Chapter 44: The show starts

The closer I got to where my house once stood, the thicker the crowd became. Not because everyone wanted to visit the site of the disaster. To be honest, I had no idea what kind of means the Baskar family used to gather the people here without revealing any details about what was going to happen to them.

At this point, I couldn't help but scoff at the lack of my phone. While it could still be hidden somewhere amidst the ruins, unharmed thanks to sheer luck. But the task of finding out its location would be way harder than just buying a new one, not to speak about how risky it would be to keep using my old number.

It would be far easier to just buy a new one. The one problematic thing about it was that I had no way of checking the internet to see whether some kind of interesting even was supposed to take place in here, explaining at least a small part of the crowd.

Once I finally saw my neighbourhood, I took a moment to grab a small pebble from the side of the street. Hiding it in the closed palm of my hand, I started practising the fine-tuning of my basic witchcraft, trying to lower down its scope to be just the size of a said pebble.

Inching closer to the area of my interest, I could see that ever since I left, someone put a flashing tape all over the ruins. Neatly surrounding the area and cutting it off from anyone's entry, it proved to be completely useless as a deterrent as soon as I approached it.

Not even bothered to slow down, I simply passed through the tape, breaking it apart as I went. While some people saw it, given no fireworks of any kind, my presence has yet to be truly noticed.

Moving deeper and deeper into the ruins, I found the general middle of them before stopping on top of a small pile of rubble. By now, a small part of the entire crowd slowly started to notice that something was amiss.

Not sparing the publicity even a damned glance, I opened my palm. In there, instead of a simple pebble, a small yet intricately carved cross. Even though the inferior quality of the base material, by gently carving it out with my repulsion and mending my mistakes with the concentrated wish.

Giving it just a moment for some of the better-sighted people that were already observing my every move, I quickly hid the small item in my pocket before putting my hands together, as if for prayer.

And now, the hard part of my task started.

Reigniting the remaining fuel resting in the broken system of my house wouldn't be any problem at all. Doing so without causing everyone with me included to burn down in an instant explosion was the hard part.

By the time the majority of the people that the Baskar family brought to this place with their influence was keenly watching every tinies move of mine, I finally managed to find the balance.

Standing down as suddenly as I could, I instantly jumped down from the pile to one of the few spots where the ground wasn't covered in ruins. By the time my feet touched the hard ground, my emotions were already running amok. Not because something big happened. Because I was doing something big instead.

Bit by bit, the remnants of the liquid fuel, gas and all kinds of other burnable elements infused into the ruins around me while I used my repulsion to slowly lift up what used to be my house.

At this point, no one could have any doubts that something huge was happening. Even if initially they might be just curious what I was going to do, when huge boulders and broken pieces of metal started to rise above the earth with me in the very middle of the event, I could tell that the number of cameras that were currently filming my actions would be equal to half the number of eyes that watched me.

After all, even in this post-apocalypse world, events of such scale would instantly bring the attention of the lucky passersby.

"May the fire that brought their demise now cleanse their bodies and give them a sacred and unbroken rest."

Speeling those random, mystically sounding words just loud enough for some of the crowd to hear it, I finally snapped my finger against the ignition button on the lighter I bought on my way here.

Without any machines running, I couldn't find any easier way to start the show than manually firing up the fuel. While in the future I would have to find a way to do something like that with my magic alone, for now, I had no other choice but to compromise on my options.

"What the heck?!"

"The fuck?!

"Someone call the police!"

As soon as the crowd erupted in voices, the fire of my lighter reached the residue and diluted fuel that permeated the ruins. In just a flash, the levitating rubble exploded with the blaze. With the even distribution of the fuel amongst the entire area, as soon as the gasoline ran off, I made sure to keep the flames even hotter than before by simply infusing my magic in them.

While I have yet to fully understand what a true mage meant, this was the one thing that I managed to realise a long time ago - after my breakthrough, I could see all forms of connection that magic made with the physical world, and to a degree - influence it.

And now was the time to see what the limits of my abilities would be!