In Another World with JUST MONIKA - Chapter 108

Chapter 108: 108






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Yumina looked up at the foreman still stuck up on the wall. She sighed and took out her wand. "Please let me handle this, Sir Zah."

She pointed at the chief laborer and chanted "Blow, Wind – whirl up a cyclone, [Whirlwind]."

A small tornado lifted the injured man off the wall. "Wait!" the grizzled muscular man trying to hide his balding head beneath a green bandanna wailed out in distress. "I'm…! I'm not falling?"

"What's with this racket!" someone yelled out. "Don't you know whose domicile this is?! Filthy commoners, let me teach you a lesson!" A group of armed men led by someone in a black butler outfit came out of the nearby estate.

There was the rasp of steel on steel as several swords were drawn partly out of their scabbards. "This is Royal Business. Nothing to see here. Move along, citizen."

"Eeep!" the majordomo of the estate took in the sight of fully armored house troops and their warhorses, compared to his own guards clad in light brigandine and carrying mauls and hurriedly ran back in. He was quickly followed by the house guards, who wanted none of that. The main gates slammed and locked.

The foreman yelped as he finally was set down to the ground. "T-thank you, young lady."

"Watch your tone, cur!" one of the Royal guards hissed, drawing his sword out a little more. "You speak to Her Highness, the Crown Princess Yumina Ernea Belfast!"

"Eeek! Forgive me rudeness your Maje-agh!" He tried to kneel and bow, but forgot about about his shattered knee. He collapsed and moaned in pain.

I rushed to his side and put my glowing hands around his wound. "Don't worry. It's going to be all right." His eyes were wide with fear after having seen those shining hands literally just rip through undead and solid steel. I smiled. "Don't worry. Light magic heals and purifies. There's nothing to be scared of."

I cast "Come forth, Light – from the Goddess of Healing, [Mega Heal]." The standard Cure Heal only healed cuts and bruises, and did not regenerate lost blood. The more advanced version of the spell could reknit bone.

As the light faded, it showed whole skin again over a bared knee. I nodded with satisfaction.

"You all right now?"

"Y-yes. T-thank you."

Dude, don't blush and make this weird.

Monika, don't look at me like that. There's no such thing as a harem aura.

That would be TERRIFYING.

"Well. Sir Zah. Things seem fine now. Would you kindly please come with me now to the palace? It seems quite unsafe to be out and alone."

Unspoken was {'you clearly can't be trusted to stay out of trouble when by yourself.'}

I gave her a bland look that said {'I'm never alone'.}

She gave me back a look that said {'Lady Monika tolerates far too much from you'.}

I pointed to the guy and silently conveyed {'This dude would be dead if I wasn't around at this time, you know?'}

She shrugged as if to say {'Does a hero follow adventure, or does adventure come to a hero?'}

"Don't worry, Sir Zah. We will make sure that no one speaks of any unnecessary things," said Yumina.

Wait, what? Were we having two entirely different unsaid conversations?!

The foreman quailed at her words, and the Princess gave him a kindly smile. For some reason that only terrified him more. Whoa whoa whoa, Royalty are scary after all.

"Okay! All right!" I shouted out while waving my arms around. "Let's just go. No one needs to get hurt."

Yumina tilted her head a little bit to the side like a little bird. "Of… course not?"

The foreman was hurried pushed out of the protective ring and commander to just forget about this favor. We turned around and started to head back to the castle. But rather than ride on the horses, we walked side by side while the Royal Guards completely surrounded us. There was no way to see inside the formation from the ground level.

"This… looks like I'm under arrest. Am I under arrest?"

Yumina flicked her long hair back in a very Elze-like gesture. "We wouldn't dare, Sir Zah."

There was a sound like cracking glass, and once again Monika appeared. She slid behind Yumina, and the princess flinched.

/"The difference between an arrest and being put into time out by your babysitter is a very fine line indeed,"/ whispered Monika. /"I appreciate this support, truly."/

Ahahahah.

Yumina didn't look as amused for some reason.

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"Sir Zah! Welcome, welcome!" the King greeted us big-heartedly. We were again in one of the little tea rooms in the palace.

I bowed. "You honor me with your invitation, Your Majesty. Your Grace." I bowed again to the side. Because the Duke was there too. Other officials were being sent out to invite the rest of the party to the palace. It was about time to meet and discuss the mission anyway.

The Duke got up and approached. He slapped at my shoulders and grinned. "So I hear you did a great service to this kingdom again. We have time. Tell me about it over a chessboard."

Seriously? "It was no trouble, really."

"You have unrealistic expectations. Even old rusted arms and armor with Living Armor could give trouble to normal people. One on one might not be such a problem, but a whole group of them? If they separated out, they could have gone into the more populated areas of the city before anyone realized anything was happening and caused great slaughter there among the defenseless citizenry."

