Savoring My Feelings

This is a boast, but I'm dexterous.

And this isn't a boast, but I'm slow on the uptake.

I take pride in my dexterity, and I don't feel ashamed of my elementary-school-level social skills, either—the result of having thoroughly avoided people throughout my life.

There have been times when I realized several days later that I'd caused a misunderstanding in a conversation and thought, Oh no, I screwed up! But I never felt any particular urge to work hard at improving. Once, my parents forced me into ballroom-dancing lessons as a drastic remedy, and after three days, I collapsed from the stress, had convulsions, and ended up in the hospital.

For me, it's best to remain just as I am.

However, when I received handmade chocolate from Hiyori on Valentine's Day this year, I summoned every last scrap of my pathetic social ability and thought deeply about what the chocolate meant. I had no choice but to think about it.

Because this was strange.

Hiyori was my best friend. Before the world collapsed, I would have given her at least some friend chocolate on Valentine's Day. Chocolate was delicious, after all. When the supermarket and convenience-store shelves were lined with it, I couldn't help wanting to buy some.

But now the world had fallen apart. Chocolate manufactured in the old era had been completely consumed long ago.

If I wanted to get chocolate now, I would have to rely on a tenuous overseas trade route dependent on American steamships, acquire cocoa beans using an eye-wateringly huge amount of money, and call on powerful, well-connected acquaintances willing to grant a personal favor.

Chocolate was the most luxurious of luxury goods. It wasn't something you could get easily.

In fact, I'd heard that the culture of giving chocolate had died out in Tokyo, replaced by giving cookies and colored dumplings. It was an obvious change, adapting to the times.

And yet Hiyori had given me chocolate.

She had spent a stupid amount of money, time, and effort making heart-shaped chocolate for me.

There was no way this could be friend chocolate or obligatory chocolate, no matter how you looked at it. She had put far too much effort into a mere seasonal gift.

This was strange. It was an obvious fact that even my utterly ruined communication skills could decipher.

So what did Hiyori's chocolate mean?

I read through Valentine's Day scenes in manga and novels, analyzed the examples, and deciphered the meaning of chocolate.

What I learned was that it apparently meant a confession.

Of course, manga and novels were fiction. I wasn't so strange that I would confuse fiction with reality.

I was suspicious of the Valentine's Day couple features I'd occasionally seen on television, too. I knew perfectly well that television often cut out and distorted parts of the truth when reporting them.

But countless pieces of information were all saying in unison, "That's a confession."

At a loss, I invited Professor Dainichinata Kei, Supergirl, the ultimate representative of the light-side extroverts, to my home. She possessed a million times my communication skills. I showed her the chocolate, explained the circumstances, and asked her opinion.

"――――So, I'm wondering if this is a confession. What do you think, Professor?"

When I asked, the stoat, who had been listening with a huge smile, replied excitedly.

"Before I answer, please tell me how you felt, Oori-san. What did you think when you received the chocolate?"

"I was happy."

"Were you happy because it was chocolate? Or because you received it from Blue-san?"

"Huh? Um... Both...?"

I couldn't follow her line of thought. But this was probably something like a medical interview.

I straightened my posture and answered whatever she asked, and the stoat thought for a moment before speaking.

"Hmm. Could you lend me that chocolate for a moment? Is that all right? Thank you."

"Let's pretend for a moment that today is Valentine's Day. All right, I've come here carrying chocolate. Here you go, Oori-san. Valentine's chocolate."

"Oh, thanks."

"You're welcome. Now, please recall how you feel right now and compare it with how you felt when you received it from Blue-san."

"............Hmm? Something... Hmm? I did get the same thing from both of you, right? But somehow... when I got it from Hiyori, I remember feeling a flutter around here in my chest. Getting yours just made me happy, plain and simple."

When I answered, Professor Dainichinata smiled even more broadly.

Then, using practical examples, the professor spent a full hour giving me a thorough and careful lecture on ordinary human sensibilities, communication, and the meaning of exchanges under particular conditions.

After finishing her clear but intensive lecture, the professor gave me a final question to conclude the lesson.

