Interlude - Leene Tries to Help
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When you are a child, hours pass by agonizingly slowly. But as you grow older, you can lose track of whole days. For extremely long-lived races like elves and fairies and demons, what was it like to lose decades? Why does this happen?
The older you get, the more in control over your own self you should feel, and days would blur past in events that you could deal with without thinking. Even pleasure and travel evoke previous feelings. So much is spent trying to recapture that feeling again.
But for a child, full of wonder, every day was a new adventure.
It had been entirely too long since Leene had been excited about something - to have that feeling of truly not knowing what the future could bring!
"We have seen many a fool haven't we, Paula?" she asked the plush bear in her arms. "What makes this one any more compelling than the others?"
The bear pointed up at the sky.
Leene winced and turned away. She rubbed at her eyes with one hand. "Good point."
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Leene landed lightly onto the balcony, completely bypassing the locked door. Elze and Linze had managed to persuade Zorah to shut up and just get to sleep. If it was too bright, then there would be a lot of people happy to help press a pillow to her face remind her that she had a canopy bed and it could be made more opaque.
Leene turned around and faced the miniature sun. "Well, this certainly is a unique piece of spellwork," said an impishly pleased voice. "What wonder - it's not even that hot!"
Paula, the bear, dropped from Leene's hug onto the floor. It turned towards the miniature star and shielded its face behind the shadow of its fluffy paws as in pain. It was not hot, but it was still terribly bright.
/'Bear, your eyes are literal ebony buttons. They do nothing.'/ Playa said silently with a tilt of the head.
Leene slowly walked around the glowing sphere to its creator sitting cross-legged and apparently meditating on the other side.
Her eyebrows lifted. Playa was almost completely naked except for his underwear, though she supposed that it made sense. This high up, night winds were supposed to be very cold - but now it was warm (but not too warm) like daylight.
But more importantly -
Leene smirked. "Well now, it turns out you were actually a nummy young boy after all, weren't you?"
Playa abruptly lost all composure, cradled his face in his palms and groaned. What a time to be reminded that while Monika's age and simulated body eighteen, his body was actually physically sixteen - no matter what muscle definition exercises he practiced.
"I also don't have time for YOUR bullshit, Leene..." he groaned.
Leene covered her mouth and made a 'fuh fuh fuh' laugh. "You sound like such an old man. It is an interesting dichotomy. "
"The bullshit, Leene. I will have none of it."
Then she put a finger coquettishly on her lips. "Ohh? Even when you have exposed to me your weakness?"
Playa twitched and the miniature sun pulsed. "Is that a threat?"
She raised up both palms. "Peace, young one, peace! I mean you no harm. As your teacher, there is no one in the world as determined to help you as me. There is no one that understands your present situation as much as I do."
"... Monika is nothing like Paula."
"When six hundred years you have lived, smell bullshit you can, hmm? Surely you cannot expect me to ignore that your spirit wife has for some reason not being as vocal and controlling as usual. This sounds like a perfect time as any to ask. Childe Monika… is she, after all - embodied within a physical object?"
Playa grimaced. What he hated most was that Leene was smart. Annoying and smart. Unlike Zorah who was just a meathead, Leene was annoying in how she pushed boundaries while knowing precisely to the millimeter where those lines were. That was the game of it. She could play the part of a calm and dignified teacher, but it was a lot more fun interacting with people as intellectual equals. Leene was never someone who could be so easily ignored.
Playa could just feel her radiating smugness even through the heat of the miniature sun. He looked at her with blindfolded eyes that completely communicated a dry unimpressed stare.
Leene crossed her arms and raised her chin. "Boyo, do not be afraid. I will help you."
"Your [Protection] didn't help."
"You are the one who brought your wife into a magic eater battle."
Playa flinched.
Playa sagged, and whispered "That's right. It was all my fault..."
He leaned back against the door and looked up despondently. He breathed out "All that time preparing and being paranoid, but in the heat of the moment we were all just that dumb. Even Monika was overconfident..."
