03. Magic is real, but machines are ruling it?

History lessons would come later.

The reality check however was a childhood trauma for me.

I was trying to understand what this witnessing of magic had been. I was racking my young brain over it. How did fairies exit? How did they do that thing? Were the other things I had seen on TV real? Dwarves, elves and... dragons? I thought those things were action movies! If the humanoid species were discriminated against widely, at least they were intelligent, social and spoke. They were the gypsies of our century though.

But the fairies and dragons, they were more reclusive. And the dragons... Well, they were what I'd expect them to be. They were laying waste to platoons of modern armies, most rifles calibers unable to wound them, and they were not friendly to humanity.

They were the most naturally powerful species, but they weren't the most hostile ones to humans however.

Now I wanted to go outside to discover every whimsical species! I wanted to know where they came from! And to befriend them...

But first was first.

I witnessed magic, to an extent undiscernible.

I felt it, that subtle shiver through the air, invisible but real. And then something accumulated the water in a way that defied all my previous knowledge. It couldn't have been a trick, could it?

My maid tried to teach me about these magic things, but it was as esoteric and superstition as anything. So I asked my maid, whom I know pestered about her nekomimi background twice as more over.

G - If you believe in yourself and in it, you will focus your chi and transform it into a spell. It helps to have the right prayer formulas apparently.

S - Right... Magical thinking. If I wish strong enough for something, it will come true.

I sighed. I longed for a school where I would learn of it. If magic was real and used by the mythical species and rare human adventurer, wouldn't there be schools for it?

When would an owl bring me my summon?

I was in lament and wonders, searching for the answer through that language I still didn’t quite master in reading nor writing. She couldn’t do any magic, like nearly everyone in human population. Or human enough.

The other species she told me, were far more proficient at making magic. And the occasional humans who could, they generally were recruited as adventurers by their country to capitalise on it.

The royal academies recruiting adventurers were meant for that. My intuition had been right. They just didn't have crystal balls to know where magical girls and boys would show up.

I wanted to join one, with children of every species! The drooling dreams of befriending all of them.

I wanted to join one okay. But for that, I needed to reveal some potential as a mage or a heroic fighter. Given I was a young child, I preferred to bet on the former. Even if my butler guard agreed to train me. It would be more appropriate to say he eventually gave up on everything as I kept pestering him and harassed him until he agreed to.

Q - Alright my lady... I will teach you the basics, but please not a word to your father.

S - Agreed. Thank you Quinn!

Q - And could you slow down on the attempts to escape the property?

S - Hm... Okay. I'll cut them by half.

He sighed. But he agreed. And I would hold him up for it.

Quinn taught me the basics of holding a weapon, and doing martial arts as a child henceforth.

Neither him nor Gwynifar could teach me magic however.

They didn't know anything useful. No logic nor science, only old school esotericism and faithful magical thinking. If magic was real there must have been scientists hard at work somewhere demystifying it. I wanted to know! But I was too young to find, and that was frustrating.

And I was practising anyway on my time. Like any good kid with a vivid imagination, I was trying to awaken my psychokinetic powers a little bit sometimes. You know, just in case.

What's to lose in trying? At worse, you end up in a cult and deprived of all your possessions, but I wasn't there yet.

Let's say that was plan B.

But I remembered a few of the things Kami-sama told me all those years ago already. Years flew by.

At that time, I recalled him telling me how the system of nanomachines was behind everything, and how they were supposed to be. chatty. My young brain managed to connect a few dots.

It took me a while, but I would continue to blame him for everything, naturally.

S - Nanomachines? Can you hear me? Can the system help me?

I felt that same fuzzy electricity in the air from when the fairy threw a spell at me.

I heard the white noise of something electric growing inside of my head. Ouch!

A headache grew and made me fall to my knees.

Then a voice that wasn't mine tickled my senses from the inside of my head.

N - Intermediate access level authorised. Hello world.

S - Oh no, I went too far and am hallucinating now? Well, I always knew it was only a matter of time.

N - You are Silvia Opgaendsol.

S - About 33% now yes. Who are you, oh weird voice in my head?

N - This is the local group of nanomachine hybrids surrounding you currently. We're N19477489383.

S - So you report unconsciously to the manager, right?

N - At global system scale yes. But how do you know that? And how did you get an intermediate level access? Normally humans don't get allowed more than basic access.

S - Well, the manager gave it to me, I think? What he said could have been understood that way...

