For the first time in days, I could relax. Everyone else was sleeping, and my party only bought a room for three. I was all alone with the nano-chatte. We played random games that still existed on the small part of the internet the remnant governments still kept online.

“Checkmate.” Said the nano-chatte. It only took it ten turns to beat me. I was lasting less and less at chess, so it was time to move on. The nano-chatte improved exponentially based on them being a semi-hivemind, semi artificial intelligence being. I would always manage to beat them at the beginning, but it would always learn my tactic, and use it way more effectively than I ever could.

“Alright, let’s move on. What about–” I heard a door open, and the nano-chatte immediately activated some sort of cloaking. It was the red haired woman. I learned that the big guy’s name was Christian, the cultist boy was Sam, but the red haired woman never revealed her name for some reason. The other two always called her ‘friend’, or ‘pal’.

I followed her while she walked away from the tavern. After making it past the town limits, she grabbed her staff and summoned a fireball. She sliced it with her sword, and the fire stuck to it, only to eventually fizzle out. She kept swinging, and the fire stayed alive. After a few minutes of swinging, she would hold the sword, and slowly watch it extinguish. Then, the cycle repeated.

“What is she trying to do?” I asked the nano-chatte.

“I honestly have no idea. It could be that she’s trying to infuse the magic into the sword, which is impossible for her. She doesn’t have a blessing from any kind of minor magic god, or the blessing you have.” She kept trying, but I noticed something the nano-chatte didn’t. The fire shouldn’t even stick to the sword in the first place. She is infusing it, she’s just not doing it right.

“She must be doing something right if the fire is sticking to her METAL sword.” The nano-chatte stayed silent, as it rummaged through our memory, and its voice grew aggravated.

“What is this? She’s either bending the rules of magic set out by the Revifier, or the rules of science laid out by the universe itself. No amount of willpower could overpower either of those.” Magic has rules? Don’t rules limit change? Why would the Revifier create rules?

“The rules are fake, you idiot. She probably created them to make you people underestimate worlds in the early stage of being turned into a fantasy world.” The nano-chatte stayed silent, and then internally screamed. The woman was still trying to do it, but it just wasn’t working. She was trying too hard.

“What’re doing here so late?” I said as I walked up to her. She quickly dropped her sword to extinguish it and looked at me with an emotionless expression. No, that wasn’t right. It was like she couldn’t even muster up the effort to even move her face.

“Training. Why are you still awake?” Her gaze felt like a knife to the soul. She could see right past me. My mere words would be enough for her to read me like a book.

“Not your problem. What are you hiding?” She chuckled.

“Not your problem.” The nano-chatte chuckled along with her. Oh? Did it think this was funny? I bet that stupid robot thought it could talk to people better than me.

“I’ll reveal a secret of mine, and you reveal whatever secret you’re hiding.” She nodded. “The whole explanation I told you was fake. My armour is actually alive, and changes based on the situation I’m in.” I was still lying. I was just giving her a slightly more truthful lie.

“So you aren’t blessed?” She said. I generalised too much. It wasn’t every single detail of my made up backstory.

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“I am blessed. I’m just not blessed with endless inventory and instant equipment. I’m blessed with an aura that slows down everything around me, and with being able to infuse any attribute into any weapon. Like fire onto your sword.” Her entire demeanour changed the second I said that. Gone was the uncaring, disappointed view of her situation, and in was the hope my sentence provided her.

“Oh? Tell me. How do you make this ‘infusion’ work?” I made the armour create a sword for me, and cleared my mind. I focused on how it felt to infuse something into the sword. I slowly spread the infusion while the nano-chatte updated the many sensors of my armour to detect the exact things I did to make it work. I moved my spirit through the sword.

“Your spirit. That’s the key. My partner’s blessing naturally allows him to move it through his weapon, while you’re just cursed.” The nano-chatte said through the armour's newly constructed speaker, ignoring the readings. My spirit only acted as the ignition. The fire just stuck to my sword after a while. It was as if the sword itself was a spirit that grabbed the fire and kept it close.

“Ignore it. Do your thing. Let me see where we differ.” She was extremely confused, but did as I asked anyway. Her ignition was different, but it should’ve been the same. The difference was our swords. Her sword’s spirit was pushing back against it.

“What? Your sword is pushing back against the fire, mine isn’t. Here, try mine.” I said. I could actually feel the nano-chatte get curious, and start its endless cascade of calculations. I tossed my sword at her, and as she ignited it, the fire remained.

“It’s the Revifier!” The nano-chatte exclaimed through my suit. “You’re not blessed by her, or a reincarnator, and any weapons created through her dungeons are impossible to infuse for you. She wouldn’t want a normal person to be on the same level as a reincarnator.” The woman dropped her sword. Her endless disappointment broke, and she looked at my sword. She threw it against the ground with all her will, setting fire to the dry ground.

“What is your armour talking about?! Revifier?! My spirit?!” She grabbed my sword again, and kept stabbing the ground over and over again. I backed away as the flames flew towards my armour. She kept going for an hour, taking out her anger on the sand. When the sandy ash cloud settled, she was on knees. “I don’t get it.” Silence. She wasn’t doing anything. No idle movement. Just… Silence.

“Look, I’m sure I can create a sword for you–” I said, but was cut off by the woman.

“No. I’m going inside. I’ll figure it out tomorrow. It’s now or never.” She rose, grabbed her sword, and tossed my sword back at me. She returned to her normal self, putting up the stoic facade, and went back inside.

“You got our stuff pal?” Christian said as we stood before the pillar of light. They were testing the nano-chatte’s technology with all the stuff they were giving me. Three entire piles of potions, several back up weapons and enough religious knickknacks to drown a person.

“Yep. What’s the game plan?” My armour was noticeably bulkier thanks to the nano-chatte needing more space to store their stuff, but I’m sure they just thought I swapped it out overnight. The woman arrived late, and Sam finally spoke.

“Me and the ranger are gonna be at the back, Christian’s just going to control the waves so they don’t get to us, and–” He was cut off by the woman.

“I’ll go straight to the necromancers.” She said. Me and the nano-chatte were the only ones who knew what she wanted to do. She was either going to become a magic swordsman, or die trying.