"So, Oori-san. Considering everything I've explained, please think about this. What did the chocolate you received from Blue-san mean?"

"A-a confession...?"

Professor Dainichinata enthusiastically thumped her forepaws together and applauded my answer.

I did it. But did that applause mean I was right? You can't tell from applause alone.

"But what was it, in the end? Was it a confession or not? Tell me the correct answer."

"No, I can't tell you. The only person who knows the correct answer is Blue-san. Do you want to ask her directly?"

"No, that...! Somehow, that wouldn't be right. It's embarrassing."

"Exactly. That's what happens. That is what romantic feelings are. If you thought this was a confession, return some of your feelings to her, whether with an object or with words. Not because you have to, but because you want to."

"Hmm..."

I folded my arms and thought. Return a present in kind. Yeah, that made sense.

"Asking, 'Was this a confession?' would be understandable coming from you, Oori-san, but I can't really recommend it. If this were a game of catch, it would be like catching the ball the other person threw, walking over to them, and handing it back. It isn't very smooth, is it?"

"Ah, yeah. It would feel like she was thinking, 'Can't you read the mood?'"

"!? You understand? What wonderful growth! I have nothing more to say. With things like this, it would be wrong for me to tell you exactly what to do. I can offer advice, but in the end, you have to think for yourself and act on your own feelings. Do your best."

The stoat patted my shoulder in encouragement as I agonized over the matter, then went home with a light step.

I was deeply grateful to the stoat for coming all the way over just to answer my question.

But hmm. This had become a problem. If this wasn't a confession, then I would be a clown for assuming it was one and replying accordingly.

...No, I see. So that's why the protagonists of romantic manga spend their entire lives fidgeting over confessions and dating. You can't know what the other person is feeling. I get it now.

After being nursed by Professor Dainichinata to Romance Level 1 at last—or so I thought—figuring out how to return the favor for Hiyori's Valentine's chocolate was a difficult question.

Would saying, "I accept your feelings. Let's date," really start a relationship between a man and a woman? This was far beyond my experience. If I learned how to row a little boat and immediately sailed into the Bermuda Triangle, I'd be shipwrecked!

For now, I decided that Hiyori's chocolate had been a confession.

I was happy to have someone confess their feelings to me. If a stranger told me they liked me, I would get goosebumps, and if the Spider Witch or the professor told me they liked me, I'd feel more or less indifferent. But when I imagined Hiyori telling me she liked me, I felt warm and fluffy inside, and it made me happy.

...It sounds like an elementary-school romance. Even to me. But if cheating, adultery, and two-timing were what adult romance was about, then I was perfectly happy to remain an elementary-schooler forever.

The professor had said, "Return some of your feelings to her."

Returning them with chocolate would be practically impossible, so I would return them in the way I could.

In other words, with a magic wand. The best return gift I could give was a wand.

My usual upgrades to Cuanos consisted of taking it back, improving its functions, and handing it back again.

This time, I would put my feelings into it.

Thinking about what came after a confession made my insides crawl and threatened to drive me insane. For now, I would make a wand and return my feelings! That would settle the matter of Hiyori's confession for the time being.

Once I'd decided that, there was no time to waste. I immediately began drawing the blueprints for improving Cuanos.

For this upgrade, I would use the knowledge gained from Prototype Satan Wand Reficle to expand the incantationless mechanism and secure a free-design space for magic circuits controlled through magical-power manipulation. The design concept was to fill the gaps in the multilayered structure—spaces that had previously been filled with resin—with the incantationless mechanism.

This was, of course, based on theory, but it was closer to a geometric puzzle. It was like being given the problem, "Use a limited variety and number of geometric parts to create one large three-dimensional geometric figure." Since I couldn't perfectly understand the theory, I filled in the holes in it through geometric deduction and solved the problem that way.

If this incantationless-magic expansion mechanism worked properly, Hiyori should be able to use magical-power control to reconfigure the circuits in Cuanos's core on the fly, constructing and activating a variety of original incantationless spells on the spot.

