“Using your magic in different ways is one of the things the academy will teach both of you,” General Vans said. “Captain Simmons couldn’t always use his sword to fly. Not until he considered it was a possibility at the academy.”

  “You saying I might be able to paint a flying sword?” Det said.

  “You may not be limited to swords,” Vans pointed out.

  “Can I make a flying explosion?” Calisco said. “Oh, oh, oh, maybe it can be a cloud of explosions I can stand on and fly around on. Or, explosions from my hands shooting me forward might be cooler.”

  “Pretty sure both of those are trademarked,” Det pointed out.

  “Tsk,” Calisco said. “Whatever. Let them come for me! But, seriously, how can I make explosions any better? They already blow stuff up real good. Even Gen-gen—er, the general—can’t argue with how effective my booms are.”

  “I can’t,” General Vans said. “Your magic possesses very powerful offensive abilities.”

  “Like her personality,” Det mumbled.

  “Even against the D-Rank opponents—High-D-Rank, I might add—your magic was quite effective…”

  “See, I’m awesome,” Calisco said.

  “… when you managed to hit,” Vans finished after a dramatic pause that had Calisco wincing.

  “Not my fault they moved so fast,” Calisco said. “And their shells…”

  “Carapaces?” Det said, and was completely ignored.

  “… deflected my explosions unless I hit them just right,” Calisco said. “If it wasn’t for those shells, I would’ve killed way more.”

  “Do you expect your enemies to stand still, and present their softest sides?” General Vans said.

  “Sure would be considerate if they did,” Calisco said. “But, what was I supposed to do? When I hit them right, they died. You saw.”

  “Yes, I saw the three you managed to kill,” General Vans said. “And, I’ll reiterate, your magic was very impressive when the situation was perfectly in your favor.”

  “You going to tell me what I should’ve done then?” Calisco said, arms crossing and her toe starting to tap.

  “I could,” General Vans said, but turned his attention to Det.

  “Oh, leave me out of this,” Det said, glancing over at Calisco. “Please?”

  “No such luck, Det,” the general said. “From the sounds of things, your magic requires planning and preparation to make the most from. So, if you were in Calisco’s shoes, what would you have done?”

  “Yeah, Det, what would you have done?” Calisco said, venom leaking from her words.

  Double checking through his Wordless eyepiece, her name was still green, but he was reaaaaally starting to wonder about the accuracy of that.

  “You were aiming at the ants?” Det finally asked, somehow resisting to sigh.

  “Duh. What else would I aim at?”

  “When you killed one, what part did you hit? Their heads?”

  “Popped like grapes when I lined it up just right,” Calisco said, snapping her fingers. “Boom and pop.”

  “What about when you hit their bodies? Something other than their heads.”

  “Cracked them, sometimes, but it didn’t kill them. I had to keep aiming for their heads.”

  “Ah,” Det said. “You wanted to kill them yourself.”

  “What else would explosions be good for?”

  “Maiming,” Det said, like it was obvious. “But, let me guess, the general and captain were fighting the ants at the front, while Jeckles was back with you?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “So, it sounds like you were trying to do it all yourself, instead of working with the other assets you had.”

  Calisco looked down at her own chest under the leather uniform. “I don’t think these would’ve helped me against the ants.”

  Det gave the general his best ‘save-me-from-this-idiot’ look. General Vans just shook his head, then nodded like he expected Det to answer.

  “Not those assets,” Det breathed out. “Your allies. Jeckles, Vans, and Simmons. They were on your side too. Did you consider how your explosions could help them kill the ants?”

  “No, because I should be the one killing the ants.”

  “And that’s the problem,” Det said. “If the D-Rank ants were anything like the E-Rank ones I fought, their carapaces were pretty sturdy, but you couldn’t say the same thing about their legs. Blow those off, and the ants aren’t going to be running—or jumping—around. That would make them easy targets for your two front-liners.

  Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

  “Speaking of which, if you’d worked with them, you probably could’ve funneled the ants into paths where you could predict where they’d go. Then you wouldn’t need to aim for their heads, you could just set up your magic in preparation of them coming. And, on that note, can you create mines—trap bombs—out of your explosions? Something that would trigger if an ant got close? Or, can you create focused charges, instead of wide-range explosions?”

  “I don’t know,” Calisco said. “Never had to.”

  “You’ll learn, with the academy,” General Vans said. “And, Det’s suggestions are worth considering. The thing I noticed the most when I watched you was how you chased the ants with your explosions. Never once did I see you trying to lead or predict where the ant would go. That’s why you hit their bodies more than their heads.”

  “Like hunting ducks,” Calisco said, an unexpected look of consideration on her face. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense. I should’ve thought of that.”

  “It’s easy to see things in hindsight,” Det said. “Or give a thinking-answer when it’s not me caught up in the moment. Don’t beat yourself up too much.”

  “Who said I was going to?” Calisco said. “I should’ve thought of it, and now I definitely will next time. Those ants won’t know what hit them. But, it’ll be explosions. Explosions will hit them.”

  “I think we figured that part out,” Det deadpanned.

  “Good, I know you’re a little slow sometimes.”

  “I’m going to strangle you in your sleep,” Det said.

  “Hah, I knew you watched me while I was sleeping.”

  “I did no such thing!” Det said, then looked at the general. “I really didn’t. I’m married.”

  Calisco laughed. “Look at your squirm. You sure you’re really a grampa?”

  “Yup, I’m right back to wanting to strangle you,” Det said.

