In Another World with JUST MONIKA - Chapter 14

Chapter 14






Magic was the main difference between this world and the one that we left. On Earth, evolution and natural selection drove everything. Species thrived based on the physical attributes that best equipped them to survive. Sometimes it's a matter of outbreeding their predators. Other times it's to reach the apex of their own predatory abilities, like crocodiles and sharks which have survived almost unchanged except in size from the time of the dinosaurs. Other beneficial traits were of course camouflage, poison glands, pack instincts, and eventually even brains big enough and hands nimble enough for tool use.

But magic introduces a whole mess of factors that both interfere and reinforce natural selection.

Everything from plants to animals to humans, we couldn't take anything for granted. Danger lurked behind every mysterious shadow.

So we were finally on the way to fight those wolves. I walked slightly ahead, both somehow because I've found myself team leader for this party despite my relative inexperience, and because the girls did not quite feel as safe with me walking behind them.

We did not walk side by side because the forest was full of an awkward silence and a general unwillingness to open conversation again.

She had decided to alter her virtual persona to appear full human sized, seemingly walking beside me. The illusion was only ruined by how she was lit by a fixed light source under the forest canopy and didn't cast a shadow. Her long ponytail bounced with every happy step.

/"You only have your mouthhole to blame for this, Player,"/ Monika said cheerfully. /"I'm still not sure I believe all that was unintentional. I really shouldn't have worked out the maths about the months for you."/

I sighed. And so, I remembered a few hours ago -

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It was a little after lunchtime and we were back at the Silver Moon Inn. Elze still looked mulish even as she relaxed from the after-meal tea. "I still say we could have gone straight to the forest east of town and been back in time for lunch. Fighting on a full stomach is… you can end up puking it all out, you know?"

Linze shook her head. "It would be… terribly convenient… if we found the lone-horned wolves as soon as we searched the forest. Even if they are aggressive, it's not… it's not guaranteed."

"Wait, that was the plan?" I asked archly. "We were just going to go in there and walk around until we get attacked, like some sort of random encounter? Wolves are hard to pin down, from what I know it takes whole team with dogs and wolf perimeter nets to hunt them. I thought you would use some sort of search magic or something."

Elze flushed. "W-well, that's the difference between beasts and monster beasts! They'll find us!" She jabbed at her sister with her elbow. "Let's just go back to talking about magic instead!"

"MAGIC!" I exhaled. "So, Teacher Silhoueska, instruct me about the mystical arts!" I laid my palms on the table and bowed.

Linze took a deep breath and put carefully put down her empty cup. She then took out some crystal slivers and arranged them on the table.

"These are magic stones. Magic is separated into seven elements, and each element is amplified by a different magic stone."

She began pointing to each little piece of crystal. "Red is for fire. Orange is for Earth. Green is for Wind. Blue is for Water. Yellow is for Light. Violet is for Dark. And White, or actually Colorless, for Null."

"Wait, so you need a specific type of magic stone to use a different magic? That's kind of unwieldy, isn't it? Unless…" I held up my gloved right hand and clenched it into a fist. I turned it around to look at my knuckles. "Seven gems. Hm. Like Thanos' Infinity Gauntlet…"

/"Or you could just wear a necklace,"/ Monika suggested.

"Or I could just wear a necklace, that makes sense."

Linze shook her head. "The other part of using Magic is Affinity. Most people have an aptitude for only one or a few elements. This is how people find out their specific affinities in the first place…"

She picked up the blue stone and held it over her empty cup. "Come forth: Water!"

A trickle of water dripped out of the stone.

Elze then took the stone from her sister's hands. "But if you don't have affinity for that element- Come forth, Water!" The stone remained inert. "Then nothing happens." She put the stone back into the row of other magic stones.

"So what's your affinity?" I asked her.

She pointed to the last stone, Null. "Null affinities are a little different from all the other elements. They're a sort of… personal magic. Every person's Null magic, if they have one, is unique to them. Although there will be similarities with other Null powers."

Elze raised her hand, matching how I still hadn't lowered my fist. "My ability [Boost] isn't something Linze can copy. This is my only magic, but Linze here has three elemental magic affinities."

"It- it's a powerful ability!" Linze hurriedly tried to console her sister.

"It's enough," Elze nodded. We lowered our hands at the same time. "It's really rare to have three affinities, it's more common to have two, and most have just one. But that doesn't mean everyone uses magic."

"Why not? Are magic stones expensive?" I asked again.

Elze shrugged. "The bigger ones, sure, the ones best suited for combat. But if you really think about it, most people can develop the ability to sing – but only so few decide to be singers. If you can write, you can learn to draw or at least be a scribe, but not many want to make a living out of that. Everybody has eyes to see, and can notch a bow – but who wants to be an archer? It's like that."

"Is magic like a muscle? The more you use it, the stronger it gets?"

"No, magic is not a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger you get. You need to be strong first before you can really try to make something worth noticing from it. Most people have weak elemental magic they just use to light fires or dry themselves off, or a small light in the night."

"But Null magic is the exception," Linze added.

Elze nodded slowly. "Null magics can be really useful… like [Enchant] or [Search], like you were talking about. But sometimes they can also be so finicky, like being able to slow down how fast an incense stick burns, smooth the splinters off wood, or change the color of something you're touching and only when you're touching it.

