"Ah!"
Jolted awake by the burning pain on her stomach, Tia bent on the spot, her cry of pain much more sensual, almost wet, than it should have been.
Her body strung up, her chest pushing up as she tensed all over, battling the fiery sting.
But that pain wasn't the worst part. It was the loss of her concentration that stung the most!
"No…" Tia whimpered softly, her eyes widening with tears forming in their corners.
To have her mind return to the ordinary felt like the worst possible crash-out a human could have.
And yet, despite refusing to move her body while her mind desperately clawed at the memory of what happened in the faint hopes of restoring that feeling…
It was now nowhere to be found. Gone like a fart in the wind.
"Huff, huff, huffff…"
Bit by bit, Tia's body lost its stillness, not yet relaxed but now nowhere near as tense as it was before. Yet, as her slow, steady breaths guided her along the way of accepting the new reality, Tia's mind finally switched back to the real world around her.
A world where she was on her knees, her chest hardly covered by the flimsy piece of cloth Theo prepared for her before, her weight resting back against his chest. And as she looked down?
The tips of Tia's ears turned red before she scrambled to fix the cloth over her breasts, pulling it over her bosom so that it actually hid her curves rather than merely pretending to do so.
There was no cry of surprise, moan of shame, or outburst of fury caused by a wounded pride.
Instead, what followed was a gasp as Tia realized the stupidity in her actions.
"Back in the world of the living, I see," Theo spoke, finally freed from the toil of modulating his voice to guide the young woman along the process.
With her back still rested against his chest, he could also feel that the girl had now regained proper control over her body. This, in turn, allowed Theo to first lean back and then roll from his knees to his feet and stand up, hurriedly taking a step away and turning around.
Sensing the change behind her, Tia hurriedly brought the cloth of her actual robe up, quickly hiding away her stomach and then her chest. The urgency in her arms indicated she wanted to drape her actual outfit as tightly as possible, not leaving a single inch of her skin bare…
Only to stop midway, before she could even cover up her bosom while her face froze in panicked realization.
"Done dressing up?"
Hearing the rustling of the girl's clothes stop, Theo asked.
As fun as it was to watch someone talented like Tia properly learn the taste of her own mana for the very first time… he wasn't the kind of man who would put simple pleasures like that over his schedule.
The hour that the two of them took to complete the process was already more than he was willing to give up in exchange for all the perks of bringing Tia—and all of her household's might with her—over to his side.
'The caravan should be leaving about now,' stepping even further away from the girl, Theo approached the window before pushing its wooden shutters slightly open and taking a peek outside.
"Ah, just one more moment!"
Behind him, Tia corrected whatever realization she thought she had, quickly draping her robes up and finally covering her chest and properly fixing her robe on her shoulders.
"Okay, Master, I'm done," Tia then cheerfully reported, quickly moving over to Theo's side while, with a hint of suspicion in her eyes, pushing her chest out, as if to test his reaction and thus verify her theory. "What now?"
Theo merely glanced back at her before moving away from the window.
"Now, you will hold yourself back from using it for as long as you can, while focusing every last bit of your attention on trying to recall the feeling I woke you up from."
Before Theo even finished his response, he already started to grab his things now scattered by the earlier storm of mana all over the room.
"Oh, and make sure to clean this room before you leave," he added, already turning towards the doors himself.
"Huh?"
At first, Tia merely stood in place, her deeply blue eyes opened wide in surprise as she tracked Theo's movement. Then?
"Master, wait! Please! Why?" she spoke her words in quick succession, ones that crashed with the image of a refined young lady she represented otherwise.
"Why, what?" Theo stopped and looked over his shoulder, pretending not to realize the girl likely had a thousand questions she wanted to ask.
But that wasn't part of the deal. Nor was it in his interest to share the answers with her, not now at the very least. And definitely not to all of them.
"Why… why did you force me out of that state? Why are you leaving? Why does it feel like you are going to leave without…" Finally, Tia bit her tongue as she realized just how the last of her questions would sound.
And then, to Theo's surprise, she gritted her teeth and raised her chin a bit… while puffing out her chest again in a desperate bid to root him in place for just a little longer, even if it took such a bold measure.
"Why does it feel like you are going to leave without me?!" she cried out, her hands turning into fists and her face dropping down.
"I've snapped you out of it, to make sure that feeling wouldn't just fade away," Theo sighed as he gave the answer. "By breaking it abruptly, the impression it leaves will last much longer, making it a lot easier for you to recall it and thus practice."
Theo shrugged his shoulders.
"I'm leaving because I'm in a hurry to attend to matters that can suffer no delay. As for you…"
For a moment, Theo stared at Tia's face before taking a quick glance at her puffed-out chest.
'What are you trying to flex, after I could stare at them in their bare form as much as I wanted?' he thought, rolling his eyes before bringing them back up to the woman's face.
"If you really want to, you know where you can find me," he said, turning away and pulling the doors open.
"As for why you shouldn't use magic yet…"
Theo's shoulders jumped a little as he chuckled to himself.
"You can either do as you wish or trust in my advice. Either way," Theo shook his head before passing through the doors and then closing them after himself, only to add one last part before he fully shut them.
"It's entirely up to you what you will do with this new power of yours."