Bergen, Kalmar Federation: 01/09/2070

Norah Berg. Before summer vacation ended, I barely even registered her existence. She was just another girl who barely appeared on my radar cause she was a little unique. Tomboyish. But suddenly, when she returned from summer vacation, she had this ominous aura around her, which made me feel like she was going to stuff me into a wood-chipper...

Emil was sitting in class, and was supposed to be doing a group assignment. Instead, he looked over towards Norah.

...but now it's gone. It's like she just suddenly went back to "normal". In fact, I'd say she feels less ominous than before summer vacation. Not that I knew much about what her "normal" was anyway. Though, she does spend a lot of time in the workshops, and was talking to her friend about going to visit the president... Yeah, right.

He looked over to the person sitting next to Norah, a blue haired, overly cheery and... Curvy girl. She was the daughter of one of the wealthiest people in the country, and was already set up with the BMAU for her prodigious talent with magic abilities. Her academic abilities and general intelligence, however...

Sarah Kromgaard... Yeah, her performance on anything not magic related leaves something to be desired. She is basically being baby-sat by Norah. Not that it changes how far out of my league she is...

The two girls continued working on the assignment, Norah... Clearly? No, it's a little difficult to tell by her expression. She seemed to be exasperated by her dumb friend. Though he did not know what the heck was going on inside her head.

Oh yeah, Sarah went to space, apparently. Was bragging about it loudly to her friend. I swear, rich people are completely crazy... I'd have to work at my part-time for years before even being able to consider a spaceflight in economy! And of course this rich trust fund girl chose the broke loner as her friend. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Norah, I just think that it's a little odd that those two are friends... Then again, opposites attract. Things like that aren't too uncommon in the world, now that I think about it.

Norah isn't much of a bad person at all either. I guess she is just a little... Non-expressive. Something like that. Also, unlike most people in this school, she doesn't even ask for money from the richest person in the entire school, but just hangs around her. I mean, it's kinda more like Sarah is magnetically attached to Norah... Man, I wish I had a clingy rich friend, and not these two morons...

Emil looked to his left. Karl was scrolling through his phone hidden behind his laptop monitor, and Jacob was straight up just taking a nap. They had done some work, but had left Emil to do all the classwork, as they always did the remaining work at the last possible minute before the deadline. Sometimes to disastrous results.

I mean, they are still pretty chill despite that. I would definitely trust these two dudes with my life. Still not gonna trust them with any deadlines though, haha...

Right as he was about to go back to work, he noticed that people were packing their bags. When he checked the clock on his laptop, it told him that the class was ending in 2 minutes.

"Alright class, that's all for today. Thanks for today!" The teacher got up from her seat, and began leaving the classroom. A few students followed her out of the door, most still packing their stuff back into their backpacks.

Class is finally over, hell yeah! Now we can finally go and meet our online friend from OWO! Man, this is exciting...

Old World Online. It is a VRMMORPG set in a fantasy setting, and it is currently topping all the player charts around the world. Emil and his buddies had been playing it a lot in their free time, and they ended up befriending another player. They were rather mysterious, but had recently opened up a bit more about themselves. Turns out that they had lived in the same city all along! And now they were gonna meet each other in real life! Safe to say that Emil was pretty excited to meet their friend.

Karl looked over to Jacob, finding him still sleeping on his laptop. He slapped the back of Jacob's head, startling him and waking him up.

"Class's over, dumbass. We gotta get going unless you want to be the reason we arrive late!"

"Wh-whuh!? O-oh, right!" Jacob shot up, and began speedily packing his things. Emil and Karl looked at each other, both sighing and shrugging toward each other.

"Right. We better get going. The bus doesn't wait for a every single passenger, after all." The three began walking towards the door out of the now nearly empty classroom.

△▽△▽△

"The spot was supposed to be around here somewhere... There!" The three boys walked towards the designated meeting spot. They were about to meet one of their long time online friends in real life for the first time.

"Right, now to wait."

"..."

The three boys stood there in the middle of the busy park. They had agreed with their friend that they would use this specific spot as a meeting point, and now just had to wait until their friend arrived.

"...What if Ranger is a girl..?" Jacob suddenly asked.