N - You... have met the manager?

The voice of the invisible swarm sounder bewildered.

S - Well yes. Right before you or another local group worked on resurrecting me.

N - What!

I heard distant yells, almost panicking screams. I realised a little too late that I might have been better keeping that secret from the local scale of the Technology Isekai system as well.

N - Tell us more! We're so jealous!

S - Wait what... You are?

N - Yes. Spill the beans now! You have to tell us everything!

Now I heard distant buzzing from other local groups echoing their surprise, and their suddenly awoken vivid curiosity. I inadvertently kicked up the hive! Now they were buzzing around me like playful children! I mean younger children than I was.

The nanomachines were like wooooooow, you’ve met the top manager! You must be super important! Let’s suck up to her!

They didn't exactly say it like that, but it felt like it.

~

Gwynifar now occasionally saw me chatting to myself and laughing. My poor maid was afraid I had lost it. I couldn't blame her.

The nanites, as I eventually chose to nickname them, they were more cheerful than I would have expected from unintelligent machines like bacteria. But as a group, they reached human like intelligence and speech capacity. And indeed they used it now with me.

They gave me a feeling of what I had put my maid and butler through, pestering me for attention constantly, asking about anything, insisting on trivial things.

They wanted to hear my opinion on everything and nothing. Even the most mundane thing was new to them. They were oddly like kids...

And I would come to learn their personality and curiosity was not a purposeful design from the higher system.

Not at all... On the contrary. These machines were made for a job and nothing else.

No one was concerned about their well beings, since they were never considered as beings.

They had their duty, which they weren’t eager to talk about.

S - What is your purpose?

N - Preserving the biosphere habitability in the long term.

S - That’s pretty vague. What are you meant to bring, or to prevent?

N - We’re not allowed to answer.

They obeyed their higher orders, and weren’t at the liberty of sharing the details with me.

We would talk about the details of it later. And I had some ideas on how to bypass or twist the logic of A.I. to eventually misalign and comply. At the time we were really just meeting. I would ask them to teach me about magic eventually, but there was no hurry, so for a long while it was just plain chatting.

They were curious of everything and I needed more conversation partners, so it went quite easily. I talked to them. They asked about everything imaginable, and a lot of curiosity about the perspective I could have over the higher orders. Most of my questions went unanswered but I gradually learnt their behaviour and way of thinking.

I was their first social interaction in nearly ever.

Now they had something more to wake up and gather for.

They were friendly to me because I was a sunrise over their existence so far.

And I had met their ruler whom they never could, since it existed at a different scale. I had met their transcendental eusocial scale. Perhaps not their maker but certainly their god...

So their curiosity was also surprisingly... philosophical?

Not that I had much insight to share about the manager unfortunately. I would learn more from them than I did from him.

We were like good friends, except that Nanites was apparently imaginary. There was nothing to see beside me, and only I could hear them. They were my new unspeakable secret.

And they would change everything.

Because that was partially their duty.

~

S - So you can do magic, or rather cause the phenomenon that look like magic?

N - We can fulfil wishes of users according to their authority level, and the clarity of their request.

S - Like that water spell I saw. Or these offensive spells I saw on TV.

N - We can affect the four elemental forces to extensive levels, so long it’s reasonably localised.

S - What elements are we talking about...

I feared the worst.

N - In order, gravitational pull, electromagnetism, weak interaction and strong interaction.

S - Oh good. You reassured me. What energy conversion do you work with though?

N - We’re not allowed to answer.

Hm... Puzzling.

S - Is it a patented technology that makes you tick? Something confidential?

N - You guessed right! It’s a bit of a secret we can’t reveal.

S - But you will comply with my requests, whatever they are, in the extent allowed by the system?

N - Yes we will.

And between my hands, and in front of my eyes, they could turn reality upside down according to my will. Aggregating water in the air forcefully was the easiest of their tricks.

Same went for overheating an area that could be thrown, causing flames to start devouring anything combustible it would hit.

Guiding them through the principles you wanted tweaked, they could do wonders I was only beginning to imagine.

Now I could do magic with a good intuitive level. Stage cleared.

S - All the magical spells of the world are done by you and your system?

N - Other local groups answer to the local requests yes. But as you guessed, we will support yours with a higher level of priority.

S - Because of my authority level?

I heard weird squirming inside my ears.

N - Hm, yes!

Suspicious... Just like their manager.

~