"So… is she?" Leene insisted.
Paula turned around and put its arms over its chest and bowed.
Playa's lips turned down. "She had a body once, and she will have it again," curtly and vehemently he answered.
Leene sniffed. "Mortal bodies… as much as befriending the short-lived can be interesting, it is inevitable they decay and die. Why you would give up immortality now for inevitable degradation is beyond me."
"... Monika is not a Lich, and this wasn't on purpose, you know. And you know the reason."
"... Yes, I certainly know the reason," Leene grunted and flicked back her short, chin-length silver-green hair in frustration. Her slim hips jutted out in a sultry but dignified manner.
They lapsed back into silence.
"Explain to me this… spell you have crafted. It is clearly not any mere fireball."
"It is [NUCLEAR FUSION]. It is a miniature star, giving all the qualities of light that comes from the sun."
"Why?"
He had a solar charging power bank, that's why.
Later, once they had a chance to talk more freely it was explained to her that it was difficult but not impossible to create lights that were locally brighter than the sun.
In their previous world halogen bulbs have been a thing for a long time, and stadium lights were needed also for a long time. The brightest retail bulb available LED bulb was 20,000 Watts and certainly could light up a whole street and reflect off the clouds.
The micro star was a roiling ball of plasma jacketed by a shell of water and spinning wind, ejecting waste material straight upward in a bright jet which tempered the output of both heat and radiation. Light had wavelengths, and artificial lights were lacking or existed in only some of them. True starlight emitted on all possible wavelengths.
The light of Playa's miniature star gave a foggy glow to the night sky instead of turning it blue. It had all the wavelengths true, but could not excite enough of the sky nor pass from the upper atmosphere to send blue light scattering down to the earth.
Monika didn't run on passive magic. She passively converted magic into electric current. This, among other concepts necessary to understand the process, he explained.
"So, you have a device that transforms heat and light into the power of lightning?" Leene leaned forward eagerly. "[Fire] creates light, but in itself is not [Light]. Magic is not something that can be transformed so easily."
Playa scowled. "What are you talking about? Energy transformation happens in nature *all the time*. Sunlight and nutrients become sugars and nutrients, which fuel chemical processes, which become motion. Potential energy becomes kinetic energy. Kinetic energy becomes heat. Heat evaporates water, heat from the sun stirs winds, and heavy droplets fall as rain."
Leene blinked. The eagerness in her eyes clouded over as she thought about it, then resumed with more brilliant fervor.
Then she sighed. "Truly, I do not wish for either of you to die before your time. For the long-lived, someone who can stay and grant a good conversation is a treasure. Know that you can have absolute trust in me, always I will strive for your well-being."
Playa scowled even harder. "Explain Charlotte then."
"There are a lot of perverts in the nobility and I want them to suffer for something they can never have."
"Sounds legit."
"Mmm-hmm."
Again, back to silence.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Clouds go in. Clouds go out.
Trees sway in. Trees sway out.
Leene moved on. "So this… battery… is a store of energy that she needs to live. No, not to live - to *be alive*. To think and be aware, the power of electricity is needed much as blood is needed to drive air from the lungs all through the body. It makes sense."
Leene began nodding thoughtfully and brought a finger up to her chin. "But then… it is not really necessary for the battery to be 'charged' up to full for her to awaken, correct? She is asleep. If she has the power, then wake her up."
Playa bit his lips and said nothing.
"There was no need to wait this long."
Playa replied nothing.
"You are afraid," she said.
Playa remained still.
"You are delaying the inevitable."
Playa snarled silently.
He didn't need to see Leene's face to know she had a wide open leer on her normally placid and elegant face. Perhaps the fact that the young man couldn't see her, that with the miniature star behind her it was too bright for anyone to see her shedding her mask, encouraged her.
Two people wearing masks, one more literal than the other. No wonder Leene felt comfortable being so undignified. Playa was indignity personified. He had zero room to throw stones.