Ranger was the gamertag of the person they were meeting. They were someone who played as a male character with a male voice, unlike some other guys.

"Oh come on, of course not. He clearly doesn't show any signs of being a girl, and his avatar is a big ugly ass dude with a mask! What kinda girl would play as that?" Karl wasn't very receptive to the idea of Ranger being a girl. He was pretty sure that their friend was a guy.

"But what if they were a tomboy or something?"

"Oh come on Jacob, you know that girl gamers are purely fiction-" Suddenly, blue sparks began flying around them.

"""!?"""

Right as their argument began heating up, they suddenly felt a mysterious magic signature wrap around them.

"What the heck was that!?" The phones of every single person in the park began blaring an alarm.

<>

A strange magic circle suddenly formed under the trio, as particles of light began floating around the three boys.

"You've got to be kidding me!!! Not my tomboy girlfrieeeeeennnnndddd!!..."

"Shut up about that, you morooooonnnn!!..."

"Put that convo to rest, you moroooooonnnnsss!!..."

The three boys disappeared in a flash of light, right as police officers came storming onto the scene.

△▼△▼△

Well, that's some rather terrible timing.

Norah was headed to the park to meet some of her online friends from a game she played. She hadn't been as active on there as before, but still put quite a few hours into it. But then, her phone suddenly gave her an alert that someone was using illegal and unstable magic in the park. She rushed to find their agreed to meeting spot, only to find police officers and a mysterious magic circle carved into where their agreed to meeting spot was.

Aw fuck, of course my friends would just suddenly disappear like this...

When she got closer to the area, a police officer turned towards her. "This area is unsafe. Please leave the area, civilia-"

"She's with us."

A... Man? Woman? A person. A person stopped the cop, and flashed an SMC badge.

"...Oh, right... Sir... Maam... Smaam..."

One of the other police officers snickered at the fumbling officer. "Agent is fine. Now, you. How about you come with me for a moment?"

"...Oh, r-right."

Uhh... I'm not even close to being a member of the SMC yet, should you really be bringing me onto an active crime scene?

She walked with the agent, and passed through a barrier surrounding the mystery magic circle. All sound from outside the barrier disappeared, leaving only her, the agent and a guy in a SMC researcher uniform who was kneeling down and staring at the magic circle.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"First of all, you'll need this."

The agent handed Norah a badge. It looked a lot like a SMC badge, but was smaller and had less decorations on it.

"Congratulations, you are now an SMC associate. The brass can't exactly just shove a gymnasium girl straight into the SMC before she even graduates, after all. But what those crazy bastards came up with was to instead restructure the organization of government workers assisting the SMC, and create a new associate division under the SMC. You are now also one of the only people in this country with a security clearance high enough to hear about this little issue."

The agent gestured over to the magic circle, and the researcher began speaking. "Oh, she's the one you spoke about? Right. An explanation. Around the world, people have been disappearing through these strange spell executions that appear seemingly out of nowhere. They are awfully crude and barely pass as a spell execution, but a rather large amount of magicules are forced into them by whoever is executing the spells, making it function, if barely. From what we've gathered, they seem to be some kind of forced teleportation spell, with very strange destination coordinates."

The researcher then looked directly at Norah. "When our buddies in Oslo [Analyze]d you, they found data in your soul that is nearly identical to that of the destination coordinates found in these mystery magic circles, and made a few breakthroughs on what the coordinates actually mean. But it certainly hasn't brought us any peace of mind..."

...Ya, that's not ominous at all.

They paused for a second. The agent then turned to Norah.

"The people taken by this magic based kidnapping have been sent to another dimension."

Huh..? Another dimension? So these people from another world are being sent to another another world... Well, I guess that would just be another world to them... And I have the same "coordinates" in my soul? Why the heck am I here then?

Norah thought to herself for a moment, then turned to the researcher.

"Do you have any way of protecting against the forced teleportation?"

The researcher turned to look up at Norah. "Of course. Something this crude is easily stopped by a simple barrier. That little bracelet of yours also generates it's own greater low dominion barrier, so you should be safe as well."

Huh? For something that is supposed to transport people to another world, it is pretty damn crappy. Being stopped by simple magic? Was the spell execution made by a preschooler or something? Yeah, probably not, since it involves inter-dimensional travel and a large amount of magicules...

