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In Another World with JUST MONIKA (Book 2 complete)
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- comedy (humour)
41.3 Blood of Kings
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The Demon Lord's chin snapped back.
I didn't lead with the blade, since the sharp point would just be deflected by innate magic reinforcement, but with the metal ring pommel. It doesn't matter how unbreakable the skin or tough the muscles, joints remain joints. Force = mass x acceleration. With the explosive speed and force of my [Rising Dragon Uppercut], even such a great being must flinch unsteadily on its feet-
I continued on to flip around in mid-air, to land feet-first on the ceiling like Spider-Man or something.
And then, while the Demon Lord was still staggered, explosively bounced off again with a flying dropkick straight to its nose.
Its balance broken, the Demon Lord began to topple backwards like a tree.
The floor under it began to tremble-
I somersaulted in mid-air, since kicking down imparted my momentum onto the Demon Lord and as such the equal and opposite reaction launched me back into the air.
Then I pushed against the ceiling again with jets of wind coming out of my raised hands and aimed down with legs in a horse-riding stance.
"[GOOMBA STOMP!]" I shouted, and with both feet slammed hard onto the Demon Lord's solar plexus. Bhwonk.
It crashed down - straight onto a stone spike underneath aimed at its spine!
"KREEEEEEEEEEHHHH!!!" the Demon Lord shrieked. That attack was not enough to break its skin, but that didn't matter. Its own mass was working against it, and even as the stone spike crumbled beneath its weight that hard to hurt LIKE HELL.
Bam!
The Demon Lord crashed down amid a cloud of pulverized rock.
Without even losing my footing, I surfed its body down, and now glared down disdainfully at it.
It looked back at me with a silent mix of bewilderment, injury, and indignation.
I glared down with an arrogant air to the Demon Lord and said "I had a strong feeling you were much smarter than your host. But only because your summoner is a moron. Now I know if I make you stop existing, then he gets to stop being magic immune."
Then, I changed the grip of my sword to a reverse stabbing hold, and chanted "[Earth], make the metal sing! [Vibro Blade!]"
With no thought of dignity - and indeed, proved to me that this creature was much smarter than its summoner - the Demon Lord rolled, and threw me off. The tip of Zanzibar Mk II scored a red line across its chest and down to its hips - an inconsequential wound that barely even broke skin.
Magic Swords were commonly enchanted to be sharper, to resist breaking, to hit harder than their apparent weight would allow, or be imbued with elemental magic. All of those would be dispelled on contact with the Demon Lord's skin - not quite like the Crystal Creature that gets tougher and stronger the more magic it is exposed to, but as a creature of raw magic you can't exactly hurt it with more magic.
What's it feel like to use a sword-length ultrasonic blade? Like a hot knife against materials.
The Demon Lord rolled a short distance away and got up to a wary crouch. Its gaze now communicated anger, hostility, a little respect at finally finding something worth fighting in this plane.
"That… that's not possible!" General Bazoar gasped. "How can you make a Demon Lord bleed?! A little pipsqueak like you!"
Let's say there's TWO assholes with infinite magic power. What could be the difference between them? One has ambitions on the continental level, the other just wants to mess around and meme.
You'd think the first one would be better, wouldn't you?
The difference is that first is a meathead that just knows how to sword things, relying on someone else to complete all the strategic deficiencies of his ambition; and the other is an actual mage with a working relationship with some of the best researchers and magic combatants this side of the continent.
Those bracers were probably the source of General Bazoar's abilities.
One to absorb magic power for its surroundings.
Another to defend against physical attacks.
I definitely knew what the purpose of those things may have been.
Crystal Creatures, the doom of the Ancient Civilization! Special equipment to combat them!
Those were magic tools! One hand to suck up magic power away to keep them from becoming stronger until functionally invulnerable to attack, and the other hand to survive actually going to melee with the fuckin' things.
Either those things were prototypes and never mass produced, or the damage was severe enough that even these things were useless against the onslaught and lost their magic power through the five thousand years since the Ancient's Fall.
Still with a reverse hold on my sword, I laid my right hand over my left shoulder to point its tip towards the Demon Lord.
Then I stretched out my left arm parallel to the sword.
Knife-missiles floated out of my belt pouches to float in the air behind me.
Dohoho. Now I have a shoulder rail launcher. W
The Demon Lord had eerie balls of flickering yellow-pink plasma floating around it. Those… are probably magic missiles.
I chanted "Come, [Water], come [Light], duplicate this forn, [Mirror Image]." And immediately mist covered the view for a moment, fading back to reveal that I had duplicated myself into three. Only one of those figures was real.
A few breaths passed.
Then we both strafed to the left. We both attacked and dodged at the same time. We both succeeded and failed.
Shrak. The first Knife-Missile struck the wall, punching deep and causing a small shower of debris.
Shrak. The next hypervelocity Knife-Missile struck a magic barrier, and punched through, but deflected just enough to again strike the wall.
Shulk! The third Knife-Missile, now that its barrier was broken, sank into the Demon Lord's left shoulder and then out the other side, creating a large open exit wound, a shower of unholy ichor, idea-made-flesh, and shrapnel.
"YOUR POWER IS MINE!" General Bazoar yelled, and sending another antimagic wave. Wave goes out then like the ocean pulls back in, bringing all magic with it.
I stumbled on my feet, my [Mirror Images] flickered.
Brack. The first Magic Missile struck the wall a good distance away from where I used to be, blasting out a deep pit. The Mirror Image it hit exploded into so much mist.
Brack. The second Magic Missile also hit the wall, a bit closer. The Mirror Image was struck in the head, and the decapitated illusion lost cohesion.
Whump! The third one exploded off my left shoulder, blasting it open. I was spun around and slipped, tumbling into a nearby set of drawers.
The Demon Lord did not faff around. It took a deep breath, building up internal power, and sparks trailed between its horns. Then it sent a torrent of piercing lightning towards me, then as an after-throught threw a few more fireballs at my awkwardly tumbled form.
The resulting explosion was enough to blast through the wall, almost from floor to ceiling, bricks and stone shattered and blasted outwards, exposing the blue mid-afternoon sky outside.
But soon enough the sucking winds from outside blew away the smoke. Demented laughter filled the room.
"What… what are you?!"
"I AM IMMORTAL!" I shouted, spreading my arms out in oblation. "I HAVE IN ME THE BLOOD OF KINGS!"
Now I was functionally naked from above the waist, my outfit hanging my body in tatters. Only my gloves still remain and some strips of red sleeves. The exposed flesh glowed like liquid gold. Slowly the flesh began to even out and turn into a paler color.
Just at the same time, the puckered wound on the Demon Lord's shoulder began to fill out, magic replenishing its form.
The general raged "YOU DARE?! You dare say that to me?! There can be only one and I am that that one! You are mocking me! Mocking me! YOU ARE A WORM! A WORM TO BE STEPPED ON, LIVING FOR NOTHING, LEAVING NOTHING!"
I was.
Then I wasn't.
Then you took away that reason from me.
Now I will take everything from you.
"Did you know that it is actually that [Light] has the defensive barrier magic?" I said out loud to the Demon Lord. "It goes "Come forth, Light... Blessed be the Flesh: [Skin Barrier]." And Light was naturally opposed to Dark.
Medics need not be squishy in this world! Although… technically DnD style Clerics have never been squishy.
Modified with [Earth] style metal casing and [Wind] style pressure layers, and [Water] style hydraulic systems, this becomes the [Non-Newtonian Fluid Defensive Layer]. Then behind that backed by [Metabolic Supercharger], [Blood Oxygenator], [Tissue Regenerator], [Bone Reinforcement], and [Continuous Heal].
"Behold! The [ARHAT INVULNERABLE GOLDEN BODY!]"
I posed with a Shaolin martial stance, legs down in a super stable arch and with my arms held at a 90 degree angle - one hand punching straight out to the side, and the other straight overhead with the palm flat like warding offheavenly tribulations the sky.
My naked upper body glistened, every muscle outlined.
Ayayayai-iiaa~
This was Monika's gift to me, in her own preparations for the day that I might live on without her. Infinite magic power and unbreakable body, if this was a xianxia I had passed Qi Forming and Body Tempering Stages and should be preparing to form my Golden Core.
Oh she did not find the process of researching and applying this magic an unpleasant task. Not an unpleasant task at all. Specially now that she was able to feel things with [Force Feedback] with her own hands.
It was nothing compared to the Demon Lord's musculature however. It posed, clenching its arms to the sides and bulging its biceps.
"No… no this can't be happening," General Bazoar mumbled. "What am I even looking at?"
And again "WHERE IS THAT DAMN MUSIC COMING FROM?!"
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The Demon Lord's chin snapped back.
I didn't lead with the blade, since the sharp point would just be deflected by innate magic reinforcement, but with the metal ring pommel. It doesn't matter how unbreakable the skin or tough the muscles, joints remain joints. Force = mass x acceleration. With the explosive speed and force of my [Rising Dragon Uppercut], even such a great being must flinch unsteadily on its feet-
I continued on to flip around in mid-air, to land feet-first on the ceiling like Spider-Man or something.
And then, while the Demon Lord was still staggered, explosively bounced off again with a flying dropkick straight to its nose.
Its balance broken, the Demon Lord began to topple backwards like a tree.
The floor under it began to tremble-
I somersaulted in mid-air, since kicking down imparted my momentum onto the Demon Lord and as such the equal and opposite reaction launched me back into the air.
Then I pushed against the ceiling again with jets of wind coming out of my raised hands and aimed down with legs in a horse-riding stance.
"[GOOMBA STOMP!]" I shouted, and with both feet slammed hard onto the Demon Lord's solar plexus. Bhwonk.
It crashed down - straight onto a stone spike underneath aimed at its spine!
"KREEEEEEEEEEHHHH!!!" the Demon Lord shrieked. That attack was not enough to break its skin, but that didn't matter. Its own mass was working against it, and even as the stone spike crumbled beneath its weight that hard to hurt LIKE HELL.
Bam!
The Demon Lord crashed down amid a cloud of pulverized rock.
Without even losing my footing, I surfed its body down, and now glared down disdainfully at it.
