Dimensions Collide: Destiny Bond Chapter 51: Getting an Upgrade

Chapter 51: Getting an Upgrade

“Seriously, I can’t help but say it again, but she’s improving at a crazy rate,” Kit muttered.

John let out a snort of amusent. “Crazy? I was crazy once. They locked in a room. A rubber room-”

“Don’t start again.” Kit glared at John venomously. “I’ll seriously rip out your tongue if I hear you talk about rats one more ti.”

Only a day had passed since Prota’s new training regin with Kit had begun, but the Mystic was already impressed with how far Prota had gotten.

Her new spell was sothing to behold.

She was technically at the level of an archmage, possessing the talent to create multiple unique spells no one had ever seen before. Perhaps, in so unknown corner of the world, soone else had made this spell, but Kit had never seen nor heard of anything like it.

Then, as if to highlight just how ridiculous this child was, Prota was capable of handling so many elents. Fire. Water. Ice. Earth. Shadow. Wind. That wasn’t even the end of it.

How ridiculous.

So, now that Prota was off practicing, Kit and John had very little to do. John had inquired at so point whether or not it was alright for Kit to be in her human form, but the fox had simply shrugged and confird that there wouldn’t be anyone who would notice them.

“Hey,” Kit said suddenly. “You seem pretty knowledgeable about artifacts.”

“...not really?” John frowned. “I just picked up a few things I read and stuff. Engineering interested for a bit.”

“You don’t look like you’ve studied a day in your life,” Kit scoffed.

“That’s true,” John shrugged. “I’ve never really studied, but when you live for a while, you pick up at least a few things.”

“You know, you’re also supposed to mature with age.”

John smirked. “Pot calling the kettle black over here.”

“Hmph! I’ll have you know I’m very mature!” Kit said, turning her nose up.

“...yeah, right. I’m so sure of that.”

“What is that supposed to an, you little-”

Kit sighed as she realized John was ssing with her and looked at Prota again. Her focus wasn’t on her student, though.

“Mm. Hey.” Kit seed a bit bashful, but she managed to push her next words out. “Could you teach ?”

“...what?”

“Artifacts. Co on, barely anyone knows anything about them, even Mystics. But you really seem to know sothing. Just like Fate, but he wouldn’t say anything.”

John just stared at the Mystic. “You really are just a massive nerd.”

“I don’t care what I’m called, as long as I can learn more.” A dreamy but sad look appeared on Kit’s face. “That’s all I ever wanted.”

John’s face remained neutral, but he was curious. This probably had to do with her backstory, but it probably wasn’t his place to hear it yet.

“Hm… well, Fate might know a lot of what I know, too. You know we co from essentially the sa Earth, right? Stuff like magic doesn’t exist there.”

“Yes, he told that science has replaced what magic does for us here,” Kit nodded. “So I was curious, but he’d always refuse to tell anything…”

John sighed and leaned back.

“It’s probably because technology sucks on Earth. I’ve been to a lot of different Earths, and I don’t really have full mories of any of them, but they seed to all have one thing in common: technology made things a lot easier, but in the end, it causes a lot of problems, too.”

Kit stared at John. What did he an by “full mories?” “Lots of different Earths?” No, forget that. He probably wouldn’t answer questions regarding those things.

“In what way?” Kit asked instead.

“Look, I don’t want to go into it, ok? Besides, artifacts and science are a little different. Artifacts definitely outperform whatever engineering we have.”

“But you use it,” Kit insisted. “I’ve seen you use strange tools that shouldn’t exist here.”

“I use technology because I have no mana. I’d use magic if I could. Look. This world has magic. Earth has technology. There’s no need to put the two together. That would make this a whole different genre, and I’m not interested in doing that. The only reason I do what I do is because I lack the ability to fight otherwise.”

Kit nodded, but her curiosity had finally gotten the better of her. She couldn’t put it off any longer.

“Hey, by the way. What did you an-”

“I’m not gonna answer that.”

