Episode 314: Asahi On Stage II (1)
“What is magic!”
Baaam, Asahi shouted, displaying the onomatopoeia behind her.
“Asahi, turn down the volume.”
“Asahi, you’re too loud.”
On the stage, Asahi nodded vigorously, waving her hand to display a slide.
“Now, let’s summarize what we know so far! Information sharing time!”
Completely ignoring the heckling from the audience, and of course without lowering the volume, Asahi continued.
“Asahi is energetic as ever.”
“Yes, I am, Onee-sama!!”
The first slide showed an image of a spear piercing what looked like some kind of armor plate.
“This is a video of an experiment we requested from the Adventurers in North End City, Afrasia United Duchy!”
On the slide, a video recording the experiment played.
A subject, with observation markers attached to various parts of their body, threw a spear they had wound up.
The spear, thrown with tremendous force, pierced the target laminated armor plate.
“Like this! It’s just an ordinary spear with a bronze tip! But with the power of magic, it easily pierces even our proud armor plates!”
Eve voiced her surprise at the experimental results.
Come to think of it, this was the first time she had closely observed such an irrational (fantasy) analysis video.
Up until now, she had only watched things like giant monster battles.
“And one more thing!”
Asahi next showed a video recording of an experiment on a different plate.
“This is armor made from ＜Big Moth＞ material! It’s a very irrational material with absurdly high strength due to fantasy effects!”
In the video, the spear, thrown in the same way, pierced the armor. However, unlike before, it stopped with about half of the tip embedded.
It showed a truly irrational (fantasy) result: a biological organic compound was structurally stronger than laminated armor, which should have been far stronger from a chemical standpoint.
It was no wonder that Ringo and the other information Sentient Entities, children of science, frowned.
“Trying to unravel the mechanism behind this is extremely difficult, so let’s put that aside for now. What I noticed in this comparative test is the tip of this spear!”
Asahi switched slides, getting more and more excited.
“The spear that pierced the laminated armor had its tip remain sharp! It collided with hard metal and ceramics, but somehow the bronze retained its shape. It doesn’t make any sense! However, the tip used on this Big Moth Armor! This one is clearly worn down like this!”
An enlarged image of the tip recovered after the experiment was displayed in close-up.
Indeed, the tip that pierced the Big Moth Armor was crushed at the end and appeared to be scratched overall.
“So, we experimented with a combination of Big Moth Armor and laminated armor, and…”
The next video showed the spear penetrating the Big Moth Armor on the surface, but the laminated armor underneath only dented slightly and repelled the spear. An enlarged image of the spearhead was then displayed.
“Lo and behold! This time, the laminated armor did its job properly! The damage is a little deeper than calculated, but let’s ignore that for now!”
Striking a pose, Asahi shouted.
“Magic can be defended against with magic!”
With a Jaaan sound effect, the aerial display flashed, and the text ‘Magic VS Magic’ was displayed.
“The inhabitants of this planet use magic as a matter of course! For example, there are techniques called ＜Penetration＞ or something similar, and if they use this, almost any armor, no matter how strong, will be pierced!”
If you use the ＜Penetration＞ magic, you can pierce a steel plate even with a branch you find lying around. Moreover, the branch is undamaged.
“However, that only applies to the act of ＜Penetration＞! Even if you unleash a slashing attack using ＜Penetration＞ magic, the ＜Penetration＞ effect is limited. The point of impact is damaged, but there is no slashing! Therefore, we have found that ＜Penetration＞ magic is specialized for ＜Penetration＞, and it does not add to attack power or impact force!”
“…Hmm. So, it’s not simply increasing the power, is it?”
“Yes, Onee-sama, that’s right! Also, as a side note, the harder and thicker the material, the less effective ＜Penetration＞ seems to be! It was quite difficult to ＜Penetrate＞ a 1m thick Concrete wall! It was easy with an earthen wall of the same thickness, though!”
“Just hearing that, it sounds like a matter of power…”
Asahi seemed to have repeated the experiment under various conditions. Most of the records showed results proportional to the strength of the armor.
“What’s interesting is the case of walls with self-repairing properties! This is a type filled with a gel-like shock absorber in the internal voids, which quickly closes up holes and hardens the surface by reacting with oxygen in the air…”
Only this type of wall was significantly damaged despite the ＜Penetration＞ magic. Moreover, there were large holes that didn’t close and cracks, damage that clearly wouldn’t occur if you just poked it with a spear.
“So, we ultimately concluded that this self-repairing armor, which should be much more fragile than laminated armor, is more resistant to ＜Penetration＞ magic!”
“Normal armor plates get holes, but this one gets completely destroyed? For a name like ＜Penetration＞, it has a strange effect…”
“That’s right, Onee-sama! Well, it’s still just a hypothesis, but it seems that ＜Penetration＞ magic exhibits the result of ＜Penetrating＞ the target!”
“……?”
Everyone tilted their heads at Asahi’s summary.
“In other words… ＜Penetration＞ magic doesn’t seem to be improving the power or hardness to allow the target to be penetrated. Instead, the projectile is strengthened to withstand the penetration as a result. The result comes first, and the phenomenon comes after. Don’t you think it’s a pretty interesting hypothesis?”
The strength and power necessary to cause the result of ＜Penetrating＞ the target are imparted to the launched spear. That was Asahi’s hypothesis.
Therefore, in order to ＜Penetrate＞ a self-repairing wall, excessive power is exerted, because it cannot ＜Penetrate＞ unless it inflicts damage that cannot be self-repaired.
“The power is automatically adjusted even if the magic user doesn’t know what the target is. Even though we used quantum random numbers to select the target, the necessary power is exerted. We’ve experimented with this many times, so I’m pretty sure it’s correct!”
By the way, a quantum random number generator is a complete random number generator that produces different results even if the given initial state is exactly the same. It is physically impossible to predict the random numbers that will be generated.
Despite being scientifically completely random, the ＜Penetration＞ magic correctly exerts its effect. In other words, magic is not bound by physical phenomena.
“Does that mean that if our weapons are hit by an attack using that ＜Penetration＞ magic, they will definitely be penetrated?”
“It would be hopeless if that were the case! But apparently, what it can do is limited!”
This seems to depend on the magic user’s perception, Asahi prefaced.
“If we hid another armor behind the first armor with enough space in between, we were able to stop the attack with the back armor, even though it easily penetrated the front armor. Alternatively, if the armor was thick enough, the magic user developed symptoms of magical power depletion, and the spear stopped midway.”
“…I see, magical power. If there isn’t enough magical power to cause the phenomenon, the result will be half-baked.”
“Yes, Onee-sama! And magic seems to counteract magic!”
As a scientific analysis result, Asahi displayed the ＜Big Moth＞ armor again.
“It’s chitin-based, and we also found a mysterious molecular structure, but if you separate it from the Magic Stone, it’s about as hard as expected! It’s not that hard physically! Since the original material is soft, it’s easily penetrated when it collides with ＜Penetration＞ magic!”
“Does that mean that the magic that hardens and the magic that penetrates collide, and both become ineffective?”
“Probably something like that, Onee-sama!”
This is an episode that approaches the secret of what magic is. To be continued.
It gets long when I let Asahi-chan talk.