It looked back at me with a silent mix of bewilderment, injury, and indignation.
I glared down with an arrogant air to the Demon Lord and said "I had a strong feeling you were much smarter than your host. But only because your summoner is a moron. Now I know if I make you stop existing, then he gets to stop being magic immune."
Then, I changed the grip of my sword to a reverse stabbing hold, and chanted "[Earth], make the metal sing! [Vibro Blade!]"
With no thought of dignity - and indeed, proved to me that this creature was much smarter than its summoner - the Demon Lord rolled, and threw me off. The tip of Zanzibar Mk II scored a red line across its chest and down to its hips - an inconsequential wound that barely even broke skin.
Magic Swords were commonly enchanted to be sharper, to resist breaking, to hit harder than their apparent weight would allow, or be imbued with elemental magic. All of those would be dispelled on contact with the Demon Lord's skin - not quite like the Crystal Creature that gets tougher and stronger the more magic it is exposed to, but as a creature of raw magic you can't exactly hurt it with more magic.
What's it feel like to use a sword-length ultrasonic blade? Like a hot knife against materials.
The Demon Lord rolled a short distance away and got up to a wary crouch. Its gaze now communicated anger, hostility, a little respect at finally finding something worth fighting in this plane.
"That… that's not possible!" General Bazoar gasped. "How can you make a Demon Lord bleed?! A little pipsqueak like you!"
Let's say there's TWO assholes with infinite magic power. What could be the difference between them? One has ambitions on the continental level, the other just wants to mess around and meme.
You'd think the first one would be better, wouldn't you?
The difference is that first is a meathead that just knows how to sword things, relying on someone else to complete all the strategic deficiencies of his ambition; and the other is an actual mage with a working relationship with some of the best researchers and magic combatants this side of the continent.
Those bracers were probably the source of General Bazoar's abilities.
One to absorb magic power for its surroundings.
Another to defend against physical attacks.
I definitely knew what the purpose of those things may have been.
Crystal Creatures, the doom of the Ancient Civilization! Special equipment to combat them!
Those were magic tools! One hand to suck up magic power away to keep them from becoming stronger until functionally invulnerable to attack, and the other hand to survive actually going to melee with the fuckin' things.
Either those things were prototypes and never mass produced, or the damage was severe enough that even these things were useless against the onslaught and lost their magic power through the five thousand years since the Ancient's Fall.
Still with a reverse hold on my sword, I laid my right hand over my left shoulder to point its tip towards the Demon Lord.
Then I stretched out my left arm parallel to the sword.
Knife-missiles floated out of my belt pouches to float in the air behind me.
Dohoho. Now I have a shoulder rail launcher. W
The Demon Lord had eerie balls of flickering yellow-pink plasma floating around it. Those… are probably magic missiles.
I chanted "Come, [Water], come [Light], duplicate this forn, [Mirror Image]." And immediately mist covered the view for a moment, fading back to reveal that I had duplicated myself into three. Only one of those figures was real.
A few breaths passed.
Then we both strafed to the left. We both attacked and dodged at the same time. We both succeeded and failed.
Shrak. The first Knife-Missile struck the wall, punching deep and causing a small shower of debris.
Shrak. The next hypervelocity Knife-Missile struck a magic barrier, and punched through, but deflected just enough to again strike the wall.
Shulk! The third Knife-Missile, now that its barrier was broken, sank into the Demon Lord's left shoulder and then out the other side, creating a large open exit wound, a shower of unholy ichor, idea-made-flesh, and shrapnel.
"YOUR POWER IS MINE!" General Bazoar yelled, and sending another antimagic wave. Wave goes out then like the ocean pulls back in, bringing all magic with it.
I stumbled on my feet, my [Mirror Images] flickered.
Brack. The first Magic Missile struck the wall a good distance away from where I used to be, blasting out a deep pit. The Mirror Image it hit exploded into so much mist.
Brack. The second Magic Missile also hit the wall, a bit closer. The Mirror Image was struck in the head, and the decapitated illusion lost cohesion.
Whump! The third one exploded off my left shoulder, blasting it open. I was spun around and slipped, tumbling into a nearby set of drawers.
The Demon Lord did not faff around. It took a deep breath, building up internal power, and sparks trailed between its horns. Then it sent a torrent of piercing lightning towards me, then as an after-throught threw a few more fireballs at my awkwardly tumbled form.
The resulting explosion was enough to blast through the wall, almost from floor to ceiling, bricks and stone shattered and blasted outwards, exposing the blue mid-afternoon sky outside.
But soon enough the sucking winds from outside blew away the smoke. Demented laughter filled the room.
"What… what are you?!"
"I AM IMMORTAL!" I shouted, spreading my arms out in oblation. "I HAVE IN ME THE BLOOD OF KINGS!"
Now I was functionally naked from above the waist, my outfit hanging my body in tatters. Only my gloves still remain and some strips of red sleeves. The exposed flesh glowed like liquid gold. Slowly the flesh began to even out and turn into a paler color.
Just at the same time, the puckered wound on the Demon Lord's shoulder began to fill out, magic replenishing its form.
The general raged "YOU DARE?! You dare say that to me?! There can be only one and I am that that one! You are mocking me! Mocking me! YOU ARE A WORM! A WORM TO BE STEPPED ON, LIVING FOR NOTHING, LEAVING NOTHING!"
I was.
Then I wasn't.
Then you took away that reason from me.
Now I will take everything from you.
"Did you know that it is actually that [Light] has the defensive barrier magic?" I said out loud to the Demon Lord. "It goes "Come forth, Light... Blessed be the Flesh: [Skin Barrier]." And Light was naturally opposed to Dark.
Medics need not be squishy in this world! Although… technically DnD style Clerics have never been squishy.
Modified with [Earth] style metal casing and [Wind] style pressure layers, and [Water] style hydraulic systems, this becomes the [Non-Newtonian Fluid Defensive Layer]. Then behind that backed by [Metabolic Supercharger], [Blood Oxygenator], [Tissue Regenerator], [Bone Reinforcement], and [Continuous Heal].
"Behold! The [ARHAT INVULNERABLE GOLDEN BODY!]"
I posed with a Shaolin martial stance, legs down in a super stable arch and with my arms held at a 90 degree angle - one hand punching straight out to the side, and the other straight overhead with the palm flat like warding off
My naked upper body glistened, every muscle outlined.
Ayayayai-iiaa~
This was Monika's gift to me, in her own preparations for the day that I might live on without her. Infinite magic power and unbreakable body, if this was a xianxia I had passed Qi Forming and Body Tempering Stages and should be preparing to form my Golden Core.
Oh she did not find the process of researching and applying this magic an unpleasant task. Not an unpleasant task at all. Specially now that she was able to feel things with [Force Feedback] with her own hands.
It was nothing compared to the Demon Lord's musculature however. It posed, clenching its arms to the sides and bulging its biceps.
"No… no this can't be happening," General Bazoar mumbled. "What am I even looking at?"
And again "WHERE IS THAT DAMN MUSIC COMING FROM?!"
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Last edited:
JennyDracos
Eccentric Hugging Lady
- Location
- Chicago
That's right, General Bazoar. It is time...
...for the GUN SHOW.
...for the GUN SHOW.
Yeah, cancer be bad. Fortunately, isekai world's magic is literally idiot-proof. Things don't activate until they're needed.
Crake
I AM THE STORM THAT IS APPROACHING
- Location
- USA
Demon Lord, inaudible: [Oh? You're approaching me? Instead of running away, you're coming right to me?]
Playa: "I can't beat the shit out of your master without getting closer."
Demon Lord, inaudible: [Oh ho! Then come as close as you like.]
41.4 Blood of Kings
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What this meant was that the Demon Lord was a creature of magic, and thus everything it can do naturally, there was a spell that could accomplish very nearly the same thing. And while it can absorb magic, it didn't actually [Drain] magic from range.
This I explained. Then I bantered "[Magic Missile] is interesting if it can't miss, yours are probably guided by visual tracking, right?"
The Demon Lord let out an annoyed screech, and began gesturing, and ended up raising its index finger at me in a rude gesture.
Somehow I could just understand its meaning:
/Don't you bloody well make light of witchfire, ya wanker. It destroys all defensive magic on contact. You just bleedin' fed your magic barrier with power as fast as it could be disrupted until it was the Magic Missile that ran out of power./
"Fair enough."
How odd. It was easier to make friends with a Demon Lord that literally ate people than getting along with Zorah.
Still gonna rip and tear your guts, of course. Nothing personal.
The Demon Lord nodded. Fair enough.
"... Don't you two look like you're having a good time right there!" General Bazoar shouted. He brandished his sword. "DEMON LORD! Why haven't you killed this brat yet! Don't be incompetent and shame me!"
I tossed my sword aside and raised my fists like a boxer.
"Wha…! What are you doing?! HOW DARE YOU IGNORE ME!" the General roared.
"[FUCK OFF!]" I shouted back and with that completely unorthodox chant tossed a wave of rock spikes his way. Sure, he could sap all the magic he wanted - but since he was not a magician, it's not like he could do anything with all that magic power.
He could only dump it into the Demon Lord through their contract bond.
He would personally have to waste time chopping through those stone spikes before he could do anything to help.
Then I turned back towards the Demon Lord, and leaped at it like an angry demented red monkey.
It began screeching and swinging at the air. I caught a thumb and began scampering up its arm. Its screaming grew louder.
Then we were face to face and our eyes met again and I screamed into the space between its brows "YOU ARE HUGE! THAT MEANS YOU HAVE HUGE GUTS!" I gripped the leonine fur around its neck. "RIP AND TEAR!"
Then it tried to melt my face off with eye lasers wait what the shite it can do that?!
The beams slapped against the [Air Shield] I always kept active around my head because /of course/ as the person that draws aggro in the party I would use my eye mask as a convenient place to engrave magic tools. Open face helmets are only good against shrapnel and arrows falling from above, and less so in face to face combat.
I disengaged from melee, because punch magic was less useful when the enemy can absorb the blow through sheer muscle mass.
The Demon Lord zapped away with its eye lasers again. A round shield of ice stopped and refracted the beam.
A breath passed as our eyes met.
Considering.
