[Time]: 09:45 AM
[Location]: The Ludwig Griffon Carriage · En Route to the Tulip Club
The moment she crossed the carriage threshold, the laws of space twisted subtly.
[High-Tier Spatial Folding Technology]
The carriage, which looked only a few square meters from the outside, was internally a luxurious lounge of a full fifty square meters. Thick wool carpets covered the floor, there was a circular leather sofa, and even an alchemy bar that was automatically mixing drinks.
"Sit tight."
Rhode threw herself into the sofa and snapped her fingers. "To the Tulip Club. Full speed."
ROAR—!!!
The two Griffons outside let out an earth-shaking roar.
Hathaway grabbed the handrail, but the expected push-back force never came. The [High-Tier Inertial Dampers] perfectly smoothed out all acceleration. The scenery outside the window turned into a blur of light, but the liquid in the wine glass didn't even ripple.
"Too stuffy."
Rhode seemed to find this smooth flight too boring. She suddenly pressed a red button on the armrest. "With weather this good, we should get some wind."
Click.
The armored plates on both sides of the carriage slid open slowly, revealing huge panoramic floor-to-ceiling windows. Then the windows rolled down. The perfect soundproofing barrier and windproof barrier vanished.
BOOM!!!
A gale of 400 km/h slammed inside. The quiet lounge turned into a wind tunnel laboratory in a split second.
Hathaway's long hair was blown into a Sadako mess, and the juice in her hand almost spilled.
"That's more like it!" Rhode laughed into the wild wind, her silver messy hair dancing madly. "This is what being alive feels like!"
Hathaway, currently being shotgun blasted by cannons, begged to differ.
She didn't know a single advanced airflow guidance technique, so she did the only thing available to her and dumped mana at the problem, wanting a "quiet place" in front of her face.
Vrrrm.
A mass of red mana, dense to the point of being nearly solid, plastered itself onto the air in front of Hathaway like a lump of carelessly thrown red cement.
The next second.
The wind that was violently pouring in stopped.
Frozen solid.
The whole carriage lurched, dragging hard against something, as if it had slammed into a mountain nobody could see.
"...What in the Abyss?"
The wine glass in Rhode's hand wobbled. All 72,000 M-Units of her went still.
"Hathaway," Rhode's mouth twitched. "What is this ugly operation? [High-Tier Aerokinesis - Solidification]? No, there's no spell structure at all. You used a whole 5,000 M-Units of mana to forcefully compress the air into a solid!"
Rhode looked heartbroken, as if she saw someone using a Picasso painting to wipe a table.
"That is just too... Nouveau Riche! Is this the playstyle of a 'monkey with an artifact'? Even a goblin who only knows how to throw fireballs knows to save mana, and you used an output of that magnitude to... block some wind?!"
Hathaway looked at the solidified air that resembled jelly in front of her and awkwardly released the mana. The wind poured in again, but much gentler this time.
"I... just didn't want my hair to get messy."
"If you're afraid of a mess, use a Styling Spell! That move just now could have blocked a siege cannon!"
Rhode lowered her sunglasses, her red eyes fixed on Hathaway over the rims.
"Hathaway," Rhode said slowly, her voice dropping a register. "You are eighteen this year. Technically, you just finished your First Growth Spurt."
Hathaway froze. The term acted like a search query in her messy, fragmented brain. A split second later, a cached memory from the original Hathaway, a textbook page from 'Basic Witch Physiology,' surfaced abruptly.
...Phase 1 (0-18): Awakening.
...Phase 2 (18-26): The Plateau.
The Plateau. The biological "Cool-down Period." According to the cached textbook data, mana growth stagnates at 18 to let the body stabilize. Most Witches don't see their second explosion, the "Golden Decade," until they turn 26.
I am 18. I am supposed to be in The Plateau. My mana pool should be a stagnant pond right now.
The math isn't the smoking gun. The physics is.
5,000 mana was pocket change to me. To the original, who had 8,200 total, that was sixty percent of everything she owned, and the best she could have bought with it was a soft wind shield.
I bought concrete.
Eighteen-year-olds do not do this.
Rhode moved. She leaned in.
With a rough motion, she ripped off her welding-grade sunglasses.
Flash.
It was like someone turned on a tactical flashlight in a pitch-black room. 150 Lumens of pure, biological red light blasted directly into Hathaway's retinas at point-blank range.
"Argh—!"
Hathaway squeezed her eyes shut, tears streaming down her face. The world turned into a washout of aggressive red pain.
My eyes! Is she trying to X-ray my brain with just her gaze?!
Before Hathaway could wipe her tearing eyes, Rhode’s hand, strong as a vice, grabbed Hathaway’s wrist, pulling her sleeve up. Then, Rhode’s other hand clamped onto Hathaway’s chin, forcing her face up, directly into the searing red glare.
"Open your eyes," Rhode commanded, her voice vibrating with mana.
Hathaway forced her eyelids open, tears blurring her vision. All she could see were two burning red suns scanning her with the rough, aggressive precision of a bouncer checking a fake ID.
