1 "In another world"
What Barigaru showed him was a fantasy world that was composed of buildings that looked like they came out of ancient times made of stone and brick, and there were many kinds of people, beast people, and demi humans gathered there.
"Woah……"Seina was overwhelmed by the realness of it all.
"The people who see this for the first time say usually that they feel like they've gone to a parallel world... that is if they can keep there mouth from hanging agape... what do you think about it little guy?"
"Yeah ... it's exactly like that."
Seina turned his gaze from the window and turned to Barigaru. From what he had said so far, he concluded that he too had come here from outer space. However, it seemed that he was doing his best not to explicitly say that. Seina wanted to focus on the scenery rather than care about that. The sight of a fantasy world in front of him was just so fascinating. Of course, he had seen various species just wondering out and about in the academy, but here they were with the right background and all the important elements.
(It's not that unique from a design point of view)
The architecture was best described as Muslim stylings mixed in with Medieval European architecture. There were really only so many architectural styles that people could create.
(The designs are totally different, but somehow they give off the same atmosphere as those on Jurai.)
Plants like ivy were entwined in the buildings, the decoration of the houses were calming, the whole town was unified, it looked like a big garden. The main building materials was stone, but like Jurai you could just sort of tell this was the capital.
(It feels like I'm in some kind of wild kingdom)
there were animals walking bipedaly, half men half beasts, and human beings with animal ears. In addition, there was a variety of coats and patterns.
The outfits people wore ranged from Middle Ages to the present day Earth designs all at the same time, but the biggest difference was that they were wearing armor and light armor. There were dwarfs and beasts, the carcasses of monsters they encountered, and some people's outfits were dirty and of had broken pieces of armor, or traces of repairs, details you'd never see in a movie.
(Nevertheless there are hardly any flashy decorations like in movies and games.)
They needed practical items such as those for repair work so there was no point in decorating needlessly.
"Hm... Oh what's that!?"Seina saw a long narrow cloud descending from the sky to the ground. The sign of a wrecked spaceship that came descending from space.
"Hah those outside would refer to it as an "amusement park ride for fools" and make fun of it.
Some people like to live an early civilization style life using something they don't understand and call magic, and some people try for more and the others ridicule them for wanting freedom. But despite dominating the skies, people can't live in outer space, because they can't live without their artificially created shells and closed cages. Even if they dominate space, most of it is just an empty void ... it's really just a matter of self-satisfaction. "
" Yes, that may be so. "
Seina went up into space and his freedom increased dramatically. However, It wasn't because of space, because his cage of "biased bias" that had bound him disappeared. Or rather that he found the people who needed him that was what was important regardless of whether it was on the earth or in space.
No matter how large the universe is, one can't live without the shell of a spaceship, colony, or spacesuit. No matter where you live, the area where people live and the space they need is never as simple as just a place where they wake up and sleep on a tatami mat.
(I never even used to be able to go out on my own to do anything ...)
He went shopping even on the earth, but he could never remember going out for anything other than for necessities he required. He had no travel stories, no school events, or going out town. He did his best to never even leave the house.
"well enough of that subject . We have some free time so let me tell you all about that magic cold that you seem to have caught."
"Yes, please do."
"Although it can be said that magic itself is an element of all things, It can't change one thing into another, but rather it can change into another thing or another phenomenon, like say ... water."
Barigaru put his hands out in front of Seina, and a three centimeters thick ball of water was created.
"This isn't a collection of steam in the air, but rather I changed the magic into water, and of course it's magic that is making it float in the air."
He moved the water ball into his mouth and drank it, it was like watching it float in zero gravity in outer space.
"But, is the thing that makes up magic in the first place, well, It's not well understood."
"Oh, is it so? Well ... why is that that,"
Magic was a fantasy for Seina. He honestly didn't want a scientific explanation.
"It's not compatible with outside science, so scientific examination can't even detect the magic, the phenomena they derive from are completely different."
