Esdeath's world.
Baiye had already popped in here for one second earlier while testing whether leaving would affect Morgan. He'd vanished immediately.
This time, when he reappeared, he stayed—unsurprisingly drawing a crowd.
"Mr. Baiye, that was…?" Chika Fujiwara asked.
"I was testing something," Baiye said. "The result was better than I expected… so unless something goes wrong, I can probably stay here for about half a month."
"You finished the thing you mentioned in the chat already?" Utaha Kasumigaoka asked.
"Not yet." Baiye shook his head. "I said back then it's still the preparation phase. The real opening is in half a month—twelve days from now. My prep's going smoothly, so I came over to look around. And to hunt a few Danger Beasts, add some 'base stats.'"
He glanced at something lying off to the side.
"Three days and you've improved a lot."
A bear-type Danger Beast—easily over half a ton—lay dead.
With Baiye's eye, it was obvious the bear had been worked over, not killed in a single blow.
That wasn't Esdeath's style.
Even though this "loli Esdeath" already carried hints of the future battle-maniac sadist, and her first impulse upon meeting Yakumo Yukari and Baiye had been "fight," she still hadn't discovered the joy of torture.
Baiye had watched several of her first-person "immersive stream" hunts over the past few days. When she fought prey, she aimed for clean, efficient one-shot kills—mainly to conserve stamina for unexpected battles, and secondarily because a pristine carcass sold for more.
So if it wasn't Yukari, and it wasn't Esdeath… the culprit was obvious.
"Not bad," Esdeath said. "They had no foundation, but their bodies have excellent potential. In just a few days, they can take down Kuman without getting hurt… and that bear is one of the tougher type-3 Danger Beasts."
"Hehe~" Chika scratched her head and invited Baiye. "Since you've got time, Mr. Baiye, want to sit down and try our catch?"
Over the last few days, under Esdeath's lead, they'd been traveling and fighting—hunting, then stopping to eat on the spot whenever they found suitable prey.
And with the "posture" Baiye taught them, they didn't have to worry about overeating and messing up digestion.
"Then I'll shamelessly mooch a meal," Baiye said with a smile.
They dragged the bear toward a nearby river. Esdeath, raised in a hunting tribe and rich in survival experience, always traveled along water—rivers if possible, springs or lakes otherwise. It solved hydration and increased hunting efficiency, since every creature came to water eventually.
While the three women processed the bear, Baiye didn't force himself into their rhythm. Instead, he raised a hand and sketched several strokes in the air.
Runes manifested. A fist-sized fireball ignited out of nothing, spiking the temperature enough that all three paused and looked over.
It actually works!
Joy flashed across Baiye's face.
Type-Moon magecraft had one brutally unfriendly setting for someone who could leave the world: magecraft foundations.
A "foundation" was, essentially, magecraft theory carved into the world through scholarship, religion, culture, history—like a language environment. Modern magi developed spells using that existing language. If the environment changed, a spell's effects weakened, or it failed entirely.
Unless you were a top-tier magus who could build a foundation by hand.
Otherwise, stepping into an utterly foreign environment could reduce you from "magus" to "not even a magus."
That was why, after joining the trans-dimensional mutual-aid group and discovering it connected worlds like Akame ga Kill! and Touhou Project—both obviously supernatural—Baiye had already been considering whether to give up magecraft and pursue a more universal power system.
But then the Fourth Grail War started early, and Baiye used Matou Zōken's legacy to perform a targeted summon—successfully calling Morgan le Fay, who didn't require bodily modification and could grant him three Magic Circuits for the cost of three Command Spells.
Between "even if I can't use it outside for now, it's still useful when I return" and "I've wanted this for years," he opened a second class: Magecraft, alongside his original Martial Arts.
Minutes ago, after graduating from Morgan's rune lessons, Baiye realized his rune system might not be rooted in the world foundation at all—but in the trait system itself. So he chose a world where "runes" definitely weren't part of the environment, just to test whether rune magecraft still functioned.
Result:
System: what foundation?
"I always thought you were a martial artist, Mr. Baiye," Chika said in shock. "So your real main class is… a wizard?"
"I'm still far from 'magic'," Baiye corrected. "I'm only a magus. And magecraft isn't my main job either… I've had this power for less than a hundred hours."
"A magus?" Chika blinked. Utaha also looked surprised.
"What does a magus do?" Esdeath poked Utaha's arm.
"Um… the easiest way for you to understand," Utaha said after thinking, "is: a professional whose job is stage magic?"
"Stage…?" Esdeath frowned. "So that fireball was fake?"
She absolutely did not believe the lethal threat she felt was an illusion.
"I don't know," Utaha shrugged. "I'm only describing what 'magic' means in my world—at most Chika's too."
"That's a definition problem," Baiye said with a smile. "In my world, any mysterious phenomenon that can be reproduced by humans is called magecraft. Only phenomena that magecraft or science cannot possibly achieve are called magic. What I just used is rune magecraft."
"Runes…"
Even someone with shallow occult knowledge had heard of "rune script" from Norse myth—Odin hanging on a tree for nine days and nights to gain wisdom. Chika's smile turned stiff.
Right. A magus like that, huh?
....
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