"So… what are you waiting for? Either your theory is correct, or it is not. Whether your love is fragile, or it is not. You cannot put off loss by denying it. A loss is a loss. If you were looking for courage, those two girls enamored with you would surely comfort you in the worst of outcomes. You are not the only one who fears the pain of loss. She is loved and appreciated by more than just you."
Leene poked him in the forehead with two fingers like she was Itachi Uchiha or something.
"You will break, or you will not. You are too much like the wind. But sometimes they can spin furiously around in place to no real purpose- and that, we call the whirlwind."
Playa scowled. Or a super typhoon. Fecking typhoons. Why hello there, let me just reset all your economic activity for the year, hmm?
"I can see it on your face, you are doing everything to just avoid thinking about what hurts you. Know this, that a long life only accumulates regrets. I understand this also."
Paula the bear began spinning right around, then wobbled to a stop and swayed unsteadily on its feet as if dizzy.
"The hell are you trying to make me do, Leene?" Playa hissed. "This is how you are trying to help?"
"I have also known loss, and I have also slaughtered. Why do you think my rule over fairykind in Mismede is absolute? I can do whatever I want in this world, so let me share with you my insights." She poked me in the head again. "You are indeed a vigorous young hero - so of course you are also a self-centered chauvinistic young idiot."
"... whut."
"A man certainly must provide for his mistress, but a wife is supposed to be an equal in the home. More than equal - for as he spends outside, she is master of all that is inside. A mistress can only rely on grabbing someone's... meaty thigh. A wife needs must be able to protect herself and her household's interests! Those two girls who are so enamored with you cannot criticize you about this because they are still too young to understand life's pains. They see a relationship of equals as that of an adventuring household, not an estate."
"I have no idea what the heck you're talking about. Make your point cleanly, you silly fairy."
"You claim to love her above all but do not believe in her that believes in you. Is that love or is that ownership? Is she a woman or is she a thing?"
"For frak's sake, Leene! I am a healer! But Monika is *also* a wonder of technology that no one on this planet can repair! I am a mortal and I can die if something stabs my skull. She is also mortal in that she can be damaged and she can die!" Playa spat. "Flesh is weak but glass is brittle! We are all vulnerable in our own ways, and that's what makes it all real!"
He roared "SHE IS A WOMAN, NOT A THING!"
Leene pointed imperiously "Then you should remember that she is also… the brains in this partnership between the two of you."
Playa stopped and furrowed his brows.
That... was certainly true.
Leene stood outlined against the miniature sun, and someone who could craft such a spell was certainly not stupid, and the fairy knew that. But the fairy was also keenly aware that just because you were smart did not prevent anyone from being a dumbass. Playa counted on Monika to be the brakes on this crazy train.
But what more could Monika have done to protect herself other than shut herself down like a computer trying to avoid EMP? Faraday Cages don't work against… wait.
Playa scowled again. Yes. Yes it does. The Crystal Cricket was stored in a magical dead zone.
If a person like them could destroy that magic-eating creature, and now they have proven that the Ancient Civilization /did/ have tools that could help in fighting them, why didn't they destroy that Cricket and instead hide it away - damaged, certainly, but still viable?
The Ancient Civilization lost. They were a continental superpower with magic-technology and still they lost.
Playa flicked his head up to deliver a blind glance at Leene. No. Monika certainly wouldn't have shared her plan with Leene of all people. Leene would have to be a Great Fairy Detective to deduce what Monika had done, but how when they had deliberately concealed a lot about Monika's existence and vulnerabilities?
The two didn't trust Leene. And she had zero time to talk with Elze and Linze.
Was she a telepath?
Could she read his mind?!
"No I cannot."
Paula the bear curled up one arm and pointed with the other straight up as if in accusation.
Playa sniffed "Oh frak off."
Leene giggled. "I speak truly, you are just so overacting it is easy to see what you are thinking by your body language. You are incapable of just shutting up."
