An Unborn Hero

"Excellent," said Grace, as Rose flawlessly executed a set of steps. "Far better than your last attempt."

"That's because I gained a new skill for it!" she exclaimed. "[Dancing] is a skill? And I got it with only two hours' practice?"

"That's odd. Yes, it's a well-known skill, but given your occupation, you shouldn't be able to unlock it. At the least, not without a significant amount of effort. I'm not going to complain, though. It's certainly most welcome."

"It is?"

"Of course. When we dance together, you'll embarrass me if you don't put in a good showing."

"Wait, what? I'm dancing with you?"

Grace paused as she realised that something else that was blatantly obvious to her was not so obvious to Rose, and calculated the amount she'd need to fill in.

"The partner you choose for your first dance is significant," she carefully explained. "Normally, you'd dance with your spouse or betrothed, but we have neither. Dancing with an outsider could be considered an expression of interest, or a showing of favour. Normally, people not yet betrothed would be young, as we are, and so it's acceptable for them to dance with a family member. You have none attending, though, while mine are not going to be mingling on the dance floor for the first dance. Thus, the politically prudent move is for us to dance together, as fellow party members of the hero, helped by the fact that Kellela and Hayedalf will be doing the same thing. But I am going to have you wear an appraisal blocker; people seeing you dancing with a royal while holding that achievement would give completely the wrong impression, especially since I will also be using an appraisal blocker."

"That seems strange, but okay," nodded Rose, doing her best to see things from Grace's point of view instead of listening to the voice in the back of her head insisting this whole thing was bloody stupid and should just be ignored. "But the skill hasn't done that much. I still only know the one dance, even if I've suddenly got better at performing it."

"That's fine; I can hardly turn you into an expert dancer in one morning. I'm focusing on what you need to get through the day. Anyway, now that you've mastered that, shall we have a light lunch while we get our hair done?"

"How can we eat and do our hair at the same time? Ah. We won't do our own hair, right?"

"Correct," agreed Grace, ringing a bell to summon her personal maid, who received her orders and left to fetch reinforcements.

"In my world, 'doing my hair' implies spending twenty seconds tying it back with some string so that it doesn't get in the way," pointed out Rose as they waited.

"Throughout this morning, you have described several aspects of your commoner life that, quite frankly, I am jealous of," said Grace as a squadron of maids marched in, armed with plates of miniature sandwiches with the crusts cut off, bottles of sweet smelling shampoos and conditioners, and a wide array of small magical items. "That was not one of them."

Rrillandral Lehibeborn sat in an unpainted wooden carriage, the wood a healthy brown with just a tint of green. It wasn't formed of planks or boards, but rather appeared grown, a single piece without join or seam, as if a tree had simply decided that carriage-shaped was the look it wanted to aim for. Not a single nail held it together.

Except for the wheels. The elves might have had impressive magic for manipulating the growth of plant-life, but their long years of experience had taught them that plant-life sucked at axles.

She was wearing a flowing dress, floor length as was the Flinellian fashion, but green, with floral decorations, to match the fashion of the Vale. A combination meticulously designed to play up the Vale's friendly relations with Flinel, without crossing the line into submissiveness. The fact that it would also attract Mystery's attention, making Rrillandral look as colour coded as the existing members of the magical girl squad, was a complete coincidence.

As was the fact she would be entering the ball alone. Had more elves been present, Mystery might have spotted the fact that all elves had green hair and wore green, floral clothing, diluting Rrillandral's image as the singular green one.

The Vale's information network had been hard at work since her visit to the [Hero], but no spying or complex deductions were required to guess the purpose of this ball. A [Hero] unveiling ceremony only days after she dropped off that book, staged with one day's notice? It was obviously related; this was their way of doing away with bureaucracy without giving the appearance of doing away with bureaucracy. By the end of the day, everyone would know that, but no-one would be able to complain about it, because Flinel had behaved with perfect legitimacy.

