Blessings Be Upon You*8
“Eeeh… my mana’s moving even though I didn’t do anything… what is this, scary.”
“Scary, huh…? Eh, I wonder what it is…”
Now then.
I observed all kinds of things, but in the end the conclusion was basically, “Inside things that have received a blessing, well, the mana is moving.”
No, really, that’s the only way to put it. The mana is moving. The mana is also changing.
“… I have absolutely no idea what this means. Mishisia-san, when does mana move?”
“Eh? When you use magic, right?”
Ah, so it is that? Well, it’s not like I don’t know that much. See, I’ve torn through several grimoires… so I can refer to the basic knowledge of magic in this world if I try. But the information from the books I absorbed with Disassembly-Absorption only comes out if I search for it in my head… it’s kind of inconvenient.
“… Eh!? So that means the soil is using magic!?”
“No, I don’t know either…”
“Scary!”
“It’s scary! That’s what I’m saying!”
… So Mishisia-san and I held hands chanting “Scary! Scary!” together. Lisas-san was muttering “The soil… using magic…?” while poking the soil. Ahh, I don’t get anything…
Right. Well, being scared won’t solve anything. The unknown is scary, but once it stops being unknown it stops being scary.
No helping it, time for experiments. Experiments, experiments. So first…
“Asuma-samaaa, what’re you doing there?”
“I’m soaking unblessed seeds in water that is blessed!”
“Ahh, the blessed water… it didn’t do much, right?”
“Yeah. But even if it was weaker than directly blessing the soil or seeds, it didn’t seem completely useless, so I’m checking.”
The hypothesis I came up with… honestly, even I think it’s a bit much.
Like, peak fantasy.
Maybe outright absurd.
But… given that “mana moves when you use magic,” and “the mana inside blessed things is moving,” then… that’s what I started thinking.
And combined with real experiences like “cloth made from Mewmya fur can’t fly on its own, but if you use it as a wagon canopy the wagon will fly,” or “an herb turned into a potion doesn’t heal wounds in water, but heals the person who uses the potion”… that much I already knew.
Why do herbs have to be made into potions?
Why doesn’t the Mewmya fur itself fly, but something affected by it does?
Why doesn’t a hot spring soaked with slime get all bouncy, but the skin of the person who soaks in it becomes bouncy?
… Trying to reach a conclusion, I started thinking, “Maybe… it’s like this.”
“… Bingo.”
And from the Disassembly-Absorption results, I was starting to feel confident that my ridiculously fantasy-like hypothesis might be correct.
“The blessed water… is using magic on seeds that weren’t blessed.”
“Eh? What? What did you say?”
“The water! Is using! Magic!”
“Water!? Using!? Magic!?”
… As a result of Disassembly-Absorption:
I understood that the mana in the water was acting on the seeds.
As if “the water used magic.”
“… The water?”
“Yep.”
“Used magic?”
“Yep! And not just water, probably the soil and seeds are using magic too!”
Mishisia-san looked confused, but I was just like, “Well, it’s fantasy, this sort of thing can happen.” You know, someone who’s half-soaked in fantasy gets shocked more, but someone who stays amazed by everything gets less surprised at times like this. That’s how it feels.
“I’m surprised… So the ‘Blessing’… is something that makes the blessed object use magic?”
“Probably!”
Lisas-san joined us, and the three of us watched the seeds soaking in water. The seeds were sprouting and rooting at an incredible speed. For now, it looked like the water was doing everything that water alone could accomplish. Maybe the soil would take over for later growth.
“They’re not consciously using magic, right? It’s not water that has a spirit living in it, and water doesn’t have a will.”
“Ah, really? So water doesn’t have a will…”
“You thought it DID!?”
Well, I mean, I don’t know what counts as fantasy or not in this world… I’m not a native Fantasian, so I don’t know where the lines are…
“In that case, maybe the mana the blessed thing holds is being helped along so it can become magic. …You know, maybe that’s the meaning behind the ‘Legend of the Saintess and Hero.’”
“Ah! I know it! The Saintess blessed the Hero, and the Hero defeated the Demon King!”
Ahh, so this fantasy world does have that kind of legend? Seriously, I have absolutely no idea what fantasy tropes exist here and which don’t!
“That story of the hero’s dormant mana awakening… does that mean… something like this…?”
“Perhaps so. Making dormant mana usable… or perhaps the Blessing is akin to a form of summoning magic. I’m not that knowledgeable about magic, however…”
“Oh, there’s magic like that…”
Summoning. Summoning, huh? I see. Well, my cover job is Slime Tamer. I know summoning arts exist.
