This is Fine. I am Fine with This.

-.

No! Nononononono…!

I rushed over to pull Linze away and reached to feel the pulse by her neck. "Monika!" I screamed out.

/"[Diagnosis!]"/ she responded instantly. /"Pulse… elevated, but normal. Temperature, normal. No detected aneurysms. Breathing… normal. I need actual blood contact to inspect biochemistry, Player."/

Linze was breathing, but her face was just so… slack. It was the sleep of the flat-out drunk or the brain-dead.

Then Charlotte said "There is no need to be afraid. This is just magic exhaustion. She will come out of it soon enough."

/"Player, you're this close to a panic attack. Stop it."/

I forced air out my lungs and pulled away from Linze.

[Cure Heal] didn't do anything for magic exhaustion. There was a Light spell called [Revive] that worked for people knocked unconscious, however. But Charlotte said that we shouldn't try to forcibly revive people downed with magical exhaustion. It would only cause them more pain.

The feeling of magical exhaustion was exactly like that of a hangover.

Why? Why didn't we even think that the danger could also be for the caster, not just the recipient? Thank god this magic system seemed to have its own strange magic fuse for casting.

Really weird, that. But thank you for that.

/"Player, what happened?"/

"I don't know. The spell shouldn't have this effect. It should barely even use any magic power, because it just amplifies natural principles!"

/"Since when was there a Rule that said magic power is proportional to how much natural law is circumvented?"/ Monika answered. /"That… that just sounds like more visualization problem in the end."/

We had already explained with diagrams how blood vessels and bones worked. Surprisingly this world did actually have a decent idea of germ theory, likely because someone at some point had a [Null] magic ability that magnified their vision. Charlotte told us that in earlier times, those who possessed [Smallsight] thought they were seeing giant invisible beasts living inside rivers and lakes and were called to check for water demons.

But the soft tissue inside bones being responsible for making blood? That was new. That's why bones were hollow… and not just hollow, but porous! All bones! Charlotte said that the prevailing thought was to save weight, but this explanation not only fulfilled that reason but also gave another compelling reason why it was that way in the first place for all creatures. Marrow was for blood, not soft replacement bone as everyone had assumed.

Linze looked like she understood all of this because she had less old knowledge to unlearn. Visualization should NOT be a problem.

I began to bite my thumb.

"It can't be visualization. It can't. And it can't be affinity either, because Affinity influences Intensity and this one looks for only minimal effects. [Blood Maker] can't make more cells than available from nutrients in blood plasma."

/"With your infinite pool of magic, how would you even realize that?!"/ Monika retorted hotly. She reached over to protectively hug Linze, but her hands of course just vanished as soon as she left the 3D scanning area of the mist.

"I can't even reduce Aqua Cutter to normal size because of my uncontrollable magic intensity. This is one of the few things that actually gives me any granularity of output!"

Although it suddenly just occurred to me, just like with [Thrust Bell] and [Jet Boots] it's my custom spells that were easiest to modify. Learned spells seemed to have just one setting.

"Pardon me, but you are saying things that are just too stimulating," Charlotte interrupted. "P-please… tell me more about that!"

/"How nice for you, that you can use five magic affinities!"/ Monika said out loud while sulking. /"Player here can use all six external elements, including Dark. And his spell depth is just ridiculous. Spell fatigue? What spell fatigue?!"/

She threw me under the bus with no hesitation whatsoever.

"Oh! Ohh…! This has potential for my research…" Charlotte gasped.

Shamelessly I pointed at Monika. "She can use Null Spells! ALL the Null Spells!" And so I dragged her down with me. "She draws from ambient magic, she literally cannot get tired maintaining spells!"

"… that is very interesting too. And you're both always together anyway, is that correct?"

Wait. Crap. Now we're both under and too late we realized this was no bus, this was a freight train. I suddenly felt tremendously unsafe.

"… y-you're just bragging now…" Linze mumbled. "C-could you please stop? You're so loud… my head hurts…"

/"Linze! Oh thank goodness."/

She slowly opened her eyes and grimaced. "Um… what happened?"

/"You fainted. You used up too much magic power."/

"Oh..." Linze mumbled. "I was too weak. I'm sorry!"