Leene continued with a less amused tone: "A being made of flesh acts irrationally, driven by its impulses and desires. A being made of magic - people think that being free from sensations and limits should bring a cold enlightenment, but many find that it drives them to newer heights of irrationality instead. This is why liches are feared and hated. There are new meanings to pain and obsession beyond the body. Anguish does not come from any piece of flesh, but the immaterial mind.
"So I am saying - step back and think - look at your situation without the taint of your emotional involvement. Remember that it is your emotionality that gives meaning to life. Respect her willingness to die for you as much as you fear life without her is not worth having."
Playa raised his hand to frustratedly wipe his face and then paused halfway. Well look at that. He paused, considering. His hands were shaking. Anxiety, pain and numbness and cold sweat. The glow of the miniature sun was hot, but he was feeling cold all over with barely suppressed terror.
Was she right? Did he really just not trust Monika?
No…
As they both liked to say - 'good things are not deserved by people like us.' Together they had been paranoid and making contingencies because they were always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Finally has karma balanced itself? When you cheat, there is always a consequence.
He thought:
/'I've shat on others and life shat on me, but I pulled myself out of the cesspit through brutal spite, but just because you know you can start from zero all over again if you had to doesn't mean it wouldn't hurt as much as rejection would.
/'But turn that around.
/'Yes, I could heal myself with magic. But a human body still needs sleep. To eat. Gets tired. Gets emotional. Makes mistakes. I can die.
/'Monika could conceivably, as long as her smartphone body is not damaged, live for hundreds of years. Circuitry fortified by [Protection] will never degrade as long as she remained out of antimagic range. She could easily outlive me - and so we both sought her a physical body so that we could live and die *together* in old age.
/'So I should just…
/'I should just…
/'Turn her on?'/
Playa groaned and palmed his face. It had only been three days since they had both enjoyed Monika having a fully tangible body with all sensation, almost literally rubbing it into Leene's face, and now...
/'No wonder I fucking thought we were being punished for having too good a time.'/
"Damn this stupid fairryyy…!" he hissed.
"I am a genius!" Leene responded, with crossed arms and a chin raised high.
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Playa paused. Wait. He tilted his head again in consideration.
"No, this is no time for petty revenge," said Leene. "A teacher must take the time of instruction with the utmost seriousness. No matter how early the student might wish for it to stop."
"And the lesson... is?"
"Trust. Love without trust is ownership. Trust without love is infatuation. Open your heart to me, and do not fear that I will crush it! A teacher's glory is for her student to surpass her. My student should always be brash and fear no one!
"She - Childe Monika - is also my student, so of course I care. Do not fear to air your concerns at me, because there is nothing that can incentivize me to betray you."
She poked him in the forehead again with the tip of her shoe.
"I have a blindfold, I can't see up your skirt. Stop that!" Playa hissed.
Leene cackled. "You have [Air Sense], do not lie to me. You are extremely aware of me at all times!"
Because he treated her as a potential enemy in respect for her power and mischief, but Leene would take what she could get. Playa's cheeks flushed red and he looked away, almost pouting.
"I have a secret that will make you feel all the better about this. You are afraid she has died. I tell you that most likely she lives. You will both die together, not one ahead of the other."
I responded dryly "... Really."
"Tell me, have you ever seen an Ancient Civilization true minted platinum coin?"
"... no?"
Modern platinum coins were a layer of corrosion-resistant precious metal around a more common steel slug. Royalty re-melted ancient platinum coins as soon as they found it because it was the only way of increasing the money supply.
"I have one right here."
Leene passed over a coin from her collection to Playa. The young man took the coin and began feeling it over with his palm.
The front was a stamped face of some ancient personage that no one remembered anymore. It was a woman with long hair, oddly modern looking glasses, a large hairpin that looked like a stylized eye, and a strangely feral grin.