Testing.
Silently pre-casting.
I shot a Knife Missile at its face. This time the Knife Missle met an /angled/ magic barrier and was deflected instead of punching straight through.
The Demon Lord dropped to one knee and flared its wings out like a cape. The shadows under it thickened. Then from underneath a pair of howling, snarling Hellhounds emerged.
The demon dogs had six eyes, and flame licked the ground where their feet touched. They were fast and fearless, jaws open and dripping with saliva to bite and rend.
The stone floor became as unto [Land Sharks], great white jawed mouths lunged out from the burnt remains of the carpet, swallowing them up from ambush and then gnashing and tearing them to pieces, dragging them underneath the solid stone floor until only a small gout of flame marked their passing.
"I said, DON'T IGNORE ME!"
A wave of antimagic passed across the room, and the Demon Lord shivered. Sure, the magic would still be passed on to it, but it still felt deeply uncomfortable.
"Hm?" I grunted nonchalantly.
"FALL DOWN! FALL DOWN!" General Bazoar sent out wave after magic-draining wave at me. He was making it far too obvious now doing it with his right hand. "WHY WON'T YOU FALL?!"
With perfectly stable footing, now I didn't even show the slightest hint of being affected.
I turned around, grinned at him, and spread my arms out again, daring someone - anyone - to take a shot at my open unarmored body. "~I HAVE NO RIVAL! NO MAN CAN BE MY EQUAAAL!~"
The General now began screaming incoherently.
I began singing out, turning my back on the Demon Lord entirely "~BOOOORN TO BE KING! PRINCE OF THE UNIVERSE! FIGHTING AND FREEE~"!
The Demon Lord did not take the bait. It seemed more amused by these shenanigans than anything.
"You have finally provoked me, you little shite! I'll kill you myself!" The General rushed out from his other half of the room, having managed to hack his way through some time ago. His sword was a hand-and-a-half bastard sword with an impracticably broad blade, meant more for slashing and smashing than thrusting through gaps in armor. Probably a magic weapon.
"~Here I belong. Fighting for survival~," I whispered. "~In a world with the daaarkest powers~."
Rather than attack me at the same time, the Demon Lord stepped back - entering General Bazoar's passive antimagic range. Smart.
Bazoar chopped down at me with a great two-handed overhead blow that would have split open anything -
But I stepped /into/ his guard, and so instead of being cut I simply caught his sword by the grip of his two hands with a flat open palm. I was shorter than him by a fair amount, so I blocked the strike with my right arm held up straight up.
The force of that blow was transmitted harmlessly from the rigid arm, down the shoulders, through the spine, onto legs and down into the floor. The stone tiles under my feet cracked, but I was otherwise completely unharmed.
Bazoar snarled at me, completely unprepared for the sheer effrontery of someone meeting his hard combat strikes with soft martial arts.
I nodded. "Hey."
Then from my left hand behind my back that had been surreptitiously reaching into my belt pouches, I slapped onto his chestplate a conical device.
"Thanks for letting me past your anti-kinetic screen, moron~" I whispered.
"It's not going to work, with the Blockbracer I am invincible no matter the dista-"
I slapped the back of the cone, and the non-magical anti-tank shaped charge exploded under my palms. The copper liner inside the cone abruptly was turned into a molten jet of hypervelocity liquid metal that effortlessly punched through plate armor, and the cloth gambeson underlayer.
BANG.
Unfortunately, even at this short a distance, the Blockbracer (thanks again, you gabby idiot) effect still applied. The kinetic force of the jet was stopped. Unfortunately because of the extremely narrow focus of the armor piercing shaped charge this did not quite stop the fire and the rest of the explosion from proceeding /sideways/.
It didn't stop the transfer of heat to his skin fast enough.
"Gyaaaakh!" The general screamed in pain and staggered back. The Demon General caught him and helped him back to his feet.
Yeah. We went into this knowing we might have to deal with Crystal Creature antimagic shenanigans. And Monika and I, being people with pattern recognition, knew that if we could encounter *one* of those things, we surely will encounter another at some point. So just before we arrived at Alpas Castra, we [Boom Tubed] some of our anti-Crystal Creature arsenal.
It was almost exactly a panzerfaust, a completely unmagical solution to a magic-eating menace.
Yes, this was the advantage of having someone as OCD as Charlotte eating out of our palms for scraps of knowledge. We were not willing to unseal the pandora's box of gunpowder hot weaponry on this world just yet - its Renaissance levels of magic technology was sustainable - but making nitroglycerin and nitromethane and plastic explosives? That was another matter entirely.
Bazoar looked down and for a moment his eyes didn't recognize the circular gouge in his armor. Magically reinforced armor - which due to being inscribed as a magic tool continually absorbed ambient magic, hence mostly unaffected by his anti-magic field as long as given a second or so to recover, otherwise people would be complaining of malicious planned obsolence - was peeled open into jagged strips like a flower.
I could see exposed flesh through the breach in his knightly plate.
Hesitantly he reached out to touch the metal and winced - not at the pain - but the reality of it, feeling the sharp points scrape against the tips of the metal-capped fingers of his glove.
"What… what?! What have you done?!" he whispered in horror.
His skin was unharmed, it was just heated up quickly; not even to the level of a sunburn or touching a hot pan.
But that brief reminder of his mortality broke his belief in his invulnerability.
I could see from his eyes glancing this and that in panic, that this was enough to start breaking his sense of superiority. His confidence. His pride as a warrior!
The problem with people who cheat their way to the top in pay to win is that they have no idea what to do when they meet an actual pro on the same level.
Granted, I am someone who was also a cheatery existence, but at least I didn't just rest on my ass. My build was destined to be good at magic. So I worked to be good at magic and shored up my weaknesses in other fields, instead of thinking myself invincible!
I am only so strong BECAUSE I knew I wasn't invincible! So despite my seeming recklessness, I could always put 200% effort in because I knew that controlling the flow before the enemy makes a decision is as good as armor.
"You are not the man chosen by the gods. I am!" I said, striking straight at his ego. "I am immortal. And I can hurt you. I can /kill/ you."
I still had no idea how to harm him yet as long as those magic tools exist, but I can still destroy him. Psychologically.
He stared back at me with eyes wide with panic. "No! No, that's impossible!"
"Search your feelings. You know it to be true."
"No! No! YOU LIE!"
I shook my head sadly and whispered:
"I've seen things you people won't believe.
"Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion,
"I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate,
"All those moments will be lost, in time,
"Like tears in the rain.
I smiled. "Time to die."
"I KILL YOU! YOU LITTLE BASTARD! I KILL! YOU ARE NOTHING! HEAR ME? NOTHING! LIAR!" he raved and wanted to lunge at me again, but the Demon Lord grabbed him by the cape and then held him up like a kitten. "What? LET ME GO! YOU DEMON! HOW DARE YOU! DO YOU BETRAY ME TOO?! YOU NEED ME!"
The Demon Lord let out a series of clicks, as if saying /"Well, yes. But you promised a glorious sacrifice, and this contract will not be helped by you dying. I am obliged to protect you, and this is a pointless battle you need not fight."/
The shadows thickened again.
Bazoar pointed at me. "I WILL RAZE YOUR KINGDOM! ALL WILL BURN! I WILL HAVE YOUR WOMEN R*PED TO DEATH BY PIGS, AND THEN FED TO THEM AS SLOP!" He yelled as he was grabbed by the Demon Lord from behind almost in a hug. He jabbed his finger vehemently at me. "I WILL FLAY YOU ALIVE AND MAKE YOU WATCH, YOU WILL DIE! DIE SCREAMING! AND THEN DEMONS WILL HAVE YOUR SOUL!"
I laughed. I opened my arms wide again and retorted:
"When you bring your army, I urge you to send your best. Send all your demons, all of them! Don't hold back! Soon enough they will learn, there is the ONE that they all fear." I jabbed a thumb at my own chest and lifted my chin arrogantly. "Come back stronger and struggle against me with all your meager power, you pathetic traitor general! Don't you dare make this boring!"
"YOU FUCKEERRRR~" he roared, even as he was pulled into the inky-black shadows, which then seemed to pull inwards, like a pool of water evaporating out in the sun.
Wait, why didn't it just shadow-teleport straight to… oh, right. Demons and other strange mystical creatures have weird rules about territory and where they can enter uninvited. There are plenty of [Teleport] magics with arbitrary rules like that.
And outside…
Huh.
I didn't realize it before, but there were also sounds of battle (mainly explosions) that now had subsided. All the lesser demons also vanished when the Demon Lord retreated.
"Monika, the stupidhead's gone. The antimagic field… no need to beware for it. You can come out now."
Leene appeared, showing herself through the open outer wall "Indeed, I AM THE STRONGEST!" she declared. "Gyahaha. These evil creatures are nothing before me!"
"Okay, /one/ of the stupidheads," I added.
Nothing but silence. "Monika?"
Oh wait, she had shut down.
After all, she said she was not an artificial intelligence, but the smartphone in its totality.
I took out from my belt bag a brick of solid tempered steel. Inside that was a dense but soft layer of packed wool. Then inside that was a leather bag. And inside that was another quilted bag of fine silk and cotton. And then inside of that was a wooden slot with air spaces to further insulate the contents from touching the insides of the container.
And then, sliding that out, inside that tray was my smartphone.
All of which had Leene's [Protection] applied to them.
Elze, Linze, and Yae then appeared, being lifted up via [Air Platforms]. Leene pushed them through the gap. Zorah remained levitating outside, and for a change was at loss unable to make a comment against Leene.
When it comes to pissing people off, age and experience beat youth and energy every damn time.
=
And that was how the girls found me, standing there, half-naked, staring numbly down at the black technological slate in my arms.
"Mister Zah? Are you alright?" asked Linze.
"Tch. So the bastard's escaped," Else groused. "Fighting demons ain't very much difference from fighting monster beasts, it's just that monster beasts can feel pain and fear. Damn demons just don't flinch."
"Demons seek to slay or corrupt mortals more than anything, if they can," said Leene. "You can trust that, at least."
It was only Yae that remained silent, bending down to look at my face. With half my eye mask shattered, it was actually the first time she had a good look at enough of my real face.