/"No, that's not your fault. Something was wrong with our spell,"/ Monika answered. /"We're really sorry for this. Player, give her fluids. It may help, if the pain is similar to why hangovers hurt."/

I quickly filled an empty cup with water and handed it over to Linze. She sipped delicately from it, and curled into herself as Monika and I loomed protectively over her.

"Linze, how are you feeling?"

"… better, I think?"

/"How about your [Supercharge] your magic power a bit from Player's reserves. That might help."/

Yes, Linze had been able to repeatedly cast absurdly power-hungry spells before. Stuff that should have also knocked her out immediately.

Linze nodded and whispered "Supercharge please…" and gasped as her the feeling of her magical reserves refilled almost instantly. "We... we can try again. I don't mind."

/"No! No, not until we figure out what's wrong. It's not worth you getting hurt again."/

"I agree!" I said and reached over to pat Linze's knee.

She just looked even more discouraged for some reason.

Then I leaned back and began to think it over. "Hm. Well. Spells are composed of three parts. So… [Come forth, Light] [Life's brilliant rubies] [Blood Maker]. One or all of these are responsible for the spell failing."

"I don't think it actually failed, Mister Zah. The feeling I had was different from spell failure… if it failed, I would have stayed awake to know."

"So it did succeed but took an absurd amount of magic power for… reasons. Ugh."

"Pardon me, but how DO you think spells are supposed to work?" Charlotte asked.

Monika gestured for me to explain, and so I said "Well… you know the elements – [Fire], [Earth], [Wind], [Water], [Light] and [Dark] – when you cast them, something comes from somewhere. It is my theory that these physical elements have to deal with the transmission of matter."

I opened my palm out and a gust of wind flew up. "Where does it come from? Where does it go? Our own experiments showed that summoned [Earth] and [Water] disappear after a while… except when the water is ingested. Summons from the [Dark] element disappear when their caster dies. But what about [Light]? What is teleported when the element is about healing and purification?

Everything else makes sense from the perspective of teleportation and reassembly of atoms, particles, and complex molecules."

/"Meanwhile, my [Null] spells seems to be about a change in vectors and energy states. For example, [Slip]-"/ Monika flicked her arm out and cast [Slip] onto a vase.

Although the table was flat, it was not perfectly flat, and so due to that barely perceptible tilt the vase slid off the perfectly frictionless surface to fall to the floor.

Crash.

"Please stop breaking my things," said the Duke. "I know I said to feel at home, but even so…"

Oops.

Sue giggled.

-.

-.

/"I… was actually expecting Player to catch that."/ Her image floated back and Monika crossed her arms. /"But… you look distracted. Player, you look like you have an idea."/

Charlotte stared oddly at me. "Why would you even think that teleportation is the root cause of elemental magic?"

"Because I am an empericist- a person who supports the theory that all knowledge is based on experience derived from the senses," I answered. "So far it is my experience that the magic I cast comes out in motion. There is pressure. If magic is completely arbitrary, then that makes it easier for me to visualize what is happening. If it isn't, then okay I'm wrong."

Otherwise the ability to make any spell we wanted would make us Gods. Or living inside a simulation. For obvious reasons, both were disturbing conclusions.

/"There's a hole in the [Elemental] vs [Null] theory in that [Aports], which is a teleportation spell, is a [Null] Spell too. [Recovery] is a healing spell superior to anything under [Light]. Should we really be defining spells by effect rather than causes?"/ Monika said idly.

I responded "Or we could ask the actual court magician how magic actually works."

/"That seems a fair trade. Biology and physics for metaphysics."/

And so Charlotte explained that the way we focused on the three parts of the spell was actually a very Formalist philosophy of working magic. The long standing view of magic is that it has four causes – the *Element*, the *Form*, the *Means*, and the *Result*.

It was very much like Aristotle's *Four Causes*. Matter, the material composes the thing being changed. Form, the arrangement of changes. Agent, the method by which an object is changed. And Purpose, the end result for which a thing existed.

"Interesting… so I'm thinking… what if I shouldn't have put it under [Light] after all? Maybe it should have been under [Earth]."

"Earth?!" Charlotte gasped. "Why Earth?"

"Because… why not? Everything comes from Earth. Plants grow using minerals in the soil. We get those minerals as nutrients from vegetables, fruits, and meats. And then in our body nutrients combine into our cells and organs."