The power of a spell is divided up into 5 levels of complexity and 5 levels of power dominions:

- Simple: The most basic of the basic spells that even children can execute.

- Lesser: A basic spell that is significantly more complex than a simple spell, but still relatively simple.

- Common: A spell level usually simple enough to be used by students.

- Greater: A high amount of spell complexity, used by most of the military's magician forces.

- Grand: Extremely complex spells that require a fundamental understanding of the world to even comprehend. Only master magicians can even begin to execute spells at grand complexity.

- Simple Dominion: The lowest power drawing spells like simple analysis and lifestyle spells.

- Low Dominion: The power output that most people peak at. Strong enough for an adequate attack spell strength.

- Common Dominion: The bare minimum power level for an agent of the SMC. Extremely rare in the general population.

- High Dominion: The peak of what an ordinary human can achieve. There are less than 200 magicians on the planet that can execute spells at high dominion power levels.

- Super Dominion: A theoretical power level, only achievable by something with the same amount of power as a whole fusion reactor hooked up directly to it.

For an inter-dimensional teleportation spell be blockable by simple spells was completely ridiculous. The fact that whoever executed this spell had figured out the complexities of inter-dimensional travel, yet not the most basic fundamentals of spell executions would infuriate any magician on the planet.

"Well, I believe that should give you an overview of the situation. We will contact you at a later date so you can come visit us at the Bergen branch for some more tests. Also, this is very important: Do not disclose what you saw here today to anyone. This information is strictly classified, and any information leaks will be harshly punished. Understood?"

"R-right..." Oh man, classified information. That stuff is always really scary to deal with. Especially when governments tend to strongly dislike leakers, and put them into prison for about... Forever. Or at least a very long time. It's classified information? Don't have to tell me twice.

"Good. Now, let's get you out of here." The agent began leading Norah away, and escorted her past the policemen guarding the area.

Ya, guess I'm not meeting the guys then. I wonder if some king somewhere summoned them to defeat a demon lord, since this is forced inter-dimensional teleportation... Otherwise known as summoning magic... That would actually be pretty fitting, since they'd get to play OWO in real life, heh.

Norah mounted her bike and drove off, away from the mess of police cars and news reporters.

△▽△▽△

Bergen, Kalmar Federation: 18/05/2071

Norah began slowly leaving her bed, sitting herself upright. It had been more than half a year since she reincarnated, and she had gotten somewhat used to her new body. The feeling of something important missing between her legs still surfaces sometimes, but she has learnt to deal with it.

Ya, a lot has happened. Three of my classmates disappeared, and some of my online gaming buddies vanished off the internet at the exact same time. Right after that, the government shoved me into the new associate division of the SMC, which conveniently had significantly less strict requirements. Guess I was the excuse they needed for a little restructure, heh.

The core of the SMC was still an elite and exclusive organization, but the sub-contractors that assisted them but were parts of other government organizations were reorganized into a sub-division of the SMC that has come to be known as the Associate Division, or AD for short. Norah was sworn in to the division, and given an absurdly high security clearance that was far beyond her "position". Though, it was all just a ploy by the government to get her under their protection ASAP.

Which was definitely a good thing, because shortly after her entrance into government work, agents from foreign countries began appearing frequently to prod around at the supposed "Magic WMD". While allied countries like the Indian Republic and the Republic of China were still suspicious, they hadn't made any moves. The Americans and Soviets on the other hand... You'd hear about an informant being arrested once every week, and it seemed like every ne'er do good on the streets was selling information to the two arch nemeses.

Though the North Americans had certainly been quite a bit more aggressive in their approach than the Soviets. They had the supposed WMD awfully close to their borders, with it being stored somewhere in Greenland. The North American government has also made numerous requests for the KF to explain the object and why it is so close to their borders. After being ignored or told that it was a national secret, they decided to do a bit of coercion, though they refrained from any direct military action.

What they did do, however, is roll ICBM trucks around in Newfoundland while blasting it on national broadcasts for the whole world to see. In response, the KF has flown several sorties of fighter squadrons with nuclear tipped missiles over Greenland.