  “A small reminder violence between Mistguard outside of official duels is frowned upon,” General Vans said with a chuckle. “Your hand is still burning. How long will that last?”

  Det gave Calisco one last glare for good measure, then glanced down at the strength of the flames still burning.

  “The longest any of my manifested drawings has lasted is a few hours,” Det said. “This is burning through the energy a lot faster than that, and it’s not like I can add more magic without redrawing the flames.”

  “Do your manifestations—is that what you call them?—last different amounts of time based on what they do?” General Vans said.

  “Yes,” Det said. “And, like I said, I can’t keep just feeding them energy to keep them around. If I had to guess, this will only last a few minutes longer.”

  “What about that wolf back with the girl?” Vans said.

  “I’m surprised it’s lasted this long,” Det admitted. “It turned out to be a lot stronger than I expected, and…” he trailed off.

  “And what?”

  “And… it was like it was thinking. Not just following orders like they usually do. Normally, they’ll either protect me, or do one thing I tell them to. After they do that thing, their purpose is served, and the magic expires. With the wolf, I didn’t tell it to sit with Meliza when I created it. Hell, I didn’t even say anything to it about protecting anybody we found. It just decided to sit with her… because she needed it?”

  “Any idea what’s different?” the general asked, genuinely curious from the sound of his voice. “Being able to create thinking constructs from your magic would be very useful.”

  “No idea what’s different,” Det said. “None. I guess, other than the fact I did a whole mural of a pack of wolves, instead of just one. Only those three are left from the original nine.”

  “Another thing for your instructor to help you with, once we get back to Avalon,” Vans said. “If you did it once, you can do it again.”

  “Yeah,” Det agreed. “I’ll see if I can remember anything else about what might be different after I’ve had a chance to process this whole… thing.” He waved his still-burning hand around the empty town of Ironsalt. At the motion, his attention went back to the still-burning sphere at his side. “General, was there a reason you brought us over here to talk? Or, was it just a coincidence?”

  “No coincidence,” the general said. “I wanted to keep an eye on that.” He pointed at the burning sphere.

  “Uh, why?” Det said, taking a step away from said sphere. The C-Rank sphere.

  “That Wordless was already odd. It ran from us. I’ve never seen a Wordless Boss do that. I wanted to make sure it didn’t have any other tricks up its sleeves.”

  “It ran because we were super scary,” Calisco said.

  General Vans shook his head. “Wordless Bosses don’t flee. They can’t even leave the connected dungeons they are birthed in, and rarely venture beyond the secure room in which they’re found. We believe they know their destruction will result in the production facilities being disabled.”

  “It definitely looks like it left the dungeon,” Det pointed out. “Or… did it?” Turning to look at the nearby woman, he narrowed his eyes. The building had exploded.

  “It had some help,” Vans confirmed. “I let it get as far as it did, as I wanted to see what it was playing at. It stopped near the exit of the emergence.”

  “Where I blew it up,” Calisco said. “Literally, I guess, since I put the explosion right under it so it couldn’t dodge.”

  “Once it was outside, I couldn’t risk it continuing to flee, no matter how much I wanted to see what it would do,” Vans said. “Between the fleeing Boss and the secondary emergence, this has proven to be an interesting dungeon. Actually, perhaps this wasn’t the Boss at all, but a Rare Spawn instead? That would explain how it was able to actually leave the dungeon. As far as we know, Bosses can not physically exit, under any circumstances. It’s simply not possible for them. Meaning there might still be a C-Rank Boss unaccounted for.”

  The general turned like he was considering going right back into the dungeon, but quickly shook his head and held his ground.

  “That can be left to the others,” General Vans said more to himself than anybody else. “Still, we will have to see if this queen exhibits the same behaviour when it respawns.”

  “Pardon?” Det said. “These things respawn?”

  “Of course,” General Vans said. “How else would we use the dungeons as training grounds for our ReSouled.”

  “That’s why you said you need to keep clearing the dungeons to prevent the bursts,” Det said, his brain putting the pieces of the puzzle together.

  “Exactly,” General Vans said. “Each of the dungeons have different timers—the time it takes the Boss to be rebuilt—before they go active again. After that, the forces within will continue to build until there is a burst. Depending on the timelines, when a party enters the dungeon can drastically affect the difficulty, due to Wordless numbers.

  “The sooner a dungeon is cleared after a Boss spawns, the less dangerous it is, to a certain degree. Enough about that, though. You both will be back here to clear this dungeon—multiple times—again in the near future. Det, given this place was only in its infancy when you cleared it, you may even get rewards a second time.”

  “You can only get rewards for the first time you clear a dungeon?” Det said.

  “Normally,” General Vans said. “But, it looks like our question-and-answer period is over. Here comes the mistbikes from our mistship. These will be people who know about the Wordless and the threat they represent. I will remind you, however, not to discuss what you saw here, back on the mistship.”

  As if to punctuate his statement—and the possible consequences of disobeying the order—a sliver of the semi-transparent energy wafted from the general to the sphere of burning, white material. Closing around it like a fist, there was a squeeze, a crack, and the whole thing shattered like an eggshell. Fragments of the burning material fell, only to get picked up by the general’s energy again, and to be further crushed down. The sequence repeated itself twice more, reducing the sphere to little more than a fine white powder that blew away on the breeze.

  From the look on Calisco’s face, she got the message just as much as Det did.

  Don’t piss off the general.

  tomorrow!