The Principle of a Philosopher by Eternal Fool “Asley”

The first one? Did she mean Muscle Magic? …Huh, looks like she is. That look in her eyes says it all.

“Did you just… say something you are never supposed to say in my presence?”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Start explaining the two other things already.”

Don’t think I’m about to back down now, ma’am!

“No! THREE things! Muscle Magic is VERY important!”

“All right, fine! Ugh… just start from whatever magic that is!”

“MUSCLE MAGIC!”

“Y-yeah, that. Muscle Magic. Ugh…”

Man, why does this little miss sound so embarrassed to say that?

I mean, it’s not an exaggeration to say that this Muscle Magic is the ultimate magitek… invented by yours truly!

“The Muscle Magic involves the directional applications of arcane energy onto a target, shifting the directions of their attacks.”

“Well, that sounds more practical than expected.”

“But of course, we’re up against Lucifer. Only a small amount of arcane energy can work on him, giving us a range of only one centimeter at most to dodge… Well, it might be safer to assume that we’ll get only a few millimeters.”

“So it’s not perfect… Well, I guess it’s good enough to avoid fatal inju–“

“–Yes, it’s not perfect… if you don’t have my muscles! …Hmm? What’s wrong? Why the facepalm?”

“……If you weren’t serious about that, I would’ve already slapped you a few times by now.”

Irene must have been quite stressed out from working as the head of command of the Resistance this whole time. I can get overly excited when it comes to muscles — I should control my tone so that she can follow along.

“So you see, how the ‘dodging’ works is that you direct the target’s attack toward a desired location. Hehehe…”

“And what’s that laugh for? Good God, you are creepy…”

“Huh?”

“Don’t give me that ‘huh’! Can you not talk normally!? I swear, you’re driving me insane!”

Hmm, I see, slippage of sanity due to changes from the ordinary…

I never really thought of that. Is she not used to taking it easy once in a while due to how chaotic her ordinary days have been? Damn, that’s deep. Gotta write that down in the Principles of a Philosopher.

“…………So? Are you done yet?”

“Yes, it’s perfect. I’ll show you an example…”

“…Huh?”

I stood up and grabbed Irene’s wrist, pulling her up and thrusting her hand at my abdomen.

“Pretend this is an attack aimed at a weak point of my abdomen — the solar plexus. I’ll use arcane energy to redirect it toward where my muscles are more solid. As long as the attack goes where I want it to, I can use Muscle Control to fortify myself and deflect it, redirecting it again to my palm… like so.”

Saying that, I placed Irene’s clenched fist on my hand.

“Hmm? Did that sound confusing…?”

“…Ah, well…… It’s… not bad, actually!”

“So why’s your face turning red?”

“W-who knows? It’s getting hot around here, I guess!? Ahh, I can’t stand this heat!”

“Yes, I can see that — you’re sweating quite a lot.”

“It’s fine! I’ll be fine! So what about the two other magitek!?”

Huh… Will she really be fine, though?

She’s fanning herself with her hand, but her face isn’t turning any less red.

“S-stop staring and start talking already!”

That is an extremely difficult and unreasonable request to fulfill, but since it’s Irene, I shall try my best to comply!

“So, Rewrite Magic and Gamma Lock… The first one, as its name implies, is the art of forcefully rewriting a target’s magic or magecraft formula before they can complete it. It could be useful… not so much in the fight with Lucifer, but rather in the large scale battles that precede it.”

“And how do you do that?”

“You move the letters of the target formula’s code. It’s… well, actually pretty similar to how the Magic Table was implemented. With just the right amount of arcane energy, you can rearrange the code of the target formula, rewriting it into something else. Think of it as a super heavy duty version of Letter Edit.”

By the time I was done explaining, Irene was already trying it out, as I saw in a corner of my eye.

Well, that’s strange… she’s actually looking pretty motivated now…?

“Ngh…! T-this is pretty difficult…!”

Damn, she really is a genius… It hasn’t been even a minute, but she’s already managed to do what I needed a whole week of full dedication to learn!

If only someone like her or Warren had drunk a Drop Eternity instead of me, maybe the world would have been more ready for the Devil King, and we wouldn’t be facing this absolute chaos.

Man, after I lost that fight against Lucifer, I’ve been more jealous of the talents others have…

I mean, what do I have that they don’t? Time? Yeah, I don’t even have THAT anymore. How am I supposed to deal with Lucifer? Maybe I’m the one who’s the most worried about that…

I may have all these tools to defeat Lucifer with, but… I’m not confident that I CAN defeat him.

Maybe that’s why made that order to Pochi.

“What’s wrong?”

“Huh?”

“You just turned gloomy all of a sudden. I bet you’re thinking about Pochi again. Stop worrying about her already — you did what you did because she’s important to you, right? Stop feeling bad for her and think about how you can make it up to her instead… After we all make it out of this alive.”

“Uh, I haven’t even said anything, though…?”

“W-what, so am I wrong?”

I don’t know what to say, especially with Irene giving me that stern look.

“No… You were right, actually.”

“So, the Gamma Lock?”

“Ah, right. It’s what you use to be able to confine multiple targets in a single boundary magecraft. It’s also an absolutely necessary magitek for the battle… well, more like war, that precedes our fight with Lucifer.”

“Both of those magiteks sound quite complicated to handle… It’s not at all what I’d expect from you, Asley.”

“You have THAT low of an opinion on me, huh…?”

“Well, on the outside, you seemed to be more of the type to go P-P-P-P-POWER!! You know?”

“Oh come on, I’m not THAT simple…”

“Of course not. You LOOK simple — and make the things you do look easy — only because you’ve spent so much time refining your complicated techniques. Most people aren’t able to see that.”

In other words, Irene was commenting on what I looked like on the outside when that was the only part she was looking at.

Well, she truly is a professor — able to give impressions from both professional and personal standpoints, carefully considering both perspectives.

And now I get it… Deep down in me, there IS a well-cultivated poll of knowledge when it comes to magic. But to others, it seems like I’ve been doing things without effort… Quite a wasteful way to look at things, I must say.

“Don’t worry. There’s no one among those fighting against the Devil King’s army who only looks at you on the outside.”

“Did you just read my mind on something?”

“It’s not like I’ve been a professor for so many years for nothing, you know.”

And exactly how many years is that? Is what I’d like to ask, but I’ll probably end up facing a threat scarier than Lucifer if I do, so I won’t– GAH!?

“…Um, why did you just slap me?”

“Because your face made it look like you were asking for it.”

“Now you’re reading expressions? That’s new.”

“Well, since you’re still this carefree, you’ll probably be fine.”

“Huh?”

“I mean, you’re still doing everything in your power to act like a fool, so…”

“HUH?”

With that, Irene began walking away, pretending to be clueless. 

…Looks like she’s already started to see through my act.

That thing I made Pochi do… it’s something I shouldn’t have let linger in my mind. No matter how much I try to play the fool and cover it up, she would see through me. That’s what is truly scary about her.

Despite these thoughts, though, I can’t help but want to get back at her. It’s only natural — After all, I AM an actual fool.

“By the way, Miss Irene! I learned Rewrite Magic and Gamma Lock from Sagan, you know!”

“What!? I never knew about that! You’re saying Master Sagan was THAT powerful or something!? Hey! Asley! Are you listening to me!?”

She yelled out and asked, but I had already started walking away, pretending to be clueless.

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