/"Ah. I see where you're going with this. It might synergize more with the chant 'Life's brilliant rubies'. But why not change that part of the chant instead? Define it much more strictly, maybe that will help."/

"Why? Why not…? Ahaha…" Charlotte began to giggle lightly. "The way you approach this is from the perspective of a researcher but at the same time… not like how a magician should. I have more questions." She was staring at Monika.

/"Um. All right?"/

"Why is blood red?"

/"The red blood cells bind iron molecules, and these bind oxygen absorbed from the lungs."/

"What is oxygen?"

/"It is the element in the air that allows things to burn. Fire is usually a combination of something that will burn, free oxygen to react with the burning, and heat to initiate the burn."/

"Fire magic cheats at that, but even I have seen that magic Fire will not burn in total vacuum," I added.

"Why is oxygen important for living? What happens to the oxygen when it is consumed?"

/"Oxygen is transformed in the cells with glucose floating in blood plasma as fuel for the cell's processes, turning into carbon dioxide absorbed back into blood plasma and released out into the lungs from unoxygenated blood pumped nearby, and out with exhalation."/

"What is carbon dioxide?"

/"It is a combination of one part carbon and two parts oxygen. Carbon is another common element – found in raw form as coal and soot and diamonds. Most living things are actually made mostly of carbon and water. Trees, for example."/

"How many elements are there?" Charlotte quickly asked next.

/"Ninety-one, naturally occurring. Up to one hundred and eighteen synthesized or from the decay of other elements,"/ Monika replied just as gunshot-quick.

Charlotte grit her teeth let out a little hiss of pleasure. It looked like she was just hoping for any other answer than the usual seven elements of magic that she would get from traditionalists. Monika picked up on the difference because saying the magical seven would be just too obvious. And from Zanac, I already knew that they actually had some chemistry going on.

Then heedless Charlotte continued, "[Blood Maker] has three syllables. What do those look like?"

Monika threw out the phonetic equivalents in the local language. The local alphabet actually looked faintly Greek. I was reminded that Elze and Linze wore the symbols similar to that of Pluto and Neptune on their neckties.

"The spell [Cure Heal] has two words, what do each of those words mean?"

Monika frowned slightly at the simplicity of the new questions. /"[Cure], of course, means to remedy ailments. [Heal] means to recover from illness or damage."/

"Yeah, it's a Verb Verb. It's like someone decided to just jam two healing spells together for a general cure-all," I reckoned. And on that I reckoned Cure All would have made more sense as a Verb-Adjective. "I mean, it clearly works, which is the reason why I thought spell customization was possible at all."

Charlote sucked in her breath and let out a little groan of pleasure. Uh. Okayyy.

She said next "Forever you chase after light, and forever it remains just beyond your grasp. Why?"

/"Hey. Is this is in another language?"/ Monika noticed. /"Player, you answer this."/

It sounded the same to me. A riddle? Maybe because light is massless, it would be like trying to trap a shadow? No.

"Because the faster you run, the heavier your steps," I answered.

/"Oh. You said that in the same language. I see that auto-translation for you works for all spoken languages."/

Charlotte paused, breathing heavily, and stared at us.

"I think I have figured out why you CAN invent spells at all," she said after a while. She steepled her fingers together and asked "What do you want for this information?"

I crossed my arms and leaned back. "Hmm. There's a variety of knowledge and processes we can share… machines and such, things we can be sure will work instead of the vagaries of magic medicine."

/"Player… no. She said, 'what do we WANT' for the information. Isn't it usually the other way around?"

I blinked and sat up quickly. "That's right. We're the ones who don't have that information, so we should be the ones trading for it. Unless… you knowing that information is something that is disadvantageous to us!"

Charlotte lunged at me, her fingers out and open like claws.

/"Don't!"/ Monika yelled just in time before Yae could karate-chop Charlotte's head off.

Charlotte grabbed at my shirt and pressed her body onto me and we both almost toppled over.

"Tell me the truth!" Charlotte hissed at my face, our lips almost at touching range. "Are you time travelers?! Were you left asleep and woken up from the collapse of the Ancient Civilizaaationnn?!"

What.

-.

