Daily Life, Sorcery, And Magic

Garmon-san, my summoner and master, was an old man, so he woke up early.

Since my contract with him as a devil included handling miscellaneous chores, my mornings naturally started early as well because I had to prepare breakfast.

Back when I was human, mornings had been difficult for me, but now that I was a devil, waking up early wasn’t particularly painful.

I stepped outside the tower and transferred water drawn from the well into a large water jar.

It was possible to produce water with sorcery, but apparently anything that entered the body was better obtained naturally whenever possible.

In terms of hydration, magically created water and well water were no different, but drinking water created through sorcery merely returned one’s own mana to the body instead of allowing one to absorb the natural energy of the world.

Some time had passed since I’d been summoned into this world.

Even though I’d known absolutely nothing at first, I felt that I’d grown fairly accustomed to this world by now.

Garmon-san taught me about sorcery and about devils.

Having him as my first summoner had been a stroke of luck rivaling the fact that I’d survived at all in this new body.

If I’d been summoned by someone malicious, there was no way my ignorant self could have escaped unharmed.

Apparently, there were even summoners who bound devils through contracts and used their very existence as material for creating magic swords.

Of course, the reverse was also true, and plenty of devils cleverly deceived their summoners and drove them to ruin.

It was true that I provided labor by doing chores and other work, but even then, considering the value of the knowledge and possessions Garmon-san gave me, the exchange hardly seemed equal.

But Garmon-san said that was perfectly fine.

As I learned about this world, learned sorcery, learned about devils, and continued to grow, I would apparently come to understand the differences between this world and my old one, and those differences themselves would become knowledge from another world.

Gravity, for example, which I’d mentioned on my very first day, was apparently a concept that didn’t exist in this world.

Using my vague explanation of gravity—something about an apple falling to the ground… Wait, wasn’t that universal gravitation?—Garmon-san had actually developed gravity sorcery.

This gravity sorcery became an entirely new branch of sorcery in this world, and apparently it had been published as an original creation jointly credited to me, Lept, and Garmon-san.

So, since my growth could eventually prove useful to Garmon-san as well, studying sorcery and learning about this world was incredibly enjoyable.

After all, a devil’s body had an exceptional aptitude for sorcery, so I could freely control techniques almost immediately after learning them, and knowledge sank into my mind with remarkable ease.

No, to be more accurate, life in this world itself had become incredibly enjoyable to me.

Looking over the pantry, a food-storage room enchanted to prevent ingredients from deteriorating, I thought about what to make for breakfast.

There had been a period before I was hospitalized when I’d cooked for myself, so I could handle simple meals.

I associated eggs with breakfast, but the eggs stored in this tower were vastly larger than any I’d known, each big enough to fill my arms, so there was no way Garmon-san and I could finish one at breakfast by ourselves.

Actually, what kind of egg was this?

The enchanted ingredients stored in the pantry probably had no need for concepts like best-before or expiration dates, but somehow, leaving an egg sitting there forever still bothered me.

…All right, I’d turn it into mayonnaise.

I took out an egg, vinegar, cooking oil, salt, and other seasonings from the pantry, then began by casting a sterilization spell on the egg.

Like the gravity sorcery, this sterilization spell had also been created by Garmon-san based on something I’d told him, apparently by combining detoxification and purification sorcery.

Perhaps because of the purification component, whenever I used it, my palms tingled and stung slightly.

At times like that, I was reminded all over again that I really was a devil.

I added vinegar and seasonings to the egg yolk, then gradually poured in cooking oil while mixing everything with a vortex created through wind sorcery.

I tasted it, added more seasoning, mixed it again, and stored the finished mayonnaise in a container inside the pantry after setting aside enough for breakfast salad.

I tore apart vegetables I’d washed with water sorcery and arranged them on a plate.

For the soup, I reheated last night’s stew with fire sorcery and served it in bowls.

At the same time, I cooked one piece of bacon each for the two of us and, working in parallel, steamed potatoes in a pot beside them.

Whenever the traveling merchant brought us bread, I toasted that instead of serving potatoes, but unfortunately we’d run out at the moment.

Personally, I would have liked some rice, but apparently rice wasn’t grown anywhere in this region.

When I carried the finished dishes to the table, Garmon-san was already seated in his chair, wearing glasses and reading the bulletin published by the Sorcerers’ Association.

The Sorcerers’ Association bulletin Garmon-san read was, broadly speaking, a newspaper.

Flying familiars delivered it to the residences of sorcerers affiliated with the Association, and it contained not only newly published research but also news about events in the wider world.