She gasped. "Playa-dono!"
I remained frozen in time, cold, and shivering, as if it was raining. It was raining heavily.
The smartphone screen was a flat empty void. A crack ran straight through the gorilla glass.
Despite everything, General Bazoar had won against me and given me the absolute despair.
==
==
What this meant was that the Demon Lord was a creature of magic, and thus everything it can do naturally, there was a spell that could accomplish very nearly the same thing. And while it can absorb magic, it didn't actually [Drain] magic from range.
This I explained. Then I bantered "[Magic Missile] is interesting if it can't miss, yours are probably guided by visual tracking, right?"
The Demon Lord let out an annoyed screech, and began gesturing, and ended up raising its index finger at me in a rude gesture.
Somehow I could just understand its meaning:
/Don't you bloody well make light of witchfire, ya wanker. It destroys all defensive magic on contact. You just bleedin' fed your magic barrier with power as fast as it could be disrupted until it was the Magic Missile that ran out of power./
"Fair enough."
How odd. It was easier to make friends with a Demon Lord that literally ate people than getting along with Zorah.
Still gonna rip and tear your guts, of course. Nothing personal.
The Demon Lord nodded. Fair enough.
"... Don't you two look like you're having a good time right there!" General Bazoar shouted. He brandished his sword. "DEMON LORD! Why haven't you killed this brat yet! Don't be incompetent and shame me!"
I tossed my sword aside and raised my fists like a boxer.
"Wha…! What are you doing?! HOW DARE YOU IGNORE ME!" the General roared.
"[FUCK OFF!]" I shouted back and with that completely unorthodox chant tossed a wave of rock spikes his way. Sure, he could sap all the magic he wanted - but since he was not a magician, it's not like he could do anything with all that magic power.
He could only dump it into the Demon Lord through their contract bond.
He would personally have to waste time chopping through those stone spikes before he could do anything to help.
Then I turned back towards the Demon Lord, and leaped at it like an angry demented red monkey.
It began screeching and swinging at the air. I caught a thumb and began scampering up its arm. Its screaming grew louder.
Then we were face to face and our eyes met again and I screamed into the space between its brows "YOU ARE HUGE! THAT MEANS YOU HAVE HUGE GUTS!" I gripped the leonine fur around its neck. "RIP AND TEAR!"
Then it tried to melt my face off with eye lasers wait what the shite it can do that?!
The beams slapped against the [Air Shield] I always kept active around my head because /of course/ as the person that draws aggro in the party I would use my eye mask as a convenient place to engrave magic tools. Open face helmets are only good against shrapnel and arrows falling from above, and less so in face to face combat.
I disengaged from melee, because punch magic was less useful when the enemy can absorb the blow through sheer muscle mass.
The Demon Lord zapped away with its eye lasers again. A round shield of ice stopped and refracted the beam.
A breath passed as our eyes met.
Considering.
Testing.
Silently pre-casting.
I shot a Knife Missile at its face. This time the Knife Missle met an /angled/ magic barrier and was deflected instead of punching straight through.
The Demon Lord dropped to one knee and flared its wings out like a cape. The shadows under it thickened. Then from underneath a pair of howling, snarling Hellhounds emerged.
The demon dogs had six eyes, and flame licked the ground where their feet touched. They were fast and fearless, jaws open and dripping with saliva to bite and rend.
The stone floor became as unto [Land Sharks], great white jawed mouths lunged out from the burnt remains of the carpet, swallowing them up from ambush and then gnashing and tearing them to pieces, dragging them underneath the solid stone floor until only a small gout of flame marked their passing.
"I said, DON'T IGNORE ME!"
A wave of antimagic passed across the room, and the Demon Lord shivered. Sure, the magic would still be passed on to it, but it still felt deeply uncomfortable.
"Hm?" I grunted nonchalantly.
"FALL DOWN! FALL DOWN!" General Bazoar sent out wave after magic-draining wave at me. He was making it far too obvious now doing it with his right hand. "WHY WON'T YOU FALL?!"
With perfectly stable footing, now I didn't even show the slightest hint of being affected.
I turned around, grinned at him, and spread my arms out again, daring someone - anyone - to take a shot at my open unarmored body. "~I HAVE NO RIVAL! NO MAN CAN BE MY EQUAAAL!~"
The General now began screaming incoherently.
I began singing out, turning my back on the Demon Lord entirely "~BOOOORN TO BE KING! PRINCE OF THE UNIVERSE! FIGHTING AND FREEE~"!
The Demon Lord did not take the bait. It seemed more amused by these shenanigans than anything.
"You have finally provoked me, you little shite! I'll kill you myself!" The General rushed out from his other half of the room, having managed to hack his way through some time ago. His sword was a hand-and-a-half bastard sword with an impracticably broad blade, meant more for slashing and smashing than thrusting through gaps in armor. Probably a magic weapon.
"~Here I belong. Fighting for survival~," I whispered. "~In a world with the daaarkest powers~."
Rather than attack me at the same time, the Demon Lord stepped back - entering General Bazoar's passive antimagic range. Smart.
Bazoar chopped down at me with a great two-handed overhead blow that would have split open anything -
But I stepped /into/ his guard, and so instead of being cut I simply caught his sword by the grip of his two hands with a flat open palm. I was shorter than him by a fair amount, so I blocked the strike with my right arm held up straight up.
The force of that blow was transmitted harmlessly from the rigid arm, down the shoulders, through the spine, onto legs and down into the floor. The stone tiles under my feet cracked, but I was otherwise completely unharmed.
Bazoar snarled at me, completely unprepared for the sheer effrontery of someone meeting his hard combat strikes with soft martial arts.
I nodded. "Hey."
Then from my left hand behind my back that had been surreptitiously reaching into my belt pouches, I slapped onto his chestplate a conical device.
"Thanks for letting me past your anti-kinetic screen, moron~" I whispered.
"It's not going to work, with the Blockbracer I am invincible no matter the dista-"
I slapped the back of the cone, and the non-magical anti-tank shaped charge exploded under my palms. The copper liner inside the cone abruptly was turned into a molten jet of hypervelocity liquid metal that effortlessly punched through plate armor, and the cloth gambeson underlayer.
BANG.
Unfortunately, even at this short a distance, the Blockbracer (thanks again, you gabby idiot) effect still applied. The kinetic force of the jet was stopped. Unfortunately because of the extremely narrow focus of the armor piercing shaped charge this did not quite stop the fire and the rest of the explosion from proceeding /sideways/.
It didn't stop the transfer of heat to his skin fast enough.
"Gyaaaakh!" The general screamed in pain and staggered back. The Demon General caught him and helped him back to his feet.
Yeah. We went into this knowing we might have to deal with Crystal Creature antimagic shenanigans. And Monika and I, being people with pattern recognition, knew that if we could encounter *one* of those things, we surely will encounter another at some point. So just before we arrived at Alpas Castra, we [Boom Tubed] some of our anti-Crystal Creature arsenal.
It was almost exactly a panzerfaust, a completely unmagical solution to a magic-eating menace.
Yes, this was the advantage of having someone as OCD as Charlotte eating out of our palms for scraps of knowledge. We were not willing to unseal the pandora's box of gunpowder hot weaponry on this world just yet - its Renaissance levels of magic technology was sustainable - but making nitroglycerin and nitromethane and plastic explosives? That was another matter entirely.
Bazoar looked down and for a moment his eyes didn't recognize the circular gouge in his armor. Magically reinforced armor - which due to being inscribed as a magic tool continually absorbed ambient magic, hence mostly unaffected by his anti-magic field as long as given a second or so to recover, otherwise people would be complaining of malicious planned obsolence - was peeled open into jagged strips like a flower.
I could see exposed flesh through the breach in his knightly plate.
Hesitantly he reached out to touch the metal and winced - not at the pain - but the reality of it, feeling the sharp points scrape against the tips of the metal-capped fingers of his glove.
"What… what?! What have you done?!" he whispered in horror.
His skin was unharmed, it was just heated up quickly; not even to the level of a sunburn or touching a hot pan.
But that brief reminder of his mortality broke his belief in his invulnerability.
I could see from his eyes glancing this and that in panic, that this was enough to start breaking his sense of superiority. His confidence. His pride as a warrior!
The problem with people who cheat their way to the top in pay to win is that they have no idea what to do when they meet an actual pro on the same level.
Granted, I am someone who was also a cheatery existence, but at least I didn't just rest on my ass. My build was destined to be good at magic. So I worked to be good at magic and shored up my weaknesses in other fields, instead of thinking myself invincible!
I am only so strong BECAUSE I knew I wasn't invincible! So despite my seeming recklessness, I could always put 200% effort in because I knew that controlling the flow before the enemy makes a decision is as good as armor.
"You are not the man chosen by the gods. I am!" I said, striking straight at his ego. "I am immortal. And I can hurt you. I can /kill/ you."
I still had no idea how to harm him yet as long as those magic tools exist, but I can still destroy him. Psychologically.
He stared back at me with eyes wide with panic. "No! No, that's impossible!"
"Search your feelings. You know it to be true."
"No! No! YOU LIE!"
I shook my head sadly and whispered:
"I've seen things you people won't believe.
"Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion,
"I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate,
"All those moments will be lost, in time,
"Like tears in the rain.
I smiled. "Time to die."
"I KILL YOU! YOU LITTLE BASTARD! I KILL! YOU ARE NOTHING! HEAR ME? NOTHING! LIAR!" he raved and wanted to lunge at me again, but the Demon Lord grabbed him by the cape and then held him up like a kitten. "What? LET ME GO! YOU DEMON! HOW DARE YOU! DO YOU BETRAY ME TOO?! YOU NEED ME!"
The Demon Lord let out a series of clicks, as if saying /"Well, yes. But you promised a glorious sacrifice, and this contract will not be helped by you dying. I am obliged to protect you, and this is a pointless battle you need not fight."/
The shadows thickened again.
