Devious Draconic Danger

“Your soul has been merged with a dragon’s. It appears a dragon attempted to take over your body and rewrite your consciousness with its own.”

“What?!” I couldn’t even begin to process what she was saying. Dragons? Merged souls? Overwriting consciousness? None of that seemed possible. “But I’ve never been anywhere near a dungeon. Why would a dragon choose me?”

“No idea. At any rate, it didn’t work. Right now, what’s most important is that you must never, ever let anyone else find out. Don’t let anyone else cast Analyze on you. If word gets back to the Mechanorian government that the dragons are attempting to escape their forced slumber by transferring their souls into humans, they will purge Earth and all the other realms of life.”

My throat went dry, and I nearly coughed up my next words. “Can they do that? You’re talking about inter-realm war. Is Mechanoria really powerful enough to one v. everyone?”

“I don’t know… but they’ll try. You have to understand, my people don’t trust outsiders. In my native tongue, the words ‘organic’ and ‘biological’ are pejoratives. The only reason we even have diplomatic relations with other realms is because you’re our allies against a greater threat--the dragons.”

“OK, so what do we do about it? I don’t want to be the cause of a war, but we have to tell someone. The dragons may have failed with me, but what if they succeed with someone else?”

“A dragon must sacrifice its life for every attempt. Hopefully, they realized it was impossible after their first failure.”

“Impossible like intersecting a pocket dimension with reality? Or casting fire magic without a fuel component? Whatever that means.”

She bit her lip and turned away. “I’m 99% sure, but you have a point. Give me a few days to do some research. If I can’t come up with anything, we’ll go to the principal. We can trust her, at least.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Just keep a low profile. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Without saying another word, she slipped out of the house, leaving me alone with my thoughts. Once again, I was in over my head, and despite how confident Robolina sounded, I could tell she was too.

Still, she was right that I couldn’t help. I’d only just learned to cast spells this morning. There was nothing I could do.

Except pray.

Throughout the evening, I prayed to Jinkichouwa no Hikari. This time, not for Robolina’s sake, but for all our sakes.

⁂

The next day, things were surprisingly normal. Well, except for Robolina showing up in my house and cooking breakfast again. We visited more gods on the way to school. Then she taught me a minor lightning spell before class, but this time, I failed to cast it on my own. At lunch, I once again dodged Akemi Anmori and Hayashikaze to join Robolina on the roof.

I felt bad about turning down Hayashikaze, but I was just too scared of Akemi Anmori. Every time we met eyes, she looked hungrier than the last. I didn’t think she’d actually eat me, but I wouldn’t put it past her to take a bite.

In the afternoon class, however, I learned something interesting. As the teacher finished his lecture on the fundamentals of fire magic, he summoned a large glass tube connected to a screen on a table at the front of the classroom.

“You’re all familiar with soul resonance. Spells take shape because the movement of your mana reminds you of real-world phenomena. But you may not have realized that different cultures use different imagery to produce the same spells. Hayashikaze, Alunessa, Tsukinomimi, and Yamaguchi, line up here please.”

I followed Hayashikaze, an elf girl, and a beastkin girl with rabbit ears toward the table. If the teacher was going to demonstrate the difference between cultures, it made sense that he’d call on the only human in the class, but why two elves?

As if reading my mind, the teacher answered the question. “Hayashikaze was born and raised here in Japan, while Alunessa moved here from Sylvoria. Hayashikaze, when you cast Fireball, how do you shape your mana?”

“Like a match striking sandpaper and lighting a piece of paper,” he answered.

The teacher smiled. “Most Earthlings use this method. Please, stick your hand in here and demonstrate.”

Hayashikaze did as instructed. A fireball rocketed from his hand and fizzled out when it hit the end of the tube. Afterward, the screen lit up.

CAST TIME: 0.5 SECONDS
COST: 75 MILLIMANAJOULES

“You can sit down,” the teacher said. “Alunessa, how do you shape your mana for the same spell?”

“I use a bow to rub a stick against wood and dry leaves using a bow,” the elf girl said. “Like this.” She mimed the action of moving the bow back and forth. She looked like a character in a wilderness survival movie. She then stuck her hand in the tube and fired off the spell. Once again, the screen flickered to life.

