Chapter 3

My Isekai life was going great. Catgirls. Magic. Dragons. But if I’d focused less on catgirls and more on what was going around me, things might have turned out differently.

“I wish I had a camera.” The mage’s chamber was massive, with walls adorned with floating crystals, each casting a slightly different shade of white or blue.

“Camera?” Nyarin asked.

“Ah,” I stumbled, “a device that captures moments in time. Images. Or it can talk to people far away. Or show you anything you want.”

Nyarin considered this, ears bobbing as she thought. “Wouldn’t that get boring? Having everything in the palm of your hand?”

I paused, looking around the chamber. I had played a hundred games with magic and chambers like this, but it had never seemed so moving on a screen. My fingers itched to play on my phone, but the beauty of the vaulted dome and sparkling crystals held my attention.

“I guess it does,” I admitted. “I can’t believe Truck-kun wants to destroy this Isekai and make me go to another one.”

“Dammit, not another Isekai,” Nyarin said under her breath, “this one should get an honest try.”

“What was that, Nyarin?”

“Nothing.” She smiled and gave my arm a squishy but firm hug against her chest and I nearly forgot my own name. Nyarin smiled, ears twitching in excitement, as she pulled me forward.

The mage stood behind an altar with a crystal wrapped in fine brass. The princess stood in a dress featuring a low cut bodice and I concluded that she was really, really good at low cut bodices.

The mage raised his hands and intoned. “Hero!”

The small audience, divided into two sections by the line of carpet on which I had entered, became hushed.

The mage continued. “Savior of the free lands! Chosen champion against the dragon Sycorax!” He slowly lowered his hands to point at me.

Then his hands wavered in evident confusion. “Ah, weren't there two of you?”

“Oh, Truck-kun?” I asked. My voice was nearly swallowed by the gigantic dome above. Worried whispering came from the crowd. “I think he's busy losing any deposit we had on that suite with the patio.”

“Huh?” the mage asked.

Before I could answer, a distant explosion shook the chamber. I couldn't actually hear Truck-kun swearing after the explosion, but it wasn't hard to imagine.

“Well, that was him.”

The mage looked at Nyarin confused. She swept a ‘hurry along’ hand at him and he cleared his throat. “Place thy hand upon the Device, O hero!”

I reached out, but just before I touched the large crystal I noticed the writing engraved into the intricate brass that encircled the crystal.

“Does that say ‘Plot Device’?”

“What?” Nyarin whispered harshly next to me, patchwork orange, white, and black ears shooting forward in evident irritation. Was she mad at me? Her eyes searched the brass inscriptions and flattened in evident dismay.

“Right there, in English. It says ‘Plot Device’. And there, it says ‘Shikumi’ in Japanese over here too. That basically means the same thing.”

The mage examined the Device as of seeing it for the first time.

“Our hero knows many languages, uh. this mysterious Device,” Nyarin mumbled, “is very mysterious. It bears the marks of a thousand languages from a thousand worlds.” Nyarin glared at the mage, hair bristling.

The mage nodded. “Yes, what she said.”

I looked around the chamber, narrowing my eyes at the Device and the people around it. “Okay,” I said after a thorough evaluation, “I’m willing to believe that.”

“Really?” Nyarin asked ears perking up, “I mean, let us continue the sacred ceremony to… plot… out the hero’s power with the Device.”

“Oh, ah, verily,” the mage mumbled, going back through the motions of the ceremony, “Place thy hand upon the Device, O hero!”

I did. Glowing holographic numbers appeared above the crystal.

“That’s strange,” I noted, “none of your other magics use numbers that look exactly like they’re coming from a digital screen.”

Nyarin swallowed nervously, ears pointing backward nervously. She opened her mouth to explain and hesitated.

“Perhaps,” I volunteered, “it’s because the Device is so mysterious and from so many other worlds?”

“Right,” Nyarin said, pointing at the climbing numbers. They were already over one hundred and still rising. “No one in living memory has had their power measured above two hundred.”

Just then, the number exceed two hundred and kept climbing.

“Incredible, no one in the kingdom’s history has had their power measured above five hundred.”

Sure enough, my power ascended above even five hundred.

A gasp spread over the crowd. In a hushed whisper that couldn’t have been better if Nyarin had practiced it repeatedly, she said, “No hero in two centuries has had a power level over one thousand.”

And sure enough, the number climbed up to one thousand, then exceeded it to stop at ‘1001’.

“Wow, I’m special!” I said into the shocked silence.

“Indeed you are, hero,” said the princess and her low-cut cleavage. “Such incredible power is necessary to defeat the ancient dragon.”

Nyarin considered the number, eyes and ears wide with shock. “I hope this world doesn’t bore you, considering how powerful you are, brave hero.”

I considered this. “I like the Isekai stories where the hero is unusually low powered, except some cheat makes them super powerful. But this is good too.”

A woman in the audience screamed. I turned to see half a dozen men pulling swords from beneath their cloaks, each emblazoned with a black dragon.

The lead man charged me, sword held high, as the audience scurried to get out of the way. He yelled, “Kill the usurper! Defend the dragon!”

I pulled out my wand, pointed it at the man, and stopped. “Uh, mage, what spell should I cast?”

The mage pointed at the digital numbers and stammered, “Any thou deem fit. Thou art the first hero to command all elements in over two hundred years.”

Sure enough, there were dozens of colored diamonds around the number.

“Okay, wind!” I said, and swept the wand at the advancing dragon cult leader. A gust of wind picked the man up and threw him against the wall.

“That’s awesome! How about some ice!” My wand created ice spikes that sent the other dragon cultists diving for cover.

Oh yeah, now this was fun. “Water. Lightning. Earth.” Each wand sweep brought a different element of destruction. Soon not only the cult members were diving for cover. Everyone in the audience was so impressed that they all ran.

“Fire!” I yelled, and the chamber was suddenly much better lit.

I examined the remaining colored diamonds which each represented a magical element. Sixteen was a lot. “Uh, water, light, uh, light gray? Kinda a lavender color.” Suddenly my wand wasn’t doing anything. But I wanted to try out each element.

“The lavender one is pollen!” Nyarin yelled helpfully.

“Pollen?” I answered in surprise. I hadn’t meant to cast a spell, but one of the cult members sneezed until he exploded. Don’t mess with pollen mages.

“Periwinkle, chartreuse?”

“Hey Nyarin, what magical element is… beige.”

“Oh, that’s bean magic.”

I frowned, ignoring the homicidal dragon cultists. “That’s not a magical element. Beans are just… beans.” I made the unfortunate mistake of gesturing with my wand as I said this final word. The carnage was immense.

The most powerful edamame spell this world had seen in over two hundred years tore holes through the stone walls like they were paper. People ran for their lives as ancient stone walls were cast apart like the toys of a child.

I tried to stop the destructive legume spell, but instead swept it about until the dome began to collapse.

“Uh, stone?” I said in a panic, but didn’t know how to direct the spell to fix the dome. The collapsing dome made a deafening sound that shook my lungs. I was about to die. Die again, kinda.

The orange glow of stone magic held the collapsing dome, then the entire room. With an eerie silence the dome was restored.

“Did I do that?” I asked.

“Apparently you’re more powerful than you imagined, hero.” Nyarin said.

“Wow,” I said.

I probably would have suspected something if I had noticed the last vestiges of orange magic lingering on Nyarin’s fingertips.