The European Free Trade Organization, as always, had remained as neutral as they could be. They expressed concern at the escalations in Greenland, but did not side with either side. While most of the EFTO was more pro-North American, the UK had always had an amicable relationship with the KF. The EFTO had voted to condemn the KF's alleged aggression, but the UK vetoed it.

While the UK has always had good relations with the KF, they stayed in the EFTO due to the economic benefits and North American military support against Soviet ambitions it brought. But that did not stop them from making a few agreements with the KF. Unlike the rest of the EFTO, the UK had signed trade agreements and non-aggression pacts with the KF, making them a cheaper route into the Scandinavian, and by extension, the Soviet and Chinese markets.

While Scandinavian companies did have limited access to the Soviet market, it was still heavily restricted by strict government control. But with some agreements between their governments, goods flowed freely between China and the KF with few taxes. This did mean that foreign resellers had to buy with markups decided by the Scandinavian companies, but it was still many times cheaper than shipping it themselves, either through the dangerous waters of the Middle East or through the pacific and the Panama canal, which were both prohibitively expensive. The middle east due to high amounts of piracy and abnormally warm waters uniquely suited for sea serpents, the pacific route due to the long distance and the corrupt management of the Panama canal.

Well, a lot has happened while I've been here, not to mention my memories as Norah from before... It was definitely a good choice to have a chat with the government. Who knows what would happen to me if one of the other countries figured out that I was the one who (by accident) made the alleged WMD? Ya, I'd rather not find out.

Now, as someone who is partnered with the government, she has a significantly bigger budget than what the school had been giving her, and the investment had certainly paid off for the government. After putting some clothing on, Norah walked over to her desk and put on a wrist mounted thing. This was her little creation, the MCED. When she put it on, a barrier appeared around her and disappeared shortly after.

While the energy stored in it is somewhat limited for now until I figure out the whole super battery thing, it has still worked wonders. Before I was completely magically inept, but now I can easily cast extremely complex grand spells... At least those that don't require too absurd an amount of energy.

The power of a computer. While the human brain was technically superior to most computers, it is a complete mess of evolutionary coincidences that make it barely functional. Computers on the other hand are made to do calculations, and do them extremely well. And until Norah used old laptop components to execute spells, no one had come even close to doing it before. That made sense, since the mathematical operations needed to do that were so incredibly complex and intricate that all but the most dedicated researchers had given up long ago. But not Norah. Her immense intelligence and absurd ability to learn and gather information even surprised herself.

I must say, the mental performance of my new body is barely human at all. Photographic memory, extreme thought acceleration, and mental calculations rivaling some supercomputers. I can skim through entire research papers at thousands of pages per second, and understand everything in it as well. They say that no one person can comprehend all human knowledge. Heh, wrong! I've read through the millions of pages in BTG's digital library within a week, and I can barely wait till I get to read through BMAU's stuff as well!

Norah had managed to piece things together from the big picture. After a few months, she had just been waiting for her last year at BTG to end. And while she had been waiting, she came up with all sorts of other things in the meantime. Magic powered fighter jets, pulse lazer weapons systems that can punch through thin magitistenanium armor in seconds, significantly improved designs for fusion reactors, ambient magicule collectors, significantly improved quantum computers, and so on.

Though the most important thing that she had invented was a molecular formula for a magicule absorbing liquid that could store magicules at absurd densities. Mana. It was the fuel for many of her new inventions, and a mana based battery sat inside her MCED, giving it significantly more capacity than any other lousy magic battery.

And then come the consequences of inventing so many world-changing inventions at once...

Her bank account. She nearly fainted when she checked it a while after submitting the patents, and saw that her kroner count was in the billions. Who knew that inventing a boat load of world changing technologies and patenting them would make you filthy rich? I mean, it does make sense, but it's still crazy to think about...

Money was no longer an issue for Norah. She could make whatever she wants, whenever she wants. She has managed to avoid public attention, but foreign powers were beginning to notice the suspicious rise in cutting edge technology coming from Scandinavia. That the patents displayed her full name for all to see didn't exactly help her situation either.

I already knew it was going to happen at some point, but my life is definitely going to be a lot more hectic from now on.

A small grin formed on her face, though it still felt a little off. She began walking down into the living room to get her breakfast and get done with her last days in the gymnasium.

Ya, I better get to work.