William did his best to explain what he could about Earth, though most of it wasn’t practical, but merely interesting. After all, he couldn’t have built a train without the blueprints he’d now seen, and he couldn’t be sure they were completely correct. After all, he hadn’t worked in manufacturing, and especially not on the levels where he would need to know all of the details. If he was really curious about how it worked, he could have looked it up on the internet, but if he’d really wanted to he could have learned how a handful of things worked- he just hadn’t seen the need.
Lorelei couldn’t help but comment on some of the things William said. “Earth had a way to access all of the knowledge from anywhere, instantly?”
“Well, not all of it. Anything people had added from… almost anywhere. Of course, a lot of it was garbage information, not necessarily completely true, or even true at all.”
“You had such an information source, and you didn’t try to learn everything?”
“Do you know all the details of how a cobbler’s work is performed?”
“No, why would I? It’s such a mundane profession. If I needed such work, I could get it done easily- ah.”
“That’s right. Everything was normal. Cars drove on the ground, planes flew through the air, computers performed billions of calculations. Well, I’ll admit I could have been more ambitious with my learning, but it’s a bit late now.”
“What about these ‘gun’ things, are they really that dangerous?” Lila asked.
“They’re much more powerful than an arrow, and can go longer distances… depending on the gun and the bow, of course. Some guns can shoot… up to about a mile? I’m not sure exactly how much our measurements differ but it’s close enough. It might have trouble with magic armor… but people could have magic bullets… or something like depleted uranium. It would take a while to get there, but I’d rather not deal with guns if I could help it. I definitely don’t want the Demon Lords to have them. Or the Demon King, wherever his fragments are.”
“Ugh, yeah...” Lila frowned.
Lorelei nodded. “For all that he is an idiot, he never seemed to have trouble getting people to follow him. Though, guns would be much more dangerous in the hands of humans, since there are so many of them.”
William frowned, “I suppose that is true, except gevai could train for longer. With fewer higher quality guns, they could be a serious threat. On the other hand, the Demon King was very dangerous all on his own, so perhaps it would have been worth increasing the average strength of a soldier.” William shrugged. “I would have had to think of it when I was Archmage, and to be honest nobody seemed that interested in developing further. Well, Eclea might have done something. On the other hand, maybe all of the human countries would have become interested and started fighting each other with their new methods. It’s a bit late to do anything now. Everything worked out pretty well. Imagining the various consequences of different actions that I can no longer take probably isn’t a good idea.”
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“Speaking of consequences…” Lorelei looked over at Lila, “I’m surprised that the local Lord hasn’t done anything yet. Generally noble houses being razed to the ground would elicit a response.”
Lila frowned. “Well, they deserved it! They were stupid and lied to me and were keeping people from attending my school! I’m sure people are still afraid, but there are dozens more since I did that.”
“You could have at least been a bit more subtle about it. My status as the Demon King’s advisor can only help so much, especially without the Demon King glaring down at people.”
“What are they going to do? If they complain, I can kill them too!”
“And their army? My girl, you are powerful in magic, no doubt, but you’re not invincible. Even if you were as powerful as the Demon King, you don’t have the looming threat of reincarnating to hang over their head.”
“But I am reincarnated!”
“Yes, but will it happen again? How many memories will you lose next time? Only the Demon King seems to undergo a perfect reincarnation- and William, I suppose. Other than that, the records don’t indicate anyone remembering more than part of a single previous life.”
“I might remember more next time…” Lila sighed. “Why do you have to ruin all my good plans with logic?” She looked over at William, “Hey, how do you keep your memories?”
William shrugged. “Having a strong soul helps, maybe. Except this last time my soul was all messed up, so it might have been luck that I got through with my memories… relatively intact. I think pretty much everything is still there, actually. I’ve been making decent progress on recovery, and it seems a number of details were just… buried, but not lost.” He looked over Lila, “How come you haven’t trained in ki at all? You’ve had… a long time to make some progress. Even Lorelei has advanced a bit.”
Lila grinned sheepishly, “Uhh… I don’t… meditate.” She turned her eyes away. “Besides, I can do a lot more with magic.”
William raised an eyebrow, “Seriously? It would be worth the effort to at least give it a serious try. It might not be useful for offensive purposes for you, but being able to instantly raise defenses is useful. Besides, I could knock you unconscious without you even being able to know I was doing anything.”
“What? That’s stupid, of course you can’t!” Then her eyes rolled over as she passed out.
Lorelei grinned, “I’ve tried to convince her, but your method might be better. She’s also more likely to listen to you on that. Also, I see your recovery is going well, any idea how much longer it will take?”
“Years? Dozens? I’m not entirely sure. I’d say I’d recovered about one part in a dozen, but it’s getting harder to have any real effect.”
“Just that and you can knock her out effortlessly?” Lorelei raised an eyebrow, “It’s a shame you weren’t properly introduced to ki in your first life… first reincarnation, anyway.”
William shrugged. “Everything has worked out alright. Plus, I can even use magic now, which is pretty great.” He looked over at Lila. “When she wakes up, I’ll have to figure out a way for her to at least get some level of ki defenses. It would require a lot more effort to do any real damage since her soul is decently strong, but still…”
Lorelei nodded seriously.