Taustya's Home – 6:30 p.m.
Taustya sat on his bed, dressed in a fresh set of clothes. His hair was still damp, droplets sliding down his neck as he leaned back and let out a quiet breath. The steady tick…tick…tick of the clock filled the room.
His eyes fixed on the translucent blue system screen hovering before him—
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[ NAME : TAUSTYA ]
[ LEVEL : 10 ]
HP ... 1450 / 1450
MANA .... 2650 / 2650
PHYSICAL ... 150 (+50)
MAGICAL .... 300 (+150)
SPIRIT ..... 500 (+100)
TOTAL POWER ... 950 (1150)
RANKING .... LOW-MID (UPPER)
ATTACK POTENCY : CITY-BUSTER (HIGH)
DURABILITY .... : CITY-LEVEL (HIGH)
SPEED ... : MACH 5
ABILITIES :
- POWER OF MAGNSTIM (ADVANCED)
- REGENERATION (LOW)
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The blue light of the screen pulsed softly, casting a faint glow across his face.
Hey, system, what does Spirit mean? I can tell Physical has to do with my strength and all that, and Magic is pretty obvious.
The system was silent for a few moments before answering in its calm, even voice:
[Spirit is the will—the inner strength of mind and soul. Think of it in modern terms as resistance to status ailments: things like instant death, time stop, burn, blindness, sleep, and so on. The higher your Spirit, the stronger your resistance becomes. The potency of a status ailment is also influenced by the Spirit differential between you and your opponent.
If the gap is large enough, you can even reach complete immunity—or, conversely, bypass an opponent's immunity if your Spirit is superior. High Physical or Magical stats can provide some protection, but they are generally less effective than Spirit in resisting these effects.
However, Spirit does not protect against conceptual attacks. For those, entirely different counters are required.]
Conceptual attacks… like that one Tsumi used?
Tatsuya recalled how Tsumi had thrown the very concept of death at him during their fight with the centipede-like monster.
[Yes. You were fortunate I managed to teleport you before it struck. Otherwise, you would have been directly affected by the concept of death.]
Can I also use conceptual attacks?
[You can, but you're too inexperienced for now. Instead, focus on Magnetism. As a fundamental force, it is a tangible, quantifiable energy field. With it, you can manipulate aspects of reality by controlling charged particles and electromagnetic fields, allowing precise, predictable effects without relying on raw power. Master this first, and conceptual manipulation will become feasible later.]
I see… now, can I ask you about this ranking stuff, power levels, and the numeric values? I think I have a general understanding—it feels very game-like—but I just want to double-check…
Goddess Aiag had already explained all of this, but much of it was still difficult to fully grasp.
[The ranking system applies to both magical girls and monsters. For magical girls, it goes: Low, Mid, High, Super, Ultra, each with multiple subdivisions. For monsters, it ranges from E to SS, with fewer subdivisions. Power levels and numeric values are just a way to quantify your strength. Does that clear everything up?]
Yes, it does.
He was about to ask his next question, but before he could, there was a knock on the door.
With a sigh, he swung his legs off the bed as the blue system screen flickered and vanished. He padded over to the door, unlocked it, and opened it to find his little sister standing there, arms crossed.
"Big Brother, why did you lock the door?!" she demanded, her face puffed up in an exaggerated pout.
"Let's just say I had something to do," he said.
"Oh, really?" she replied, giving him a suspicious look.
"Yeah. What else would it be?" he asked.
"For starters, you could be hiding porn magazines!" she shot back in an accusing tone.
"What?! Nooo!!!"
"Bullshit! You're a man! Mom says all men are perverts, they have a stash of porn magazines, and they're always touching themselves!"
"Seriously…" he muttered, rubbing his forehead. "I'm going to have to tell Mom to stop corrupting your mind. Come on, check my room if you don't believe me."
"I obviously will," she said, striding in like an inspector.
What an annoying little brat of a sister I have, he grumbled inwardly as she started rifling through his things.
[Well, siblings are supposed to be annoying. What kind of sibling would they be if you didn't find them annoying?]
That may be true, but this is another level of annoyance—especially when she constantly bugs me to marry her team captain and tells me she wants to bear my child.
[Ah, geez. You mortals and your backwards taboos. Haven't you heard the term "incest is wincest"?]
What the actual f—
He cut himself off before finishing the word; he didn't want to use such language in front of a goddess.
[Trust me, it's common among gods. Take Zeus and Hera, for example.]
Me and my life…
He waited until his sister was done searching his room—completely trashing it in the process.
"See? You didn't find anything," he said, leaning his back against the door, arms crossed, trying to look calm.
"Whatever, Big Brother! It doesn't matter," she said, her voice wild and eyes sparkling with excitement. "But it does make me happy that you're not a pervert and also shows how devoted you are to me! Yes, that's it—we two are the perfect symbol of brother and sister love, the purest bond of all!"
He visibly winced at the words spilling out of her mouth.
Honestly, he wished she belonged in a mental asylum.
Not that it was possible—his mother would never allow his sister to be placed in a mental asylum. Not only that, but she was exactly like his sister.
Their father had actually been their mother's brother, before she'd forced him into marriage. She had blackmailed him, slipped something into his drink, gotten herself pregnant… and so on.
It was a miracle that neither he nor his sister had been born with any physical defects. No—his sister had been born with a defect. A mental one.
He was the only sane one in the house. His father was long dead, having committed suicide after their mother became pregnant with his sister, Ikari. That pregnancy too had been non-consensual, and he simply couldn't live with the shame.
"First of all, I don't believe that. That's utter garbage, and morally and ethically wrong. Second, even if you were the last woman on the planet, I would not marry you. I'd rather kill myself. And the same goes for Mother if she ever decided to look at me the way you look at me," he said, his tone flat.
"I see… so that's how it is? You've got a girlfriend, don't you?" his sister said, her eyes dead and unblinking.
"No, I have much bigger things in my life to worry about," he said, and left the room, leaving his sister, who clenched her hands tightly.