Thanks.”

“Oh no, it’s nothing.”

The cold water trickled down my throat. It felt as though as I was being completely healed from the core of my body.

“Ohhh, come on! Even though magic can’t touch you, you can drink water produced through magic? All right, now that’s just unfair. We can both agree that it’s unfair, can’t we?” Filia folded her arms.

“You think so? Well, it’s not like my body is invincible or anything.”

Sure, magic rarely if ever made an impact on me, but that didn’t necessarily mean I could like, disable it wholesale or anything. Like all magnificently massive muscles, mine could only withstand so much. If I were to take on arcane whatnot more powerful than my potent pecs, I’d no doubt be preternaturally punished. Not that I’d ever suffered any such damage before. Not thus far. I had faith in these muscles!

“What are we going to do now?” I said, after a silence. “Are we splitting up? Or traveling together?”

“You know, I’ve been wondering that for a few days now. If I’m not imposing, could I accompany you a little while longer, Yuri? The road is long. I would hate to be bored,” said Filia. “Besides, Yuri, you’re funny.”

And here I was thinking she was the funny one.

“Furthermore, we elves are rather…insular. That is to say, we don’t often leave the forest. My people are quite beautiful, as I’m sure you’re aware, and that means we are highly valued by slave traders. Obviously, I could more than manage such a threat if necessary, but a little more protection never hurts. And I would… I’d like that. The protection, I mean,” said Filia, blushing a little and squirming.

“What’s in it for me?” I asked.

“What’s in it—why, you’d be traveling together with a cutie like me,” Filia replied, placing a finger on her soft cheek, as if my very question must’ve been a joke.

“And that’s a benefit?”

“Of course it is, no matter how you look at it! Besides, I wouldn’t feel any heartache or guilt or anything for using others to get cute little me to safety!” declared Filia, brimming with energy. She must’ve had hidden secret reserves of smugness because she could always turn it up another notch farther than I thought possible.

“Did you really, actually, in reality just say that right in front of me?”

Seriously, what? She seemed intelligent, but was she really an airhead? Well, I guess being around an airhead would be more bearable than hanging out with a certain kind of egghead. And she was pretty good in a fight, too.

“Ah, also, with my Telepathy I can see you don’t have a hidden side, Yuri. You’re the kind of person who just says whatever they think, just like yours truly. I do think you’re a pervert, but you’re tolerably perverted. At any rate, I’d say that I’m in the position of asking you for things.”

Before I knew it, she was talking as if the matter of her accompanying me was a done deal. Maybe she did speak her mind a little too much? I let out a deep sigh.

Well, I supposed Filia was the reason I’d left the forest at all. I probably couldn’t just refuse her request out of hand.

“Do whatever you want,” I said.

“It just so happens that what I want is to accompany you! A satisfying conclusion, he he.”

“Ah.” I stopped moving.

Filia stopped behind me. “What’s the matter?”

“Filia, do you know where the town is? I know I saw it when we were falling down the waterfall, but I don’t remember where I saw it.”

“A town? That you saw? At that speed, at that time of day, falling from the top of a waterfall?”

“Yes?”

“But you can’t tell me where?”

“No.”

“Th-that’s amazing! Unfortunately, I wasn’t really paying attention when I got lost in the woods, so I don’t even know where we were in the first place. And I had my eyes closed when we were tumbling down the waterfall. All I know is that humans are said to be the most prosperous people in the world.”

“Seriously? What’s that have to do with it? Jeez, you really don’t know a thing.”

“All right, Mr. Human, what about you? Shouldn’t you know the exact location of the town?” responded Filia, throwing my question back in my face.

Hmph. How foolish. I answered her with a full, broad smile. “Do you really think someone like me, secluded in the forest ever since childhood, would know something like that?”

Filia gave me a curious squint. “Do you need to sound so…proud of that?”

I guess she had a point. Ignoring Filia, who was still looking at me with narrowed eyes, I peered around for any clues that might tell us where the town was.

“Oh wow, we sure have good luck. We don’t gotta worry anymore,” I said.

“What do you mean?” She tilted her head, confused.

I extended my arm and pointed into the distance. “There it is, the castle wall from earlier. The one I saw when we were dropping off the waterfall.” Real lucky that I could see it from here, too.

“A…castle…wall?” replied Filia, furrowing her brow. Apparently Filia couldn’t see it. “Yuri, you really have good eyesight, don’t you?”

“Well, I’ve trained them.”

“You trained your…” She rubbed her temples. “Sorry, you trained your eyes? What does that even…?”

In any case, we started for the castle wall. It was a long walk, though, and soon enough my companion was noticeably bored.

“Yuri, do you have any hobbies?” she asked.

Hobbies? Well, the number of things I could do were pretty limited in the forest. Let’s see, what did I do for fun? Oh, right!

“Heh, I just love training my body. Muscle training, stuff like that.”

It hadn’t occured to me right off the bat because it was less a hobby and more a lifestyle, but I just adored training. Inside the forest, where visibility was poor, there was always a danger of being hit with a surprise attack from behind. If you didn’t train constantly and got caught unawares, you’d be on the slippy-slide to the afterlife with a crushed skull and no embarrassing story to tell on account of being dead and all.

