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Pillows182 says: poggers!
Dalewarrior says: if the nice lady dies because someone decided to meme we are going to have problems
Xxcoder says: fireball them
Jake Mania says: Mom! Please!
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.Her Jake was replying, telling her to fight. Anne took a deep breath and unsealed the two Fireball cards she had. “Okay,” she said. “How do I use these?”“Like I said, just cast one while pushing you hand in the direction you want to fire them in,” Elain’e said. She was entirely calm as the moblins started to race up the hill and a flung rock sailed overhead.Anne’s hands shook a little, but she had been brave before, and she could be brave again. She stook, a card held tight in her hand. Pulling her arm back, she flung it forwards, as if throwing a ball, then cast the spell.The fireball appeared just ahead of her hand, an uncomfortable warmth washing over then rushing away too quickly to burn. The spell screamed through the air and smashed into a tree behind the moblins.“Not too bad,” Elain’e said. “Try aiming a little bit ahead this time. Fireballs need time to travel. It’s mostly a question of practice.”Anne sniffed, grabbed the next card, then flung it the same way. This time, it crashed into the ground ahead of the moblins, kicking up dirt and pebbles.“I’m out,” Anne said.“Oh, that’s not a problem.” Elain’e said. She gestured and a small stack appeared in her hands.The girl split the stack and gave five to Anne. “Thank you,” Anne said. She quickly turned back to the moblins rushing up the hill and fired off another Fireball.Her third time was the charm, and at long last, it passed close enough to one of the screaming little creatures that the fire lit up their fur and they started to panic. That panic lead to them tripping, and rolling back down the steep incline, aflame the whole while.“Oh, oh no,” Anne said, tears in her eyes. But she had to continue. Jake was watching, and she couldn’t allow him to see his mother dying.She flung the next Fireball, then the next. Soon she was panting, she was out of cards, and there were two more dead moblins as well as a few patches on some trees that were blackened.“Not bad,” Elain’e said.Anne swallowed. “I’m out of cards,” she said.“No worries, I’m sure... huh?”Anne blinked as a card appeared before her out of thin air, then started to fall down. Elain’e swiped it out of the air with cat-like reflexes. “What is it?’ Anne asked.“It’s... a book? The System’s Guide to Magic for Dummies. Low cost, low rarity. Where did this come from?”“I don’t know,” Anne said. She stared as a second card appeared out of the air, and this time she was fast enough to catch it on her own.She stared.The image on the cart was of an orchard, with a nice cart sitting next to a tree, filled with red and orange mangos. The card was called Cart of Mangos.“What?” Anne muttered.“Well, that’s strange,” Elain’e said. She flicked her hand and another card appeared for just a moment before she cast the spell on it. With a crack, a dozen cutting electrical bolts jerked through the air and smashed into the remaining moblins. Elain’e wasn’t even watching. “What’s that card?”“It’s Cart of Mangos,” Anne said.“... what?”
Twinge Chat!
Taverius says: :0
Gabriel minoru says: Fireball Elain’e!
DeviousFerret says: Did you see the item shop?
CombatWombat says: Just got here, what’s going on?
He who travels the stories says: Someone’s mom got isekai’d. It’s an ARC
Alpharue says: I simp for Jake’s mom. I’mma buy some mangos!
Corvidsword says: oh, finally, a sensible purchase!
Valheru says: Pog!
“Oh,” Anne said. She had to scroll up to find the first mention of mangos. The rest was a lot of mocking her for her aim, or saying that the CGI wasn’t very good.“Oh?” Elain’e repeated. She wasn’t looking at Anne though, she was looking at the card in Anne’s hand while licking her lips. The very image of a young girl staring at a bowlful of candy.“Some nice boy on my chat, ah, bought the mangos for me.”Elain’e looked up. “Wait, what?”“I think that’s how it works?” Anne said. “I don’t know.”“But... why?”“Well, this is the internet, I’m sure they have a very good reason for it.”
* * *
The audience has: 159 Points!
