16: Magic

Edward’s view

While travelling to the next dungeon, I heard something from David I had never expected.

“I’m really not looking forward to this next dungeon.”

“What, spiders?”

“Yup. Before I got into the habit of always using a monster repelling tent, I once woke up wrapped up in a spider’s den. Waking up like that, and then having to fight my way through a horde of spiders before I could even have breakfast sucked.”

“Wait, it was the lack of food that upset you?”

“Yeah, it took so darn long to finally get out and somewhere safe enough to eat without being disturbed. Super frustrating. I think of that terrible time whenever I see large spiders now.”

… note to self: Do not get between David and food.

…

Osia’s view

Watching Jessica do magic has always been fascinating. Her spells are… ridiculous. Her horns for instance. She’s fairly proud of them, and they are quite powerful. However, the only reason they work at all, is because her mana capacity is absurdly high. 

Normally a person would use enchantments that focus on specific things to be as efficient as possible. Such as my own rings boosting my agility and flexibility, and perception. By focusing on just a few things, I can get a stronger effect for the amount of mana that I have available to spend on it. Jessica’s horns boost everything. Really: EVERYTHING. 

I never really get tired of examining her horns. The spell they contain is incredible. It does things I’d never even thought of doing before, and certainly never saw mentioned in a book. It’s taken me years to figure out half of what it does, and yet the more I learn, the more I’m amazed at how inefficient it is. If I were to rebuild it, I could probably cut the mana cost in half, or even lower if I understood it better. 

I actually did create my perception boost using what I’d learned from studying her horns. Instead of enhancing physical senses like standard methods use, I noticed her spell had improvements in the mental side of things, and they seem more useful. Hearing a sound is only useful if you can identify what it is and where it is. With this enchantment, I can maintain a high level of awareness of everything happening around me, to a degree I couldn’t have before. Just hearing things really isn’t the same as being able to identify it all… and hearing every change and fluctuation in Jessica’s heart beat and voice… it feels like I always know what’s going on in her heart. Being able to hear the love and affection in her voice every day is bliss.

Now… now she’s doing something ridiculous again. 

“I recognize less than half the functions of this spell.”

“Well, she is trying to create something no one’s made before.”

“Intelligent monsters are considered taboo for a reason.”

“You know Jess doesn’t care about that. She’s never paid any attention to those taboos.”

“Still, even for her, this is pretty dangerous, Rev. At least we talked her down from making a fully self-replicating monster.”

“Oof, yeah, that would’ve been really dangerous. At least she’s now going to make a single queen monster that creates weaker child monsters. Like an insect hive.”

“Except I have no way to be sure that’s really what this spell will do.”

“You really can’t figure any of it out? You are the best at life magic in this town.”

“I can tell it accepts additional input from other spells, which is probably good. Means there’s features locked behind continual maintenance.”

“Except you can’t be sure what those features are.”

“Right. We’re just gonna have to trust her.”

“I’ll double check the emergency shields to make sure they still work.”

“I’ll get an emergency communication line ready. Already sent a request for backup just in case.”

“That old team still prepped back at the capitol?”

“Yeah, they still remember her burning a barrier. Those destruction experts still haven’t figured out how she did that, and don’t want to let something like this go unrecorded, even if it’s outside their expertise.”

“Did you contact, Tane? The head of the life magic department should be interested in this.”

“Sent her a copy of this spell diagram. She claimed it was the worst perversion of life magic she’s ever seen.”

“Tsk, she never likes anything she doesn’t understand. How can she expect to advance the field if she insists on only doing things according to her old rules!”

“Life magic is dangerous! Those rules exist for a reason!”

“See, this is why you were the teacher’s favorite.”

“No, I was their favorite because I could talk theory with them. Unlike Jessica who just spouted nonsense then made a spell that did the impossible to try and prove her nonsense theories right.”

“Are you sure she’s wrong?”

“She still thinks the world spins. It’s obvious it doesn’t. If the world spun, the stars would move at night, and they don’t. We don’t actually know how her spells that use the world’s spin work, because her explanation makes no sense, and the spells themselves are indecipherable.”

“... right, she uses that for time-keeping.”

“Everything she does is like that! There’s always some fundamental flaw in her logic, yet her spells still somehow work through means we haven’t figured out. Even if I didn’t love her, I’d want to follow just to study her magic!”

I wasn’t expecting Revenna to reply with a kiss.

“You love me too, right?”

“W-well, yeah.”

“Let’s spend a little time with just the two of us then.”

“I-I need to watch over her when she adds this new spell to the core.”

“Don’t worry, she’ll come get us when she’s done talking with the mayor.”

When Jessica came to get us later, I had to ask for her to delay her plans. I was too exhausted. I’d thought I could make use of my perception enhancements to find and exploit Rev’s weaknesses, but I think it just backfired. Rev completely dominated me.

***Author Note***

Osia wanted to turn the tables on Revenna’s aggressive approach, but when I decided to let the dice determine the outcome, Sia got a 4… Probably the most enjoyable defeat there is.