Bazoar pointed at me. "I WILL RAZE YOUR KINGDOM! ALL WILL BURN! I WILL HAVE YOUR WOMEN R*PED TO DEATH BY PIGS, AND THEN FED TO THEM AS SLOP!" He yelled as he was grabbed by the Demon Lord from behind almost in a hug. He jabbed his finger vehemently at me. "I WILL FLAY YOU ALIVE AND MAKE YOU WATCH, YOU WILL DIE! DIE SCREAMING! AND THEN DEMONS WILL HAVE YOUR SOUL!"
I laughed. I opened my arms wide again and retorted:
"When you bring your army, I urge you to send your best. Send all your demons, all of them! Don't hold back! Soon enough they will learn, there is the ONE that they all fear." I jabbed a thumb at my own chest and lifted my chin arrogantly. "Come back stronger and struggle against me with all your meager power, you pathetic traitor general! Don't you dare make this boring!"
"YOU FUCKEERRRR~" he roared, even as he was pulled into the inky-black shadows, which then seemed to pull inwards, like a pool of water evaporating out in the sun.
Wait, why didn't it just shadow-teleport straight to… oh, right. Demons and other strange mystical creatures have weird rules about territory and where they can enter uninvited. There are plenty of [Teleport] magics with arbitrary rules like that.
And outside…
Huh.
I didn't realize it before, but there were also sounds of battle (mainly explosions) that now had subsided. All the lesser demons also vanished when the Demon Lord retreated.
"Monika, the stupidhead's gone. The antimagic field… no need to beware for it. You can come out now."
Leene appeared, showing herself through the open outer wall "Indeed, I AM THE STRONGEST!" she declared. "Gyahaha. These evil creatures are nothing before me!"
"Okay, /one/ of the stupidheads," I added.
Nothing but silence. "Monika?"
Oh wait, she had shut down.
After all, she said she was not an artificial intelligence, but the smartphone in its totality.
I took out from my belt bag a brick of solid tempered steel. Inside that was a dense but soft layer of packed wool. Then inside that was a leather bag. And inside that was another quilted bag of fine silk and cotton. And then inside of that was a wooden slot with air spaces to further insulate the contents from touching the insides of the container.
And then, sliding that out, inside that tray was my smartphone.
All of which had Leene's [Protection] applied to them.
Elze, Linze, and Yae then appeared, being lifted up via [Air Platforms]. Leene pushed them through the gap. Zorah remained levitating outside, and for a change was at loss unable to make a comment against Leene.
When it comes to pissing people off, age and experience beat youth and energy every damn time.
=
And that was how the girls found me, standing there, half-naked, staring numbly down at the black technological slate in my arms.
"Mister Zah? Are you alright?" asked Linze.
"Tch. So the bastard's escaped," Else groused. "Fighting demons ain't very much difference from fighting monster beasts, it's just that monster beasts can feel pain and fear. Damn demons just don't flinch."
"Demons seek to slay or corrupt mortals more than anything, if they can," said Leene. "You can trust that, at least."
It was only Yae that remained silent, bending down to look at my face. With half my eye mask shattered, it was actually the first time she had a good look at enough of my real face.
She gasped. "Playa-dono!"
I remained frozen in time, cold, and shivering, as if it was raining. It was raining heavily.
The smartphone screen was a flat empty void. A crack ran straight through the gorilla glass.
Despite everything, General Bazoar had won against me and given me the absolute despair.
==
==
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The end of chapter... whoa.
Just one question: Zah and Monica developed pre-cast spells. Vancian magic. One of best was to ensure Monica's survival is time-reversal trick she have. Just have few pre-cast time-reversal with different duration. 10 seconds, 10 minutes, 10 hours and 10 days. When worst happens? Just reverse time. Sure, some memories may be lost, but it definitely beats dying.
Just one question: Zah and Monica developed pre-cast spells. Vancian magic. One of best was to ensure Monica's survival is time-reversal trick she have. Just have few pre-cast time-reversal with different duration. 10 seconds, 10 minutes, 10 hours and 10 days. When worst happens? Just reverse time. Sure, some memories may be lost, but it definitely beats dying.
"In Another World WITHOUT MONIKA."
JennyDracos
Eccentric Hugging Lady
- Location
- Chicago
The thing is, if you've already read In Another World With My Smartphone it's utterly self-indulgent and not self-aware, almost to the point of sociopathy.
Someone who is more aware of their own flaws just makes this story so much better.
Someone who is more aware of their own flaws just makes this story so much better.
Silverias
Seeing is Believing
- Location
- Squiddy Places
Well yes, but you also have to remember the laws of fanfiction and expectations of quality. I went out on a limb for a fanfiction focused on what we'll generously call a "piece of fiction" like this because I'm a MASSIVE fan of some of the author's other work.
I am not disappointed in the slightest.
Edison_Trent
Freelancer
42.1 Here We Belong
-.
-.
No.
No don't panic just yet.
Hope was a cruel little thing. We both had prepared for this eventuality.
We had contingencies. Why haven't they automatically gone into effect yet?
Theory: Monika is not an AI. She is the smartphone in its totality. So when the antimagic wave forced her to shut down, it also drained all the battery. She can't affect herself until she wakes up. She can't passively absorb mana and convert it to electric charge until then. And without magic power, even those automatic time reversal circuits don't activate.
Magic tool inscriptions would refill as soon as there is ambient mana, but the problem is that without additional damage, they don't trigger at all.
So we just have to… wait.
That's the plan.
It has to work.
It must work.
Leene slid into the room, dragging Zorah behind her. She was still upside down. She glared at me and said something unintelligible. I was only legally blind, not totally blind. I could still see shapes, colors, judge distances - it was only that past two arms-lengths away, I could no longer recognize specific faces.
"Did you actually gag her?"
"mmgh hh MGHDHHAER," was Zorah's response.
"Should I not have?" Leene tilted her head aside like a bird.
I sighed softly. "Clearly you are the smartest person here."
She beamed. "Well of course!"
"Too bad the one thing that you were good for turned out to be /absolutely useless/," I spat.
While Leene looked taken aback from the vehemence in my tone, I looked past her to Zorah who was still hanging in the air.
I paused for a moment. Should I just kill Zorah? She's useless now anyway. War is going to happen no matter what. This was HER FAULT. None of this would have happened if we had just LET HER DIE.
To prevent this from being a waste of time, it was only right and proper that THIS WOMAN SHOULD DIE.
Would that make me feel better?
Would that make me feel… anything?
I stared at Zorah, briefly contemplating what it would be like to feel her brains squishing between my fingers.
"Playa… you okay?"
"No I am not okay, Elze," I replied dully. I shook my head and put away Monika's shell back into my belt bag. "But I also don't wanna be here anymore. Let's go."
Linze stepped forward with her arms out to give me a hug, but I shook my head again. She looked slightly hurt at my rejection.
I said again: "Let's just… go."
"Um. Hello? I'm still alive over here…!" moaned the Regulus Marquise of Alpas. "Please… someone get me down…!"
Fine. Bring him along too I guess.
-.
-.
Castle Zenovi was but a fifteen-minute flight away.
With enough thrust, even a brick may fly. With enough wind power providing lift, even a delta wing made of solid ice may fly.
We announced our arrival by crashing into the courtyard, ice smashing everywhere, some of us gracefully dropping and rolling to a stop, others floating serenely down, some landing feet-first and her shoes leaving divots into the flagstones while carrying her sister in a princess carry, and someone gets to be thrown to belly-flop on her own castle.
Drawn by the commotion, the guards rushed out. They watched Zorah slide down from the wall like a frog sliding off glass and stood at attention. Soon enough, the courtiers arrived and helped their liege back up to her feet.
Lydia hesitated to remove the gag on her liege lord's mouth and Zorah noticed.
"Indignity upon indignity. I am surrounded by buffoons and histrionic thespians. But let it not be said that the House of Zenovi is unable to show gratitude. Be welcome into my home." She turned towards Marquise Alpas and said "You have nothing to fear from me."
"... Fear is not quite the right word," replied the pudgy noble. "Similar, but not quite."
"Hhh," I grunted. Alephis without a [Boom Tube] was at least a week by carriage or several hours via air. Unacceptable.
I walked past Zorah into her castle like I owned the place.
She scowled and had to run to get ahead of me. Zorah ordered bread, sweet preserved meats, and fruit wine be brought to the dining hall, and for the servants to vacate.
I paused before the dining table and hunched over, pressing my gloved fists upon the wood.
A debriefing would be the proper thing to do right now. But I really don't want to hear Zorah's voice right now. Her grating donkey-like voice. I have my own problems to deal with.
"You are saying that out loud, like I would not hear it, fool."
I sighed "I have no time for your bullshit, Zorah. I only require two things from you:
"One. Give me a room. High up. Private, preferably one that gets lots of sun.
"Second. Send your fastest messenger bird to Alephis. I need Alan right here, stat. I need Charlotte and all the gear I left for her safekeeping. Tristwin's still at Mismede and I need to make a report in in person."
"If it will lead you to being less naked in my house, I allow it. Yet even as I may have gratitude for your… efforts… at preventing war, your disrespect against our King will not be tolerated!"
"I am *tight* with both Alfred and Tristwin and Jamukha. We move in entirely different circles Zorah. Do not judge me by your standards." I held up my fingers to a pinch. "I am THIS close to razing a kingdom right now. Make sure it is pointed at the right one."
Zorah lunged at me with an accusing finger "Balderdash and boasting, when will you ever sto-!"
Wham.
I turned around and punched her right in the face.
Zorah staggered back, clutching her broken nose.
Marquise Alpas yelped and scurried to hide under the table.
"My Lady!" Lydia yelled. There was the rasp of steel being drawn. "How dare you-"
"HOLD!" Zorah
"You hit me…" she touched the blood dripping out of her nose, her eyes wide in amazement. "You actually hit me. Not even my father hit me!"
"Maybe you just didn't fucking try hard enough, then!" I spat back.
Zorah cracked her knuckles. "Ah, I did not see how you managed to drive away Lord General Bazoar. Let us see if you did you with your fists instead of your mouth."
I snarled back "I SAID I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR YOUR BULLSHIT, ZORAH!"
Let's get one thing straight: I am an asshole.
I am a recovering narcissist.
People like me have difficulty knowing when to sympathize. Sympathy - to share the feeling - it's not impossible or even difficult. Logically, it was enough to imagine feeling what they might be feeling in a similar situation. If you've ever been moved by books or movies, this was enough.