Chapter Four
Chapter Four “Are you... well?” Elain’e asked.Anne glanced around, at the destroyed camp, and at the few bodies she could see laying in the dirt and grime. It took her a long moment to build up the courage to speak. “I think I’m alright,” she said.“I’m sorry,” Elain’e said. She was looking at Anne, her thumb idly running up and down the surface of the card in her hand. “I shouldn’t have pushed you quite that hard quite so soon. I... didn’t consider the kind of person that might come from the summoning.”Part of Anne wanted to be angry. This much violence, it was wrong. But a glance at Elain’e, and at the remorse in her eyes barely concealed by the pouty glare she wore, and Anne decided to forgive the girl. “Should we go, ah, somewhere else? Do you live near here?”“I have a carriage,” Elain’e said. “It can lead us to Castle M’ango.”“You have a castle?” Anne asked.“The clan does. Though really, it’s just my grand-patriarch and myself that live there on most days. There’s staff too, of course.”“Does anyone... take care of you?” Anne asked.Elain’e frowned. “I don’t need that kind of help,” she said.Anne nodded. She could vividly remember Jake’s own teenage years when he said something much the same to her. Of course, he also expected her to still make him breakfast and dinner at the time.Elain’e started walking with sure steps away from the corpses she had made. “Your power seems to be interesting,” she said while waving the book card around. “This has potential. A lot of potential, even.”“That’s nice,” Anne said. It really was. She didn’t know why she was here exactly. It felt surreal. One moment she was at home, checking in on Jake while the roast— “Oh no!”Elain’e flinched. “What is it?” she asked.“The roast!”“The what?”Anne clasped her hands over her mouth and then stared at the chat. Jake’s name hadn’t come up in a while. “Jake! Jake, sweetie, are you there?”
Twinge Chat!
CallMeCat says: Go momtagonist!
SirSheepish says: I’m a little sad she had to kill some goblins...
Gabriel Minoru says: The shop doesn’t make sense. It’s just a text bar and then it gives you a price?
Gknight says: Shop doesn’t work?
Maxibon says: lmao
Alpharue says: pog!
Jake Mania says: Yeah mom, I’m here
GanguroGal says: Say “Ara ara!”
“Okay, Jake, listen to me. The roast is in the oven. There’s a timer, the little red one. When it rings, you need to open the oven and pour the marinade on the meat, and a bit on the carrots and potatoes too, then you put it back in for another half hour. Okay?”“Who are you talking to?” Elain’e asked.“I... look, when I came here, I left some food in the oven. And my son, he’s one of the people in this little chat box things. I’ve seen him watching shows and things before. He gets distracted easily. I just want him to make sure the roast doesn’t burn.”“If you say so,” Elain’e said. “Do you think you can ask for more things? More specific things, perhaps?” She wiggled the card around.“I don’t know, sweetie, I don’t want to rely on charity, especially if those people are spending their own money on these things.”Elain’e shrugged. “It could be useful. So far we have a book in a card that I haven’t unsealed yet, and a cart of mangoes.” She licked her lips again. “Which are a delicacy. And quite valuable.”“Oh, I know. They’re so hard to buy though. I can never tell when they’re ripe or not.”Anne chatted about groceries, a subject she really could go on about for hours. Elain’e interjected at times, but Anne figured she was too young to be doing that kind of shopping all on her own, and Anne knew that she was really just talking to work off some of the nervous energy rolling around in the pit of her stomach.They were a good ways into the forest when a card appeared right in front of Anne. She caught it, then stared at it while still walking. “This is strange,” she said. The card was a flat grey, with flecks of decorative rust on its edges. Its image depicted a scarred and crater-covered mountain. The text read ‘A Damaged Mountain.’ Its seal cost was in the millions, the numbers barely fitting on the card, but the cast cost was low.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.“May I see that?” Elain’e asked.Anne passed the card over, then gasped as the girl nearly tripped over nothing.“An entire mountain?!” Elain’e said. She held the card close to her face. “This is insane!”“Um,” Anne said.“You don’t understand, sorry. This is a mountain.”“Yes,” Anne said. “The art on the card is very nice?”“No, Anne, this is a mountain.” Elain’e waved the card about. “A whole mountain. You can’t just have a whole mountain appear out of thin air! We’d die. Not Evilia would be crushed from here. The earthquake alone would kill thousands!”“Oh,” Anne said. “Can’t you just, tear the card apart?”“That would make the mountain appear too, but worse,” Elain’e said. “We need to find a way to get rid of this. All cards will eventually summon themselves. Magical ones and living things in cards will unseal the fastest, but we basically only have a few hours to work with here.”