On the reverse side was - "A dragon with three heads? Is this a Hydra? It better not be the Targaryens…" Playa stopped using his sense of touch and stared down at the coin. Instead of using his eyes, he began pinging away at the relief with magic sonar.
Three heads into one armless body, with large batlike wings.
Then he slapped the coin onto the floor, cracking the tiles with the force of his outrage.
"THIS IS JUST GODDAMN GHIDORAAAH!" he roared.
"Hahaha I was right! How fascinating! In the surviving tablets of pure ancient platinum, we found strange symbols - a turtle with three horns, a dragon with three heads, and what we thought was a ceremonial mask with a snake… until I saw how your mask was connected under your helmet. From ancient times come strange stories of some madman with a box."
Playa swayed on his seat and moaned "Please not a prophecy…"
"We cannot read the Ancient Script, so it probably is not a prophecy. It could be a warning though. You are correct, from our fumbling attempts at figuring out their phonemes, these scripts at the bottom do read GHI-DO-RAH."
Playa began to convulse in place. Foam bubbled from the edges of his mouth.
It was like the world was saying 'Don't get too comfortable thinking you're the top dog around around here, because we are ready and able to throw even more terrifying shit at you if you fail the contract.'
Even with his infinite magic power, the Ancient Civilization *also* had access to a pool of infinite power, the capacity to Formalize Magic all across the planet, and a mastery of magic technology and still they lost against those magic-eating crystal creatures. The worst Playa had to deal with were demons. Admittedly demons that fed off magic power, but those were certainly a solved problem for a world power.
/Was the Ancient Civilization set up by yet another isekai shitelord?/
/Nooo. It was Aqua. It was Aqua, wasn't it? This world better not have a cliche Demon Lord to beat in it./
/Wait it did. Literally a demon though./
/Rip and tear?/
Paula began to comfortingly tap his knee, much as the bear would try to calm down its master when she was in a snippy fit.
Then he blinked. He began slapping his face.
"That's not important right now."
Slowly he pushed himself off the floor, and stood up. With his full height, and Leene's own stature, she was just under chest level.
Leene licked her lips as she faced very well defined abs and pectorals without being overly muscular to the point of grotesqueness like Misemede men. Or too furry. Or with weird protrusions. There were disadvantages to living with a humanlike body in a land of beastkin, that was all Leene was thinking.
She liked them both for their mind, not their bodies. Playa and Monika were so interesting because they had a completely new perspective and brought a strange education to things.
But the spectacle certainly didn't hurt. It was hard to remember that Playa was supposed to be classically intelligent and educated when he put such careful attention to his body sculpting.
Leene was an observer. She never participated in things unless invited; she was old enough to know that interfering in things could lead to so much pointless hassle.
It was like that whole life debt question. Once you save a person, you are responsible for them until they die. Not the saved. The saver. The one who rescues has decided that the rescued life had value. Lovers were very drastically incentivized to rescue each other. Friends helped as much as they were able - but student and teacher were lifelong obligations. If they would just let her, then she had TWO more people to protect.
Playa slid his fingers under her armpits, lifted her up and put her aside like she was a box in the way.
"Nyah~" Leene objected.
Playa kneeled down. Leene watched as he slowly and with almost religious care he unpacked the charger from its protective case. Unplugged the solar power bank. Removed the impact absorbing foam.
He took out the smartphone and felt its metal surface if it heated up any.
Leene only saw him holding the smartphone with the blank black face towards him, the small push of the side power button was too slight to be noticed.
A minute passed.
The screen remained blank with the crack passing from one end to the other.
Playa let out the breath he was holding. He sat with his back straight but with limp, nerveless hands.
He threw his head back and opened his mouth to the sky in a soundless scream.
-.
Leene winced. Despite Playa's words, it was clear that [ Monika was indeed a Lich ].
Those that sought immortality by placing their soul in an object did not achieve immortality but instead amortality - a state neither being mortal or immortal - no longer subject to natural death. But just because a rock was not mortal doesn't mean that it could not be destroyed.