That was why I made sure to train everything I could possibly train. Eyes, nose, ears, muscles—the whole chiseled enchilada.

“Come to think of it,” said Filia, “even when we were in the forest, you were pretty much constantly talking about muscles and stuff. Like how because you’ve trained, magic is ineffective against you, and other weird stuff like that. Hmm, but…” she stared at my body a little rudely, doubt creeping into her voice, “I can’t really see much muscle on you.”

It was certainly true that my body didn’t appear muscular. While I did look more robust than say, Filia, I probably came off like a normal man, if with a little extra girth.

“It’s because I’m intentionally keeping myself in this form. When I’m in a proper fight, it’s different, you know?” I replied, and let my body surge with might.

In the blink of an eye, my body morphed into the correct form for a serious fight. My muscles swelled and bulged, tearing my jacket in seconds, and in an instant I was halfway to buck naked. One head taller, too—just over six feet in total.

“What do you think? Amazing, huh?”

Just as I expected, Filia’s silver eyes went wide.

“No, nonononono, this is too much. You even got taller! You completely turned into some kind of inhuman…master of muscle!” Filia wailed.

“Come on, don’t praise me like that, you’re makin’ me all bashful.”

“I’m not praising you!”

I didn’t normally bother to transform. Getting all bulky hindered my movement and put stealth out of the question. There was nothing better than training your muscles, but bigger isn’t always better. It all depends on the situation, and sometimes having an average body is more appropriate to your needs. That was why I put a limiter on when I wasn’t fighting, to restrain my borderline-divine muscles. After Filia’s shower of compliments, I reverted back to my average-body form and shrugged on a spare jacket.

“Besides, even in this state I’ve still got a fair amount of power.”

I picked up a small, reasonably sized stone on the ground and squeezed it. When I opened my hand it was a pile of sand.

“Look.”

“Are…small stones something that can just be pulverized like that?”

“Depends. Do you lift?”

“I think I, um, know enough about this for now,” Filia said, whatever she meant by that. She seemed bowled over.

“Let’s see…also, I can shoot out fire.”

“You can use fire magic? So, that means that you are a magician, right, Yuri?”

“I certainly am. But my fire isn’t from fire magic, it’s muscle magic.”

I flexed my arm for emphasis. Filia looked at me with a blank expression.

“Muscle magic?”

“You know, magic that can only be used by training your muscles.”

I punched the air in front of me. My fist cut through the air fast enough to break the speed of sound and a sudden fiery boom cracked through the silence.

“See?”

“But…but I didn’t detect any trace of magical energy whatsoever. What was that?”

“Simple: I punched through the air with sufficient speed. Went so fast my fist caught fire.”

“Your fist caught—could you repeat that last bit?”

“I punched through the air with sufficent speed. Went so fast my fist caught fire.”

“Hhuhhh?! Um? Wh-what do you mean?”

It seemed Filia was perplexed by my novel type of magic. Not too surprising, considering I was pretty sure it was fairly unique. It was even possible magic like mine didn’t exist outside of the forest.

“Muscle magic doesn’t use magical energy, ya see.”

“Then it isn’t proper magic, is it? It would qualify more as a, um, a feat of strength,” said Filia, still looking stunned. I didn’t quite get what she was trying to say. You just can’t explain some things to people who don’t work out, you know?

“Hey, Yuri. This may be a little touchy, but, ah… You wouldn’t happen to be a monster or something, would you?”

“Wha—that’s just mean! I’m a human!” A monster! Come on, really? Me, your average dime-a-dozen hardworking joe! Man, what a weird girl!

Our banter took us the rest of the way down the road such that by evening, around sunset, Filia and I arrived safe and sound at the castle wall. Looked way taller than a person, I’ll tell you. Taller than my cottage too—like four or five of my cottages stacked on top of each other.

“Wow. You ever seen anything like this before, Filia?”

“Not at all! It’s amazing! We elves coexist with nature, so we don’t build anything like this.”

A few folks wearing leather armor hung around in front of the gate, but they let us through without any problems. But then, why were those guys standing there in the first place?

The conclusion hit me right quick: they were meant to keep monsters from getting into the town or something. We’d encountered a few critters between leaving the forest and getting to civilization, so there had to be some kind of danger. (Needless to say, we’d thrashed every beastie we met on the way.)

More importantly: the town! Once inside, we were met with rows and rows of wooden buildings lining dozens upon dozens of paved streets. I could hardly take them in one at a time, let alone all at once—it was my first time seeing a real township, so naturally my excitement was through the roof!

“All right, all right, all right! What are we going to do now, Filia?!”

“Hmm, yes, what should we do, Yuri? For the time being, I propose we find lodging at an inn. Agreed?”

I clapped my hands with a satisfying, thunderous slap. “An inn, huh? Ha! I wouldn’t have thought of that at all! You’re really something!”

“And you really aren’t all there, are you?”

“You think? Well, okay, if the inn doesn’t work out—worst-case scenario and all—we can just sleep on the street, probably. Nothing to worry about there. We’re bona fide monster hunters; nobody’s gonna mess with us and get away with it.”

