Robin took a deep breath, nodded, and dropped into her seat. She sighed with pleasure from the comfortable support, and started using the kinetics to clear the trees in front of us. Or tried to. There wasn't any ammo yet.
"Use the Suckerball on the dragon mountains!" I called to her. "They're too big to find the ball easily, and we should be able to kill them in an hour with enough hits. Once we get going, the ammo banks will fill right up and you can use the kinetics."
"Aye!" she called back. Moments later I heard the thoomp thoomp crack of the Suckerball on automatic. I looked inside at the Hero core and swallowed. There was twice as much energy there as we had when Robin pulled the sword out. The monsters we had defeated were potent, but they didn't have that much with them! I watched the amount rise, even more than what was coming in from the Suckerball. This was unexpected.
I started driving through the forest, knocking trees down and filling the kinetics' ammo banks with the shrubbery we ran over. When Robin noticed that, she laid off the Suckerball, and started firing the kinetics. There were satisfying booms, cracks, and pings as trees exploded and the shrapnel bounced off the armor.
"So you said you were going to explain everything," Robin yelled back to me over the noise. Blast, I need to install a soundproofer.
I checked my mini map and turned towards a nearby cluster of goblins. "Goblins ahead! What do they teach you about mana, qi, and theology? I have my own theories based on what I've seen the past, what is it? four days since my summoning and apotheosis, but I want a comparison to established thought."
While asking, I worked on a soundproofing enchantment. It would stop any vibrations from passing through the defined perimeter of the crew compartment, and would toggle on and off via a switch on both our boards. For funsies, I attached a mental tag to the switch so that Robin would just know its function without having to ask. I switched it on once the circuit was completed.
Robin yelped in surprise when the switch appeared and all outside sound abruptly ceased. "Thanks! So I wasn't taught much about qi. Something about it being useful for body enhancement, but no one around here knows how to use it anymore. I only found out that much when I was searching for cures to my illness. Have I expressed how grateful I feel for you curing me and taking me along?"
I grinned and tossed her a beer. "You can thank me again at the next break we take. How's this taste?" I had based it off a memory when I had sneaked a bottle of my dad's after my eighteenth birthday party.
She deftly caught it and took a sip. "That tastes amazing! Is it supposed to be beer? It's a little fruitier and sweeter than I remember."
"Yes. The maker is Smirnoff. You can blame my dad and his immense sweet tooth. That's the only beer I've ever tasted, so it's the only one I can create." I felt like I lost some manliness points with her. Too bad. I'd inherited my father's sweet tooth.
There was an awkward pause as Robin waited for me to elaborate, and then realized she needed to finish first.
"Anyways," she continued. "I know mana is some sort of energy that floats around that we not only can tap into, but produce. Never really gave much thought as to how. It comes in different flavors? alignments? and will respond better to a person who resonates with the specific type better. My alignment is physicality, and I personally use mana for body strengthening. It's the only reason I was able to stay active and fit with a bad heart, and the only reason I've been able to win the battles until now. There's apparently a multiplication factor when I use it on top of the strengthening I received from the Hero gifts already." So a Sword Hero through and through. I like this girl even more now. The femininity of using swords, not guns!
Swords require grace and precision. Guns require aiming and laughing maniacally. Which reminded me that I wanted to gun things down. Maybe I should ask Robin to drive after our shmooze.
I tossed her another beer. Yes, they are real beers! It even says so on the label! I took a swig of my own and sighed in contentment. Sweet fruity alcohol, with some sour notes. Good stuff.
We reached the goblins. Robin shot each of them in the knees, and I ran over them all. "Strike," I yelled, showing Robin the context mentally. Psychic powers are useful for getting other people to enjoy your jokes.
"Slimes next!" I called to Robin.
"Won't they just swallow us entirely?" she yelled back in panic.
I thought about that. "Nah, blast them with the Suckerball. Anything too small to be hit with it will get fed to the blender! What were you told about gods and becoming a god?"
There was silence for a moment. "You can become a god!?" she shrieked. "I know. I'll finish quickly so you can explain yourself. We are taught there is the god of Preservation who sends the Hero and keeps the world going, and a gos of destruction who wishes to end the world through his monsters and his emissary the Demon King."
I nodded. "Interesting. You natives seem to have made up your own god of monsters. If he exists, he's not an official administrator. Spagetti, who you call the god of Preservation, does not share this world with any other deity."
I spotted a several pulsating masses fifty to sixty feet high before us. "Blast them, Robin!" There was the distinctive thoomp thoomp crack of the Suckerball and a spray of space warping projectiles. The slimes screamed with high pitched wails incongruous with their size until I realized that the screams were all mental. They were gone, absorbed in an extremely fast manner by twenty Suckerballs. It was made even easier by the fact that slimes were just liquid mana.
"There's a sucker born every minute," I quoted, once more showing the mental context to Robin. Best power ever! I like my jokes being understood, even though Robin did groan and feel like crying. Ok, maybe I should explain rather than just make awesome puns.
First though, another beer for both of us. It's easier to ruminate on the nature of the universe with some alcohol, even if one is unaffected by alcohol poisoning.
"In the beginning, I think there was nothing. Just nonexistence. The thing is, nonexistence means that there is the possibility for existence to be, otherwise how could something not exist if there was nothing to exist in the first place?" I watched Robin's thoughts turn in dizzying circles, trying to follow the logic. I was trying to describe the indescribable, so this was as good as she would get.
We reached a mixed group of giants and beastmen this time. I saw the beastmens' heads start exploding and quickly deactivated the soundproofing so that Robin could bask in the therapeutic explosions. I ran over the surviving giants after she headshot them. Turns out they have skulls thick enough to not explode when struck by only one kinetic slug. I'll have to upgrade the guns if this turns into too much of a problem.
"Anyways, for something to exist, it needs definition, boundaries. There is also an in between state that's possible to glimpse at where the possibilities are all there but there is no set definition and the existence has not become reality. Let's call these concepts? states? Void, Order, and Chaos."
Poor Robin. While the enhancements had hit level thirty five by now, with a corresponding rise in her intelligence and wisdom, she wasn't used to thinking in such abstract concepts. I took pity and mentally showed her my mental concept images. After seeing that her mental processes were now figuratively gaining traction once more, I continued.
"I was able to perceive and access the state of Chaos and become it enough to change my personal Order to become a god, lower case g. This happened when I punched this world's deity out of his domain and got him stuck in this world. It turned out that his domain existed at the very edge of Possibility, or Chaos."
Robin said nothing, but I felt her growing need for violence. We neared a massive grouping of monsters of what System counted as four thousand two hundred fourteen.. There was also another new monster there. No, not a monster, this was a demon. She looked human, but with horns and a tail. She was quite a dresser too, in a long evening gown and expensive looking jewelry. Either she was a long range type or tried to win close encounters in an unconventional manner.
I needed an AoE attack, or we'd be here all day. Sighing, I unstrapped from the driver's seat. "This will be faster to clean up personally, Robin. You coming?"
She grinned fiercely and retrieved her Sword from under her seat. "About time. I've been needing some up close and personal violence." Such a girl. That femininity of hers really made me want to take a quick time out. Maybe after the slaughter.
I pulled out my guns from my carrier bag. Time to screw up that demon's day!