CAST TIME: 0.5 SECONDS
COST: 75 MILLIMANAJOULES

“Tsukinomimi, your turn,” the teacher said.

“I--I--I imagine lightning striking a field and lighting the grass on fire.” She spoke with a quiet voice that did little to hide her nervousness. Then, without waiting to be told, she stuck her hand in the tube and cast Fireball. The screen reported the results.

CAST TIME: 0.5 SECONDS
COST: 75 MILLIMANAJOULES

“As you can see, no matter which method is used, the result is the same. No culture has an advantage over another when it comes to casting. This is known as Elowen’s Casting Invariance Principle. It was discovered over a hundred years ago, shortly after travel between realms became possible. In the century since, it’s become one of the foundational laws of magic, but no one’s ever been able to figure out why magic works this way.”

The entire class looked back at the teacher with half-closed eyes. Obviously, this was old news to them, but I found it fascinating. It meant that no one had an inherent advantage in spellcasting, but much like magic itself, how it was shrouded in a bit of mystery.

The teacher’s next words snapped me back to attention. “Yamaguchi, explain to the class how you cast Fireball.”

Oh, right, I was still standing up here for some reason. “I compress the mana into flint and steel and strike them together.”

“That’s it?” the teacher asked. “Just flint and steel? Two components, no fuel?” The rest of the class broke out into excited murmuring conversations.

I had to think about how it felt to cast the spell before I answered. “The mana itself is the fuel. After all, when the spell goes off, it all burns.”

The classroom chatter grew louder. An orc girl in the front row pointed right at me and shouted, “You’re lying!”

“Now, now,” the teacher said. “Give him a chance to prove it.”

Everyone watched intently as I stuck my hand into the tube. All the attention was making me feel as nervous as Tsukinomimi had sounded. My voice shook as I cast the spell, then the class fell dead silent. I checked the screen to see why.

CAST TIME: 0.45 SECONDS
COST: 50 MILLIMANAJOULES

The teacher’s smile widened. “When Robolina was asked how she cast fire magic without a fuel component, she gave the same answer as Yamaguchi did. But until now, no one else understood what she meant. A top researcher recently proposed the Robolina Correlary: Golems, as beings created by magic, are naturally more efficient at casting spells. I can safely say, we’ve just disproved it.”

No one else understood it? How could that be? They all knew so much more about magic than I did.

Maybe that had something to do with why Robolina was so disliked. Her mere existence disproved the laws of magic they all had to study to get here, but she couldn’t explain to them why they were wrong. But if you thought about it another way, it was like a normal person getting frustrated when a mage couldn’t explain how to cast Fireball. If you’d never experienced mana, there would be so much you didn’t understand about it.

In other words, it was a communication problem. Luckily, I knew a goddess who resolved misunderstandings. I offered her a silent prayer and was struck with inspiration.

“If it helps, you could think of it like a lighter. The mana is compressed to be as hard as steel, but butane is compressed too. Maybe as soon as the steel sparks, it turns into butane. It’s not that there’s no fuel component; it’s just that one component does double duty.”

“Steel doesn’t just turn into butane,” the orc girl said.

“And people don’t shoot fireballs out of their hand,” I retorted. “It’s magic. Instead of thinking about what is, try thinking about what could be.”

She sprang up from her seat and walked over to where I stood. From the way she glared down at me, I thought she might punch me, but instead, she stuck her hand in the tube. “Fireball.”

CAST TIME: 0.45 SECONDS
COST: 50 MILLIMANAJOULES

She gave me a friendly slap across the back with her free hand. “Well, whadda ya know? There may be something to Robolina-style magic after all.”

⁂

All things considered, I was feeling pretty good as I walked to practice in the afternoon. Sure, I still had to deal with a vestigial dragon soul that could cause an apocalyptic war, but I couldn’t do anything about it, so why worry? I could help Robolina make friends. In fact, I seemed to be pretty good at it.

Those good feelings all evaporated when I saw Yuumondou. He was staring at me like he was trying to burn a hole through my body with his gaze. I could feel myself gulp when he walked up to me, a sneer tugging at the corner of his lips.

“Coach put me in charge of forming parties today. Yamaguchi, you're with the Anmori twins.”