If the incantationless mechanism of the Satan Wand was like saying, "I can do one plus one!" then Cuanos was more like saying, "I can do the four basic arithmetic operations with numbers up to two digits!" That was the difference between them.

Naturally, it would require extremely complex magical-power manipulation, so she would have difficulty until she got used to it.

It would take an overwhelming amount of trial and error before she could activate the magic with the effects she wanted.

But Hiyori was exceptionally skilled at magical-power manipulation, so I was sure she would master it.

Cuanos was a wand only Hiyori could master—a wand made exclusively for Hiyori.

It was like my child, a wand I'd been repeatedly improving for six years, so I didn't want anyone but Hiyori to use it. I wanted it to always be the strongest wand, and I wanted Hiyori to carry it.

After drawing the blueprints, I went over them repeatedly, checking for any flaws.

Ideally, I would have had someone perform a double-check or even a triple-check, but at present, I was the only person who understood the incantationless-magic mechanism of magic wands.

I had given Professor Kvant notes and actual disassembled parts, but the notes had been written so that only I could understand them in the first place, so apparently he was having trouble deciphering them. A huge pile of questions sent through Professor Dainichinata had accumulated. Sorry about that.

But from my perspective, if I had time to write replies to Professor Kvant's letters and lecture him, I'd rather spend that effort improving Cuanos or continuing the disassembly.

After all, even I, the one performing the disassembly and analysis, didn't understand the full picture of Demon King Gremlin. Many of the questions amounted to, "I wish I knew that myself."

Improve Cuanos.

Finish the disassembly.

Answer Professor Kvant's questions.

Begin reproducing the technology and investigating its principles.

That was the order in which I wanted to proceed.

I prepared every part I needed according to the blueprints, then called Hiyori and took custody of Cuanos.

Then I removed the resin filling the gaps inside the core. In its place, I inserted parts with a curved needle and a special ultrafine pair of tweezers, assembling them inside. It was like Bottle Ship Level 100.

However, the parts were relatively large—one to three millimeters—so I had no particular difficulty and assembled them smoothly. There were a lot of parts, so it took time, but the entire upgrade was finished in half a day.

I stood before Cuanos, sitting on the workshop workbench after yet another improvement, and thought.

Hmm. All that remained was to put my feelings into it and return it to Hiyori.

After thinking for a while, I placed a hand over my chest, gathered my feelings, and gently pressed it against Cuanos, sealing my feelings inside.

Good. This should have feelings in it now.

I infused Cuanos with the same warm, fluffy sensation I felt when eating Hiyori's cooking, receiving a present from her, or having her press her shoulder against mine.

This is right, isn't it...? There were even sayings such as "a present filled with feeling" and "cooking made with love." Feelings should be a concept that can be enchanted.

My Skill was far too immature for me to tell whether I'd properly infused it with my feelings, but Hiyori was a high-level user capable of conveying her feelings to me. She should be able to identify the feelings I'd put into Cuanos without any trouble.

I named it the Dragon-Furnace-Carved Seven-Layer Blue Magic Wand Cuanos—With Oori's Feelings Added.

I hoped Hiyori would like it.

Hiyori, who had been waiting idly in the living room while polishing her mask with a cloth, swiftly put on the mask and stood when I brought Cuanos to her.

"Is it done?"

"Yeah. Try holding it. I made some changes to the handle as well as the core, but the overall balance shouldn't have changed."

Hiyori took Cuanos and swung it lightly, creating a whirlwind, then nodded.

"It feels good. What changed? I sense something in the core—something like magical power... How should I put it...? What is this? I feel something resembling an inlet for magical power."

"Oh, you can tell that much? Then this will be easy to explain. You can still use incantation-based magic just as before, but when you use incantationless magic, pour magical power in through there."

"This time, I incorporated an advanced version of the incantationless mechanism from my Prototype Satan Wand Reficle, which I showed you before."

"Basically, it's like a calculator. A calculator by itself is meaningless. But if you enter the right numbers, it will return the correct answer. If you input magical power correctly into the core through magical-power control, it can output the correct spell."

