The Storms Monarch is maybe an Extra

I arrived home a few hours later. And, just like I’d expected, Petra was fussing over my eyes.

“A-Ast…what happened to your eyes?”

“Before that, where’s Raun and Amelia?”

“...Training.”

“Right. Okay, I’ll show you.”

Then, I told Lyra to turn back into her true form.

|Eh? Are you sure?|

(“It’ll be fine. I trust her.”)

She then flew down to the ground and turned humanoid with a flash of red Lightning. Seriously, did she have to be so flashy every time she did it?

Anyways, Petra was still absolutely shocked at what happened. I couldn’t blame her since it’s not every day that you can meet a Divine being.

“Lyra, please explain everything for me. I’m going back to my room.”

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Since Lyra was keeping Petra occupied, I could safely practice my Martial manual inside of our shared room. Taking the half-rotten papers out from my backpack, I read them. 

All in all, there were eight papers glued together. The first page was the description of the Manual, while the remaining seven were the seven movements.

Since I was just a beginner, I could only open the second page.

“Let’s see…[Shredding Slash]?”

It said here in the paper that the move would create a wide arc of Spatial Distortion tracing the edge of my weapon…

‘Let’s try it out, then.’

I took out the Crosslance that I’d asked Petra to buy for me and held it with both of my hands. Raising the weapon in a neutral stance, I began producing Space mana and converging it into the Crosslance.

Attempting a Martial art meant moving Mana in a specific pattern. I stared at the pattern the paper showed—violent and destructive; yet, it was somehow orderly. The pattern burned into my mind and disappeared from the pages, finally making me a Practitioner of World Splitter. 

When I felt that I’d concentrated enough Mana, I swung the Lance. A violent ripping sound occured, followed by the air before me distorting slightly. All of that took…a full minute. Just concentrating Mana took, like, 99% of the time.

I could feel that my Mana was being drained.

‘So it still takes my Mana to sustain the Distortion. Interesting…’

At this rate, I’d only be able to keep the Distortion up for a minute at most. And since I was in the safety of my own home, I could afford to leave it up for now and test its limits.

Holding the urge to stick my finger into it to see what would happen, I picked up a slipper and threw it toward the Distortion.

…It was shredded to pieces almost immediately.

I picked up the other slipper—this time, I reinforced it with Mana. Then, I threw it at the Distortion.

The slipper was only knocked around inside the Distortion for a bit before falling to the ground, unharmed.

‘Mana protects it…’

I picked up the slipper again and reinforced it with less Mana than before.

The slipper survived for a total of three seconds before the Distortion broke through its Mana-reinforcement and ripped it to shreds.

After some more tests, I came to the conclusion that—

“With the way it is right now, it’s useless in combat.”

Unless I could find a way to make my enemies stand still, there was no feasible way that this could be used. Maybe I could use it as a trap, but the Mana cost was just not worth it.

And speaking of Mana consumption, I found out that the most efficient way to use it was to only leave the Distortion up for around 0.2 seconds at a time. Somehow, it wouldn’t take any extra Mana before the 0.2-second mark.

With every of my question about the Martial art now now all don, I left the room and went downstairs.

Lyra and Petra…they were sitting at a table, drinking coffees and laughing with each other. Somehow, they became fast friends.

I wanted to join. So, I eagerly ran up to them and—

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“Remind me why I’m doing this again?”

Currently, I was bringing a tray of coffee to Lyra and Petra’s table…while wearing a Maid outfit. 

Petra took the coffee and sipped it slightly. “You destroyed my slippers.”

“...Fair.”

Sighing, I sat down next to Petra and unwrapped a chocolate bar. Then, I dipped it in the coffee mug that Lyra was drinking from for revenge. She dared to actually be in support of my wearing Maid clothes!

…Chocolate and Coffee was actually a good combo…huh…

Anyways, this gross abuse of me continued until the door of our house opened. Since the cafe was closed today, there were only two people who could reasonably enter here at this hour.

“Ast! You’re back!”

It was Raun…and Amelia. 

And surprisingly, the one who uttered that excited shout was Amelia.

The umbrella they brought with them wasn’t big enough, so Raun decided to let Amelia stay wholly under it while he was partly outside of it. At least, that was what I guessed when I saw his wet sleeve.