So maybe this Blessing is a broad type of summoning. I dunno, but yeah…
“Well, at the very least, even though the thing has no consciousness, it’s not using magic randomly, right? It’s… intentional, in a way…”
“Yeah, I get that. The water isn’t using magic to cool the seeds or wash them away; it’s clearly reflecting the Blessing’s intention.”
“Saintess Sati always said, ‘Blessings upon you!’ right? So it’s about helping things become happy, isn’t it?”
You can’t really define happiness, but… I get the feeling the user’s intention is important.
And at the same time, if that’s how it works then I understand why Saintess Sati was raised inside the church from such a young age.
… Basically, education. To prevent the Blessing from working in troublesome directions, they have to keep the Saintess from developing troublesome thoughts. That sort of thing.
Thinking about it makes me feel kind of terrible… but letting a girl with extremely strong summoning magic wander free is dangerous too… So you can’t outright say they were wrong. Hard to judge.
Technology and ethics are kinda two sides of a coin… I personally think it’s better if everything is framed as “do or don’t,” not “can or can’t”… but not everyone can make those decisions properly. So sometimes “can’t” or “don’t know” has to substitute for “won’t.” I get that.
Ahhh… why do I have to think about tech and ethics in a fantasy world!?
It’s fantasy! FANTASY! Aaaaagh!
Anyway, feeling fed up, I powered through and did every experiment I could think of.
I tried combining soil and seeds, water and soil, and all sorts of pairings. I couldn’t really test slimes well, though… If I carve off a piece of a slime to bring it over, its mana becomes docile…
… But still, thanks to trying everything, I figured out what kinds of magic were occurring.
Or rather… I finally understood how magic itself works!
First off: magic occurs when mana moves.
Uh, so, I thought mana particles were inherently stable. But that was only half-right. They are stable, but through the process of “using magic,” they enter an unstable state and then break apart or combine. As a result, fantasy effects happen. That’s basically what was going on.
… To use a disposable hand-warmer as an analogy: I thought the iron powder itself was the heat-making mana particle. But that’s not the case. The “heat magic” occurs when the iron powder reacts with oxygen.
It’s true you can say iron powder has the potential to heat up—but that’s because it reacts with oxygen. Translating that back to magic: it’s not the mana particles themselves that have special effects, but the reactions the mana particles undergo that create fantasy power.
However, since fantasy and science have no correlation, there are mana particles that shine forever ignoring energy conservation, mana particles that can be extracted with water yet stay stable… so yeah, everything’s nonsense.
Yeah. Nonsense.
It’s! Nonsense! Aaaaah!!
“So, in conclusion: ‘Blessing’ makes mana more unstable or active. And maybe if summoning arts advance further, they could recreate Blessings… Let’s report that to Laperesiana-sama.”
“Agreed. Laperesiana-sama must be eagerly waiting for your report…”
Well, “understanding what we don’t understand” and “this much we know but no more” are both important. That’s how technology develops. Well, fantasy-tech, but still.
So, I went to write a letter to Laperesiana-sama, which meant going to Edele-san.
Edele-san is the acting village chief, the dungeon reception representative, and also the postal clerk. …This world barely has a mail system, so most villages dump everything on the village chief. Hard work.
“Eeeedele-san! I came to write a letter!”
“Oh my, a letter?”
When I visited the dungeon reception, she was sorting mail. Poor woman.
“Uh… so, you’re writing a reply, then?”
“Huh?”
And suddenly the conversation turned weird. A reply? To what? Did I eat a letter by mistake or something?
“Ahh, so you didn’t know yet? Umm… I received something like an inquiry, or confirmation, or report… something like that. A letter from Laperesiana-sama.”
… From Laperesiana-sama? Something I need to reply to?
I exchanged looks with Lisas-san. She had the “I’ve got a bad feeling about this” face. I probably had the same. Mishisia-san alone looked excited!
“Umm… apparently, in the royal castle, some people are discussing the Saintess’s engagement.”
“Heeeh…?”
I listened nervously.
Being engaged at seven… well, that’s fantasy for you… I have many thoughts…
“With Asuma-sama.”
“With meeeee!?”
Nonononono absolutely not, I have too many thoughts about this! I’ve overflowed past the limit! I can’t think anymore!
What!? What on earth happened!? WHY!? WHY ENGAGEMENT!?
What do you think about this chapter?
