VOLUME 3
Chapter 2: Part 2
I’m really not sure if I was able to cheer her up or not, but Sera told me, “I’m all right. I apologize for making you worry” and tied her hair back up into a ponytail, so I went back to my own room.
I saw Haruna on top of my bed, deeply absorbed in a strange book with the t.i.tle “Knock Your Target Out with One Blow!” And the minute she saw me…
“Let’s get started now!” she said, lifting away a few sheets from the futon.
It seemed that when you learned magic, there were certain formalities that had to be taken, so I did as I was told and waited for Haruna to finish her preparations… But something just didn’t make sense to me.
“Haruna, can I be frank about something?”
Before I realized it, for some inexplicable reason I had been wrapped in the futon sheets, with only my right hand left sticking out.
“Hueh?”
“What’s the point of doing all this?”
“So we should start with light magic. Because it’s cool.”
Ah, she completely ignored me. Why did I look like a mummy who had just been disturbed from his sleep?
“Zombies don’t like light very mu-“
“Light Magic, ‘Gallant Pose’ is pretty nice, isn’t it?!” (1)
“Only heroes can use that magic, right?! Also, stop plagiarizing stuff from other works!”
“Ah, I see. Only heroes can use that. Well, let’s start with Light Magic, ‘Fist of the Sun’!” (2)
“That’s not magic! That’s martial arts! Though I guess calling it martial arts isn’t completely right…”
“All right! Let’s go steal some magical energy from fairies!”
“What do you have against fairies?!”
“I mean, even the Earth-bred Saiyan (2) forcibly collected power and then tried to destroy the planet that lent him that power. It’s not about having something against someone or anything, my dear Watson.”
“But I don’t intend to go off and destroy a planet. Also, my name is Aikawa Ayumu.”
“Listen, Ayumu. There’s a lot to magic. Fundamentally, magic is using the magical energy inside you to make things happen, but the magical energy in Ayumu is mine, so if you use it I’ll kill you. So we’ll borrow magical energy from another source. Chants are just like reading aloud the contracts you form with those other sources of magical energy, so they’re absolutely necessary.”
“So, we have to borrow magical energy from fairies… But are there seriously fairies in this world?”
“Well, when Michael Jackson goes ‘Ohh!’ and ‘Ahh!’, he’s borrowing magical energy from fairies.”
“That’s a magical incantation?!”
“Feels like he doesn’t realize it himself though.”
Maybe all those superhuman-ish people like Ichiro (3) were really using magic…
“So, first you learn the chant.”
Haruna first made a few weird noises that I couldn’t make head nor tails of, and then in the end…
“Shararararararaaaan!”
She thrust her arm out in front of her. What a crude-sounding chant…
“So yeah, it’s like that. You can whisper most of it, but the end should definitely get some force put into it. If you say it all loudly, though, your opponent will know what kind of magic you’re going to use, so be careful.”
Her lecture having ended, I quickly began to mumble, and then,
“Sharararararaaaan.”
Swish. I held out my hand, and sweat oozed out onto my palm… That’s digusting.
What the h.e.l.l was that? Did the magic work? It was all slimy…
Huh? It kinda smelled nice. Almost like fish broth or something…
“Idiot! You left out one of the ‘ra’s! That changes the meaning of the incantation!”
“What did that incantation mean, then…?”
I wiped the sweat-like substance in my right hand on the sheets.
“Hueh? Umm, well…”
–
”Excuse me, could I add on an order of butajiru?” (4)
”Huh? Brazil?”
”No, butajiru.”
”…Brazil?”
”No, just give me some tonjiru.” (4)
”Ah! I apologize. My ears are a bit bad.”
”No, I apologize too for making it difficult to understand.”
So, one order of kenchinjiru! (5)
”………………. Okay, fine.”
–
“That’s what that chant meant.”
“That’s almost like a true story! That’s really nonfiction for a chant!”
“Shut up! This happened because Ayumu messed up!”
So the stuff that oozed out onto my hand was kenchinjiru…
“So what was it supposed to mean then?!”
“Hueh? Umm, let’s see… ‘You, take that which is called the Blue Flame-‘”
“Wait, wait! That first part is completely different! There’s that much of a difference from just one ‘ra’?!”
“Of course! For example, in j.a.panese, ‘chauchau’ and ‘chaunchau’ have only one letter different but they mean completely different things!” (6)
W-what persuasive power she has!
“Also, don’t I have to have my masou renki before using magic?”
“This isn’t attack magic.”
I see. If it wasn’t attack magic, I could use it without having the masou renki. Hm? So could I become a magician now? A magician who could make kenchinjiru ooze out onto his hands?
That didn’t sound like something to be proud of at all. But, seriously, to think that changing one syllable could make the outcome so different…
“Well, what happens if I leave out another ‘ra’?”
“Hm, why don’t you try?”
I didn’t want to chant that crude chant too loudly, so I began to mumble again, and in the end I spoke a bit more loudly.
“Shararararaaaan.”
Light began to sparkle from both my hands. The minute I looked at that dazzling light, I realized that it was sunlight… And at the same time, I lost consciousness.
F-Fist of the Sun?!
TRANSLATOR’S NOTES
(1) A spell from Magical Circle Guru Guru, a pretty old manga. Can only be used by someone in the Hero cla.s.s.
(2) Dragonball reference.
(3) j.a.panese baseball player. Probably the most famous j.a.panese baseball player ever.
(4) Pork soup. I left it in j.a.panese so the following puns would actually make sense. Tonjiru (which shows up a bit later) also means pork soup.
(5) Vegetable and tofu soup.
(6) I decided not to localize this. Chauchau is just slang for a dog, while “chaunchau” means “It’s wrong, isn’t it?” in Kansai dialect.