“I didn’t even finish the question!”

“You’re gonna ask about my mories, right? Different Earths?”

Kit didn’t answer.

“What, you think my tongue slipped or sothing? I’m not that stupid. No, I know what I said. I just don’t want to explain.”

“Co on, even to a pretty lady like ?” Kit said, grabbing onto John’s arm.

John gave Kit a glance. He acknowledged that, from an objective standpoint, she was pretty. He just didn’t really care.

He’d gone through this once, back when a particularly pretty custor was at his bar. She was the attention of a lot of male custors, but John himself never really cared and served her like any other custor. It was because of this that she’d taken an interest in him. It was inevitable that she’d try to make a move on him at so point, probably just out of curiosity, if nothing else.

He’d rejected her right away.

John had vague mories of his ti on his original Earth. There were an awful lot of readers who were “in love” with fictional won. Won that would never exist, won that were simply ideas or art drawn by soone to be physically appealing. Most weren’t serious about it, but he had a feeling that there were a couple who were.

Then the question remained: if he ever got into a relationship with soone in a [Story], would that make him equally degenerate? Or would he be envied for living the romantic life so many [Readers] couldn’t?

A chill went down his spine. He didn’t want to think about it.

“Seriously, though. Maybe Fate can’t handle what you know. But I’m not naive. Is it really so bad?” Kit pouted.

John didn’t say anything. Was it so bad? The knowledge that your life was a lie? That your emotions and relationships existed for the entertainnt of others? No, forget that. Would Kit even believe it? Probably not. There was a good chance that he’d reveal what he knew, and the Mystic would just tell him not to joke around. Still, on the off chance that she did sohow believe it, it was better not to say anything. He wasn’t looking to ruin a life.

Well, maybe it wouldn’t be that bad. Prota understood the implications of what John had said, but she simply couldn’t internalize it. It wasn’t life-changing because it was simply too hard to accept.

John was unique in that sense. He would never be able to see this world as “real,” but similarly, [Characters] would never be able to see this world as “fake.”

“Yeah,” John said quietly. “It really does suck. Learning is fun. But there’s a reason they say ignorance is bliss. You can go too far, and then you find that you can’t turn back.”

Kit’s playful expression slowly faded away as she let go of John’s arm. His words seed to indicate regret, but John’s tone gave no indication that he regretted anything in the slightest. He spoke as if he were simply stating that apples were fruits, or that he was going to wash the dishes.

She couldn’t tell if he was feeling anything at all in that mont.

“Would you at least show your strange power?”

John laughed. “You gotta give up at so point.”

“I’m a stubborn fox,” Kit said proudly. “What’s so bad about it?”

“Nothing. Actually, scratch that. It’s annoying.”

“For you.”

“Yeah, for . Not you, I guess.”

Kit nodded and turned to look at Prota again. Even in the brief mont they’d been talking, Prota had already continued to improve. Her understanding of mana was just too good.

“I’m curious, though. Just answer this, at least. In a fight. Suppose we both went all out. Who would win?”

“I don’t know how strong you are,” John shrugged. “How am I supposed to answer that?”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Kit grabbed John’s head and forced him to look her in the eyes. Her fox-like pupils narrowed as she stared him down.

“You’re avoiding the question. You can tell how strong I am. You knew what I was before knowing what a Mystic is. Answer honestly.”

John grimaced. The woman was observant.

“If I went all out… honestly? You would probably win.”

Kit let go of John’s face with a disappointed sigh.

“Seriously, you can’t be honest, even now. Don’t you know not to toy with a woman’s feelings?”

“No, I’m serious.”

Kit didn’t move, but she was listening.

“What’s going all out? What’s winning? If I set up a field of traps and invite you to fight on it, is that going all out? Let’s say I have a comically large anvil tied over your head, and the fight doesn’t start until I say go. Then I drop the anvil on you and crush you. Did I win?”

“Oh, shut up. You know exactly what I an.”

