Aura's stats were every bit as impressive as Leon had expected. Compared to Laurier's, they were exceptional in entirely different ways.
"Wow, Aura. You got two Magics! I only unlocked one." Laurier clung to her friend's arm, pressing her whole body against her, admiration tinged with envy.
Aura set down the parchment and sighed.
"Laurier, we're elves. There's an overwhelming chance we both have three Magic slots. With your potential, you'll catch up to me soon enough. Probably surpass me."
She wasn't wrong. Measured against the broader population of races, elves stood head and shoulders above the rest.
Leon and Jeanne exchanged a glance and nodded in agreement.
"Exactly," Leon said, picking up the thread. "That's why elves are in such high demand everywhere in the world. No god would refuse an elf joining their Familia. And if one did, the problem wouldn't be with the elf. It'd be with the god's head."
Laurier blinked, curiosity bright in her eyes, the implication sailing cleanly over her head.
Leon wasn't surprised anymore. He pressed on.
"Setting aside the fact that the vast majority of elves naturally possess three Magic slots after receiving a Falna, just look at your Skill loadouts. That alone tells you how far ahead elves are."
"Nearly every elf carries some form of magic amplification as a bloodline Skill. That single advantage puts them leagues beyond other races."
"Even other races with bloodline Skills can't compare. The dwarves' Strength-Spirit line, the pallums' Valor line, the beast-folk's Beastification line... those only manifest in exceptionally gifted individuals. They're rarities. Anomalies. Elven bloodline Skills, on the other hand, are practically standard issue."
"And then there's us humans. The default human template is... a blank slate."
"As in, ninety-nine percent of humans receive their Falna and get absolutely nothing extra. No surprises. No gifts. Just empty slots."
He shrugged and spread his hands.
"Oh! I had no idea. Nobody ever told us that back in the village." Laurier's eyes went wide, and she looked between Leon and Jeanne with something close to pity. "You humans really got the short end of the stick!"
This adorable airhead. Leon's mouth twitched, and he elected to ignore it.
Aura, sharper than her friend, noticed something else entirely. Neither Leon nor Jeanne showed a single trace of envy toward the elven race. Not even a flicker.
Had they simply gone numb to the gap? Or was it something else?
The thought lingered.
It seems our mysterious captain and his second-in-command are anything but ordinary.
Unlike the still-naive Laurier, Aura had already seized on an iron-clad fact: the person who had bestowed her Falna was not a god.
The impossibility of it had nearly shattered everything she understood about the world.
A human, exercising a divine prerogative through Magic. Beneath her composure, a storm had been raging since the moment the ritual ended.
The absurdity of it made her wonder if she was dreaming.
But her pride held her tongue. Until Leon chose to address it himself, she wouldn't ask. She was certain he would explain, in his own time.
That much she trusted.
...
Her instinct was right.
The nature of the Falna bestowal was self-evident to anyone who underwent the ritual. Trying to hide it would have been pointless. What was there to conceal? Nothing but thin air.
Leon looked at the two elves and smiled, a knowing edge to it.
"Don't either of you have something you want to ask me? No need to hold back. Go ahead."
His gaze settled on Aura, who had gone visibly tense.
"Relax. I think you've already noticed what makes our Familia unusual. For instance... every Familia is built around a god. The entire system hinges on a deity bestowing Falna, forging an unbreakable covenant through blood."
"So the question on your mind is probably: why can I bestow Falna? That's supposed to be a god's privilege alone, isn't it?"
Aura pressed her lips together and nodded.
"It's not as complicated as you think."
His tone was calm, unhurried.
"As you know, this world is full of unknowns. It's precisely those unknowns that drove the gods to seal their divine power, establish rules, and descend to the mortal realm to live alongside their children."
"So consider this..."
A pause. His eyes glinted.
"What if my ability is simply a new unknown? One that's never existed before?"
The words landed like a thunderclap inside Aura's skull.
Understanding struck instantly. Her eyes flew wide. "You're saying... the Falna ritual is your Magic?!"
Laurier's brain crashed entirely. She froze in place, jaw hanging open.
"Huh?"
She stood there, slack-jawed, shaking her head over and over.
"No way. Absolutely no way! How can a Magic that ridiculous even exist?!"
Leon chuckled. Ridiculous? You have no idea how deep this rabbit hole goes.
Never mind bestowing Falna. He had access to resurrection magic too, even if its reliability left something to be desired.
"I see... so it's Magic." Aura murmured the words almost to herself. "The answer was that simple. I'd trapped myself in a box."
Like Jeanne before her, she accepted the revelation quickly and folded it into her understanding of the world. For a mage, Magic was the embodiment of miracles. It was supposed to be capable of anything.
If anything, the revelation only deepened her conviction: this mysterious captain of hers was hiding secrets far larger than this one.
...
Having shown off a little in front of the two elven girls and satisfied that small itch of vanity, Leon conferred briefly with Jeanne and finalized the plan for the rest of the day.
He clapped his hands. "Alright, girls. The rain isn't letting up anytime soon, and your bodies still need rest. So today's assignment is studying the fundamentals of being an Adventurer and the rules of the Dungeon. Don't brush this off. The basics are critical. Every single person who sets foot in the Dungeon needs to know this material cold."
From behind his back, he produced a slim booklet.
It was the Adventurer's Handbook, issued by the Guild. Standard equipment for every Adventurer in Orario.
"This is what you'll be learning. It looks thin, especially compared to the massive tomes on magic theory, but let me be clear: every word in this book was paid for in blood. Countless Adventurers who came before you died so these lessons could be written down."
"Learn it. Memorize it. This matters. Understood?"
Aura and Laurier glanced at each other, their expressions grave, and nodded.
The Dungeon. One of the world's three great unexplored frontiers. The Great Hollow, buried beneath the Labyrinth City of Orario.
It was from those depths that countless monsters poured forth, the source of chaos and ruin across the world.
"We'll master every bit of it," Aura said, her tone solemn. "Our lives depend on it."
Even Laurier shelved her usual energy, showing a rare flash of seriousness.
"Good. Once you've absorbed the handbook, we move on. The Dungeon Environment and Monster Compendium. The Dungeon Resource Guide. Three Thousand Common Hieroglyphics. The Orario Encyclopedia. Gods and Familias of the Labyrinth City. Where Dangerous Monsters Lurk. And more."
As Leon rattled off the reading list, Laurier's face fell. She and Jeanne were cut from the same cloth when it came to studying: not their strong suit.
Aura, on the other hand, didn't so much as flinch. She was a mage. This was her element.
=-=-=
50 p.s for extra chap