Chapter 15. Connecting To The Orbis To Modify The Jin

The saint took a look at my face and asked a question.

“How is it? Not very hard so far, right? I’m pretty good at explaining, don’t you think? Try reading the page in the textbook.”

I took a look at the page, just as she had instructed.

[Magic is the act of locally recreating natura naturans.]

Complicated words.

“So if I were to use an analogy, it would be like calling a pizza place after looking at the menu, and if you pay the money (mana) in advance, the food (magic) would be delivered. Sometimes though, if a beggar comes in asking for food, the pizza place might give food for free.”

“You’re not wrong, but your analogy is too much like that of a peasant’s.”

“I was one from the start.”

“Let’s switch to a different topic. So then, what would sorcery be? Before I explain this, I need to tell you something, Mr. Murderer. Dokun dokun! Curious, right?”

She kept staring at me, so I had no choice but to answer.

“Waah, I’m curious...”

“Puhehe, don’t be surprised, alright? The hidden truth of this world...is! That this is actually a holographic universe! Dudunnn!”

A holographic universe. It’s a theory that the world that we live in is fake, and the real world exists somewhere else. I didn’t think I’d see something like this here...

“Surprised? Surprised? The wizards decided to call this true world the [Orbis]. Ah! I’m not saying that the world we live in is fake, though. It’s still real!”

Didn’t really matter what it was. It wasn’t like the teacup in front of me would disappear just because it was a hologram.

“I get it. So what?”

“If the true form of this world was information, modifying this information would have real effects in this world, right? For example, if I was trying to boil water...”

The saint put her hand on the kettle that was on top of the table.

“I could directly convert mana to heat, but wizards simply modify the true world in order to achieve the same feat. This information in the true world is known as [Jin (真)].”

Jin...

“Same as my family name, huh.”

“It’s clearly different. One’s useful and the other one isn’t.”

“......”

How persistent.

“Now, I’ll be using magic, so watch closely. You can’t see this anywhere else.”

The saint closed her mouth and carefully stared at the kettle.

“......”

What the heck?

“............”

Five minutes passed, but nothing changed. Around the time when I thought something had gone wrong.

Blub blub! Piii-

The water boiled over and steam began to exit the kettle.

“Success~!”

The saint smiled, as if she had just pulled off something amazing.

“Did you see? Just in a single try too! And with sorcery at that! I knew my skills as the top student hadn’t gone away!”

“......”

It’d be useless in a real fight. The saint seemed to have read my thoughts, seeing how she was silently looking up at my face.

“You aren’t actually thinking that the result of boiling water like this was quite disappointing, are you? I’m quite annoyed. To think you wouldn’t see the amazingness of this...”

“No... it certainly is amazing that you did this without fire, but you only managed to complete it in five minutes?”

“This is why the ignoramus are...!”

The saint looked down on me. Well, at least, she tried with her shorter height. I could visibly see her wanting to look down on me somehow.

“Listen carefully! I just managed to boil water without any chemical reactions. I just changed the water’s boiling point to achieve this feat.”

The saint drank the water, as if to demonstrate this. The steam rising out of her mouth would make one think that the water was extremely hot, but judging by the saint’s reaction, the water was actually lukewarm.

“This is sorcery! See how amazing it is now?!”

“Do you have to calculate quickly to effectively use it?”

The saint narrowed her eyes at my question.

“That just now... Are you implying that I’m stupid?”

“No way.”

The saint’s probably this good already thanks to her total recall ability.

Modifying the jin inside the orbis...

For me, a person who couldn’t connect to the true world, I had no idea how this would work. I wonder if it’s kind of like hacking?

“Hold on.”

I stood up and headed to the wall of the circular facility.

“Was this... how it went?”

I gathered the mana in the air into my right arm. The image I had in mind was a shockwave that I could shoot from my hand. If I put my hand on the wall like this--.

“......”

Funnily enough, nothing happened. The saint stared at me curiously.

“Mr. Murderer? What were you trying to do?”

“Body enhancement.”

“Enhancement...? Why...?”

“Because body enhancement doesn’t require you to modify the jin. I thought I could do it, but it looks like I failed.”

The saint’s eyes sparkled.

“No! Your method wasn’t wrong at all! Being able to do this just by watching me is amazing by itself!”

“Really? It was simple, though...”

“Simple... It takes about six months to learn that much, you know?”

“Something this easy?”

The saint banged on the table in frustration.

“Geeh! It’s not easy! It’s not easy at all!”

I don’t get it... You just need to do it.

“Ah! Right. Here’s one thing that Mr. Murderer was mistaken about! You said body enhancement, but body enhancement actually isn’t just one magic, is it? It’s the collective term for several magic spells. For example...”