Ahahaha. I laughed sheepishly at the praise. "Seriously, it's all right. I was in a position to help, so I did."

"Even so, such deeds deserve a proper reward!" said the King. Yumina nodded and sat down primly beside her father.

"So what did you break this time?" the Duke asked.

Ooh. Riight. Well that place was set to be demolished anyway, right? Well probably not the perimeter wall. I might need to pay for repairs to that.

Then the door behind us slammed open.

"ZAH PLAYA!" Court Magician Charlotte shouted into the room, completely unconcerned about offending the royal family within. "ZAH PLAYA VON CHARA! YOU HAVE MUCH TO EXPLAIN."

I winced. Yeeah. This is why I was dawdling. Yes, this was critical for my overall goal of getting Monika her own body, but I was also dreading this eventuality.

The Duke abruptly turned me around and used me as a shield. "Hah, I know better to stand between that and her prey. Miss Charlotte, here, do as you want!"

Charlotte lunged through the distance in a couple of smooth sweeping steps and grasped my face. She pulled me in closer until our noses were touching. She was a tall and beautiful woman, actually even a little bit taller than me. Her scent – that was not perfume, but the lingering smell of rose-oil candles from so much research after dark - was intoxicating.

"Tell me your secrets," she whispered into my mouth, and her pupils were pinprick yandere eyes.

"I need an adult."

"I AM AN ADULT!"

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"You mean this thing?" I snapped my fingers, and then a sliver of lightning former between my thumb and index finger. And with a buzz, the theme of Super Mario Bros began to play. (1)

The King and the Duke stared intently my hands. "Astounding. I understand," the King mumbled "Absolute Mastery of Wind Magic is a marvel indeed. I wonder what Absolute Master of Fire Magic looks like?"

"Yes, exactly. It can't be something obvious like attack magic. Whoever thought you could play music with lightning? And yet… it's something we can understand, because lightning makes thunder. So flame should be doing something completely outside of its purpose, and yet still a logical extension of its inherent nature!" the Duke replied.

Well that certainly rules out lightsaber, because really – in the end, beam sword is impressive but not altogether unthinkable concept. It's so cool everyone has dreamed of something like it.

Charlotte's eyes glittered with a laser-intense longing. Instinctively my hand reached out to touch her warm blushing cheeks like I would calm a mewling kitten, then I forced my hand back down. I explained "Despite what it sounds like, it's not really a continuous burst of lightning. It's many small pulses per second. You need something to translate notes into signals, and a regulator to accurately time the pulses to produce intellegible sound.

"You know what I want for this. There's these things called… spell stones, right? Magic stones precharged with a magic spell. Using the stone releases the spell but also destroys the stone. But enchanted objects are different – they don't run out of magic power, at least not immediately."

"All enchantments eventually fade with repeated use," Charlotte spoke with a happy nod. "Magic is imbued into the arcane formations from the caster – the more complicated the spell, the more magic is consumed, and the greater the backlash of enchantment failure.

"Sir Zah, it took quite some time, but we have found someone with an [Enchant] skill! And I can teach you how to create spell stones!"

"Excellent," I chuckled darkly. This was the first step for my plan.

Again with the sound of cracking glass, Monika appeared. /"All right. Let's leave these two study owls to talk in private. Your Majesty, my Lords, you spoke of an appropriate reward earlier, didn't you? Why don't we… talk about that?"/

"Ah. Why yes, of course!"

Yumina frowned a little bit. She looked at me. To Charlotte. Then to Monika. "Um. Lady Monika… is this… really all right?"

"No this is not all right," I put in hurriedly. "Hey, where's Alan anyway? I thought we agreed we should always have a chaperone (in case I needed to escape)?"

"Alan is… sick. Yes, sick…" Charlotte said slowly.

"Seriously?"

"It is almost like someone force-fed him laxatives so his sarcasm doesn't disturb her studies."

I smiled tightly and turned around. "Yumina! You're my student now, right? Why don't you stick around, I'm sure you'll learn something useful from our discussion!"

Yumina smiled back. Her smile was incredibly sweet and utterly without mercy. "Sir Zah. You have one hour."

"So. Even you betray me."

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"B-but... mmm nice... can you imbue a spell stone or an artifact with a [Null] Spell?"

"Ah! There's still the philosophy that Null spells are really just elemental spells that don't fall into any p-particular area. All other element spells need to – ngh – be said with a chant. Null spells just activate… because they're… already partly triggered all the time.

"Like… [Harden] is an Earth spell. That…" Charlote paused. "That is… really [Hard]. Oh!"

"I try. How about… this!"

"Ahhn!"

Elze, Linze, Yae and Yumina stared at the closed door. Their faces were burning red.