"Oh!" Linze gasped, and slapped her fist down into her waiting palm. "That would actually explain everything!"

"What? Linze, no!" I screamed out desperately.

Monika just floated there, palming her face. /"Why would you even think that?"/ she asked Charlotte. /"Shouldn't there be [Null] abilities that deal with translation?"/

"Words alone don't give understanding. There are, but there are two forms of the Ancient Language. One can be translated with [Translation], and another script that can't. It is Protected somehow.

"We found [Cure Heal] in among ancient scrolls of the first type. And we knew that it was actually a translation of a previous work, and that it was an attempt to duplicate two separate [Null] abilities into one usable spell."

I blinked. "Holy shite, really?"

Charlotte beamed. She really relished how much we were also genuinely interested in these things. Not like Linze or most other users who simply wanted to know the spells and how to improve their ability to cast spells. She was a researcher and archeologist, we were engineers.

/"… but how does that even imply that we're sleepers from this ancient civilization of yours?"/

"But why nooottt?!" Charlotte whined. "It would make things so much easier if the reason you could invent spells is that you learned the ancient language as a first language! The things you know are all the things we lost! I even only know that there are over a hundred material elements from the old writings that we could translate."

/"These aren't things that require magic to find out, you know?"/

"And that begs the question, then how do you do that? You both have indefinitely deep magic reserves, ability to cast all spells, a spirit that can cast any personal magic. But more than that, you have strange magic tools that no one has seen before!"

Charlotte pointed down at the projector cube then the headset I was always going on about how it allowed me to see despite having my eyes covered. "For example, are you in that box, Lady Monika?"

/"Um. No? Of course not?"/

"Obviously not. She's right here." I pointed to my cheekbones, implying that she was sealed into my eyes. Like Rezo the Red Priest and Shabranigdo. It was much safer if everyone believed that Monika was not something that could be stolen. And it neatly explained why my eyes could not be cured by any simple [Heal] spell.

"See? Remote visual communication! Who has that? That is far too convenient a coincidence. I don't believe that all!"

Monika winced. /"If I didn't know any better that would actually be quite convincing, Player."/

"But we are still not five-thousand-year old people popsicles, sorry."

Charlotte sagged, her long green hair draping onto my chest. "I was hoping for that… but that would have been too much. It would be much too convenient."

/"Why do you want to know so much about the Ancients anyway?"/

"It was the Ancients that Formalized Magic! They were the first to use magic stones, the first to study spells, the first to enchant spells onto objects, they made great works even now impossible to duplicate and spread out all over the world! And then suddenly, their entire civilization just collapsed and all knowledge about them vanished from the world.

"Honestly, I do not actually think that you are Ancients… that was just the best possible thing. But if you could create new spells as much as you wanted, that's because you are able to Formalize magic using the same method the Ancients did. When you understand [Spell Names], you understand how to finalize the form."

"Excuse me. Wait. Are you telling me that when we've been saying these [Spell Names], we haven't been actually speaking in [freaking English]?!"

/"Well of course not, Player. Why would YOU even think that?"/

"… because I've been doing that. And I'm kinda dumb, apparently." I frowned. "So there IS actually something wrong with calling it the [Blood Maker]."

"No, no there isn't," Charlotte answered. "The spell succeeded."

"But then why did it…? Ah."

Because when I was saying [Blood Maker], it was in English and everyone else was just hearing it as something else. And Linze said [Blood Maker] in her native language.

Casting my own personal spell didn't just mean casting the admittedly simple effect I was asking, it also had to cast my emulator. Monika and I were x64 processors in a world optimized to run ARM apps.

Linze knocked herself out because casting the spell instantly drained all her magic power from actually visualizing what happens behind spells instead of just willing things to happen. My spells were so horribly optimized, they should barely even run except that I had literally obscene levels of magic power to throw at the problem. The benefit to me was that it scaled up much much greater than regular spells. Other people had to stack spells to get greater intensity, I could ramp it up as high or as low as I wanted because I was using magic itself to block magic.

All this time I visualized The World as a separate entity, the thing that enables magic. I wanted as little to do with the world and automatic magic as much as possible. It wasn't about denying the impossible, but I wanted freedom to do as I wanted instead of having to search for prebuilt spells in order to do anything. And so the world obliged, because dammit this magic system of theirs was so nice like that.

