"Oh right, Megumin — how do mages actually sense mana?" Jhin asked suddenly, realizing with a jolt that he'd come all the way to a fantasy world and hadn't even tried to cultivate mana yet. Practically a disgrace to the proud tradition of isekai protagonists everywhere. He turned to the handiest mage available.
"Mana?" Megumin scratched her head, looking completely lost. "We of the Crimson Demon Clan can feel mana from the moment we're born. Who would even know how to explain something like that?"
Right. A bloodline race. The worst kind.
Asking Megumin had been a mistake. Jhin packed away the Capsule House without another word and set off back toward the guild at a brisk pace.
I've got nothing to talk about with someone who was born with cheat abilities.
What — me too?
...Never mind.
As it turned out, Jhin's original estimate of the travel time had been spot on. Just under two hours later, they arrived back at the Gourmet Palace's guild house. Kyaru was out front, watering a potted plant she'd acquired from god knows where.
"Ahh~ finally home. I'm going to my room for a nap. Wake me up for dinner." Megumin made a beeline straight for her bedroom, purpose unwavering.
Jhin didn't have time to worry about her. He had something more pressing on his mind — he needed to figure out how to sense mana and learn magic.
"Kyaru, how do mages sense mana and learn magic?"
"You want to learn magic?" At those words, Kyaru set down her watering can, closed her eyes to probe Jhin's inner state — and opened them again with a strange look on her face. "The mana in the air can't enter your body at all. That's odd. Normally, most races on this continent carry at least a little mana inside them."
"Well, I'm from Another World, so I'm probably just different."
Kyaru had already learned this during her surveillance of the group, but she wasn't foolish enough to let on that she knew. She picked up the watering can again and resumed tending to her plant. "Since I'm a beast-kin, I naturally have more mana in my body than humans do, so sensing it came easily. I'm not really sure how human mages train."
Wonderful. Another race that starts on a higher baseline than humans.
"Kokkoro's an elf, and Pecorine's a warrior... is my dream of learning magic just dead on arrival?" Jhin sat down on the front steps, expression glum.
"Kokkoro may be an elf, but elves have a huge collection of ancient texts. She might have read something about it."
"Right, good point. Kyaru, where is Kokkoro?"
"She went with Pecorine to the Adventurers' Guild to look at requests."
Guess I'll wait until they get back, then. Jhin stood up, brushed the dust off his pants, and paused at the door. "Kyaru, are you enjoying your time at Gourmet Palace?"
"It's fine. It's barely been a day or two, though — why are you asking something like that?"
"Just curious. I'm going to sleep for a bit, too. Running around outside with Megumin all day actually wore me out."
Jhin's footsteps faded into the house. The two fluffy cat ears atop Kyaru's head gave a small, involuntary twitch. She set down the watering can, her expression growing heavy — even the bright, water-nourished blooms of the potted plant couldn't dispel the weight settling over her.
Is Jhin suspicious of why I joined the Gourmet Palace?
That shouldn't be it. I haven't slipped up in front of any of them.
While Kyaru quietly spiraled into anxiety, Jhin slept peacefully and happily until Kokkoro's gentle voice coaxed him awake for dinner.
After a delicious meal lovingly prepared by Pecorine, Jhin wasted no time asking Kokkoro about how human mages trained. And, true to form, she had an answer.
In short: for a human to become a mage, the first step was to sense the mana in the air through meditation, then draw it into the body and cultivate it continuously — gradually expanding one's mana capacity. Casting spells, meanwhile, involved channeling the mana within alongside the elements that permeated all things, guided by set incantations; the elements would then use that mana as a medium to coalesce into magic on your behalf.
Jhin had no mana in his body whatsoever, and the mana in the air refused to enter — by any conventional measure, he was a mana insulator. But he had an idea. A different approach worth trying.
Put more plainly, casting magic was basically like paying your employees (the elements) a salary (mana) and having them follow established procedures to produce the final product (the spell). Strip away the mystique and the lofty aesthetics, and that was essentially all there was to it.
I spent ten minutes and have now achieved complete enlightenment about this world's magic system .jpg
Jhin glanced at the [Language Mastery] skill sitting at Lv.10 in his skill list, then sat cross-legged on the grass outside, slowly closed his eyes, and — bolstered by his talent [Reach What You Can See] — quickly sensed through meditation the mana and elements drifting through the air all around him. Then he attempted to understand whatever conversation, if any, they might be having.
Thud! A heavy impact rang out from outside. Kokkoro, remembering that Jhin was out there, hurried out to check — and froze at the sight before her.
Blood was gushing from Jhin's nostrils like a fountain. He lay collapsed on the grass, completely unconscious.
"Master! What happened to you, Master!"
The other three, hearing Kokkoro's frantic cries, came running out of the guild house. Together, they fumbled to carry Jhin back inside and tend to the bleeding.
Kokkoro sat at the edge of Jhin's bed, both hands clutching the hem of her clothes, head bowed low in self-reproach. "It's all my fault. I never should have told Master about magic cultivation."
Megumin, standing nearby, tried to console her. "How could this possibly be your fault? You were just answering Jhin's question honestly."
After a quick examination, Pecorine and Kyaru found that aside from the nosebleed, Jhin had no other injuries — but his mental energy was severely depleted. Judging by the presentation, it looked like a mage's backlash from a spell gone out of control.
"Honestly. He has no mana at all, and he still had to go off and try casting spells. He brought this completely on himself."
"Kyaru, is Master going to be okay?"
Seeing the worry on Kokkoro's face, Kyaru softened her tone. "Don't worry. Nothing too serious — just a standard spell backlash. He just needs to sleep it off."
"Okay. Thank you."
"It's nothing. When he wakes up, make sure he knows not to try something like that again."
"Understood."
Kyaru's assessment, however, was significantly off the mark. Jhin wasn't unconscious from a spell backlash — he'd been knocked out by the sheer volume of information that had slammed into his mind when he tried to comprehend the conversation between mana and the elements.
After all, mana and the elements were the very foundation upon which this world was built. To understand and commune with them, the brain had essentially been asked to absorb the entire memory of a planet in an instant. The only reason Jhin's head hadn't literally exploded was that, as a Stand User, his mental fortitude far exceeded that of an ordinary person — and he had both his talent and skills layered on top of that, barely keeping him intact.
When Jhin finally came to, the first thing he saw was Kokkoro, slumped over at the side of his bed, fast asleep. Even in her dreams, she was still thinking of him — her lips barely moving, murmuring the words "I'm sorry" over and over.
Jhin activated Time Stop, gently lifted Kokkoro, and laid her properly in the bed. He brushed the strand of hair from the corner of her mouth.
"…Sorry for making you worry."
____
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