With a simple notepad on hand detailing what she needed for a visit to the infirmary, Ashrosaliera jumped out of the balcony of the first floor and cast [Fire Flight].
A small explosion of fire magic burst underneath her feet, and the propelling external force went against gravitational pull, helping Ash to change velocity just before hitting the ground and sticking the landing safely.
Ash chuckled, thinking about how this was the sole reason she learned Fire Flight in the first place, when Dad showed her she could pull off cool skydiving tricks like these. When Ash saved up enough points and unlocked it, the first thing she did was to jump out of the second-floor window and escape from Dad's lecture.
'I think he was teaching something about the recorded percentages of two attribute users among races? Boringggg.' She thought.
Then she stood in the middle of the bustling entrance halls, between all the chatters and laughters of academy students, Ashrosaliera scratched her head, all confused, when looking at the list her dad had made.
"Something nutritional for Pusha… Something feminine for Roshia… And something educational for Zofia."
The list was made with the combined brain power of the Säpphroaleryst father-daughter combo, both of whom didn't really know how to choose gifts.
"It's your mother who pulled me out of my mancave and married me." Davey once told Ash when she was around 13 or 14, proving to Ash just how much her father didn't understand women.
After 10 gold coins and half an hour of browsing Macy City's streets, she brought a basket filled with stuff to the infirmary.
'If Macy stood for Magic City… Does that mean Macy City equals Magic City City?' Ash randomly thought.
With how the Royal Magic Academy was structured, the main building solely focused on students' accommodations—classrooms, necessities, entertainment, educational material, training grounds, etc—while the two side buildings were faculties, including the teachers' dorm, guidance counselor office and the infirmary, where Ash needed to go.
"Excuse me?" Ashrosaliera knocked twice on the door, opened it, and poked her little head in.
The first thing she saw was a giant sliding window at the other end of the room, while the two sides had four beds each, eight total, all of them having their own curtains that you could pull for privacy. And two locked medicine cabinets on both sides.
There were only 3 beds in use, all on Ash's left, and she approached the closest one and opened the curtains.
Pusha Varrie was sitting on his bed, munching on orange slices, with a bowl of oranges on the bedside table. The short, chunky man visibly recoiled and flinched when he saw Ashrosaliera coming in.
"It's okay, I'm here to visit you, not to finish the job or anything~" Ash said, waving at him innocently.
"Hi… Um, I didn't expect you to be here." Pusha said, wiping his brows and smiling nervously, still thinking about how he was choked unconscious by her. "Thank you for visiting, though. I don't have many friends who could make it, they're not attending this academy, you know."
"I'm honored to be one of the ones that made it, and you should be honored to be visited by the strongest [Fire] mage in existence, too!" Ashrosaliera immediately started boasting, her chest puffed high in pride, but then she remembered how she should be humble and remorseful: "How is the recovery? I brought some gifts."
"You did? That's nice of you." As Ash stood beside his bed, Pusha smiled brightly, easing up, "The healers did a great job. I barely felt anything when I woke up; I just need a day or two more rest."
Ashrosaliera nodded in relief, if they sustained any permanent injury, physical or mental, she'll be in a lot of trouble.
Ash placed her basket on the bedside table and started rummaging through it, pulling out the gifts she had prepared for Pusha Varrie. As per the note's suggestion, she bought him something nutritional.
"Uh oh…" She said, looking over at Pusha as he was peeling orange slices.
"What's wrong?" He asked.
"I brought you, uhh…" she chuckled awkwardly, scratching her head, "Some oranges, how coincidental, you already got some, sorry."
"It's fine, I like oranges; my family actually owns a small orange and clementine farm."
"For real?!" Ash gasped, leaning closer with both hands on Pusha's bed as her eyes shone. "That's so cool! You get to eat oranges and clementines every day?"
"Yep! Not exactly every day, but still a lot. I wouldn't recommend it; that's a lot of sugar." Pusha laughed, "Ashrosaliera, is it? I'm sorry for being rude to you before and attacking you."
"Do I have your forgiveness for almost burning you alive?" Ashrosaliera said in a half-joking tone.
"You have my forgiveness," he answered.
The two of them fistbumped, both giving a smile of acknowledgement.
"I'll visit the other two, see ya."
"See ya!"
Ashrosaliera closed the curtains to Pusha's bed right behind her. Feeling energetic and confident in her newfound ability to make amends, she opened the curtains to the second bed in the middle of the three.
Zofia Adinberg, the beastman with a feline tail, was sleeping soundly on her back. She lay in a sleeping beauty like pose, with both hands on her stomach, and her tail poking out right between the legs.
"Wouldn't that hurt her tail?" Ashrosaliera whispered, utterly confused. She'd always imagined how a beastman with a tail would sleep on the side or on their stomach to avoid pressing down on their tail, but apparently, the world was bigger than she thought.
She took out a book from the basket, a gift she prepared for Zofia.
[Wind Attribute: A History Of Development]
This book would surely be helpful! Ash and Davey both agreed that Zofia seems like the kind of student who loves knowledge, and it's a topic related to her elemental attributes, too.
Then Ashrosaliera noticed a stack of books on her bedside table, around six of which Ash assumed Zofia was reading.
Ash leaned down to read the names of those books.
[Ins And Outs Of The Four Common Elements]
[If You Have To Face Against Ice And Lightning]
[The Balance Between Speed And Power In Spell Casting]
[Wind Attribute: A History Of Development]
[A Guide To Opposition Of Attributes]
[Light, Dark, And What We Know So Far]
Upon scanning all six books, Ashrosaliera started blinking rapidly in disbelief. She rubbed her eyes to make sure she didn't have dyslexia, and she leaned in close on the fourth book.
[Wind Attribute: A History of Development]
Ash then looked at the book in her hand again.
[Wind Attribute: A History of Development]
Cue the moment of realization and desperation.
"God dang it!"
She had thousands of books to pick out from the bookstore, and at least a hundred of them would be of Zofia's interest. She picked one that Zofia already had.
"What even are the chances?!" Ash shrieked in silence, not trying to wake the sleeping beauty up.
Defeated and knowing it was too late to turn around, Ashrosaliera sighed. She ripped a page from her notepad and wrote a note for Zofia, leaving it on the table when the beastman girl woke up.
"Hello! I picked this up from the bookstore on this street and wanted to gift it to you, but I didn't know that you already got one, so… You can return it for like a gold coin, the seal's still on.
- Signed, Soon To Be Elemental Empress"
With that done, Ashrosaliera faced the final boss of this thousand-year redemption arc. The last bed would probably be where Roshia Naveria was resting.
Ash slowly opened the curtain.
"About time you came."