"Lina! Can you please hang the clothes outside"
Hina's voice shouted from inside the living room.
"Okay..."
Lina replied, walking outside in the garden with the clothes in her hand.
Inside the bedroom of Hina and philip's, Free's hand glowed green, a faint smile on his face, the green glow faded, then appeared again, and it repeated a few more times, Free could now easily control the glow.
A week has passed since the orc subjugation and Free always practiced his healing magic whenever nobody was around.
'This is so much fun. using magic really felt incredible'
He thought to himself, grinning faintly.
He moved his hand up, then left and right, moving his hand now felt more easy and comfortable unlike few weeks ago.
'It has been very easy and comfortable to move my hands now, i really missed moving'
He thought.
Then His gaze turned to the window, outside was silence, the Root Tree stood alone on the garden, no hint of movement, not even a faint sound of birds chirping, Free had already stopped expecting them to come back.
He took a deep breath and chanted his healing spell, again. His hand started to glow green and Free's smile only widened the more he chant the spells.
Meanwhile downstairs...
"lady Hina! The mana is growing again.....This time at faster rate!!"
Lina screamed, her face had lost all colours both hands covering her mouth, her eye trembled as she was about to throw up.
"How many time has it grown since morning?!"
Hina yelled, worry and terror taking over, her hands trembled still believing that Free wasn't the cause.
"This is the thirteenth times since morning..."
Lina replied, throwing up a large amount behind the house.
"This pressure... It's as if gravity has become ten times stronger..."
Lina stated, wiping her mouth with the handkerchief.
" B-But who could possibly have that m-much mana? Mayb-"
Hina tried to brush it off but Lina's terrified voice interrupted.
"You know who release this much mana, lady Hina!"
Lina briefly said.
"you can not ignore this..."
Hina shook her head agressively in denial.
"B-But this can't be. A baby can't have this much-!".
"...mana..."
Lina completed, her hand gripping the table.
"I myself didn't believe at first.."
"But...But after i held young master, i'm sure...he was the one releasing all that monstroustoppe!
She added her gaze stopping at the window of Hina's room, where Free is sleeping.
"lady Hina, we have to do something..."
She said, walking inside the house, sitting on the chair trying to take a deep breath.
"But what can we do?..."
Hina asked, resting both hands on the table.
"We have to seal it...Before young master is branded as a...a 'Misfit'"
She stuttered, Hina shrieked hearing the word, 'Misfit'....
Anything but that.
"I'll prepare the seal"
Lina informed, walking upstairs.
"B-But...w-we can't do that. Free...Free's life, think about his future!"
Hina cried, refusing Lina's proposal.
"We have to. Young master's life will be even worst if we don't!"
Lina shouted grabbing both of Hina's shoulder, gripping them tightly, or as hard as her trembling body could.
Staring directly on Hina's eye, her breathing heavy but unwavering. Trying to calm herself down, when suddenly–
Woosh!.
The mana on the second floor trembled and surged like a big tide of ocean wave gulping them down in it's chaotic destruction.
"Ugh!"
Hina gasped, covering her mouth, her knees weak from the invisible wave, which grew two times from greater than earlier, and will keep on climbing higher and higher.
"lady Hina!! You need to understand! Young master's mana is growing ten to fifteen times a day!! You have to make a decision!!....."
Lina cried out, falling to the floor due to the immense pressure.
"Either we seal Young Master's mana now... or let him grow up branded as a Misfit."
"O-ok...ay l-let's do it then..." Hina muttered in a devastated voice, tired and trembling, she made her way out of the room.
"Okay then..."
Lina replied, walking as fast pace as she could to the second floor.
"The seal will be ready by an hour..."
Lina said, and entered inside her room, and slammed the door shut.
THUDD!!!.
"I'll g-go and buy some ingredients for lunch"
Hina said, taking her basket from the table and left.
Inside her room, Lina took a deep breath.
