*
We must get this straight. The curse doesn't affect me like it did for my master. For them, I am a 'Lastia' without the curse. It was 10th September 11508, a little more than a month since the super satellite calamity's appearance.
Though the entity behind its operation is now eliminated, its corpse still floats around the earth due to its massive size. Humanity had perfected the mass harvesting of solar energy to the point that it developed a dependence, it would have been a problem due to the corpse blocking out the sky, but some of the light is still able to get through and there was an excess of energy stored.
Civilisation is still fine for the next few years, even at the decadent rate of consumption it sustained before. It automated the harvesting of crops, livestock and any resource humanity could think of, leading to an abundance that could prevent poverty. At the same time, the management of a global population count around 10 billion has been meticulously adjusted to consume at the same rate of harvest. There will always be some reserves of contingency plan built into the AI managing humanity, but at the very least things still didn't seem to dire despite the black sky.
It was like a night without stars. Some parts of the satellite even began to fell down the sky, pulled by inertia. It activated some of the old anti air or anti meteorite defence systems, prepared by the ancients in anticipation of catastrophe. Truly their wisdom was invaluable, the level of innovation and advancement couldn't be compared to the modernised stagnation plaguing civilisation in the present. No enemies, no scarcity, life spans are managed with precision by the same AI.
Putting past how the management of population numbers is public knowledge... It's Eterna, isn't it? The name of the AI. To put it into perspective, I am a distant 'possibility', a simulation of 'Lastia' with perfect memories. This is a 'possibility' where Lastia's information gathering isn't hindered by her curse, and therefore gained intel at an exponentially faster rate as time passed. Hypothesis can be formed, and they can be verified over the course of multiple days. It took more than a month of effort, but... This was the big conclusion that I arrived at.
The garden of Eterna... It's calculated to be referring to civilisation. As Yggdrasil's simulation, my computational power was vastly superior to Lastia's, I've been helping her with rapid spell casting and parameter manipulation after all... Every detail of her magic was ran through the algorithm that is me. Currently I inhabit her corpse, and due to the properties of magic, it's like a tough immortal shell that's good at conducting magic. Even in the worse case it couldn't handle higher than A grade magic, I could cast my spells externally with spontaneously formed external circuits.
Magical energy forms the language that the universe speaks, creating out of nothing like how the universe came to be. Or at least it shared a similar origin, magic is a concept that ran parallel to the big bang and matter expansion, unrelated but similar. Like borrowing the powers from another universe, or one could say magic in itself is another universe. That's why it so easily messes with time, space, law of energy conservation and other commonly violated laws.
It was like asserting one's own world onto the present reality, controlled by the magical girl's will. Density and quantity is all that's needed to cast '******** *****', an A grade technique that supercedes the world with one's own palace. Unfortunately there's some odd law here preventing that technique from taking form, likely related to Eterna. It's a super common magic spell in high fantasy fiction, to create one's own territory and paint it over the surroundings.
It's odd that in this era, Eterna has forbid the use of this technique. It shouldn't affect her in any way...
In any case, magical energy speaks the language that codes reality. Codes comes together to form techniques, techniques coalesce and attain life after achieving a certain level of complexity. That is my existence, or my core component. Now that I possess Lastia's corpse, it isn't exactly clear what I am anymore. I could abandon it, but... No, let's not go there. Putting the cart before the horse for what could amount to an endless journey now isn't smart.
My mission... I suppose, is to look for miracles. Specifically one that brings back the dead. It's not something I can do much about at the current moment. I had assumed diving into Eterna's matters would bring me closer to my goal, but simply finding out the name of our real president obviously wouldn't yield anything important.
"... I know it isn't my place to question, but why are you still investigating?
You beat the satellite calamity and cured your curse in that moment, right? No one would blame you if you prioritised a safe life of normalcy and retired as a magical girl. " (Sariel).
She spoke with a tinge of awkwardness, her voice fell a little as if she couldn't muster confidence. Rather it must feel like there was a lump stuck in her throat, never able to settle the worries in her heart. In that battle with her, her ego must have been crushed. She couldn't defeat Lastia who was a newbie. Yggdrasil was far stronger, it wouldn't be a good idea to fight each other again... She might lose her confidence forever.
As things stood, their relationship stood on a thin thread. Any weight would easily snap it.
"Haa~" (Lastia)
She sighed as she moved her butt to sit on Sariel's table. It was lunchbreak and she was updating Sariel and Arin on her latest shenanigans. She didn't bother to hide her activities, but the fact that Lastia died was not revealed. It has been a month, and so far there was absolutely no issues with Yggdrasil's integration. It was convenient for her, sure, but she began to get worried about how her master dealt with daily life. Interaction with her classmates was so minimal in the first place, that Yggdrasil didn't have to put in much effort to blend in.
Stretching over her left hand, she cupped Sariel's cheek in her palm. A hazy warmth spreads across her fingers that isn't present on her face. Arin noted that her eyes were way more relaxed than before, though it's more like she didn't know how to muster the energy of an outgoing person. This poker face was much more comfortable to settle in.
"Did you want me to retire so you could be the strongest?
Just accept that I am a strange case, even Taneda would have trouble dealing with me, you know?" (Lastia)
"Fufu... Don't tease her too much, Tia." (Arin)
A chuckle slips out as Lastia's gaze was drawn to her.