The saint disappeared from my sight. When I tried looking up, I could see the saint standing upside down on the ceiling twenty meters up in the air.

“Jumping up, sticking to the ceiling... is also...”

I could see her green panties thanks to her flipped skirt.

“An unnecessary service scene.”

The saint’s face reddened after hearing my critique.

Tap.

The saint jumped down from the ceiling and landed next to me. She glared at me intensely. Why was she acting like this, after showing me her underwear herself? Was she trying to seduce me?

“You saw, didn’t you?!”

Her reaction was so typical that I didn’t even feel a hint of emotion. To think that she’d think someone in this day and age would get excited over underwear.

“Too far for a clear view. Not interested either.”

The saint asked me a question with a suspicious tone.

“Really?”

“It’s just a piece of clothing.”

I didn’t get a response, so I tried looking at the saint’s face. It had turned into something indescribably horrifying.

“M-Mr. Murderer just managed to scar the heart of a young girl. This hurt, this pain, I’ll never forget it as long as I live. I’ll watch you from now on, even from my grave.”

The saint had balled up her hands into a fist as she let out a string of nonsense. I suppose I should respond one way or the other.

“You were a girl?”

“That’s what you’re confused by?! Aargh!”

The saint ripped at her hair and raged silently.

“It was a joke, a joke. I’m listening, so carry on. Ah, right. Before that, tell me about mana. I wasn’t able to store any even though I followed the book’s instructions on breathing.”

Mana was [The Remnants of The Soul]. Souls that have been corroded over time, or have sustained significant damage in the past, get destroyed in the world. A part of this soul goes to the stars to recover, and the other parts get scattered into the world as mana.

“Hmm... You’re not just trying to change the topic, are you?”

The saint came up close to me.

“Well... Let’s see. Move your arm.”

“Don’t come too close. I’ll get burnt.”

I leaned back a little bit.

“What are you being so shy for?”

The saint kneeled, and started inspecting me from bottom to top.

“Hm, hmm... Hoh... This is...”

Her facial expression turned strange when she reached my chest.

“A flaw like this can’t be naturally produced... How strange...”

“Flaw?”

I covered up my chest as I asked the question. Having a certain part of my body being intensely observed by a young girl was a strange experience. The saint shook her head, as if something extremely unfortunate had just happened.

“Unfortunately, you can’t use magic.”

I can’t?

“Why? Ah, I just can’t use it right now?”

“No, it’s impossible for you to gather mana in the first place.”

“...Reason being?”

“Mr. Murderer, your organ that gathers mana is...”

She pointed at my chest.

“Lost.”

Lost?

“My heart?”

The saint gave me her final verdict with a grim face.

“Mr. Murderer, you have no ‘heart’. Not just the physical organ, but also the conceptual idea of it.”

No ‘heart’... I started thinking to myself after hearing this. Because I’ve never had such a thing, I tried to narrow down its definition. What was a heart? Did it have something to do with empathy, or sensitivity? Well, even without one, I’ve gotten through life without a problem...

“Well, whatever.”

I gave up immediately. It wasn’t like I’d get it by thinking. The saint sent me a sympathetic look from my reaction.

“It must be nice being so simple, Mr. Murderer. You’re like an amoeba.”

I lifted my middle finger as a response once again.

“Again with that...”

She tried to grab my finger, so I flinched back in surprise. My finger would’ve burned if she managed to touch it. The saint ‘tch’ed, and sat back down on the sofa. She then put one of her legs over the other, almost like a model.

“Corporal punishment will be applied from now on if you keep making such vulgar gestures. Yes, I’ll remember this rule till the day I die.”

“...You’ll hit me if I do something you don’t like?”

“For you, each hit will be filled with love. Please scream like a pig in happiness every time you get hit.”

“Not into stuff like that.”

“Oh, but you will be.”

This was probably the most shocking thing I had heard from her all day.

And two days after that point in time, I managed to reach the last page of the book of magic. Immediately after I finished reading, a ding went off in my head.

So I can still learn it, despite not being able to use it. The saint sat down on the other side with her head down. She had been muttering to herself for quite some time.

“No way... Just two days... Took even me a whole year...”

Watching her despair was quite a sight. Right, then. The guns have arrived safely. I suppose the time was perfect for me to take a look at my status screen again? When I focused a little, a black window popped up in front of me.

The blank spaces are starting to all get filled up. The new abilities that I’ve acquired were [Magic] and [Boiling Blood]. The abilities that were bought with Heart of Gold were marked as “Jin”.

I just need mana now...

I tried searching through the market using Heart of Gold. But no matter how much I’ve searched, I could find them selling a ‘heart’.