So, I could leave things as they were, and if anyone invaded, the locals wouldn't be able to do anything about it. Maybe. It would depend if they saw through my lie that monsters were coming. But anyone who attacked wouldn't be appraisable, so they'd have no evidence for that other than the word of the 'monsters'. It would all depend on whether the Law acted on their beliefs or on reality, and could still identify them as human despite the System deactivation. I didn't want to bank on my deception holding.
Harry's alternative was to tear the Law from the world like ripping duct tape from hairy skin, except that in this case the tape was so sticky that rather than stripping hair, it would rip off the skin and a few layers of the muscle underneath. To me, that sounded no better.
If I could manipulate the Law, an obvious solution would be to officially treat un-Lawified Earth humans as monsters, but that still wouldn't be perfect. Had my mother not been bound by Law during my first few days, who knew what might have happened to me. It was entirely possible I wouldn't have survived. Still, it was better than other options I could think of.
Not that being better made it possible. Frankly, the only method of saving this world I could come up with that had a decent chance of success was reattaching all of Earth to the System, and that would royally screw up Earth instead.
If it came down to it, and I had to pick between saving one world or the other, which would I choose? My new one, with its smaller, brainwashed population, or my old one? Larger, free, with a longer history. Did those facts increase its worth?
Maybe it would be worth having another conversation with the System. Perhaps I could set up some rules, like anyone attempting portal research got connected automatically? There was nothing within the interface for that sort of thing, but it was obviously capable of adaptation. Maybe we could come to some sort of deal. It let me in last time, so it was obviously capable of some level of understanding.
What I really wanted was Erryn back. If she was still around, I wouldn't need to do all this thinking. Yes, that wasn't a great mindset to have, but I was prepared to admit decision making wasn't my strongest point. Better to leave it in the hands of someone else. Even if the someone else was an ancient dungeon core who seemed completely unable to comprehend human mindsets despite being able to suck memories from the heads of everyone in the world.
... But by that logic, I could leave it in the hands of Harry. Which I didn't want to do, because I didn't agree with him. Did that mean I agreed with Erryn? My thinking wasn't even internally consistent! Then again, cognitive dissonance was kinda a defining feature of humans.
If we had the Earth coordinates of any portal attempts, perhaps Darren could open portals there first and I could perform some sort of pre-emptive strike. The lack of mana would quickly drain something like a flame grenade, but I'd bet it would last long enough for me to throw it through and detonate it remotely. Or maybe I could integrate a monster core as a power source.
With me and Harry agreeing to disagree, I headed back to the village to visit family. With Darren being responsible for portaling people around, it had probably been stressful for them all. Darren was still only six, after all. It would be nice to visit them for a reason other than dumping more work on them.
"Oh! Peter," called Mum from the living room as I teleported in. "If you need Darren for something, I'm afraid he's out."
"No, not today. I just came to visit."
It wasn't unusual for him to be out; the only time he stayed indoors for any length of time was when he was painting. Even then, a lot of painting was done outdoors; being indoors limited the size of the fires he could summon. It would be easy enough to find him with [Mana Sight], the range of which now encompassed the entire village. A far cry from when I first gained [Mana Sense], when I couldn't sense anything but my own internal mana.
I scanned the village, but failed to find Darren's distinctive mass of mana.
"Uh... You said Darren was out? Out where? I don't see him anywhere."
"Out with Kranakellicium, having magic lessons."
"... What?"
"Don't start that. You're the one who told him he could."
"... What?"
"When he made the portal to Earth? Remember?"
No I hadn't! There had been no mention of Krana teaching him magic! None whatsoever! A world in which Darren learnt rank five fire spells from a dragon was not a world I wanted to be in! I reflexively fiddled with my hihi'irokane ring, enchanted with rank five fire resistance. I'd be safe. Probably. The rest of the planet wouldn't be quite so lucky.
"Where are they?!"
"Why are you getting so worked up? This is their fourth lesson already."
"That makes it worse, not better!"
Seriously, I came here to relax and have some family time, then Mum dropped this bombshell on me.
"They flew off south-east somewhere. Just a wide, open space."
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
"Well, I'm going to keep an eye on them," I answered, rushing out the front door and dialling [Weft Walk] up to eleven.
ding
Skill [Weft Walk] advanced to level 18
Or up to eighteen, as the case may be.
Rushing off somewhere with directions as vague as 'south-east somewhere' would normally not have a high success rate. I was lucky, though, because Darren had been thoughtful enough to leave me a signpost; after less than ten minutes of sprinting, I saw a plume of smoke in the distance. Curving towards it, I soon saw flashing lights on the horizon, and after another two minutes, the soil ended.
I slipped on the suddenly smooth glass surface, ending up flat on my back. The weird way momentum worked with [Weft Walk] meant that I didn't continue to shoot forward at over a hundred miles an hour, which would not have done the skin on my back much good no matter how smooth the glass, but it still wasn't pleasant.
"Ouch," I muttered to myself, and the ongoing light-show in the distance cut out.
By the time I stood back up, a giant winged shape was approaching through the air.
"This area is dangerous," boomed a voice every bit as large as the dragon it belonged to. "You should... Peter?!"
