Chapter 76: The Paths of Quantimana
Setting out to find Aria, she came across her in one of the corridors, in Kaguya’s company.
And once again she discovered something absolutely spectacular, since Quantimana of violet and black were detaching themselves from the mists of mana to come drifting around the dragon, winding slowly along her arms and her horns before spiraling away behind her, as though the air itself had decided to follow her.
The same phenomenon was occurring around Aria, except that the Quantimana surrounding her were a deep gold, so dense in places that they formed genuine luminous filaments running around her silhouette before dissolving back into the general mist.
Before Freya could say anything at all, the demon turned toward her.
"Oh~ oh~ oh~ It seems you’ve grown a great deal stronger, madam! You can finally see them, can’t you?"
"Yes... yes..." Freya answered, still thoroughly distracted by what was unfolding in front of her eyes.
Aria, seeing perfectly well that her mistress’s gaze was following those movements rather than her own, began explaining without being asked.
"In case you’re wondering, the violet and black ones represent space-time, from which you can conclude that Kaguya’s preferred domain is that one."
And if her law affects Nymeria, is that what explains its size underground? Would Nymeria be reduced to a simple cave without Kaguya?
But Freya’s gaze wandered off once more into the golden mist, making her forget her own line of reasoning entirely.
"And what about the gold?!"
Already thoroughly excited, she had practically pounced on Aria, her eyes full of anticipation at the thought of finally getting answers to her questions.
"Knowledge."
"A magnificent color for a magnificent woman, if you want my opinion."
Then Freya, smiling and delighted by everything this new world was offering her to see, began turning on the spot while running her hand through the mist, which responded at once by climbing up her arm and then across her whole body, dozens of different colors clinging to her skin before scattering around her again.
"And why don’t I have a color around me like the two of you?"
"Favorability, madam!"
So that was it?
Kaguya nodded beside them as though she understood perfectly, which Freya very seriously doubted.
Aria carried on.
"And what you’re doing right now is affinity!"
"Aaah~ I see~ So that’s the difference! But then I was wondering, is mana some kind of living entity, to be granting favorability?"
Aria unfolded her hands in front of her and lifted her chin slightly, wearing the very particular expression of someone who had been waiting on precisely that question.
"An excellent question, madam. Unfortunately I have no reliable information on the subject, only theories, hypotheses, that sort of thing, put forward by people who’ve studied Quantimana over the ages."
"Tell me! Please! Please!"
And so Aria explained that for some, mana was nothing other than the representation of the world’s own will, or else that of a cosmic entity whose nature nobody had ever managed to establish, while for others, these flows constituted the branches of a world tree linking several different worlds together.
That last theory immediately became Freya’s favorite, and she found it utterly lovely, picturing an enormous tree bearing an entire world at the tip of each of its branches, all of them connected to one another by these paths of mana flowing between them without ever stopping.
It’s... it’s beautiful.
Then came an entire series of increasingly outlandish theories, which Aria listed one by one with the utmost seriousness, until the girls, Kaguya included, ended up bursting out laughing together and sharing the moment.
Aria finally concluded by offering her own view, namely that Quantimana itself was almost certainly not alive, but that it very probably constituted the will, taken as a whole, of something, or even of several things at once.
And that its favorability was therefore not to be understood on an individual level but in the broadest sense, exactly like affinity.
Freya then asked.
"It’s written in the description of my title that I have favorability from Quantimana, so why doesn’t it do the same for me as it does for you?"
Aria scratched her cheek, visibly searching for the most delicate way to phrase her answer, while Kaguya, considerably more direct, threw both arms up and bounced on the spot.
"Because the favorability toward you is weak, obviously!"
Ah. So that’s why Aria was treading so carefully...
"...I see."
Aria, seeing her mistress deflate, pressed on at once.
"It’s like that for most people, you know. Kaguya and I are exceptions."
Obviously! Why didn’t I think of that?
Freya perked back up somewhat, telling herself her case wasn’t hopeless after all, while Aria added.
"Mana, and Quantimana by extension, follow the path that all the theories talk about, and depending simply on the strength of your favorability, they can be diverted from those paths to come to a person. As though the established order of following the flow were quite simply replaced by the order of coming to you."
"Aaaah yes! It all makes sense now!"
She continued.
"For ordinary entities, like Laïa for instance, it’s merely a handful of Quantimana that detach from the flow to reach her, a very small quantity, and that’s how she has access to her pink flames."