Politics didn't half make things complicated. At least it was amusing, and the looks on the faces of the other diplomats when they discovered why the unveiling was being held at such short notice would provide some enjoyment.

It was just a shame the spies hadn't discovered which of the many otherworldly languages Mystery had spoken. It meant that the volume Rrillandral had tucked away inside her dress was rather heavier than it needed to be.

Kellela examined herself in the mirror, inspecting the sequinned, perfectly fitting dress that was worn by a body that was—and this was the important part—rather more than fourteen years old. Unfortunately, it was black.

"Sometimes, it would be nice to be wrong about things," she commented.

"Yeah, I was hoping a high-levelled [Seamstress] would have access to skills that handled things like dyeing, but apparently not," answered Hayedalf. "It's not the end of the world; it's not like black doesn't suit you, and if you really want pink, at least they made some improvements."

The pair glanced at the bed, on which was something that, to look for a silver lining, would now fit through any double doorway with ease.

"I guess I'll go with the black. It's just a pity that Mystery's spell apparently insists on turning me into a kid. I mean, I'd be all for it; it's a great disguise. But not unless you do too. You're too recognisable, and goodness knows what people would think when you danced with me."

"No."

"You sure? You make a cute girl."

"Very, very, no."

Kellela pouted, although partially in jest. They'd spent some time that morning trying to get the message across to Mystery that they wanted her to change Kellela's outfit while leaving her age alone, without any success. That meant Hayedalf's (alleged) gender change was likely to be non-optional too, and Kellela didn't want to force him to act as a girl in front of an audience.

Meanwhile, Mystery was feeling a little bad. She'd understood Kellela's request, but was unable to fulfil it.

"I mean, a magical girl is a girl. It's right there in the name. They aren't called magical women. An old magical girl would be weird. Abusing her magical girl privileges just because a dress is the wrong colour for her is far worse than the time she experimented on herself. But... I do respect her attempt to keep her colour theme going. That's proper magical girl behaviour. Isn't there anything I can do?"

Mystery circled the room, pondering the problem, but the simple fact was that she had incredibly limited options.

"There must be something, given that I can make new magic spells. Or spell, singular. I wish I knew how it happened, and how to recreate it. There must be limits of some sort; if magic was that flexible, they'd have just magicked the dress pink. I've seen Mum do magic since, and there doesn't seem to be any pattern. Sometimes she says some magic words, sometimes she doesn't. The words obviously have a massive variety, given that the words for two spells are far more different than two people speaking. Maybe saying the words aloud makes the spells easier, somehow; the only time she's ever used the magic words for [Light] was when she was teaching it to me, while for spells that are brightest to my [Sense Mana], she always chants."

ding

By following a series of logical steps and reaching a correct conclusion, you have unlocked the [Investigation] skill.

Mystery froze in her orbit of the guest room.

Investigation (Common)

It's often the case that someone has all the information required to solve a problem, but is unable to piece that information together to draw the correct conclusions. A must have for any profession where logical reasoning is required, this skill improves your ability to bring up relevant memories and make relational links between them. Levelling increases the effect.

"It's nice to have such literal confirmation that I'm thinking along the right lines. But I don't know any magic words for [Magical Girl Transformation]... Unless... Since I made the spell, did I also make the words? For friendship and justice, demon slaying magical girl Lotus Pink, transform! It's true I always think that line whenever I transform Mum. How could I not? And they're in English. No wonder Mum speaks with such a variety; it's a different language each time! But in that case, I've made four spells, not just one. Or five, including side-villain-A. The words must be tweakable to fit the situation. In that case, 'dress become pink!'"

Mystery watched for a while, but of course, nothing happened. The process for creating a spell required the mage to have meditated on a subject for significant time, and Mystery had not heretofore devoted significant amounts of brainpower to colour-changing dresses.

"Okay, what else am I missing," thought Mystery, determined to solve her namesake. "Why does that not work, but [Magical Girl Transformation] does? Oh... Is it really that obvious?"