"Hey Krana. I just came to check Darren wasn't burning down anything too important." I let my gaze sweep over the ground, the sheet of glass extending off into the distance in front of me. Now that I was paying attention, the way the landscape vanished in places gave a distinct impression of craters. There was also a distinct lack of plant life. Or hills. "I'm impressed with what you've done to the place."
"Yes... Well... We did need to test what he could do."
I peered suspiciously at the dragon. Had I ever heard Krana stutter before? He hadn't even complained about my use of a nickname. Wait...
"Are you embarrassed?"
"I... will perhaps admit that I previously experienced an unprofessional amount of enthusiasm."
I burst out laughing, never having seen a dragon failing to act seriously before. Somehow, it swept some of my concerns away. Given the condition of the landscape, it really shouldn't have.
"Well, let me see too!"
"If you insist."
Krana turned and flew off, not even offering me a lift. I followed with [Weft Walk], walking at a more careful pace, and soon came upon an interesting scene. Darren was standing around, while what looked very much like miniature versions of the Emerald Caverns' fire elementals marched in circles around a tiny, laughing girl. Off to the side, Jason stood watching the scene with a smile.
"... What?" I asked, for the third time of the day. Why was Jason here? Who was the extra girl?
"Peter!" shouted Darren when he saw me. "You spoiled our secret," he added to Krana, hands on hips and pouting.
"Secret?" I asked.
Krana looked down, once again radiating embarrassment. Why? If Darren had done this under Krana's supervision, what was the problem? Darren was obviously safe.
... What if it hadn't been Darren?
"Okay, so which of you two was actually responsible for glassing the landscape?"
"I wished to see if Darren was capable of duplicating rank five spells. He was not," stated Krana, indirectly answering my question. Hah. No wonder he wanted to keep it all secret.
Also, that had the disturbing implication that Darren was capable of duplicating rank four spells. And the second disturbing implication that rank five, the level of power needed to clear the great dungeon, was at the level of glassing entire cities. Would I need to face monsters capable of doing that?
"So, why are you here?" I asked Jason. "How come you got read in on their little secret?"
"Darren holds several affinities," answered Krana in his place. "I was interested in seeing what he could do with the others."
Watching with [Mana Sight], I could see that the dancing flames were indeed imbued with some amount of life affinity. Trust Darren to use other affinities to improve his flames, rather than, for example, healing people.
"Watching a kid steal half my spells and then start making up new ones of his own is rather awe-inspiring," added Jason.
New ones? Well, neither Krana nor Jason had both fire and life, so I suppose they couldn't have taught him how to make those elemental-like things. Not that they were particularly impressive creations; I could tell just by looking that Darren was needing to sustain them, even if they were moving on their own, and they were consuming a lot of mana. Far less efficient than just creating flame and manipulating it directly.
"Only half? He has limits beyond not being able to reach rank five?"
"He struggles with increasing complexity," supplied Krana. "Healing is not a complex spell, since it does not care about the current condition of a body, only aiding it in its return to a natural state. Probing a body, and interpreting the result, is far more complex."
Really? Healing was considered a simple spell? That answered a bunch of my questions, then. The 'magic' part must simply be telling the body 'you should look like this soul', rather than inspecting the soul and working out exactly which cell needed to go where. But in that case, how did it wire in my new ears properly?
... It didn't, did it? The System stepped in; it had given out the 'working' message. In turn, that implied that a [Major Heal] cast on me in that state behaved in a completely different way to a normal [Major Heal], with the System stepping in to ensure the spell was 'safe'. But what Krana had done to a few kilometres of landscape looked very definitely not safe. Life magic was supposed to heal, and fire magic was supposed to burn things? Was the System enforcing affinity stereotypes?
Was the real reason life magic could heal disease so easily because the System stepped in and applied a dash of death magic behind the scenes? I hadn't noticed with my [Mana Sight], but that was a System skill. It could easily be lying to me. I could see Harry's point in that regard; we knew nothing about how magic really worked.
"Anyway, who's the girl?" I asked, watching her still giggling at the fire constructs. At least she wasn't trying to stick her arms in them, unlike my brother.
"My daughter," answered Jason. "She has an interesting magical quirk herself, so I was hoping she'd get something out of meeting Darren."
Really? An interesting magical quirk? Wait, he'd mentioned his daughter before, saying that she had similar affinities to mine. A reincarnate? She looked old enough that I could believe she'd been around since before Erryn rerouted notifications to me, but she wasn't acting old. Someone else Erryn had mind-wiped? Well, I had [Eye of Judgement]. It was simple enough to find out.
Name: Erryn
Species: Human
Age: 3
Class: Commoner (Level 3/3)
Soul Points: 2
Health: 7/7
Stamina: 10/10
Mana: 10/10
Strength: 4
Dexterity: 4
Endurance: 5
Intelligence: 5
Wisdom: 6
Charisma: 6
Skills: None
Traits: [Curious] [Devoted] [Erryn]
Titles: None
Status Conditions: [Scarred Soul]
Attuned Affinities: [Fire] [Ice] [Earth] [Air] [Water] [Lightning] [Light] [Darkness] [Life] [Death] [Body] [Soul] [Space] [Time]
Rank 1 Available Skills: [Inspection] [Meditation] [Basic Cooking] [Enlarged Stamina Pool] [Basic Tailoring] [Mana Sense]
"... What?"