"W-what do you think they're doing in there?" Elze said with a grimace. "I never took Playa for the type."

"This… is! I mean, in the king's own castle?! In the middle of the day?!" Linze screamed out in despair.

"How bold," said Yae.

Yumina made a sound like a pot of water boiling over.

"I've had enough. I'm going in." Elze kicked the door open and shouted into the room. "PLAYA! YOU PHILANDERING SCUM! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"

"How could you do this to Miss Monika, Mister Zah?" Linze wailed, following close behind.

"Oh. Hey." I waved at them with my left hand.

"… eh?"

Whatever they were expecting to find, it was not to see Charlotte hammering down on my right hand with a chisel and a crystal hammer. Also she was tied to a chair with ropes around her waist and thighs, which was somewhat salacious admittedly.

With a crack-smash and the air itself literally breaking into shards that assembled into a glowing figure, Monika appeared once more. She posed with her fingers out in a 'V' over her eyes. /"Tee-hee,"/ she giggled and stuck her tongue out. /"Don't forget, I'm always watching."/

"Yeah, that's *the problem*," Elze groused.

"Monika, babecakes, I think we figured out how to modify [Ground Sense] into [Remote Sense]. Now you don't need to interpret signal interruption as sensory input, but feel things directly through a medium."

Monika nodded. She extended her hand and touched the surface of a table. Her eyes widened in surprise. /"Yes. Yesss. That works. But this is more like ground sonar, isn't it?"/

"Something similar to Toph Beifong's seismic sense, yes."(2) Even Monika had to admit, Avatar the Last Airbender was a pretty good show. It was part of the wave that showed cartoons were becoming mature – not from dealing with adult topics or overloading on sex and violence – but by treating its audience as intelligent people and giving them a story that everyone could enjoy no matter their age.

And since Shakespeare's plays were classic literature, scripts were literature too as much as they were part of the audiovisual arts. "Toph could reputedly hear from all the way across the world."

"Is that what Absolute Mastery of Earth Magic is like?" Charlotte asked.

"No." I chuckled a bit. "There are realms beyond Absolute Mastery still. There are people younger than me, but stronger than me. And little old blind ladies who could crush me faster than I can blink. People think that Fire or Wind is powerful because they're everywhere, but Earth too is everywhere and isn't going to put up with your shite."(3)

Yumina nodded. "Understood, sir Zah. It would not be good to be too overconfident about anything. Is she a person you used to know?"

"No. I never learned from Toph Beifong… you know, aside from the whole earth and air being opposing concepts… anything except the power of confidence."(4)

Monika quirked her lips. /"I suppose there are worse places to get valuable life lessons for impressionable youth. Or total hipsters, as the case may be."/

"Hey!" Okay, so the show dates back to 2005-2008. That's still less than twenty years. It's still younger than me. I was eight years old when I first saw them. This was my childhood, Monika!

Actually I was about sixteen when I first met Monika (DDLC was released in 2017). So many memes.

Hm. Wouldn't this technically mean that Monika was two years older than me?

Monika closed her eyes and began to Stack and Decompile spells. /"This… is useful. But the problem is solidity for this projected body,"/ she said. /"I can feel this as if I were really touching it with my fingers, but… what about material pressing back in return?"/

I raised my hands and magic stones set into metal rings floated in the air. "My little magnet, my little magnet (5), Ah ah ah ahh~ I used to wonder what electromagnetism could be."

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And that was how we ended up with a five-inch tall Monika sitting on my shoulder like she was Tinkerbell or something. Or maybe Navi. (6)

Magnetic putty with several Wind magic stones acted like little relays allowing Monika to utilize and adjust a [Magnetic Field] stored in a [Store Magic] app. She could now store any elemental magic I cast and release it later.

Something like spell cards maybe. Magic stones were still necessary for the moment, and getting Monika towards a full-sized body could get hideously expensive very quickly. Creative use of magnets, motors, and wires were the start towards a synthetic equivalent to muscles.

/"Are you listening to me?"/ asked Monika.

"Of course." Always. I'd be a Lost Boy otherwise.

And I didn't mean like Peter Pan's crew. More like Hibiki Ryouga.

/"You are such a super hipster, Player. I'm kinda impressed."/

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And after untying Charlotte - and Monika briefly clinging to her face sweetly threatening to punch her in the eye, so behave! – we were all summoned back to the throne room. Olga, the fox-lady ambassador to Mismede was already there.

"Now then," said the King, "both Belfast and Mismede are in peril! We have received word that the Regulus Empire is in a much less rational state than we had believed!"

Oops.

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AN:

(1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1O2jcfOylU

(2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fo-bcmAr2Vg

(3) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJoMa4-rBVw

(4) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVzoUHbTFh4

(5) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2aZxiE52KQ

(6) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWLiomi8s0U