“What do we do?” Anne asked.“We pick up the pace,” Elain’e said. “We can... tie the card to a flying creature, send it out over the ocean, maybe.”“I feel like that’s also a bad idea,” Anne said. She didn’t know much about geography, but she wasn’t entirely ignorant of the possible impacts a mountain appearing over the ocean could have. “Oh, what do we do?”A card appeared before her, and she gasped as she picked it out of the air.‘Worn-Out Army of Jake Maia,’ read the card. There was an image below that, of an army in tatters, an army of teenaged boys that seemed very, very familiar, though she wasn’t used to seeing her son in thick padded armour and carrying shields and spears.“Can that help?” Elain’e asked.Anne shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said.It hurt her to say it, but Jake really wouldn’t know what to do here. He was a sweet boy, but not a very useful one.“Damnation of all the gods,” Elain’e swore.Another card appeared, the third in as many minutes. “Oh!” Anne said as she looked on the cover. “This one... might?”The image was of a young asian girl, in an outfit like in those shows her son watched, but her legs looked like sci-fi thrusters, and she was flying. ‘Non-Magical, Highly Mobile, Heavily Armed and Armored Killbot,’ was the name of the card. It barely fit at the top.“It costs more to cast than I can,” Anne said. Nearly a thousand points of mana to cast.Elain’e looked at it, stared in confusion at the image, then nodded. “I can cast it,” she said. “Give me just a moment, and pray that we don’t end this entire nation by burying it under stone.”Anne nodded, shifting from foot to foot while Elain’e summoned more and more cards. She cast a few, releasing that she had an entire desk sealed away, as well as some large, glowing stones and a few strange brass devices. She placed the robot card down, touched a few devices to it, then nodded to herself. “This should help with the casting,” she said. “It’s a bit beyond me without something to assist.”“That’s fine, you're doing your best,” Anne said.Elain’e cheeks turned the faintest shade of red for a moment under the praise. “Yes, well, death by crushing is an excellent motivator. Now one moment.”The girl closed her eyes, then glared. The card she was touching disappeared with a burst of smoke, and, from out of thin air, a young girl appeared. She was a head taller than Elain’e, and much older, maybe in her late teens. She might have been a young-looking twenty year old, even.“Greetings,” a purely robotic voice came from her lips. “I am Newtonian Electronic War Terminator. Please say ‘Newt on’ to activate me.’”Anne glanced at Elain’e, who shrugged back. “I have never seen anything quite like that before,” she said as she idly turned the things on her desk back into cards that disappeared without much fanfare.Anne, having nothing to lose, cleared her throat. “Newt on,” she said.The robot-girl opened her eyes. “Greetings, General. I am ready to serve.”“Oh, I’m hardly a general,” Anne said. “I don’t have any titles, nothing beyond mom.”“Correction, greetings, mom.”“Ah, well, yes,” Anne said. She shifted her weight, then raised the mountain card up. “Can you get rid of this?”The girl’s arms split open, revealing large canons hidden within. “Target acquired.”“No, no, I mean. Put it somewhere far away.”“The ocean,” Elain’e said.“I was thinking more... Can you get to space?” Anne asked.
* * *
The audience has: 116 Points!
Chapter Five
Chapter Five Anne watched as the little blip that was Newt disappeared into a cloud, far, far above.“That was a missed opportunity,” Elain’e said. “Though I suppose it might be for the best.”“Missed opportunity?” Anne repeated. She looked back down, then rubbed at the back of her neck to work out a kink there.“Dropping a mountain on an enemy of Not Evilia might have made the clan very popular.”“That could have killed... lots of people,” Anne said. In reality, she had a hard time wrapping her head around it all. A whole mountain in a card? Something so small that she could hold it pinched between two fingers?“You’re right, we hardly had time to think through all of the political ramifications of it. And besides, the nearest truly enemy nation is far to the west. The card might unseal before reaching them.”“Enemy?” Anne asked.“Ah, yes. I suppose I ought to give you the lay of the land. Even a hero needs to know who is their adversary and who isn’t.” Elain’e gestured ahead. “Come!”Anne picked up her skirts and jogged to catch up Elain’e, who seemed to be walking with as much speed as she could manage while still remaining somewhat dignified. That meant that she was flouncing more than she was walking, and Anne thought it was very cute, but she knew that telling that to someone could really ruin their mood, especially if they were trying to be taken seriously.At least, that was how Jake reacted to her telling him he was cute and hugging him in front of his little friends.