“That sounds awfully barbaric, Yuri…”

Once we got to the inn, I realized I didn’t have any money to pay for a room, so I had to ask Filia to spot me. Sure, she told me not to worry about it, but it seemed pretty unmanly to make a lady pay. Also, we now had to think of ways to earn more money before we could even think of doing anything else. I started mulling our next step as we went up to our room.

Once there, Filia and I sat back, relaxed, and let our hair down. The room came with what I understood were your usual accommodations for an inn, except…there was just one bed.

“Hey, Filia? Did you get us a single?”

“All right, all right! Maybe I did, but we don’t have a choice. Not unless your muscle magic can summon up a little extra cash for a double!”

Looked like our financial affairs were in worse shape than I’d thought. Maybe it was because we were in a closed room by ourselves, just the two of us, but Filia’s expression seemed to stiffen somewhat. These are the times that a man’s gotta be a real man.

“You take the bed,” I told her. She was the one who’d paid for it, after all, and a man’s gotta recognize that.

“Urging me to use the bed…” Filia covered her mouth. “Aha! I know your game! You want me on the bed so you can go after my enticing, nubile body! You foul knave!” Filia huffed, crossing her arms in front of her unjiggly breasts for emphasis.

I blinked. “What are you talking about? I’m just saying that since I can sleep standing up, I don’t need the bed. As long as I get an hour in, I’ll be good.”

“You only need one hour of sleep? How bizarre. I suppose I saw you sleeping like that in the forest, but I didn’t realize you just…did that all the time.”

“Besides, you’re the one who paid for the room, Filia. It’s only natural that you get the most use from it, don’t you think?”

“Ha! Mister Muscles is more gentlemanly than he appears, hmm? Just the two of us… Just the two of us here in a lonely room in a faraway inn, a friendly hulk and a most elegant and beautiful lady, and you’re going to be sleeping standing up.”

“Beautiful lady? Where?” I jerked my neck up and made a big show of looking around.

Filia hopped in front of me, trying to get into my field of vision, but gave up pretty quick. “Hmph!” She puffed out her cheeks. “You have angered this elegant lady. Good night!”

“Sure, g’night.”

And with that, our very first night in the city came to an end.

 

***

 

I rolled over on the bed my muscley companion had so kindly provided for me. Why couldn’t I sleep? I should have been able to fall asleep right away if I really wanted to go to bed, yes? Here I was in my most comfortable pajamas and everything, and it just wasn’t working. I contemplated my plight for a moment before arriving at the answer—yes, that had to be it. There was just something so curious about this level of…comfort.

I had been able to read minds for a long time. Over those years, I noticed something—everyone wears a mask in order to survive. In other words, people lie. They have their motives, of course: to protect themselves, to hurt other people. All kinds of reasons.

There were two things about Telepathy that weighed on me. One was that I could pick up every little prevarication, well-intentioned or not. Far from pleasant. The second was that my mind wasn’t strong enough to stop everything I knew, everything I could read, from wearing down my heart. Come now, do you think someone in a fine state of mental health would wander into an unfamiliar forest without thinking and get so dangerously lost? No. It all weighs.

And yet in that unfamiliar forest, I’d met Yuri. Quite frankly, I was on my guard when we first crossed paths. How odd to find a human living so deep in the forest. But now, several days later, things were different. When he lied, it was a clear lie—a joke and nothing more. He didn’t lie to put on appearances, or to hurt people.

He spoke his mind according to his heart. That was who he was. Perhaps Yuri would lie if he could, but I couldn’t imagine the awkward lug getting away with it. It was incredibly refreshing. Novel, even. And it was…nice.

I looked over to Yuri.

He stood a little ways away, his back to me. The man was probably training even now. He said it was his hobby, and indeed, there he was in the middle of the night doing quiet little excercises to avoid disturbing my sleep, which was a bit funny. Maybe it shouldn’t have been funny, but this level of conscientiousness didn’t suit my odd new partner at all.

Watching him, my lingering confusion and meandering thoughts melted into other things. Safety. Relief. When had I come to trust this person?

Honestly, he was a touch…oh, I don’t know. Yes, he was strange, but when I saw him looking at me, I knew he didn’t see me as some elf with an abundance of magical power, nor as a mind-reading freak. He was looking at me and seeing me. Filia Windia.

It was nice.

“Eh he he he.”

I felt the grin on my face and quickly buried it in my soft pillow.

 

***

 

She was finally asleep, huh?

I noticed a change in Filia’s breathing behind me and turned around. Filia had fallen asleep with an expression that was, to be honest, happier than I’d ever seen her wear. It was…I guess “unguarded” is the word? She breathed kinda loudly, with her mouth hanging open a little sloppily as she slept. The prim and proper Filia she’d been since we’d met was just gone.

“Wow. I guess she really trusts me that much, huh?”

Something about saying it out loud made it real, and a bit embarrassing. The embarrassment passed pretty quick, though, and then I felt even happier than I had before.

“All right. Okay. Back to my special training.”

Back to the grind, making little flicks with my fingers into the open air, quietly breaking the speed of sound.