"I see..."

"The default circuit layout is set to the simplest black beam. I think it'll be easier to understand if you try it rather than listen to an explanation."

Hiyori and I went out to the backyard together.

Some scorched iron toys that the fire lizards had left scattered around were lying there, so I cleaned them up. Then, being absurdly overprotective, I watched the test run from inside a defensive spell Hiyori had cast, safely enclosed so no stray magic would come flying my way.

First, a black beam shot silently from the Cuanos Hiyori had raised. It was far more powerful than the shot I'd fired with the prototype magic wand, slicing the target hanging from a tree branch clean in half.

Then she replaced the target with a scarecrow covered in a high-strength bark armor Fuyou had created and began pummeling it at a terrifying rate of fire.

Damn, this is crazy. Black beams are coming out at about ten a second. It's practically a machine gun.

Hiyori fired several hundred beams, reducing the scarecrow to tatters, then stopped shooting and stood motionless for a while.

After remaining still for a full three minutes, Hiyori let heavy white smoke pour from Cuanos, raising frost from the ground. Then she shook her head and ended the test run.

The defensive spell was dispelled, and I applauded.

"That's incredible. You've already mastered it. It's firing as rapidly as a magic circle, and you even used some kind of original magic, didn't you?"

"No. Any witch or wizard holding this wand could probably fire that rapidly. Its handling is worse than the Northern Witch's shooting-magic core spell, its consumption is heavier, and its power is lower. Being able to fire continuously without speaking is its strength, but... the cold smoke is almost no different from simply letting magical power leak out. It will take quite some time to master."

"Hmm. Is that so? And how did you like it?"

"It has good performance. I like it."

Hiyori praised it frankly, but somehow, that didn't feel quite right.

Hmm? Had I asked the question wrong?

"I made it with my feelings this time. What do you think?"

"Yeah. I think the craftsmanship is meticulous. Thank you as always. It makes me happy."

Being thanked filled me with a warm, fuzzy feeling.

I wasn't sure whether the feelings I'd enchanted into it had gotten through to her, but this was good enough.

I had accepted Hiyori's confession and given her my answer. Good!

As for dating, let's leave that until I've understood a little more about the subtleties of human relationships.

"It's nothing. Hiyori always takes care of me, so this much is nothing. And it's also to celebrate our sixth anniversary."

"...Hmm? What is? The Gremlin Disaster was seven years ago, and it's already been about another week."

"Huh? What are you talking about? Today is the sixth anniversary of the day I first met Hiyori."

I'd gone out of my way to finish it in time for our anniversary, but apparently Hiyori hadn't noticed.

When I corrected her misunderstanding, Hiyori froze as if she couldn't understand my words for a moment. Then she leaned back dramatically, so shocked that I could sense it even through her mask.

"Oori, you understand the concept of anniversaries...!? What happened all of a sudden? You startled me. You're talking like a person with normal sensibilities. More importantly, you remembered the date?"

"Of course I remembered. I nearly got killed, after all. But I don't care about that anymore."

"Gah! I-I mean, back then I was on edge and..."

I laughed at Hiyori, who was busy being surprised one moment and wilting the next.

We had both changed drastically over the six years since we'd met. If I'd told myself six years ago, "You'll come to enjoy spending time with the woman who had tried to kill you," I wouldn't have believed me. And Hiyori surely wouldn't have believed it if someone had told her, "You'll leave Ome, dote on a stoat, and give Valentine's chocolate to the man you had just tried to kill."

If we'd changed this much in six years, I couldn't even imagine what we would be like after another six.

Maybe... just maybe, six years from now, Hiyori and I might even end up kissing!

Eek! Just imagining it was embarrassing.

I was on the verge of panicking just imagining a kiss, yet couples and married people all over the world did things even more incredible than kissing. Reproduction was amazing. I couldn't imagine imitating them.

Well, there was no need for me to imitate them. I would grow closer to Hiyori at my own pace.

For now, I felt like treating Hiyori to her favorite food instead of one of my own specialties. I supposed I should start by asking what she liked to eat.