Freya seemed to grasp something, and asked purely to confirm it.
"So practicing the same magic over and over increases the favorability of that type of Quantimana toward you?"
"Yes! You’ve understood perfectly, madam. And that is exactly what’s called ’growing your mana reserves’ in the parlance of ordinary people, when in reality it’s simply your favorability increasing, which allows you to attract more of your type of Quantimana and therefore to use far more of it."
She went on without pausing.
"Because once mana has been used, it doesn’t disappear, it simply returns to the flow it came from, which creates a permanent loop. You’re surrounded by your particles, you consume them, you end up emptied, and they eventually come back to you because your favorability hasn’t changed at all. Which is why, to people who know nothing of Quantimana, it feels like a reserve emptying and then filling back up."
Freya’s eyes widened at that, because how different could the workings of mana possibly be from what everyone imagined, how complex was all of this really, and above all why had she never taken the time to think seriously about any of it before?
Then she remembered that she had, once, on the day she was resting in the river.
The number of questions surged again all at once, but she forced herself to ask them in order so as not to lose the thread.
"I have affinity and favorability with Quantimana, and also a skill for controlling it. What does that actually mean?"
"It means you control the flow."
At that answer, Freya felt her legs give out beneath her and her hand shot straight to the wall beside her to hold herself up.
Her breathing turned audible, her gaze dropped to the floor while her magnificent white hair hung all around her head and cut her off from the entire world, rather like Mei’s helm whenever she withdrew into her own shyness.
The flow.
The flow that had been running through this world since the beginning of time, those magnificent mists holding billions upon billions of Quantimana, the very ones which, according to the theories, linked the worlds together and a great deal more besides. Those billions of particles that had been following a path laid down since forever could be contested? And by her?
Well, contested was putting it mildly, since she could outright control it.
She forced herself to stay upright as best she could, her brain running hotter than usual, images layering over one another at a speed she could no longer follow, and as she felt the floor drifting slightly away beneath her feet—
A cold touch against the back of her neck pulled her straight out of her trance.
She lifted her head and felt it immediately, her face was soaked with sweat, her hair sticking to her forehead and her temples.
She looked up toward whatever had caused that contact and found Aria holding an ice cube between her fingers, surrounded in passing by Quantimana of a very pale blue, almost white.
But before she could study them any further, Aria’s hand slid beneath her chin to lift her face, and—
Aria kissed her.
A tender kiss, with no urgency at all, her lips simply settling onto Freya’s and staying there as long as they needed to, her free hand sliding against her damp cheek to hold her gently in place, her thumb passing back and forth beneath her eye as though wiping away the exhaustion that had settled there.
Freya felt her breathing slow almost immediately, without having decided anything at all, and her fingers eventually let go of the wall to take hold of the fabric at Aria’s waist.
They stayed like that a moment, forehead against forehead once their lips had parted, the demon keeping her eyes fixed on hers before murmuring in a soft, warm voice.
"Freya, that obsessive side of yours can be dangerous sometimes. That’s already a great deal of information, don’t you think?"
She pushed a strand stuck to her temple back behind her ear.
"Perhaps you should let your mind rest a little."
"...But—"
"No buts."
She shook her head gently, without ever letting go of her.
"You told me yourself not to let our mistress-and-servant arrangement get in the way, and to guide you when it was needed, so I’m telling you, that’s enough for now. We’ll talk about the rest later, for the moment let your mind rest by doing something else, and calm down a little, please."
She smiled warmly, an absolutely beautiful smile, stroking Freya’s cheek with her fingertips.
"All right?"
I see...
Freya understood that she had gone far too far, that she had let herself be entirely swallowed up by the information, and that she had worked herself into a deplorable state through wanting to take in more and more of it, always demanding more, always—
And it was at precisely that moment that she saw it in her field of vision.
[ Word of Greed skill activated. ]
So I was so captivated by all of it, wanting more and more, that I didn’t even notice the notification and let myself be devoured by my own greed?
Pathetic, Freya.
She brought her hand up over Aria’s, still resting against her cheek, and kept it there a moment without saying anything, simply closing her eyes.
"I’m sorry for worrying you, Aria. Thank you for taking care of me."
"Always."
Freya opened her eyes again at that single word, then leaned in to kiss her in turn, more gently still than the first time, before setting off back toward her throne, understanding that it was quite enough information for now, and determined to pick up the expansion of her dungeon right where she had left off.