Becoming the King of Magic in my Brother's Novel-Chapter 111: Horses

Millie opened her eyes and sat up, slowly taking her time to look at her body, flipping her hands over and back. She didn't need to ask Alec. She didn't need to hear an answer. She already knew.

She had changed. Her body had transformed into that of a monster's.

Her hands rose until they touched her face. She was checking two things.

She was checking to see whether she had grown horns and whether or not she could feel her hands wander over her face.

No horns, but she felt her hands. She could think and feel. She was still human.

Alec had succeeded.

"Thank you," Millie said in a voice as gentle as a mouse's whisper.

Alec gave a short nod, his expression still hard, but relief had flooded his eyes.

"How do you feel?" He asked.

Millie looked at and clenched and unclenched her hands before answering.

"Good…!" She answered with strength in her voice.

"It's like I've been a baby my entire life and suddenly become a bear or something. When I look at something—whether it's this table or Rita's coffin, it doesn't feel like my arms will give way if I try to lift it. It feels like I finally have the strength to move things…!" Millie didn't quite have the words to express herself, but that was how she felt. She felt stronger.

Alec nodded and invited her to the floor. He bent his knees slightly before straightening them out quickly.

Millie caught his intent, and her eyes widened. She looked at him once as if to ask if he was serious. He nodded.

Millie excitedly gathered strength in her legs and shot up, bonking her head against the ceiling.

"Ouch!" She came down and crouched on the ground, holding her head with both hands while wincing.

"Hmm? Did it really hurt?" Alec asked curiously with a tilt of his head.

Millie froze for a moment. She just rammed her head straight into a stone ceiling hard enough to make it crack. Of course, it hurt!

She glanced up at the ceiling.

The crack had come from the ceiling, not her head, and as she slowly felt and sensed, she realized that there wasn't any pain coming from her scalp. There was a sensation as if she had hit it, but it certainly didn't hurt.

"Huh?" She looked at Alec in confusion. Why didn't it hurt?

"Your whole body has undergone a qualitative transformation for the better. You're stronger, but you're also more durable. Your skin, your muscles, your vessels, and your bones. They're all much harder to break now.

"But there's one thing you have to be careful of. Your brain. Your head and skull should absorb impact better, but a bad blow to the head can still have your brain bounce like a rubber ball—"

"Knowing that, you told me to jump into the ceiling?"

Alec avoided Millie's gaze and looked at the ceiling.

"Honestly, I didn't think you would jump that hard and high."

"Mhmm…!" Millie hummed suspiciously and stood up to stare Alec in the face. It was easier than before. The top of her head reached Alec's eyes when it previously had still been stuck under his chin.

She blinked once and looked Alec in the eyes.

"Am I taller?"

Alec's expression suddenly turned, and he nodded with a grave face.

"Yes." His expression didn't change because he wanted Millie to stay shorter than him forever.

"Why are you making that face?" Millie asked.

"Because when monsters become bigger during their transformation, they don't stop at just a little bigger. You didn't have enough Aether in your system to grow further during your initial transformation, but as time passes, you will absorb Aether, little by little, becoming bigger."

"How big?" Millie asked, understanding the gravity of the situation.

Alec held up his hands slightly more than half a meter apart.

"That much taller?" Millie asked. That would make her taller than most men. It wasn't that bad.

"A while ago, I fought a snake monster. It is originally this size."

"Yes…?"

"The one I fought was two horses wide and about five or six horses long."

"What."

"Yeah, it would fill up the entire hallway."

"...Are you talking about the same horses as the ones I know?"

"Cart-pulling, grass-eating, thief-kicking, long-faced beasts that are sometimes very majestic? Yeah."

After staring blankly at Alec for a while, Millie slowly opened her mouth, her eyes full of doubt.

"How did you survive?" She asked. A snake that big could use Alec as a toothpick.

"I…have a very reliable friend, who's incredibly talented when it comes to fire magic. While I distracted it, she created a dam of molten stone and fire. We were also lucky enough that the snake wasn't specialized in defense."

"You have friends?!" Millie asked, surprised, shocked, bamboozled, confused, and befuddled.

"Yes…—"

"Then why are you acting like you're stuck here all alone without a choice? Here I was, thinking I was being nice and keeping you company when you could have gone to your friends all this time…!"

"Uhh…?"

"Whatever. So, who's this friend of yours? And tell me while we get something to eat. I'm starving."

"Alright, monster meat or not?"

"What do you think?"

"I like monster meat."

"Hmph. I guess a little couldn't hurt, right?"

"You'll be the tallest nine-year-old I will have ever seen, but what's wrong with that?"

"I'm twelve…"

"Oh." Alec nimbly dodged a quick fist before opening the stairway out and escaping the wrath of a monstrous nine—twelve-year-old.

"You can run, but you can't hide!" Millie hurried after him, curious to see what her new body could do.

But she barely managed to take a step before crashing into Alec's back. She peeked around and saw that Dario had come looking for them. His eyes were bloodshot, and he looked and sounded like he had sprinted all the way from Gorao.

Eventually, he managed to squeeze out three words between heaving breaths.

"They…! Took…! Red!"