"You don't really need magic stones to amplify your own Null magic once you're used to it, even if some types do have stronger effects. Null abilities can get really specific about things for some reason. I'm really lucky that [Boost] is so simple and that it works. "

"Somehow I feel that it's sad if you were born with a singly less useful ability when everyone else gets general purpose magic."

Elze sniffed. "Not really, most people have one, but usually if your Null magic is something so specific as to be useless to you, you might also have a weak affinity for a second or third magic. And if even then… well, most people don't use their magic anyway, so there's nothing worth being bothered about. Only little children trying to put others down for how they were born would care about that."

That sounded oddly specific, Elze.

"Null is not a separate quality to magic," Linze explained, quickly waving her hands as a distraction. "It is equal and just as likely to have in combination with any of the seven other elemental magics."

"I see. So what about magic spells then?" I asked her. "By the way, what are your affinities?"

"I have aptitude with Water, Light, and Fire, but I'm best with Fire. Magic spells really need magic stones. Spells require a chant and a clear idea of what you want to accomplish. I don't think I can demonstrate it here indoors though."

She reached down and showed me her magic staff with the roughly thumb-sized stone nestled inside. Because you needed to be holding the stone in order to conduct your magic through it, wands were usually made out of things like horns, and sticks cut from living wood.

"Oh so this is why that crystal deer antler could be so expensive!"

She nodded. "While the horns from the Lone-horned Wolves we will be hunting later can be used for wands, in many ways they are inferior to the pure conductivity of Crystal Deer antlers. The antler would probably be cut into a smaller core protected by a wood casing though." She showed me bands in the grip where more conductive crystal rings could make contact with her bare skin.

I made a noncommittal noise. "So, again, why not just wear a necklace then?"

"Do you really want to shoot off a fireball from so close to your face?" Elze interrupted. "How would you even aim? With your chin?"

"Heh."

"Anyway, the whole point of doing this is to figure out your magical affinity, isn't it?" Elze pointed at the magic stones on the table. "We'll have you try them one by one, and if none of them reacts then you probably have Null."

"I'm not so sure about that. I mean, wouldn't I already know about it if I had a personal ability?"

Elze shook her head and showed her fist again. "Not really. When you hold a Null magic stone for the first time and think about what you're feeling inside, that's when you get a clear understanding of what your ability does. Maybe what you think you're already good at can be so much more. Maybe some personal habit is already a minor magic in itself. Some Null magic might even be bound to your organs."

"So you just kinda discovered you were really good at punching things, huh?"

Elze grinned back. "I used to make all the boys cry. No one picks on Linze or they get me."

"Um. Could we stop talking about that now?" She poked the blue magic stone closer towards me. "Mister Zah, please try it out."

I picked up the stone, and in my view Monika made a Picture-in-Picture zoomed view. "So… this isn't a regular blue stone like a sapphire or aquamarine?"

"So I'm thinking magic stone is a specific type of mineral, not different gemstones?"

Linze nodded. "That's correct. Magic stones are rare to find in big lumps."

"Shouldn't they be more expensive than diamonds then? Though… I guess much of what makes a diamond expensive is the cut, but cutting down a magic stone just makes it less powerful as a magic amplifier." Though I guess they would still want to make their stones presentable. That's where those little slivers must have come from. "All right, I'm trying it now."

I held the magic stone over my own teacup and said "Come forth, Water!"

Bloosh!

What the heck! Water just burst out of the bottom of the magic stone like a broken faucet. I flinched back and let go of the stone. It clinked down into the now overflowing cup.

/"Magic!"/ Monika exulted. /"You have magic! Yes, begone, powers of Science!"/

"What the heck was that?!" I gasped.

"That's… well, wow." Elze looked intrigued. "Surprised? It's said that the amount of elemental substance released is a reflection of someone's magic capacity. Linze already has really high magic capacity for her age-"

"Water is not really my best affinity though…"

Elze pointed accusingly at me. "So you're actually absurdly good at Water magic? That might be useful."

I thought about it. "Hmm. Sure why not. I am an Aquarius after all. I mean, I was born under the sign of the Water Bearer."

/"I'm a Virgo,"/ said Monika. She was apparently born on September 22. Also, she was canonically eighteen.

I reached into the cup to take out the magic stone. "But… where does it come from?" I mumbled.

/"It can't be air condensation. There's too much pressure. Matter creation ex nihilo is REALLY powerful, but Linze could easily do that. All magicians do that. That's really the biggest problem we have with magic, are we prepared to live in a world alongside minor gods?"/

"Come forth water?" I said weakly.

Sploosh.

"Oh come on!"

"Bleh!" Elze shielded her face from the spray of water rebounding off the already full cup. "Don't get me wet!"

"But there's no recoil. Is it a portal effect? Does it really just appears from somewhere?" I continued to mutter. There was Science to be done. Science and Magic could always perfectly coexist. Magic was just Science without all the machinery. "What if I changed how I'm holding the stone?"

"It always comes out the pointy end facing away from you," Linze said. "You can think of it as a really tiny wand."

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MY FLOOR?!" Micah wailed.

We turned to see the innkeeper had already noticed our shenanigans. Oops.

"Thinking about it, we should have started with Light or Darkness," Linze noted contritely.

Micah sighed and pointed to the far door close to the baths. "Please do this sort of thing in the back yard, honored guests, now I have to mop this up."

It's what happened out in the yard later that made Linze and Elze so mad.

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