John just shook his head. He wasn’t trying to be difficult. It was just that the answer in itself was complicated.

“Here, I’ll put it this way.”

Kit listened eagerly. Was he about to reveal sothing?

“If it’s a fight to the death, where you won’t back off, no matter what, and the only option is my life or yours, I’d be the one to co out alive. It’s not that I won’t lose. It’s that I can’t lose.”

John said it as a matter of fact. There was no arrogance or ego in the statent. He didn’t even seem proud of the fact. Rather, he seed almost disappointed. And Kit didn’t understand what that ant. It wasn’t possible for him to lose? Didn’t he just say he’d lose every single ti?

However, she wasn’t disappointed in the slightest. All it ant was more mysteries for her to solve.

“Hm… you really are quite interesting.”

~~~

It didn’t seem like it, but Prota was listening in on their conversation. She’d almost lost it when Kit had grabbed John’s arm, but she’d managed to control herself. Now that she thought about it, why was she so upset at sothing like that? It wasn’t wrong for John to have companions. She never felt that way about Fate.

With a small frown, she went back to practicing her magic. She’d noticed that her [Creation] ability had levelled up again when checking her status, but when she’d told John about it, he’d been confused rather than proud.

“You… can check your status?”

Prota nodded.

“Hm… then why is mine…”

John patted Prota on the head and gave her a thumbs up, but she could tell that he was deep in thought.

It didn’t matter, though. She still needed to get stronger. She was mindlessly chanting to cast fire bomb, a third circle spell, but she didn’t really understand what fire bomb was. She saw Kit cast it and saw that it was a bigger, stronger version of fireball, so why not just do that?

No, in the first place, why not just use blue fire?

Her understanding of magic was inherently different from everyone else’s. Others saw chants as a ans to summon magic. Prota visualized magic and brought it to life. She couldn’t understand the difference between a large fireball and a firebomb because she didn’t know what a “fireball” and a “firebomb” were in the first place. She only understood that she could summon fire, and from there, it was just a matter of how well she could summon it.

Still, this was necessary for her to blend in. On top of that, she was supposed to be learning sothing, but she wasn’t sure what. She rembered sothing about learning the flow of mana, but she was already doing that without chanting.

She could feel it now. The way the mana spread from her core to the tips of her fingers, then the way it accumulated in the air and reacted to what she wanted. Her [Magic] level had gone up, too, resulting in the following [Profile].

___

Character Profile: Prota Char

Gender: Female

Age: 8

Abilities: [Soul Siphon], [Soul Copy: Level 2], [Magic: Level 4] [System] [Character Profile] [Creation: Lv. 3] [Plot Armour]... [Expand?]

Traits: [Character: 100%] [Anomaly]

Status: Alive

___

Magic seed to roughly correspond to the level of magic she could use, although she now understood that the standardized system of magic didn’t apply to soone like her.

However, the important thing was that her magic proficiency was increasing. Her Blossoms were forming at a much faster rate, and she was finding ways to decrease the mana usage for them as well. Blue fire was also condensing quicker, and she was looking for ways to be able to summon it instantly. So of this ant trading power for efficiency, but that was fine, right?

She didn’t understand what was so difficult about magic. She just had to be able to see it in her mind. Basic spells or spells she already knew how to cast were simply the result of her picturing the spell forming in front of her. If she didn’t know what to do, she just had to picture how the mana would flow in order to create it.

But how was she supposed to explain sothing like that?

She didn’t know. She just kept chanting while casting fireball.

~~~

“Sir. Did you receive the report?” a ssenger said, poking into Breaker’s office.

A girl with soulless eyes followed him, holding a sheaf of papers.

“Yes. It seems there are other things brewing in town. Hm…”

Breaker rubbed his chin as the small girl handed him the papers. He nodded, and the girl turned to leave without a sound. He didn’t really like dealing with the husks that Doctor made, but he had to admit that they did their job well.