"What do you mean by not compatible ...?"
"Hm ... ... I need to do something before we talk more about this." he waved his arm s wide. Suddenly the outside noise disappeared.
"A privacy wall ...... No, some kind of barrier ...?"
"It's a simple one for sound insulation that's hard to detect." He pulled up a chair next to Seina's bed and sat down. the scenery outside was now hidden by a tree and nothing could be seen outside.
"I actually went to the universities out there." Barigaru pointed up while saying that. Of course he meant in space.
"But this is ... ...."It may have been renza but seina figured that just like the Galactic Federation they probably prohibited contact between early level civilizations and more advanced ones. But since there was a space port here in the first place,he figured it might not exactly be an early level civilization world.
"... ... What kind of categories do you use for that kind of thing?"
"This place is a level 3, we can contact but we can't trade anything, we are usually banned from contacting civilizations without interstellar navigation technology, but the laws let us contact places that were terraformed."
"So it's like a nature preserve."
"It's to protect the outside world the magic plants, not us."
"Is that because it's not compatible with outside sciences?"
"Oh, the magic plants erode and deteriorates the equipment of external civilizations, like an antibody clearing an infection."
"What ?"
"Anything brought here from the outside will be unusable within a month no matter what kind of shielding you use and any animal will start to change."
"Uh oh that's not good ...!
"What happened?"
"Uhm ... ... How quickly does it break down things from the outside?"
Seina was concerned for ZINV who was submerged in the lake. The Royal tree would come out of the unit and loses its power when it took root in the soil. the ZINV core unit itself was mysterious and their was no telling what would happen if it broke down from deterioration.
Seina was also worried he might not be able to ever pilot zinv again now that he had a magic organ.
"it really depends on whether the device is powered on or not. someone one brought in some things before and only powered it on when they needed it, they abandoned it when it became too damaged but it lasted quite a while."
"Is that so……"
zinv had lasted for hundreds of millions of years in a powered down state so this eased his worries a bit.
(I'm sure zinv will alert me if there's any danger.)
"by the way, all living things brought here can develop magic organs, even plants and house pets, causing them to become quite dangerous, it's caused some odd problems in the past. even worse sometimes the plants cross pollinate with the magic plants. but still it's allowed to bring those things in, but never out.
"Oh, is that so?" seina shuddered to think what would happen if zinv cross pollinated with them and a crop of magic 2nd generation trees was born. but he didn't know if that was even possible, and also zinv was age fixed at an early age so it was probably impossible.
"There are a lot of people here who are indifferent to magic in the sky. Although some people are actively involved with it, some of them feel that sorcery is like a pathogen. If it's difficult to obtain knowledge It may be because there is a tendency for the people of the magic civilized zone to challenge the outside technology. Of course everyone is different, some of them accept outside technology, and some of those outside try to mix it with sorcery There are actually planets that are aimed at choosing between one of the two and others that have compromised are working to try to mix them together as well."
" How do you feel about it barigaru?"
"Technology is worth using, but its worth it to be upset about some of the wasteful indulgences of both domestic and foreign people's inefficient uses of it."
He thought about the operation's base, over there the fantasy inhabitants were wearing strange uniforms. and they had Magic plants in cases. He thought about it and assumed that was a means to seal the magic to keep it from eroding external equipment.
"But I thought that if you use the together, the magic erodes the technological equipment?"
"It's not a problem to do so in the outside world, just in the magic civilization's area, but if you use them together, you need to shield the magic plant with the power of the magician. using a magic crystal."
"What is a magic crystal?"
"It would be better to explain it by further explaining sorcery. So getting back to my story, when lived there my life was the same as before but unfortunately there wasn't a centralized government on the continent of the space port, so it was like a semi-colony, like a colony of colonies, and you will hear plenty of bad stories about it around here ... .... "
"If you went to an outside college, were you originally from another planet?"
