§ Serera set up a [Realm of Silence]. But once I was about to speak, the King caught me by surprise with his first words, spoken with a gentle smile. “If this has to do with your past life memories, Sasara told me enough, and insists that I not press you for any details. It’s enough for me to know …

§ Uncle Owen entertained a pair of beauties for lunch with his customary dignified-but-suave manner. He only switched from handsome host mode into parental mode as we finished our meal, when he shook his head while considering me thoughtfully. “You’ve really grown, Tiana. You’ve matured so much that it’s hard to remember you’re my youngest child rather than my eldest.” …

§ Army wheels may move no faster than the horses pulling them, but the wheels of military bureaucracy turn even slower. It was the following day, nearing lunch, before I finally had the precious orders I needed in order to leave the RAL base. Yes, I could have flashed my badge left and right and bullied my way through as …

§ When I departed Cara Ita, I left trouble in the form of an asura in the hands of a young fairy knight who might have been even less qualified than I believed at the time. Poor Aenëe turned out to be merely a half-fairy who had somehow received enough of Oberon’s favor to get permission to call herself a …

§ I slowed my craft as I approached the Fairy King’s Castle and turned to enter a circular path around it. Naturally, I had already attracted an additional patrol, but I left it to Tamerà to sort matters out with them. Instead, I called up my memory of Oberon’s spiritual aura and sent a message to his mind. Your Majesty, …

§ It was my good fortune that Orestanian engineers prefer brass for handles, fittings and controls on machinery. If, for some reason, I wasn’t wearing my fairy mail gauntlets when an emergency came up, I could still grab the controls. This was a passing thought I had as I coaxed Reia into the air above the great paved combat ground …

§ 1-29-2022 Greetings, Readers. This is again your author, Eric Fretheim, online as Fushigi on this site and Discord, and as /u/ericthefred on reddit. With the preceding chapter, Volume Seven is complete. This afterword is being inserted after the fact (after completing Volume Eight!) so it will be short. Why didn’t I close volume seven properly back at the time …

. Goals and progress are important, but so is downtime. My plan for the afternoon for those three had been to let them decompress. Since we had held our fight in the time compression of the simulation system, and had used up essentially none of the afternoon, that plan was still on. Ryuu and Chiara returned to the pavilion by …

. True to his nature, Mr. Kowa did not hesitate. He charged while pulling his blade back to prepare for a strike. Meeting that enormous blade with a pair of cutlasses would normally be an act of suicide, and I wasn’t feeling particularly suicidal. Pouring additional Earth into my blades, I directed my friends to support my arms rather than …

. I kicked the ground in order to meet him with a parry while moving forward. The trick to fighting an opponent with great weight is physics. Momentum equals mass times velocity.  Force A times distance A equals force B times distance B. Power equals energy divided by time. In other words, you can match greater mass with greater speed. …