But it's the _when_ that is the problem. Where it's something simple like pain, or fear, or anguish, or loneliness, I get it. But grief? I don't get it. My parents were just terrible people. I should be sad, but I don't feel the world any worse that they were gone. All right, granted, my father wasn't exactly dead - just in jail, but mostly same thing.
I am a man that judges people by their looks. If they look ok, I am also inclined to think they *are* ok.
Many times have I accidentally insulted people, looked to be too aloof or relishing their pain. I perfectly looked the part of a fat little young master that cared for no one but himself and this hedonistic whims. Psychopathy is a medical condition, but sociopathy is /trained/.
Even after I got into shape and with the determination to be someone better - there's a lot that still I don't intuitively get like normal people adjusted with normal childhoods. I have to consciously be reminded what should be the proper response to comfort people in specific situations.
So it was not out of kindness that I said this:
"Your father is dead. Your brothers are dead. Your nephews are dead. Your grandfather is dead. You are the last of the main line Zenovivi. This was just yesterday! Today I may also have lost the love of my life. GRIEVE PROPERLY, ZORAH. And leave me the fuck alone."
I could see the moment the light just went right out of her eyes. Her false bravado fell apart like scales around her.
"... Right. That would be proper," she whispered.
"We have had enough! You- you barbarian! You insult our pain in our own home!" Lydia pointed her sword at my face.
"They have guest right," Zorah said evenly. "Leave it."
"But milady, we don't need guests such as these…! Just throw some treasures at these mercenary adventurers, and they can begone!"
Linze raised her hand. "Actually we are under commission by the Royal House of Belfast and the Royal House of Mismede in a diplomatic assignment. We kind of outrank you, and you just pulled us off an important mission of our own. It was just no one else in Belfast is the perfect high speed reaction force that we can do. If it wasn't us, then it would be NO ONE, and Lady Zorah would be dead by now."
"Tch." Lydia slid her sword back into its scabbard. "Follow me then. I will arrange for your lodgings."
"One question," Zorah said softly before we could go.
"What?"
"Are you actually blind?" She gestured to her own face, miming the cloth blindfold I had wrapped around my own eyes. "I would be terribly guilty if all this time I had been harassing an invalid."
So you were aware that what you were doing was wrong all along you crazy witc-!. No. I exhaled.
"My light is not found in the world, but in a certain person's smile. I had failed to protect that smile."
-.
-.
It was a room with a balcony high up in the keep. By the decorations this must have been one of the rooms of Zanac's uncles.
I took out a solar power bank and carefully inserted the charger into the usb-c port and then inserted the smartphone back inside its protective casing. The 'breathing light' LED
I left them - her - on the balcony floor.
I stared out towards the west. The sun was already low in the sky, the charge would be a trickle.
I looked to the east, towards the Regulus border.
Then I sat down with my back to the wall and waited.
My brain was empty of all things. I felt nothing.
Was this history repeating itself again? Too much indulgence means the world pushes back. But that makes no sense. The world isn't fair. This world or the modern world. If you have wealth and power, unless you miss your steps, you can get away with anything.
There's no justice unless you actively work to have justice. That's what social bonds are for. That's what the law, if properly upheld, is for. That's where confidence in society comes from.
Instead of a Char, should I have been Batman?
I grit my teeth and slammed my fist into the wall behind me. The stone exploded with a bang.
"WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!" I screamed at the sky.
"Eeek!" I heard someone yelped. "Mister Zah! It's me!" said Linze, peeking out from the side of the balcony door. "I brought food - you haven't eaten yet."
"Ah."
Elze then appeared, and leaned casually against the door frame. "Yo," she greeted with the wave of a finger.
Linze brought in a small serving table with a silver tray full of foodstuffs. Bread, onion soup, sandwiches, sliced sausages, salad, chilled fruit juice, cakes, grapes. She put it down on the floor and sat primly beside me. She stared at the metal brick under the sun.
"I'm sorry," was the first thing she said.
"Why?" I replied dully. "None of this was your fault. It is the prize of our arrogance. We thought we were safe, we were above it all. Good things don't happen to people like us. I was waiting for the shoe to drop - you ever have that feeling when it seems like the only reason for life to give you good things is so that it hurts more when they get taken away?"
"Every single day," Linze immediately replied with all seriousness.
My eyes were still blindfolded. I was in utter darkness. I am a man, so I can't… while there are such things as manly tears, I knew that if I opened my eyes what would come out would be inconsolable bitch tears.
I raised my left arm, and Linze sidled over to hug my side.
I breathed "Yeah… the fact that you exist is one reason for me to doubt that good things can't happen to people like us. Thank you Linze."
"You're not alone, Mister Zah. You're never going to be alone, if you just let us in."
"Mmm."
I raised my right arm.
Elze replied with a "Hn."
My right arm and my right side remained open.
"And what are you doing with that?" Elze asked.
Linze pouted. "Come on, sis. Don't leave us hanging."
Elze made some sort of pinched sucking sound and then sighed. "Fine." She went over to sit on my right side, and grumbled as she was pulled into a hug. Then she snuggled in like a kitten and relaxed.
"You're a bad man," she grumbled out. "Having beauty in each arm. Go burn." She looked straight ahead towards the brick. "And even like this… you're still just pining for one woman." She tapped the bare arm over her shoulders. "That's the part that I actually respect. I don't want her to go, you know. None of us would be happy without Monika."
"Yes! Mister Zah, we're just as scared and worried as you. Don't think you have to shoulder this alone!" Linze cried out.
I said softy "I can still hear her, you know. I mean, not literally. But everything I say or do, it's like I can just imagine what she would say to me. Is this what they mean when the memory of the departed lives with us forever."
Then sharply I sat up straighter. "And that's bullshit! Dead is dead! Gone is gone! I won't be content with that! I won't allow it!"
"Well whatever you do, Miss Monika would say you shouldn't do it on an empty stomach." She picked up a sandwich and held it to my face. Her Mom Power was strong. "Now have… Zah bite."
Even through my blindfold, everyone could tell I held a narrow unamused stare. It was probably the same exact look Elze was displaying. Linze quirked her lips smugly. "Come on… you can do it."
I vehemently took a bite, chewed and swallowed.
"Go buurn…" Elze whispered.
-.
-.
The sky was turning orange. The wind was starting to become chilly. We had been chatting, but it was uncomfortable - we couldn't talk too much of our good times with Monika, because that felt like talking at a wake. She was not dead. We refused to behave like that.
But talking about how without Monika and her [Null] magic, we had lost all our strategic mobility, that sounded like work.
So we just ate a lot and drank a lot.
Even with two warm bodies next to me, my body was already starting to break out in shivers.
"Do you need to pee?" Linze asked.
I said softly "We have a bargain with the world."
"What," said Elze.
"Whatever our purpose for being sent here, we only have one duty. To keep moving forward. To be entertaining. No matter what, we would never make what we're doing to be mundane and boring."
I turned aside and kissed Linze's forehead. She gave back a small pleased 'hehee' and a smile I could only see via magic thermoptic sonar. No colors. Only light.
Then I turned my head to the other side and Elze eeped and protectively put both palms up over her forehead. I could see the brilliant heat of her blush. Silly Elze. That just left the rest of her face unprotected.
So I kissed her nose. Her lips were not really reachable from this position.
That was still enough to get her going "awawawa~" in mortified embarrassment. "You… you… don't take liberties with me!"
Yeah, like I'm going to believe that from someone only seconds away from going all Braveheart.
With my left hand, I indulgently ruffled the top of Linze's soft white hair. She giggled. And then helped provide leverage as I tried to get up.
I stepped forth to the middle of the balcony and put my hands to my hips. And then I said loudly "But if the world isn't going to keep to the bargain and prevent Monika from living and being interesting with me, then I would cancel this contract! I will let this whole fucking thing go on hiatus and die!"
I pointed my finger to the east. "Whatever fucking plot coupons you throw at me, I refuse them! I will fucking retire to Refreese! I will have a farm! It will be my Stardew Valley! And there will be no enlightened spirits beasts - let a chicken be a chicken, a cat is a cat! All this power given me! Whatever secrets in the protoculture of that Ancient Partheno Civilization of yours, it don't matter none to me. I will spend it all on horticulture!
"Find another hero! My life will be peaceful and unchanging! You have denied that girl her life and freedom, and prevented me from fulfilling the the lifelong promise, so I will instead embrace the way of the house-husband! I will die old in my bed! I don't care if they belittle or ridicule me, cultivate your power fantasy somewhere else! ZA WORRRRLDO!"
Elze rammed her fingers into the balcony surface, ripped out a chunk of rock and tossed it at my head.
"Aw!" I rubbed the back of my head.
"Stop jinxing us, you moron!"
"Yeah… those words, Miss Monika taught me those are… flags. Flags are bad. I don't know why, I mean… people and countries need flags… but they are."
I turned around and grinned.
Then I shucked my boots and gloves and began taking off my pants.
"Wa-wa-what are you doing! You pervert!" Elze put her hands over her eyes and then peeked behind the gaps between her fingers.
"Continue," Linze said evenly.
"Heh. This mask. These clothes. Are all part of the mask that is Zah Playa von Chara. But without Monika, there is no point in having that identity.
"There was once a philosopher named Diogenes, an ascetic who lived in a barrel and kept company with dogs. He was often at odds with the vanity and pretensions of other philosophers and the self-deception and artificiality of the human conduct.
"When a philosopher defined 'what is a man' by the answer of a featherless biped, he took a chicken and plucked all of its feathers. He broke into that philosopher's academy and declared "Behold! I have brought you a man!"
I spread my arms open, naked everywhere except for my briefs and the blindfold over my eyes. "Behold, a plucked chicken!"
"... I really can't deny the truth of that statement," Elze replied dryly.
"Elze, Linze, I'm about to do something really stupid."
Linze perked up.
"Oh good," said Elze. She meant that honestly.
-.
"If containment fails, this is probably going to explode and destroy this whole tower and kill us all," I said. "Linze, be quick with the [Aqua Shell]. Elze, your job is to grab Linze and jump for it as soon as that happens. You will survive the jump, I think."
