“That you, Raph-chan?” I asked. It felt like my eyes met with those on the hood for a moment. Raph-chan had all sorts of tricks up her little sleeve! I had no idea she could pull off such fashionable garments. As for the tail—it felt a bit weird. It was like the air had hardened. It was a feeling of intensely concentrated magic.
“Try using some magic. You can target me,” I told her. Raphtalia agreed and concentrated again, starting to incant some Demon Dragon-style magic.
“This power is a marker for illusions! True magic that lays waste to all, illusions that confound our foes! The Heavenly Emperor orders you! Sink my enemies into an ocean of illusion! Demon Emperor: Illusory Layers!” Raphtalia’s magic activated fast, creating multiple black shapes wreathed in mist all around me. I sure hoped they were just illusions. I realized this was actually my first time being on the receiving end of Raphtalia’s illusion magic. I’d seen the past Heavenly Emperor fighting with that fox woman, and this felt similar to that, like things from inside my mind were appearing in the mist.
“Raph!” said a horde of Raph-chans, all around me.
“Mr. Naofumi? Are you okay?” There were two Raphtalias too. These were some potent illusions.
“I’m fine. These illusions are powerful, Raphtalia,” I told her.
“Sorry, Mr. Naofumi. I’m not over there,” Raphtalia replied. I was talking to the illusion Raphtalia. I wondered if these were like the illusions produced by Emptiness is Form, magic I incanted with Raph-chan. I hadn’t really given much thought to how I used it, but this could be quite dangerous. “It feels like I can create a large number of illusions with this magic,” Raphtalia reported. The mist cleared away and I saw Raphtalia again.
“That’s powerful illusory magic,” I told her again, this time to her face.
“Yes. Thanks to the power I’m receiving from Raph-chan and the others, I was able to activate some magic at the ritual class with almost no incantation time,” Raphtalia explained. That was impressive, even though this was all still practice. “I also understand something else after using that magic.” She pointed at the large tail behind her. “It seems this tail can absorb magic. If I flick away magic using it, I can turn some of that into my own magical power.”
“Sounds like Motoyasu’s Absorb,” I commented. The hero-exclusive magic Absorb from Motoyasu allowed his spear to absorb magic and turn it into his own magical power. The difficulty there was that moving around nullified the effect, but Raphtalia was moving about without any problems. The conversion rate looked lower than for Absorb, but when considered as a simplified version offering greater mobility, it could be quite a good means of protection.
“Yes, I think that’s close to it. It should have a range of applications. Still, just what do you think this coat and this magic tail are for?” Raphtalia wondered.
“Don’t ask me,” I replied. I hadn’t seen anything like them with the Demon Dragon, but they seemed to be a result of the cooperation of Raph-chan and the others.
“The Raph species were greatly influenced by you, Raphtalia. This is likely a reflection of their power. We should ask Holn and Rat,” I suggested.
“I’m not sure I want to know the answer,” Raphtalia replied.
“But these powers could be useful in our future battles,” I reminded her.
“True enough . . . ah, let me end that magic,” she said. The mist instantly faded, and then her coat and tail of light faded away.
“Raph!” said Raph-chan, returning back to her normal self on Raphtalia’s shoulder. The other members of the Raph species sounded lethargic. They slumped down on the ground around us.
“They look like Shildina after she possessed Glass,” I said.
“This might be a similar thing. It’s like I gathered the strength of the Raph species and forcibly summoned it into myself,” Raphtalia agreed. Although it was being achieved by proxy, this still looked like a decent boosted state for Raphtalia.
“It looks like borrowing their magic really drains the Raph species,” I commented.
“A powerful trump card to play at just the right moment. I’m quite impressed that we found something like this,” Raphtalia said.
“Me too. You definitely need to train harder at your magic. If this is what happens when you use the Raph species, next time Ren or I will lend you some magic and you can train with that,” I told her.
“Okay,” Raphtalia stammered. Then Ruft showed up. I thought he was still with Melty at the castle.
“Did I just hear Raphtalia asking to borrow some of my power?” Ruft said. I’d been expecting this. His connections to the Raph species meant he had heard what we said.
“That’s right. We were conducting an experiment with magic from another world,” Raphtalia explained.
“And the results were even better than expected,” I continued for her. “The Demon Dragon knows about magic. Crappy personality, awesome magic.” I explained to Ruft how Raphtalia had achieved her power-up. He nodded along as he listened for a while and then tilted his head.
“Just from hearing you describe it . . . it sounds like Astral Enchant,” he commented.
“Hey, yeah. You’re right,” I replied. Astral Enchant couldn’t be used without the blessing of the Heavenly Emperor and a sakura stone of destiny barrier, but it allowed for the temporary boost to a single person. We were heroes, so we couldn’t use it, but it was a Q’ten Lo technique that allowed all the levels and strength of allies to be focused on one person. The fact it involved using sakura lumina and the power of the sakura stone of destiny to gather the levels of allies and provide them to one person was very similar to what we were using here.
“Were we able to use this because we’re in the village?” I asked Raph-chan.
“Raph?” said Raph-chan, looking puzzled. That didn’t help.
“Maybe you should test it in other places too,” Ruft suggested.
“Good idea,” I replied.
“I understand that you’re keen to keep experimenting, but . . .” Raphtalia said, her voice trailing off.
“What’s the problem? I doubt anyone else could use it, but it seems like a pretty convenient power for you,” I told her.
“I’m having a hard time admitting that I need the Raph species,” Raphtalia finally said.
“You’re still hung up on that? You do have a stubborn streak, Raphtalia,” I told her.
“Mr. Naofumi, of all people, calling me stubborn . . .” Raphtalia lamented, her shoulders slumping.
“Let’s give it a try outside the village,” Ruft said, keeping things moving along. “Raph species, can we count on you guys?” They replied with general agreement. They seemed to have recovered quite a lot already as they responded favorably to Ruft. We headed out of the village to practice Raphtalia’s new power-up and magic. The results were promising—it seemed she could use it anywhere. The main issue was that she couldn’t do it without Raph-chan; none of the other Raph species seemed able to play that pivotal role.
“I like that big tail Raphtalia gets,” Ruft said.
“Me too,” I agreed. “She looks like she’s wearing a costume, but you can still see her face.”
“I’m not happy about any of this,” Raphtalia commented. Having the hood up or down didn’t seem to make a difference, so she was doggedly keeping it down. If she wore the hood pulled over her face, she could apparently use the Raph-chan eyes on it to target her magic or perform analysis. She could even see souls like that.
So it turned out to be magic exclusive to Raphtalia and Raph-chan, which the two of them could use anywhere so long as they were together.