Since he was busy removing his boots, he hadn’t seen Lyra yet. 

Unlike him, Amelia had already noticed Lyra’s appearance and froze in shock.

(“Lyra, turn off your Divine aura.”)

|You don’t want him to see?|

(“...It’ll be a hassle to explain everything to him.”)

|Alright. [Ash Veil].|

Lyra did above and beyond what I asked for. She conjured up a layer of Ashes on her hair and face and molded it until she looked like a completely different person! Well, just the outline of it, anyways, since it was still Ash.

The Ashes then shifted and changed color, eventually making her look totally different with black hair and black eyes.

‘Huh, didn’t know that she could do that.’

After that, I simply leaned back in my seat and sipped my coffee, waiting for the inevitable scream of confusion.

And it did come, but not in the form of a horrified scream. Instead, it was an excited shout.

“PETRA! YOU FINALLY BROUGHT YOUR GIRLFRIEND HOME!”

I almost spat out my coffee when I heard this. Almost.

“W-What? Raun! How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t have a girlfr—”

Raun ignored Petra and marched straight up at Lyra and shook her hands.

“Hi, I’m Raun, your future brother-in-law.”

I could see Lyra giving me “the look.” And I simply responded telepathically.

(“Fuck with Petra. She needs to pay for making me wear this.”)

Lyra nodded with a grin and eagerly shook Raun’s hands.

|”I’m Lyr— I mean, Theodora. Your sister is a pleasure to be around.”|

At this point, Petra couldn’t take it anymore and was about to speak up to fix all the misunderstandings. 

Of course noticing this, I cast a Soundproof Barrier with my Wind magic to silence her.

All the while, Raun was oblivious to all of this. 

“Man, I can’t believe Petra’s actually dating a cute girl like you! Much as I’d like to talk more, I have a girlfriend of my own to take care of. I’ll see you later, I guess.”

Then, he pulled the still-shocked Amelia upstairs with him. But as he passed by me, he stopped for a bit to speak.

“Glad to have you back, Ast. So many things happened when you went away.”

“...Like what?”

He glanced at Amelia before smirking. “Amelia got sponsored by the Church of Life. Every single one of her expenses for the next five years will be covered!”

Then, he pointed a thumb at himself arrogantly. “And I got a scholarship from the Emperor himself! He’ll pay all my tuition fees for me if I can get into Ark! Do you know why he did this, Ast?”

I shook my head while hiding a laugh.

“No idea.”

“Of course you don’t, because I don’t, either! If I have to guess,” he chuckled. “The Princess is probably into me. She must’ve asked her Dad to make it so that I can be with her in Ark.”

Staring at him blankly for a few seconds, I stood up, patted him on the shoulder, and said,

“Keep dreaming big, my boy.”

'After all, your competition will be the Hero of Light herself.'

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Raun went up to his room after that.

There was no reason to silence Petra now, so I released the spell on her. She looked…a bit mad, but it was to be expected. Though, her gaze turned into that of anxiety as she faced Lyra. 

“H-Hey, was what you said t-true?”

Lyra smiled. “Of course. You’re the most pleasant Mortal to be around.”

I wanted to tell Petra that Lyra really hadn’t met anyone beside me, but I didn’t want to be the one to break Petra’s infatuated gaze. Who knows, maybe love between a Divine being and a Mortal could work—with Artoria herself being an example, it very well could.

Still, I wanted to see how they got on this fast.

“You guys seems to be friends already. What did you bond over?”

After all, there was no way random conversations could make them friends this quickly. There had to be a common interest! Maybe they both liked coffee, or maybe Petra was a secret follower of God Vihar. 

But, reality is often disappointing.

“Over you, Ast,” Petra said.

“...What do you mean?”

Lyra answered my question by hovering her hands over her breasts and lightly pressing down.

‘What is that supposed to mean?’

Wanting to find out, I did it on my own breasts.

“...”

Lyra grinned.

“...”

Petra stifled a chuckled.

“...”

And I…found out what they were talking about.

“I’M NOT FLAT! PERKY IS NOT FLAT! GET IT RIGHT, DAMMIT!”