"Yeah, I can see a roof I can get to if I kick off the wall," Elze replied.
"This sounds /extra/ stupid, Mister Zah. Are you sure?"
"Never."
Almost I could hear Monika say 'but not knowing is what makes life actually exciting, isn't it?'
"Look down on the ground, don't stare at it. If you do, you're going to go blind - it will burn out your eyes."
'Wait, Linze is right, this sounds super stupid. There's always time to try something else.'
"Come, [Earth], [Fire], [Wind], [Water], [Light], [Dark] - forces of Creation, by my hand, ignite!" Light sparked in the open space above my palms, and a rushing wind sucked inwards. I raised my hand and gently pushed the bead of light higher.
"I reach Heaven through violence - [Stellar Fusion]."
The bead of light imploded, and turned into hot white blaze. Winds rushed around it in a sphere, vainly trying to contain its brilliance, and feeding its hunger. The miniature star turned sunset back into high noon.
Squinting, Elze asked "What the shite is this, Playa?"
"Incentive."
Come on Chekhov. Gun me.
-.
-.
Hours passed. Night came.
Or rather, failed to come.
I sat cross-legged outside on the balcony as if meditating; warm even without wearing any clothes. The solar battery pack worked at 100% efficiency.
Zorah was kicking at the door to the bedroom at what should have been midnight. "TURRN IT OFF!!!" she roared. "LET DECENT PEOPLE SLEEP!"
No. I will not have Monika wait any longer by any mere sun merely being on the opposite side of this planet.
-.
No.
No don't panic just yet.
Hope was a cruel little thing. We both had prepared for this eventuality.
We had contingencies. Why haven't they automatically gone into effect yet?
Theory: Monika is not an AI. She is the smartphone in its totality. So when the antimagic wave forced her to shut down, it also drained all the battery. She can't affect herself until she wakes up. She can't passively absorb mana and convert it to electric charge until then. And without magic power, even those automatic time reversal circuits don't activate.
Magic tool inscriptions would refill as soon as there is ambient mana, but the problem is that without additional damage, they don't trigger at all.
So we just have to… wait.
That's the plan.
It has to work.
It must work.
Leene slid into the room, dragging Zorah behind her. She was still upside down. She glared at me and said something unintelligible. I was only legally blind, not totally blind. I could still see shapes, colors, judge distances - it was only that past two arms-lengths away, I could no longer recognize specific faces.
"Did you actually gag her?"
"mmgh hh MGHDHHAER," was Zorah's response.
"Should I not have?" Leene tilted her head aside like a bird.
I sighed softly. "Clearly you are the smartest person here."
She beamed. "Well of course!"
"Too bad the one thing that you were good for turned out to be /absolutely useless/," I spat.
While Leene looked taken aback from the vehemence in my tone, I looked past her to Zorah who was still hanging in the air.
I paused for a moment. Should I just kill Zorah? She's useless now anyway. War is going to happen no matter what. This was HER FAULT. None of this would have happened if we had just LET HER DIE.
To prevent this from being a waste of time, it was only right and proper that THIS WOMAN SHOULD DIE.
Would that make me feel better?
Would that make me feel… anything?
I stared at Zorah, briefly contemplating what it would be like to feel her brains squishing between my fingers.
"Playa… you okay?"
"No I am not okay, Elze," I replied dully. I shook my head and put away Monika's shell back into my belt bag. "But I also don't wanna be here anymore. Let's go."
Linze stepped forward with her arms out to give me a hug, but I shook my head again. She looked slightly hurt at my rejection.
I said again: "Let's just… go."
"Um. Hello? I'm still alive over here…!" moaned the Regulus Marquise of Alpas. "Please… someone get me down…!"
Fine. Bring him along too I guess.
-.
-.
Castle Zenovi was but a fifteen-minute flight away.
With enough thrust, even a brick may fly. With enough wind power providing lift, even a delta wing made of solid ice may fly.
We announced our arrival by crashing into the courtyard, ice smashing everywhere, some of us gracefully dropping and rolling to a stop, others floating serenely down, some landing feet-first and her shoes leaving divots into the flagstones while carrying her sister in a princess carry, and someone gets to be thrown to belly-flop on her own castle.
Drawn by the commotion, the guards rushed out. They watched Zorah slide down from the wall like a frog sliding off glass and stood at attention. Soon enough, the courtiers arrived and helped their liege back up to her feet.
Lydia hesitated to remove the gag on her liege lord's mouth and Zorah noticed.
"Indignity upon indignity. I am surrounded by buffoons and histrionic thespians. But let it not be said that the House of Zenovi is unable to show gratitude. Be welcome into my home." She turned towards Marquise Alpas and said "You have nothing to fear from me."
"... Fear is not quite the right word," replied the pudgy noble. "Similar, but not quite."
"Hhh," I grunted. Alephis without a [Boom Tube] was at least a week by carriage or several hours via air. Unacceptable.
I walked past Zorah into her castle like I owned the place.
She scowled and had to run to get ahead of me. Zorah ordered bread, sweet preserved meats, and fruit wine be brought to the dining hall, and for the servants to vacate.
I paused before the dining table and hunched over, pressing my gloved fists upon the wood.
A debriefing would be the proper thing to do right now. But I really don't want to hear Zorah's voice right now. Her grating donkey-like voice. I have my own problems to deal with.
"You are saying that out loud, like I would not hear it, fool."
I sighed "I have no time for your bullshit, Zorah. I only require two things from you:
"One. Give me a room. High up. Private, preferably one that gets lots of sun.
"Second. Send your fastest messenger bird to Alephis. I need Alan right here, stat. I need Charlotte and all the gear I left for her safekeeping. Tristwin's still at Mismede and I need to make a report in in person."
"If it will lead you to being less naked in my house, I allow it. Yet even as I may have gratitude for your… efforts… at preventing war, your disrespect against our King will not be tolerated!"
"I am *tight* with both Alfred and Tristwin and Jamukha. We move in entirely different circles Zorah. Do not judge me by your standards." I held up my fingers to a pinch. "I am THIS close to razing a kingdom right now. Make sure it is pointed at the right one."
Zorah lunged at me with an accusing finger "Balderdash and boasting, when will you ever sto-!"
Wham.
I turned around and punched her right in the face.
Zorah staggered back, clutching her broken nose.
Marquise Alpas yelped and scurried to hide under the table.
"My Lady!" Lydia yelled. There was the rasp of steel being drawn. "How dare you-"
"HOLD!" Zorah
"You hit me…" she touched the blood dripping out of her nose, her eyes wide in amazement. "You actually hit me. Not even my father hit me!"
"Maybe you just didn't fucking try hard enough, then!" I spat back.
Zorah cracked her knuckles. "Ah, I did not see how you managed to drive away Lord General Bazoar. Let us see if you did you with your fists instead of your mouth."
I snarled back "I SAID I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR YOUR BULLSHIT, ZORAH!"
Let's get one thing straight: I am an asshole.
I am a recovering narcissist.
People like me have difficulty knowing when to sympathize. Sympathy - to share the feeling - it's not impossible or even difficult. Logically, it was enough to imagine feeling what they might be feeling in a similar situation. If you've ever been moved by books or movies, this was enough.
But it's the _when_ that is the problem. Where it's something simple like pain, or fear, or anguish, or loneliness, I get it. But grief? I don't get it. My parents were just terrible people. I should be sad, but I don't feel the world any worse that they were gone. All right, granted, my father wasn't exactly dead - just in jail, but mostly same thing.
I am a man that judges people by their looks. If they look ok, I am also inclined to think they *are* ok.
Many times have I accidentally insulted people, looked to be too aloof or relishing their pain. I perfectly looked the part of a fat little young master that cared for no one but himself and this hedonistic whims. Psychopathy is a medical condition, but sociopathy is /trained/.
Even after I got into shape and with the determination to be someone better - there's a lot that still I don't intuitively get like normal people adjusted with normal childhoods. I have to consciously be reminded what should be the proper response to comfort people in specific situations.
So it was not out of kindness that I said this:
"Your father is dead. Your brothers are dead. Your nephews are dead. Your grandfather is dead. You are the last of the main line Zenovivi. This was just yesterday! Today I may also have lost the love of my life. GRIEVE PROPERLY, ZORAH. And leave me the fuck alone."
I could see the moment the light just went right out of her eyes. Her false bravado fell apart like scales around her.
"... Right. That would be proper," she whispered.
"We have had enough! You- you barbarian! You insult our pain in our own home!" Lydia pointed her sword at my face.
"They have guest right," Zorah said evenly. "Leave it."
"But milady, we don't need guests such as these…! Just throw some treasures at these mercenary adventurers, and they can begone!"
Linze raised her hand. "Actually we are under commission by the Royal House of Belfast and the Royal House of Mismede in a diplomatic assignment. We kind of outrank you, and you just pulled us off an important mission of our own. It was just no one else in Belfast is the perfect high speed reaction force that we can do. If it wasn't us, then it would be NO ONE, and Lady Zorah would be dead by now."
"Tch." Lydia slid her sword back into its scabbard. "Follow me then. I will arrange for your lodgings."
"One question," Zorah said softly before we could go.
"What?"
"Are you actually blind?" She gestured to her own face, miming the cloth blindfold I had wrapped around my own eyes. "I would be terribly guilty if all this time I had been harassing an invalid."
So you were aware that what you were doing was wrong all along you crazy witc-!. No. I exhaled.
"My light is not found in the world, but in a certain person's smile. I had failed to protect that smile."
-.
-.
It was a room with a balcony high up in the keep. By the decorations this must have been one of the rooms of Zanac's uncles.
I took out a solar power bank and carefully inserted the charger into the usb-c port and then inserted the smartphone back inside its protective casing. The 'breathing light' LED
I left them - her - on the balcony floor.
I stared out towards the west. The sun was already low in the sky, the charge would be a trickle.
I looked to the east, towards the Regulus border.
Then I sat down with my back to the wall and waited.
My brain was empty of all things. I felt nothing.
Was this history repeating itself again? Too much indulgence means the world pushes back. But that makes no sense. The world isn't fair. This world or the modern world. If you have wealth and power, unless you miss your steps, you can get away with anything.