Rhode checked the inside of the wrist. Clean.
She tilted Hathaway's head to the side, checking the back of the neck under the harsh light. No glowing tattoos.
She leaned in close, sniffing the air around Hathaway’s mouth.
"Breathe."
Hathaway exhaled. She was shaking.
"No sulfur (Demons). No charcoal (Devils). No rotting rose scent (Fae Court)."
Rhode muttered to herself, letting go of Hathaway's chin. She stared deep into Hathaway's watering eyes, looking for the inverted pentagram markings that were supposed to hide in the iris.
Nothing. Just deep, panicked crimson, and a lot of tears.
"Clean," Rhode concluded.
She finally put her sunglasses back on.
Click.
The red light vanished. Hathaway collapsed back onto the sofa, frantically rubbing her stinging eyes.
How should I react? Hathaway's mind raced. Should I scream? Should I cry? What would the original Hathaway do? I don't have her emotional memory! I don't know if she was a brat or a coward! Whatever. The pain is real, so let's just go with that.
"Um..." Hathaway sniffled, her vision still filled with red afterimages. "What... what was that about?"
"Are you crazy? You nearly blinded me!" Hathaway complained, her voice trembling naturally from the shock.
"Just a routine check," Rhode said lazily, picking up her drink as if she hadn't just visually assaulted her cousin. "Standard protocol for sudden power spikes. Had to make sure you weren't an Infiltrator."
"Infiltrator?" Hathaway rubbed her eyes. "Like... a spy? Here? Inside the Ludwig Carriage?"
Rhode looked at Hathaway's genuine confusion and scoffed. "You really didn't pay attention in History class, did you? Witches welcome visitors, but we hate Thieves."
Rhode took a sip of wine. "Shape-shifters, parasites, void-walkers... they love to sneak into wealthy families to steal resources. It happens."
"But..." Hathaway stammered, recalling the terrifying stories she read in storybooks. "Aren't they dangerous? Shouldn't we have alarms?"
"Dangerous?"
Rhode's grin turned sharp, revealing her shark-like teeth. "Hathaway, do you know why we don't seal the borders against spies?"
"Because... we are strong?" Hathaway tried.
"No. Because we are Greedy."
Rhode swirled her wine glass, her tone filled with colonial arrogance. "A spy is a two-way street. They use a Soul Cord to connect back to their masters. If I catch a spy, I don't just kill him. I hijack his Soul Cord. I trace the signal back to his home dimension."
"And then?"
Rhode slammed her glass down on the table.
"Then I send the Ludwig Fleet through his cord. We find their world. We enslave their gods. We strip-mine their resources."
Rhode laughed, a sound that made the air inside the carriage feel heavy. "A spy isn't a threat, little cousin. A spy is a Free Coordinate. It's a buffet delivering itself to our doorstep."
Hathaway set her glass down very carefully.
"But..." Rhode looked at Hathaway again, her expression shifting from bloodlust to pure mockery.
"If you were a trained Spy from a hostile dimension... You wouldn't be stupid enough to dump 5,000 mana just to keep your hair tidy."
Hathaway blinked. Oh.
"A spy's job is to blend in. They would mimic your original 8,200 limit perfectly to avoid detection," Rhode explained with brutal logic. "Only a genuine, homegrown, brain-damaged Ludwig would blatantly expose a massive anomaly like that for such a trivial reason."
Rhode patted Hathaway's shoulder hard.
"Congratulations, Hathaway. Your sheer stupidity has cleared you of all suspicion."
Hathaway forced a smile, wiping the last tear from the corner of her eye.
OOC behavior. Interpreted as Generic Stupidity.
"So," Rhode concluded, leaning back into the sofa. "Mutation? Early Second Puberty? A blessing from the chaotic void? Who cares. In the Ludwig family, we don't ask 'Why', we ask 'How much'."
Rhode grinned. "Power is Power."
Hathaway's shoulders dropped two centimeters. Safe.
"However..." Rhode closed the window, cutting off the noise, and her grin turned feral. "Since you skipped the Plateau and have so much blue bar to squander..."
Rhode's finger moved to a black switch on the console marked with a Skull Symbol.
"Then you probably don't need this boring 'Baby Anti-Shock Mode' anymore, right?"
Click.
Under the floor, something heavy disengaged with the sound of a safety catch coming off.
Hathaway's hand found the armrest. "Wait, Cousin Rhode, what are you..."
"Sit tight, little cousin! Since you're a 'High-Capacity' monster now, let's see if your new body can handle real G-force!"
Rhode roared to the Griffons outside via mental link: "Did you hear that? The lady in the back has money to burn! Afterburners!"
SCREECH—!!
Cyan magical flames ignited on the Griffons' wings.
The G-force arrived undiluted, pinning Hathaway to the sofa and making her feel like her internal organs had been flung to the back of her head.
The black carriage turned into a black bolt of lightning, brutally tearing apart the White City's skyline.
Destination: The Tulip Club.
And the woman who was about to smash Hathaway’s rose-tinted glasses into a million pieces.