"Ahhh..... "
Then, opened her drawer, took a pen and a sheet of black paper, then scribbled some spells in it.
Meanwhile...
At the market, Hina bought some ingredients–
Freshly baked bread, meat slaughtered a few hours ago, few green vegetables and some other ingredient when she heard some villagers gossiping among themselves.
"....Don't you feel like the village-the village is drowning under w-water or something?..."
A woman laughed, trying to ease the tension, but fear visible on her face.
"I heard some people from the capital, that it was the same for them..."
Another whispered, her face pale.
"Hina?" Rael called out behind Hina.
"Ahhh!. E-elder it has been a while..."
Hina squeaked by the sudden call out.
"Yes it has, it's been a week"
She replied, her energetic aura was gone, her face carried a unusually serious expression.
"Hina can you feel the pressure too? "
Rael asked softly.
Hina's jaw clenched, the wind brushing past her, swaying her dark shiny hair against her face
"We-well i can feel a bit of it, it isn't a big problem"
She laughed softly, gripping the basket tightly until her knuckles turned white.
"...Your house is in the area of where the pressure is coming"
Rael said, her eyes on the basket, or precisely on Hina's hand. It was clear, Hina is lying.
"You are a former Mage class adventurer Hina, 'YOU' should be able to sense it easily, if ordinary people can sense it too"
Rael's serious tone made Hina flinched, what Rael stated was a painful truth she wanted to ignore.
Hina shook her head, denying the truth.
"i-it isn't like that! I have been busy so i don't have time to sense that pressure!"
Hina quickly finished her errands and quickly went home.
"Hina, you know where this mana is coming from don't you? "
Rael muttered the words nobody heard.
A nearby woman was pale and leaned in the group of the womens gossiping.
"m-maybe a dungeon is forming in the village. I heard that when mana is high in some places, there is a chance of a dungeon appearance"
She whispered.
The others womens already pale tried to brush the thought off their heads.
"Maybe we are just imagining too much?..."
Rael said joining their gossips, smiling softly.
"Ye-yeah w-we are just imagining things.."
everyone approved, nobody wanted to accept that there might be a dungeon forming inside the village.
Meanwhile–
Hina was walking home as fast as she could.
'The whole village is feeling the mana, just how much does Free even have?!?'
She thought, but then her steps slowed down, whileshe was at the market the presurre had grown three times or even more.
'Did it grew again!?!?'
Hina screamed internally, her pace quickened.
When she reached home, her eye widened noticing the plants had begun leaning toward the house, their root were growing out of the soil.
'E-even the plants are overgrowing because of the mana'
She thought and opened the door.
BOOM!!..
The moment the door opened, the mana inside the house exploded, so vast and dense she could literally see the space around her twisting, her knees trembled. Yet, she walk up the stairs, and head to the second floor and opened the room opposite to her's–
Lina's room.
She pushed the door open and closed it the moment she was inside. Inside the room windows were closed, the place dimly lit by a single candle, dark and cold, a single desk beside the closed window and a bed in the corner of the room, paper seals all over the walls, the floor, the door, the windows and ceiling.
Lina on her desk, scribbling the chants on top of the black paper. There was no prsssure inside her room, due top all the paper seals blocking the mana.
"Lina...i-is it complete?"
Hina asked, sitting on the bed gasping for air.
"Yes, it was....but....that one broke...."
Lina didn't look up from her desk..
Hina's eye widened
"What?"
she muttered processing what she was just informed.
Lina didn't look up, she scribbled word after word in the paper.
"When you were out buying ingredients, i put a compeleted seal, an advanced one at that but after i put it on young master, it crack and turned into ash"
"What?!"
Hina yelled, trying to comprehend the information.
"The advanced one crack!! Just how high is his mana!?!"
she shouted
"I don't know. His mana is so high, it is beyond my measure"
Lina replied, scribbling violently on the paper, after a few minutes she her hand slowly stops.