“Ah, right here,” Elain’e said. Anne moved around a particularly large tree, then paused as she found herself standing next to a road. It wasn’t a nice asphalt road like back home, but a path made of stamped dirt, two tracks marking where carriages and carts had pressed down the earth countless times. “This way,” Elain’e said.Anne caught up with her, running made much easier now that she didn’t need to worry about bushes and such. “You said you had a, ah, carriage?” Anne asked.“Just around the bend here,” Elain’e said.“Is that where your guardians are?”“Guardians? No, I came on my own,” Elain’e said. She sniffed. “I’m hardly a child, despite my appearances.”“Of course not,” Anne said without meaning it.They rounded a slight bend in the road, and Anne slowed to a stop. There was a grassy area next to the road where a carriage was parked. It seemed, to Anne’s inexpert eye, like a very nice carriage. All black wood, glossy and clean, with silver gilding and a shield carefully painted on the doors. There were four horses ahead of the carriage.Those were what gave Anne pause.“Are those skeletons?” Anne asked.Elain’e half-turned, then followed Anne’s gaze to the horses. “They’re skeletal horses. Perhaps not as strong as a flesh and blood horse, and not nearly as keen, but they’re obedient and they don’t need nearly as much maintenance.” She walked over to the carriage door, then hopped up, trying to reach the handle.Anne walked over and opened the door for her. “Okay,” she said. She decided not to stare at the roughly horse-shaped piles of bone. Elain’e climbed in, and Anne pulled herself up and into the carriage a moment after.She sat down across from Elain’e while staring around the interior. She had expected a carriage like in those period dramas she enjoyed so much. Instead, the inside only had two small seats in the middle, and there were shelves built into the walls. A lamp hung from the ceiling, creaking as the carriage settled after they found their seats. “I keep a small library here,” Elain’e explained somewhat bashfully. “Just in case.”“That’s fine,” Anne said. “My little Jake liked reading a lot when he was younger. It’s a good habit to have.”“Yes, certainly,” Elain’e agreed while smoothing down her skirts. “Now... where were we. Ah yes, a mountain card was summoned from thin air with the ability to kill both of us. As well as a card with what I suspect is an advanced automaton and... may I see the other cards?”Anne still had the other cards in hand. She gave them to Elain’e in a hurry. “Here you go.”“And army of worn-out Jake Maias?” Elain’e asked.“That’s my Jake. My son, I mean. It’s him in the image too.”“Strange,” Elain’e asked. “And this... a book, I think. The System’s Guide to Magic for Dummies.” Elain’e twisted her wrist, and the card turned into a book. It was bright orange, and seemed to have been battered a little. Some pages were obviously dog-eared as well.Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.The girl leafed through the pages in a hurry, stopping to stare at some diagrams and images along the way. It looked to Anne like a mass-market paperback kind of book.“As I said, strange, and rather useless. This is an overly simplified guide to magic and how to use cards. A child ought to know everything in this.” She tilted her head at one particularly messy diagram. “Though perhaps it has some unique insights?”“Maybe it’s to help me?” Anne asked.“That’s possible,” Elain’e said. She set the book onto a little table next to her plush seat (with cushions so that she wasn’t sinking too deep into it and could still reach said table). She pulled out the last card, the cart of mangos. “This one is... likely precious. We should open it at the castle. But... I don’t see the link between all of these. The mountain, the automaton, the book.”Anne didn’t miss the way Elain’e clutched the Cart of Mangoes card. “Well, I think that there are people, ah, watching me, and they might be the ones buying these things, maybe?”Elain’e squinted at Anne. “That’s very bizarre. Usually heroes grow faster, or have access to unique magics. This... is very different from anything like that.”“I didn’t exactly ask for that,” Anne said.The girl nodded. “You’re right, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be measuring things based on my own expectations. It’s unreasonable.”“You’re very mature,” Anne praised.Elain’e lips pinched in a tiny pout even as her cheeks warmed from deathly pale to rather-ordinary pale. “Yes, well, I’ve had time to mature.” She leaned to the side, and tugged on a little cord. A bell tolled just outside the carriage. “To tell the horses to bring us back home. I suspect your automata will be able to find you, don’t worry.”“Um, alright,” Anne said. She sat back with her hands on her lap and waited while Elain’e stared at the book she’d bought and toyed with the Cart of Mangoes card.It was the first time Anne really had to think, and she wished she didn’t have the time for it.So, instead, she glanced at her chat.
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