Everyone is sitting at the table, and they're all staring at me, waiting. Our dinner— food that isn't leftovers from the store for once. — is untouched, like everyone is refusing to acknowledge it until I start telling them what happened.

  Where do I even start with this? Do I tell them that Ifira is dangerous for context? Do I just dive in and say that a noble girl forced me to be her friend and that she's going to potentially visit the store soon? What happens if I tell them that I don't want to be her friend?

  Putting some thought into the situation made me realize that the only path forward is to tell them about Ifira, and also that there really isn't anything I should be scared of, I'm just being irresponsible by thinking like this.

  I'm even willing to say that my family needs to know about Ifira.

  "There's a noble girl who forced me to be her friend." I start, getting confused looks. I can see why they'd react like this, seeing me stress out over something like that is probably weird.

  "... Well I mean, I don't think getting friends is a bad thing Rontress." Howaph starts, now awkward instead of angry, he looks at mom for support but she just looks away. "I... Know you haven't had a friend all this time... Except for maybe Bylor."

  Bylor, who is that? What? I don't have a friend named Bylor. The fuck?

  "Is he even her friend?" Laself asks. "He treats her like a daughter doesn't he?"

  "It's complicated." Dad says with a sigh. He shakes his head as if to dispel an unwelcome thought, "Rontress, friends aren't a bad thing and I know they can be scary at first but I think you need one! Isn't that right Atterson?"

  "Yes."

  Even mom? I just stared, shocked that the atmosphere somehow turned light hearted, like they don't know the kind of danger Ifira poses. And how could they actually? To them Ifira is just a little girl while I know her as the greatest villain this world has seen. Will see. That particular problem is still far into the future.

  They misunderstood everything and assumed that I'm stressed out because I've never had a friend before. And I think that this is for the best, I didn't expect this outcome but it's much better than them becoming hostile towards Ifira and accidentally pissing her off one day.

  "She's forcing me to be her friend though." Why did I even say this? Am I just looking for concern in places where there isn't? Where there shouldn't? They should never step into Ifira's radar, it's too dangerous.

  "Don't hate me for saying this, Rontress but... I think she just wants to be genuinely friends with you." Laself wasn't even looking at me as she explained her own interpretation of the whole thing. She's wrong by the way, Ifira sees me as a lab rat/play thing.

  "I agree with Laself as well, I wanna say that you're only thinking that she's forcing you because you don't want to be friends with her." My eyes went to mom, confused, isn't that the definition of being forced?! To do things you don't want to do? Or am I missing something?

  "Can't argue with that, I guess you're all right." I finally conceded. "Maybe I should treat her like a friend from now on."

  They all visibly nodded, happy that their words somehow got through to me. I rest my chin on my palm and look out the window, snow is gonna start layering tonight, the swamp is about to freeze up, and I will have to leave for it soon. How will Ifira react then?

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  No, maybe I should focus on helping out everyone in the pier for now. I have a big day tomorrow and making Igloos takes a lot of work so I need to sleep early. Stressing out so much is counterproductive right now.

  Once dinner finished, I wordlessly left, I locked the door of my room, lit up a candle, and then proceeded to study more spells. Buying this book from the guild had cost me over 200 gold and everything in it is a basic spell.

  Without my [Brutal Trapper] class, this book would be a bad investment— kind of, I mean, it will be with me forever so I can learn everything from it eventually. — because I wouldn't be able to overload the spells I place inside of these scrolls.

  Overload. Yes, I can do that. I can also make mana batteries using monster cores, kind of, it's just a trap for magical energy which is basically the same thing as a battery right? My main class really is one of the most broken things I could have gotten. From a developer's stand point, something like this would be completely unbalanced.

  And speaking of developers, I am refining how I write runes by integrating my own coding knowledge into it, recreating the existing code is fine and all but I feel like I could make it better. Arrogant of me, I know, but the Pricors might as well be the humans from my version of earth so I'm probably not that different from their standard civilian educationally speaking.

  Also, I can understand their code just fine, not all of it sure, but I'd like to see the Pricors to understand Java the first time they encounter it as well, let's see how well they do.

  Point is, with their knowledge combined with mine, I will be able to make a better version of the runic language, hell, I might even be able to write it in Arabic numerals and English! Assuming I figure out how the current runic language came to be at least.

  Honestly though, recreating Java is nothing more than a pipe dream, I know it's impossible and I shouldn't dream about making such a stupid breakthrough, especially since I have other things to worry about.

  Like making more scrolls, I plan to make around 6 different types, each one containing a single basic spell: [Fire Ball].

  My new scrolls will be mostly used for combat so using the most iconic spell as a component only feels right, even if it's considered weak around here. Actually, the people being blasphemous and slandering [Fire Ball] is something I never expected, I thought they'd love it as much as I would!

  The spell having a reputation for being weak aside, overloading the magic within the scroll can turn [Fire Ball] into a vastly different spell, so different in fact that it couldn't feasibly be considered "fire ball" anymore.

  Which I guess is the point? I wanna create portable artillery and this is the start of it all.

  Revolutionizing this branch of magic will take a while and even if I do, what kind of effects would it have on the wider world? Should I even reveal my research? The answer is... No, probably. I need to find a way to keep it from destroying the world first.

  Reluctantly, I decided to forget about making the scrolls and instead picked up the cylindrical piece of charcoal on the right side of my desk. I've been shaving this thing for a few days now and I think it's good enough to be turned into a container.

  Before I do that, I first need to transmute it. Ever since my transmutation turned intermediate, doing this is so much easier, the materials shift and morph to my will, allowing me to make a graphene-like material with the piece of charcoal in less than a few minutes.

  If the scientists back on earth saw what I was doing, they would be drooling. Hell, I'm feeling excited, and I only know graphene as this ultra powerful material and not... Whatever it is that scientists think of it. I'm sure those guys put materials like this on a pedestal.

  And if they don't? Then that doesn't change anything, I still managed to make graphene with just my hands, raw dogging it essentially.

  Hollowing out the cylinder and adding slots for monster cores is also easy, then just because I can, I added ridges and lines along the surface of the outside. This thing will serve as the handle of my dagger wand and I want to give it a good grip.

  Giving it a few more adjustments let me create an aesthetically pleasing handle despite not being that good of an artist, and then I finally modified it to be able to socket a blade. I'll also make it so that the blade is efficiently connected to the monster cores inside the handle.

  Maybe I can add beams that go between the slots? Or... Just manipulate the metal to be part of the slots themselves, that seems more efficient.

  "Having blueprints readily giving me ideas is very useful huh?" I place the cylinder on the table, my smile slightly wistful. Without my main class, I would be making so many mistakes right now.