"Completed"
She informed, clipping the seal using a tiny clip with experienced precision.
"Now all that left is to place this seal on young master's back"
"I can do that...."
Hina said, standing up from the bed.
"Are you sure you can do it, Lady Hina?"
Lina asked, handing her the paper seal cilpped in the pin.
"Yes I can"
Hina answered, taking the seal with doubt.
After that–
Both walked to the door and Hina pulled it, but the moment it opened, the pressure surged inside, and again it was stronger than before.
"Why is this stronger than before!!? "
Hina questioned.
"Wait, lady Hina"
Lina stopped her.
Then she lit a stick in fire and blew it off, slowly smoke started to rise from the stick. Lina gently pushed the smoke with her hand, and it started to enter inside Hina's bedroom.
Inside the room Free's hand glowed brighter then faded, then again brighter and faded again.
'It glowed brighter?....I should do it more'
his focus shifted to his left hand and the green glow lit up brighter this time.
'Okay, it's working.....just a bit more'.
He thought, pouring more mana than before when suddenly–
YAWN~
Free yawned, rubbing his eye.
'Sleepy....'
His eye twitched, a few seconds passed and Free fell asleep, the glow on his hand faded.
2 minutes later...
Hina entered inside the room with Lina holding a paper seal bigger than the one she gave to Hina.
"Quick before this mana sucking paper got overload"
Lina whispered to Hina who responded with a firm nod.
"ye-yes..."
Hina replied, undressing Free's back.
"Are you sure this won't break like the one you told..."
She asked, her hands trembling, determine to put the seal, which her body refused to.
"Yes, it won't explode..."
she calmly replied.
"Lady Hina, please put it fast before the sleeping drug's effect wear off from young master..."
she said while the small smoke coming from the stick in was almost finished.
"Okay....Okay i can..."
Hina muttered to herself, while her trembling hand slowly placed the paper on his back.
A blinding light appeared from Free, the mana could be felt slowly fading away.
Hina and Lina both covered their eyes from the light.
A few minutes, and the blinding light slowly faded. The seal was perfectly fine, Lina fell to her knees in relief.
"We-we did it"
She said, while paper slowly sucked all the mana in the room and outside the pressure starts to fade away.
Meanwhile–
Hina fell to her knees, tears continuously coming out like water, then a painful cry echoed in the room, she cried out loud, not holding any of it in, her son was one of the only things she cherished.
But now she ruined his very future, she wanted to see.
Lina stayed silent, looking down at the floor, listening to painful cries of a mother, she could feel Hina's pain in her crying voice.
"Let's bury this mana sucking paper in the garden"
Lina spoke after a few minutes, folding the paper neatly into four folds.
"Okay..."
Hina replied.
Her hitched breathing still echoing, while her eyes were sore from crying.
They turned back and walked toward the door when a sound that made their very soul shivered.
Crack...
Both froze on their steps, quickly glanced behind them.
Crack!!!
The seal cracked.
"lady Hina....."
Lina muttered in terror, her voice barely a whisper as she stared at the saint-tier seal cracking from Free's raw mana.
The seal crack one more time, after that silence hung in the room. A tiny amount of mana started leaking from it but the seal remained, somehow withstanding the raw mana.
Exhaled in relief
"L-Lady Hina.....S-Should i prepare multiple seals"
Lina asked.
"P-please do..."
Hina agreed, her pale face staring at Free sleeping peacefully, yet the mana in him could make even armies stop their pace.
Lina's gaze remained on Free a bit longer before leaving the room, then left the room with Hina and later at the garden she buried the mana sucking paper deep beneath the soil.
"That mana can even make an ogre flee instinctively"
Lina muttered.
Staring at the ground she buried the paper, while her mind recalled the moment again and again, when a thought came to her mind.
'Can i make multiple seals before his raw mana becomes too chaotic? '
To be continued.....