I Woke Up as the Villainess's Friend. I Don’t Want to Be the Next Dark Queen

I notice the goblins have already gotten to work cleaning up the cave. They're dragging some of the ants—the more intact ones—outside. I'd bet they're taking them to Ronan's bone pile. As for the others, they're stripping off the exoskeletons. I can totally see them roasting and eating what remains.

I emerge of my meditative rest two hours later. I wasn't able to do it earlier, like I'd planned. It's challenging. When I'm in that zone, I'm deeply relaxed, with slower brain waves, as they say back on Earth. Honestly, without anyone guiding me through meditation, it's really easy to lose track of time. I get this faint awareness each time I recover mana (and health, if I were injured), a moment where I could choose to open my eyes. But I'm so absorbed, I've forgotten so much about who I am while meditating, that it's hard to remember I want to leave that state.

Well, no big deal. I'll keep perfecting it.

Meanwhile, the pup has gotten out of my backpack at some point and is eating what does indeed look like roasted ant, given to him by a female goblin who's been charmed by how adorable he is.

Could I have asked the seed to alert me when an hour and twenty minutes are up? Maybe every time twenty minutes pass and I recover mana, there's some signal in the physical world that would indicate it to an attentive observer.

Hmm... I don't know. I'll ask Ronan about it. Or Vincent.

Now that I have 11 mana points, I'm at full mana. Maybe I emerged from meditation at exactly two hours because that's what's needed to refill my mana pool if it was previously at zero. In any case, I can now use my new spell: stone control.

As for how I obtained it, considering the curious way this world's magic system works, it seems interesting to me.

At first, I started with earth control and, after studying and practicing that basic spell, I was able to learn stone bullets—which I barely use—and earth wall.

The latter requires intermediate-level control to obtain. It lets you be more efficient at raising walls, though it also costs more mana, but it's much faster. And it also lets you make modifications like those arrow slits I create to shoot through.

The one I just learned, stone control, clearly states in its description that it's an evolution. However, like what happened with fireball, they gave it to me as a separate spell.

In this world's magic system, to learn advanced spells you always start from the basic ones. They're like spell branches that must stem from a foundational spell. However, not all basics are the same. There are some that are granted to you with specialization. These are on another level and you can't learn them beforehand. I chose meditation. Everyone else doesn't have access to the system, so it gives them what it considers most appropriate based on their stats and other spells. How you behave, what you do, greatly influences what the system grants you.

Anyway, the issue is my earth control still can't sense and manipulate stone. I have a new spell that costs 2 MP instead of 1 and lets me control a much smaller volume. That's a drawback I hadn't anticipated. But at least I'm not starting with the little more than a handful that earth control allowed me at minor level.

And I have to remember that these volumes are base amounts. They have to increase both due to my intelligence and as the spell levels up. The earth element professor showed us a table in class. It was similar to the damage one. Since I didn't have much intelligence back then, just 5, and my control spell was at intermediate level, I noticed it was just the basics, what the spell description said, that I could control.

I didn't think much more about it. Besides, why would I? When I connect with the earth, I know exactly the volume I can manipulate. Not in cubic meters, not an exact number, but I feel it, I perceive it with a sense that isn't sight. I simply connect and I know.

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In fact, with earth control, as soon as I went up to intelligence 6, I noticed how that volume increased.

So these 5 m³ that the stone control spell description mentions, I know that amount is actually more thanks to my intelligence 8.

I approach the mouth of the sealed tunnel and concentrate. I can sense the first section, which I estimate is about four cubic meters and is plugged with rock. That plug isn't uniform. It has gaps, voids to my senses, where I assume the dead creatures are.

The thought crosses my mind: what if the ants can hold their breath for several hours? I doubt it, but just in case, I send rock spikes into those gaps.

Sorry, Ronan, I'm messing up your corpses a little bit.

Since from this distance I can sense another section of mountain hollowed out by the tunnel—I couldn't say exactly, maybe another couple of meters? A bit more?—I fill a large part of that corridor section with stone spikes. I take my time shaping them in my mind, then making them grow all at once. Next, at the farthest limit I have access to, I make the stone move, flow to form a wall that plugs the tunnel. Finally, I release the remaining passage, both the initial plug and the spikes, returning the rock to the mountain, compacting it where needed so it fits properly.

I hadn't imagined that rock could be so moldable. I mean, I know it wouldn't be if not for the magic.

I manage to accomplish it all without problems since this spell, like earth control, doesn't have an assigned duration like channeling does. You have to prepare by thinking about what you want to do, feeling the rock and visualizing it in your mind, and it gives you the time you need.

I open my eyes and see about four meters of tunnel where corpses lie scattered. In the two closest meters, also from our creatures. In the farthest ones, only ants. Armed goblins enter to make sure they're all dead. From what I can see, there are some in the far back area they have to finish off. I'd send the pup, but their chitin armor is very hard to pierce. I don't think he could get through with his teeth, and besides, if they bite him they'll hurt him badly. I don't think it's worth the risk.

I have 9 mana points left. I repeat the process three more times. I'm down to 3.

The moment we reach a branch that splits, I leave unblocked the one that doesn't lead to the crack cave, but to other interior caverns, like the ones they assigned for the small bears. Along with the goblins and the undead still standing, I advance sword in hand.

We confirm that some ants have gotten into that area, not many. It seems like they explored them, saw they were empty, without goblin "food," and focused on conquering the enormous cave, the main one. I don't activate any channeling to avoid wasting mana. Instead, I let my soldiers exterminate them.

Because technically that's what they are, right? Both the goblins and Ronan's minions. If they're vassals who fight, then they're my soldiers.

We repeat the process with the tunnel that now only connects to the crack cave. When we're at the entrance to it, I stop for 40 minutes to meditate, to recover 4 mana points. Yes, I manage to focus this time and stay for exactly those forty minutes, no more. After that, we continue. I fill the cave with spikes, seal the crack, and remove the rock from the entrance. I have to do it in two batches since, even though it's a small cavern, the volume of stone I can control is even smaller.

And that's it. More dead ants. I approach the wall where there's no trace of the crack anymore. Or of the rock collapse that was blocking it. I'd like to cast stone channeling again, so I meditate for 20 minutes. After that, I cast the spell and perceive the tunnel that led to the crack as a void in the rock, a hollow where I don't sense anything. Perfect. I manipulate the rock, make it less compact, move it to fill that hollow within the volume the spell allows me. I leave some gaps in the rock, inaccessible areas, above where the tunnel used to be. If the ants want to reopen it, they're going to have their work cut out for them.

I open my eyes and turn around.

"Done," I tell my soldiers.

And since I have a mana point left over, I approach one of them, one who's injured, and heal him.

My spell still hasn't leveled up, but I'm practicing it every day, injuring myself if I don't have a volunteer like this goblin wounded in combat. I need to level it up.

And now, time to sleep. It's late.

I'd like to talk to Ronan to tell him about the success of the cleanup operation, but since the girls' delivery was at one in the morning, I'm not going to risk it since it could be a fatal distraction for him.

I don't have a watch, like the ones on various walls at the academy, but I calculate it must be one o'clock or maybe almost two.

Time to sleep.

I walk in front of my soldiers back to the main cave, the gigantic one where papa bear used to live, and once there, I ask the goblins for some pelts to lie down on.

The moment I close my eyes, I'm out cold. Makes sense since I've exhausted my mana several times. Though I've noticed that when meditating, that tiredness goes away.

Still, why is it that the necromancer can't seem to return the same courtesy I've been so graciously showing him?