Humans with modified souls. They were essentially golems. Doctor had sohow managed to figure out how to remove the sense of “self” while keeping the energy of a soul the sa. Apparently the original personalities were still stuck in there, but Breaker didn’t like to think about that.

The ability to remove and reprogram a soul. How terrifying.

Still, he was glad he was on Doctor’s side. It would be far more terrifying to be on the other team. But at the sa ti, there were things that he felt he needed to take care of himself.

“Hm… an issue with the son of a noble… the church dealing with the prisoners… what’s this?”

Breaker showed his subordinate a sheet of paper. “That John guy. People think he’s doing so kind of shady deals?”

“Yes,” the man nodded. “He’s manaless, after all. How could he be a B-rank adventurer?”

“...look into that more,” Breaker said.

The man made a note and nodded. “Anything else?”

“No, that’s all. Good job.”

~~~

“Haah… what a long day,” Fate sighed, falling onto his bed. He took his mask off and stared at the ceiling, letting the fatigue in his body lt away.

“Was Danjo harder to teach than you expected?” Kit’s voice was transmitted directly to Fate’s head.

“Sort of,” Fate muttered. “He’s a genius when it cos to understanding how mana flows, but for him to get the spell out… it’s a little difficult.”

“Oh?”

“It’s like… how do I say it? It’s like seeing a boulder on a hill. If I can push the boulder just a bit, it’ll get rolling, but I don’t have the ans to push the boulder. I don’t know.”

Kit jumped onto Fate’s bed and nuzzled his cheek fondly.

“Maybe you’re going about it wrong.”

“How so?”

“Instead of working on what he’s weak with, focus on his strengths,” Kit suggested.

“His strengths… what do you an?”

The pink fox winked. “That’s for you to figure out.”

Fate groaned in frustration, but sothing like that wouldn’t get anything out of Kit.

“I might consider changing my mind if you tell more about engineering.”

“Engi- where did you hear that?”

“I asked John a few things.”

Fate sighed again, this ti in annoyance. “Seriously, Kit! Knowing you, you’re going to go and replicate an atomic bomb or sothing, and then we’ll all be screwed!”

“A what?” Kit’s eyes glimred with excitent.

“This is exactly why I don’t want to tell you!”

The little fox shook her head and jumped onto Fate’s chest.

“Fine. John said the sa thing, basically,” Kit said in resignation.

“...really?”

“Yes, he didn’t really feel like telling about it either, for similar reasons to you. How boring,” Kit sighed. “What a dull boy. He wasn’t interested in in the slightest.”

“...I’m not even going to ask.”

“I found out so interesting things about those two, though.”

Fate sat up and held Kit. “Huh? What?”

“Prota’s talent is more monstrous than I thought. She did the chants I taught her, but she clearly doesn’t need them. Her magic almost stems from imagination itself. In a sense, using chants is holding her back. Her control of mana is incredible.”

“How good?” Fate asked.

“Better than you, at least.”

Fate frowned. “Really?”

“Fate, you’re talented in a very different way. I don’t think she’s more talented than you in general. You learn at a much faster rate than she does. Look at you. In just a few years, you’ve learned mana breathing, the hand-to-hand combat style of the Mystics, various elents, and you’ve even unlocked your monstrous mana and that special aura of yours. But if we were to compare your talent in magic alone… that girl outpaces you.”

Kit raised a paw and put it to her mouth. It kind of looked like she was rubbing her chin, but in her fox form, it was a little strange.

“It’s very interesting. It’s almost as if she has the ability to play around with reality itself. I an, that is what the power of dragons is similar to, but her ability isn’t fully awakened… regardless, she’s quite strong.”

Fate nodded. He wasn’t sure if he should be happy or worried. It was good to have strong companions, but at the sa ti, there was no guarantee that she was on Fate’s side.

“Oh, but even more interesting was that boy.”

“John?”

“Yes.” Kit paused for a mont, thinking. “There’s… I don’t know if he was telling the truth, but I think he was. We had quite the interesting conversation.”

Fate waited, but Kit wouldn’t speak.

“...what do you want?”

“Nothing. I’m just trying to figure out how to say this.”

“How to say what?”

“Mm… well, don’t take this the wrong way, but if it cos to it, I don’t think we can beat him.”

“What?”

Fate shot up, fatigue be damned. What was this? John? They were talking about the manaless man, right? Sure, he was peculiar. He had that strange intuition, and combined with his oddities, it made him an opponent Fate would rather avoid fighting. But if it ca to it, there was no way John could win.

“Rember that strange energy of his? I asked him about it, but he wouldn’t tell anything. He did say this, though. When I asked him who would win, or him, he said he would probably lose. But.”

The Mystic looked up at Fate, her playful voice turning dead serious.

“He said sothing about… not being able to lose.” Kit looked at Fate. “I don’t think he was bluffing or joking. He wasn’t talking as if he had so secret weapon or hidden strength. It was as if he were stating a fact. As if the world itself would never let him lose.”

Fate shuddered. He’d sowhat forgotten about John’s strange energy. His arsenal of weapons. His strange ability to wield modern tech from Earth. His drugs, his mysterious capability to fight when needed. Sohow, the energy from the Cave of Trials had been forgotten. But now, it was being brought up again.

What kind of energy overpowered the very nature of the world? What could possibly eliminate the possibility of losing? That statent went against all logic. From what Fate knew, even Celestia, the goddess of the world, was not all-powerful. She had restrictions. Theoretically, soone who could handle as much mana as she could defeat the creator of life as they knew it.

So why was John so confident?