Mystery thought back to her efforts earlier, when an adult magical girl turned out to be impossible.

"[Magical Girl Transformation] doesn't do what I want it to. It does what I believe it to. If I try to get it to do something that conflicts with what I believe a magical girl should be, like creating adult magical girls, it fails. I have no strong beliefs about colour changing dresses, so the magic doesn't work."

ding

You have made an impressive logical deduction. [Investigation] advances to level 2.

"It didn't explicitly tell me I was correct that time, but it's still a good sign I'm on the right lines. In that case, what is it that I believe?"

Mystery conducted some introspection, wondering what sort of strong beliefs she had available to draw upon.

"I... really don't have anything other than magical girls, do I? I watched other genres of anime sometimes, but I don't see how that helps. And I went to conventions whenever I could, normally cosplaying as a magical girl. Oh... Maybe that would work. After all, an adult can't be a magical girl, but they can certainly cosplay as one. And I used to be a pretty good cosplayer."

Mystery flipped through her memories of sewing costumes for conventions, wearing them, and doing her makeup. The immense attention to detail that was required to be considered a 'serious' cosplayer. There was an acting component, too, but that wouldn't be relevant in this case. After all, Kellela would be cosplaying as Lotus Pink cosplaying as Kellela. It was pink all the way down.

Mystery took a deep, metaphorical breath.

And then stopped.

"This probably isn't going to work, but just in case it does, I'd better come up with some good magic words. I don't want to be stuck with something lame forever. I lucked out with [Magical Girl Transformation], but I really should think it through this time."

Mystery continued to ponder as she watched a maid working on Kellela's hair, massaging in some lotion that gave it a brilliant shine, then braiding it.

"Shame they don't have lotuses for decoration," she thought as Kellela stood up, twirling once more in front of the mirror.

"Okay. Let's get this farce over with," Kellela said, turning towards the door and wearing an expression very similar to the one she'd had while facing down Zyfyl'p.

"Eep. I'm out of time! Okay... Here goes... Dress as my character. Think like my character. Act like my character. Become my character."

ding

μ̵̼͉̐υ̴̡̽̿σ̷̭͓̃̀τ̸͉̤̾̆ή̶͎̱͌ρ̸̤͕̏̿ι̷̬̾͜ό̸͈ (Human)

Age: -8 months

Occupation: Hero (L)

Skills:

- Soul's Eye (U) (32/90)

>> Sense Vitality (U)

>> Sense Soul (R)

>> Sense Mana (U)

>> Sense Light (C)

>> Sense Sound (C)

>> Pierce Illusions (U)

>> Sense Miasma (R)

>> Multi-focal (R)

- Astral Projection (U) (20/60)

>> Sure Navigation (U)

>> Uncontainable (U)

>> Tether of Will (L)

- Robust (C) (18/40)

>> Hardened Soul (R)

>> Secured Mana (U)

>> Pain Tolerance (C)

- Stealth (C) (3/20)

>> Camouflage Vitality (R)

- Magical Girl Transformation (R) (19/30)

>> Age Correction (R)

>> Gender Bending (R)

- Light (C) (9/20)

>> Heterochrome (U)

- Increased Attributes (C) (8/20)

>> Mana Storage (U)

- Investigation (C) (2/10)

- Cosplay (U) (1/10)

Achievements:

- Early Bloomer II (R)

- First Skill (C)

- Journeyman (U)

- Survivor of Zarklaxxos, the Arcane Infernal (R)

- I Broke The System, And All I Got Was This Lousy Achievement (E)

- Astral Explorer I (R)

- First Spell (C)

- I Broke The System Again, And Now The Administrators Hate Me (E)

- Spell Forger (R)

- Demon Slayer II (E)

- Monster Slayer V (E)

- Curiosity (U)

- War Veteran (U)

- Royal Audience (C)