The moment Ciri saw the spell that she had painstaking cast be unraveled by Joshua, her confidence and will to fight tanked.
Driven by her will to live, however, Ciri still commanded the magic in her body as her faint white magic transformed into a razor-sharp arrowhead and launched itself toward the door.
As her previous shockwave attack had snuffed out the candles, Ciri could only rely on the glow of her magical runes to look around. But for a human, her vision only reached one to two meters ahead of her.
Did it hit?
Ciri held her staff cautiously as she started to conjure the most basic of spells. "Torch."
The moment the casting was complete, a white orb appeared from Ciri and wiped the darkness out. Standing in front of Ciri was… Joshua.
The moment the little magic adept saw Joshua before her, the fear within her exploded. She screamed and slammed her staff into Joshua without even thinking.
Sadly, the little magic adept was too weak, and Joshua easily caught her arm.
Ciri did not feel any pain when Joshua held her arm as he did not exert any strength. He also showed no intention of hurting her. He just blocked her… reckless physical attack.
Fear made Ciri try to wring herself out of Joshua's grasp, and she succeeded as Joshua let go of her. At the same time, Ciri took a few steps back and drew a distance between them.
She forced herself to calm down as an unknown rune appeared once again on her intricate short staff. She prepared another offensive spell and simultaneously locked her gaze tightly on Joshua. If he dared to do anything stupid, she would not mind perishing with him in the event of a miscast.
"I advise you not to be so hasty, Ms. Unknown Mage."
What Ciri did not expect was that Joshua had no intention of attacking her. Instead, he just took the candle stand on the table and lit it up.
Just as Joshua lit up the candle, Ciri tried to construct her attack spell, but she soon noticed that Joshua was pointing at her neck.
My neck?
Ciri was slightly stunned as she felt something weird on her neck, as though something was constricting it.
The bizarre sensation made Ciri turn to a mirror beside her, and using the light from her Torch spell, she saw that a crystal had appeared on her neck without her noticing.
The jewel-like crystal was tied to a black ribbon, and if a person did not know better, they would have taken it for a very precious necklace, a particularly expensive one at that.
However, Ciri knew very well that she did not have the kind of money to purchase such an expensive accessory!
It seemed like the demon had forcibly put it around her neck without her knowledge.
Ciri once again looked at Joshua and noticed that he was holding a similar red crystal.
To demonstrate how the crystal worked, Joshua gently tossed it to the ground. The moment the crystal touched the ground, a small explosion blasted out and echoed across the room.
Ciri looked at the cracked floor and instantly forgot what spell she was about to cast. She immediately used both of her hands to try and tear the thing off her neck.
The crystal's explosion was not particularly great, but it was just about enough to separate Ciri's head from her body.
That crystal was one of the prince's handiwork. It was a... rather useful tool, which Joshua had managed to grab from the table.
"Don't waste your strength. You will not be able to break it with your strength."
She could not break out of it? Did that not mean it was no different than a slave's collar?
Ciri instantly realized what a precarious situation she had found herself in.
The demon did not straight up kill her, instead, he had put something like that on her.
Ciri gritted her teeth because she was determined to protect her chastity to death.
But... wait... was her chastity worth throwing away her life for?
Two seconds was all Ciri needed to think, and the answer was... no!
"What do you want from me?"
Ciri mustered up her last bit of courage as she questioned Joshua.
"What do I want? Plenty, but first, what is your name?"
Joshua used the time to light up all of the candles in the room as Ciri's Torch spell slowly faded away.
"I... Ciri."
In consideration of her life, Ciri decided to answer truthfully.
"Ciri? Then, do you know Geralt? He's a professional Gwent player who is also a Witcher on the side." Ciri was a name that Joshua was quite familiar with. She was the adopted daughter of the protagonist in Witcher 3. Besides, the character of the little mage before him did somewhat resemble that of Ciri in the game.
"Who?"
She did not know any Witchers. If she had known one, she would not have ended up like that.
"Just consider that an extra question. Next, I want to know what kind of magic you are using."
Joshua eagerly wanted to know that. The magic that the little mage had used was clearly different from the one the Chaos Demons were using.
She could use her magic to affect and control things around her, like turn a book into a projectile.
That was not something possible with a Chaos Demon's magic.
If it was to totally destroy the room, Joshua was confident that he could do it within a minute, but to use magic to move something, he believed that even the Demon Lord may not be able to pull it off.
It was such extremely destructive and chaotic magic that rendered the plan of controlling the image within the originium crystal mere empty talk. Plus, Joshua did not know where to even start.
Fortunately, the magic Ciri used gave Joshua a shred of hope.
"This is the power given by the god of order, Lloyd. It is the power of law and order."Ciri had always been proud of her status as a mage, and she had no reason to hide when it came to letting others know of her powers.
From Ciri's explanation, Joshua learned that the people of this world seemed to believe that their magical powers were something given by the gods. The powers differed from god to god, and Ciri's magic represented law and order. Her school of magic was referred to as White Mages, and there were also other gods who controlled fire, lightning, and so on.
Using game consoles on Earth as an analogy like Sony's PS4, Microsoft's XBOX, and Nintendo's Switch, each player could choose according to their preference. There were games that were common across all platforms, and there were also console-exclusive ones, each with its own benefits and advantages.
God, huh...
When Joshua arrived in this world that was full of magic and demons, the appearance of gods did not surprise him, but for magic to be a gift from the gods?
Joshua had reservations about it, but whether magic was owned by the gods or not, Joshua needed to master this stable magic in order to edit the footage inside the originium crystal.
"Tell me, how do I acquire the magic that you have?"