I was so dumb. Arrogant and dumb. I groaned and explained as such.

Imagine Harry Potter magic and its faux Latin used for casting. (Wingardium Leviosa), etc.

But I was hearing and saying it as [Highwing Raiser] while everyone else was hearing it in their Faux Latin. Or [Summon] for (Accio), or [Banish Weapon] for (Expelliarmus). Everything sounds much chuunier as heck if you're using the root words.

No one would expect [Highwing Banisher] (Wingardium ExpelliarDus) to work at all instead of the general blasting curse (Confringo). I was going around being all MAXIMUM CHUUNI not knowing shit about anything. If I could video myself I'd probably cringe at the delusional boy.

/"That little change makes all the difference?"/ Monika mused. /"Arbitrary magic surely is arbitrary. Because you had constrained magic to what you believed was possible, it meant your spells became their own self-contained rulesets. That's a unique form of self-sabotage, at least."/

Monika shrugged. /"I'm much the same way, player. I could deal with the idea that magic was basically just imposing my will on the universe. But we can't deal with the idea that there can't be any limits to it. It is just too unfair. Why should we be rewarded like this after everything we had done?"/

"I object on the grounds that you can't cheese as effectively if you don't know the rules you can abuse. If there aren't any rules then you can't cheese at all! And that's just unsatisfying."

/"Hahaha. Of course you would."/

With chakra, or with MP, or even with any goddamn MMORPG level-based magic, at least it would be understandable. It makes sense that not everyone can be a scientist or an athlete or an artist. But I had no idea why anyone in this world would ever just let the chance to wrap reality to their whims pass them by just from sheer lack of motivation to exert themselves!

"But there ARE rules to magic," Charlotte demurred. "From what I understand of what you just said, it is not so much you can break them, or that you have no limits, but you create even stricter limits on yourself. There really are many rules to magic… but these are rules other people have laid down and you don't have to follow them.

"This has immense implications for uncovering how spells were originally created, how the Ancients were able to enchant objects with what should be unique personal Null abilities, and for finding the limit of current spells."

"I suppose we could help with that. If we have the time. We're still adventurers first and foremost."

/"I want in return a Teleportation Spell or seeing a Teleport ability in action,"/ Monika put in suddenly. /"Since apparently teleportation has little do with elemental spells, just watching Player does nothing for me."/

"But then when I say (Come forth, Water, [SEA WATER]…!) it's violating the whole premise if it's just spontaneously generated salt water instead of coming from an ocean somewhere...!" I whined.

Charlotte giggled. "I'd be very grateful for any assistance you would care to provide."

-.

After some time, Linze said "Um… if that's done, could you please get off him now?"

Charlotte and I looked towards her, then back at each other. We were sitting basically crotch to crotch.

"I am fine with this," I had to admit.

/"Player!"/ Monika shouted, pointing reproachfully at me.

Ahahaha…

-.

/"Player, may I speak with you in private, please?"/ Monika asked after we had disentangled ourselves.

"Ah. Okay. Excuse us please," I told the others.

I went to a corner of the room, carrying the projector. Technically there was no need for that, but it gave everyone else the illusion of privacy.

/"Player, you are being disgustingly obvious. Think about how you look to others."/

"I'm sorry. Monika, I still love you best, but… I have to confess, she just pushes ALL my buttons."

/"Yes, I accept that. She is a super hot super nerd. I perfectly understand why. In fact, I'm not even angry about it. You'd think I'd feel even the slightest bit of jealousy, but… I really don't. It's so inevitable it doesn't even register. Does she even realize how seductive she's acting?"/

"I… don't think so? I have a feeling she just has a poor idea of personal space. Ugh." I squatted as I faced the corner of the wall, and held Monika's tiny holographic figure to my chest. "This is kinda hard for me to deal with. I thought I couldn't get silly crushes anymore…"

/"I object to that, because I don't think Linze's crush is silly. Also, phrasing."/

"Monika, you're being quite obvious about shipping me with Linze too. I mean, I like her, but… I feel like I'd be taking advantage of her, you know? I'm not sure if we should really be rushing into anything." I paused and added "Also, literally. I'm going to need your help with this later too."

/"Playerrr…!"/

-.

-.