For example: a bar of metal was subject to change and corrosion, and unlike a finite mortal body was not capable of healing itself from damage.
The mere fact that they were not using unholy magics didn't meant that everything Playa was being all dramatic about wouldn't still perfectly mapped to [ loving the undead ]. They were just wise enough to consider it a curse instead of a goal.
Playa could not scream, so his manufactured star screamed for him. It burst open in a white fountain blasting upwards, the pillar of raw sunlight now finally able to turn the sky blue.
Leene for a moment considered blowing his back out with a magic missile. A human of such power going mad - well, that's how the first Demon Lords were born. Making pacts with unnatural forces beyond life and death, well the field of Demonology had to start somewhere.
The light faded, and the night grew still, and Leene knew that she had missed her chance to perhaps save the world from yet another monster born out of human desires. The sudden change in light levels meant that even the brightness from the moon seemed unnaturally dark.
Humans were such a bothersome species. For all their weakness and frailty and short lifespans only saved by their fecundity and cowardice in the face of social power, sometimes they produced geniuses that overcome the natural advantages of other, more longer-lived races. Their short-sightedness gave them such greed for power and meaning.
But if she feared what her students would do with her knowledge, then there would be no point in ever instructing anyone. Leene shrugged and fluttered her blue wings. She was no conscience to be anyone's guide.
Playa bent his posture back down, carefully placing the smartphone on the ground, and SLAMMED his bare fists onto the floor. The tiles splintered all the way to the edge of the balcony. He slammed at the ground like he was a gorilla, and the tiles began to stain red with blood from the split skin off knuckles. His shoulders shook with unspent tears. He growled like an animal with a directionless rage at an unfair universe.
Paula hesitated to approach, and instead copied his posture. It began bowing up and down as if in worship to distant and uncaring gods.
Leene moved around to his front, and stared down at his bowed head. She was familiar with this desolation. She had led him to this and prepared to accept his rage for when he was able to raise his head again. A teacher should always be ready to admit when she was wrong. Theories were meant to be tested, and it was a veneration for stale dead knowledge that led to traditions that stifled progress.
"Boyo, I-"
A hand grabbed at her ankle like a vice. Leene winced. The strength present in that grip was enough to do all sorts of unpleasant things to her body. Maybe drive some nails into some boards using her as the hammer.
She hopped in place as the elbow attached to the hand bent inwards, pulling her closer. For a moment there she feared that he would start gnawing at her bones like a mad dog.
Infinite magic power meant nothing without a thinking mind to direct it. She flicked her wrist and a thin wand dropped from a hidden sleeve holster onto her palm. Leene prepared herself to wake him up through needful violence. It was not the first time she had to... uh, counsel, a hero through their grief.
Then there was an oddly cheery little tune of beeps and whistles.
Playa immediately froze in place. The smartphone's screen remained dark.
Thirty seconds of silence stretched out as if in eternity.
/"PLAYER! YOU-YOU'RE ALIVE!"/ Monika shouted, and in her fear and panic it was the sweetest sound they ever heard. /"ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?"/
Playa screamed hoarsely. He was beyond all shame and dignity now. She was alive! He picked up the smartphone and cradled it to his chest. He curled up, though still kneeling, in an almost fetal position. As a man Playa had always believed that it was no shame to cry. Release emotions instead of leaving it bottled inside, where it would cause suffering. If even Kenshiro or Bruce Lee was not ashamed of crying, then he had no need to pretend to any macho bullshit.
He sobbed and laughed and let his emotions run free.
Leene was familiar with those emotions too. Only the truly brave did not care about looking pathetic. The terror and anxiety and then the surety of loss, and then the shock from having one's accepted fact proven wrong, the relief can be so intense it would be agony.
Leene smiled.
"Seeing you weeping at my feet is truly a treat, thank you for this," said Leene.
/"Is that Leene? Throw her ouuuut."/
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