There's no justice unless you actively work to have justice. That's what social bonds are for. That's what the law, if properly upheld, is for. That's where confidence in society comes from.
Instead of a Char, should I have been Batman?
I grit my teeth and slammed my fist into the wall behind me. The stone exploded with a bang.
"WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!" I screamed at the sky.
"Eeek!" I heard someone yelped. "Mister Zah! It's me!" said Linze, peeking out from the side of the balcony door. "I brought food - you haven't eaten yet."
"Ah."
Elze then appeared, and leaned casually against the door frame. "Yo," she greeted with the wave of a finger.
Linze brought in a small serving table with a silver tray full of foodstuffs. Bread, onion soup, sandwiches, sliced sausages, salad, chilled fruit juice, cakes, grapes. She put it down on the floor and sat primly beside me. She stared at the metal brick under the sun.
"I'm sorry," was the first thing she said.
"Why?" I replied dully. "None of this was your fault. It is the prize of our arrogance. We thought we were safe, we were above it all. Good things don't happen to people like us. I was waiting for the shoe to drop - you ever have that feeling when it seems like the only reason for life to give you good things is so that it hurts more when they get taken away?"
"Every single day," Linze immediately replied with all seriousness.
My eyes were still blindfolded. I was in utter darkness. I am a man, so I can't… while there are such things as manly tears, I knew that if I opened my eyes what would come out would be inconsolable bitch tears.
I raised my left arm, and Linze sidled over to hug my side.
I breathed "Yeah… the fact that you exist is one reason for me to doubt that good things can't happen to people like us. Thank you Linze."
"You're not alone, Mister Zah. You're never going to be alone, if you just let us in."
"Mmm."
I raised my right arm.
Elze replied with a "Hn."
My right arm and my right side remained open.
"And what are you doing with that?" Elze asked.
Linze pouted. "Come on, sis. Don't leave us hanging."
Elze made some sort of pinched sucking sound and then sighed. "Fine." She went over to sit on my right side, and grumbled as she was pulled into a hug. Then she snuggled in like a kitten and relaxed.
"You're a bad man," she grumbled out. "Having beauty in each arm. Go burn." She looked straight ahead towards the brick. "And even like this… you're still just pining for one woman." She tapped the bare arm over her shoulders. "That's the part that I actually respect. I don't want her to go, you know. None of us would be happy without Monika."
"Yes! Mister Zah, we're just as scared and worried as you. Don't think you have to shoulder this alone!" Linze cried out.
I said softy "I can still hear her, you know. I mean, not literally. But everything I say or do, it's like I can just imagine what she would say to me. Is this what they mean when the memory of the departed lives with us forever."
Then sharply I sat up straighter. "And that's bullshit! Dead is dead! Gone is gone! I won't be content with that! I won't allow it!"
"Well whatever you do, Miss Monika would say you shouldn't do it on an empty stomach." She picked up a sandwich and held it to my face. Her Mom Power was strong. "Now have… Zah bite."
Even through my blindfold, everyone could tell I held a narrow unamused stare. It was probably the same exact look Elze was displaying. Linze quirked her lips smugly. "Come on… you can do it."
I vehemently took a bite, chewed and swallowed.
"Go buurn…" Elze whispered.
-.
-.
The sky was turning orange. The wind was starting to become chilly. We had been chatting, but it was uncomfortable - we couldn't talk too much of our good times with Monika, because that felt like talking at a wake. She was not dead. We refused to behave like that.
But talking about how without Monika and her [Null] magic, we had lost all our strategic mobility, that sounded like work.
So we just ate a lot and drank a lot.
Even with two warm bodies next to me, my body was already starting to break out in shivers.
"Do you need to pee?" Linze asked.
I said softly "We have a bargain with the world."
"What," said Elze.
"Whatever our purpose for being sent here, we only have one duty. To keep moving forward. To be entertaining. No matter what, we would never make what we're doing to be mundane and boring."
I turned aside and kissed Linze's forehead. She gave back a small pleased 'hehee' and a smile I could only see via magic thermoptic sonar. No colors. Only light.
Then I turned my head to the other side and Elze eeped and protectively put both palms up over her forehead. I could see the brilliant heat of her blush. Silly Elze. That just left the rest of her face unprotected.
So I kissed her nose. Her lips were not really reachable from this position.
That was still enough to get her going "awawawa~" in mortified embarrassment. "You… you… don't take liberties with me!"
Yeah, like I'm going to believe that from someone only seconds away from going all Braveheart.
With my left hand, I indulgently ruffled the top of Linze's soft white hair. She giggled. And then helped provide leverage as I tried to get up.
I stepped forth to the middle of the balcony and put my hands to my hips. And then I said loudly "But if the world isn't going to keep to the bargain and prevent Monika from living and being interesting with me, then I would cancel this contract! I will let this whole fucking thing go on hiatus and die!"
I pointed my finger to the east. "Whatever fucking plot coupons you throw at me, I refuse them! I will fucking retire to Refreese! I will have a farm! It will be my Stardew Valley! And there will be no enlightened spirits beasts - let a chicken be a chicken, a cat is a cat! All this power given me! Whatever secrets in the protoculture of that Ancient Partheno Civilization of yours, it don't matter none to me. I will spend it all on horticulture!
"Find another hero! My life will be peaceful and unchanging! You have denied that girl her life and freedom, and prevented me from fulfilling the the lifelong promise, so I will instead embrace the way of the house-husband! I will die old in my bed! I don't care if they belittle or ridicule me, cultivate your power fantasy somewhere else! ZA WORRRRLDO!"
Elze rammed her fingers into the balcony surface, ripped out a chunk of rock and tossed it at my head.
"Aw!" I rubbed the back of my head.
"Stop jinxing us, you moron!"
"Yeah… those words, Miss Monika taught me those are… flags. Flags are bad. I don't know why, I mean… people and countries need flags… but they are."
I turned around and grinned.
Then I shucked my boots and gloves and began taking off my pants.
"Wa-wa-what are you doing! You pervert!" Elze put her hands over her eyes and then peeked behind the gaps between her fingers.
"Continue," Linze said evenly.
"Heh. This mask. These clothes. Are all part of the mask that is Zah Playa von Chara. But without Monika, there is no point in having that identity.
"There was once a philosopher named Diogenes, an ascetic who lived in a barrel and kept company with dogs. He was often at odds with the vanity and pretensions of other philosophers and the self-deception and artificiality of the human conduct.
"When a philosopher defined 'what is a man' by the answer of a featherless biped, he took a chicken and plucked all of its feathers. He broke into that philosopher's academy and declared "Behold! I have brought you a man!"
I spread my arms open, naked everywhere except for my briefs and the blindfold over my eyes. "Behold, a plucked chicken!"
"... I really can't deny the truth of that statement," Elze replied dryly.
"Elze, Linze, I'm about to do something really stupid."
Linze perked up.
"Oh good," said Elze. She meant that honestly.
-.
"If containment fails, this is probably going to explode and destroy this whole tower and kill us all," I said. "Linze, be quick with the [Aqua Shell]. Elze, your job is to grab Linze and jump for it as soon as that happens. You will survive the jump, I think."
"Yeah, I can see a roof I can get to if I kick off the wall," Elze replied.
"This sounds /extra/ stupid, Mister Zah. Are you sure?"
"Never."
Almost I could hear Monika say 'but not knowing is what makes life actually exciting, isn't it?'
"Look down on the ground, don't stare at it. If you do, you're going to go blind - it will burn out your eyes."
'Wait, Linze is right, this sounds super stupid. There's always time to try something else.'
"Come, [Earth], [Fire], [Wind], [Water], [Light], [Dark] - forces of Creation, by my hand, ignite!" Light sparked in the open space above my palms, and a rushing wind sucked inwards. I raised my hand and gently pushed the bead of light higher.
"I reach Heaven through violence - [Stellar Fusion]."
The bead of light imploded, and turned into hot white blaze. Winds rushed around it in a sphere, vainly trying to contain its brilliance, and feeding its hunger. The miniature star turned sunset back into high noon.
Squinting, Elze asked "What the shite is this, Playa?"
"Incentive."
Come on Chekhov. Gun me.
-.
-.
Hours passed. Night came.
Or rather, failed to come.
I sat cross-legged outside on the balcony as if meditating; warm even without wearing any clothes. The solar battery pack worked at 100% efficiency.
Zorah was kicking at the door to the bedroom at what should have been midnight. "TURRN IT OFF!!!" she roared. "LET DECENT PEOPLE SLEEP!"
No. I will not have Monika wait any longer by any mere sun merely being on the opposite side of this planet.
Last edited:
Grey Rook
Genuine Nerd
- Location
- The Quantum Foam
Okay, that's actually pretty funny. "Sun's setting, but I need to charge my smartphone? Fuck that, I'll just make my own sun!" 
And yeah, that he'd go that far for her is pretty touching.
And yeah, that he'd go that far for her is pretty touching.You mean, stupider than usual? I half thought he was going to try making antimatter or something... though a pocket sun isn't much less outrageous. Playa is already not the sort of person to think very carefully before he acts, like that one time he almost decided to go kill all the dragons everywhere because one of them pissed him off.
BoredProtagonist
The Mercat
- Location
- Ragna
A shame that. Would cultivation even work like that in this world?
Google "Gentlemen, behold! CORN!"
I take no responsibility for whatever you find.
No, cultivation does not work like that- though there are a lot of monster beasts and fantasy sapient animals anyway. Summoned creatures be whack, yo.
Edison_Trent
Freelancer
Would you kindly take responsibility for the bleaching my brain had to go through after seeing whatever that was that I have scrubbed from my brain.
JennyDracos
Eccentric Hugging Lady
- Location
- Chicago
He already said no.
JBcristal
Bring Me All The Puppies!
- Location
- Somewhere that doesn't have enough puppies.
Ah, it all makes sense now. He's a six-ball, that explains it all!
(For most people, this explains nothing.)
Atleast its not a nine-ball, or we would have a lot more glacial war on our hands.
huh, i was just making a touhou joke with the whole "glacial" thing. pretty good music.