"I was born on this planet, basically this magically civilized country doesn't think that going leaving is a good idea, and it's not easy to get access to the space port."
"So how did you get out there?"
"They let people do diplomatic exchanges with the decentralized government there, but only those who have received permission can go there ..."
"But?"
"There's a route that's less then public knowledge, Of course, you have to have the necessary payment, but it is secure and safe"
"Is there a way to be sure that it's safe?"
"This is a smuggling country, the ships come in from over there and embark out into the lowest slums, while you can save up the money you need from working a job, the labor we export comes cheaply, in a sense, it's like a tightrope walk, If things go well it's far cheaper than the formal way of getting out of here. Of course the government doesn't admit that it exists publicly publicly so most people end up getting caught or sent back when there caught stowing away. Even if you can make it out there, it's common for those who leave to spend their entire life in the slums, you can't get an ID to get a normal job and so people leaving have a tendency to become second-class citizens. It's hard work, but those who want to get out can get out if they try."
Considering that Seina needed to get off the planet in the future, this seemed like a kind of prison. Still, it was better than being cast away on a barren unexplored planet.
"I can't say anything about people in general, but there are a lot of people who have admiration on the outside for those young people who want to leave, but even if you manage to get out, it's still hard to get out of this star system. The route to go to space only extends to the military space port which you probably saw earlier. The number of ships is small and the travel expenses are quite expensive.Many give up their dreams once they get there. "
"So how did you make it out?"
Seina was personally penniless, his money was all managed by Kiriko, so it couldn't be used. If he couldn't establish communication with the outside at worst he could work here to save money.
"In my case there was a sponsor, but these days its hard to figure out just how much it's going to cost so less people are willing to do that. "
"I see... how troublesome ...."
"As another way is to enter the military and get a humanoid weapon. I don't know how that is done, but it's the shortest route to getting outside, but the army requires you have at least initial level Bio-Enhancement for enlistment, If you're a human though you can receive the initial Bio-Enhancement adjustment free of charge. "
"Is that so……"
Seina got some ideas for a moment but switched the conversation in another direction quickly.
(Either way, I have to cover my cost of living first, and then there's also a problem of medical expenses)
"If you got out so far why did you come back here? Oh, of course if you don't want to discuss it ... ...."
"It's not a big deal, the life out there just wasn't for me. Of course I got the necessary knowledge I wanted so it was a great experience but, honestly I just didn't feel like life was any different. "
"That ... ... maybe so..."
Seina's environment had changed dramatically, but his daily life wasn't that different from when he was on Earth. Of course there were things to get used to, but the basic daily lives of people are the same every where, they work and go out for entertainment, meals, and sleep,
"It is more fun to be a hunter adventurer here than it is to live out there, it fits me. And I like parts of the society here .... If you live here, you can live a life that feels natural and simple. "
"Parts ......"
"Well it's just my preference, but honestly, it's because if you have magic and magic skills, you can live without much help from the outside."
There's a concept of living a slow life on Earth. Some think that a primitive life is pleasant, and
modern society is too vulnerable to crisis.
"What I got from going to an outside university is that I also have a high amount of scientific skills, but I also got to obtain knowledge of other planet's magic techniques." Barigaru leaned against the backrest of the chair.
"Is it different than here?"
"Well, they tend to ignore each other because of the incompatibility between science and magic, but I found people who were interested in magic on the outside. even the scientists were interested in learning the various differences in planets magic practices. "
"well isolation just naturally causes variation I guess."
"Naturally, but there is nothing natural about magic, It seems like it's a very unnatural phenomena. They think it was actually created artificially, but they don't know how, why or by whom. but by analyzing various places history it seems to have existed for a very long time. some scholars actually think its one of the oldest things in the universe."
"The oldest in the universe ...?"
The concept of supernatural powers such as magic on the earth had existed since ancient times. For primitive mankind who lived closer to nature, the techniques of magic predated those of science.