Apparently, the Sorcerers’ Association worked hard to keep sorcerers, who tended to shut themselves away in their homes, aware of the outside world in order to improve and preserve their social standing.

That was all well and good, but—

“Garmon-san, breakfast is ready. Please read the newspaper later.”

Right now, it was time to eat.

“Bulletin” felt awkward to say, so I inevitably called it a newspaper out of habit, but Garmon-san understood me by now, so there was no particular problem.

“Hm? Ah, sorry about that. Very well, let’s eat.”

After breakfast, we relaxed while drinking tea brewed with water from the jar that I’d brought to a boil, when Garmon-san, who had resumed reading the bulletin, suddenly exclaimed,

“Oh!”

His voice sounded delighted.

When I looked over, Garmon-san pointed to part of the bulletin and showed it to me, but naturally, I still wasn’t very familiar with this world’s writing.

I picked out the few words I could barely decipher, but was it some sort of news about sorcery?

“It says here that the gravity sorcery you and I developed together has officially been recognized by the Association. There will be a fairly substantial reward, so you should think about how you’d like to use it.”

Apparently, it really was an article about the publication of our gravity sorcery.

Still, a reward, huh? Was it really okay for me to accept it?

Sure, I’d explained gravity to him, but Garmon-san was the one who had actually completed the sorcery…

But I already knew he’d scold me if I tried to refuse, so I obediently started thinking about what to spend it on.

That said, so far I’d only seen this tower and the surrounding forest in this world.

If I was going to spend money, I’d have liked to visit a town, but I raised a hand to my forehead—or rather, to the horn growing from it.

After becoming a devil, I’d gained horns, wings, and a tail, none of which I’d possessed as a human.

But even those features were surprisingly inconsistent, because my wings and tail disappeared—or perhaps withdrew—whenever they became inconvenient.

For example, when I tried putting on clothes, my wings and tail naturally vanished, only to reappear at some point after I took them off.

I could feel them when I touched them, but I had absolutely no idea what mechanism allowed them to disappear.

The horn on my forehead, however, had never vanished, probably because nothing had happened yet that made it inconvenient.

According to Garmon-san, I was apparently breaking those parts down into something called spiritual particles and storing them away myself, and once I learned to manipulate those particles, I’d be able to make them appear and disappear at will, but if I went into town as I was now, I’d undoubtedly cause an uproar.

Seeing me like that, Garmon-san nodded once and drained the rest of his tea.

Ah, apparently the morning lesson was about to begin.

“When we use sorcery, we diffuse, compress, or otherwise process the mana inside and outside our bodies in order to produce the phenomenon we desire.”

As Garmon-san explained, he raised one finger.

Mana streamed straight upward from the tip of that finger toward the ceiling.

Apparently, the first step for a human who wished to become a sorcerer was training their mana sight so they could perceive mana.

Incidentally, I’d been able to see mana from the beginning, and apparently that was one of the differences between humans and devils.

“Mana consists of spiritual particles and magical essence, but even with mana sight, human eyes cannot perceive those individual components. Therefore, humans cannot manipulate spiritual particles or magical essence directly.”

Humans couldn’t, Garmon-san had said.

In other words, because I wasn’t human, did that mean I could see those spiritual particles and magical essence and manipulate them?

Since manipulating spiritual particles was supposedly necessary for making my horn disappear, that was probably the case, but…

Garmon-san looked into my eyes and nodded, apparently realizing what I was thinking.

“Exactly. Devils can manipulate spiritual particles and magical essence. In other words, when humans create flames with sorcery, they process mana that still contains unnecessary elements such as water and earth, whereas devils can extract only the components they require to produce the desired phenomenon.”

If that was possible, the scale of the resulting phenomenon and its efficiency would be vastly superior to ordinary sorcery.

But how in the world was I supposed to do something like that?

“The mysteries produced through spiritual particles and magical essence are known as Magic—the Root Law, the power the gods used to create the world. Well, whether that’s literally true, I couldn’t say. But it is certain that only a limited number of beings, such as angels and devils, can wield Magic.”

…Hmm. This conversation was suddenly becoming rather grandiose.

But in other words—

“I cannot teach you Magic. That is something you, as a devil, will have to discover for yourself, Lept. During your sorcery training, observe mana carefully and search for the spiritual particles and magical essence within it. Once you can see them, you can interfere with them. In that respect, it is no different from sorcery.”

Right. This, at least, depended entirely on my own efforts.

After all, if I couldn’t do it, I wouldn’t even be able to visit town.

The fact that I had to master the very power the gods supposedly used to create the world just to go into town really showed how absurdly high the barriers were in another world.