~~~

“Fate would win against , every ti,” John told Prota.

“...why?”

“Prota, did I not go over this? He’s the [Protagonist]. He’s supposed to win.”

John was saying that, but he was also thinking about what Zero had told him. The power of an [Anomaly]. That he might be more in charge of his actions than he thought. He shook his head. Best not to think about that for now.

“Regardless, Fate’s going to grow a lot more,” John told Prota as he fell into his bed. “Monstrously so.”

Prota nodded, but she felt a little down. She wanted to grow, too. Why did Fate get all of this? What did being the [Protagonist] an? Why couldn’t she be one?

“You don’t want to be a [Protagonist], Prota. At least, probably not in this kind of story.”

Prota looked over at John. He spoke as if he’d read her thoughts.

“Fate probably has his own story, just like how you have yours. Prota. Being the [Protagonist] isn’t all that.”

Prota was confused. Who wouldn’t want to be the hero of a story?

“Prota. Would you recomnd soone to go through your past, just to gain your power?”

She shook her head. Why should anyone go through what she went through?

“Being the [Protagonist] entails trauma. We have these things we call “OP MCs,” and those really aren’t that good. They’re fun, I guess. But, like, they also kinda suck? Good stories have developnt. All that power is never free, Prota. It usually cos with a lot of pain.”

Prota nodded, but the feeling of jealousy couldn’t just disappear. The facts were there, but she was also seeing the large difference in power between herself and Fate, and that was a lot harder to ignore.

“You don’t need to worry about being stronger or weaker than Fate, ok?”

Prota looked up at John.

“You’re strong. That’s all that matters.”

Right. She wasn’t weak. She was getting stronger. But it was so easy to forget. So easy to relapse into a feeling of desperation.

When would she climb out of the pits?

“Co on, let’s go to sleep. I’m tired,” he sighed, falling onto his bed.

“John didn’t do anything today.”

“Yeah, that took a lot of effort. Co on, you’ve gotta be tired too, right? Let’s sleep.”

Prota nodded and put her head on her pillow, but she couldn’t sleep. She could tell John wasn’t sleeping either, but that didn’t worry her. She suspected he was talking to Zero based on the way he shifted, but that was between them.

Growing stronger. Being strong. Despite all the talks they’d had about it, she still didn’t know. What did it an? Why was she so obsessed with it?

With one more thing to worry about, she closed her eyes and eventually fell asleep.