"We've confirmed that they even had a concept of it since the prehistoric civilization, there's no doubt that it existed even before that. However, there's no ancient documents or an archaeological sites to trace it's roots so no one is sure where it originated. "
"but everyone is familiar with the concept ... ... is there a reason for that?
"It's intuition .... That's right, if a sorcery is really a support system for daily life, then there's a high possibility that there's a way to find some sort of creator's record in the system itself."
"Did you actually find such a thing?!?"Seina curiously asked
"No need to be so excited,I don't even have the first idea how to check for such a thing."
"Well, that's lame......"
"But the systematization of magic technology is progressing, when it came to things like magical spells, I didn't even know the exact invocation conditions."
"Activation conditions? But you didn't have to do anything when you summoned the water, what do you mean by invocation?"
"Well that's just a matter of just casting a simple spell, you don't need to do it with anything closely related to life, like water or fire, you just need to activate the magic for that, but it's surprisingly difficult to make it float like I made it do before. You can do the same thing just by casting a spell ... No, rather,there are a number of spells to do the same thing. "
"I don't understand ... ...."
"In other words, to express magic, a clear image of how you want things done is needed, even if you cast the same spell, everyone has a different way to imagine it, for example flying is a different idea for someone who's gone into space then it is someone who's never left the planet. "
"Oh, see ... words are certainly ambiguous."
"Although its possible to find common ways to approach things, there's a lot of differences then the number of spells to do the same thing and so systematization is natural to categorize what is being demanded by "magic" in those spell, and the variations are impossible to know without going outside this solar system."
"But once you know that, everyone can use the same magic, can't hey?"
"Well, no,not so easily, it's the simplest thing to know right how to do things, but the amount of magic that's required for each act is really the most troublesome matter to the vested interests of magic itself. "
"Vested interests? Oh, but isn't the magic all around here?"
"There are two kinds of magic ...... The magic cold that the you have is a phenomenon that occurs due to the formation of a thing called a magic organ in the body."
"Inside of me, but ... ... well ... Well, it certainly felt really hot thing around my chest before I lost consciousness ..." Seina put his hand on his breast, but the feeling had gone away already.
"Yes, a magic organ is being formed there, and magic uses the internal magic that accumulates in that magic organ."
"Internal magic?"
"The magic substance drifting in the air is distinguished from it and is called external magic. so there is inner and outer magic substance, the two are similar things, and you can't control them unless you're a magician.
When you're reserves are small, the magic that you can use is limited. It's Similar to your basal metabolism, it's used to power the body first. "
"To strengthen the body ... ..."
"It's the surplus part is used, what you can do just depends on how much you've got."
"So if you use a lot of internal magic with your magic you won't have much leftover ... ...."
"Worse, there will be none left for strengthening your body. That can make you faint but if you're pretty strong it will just make you fatigued, but thd physical strengthening magic is a basic ability which everyone with a sorcery organ possesses, and it continues to consume internal sorcery for it's maintenance Therefore, many people can't even manage to use other types of magic."
Barigaru smiled after watching Seina with his hand on his chest.
"Don't be worried about that."
"... I understand the issue of how much magic it takes, but what did you mean by vested interest?"
"There would be a lot of unemployed people if you could make magic that anyone can use.The people who teach magic, schools, and the country are all keeping the advanced things a secret, especially since advanced magic is also related to national defense. But the same thing can be said of technology which gives countries strategic advantages, but it's a major factor that has obstructed the progress of systematization. "
In other words, advanced magic is the same treatment as weapons here.
"I'm sure you can understand why they feel it's necessary though can't you?"
"Well ... ... somewhat."
Seina's stomach growled.
"Eh !? but I just ate two hours ago ......"
"Gahahaha! After the magical cold that's common, you should be considerably depleted."
Barigaru laughed and got seina some stew from a near bye pot. Because Seina knew he wasn't dangerous, he took the stew and ate ferociously
------- end of chapter----------