***(Paridia)
When I went through the door that said I could continue fighting, I arrived in a rather empty and open space. The skies and ground were grey like a blank canvas awaiting to be dyed in colours.
For now, I blast a flood of blue light at the magical girl in the distance. [Noble Vapour beam].
Locks of pale cyan shook under the residual shock waves of the magic blast. She wore the signature uniform of the arc maidens, one that vaguely resembled a miko outfit but is left open, more akin to a rather extravagant code that somewhat carry the aesthetics of a shrine maiden. A haori that stretches to the knees, under it is her original magical girl combat dress. Golden yellow frills outline her collar and waist under the large coat and a black and white striped skirt wrapped themselves around her hips.
Triney, the Arcmaiden of fortitude. She was famous for her first skill which creates furniture on demand, greatly accelerating recovery efforts after The Great Disaster. As she produced furniture in an instant, there was no need for extensive production processes. She was instantly given an important position in the local government and she worked her way up into becoming the Arcmaiden. It was the final position for magical girls, since other managerial positions required actual education. It wasn't impossible but it was rather rare for magical girls to possess that kind of education...
Under her calm gait, the crimson hue of roses occasionally peak out from under the flaps of her skirt, they looked like they were dyed red with the blood of her victims. Her stern and stoic face seemed even more like the calm before a storm as it stood unchanging even as she approached closer. She flicks her hand and wooden walls began to rise from the ground.
In a few mere moments, a throne of auburn gold rose from the ground. Neon green lights slip into the engravings of the throne like rushing river streams, giving off a low hum as the archaic furniture began to gain a futuristic look.
***(Triney)
Her multi-coloured cloak shook violently under the pressure of her own aura. She had an unbelievable aura for someone who was only an A grade, her bright pink hair bore a deep impression into the deep recesses of my mind, her determined expression was so sharp it might as well turn into overgrown flower thorns. It seemed that she had made her firm decision a long while ago, though the option of letting her kill me was realistically nowhere near what I would actually do.
It's a shame to vanquish such a promising warrior... But I have an entire city to save. I send chair missiles, conjuring them at such fast speeds that their legs explode upon formation, launching them at at great speeds that would even make A grades struggle to keep up. In response, she shot small small rods of white light that instantly disintegrated those chairs. But what was surprising wasn't the power of her attacks since I made those chairs barely powerful enough to endure their launching force. What was surprising was that she was able to react to them.
Even so, all my stats were far superior to hers. It was truly nothing personal. I launch my fist at her from multiple consecutive directions, sending her beaten-to-a-pulp body flying off to whichever direction had the most force behind it. Her body tumbled like a collapsed pile of hay before she quickly dragged her feet into the ground to stop the momentum.
A few flashes of light engulfed her body, if not for the greyish background of this realm, the white light would have concealed her. In a white realm it would have been hard to spot her light attack or her silhouette. As such, she could really use the surrounding colour to her advantage if she had the corresponding hue of light. No wonder The Eye God chose to make this realm grey. It was neither too bright nor too dark, no one could use it to their advantage.
As such her white light attack glowed brilliantly and became hard to miss instead, anyone with eyes could find it approaching them. I formed a blade out of furniture and proceeded to cut her light attack in half.
[Light resistance 50]
[Edge of the other shore, sparkling sea]
[Predetermined misdirection]
[Heat resistance 50]
[Radiation resistance 50]
[Kinetic resistance 50]
[Potential break 100]
[Omni-awareness domain]
My first skill, [Paraphernalia Dominion] allows me to create and enchant furniture. But the true nature of these enchants... Are weakened versions of people's passives. In other words, the magical skills of those magical combat dresses that I've witnessed, I somewhat recreate lousier versions of them as the skill imposes a certain limit. Occasionally, I could also replicate normal combat skills with diluted effects, though they usually have to be related to production magic. Stuff in the field of creation such as [Increase alchemic efficacy] [Reduced forging speed 1] and stuff.
And so, what if I do it this way? I create a furniture packed with enchants suited for production, so that I can use said furniture to produce an even better furniture. Then I continue this process until I get the optimised magic tool for production... One that I can wear at all times. Hidden on my body within my magical combat dress... If a ring of such magical proportions.
By maximising my output capability, I'm able to increase my range of capabilities as well. Isn't this basically creation magic? Something that was omnipotent enough to form anything the user wants? Well, it isn't so convenient though, and limitations are plenty. So it definitely can not. This was not something encountered by anyone else in this world, unless they had reached the pinnacle of creation like I did. The human pinnacle that is.
It was the word limit. It sounded like a terrible joke, that of all the things that could be accomplished through magic, it couldn't do anything about the number of words in the name of an enchant or skill. It was the last barrier holding me back, the final straw that held me grounded to my human capabilities. Even if I was around the peak of humanity when I stack all the known enchants, I cannot breach the barrier of godhood.
I suppose I got incredibly sour when this first happened... But I'm pretty much indifferent to it these days. I mean... Who wouldn't be frustrated if their life's efforts became in vain? Even if... It was to obtain gpdhood... Or to become the strongest being that exists... I had used up 200 years of my life in isolation... When I left my abode at an abandoned island where I conducted my research, all my friends were gone.
I was just any other aspiring scientist... The passage of time was crueler than anything else I observed. It felt like I didn't deserve to live having outlived all my peers. The only beings that share my experience were other isolated beings like myself, including the God magical girls. Food culture had changed, social etiquette had practically evolved into something entirely new, language was also full of newer terms that hadn't existed before. People continually create new words and culture, as if to abandon those that were left behind in time.
It was quite frustrating, like my failed ambitions. But rather than cling onto it, I quickly got over it. It was actually a little simple, after seeing the people of the future, what about the people of the past? I couldn't find them, couldn't observe them. They were all dead. So what did it matter? Humanity as a whole will keep on moving until its timely demise. I had similarly forgone the past that came before my being just like they did to me. Rather, it was a miracle to observe the future already.
For whatever reason, most magical girls share a similar lifespan to humans despite their immortality. I couldn't identify the reason as their deaths vary as much as normal human deaths do. Back then, with the advent of humanity at its peak, there weren't many monsters that could be born. Even if did come into existence, they were also far weaker than they are now. Following the same law, magical girl numbers weren't so high back then too.
It wouldn't be a surprise if one didn't meet another magical girl in their lifetime. So I couldn't attribute magical girl deaths to other magical girls, in other words, magical combat. That is an anomaly of the present where there is too many magical girls now. While The Great Disaster had somehow broken through the law of magical girls and allowed numerous monsters to be born, similarly a large surge in magic girl numbers had appeared to counteract this. But after the monsters were defeated, the magical girl's remained.
The constant infighting between magical girls of the present can be said to be a new law of magical girls, where the world inevitably forces them into warring factions. Or more realistically, there wasn't any law working behind the scenes here, it could have just been human nature to fight amongst themselves after attaining peace. There was no shortage of such examples even before The Great Disaster, normal humans fight amongst themselves all the time as well.
I suppose my only hobby now is researching into The Great Disaster. After some superficial tests and documentation of the most obvious findings, there wasn't much progress after that. Experiments had hit a bottle neck, it wasn't really anything surprising. It always happens and is pretty much part of the process, after all time is something I have an abundance of.
Before this supreme weapon forged only from my primary skill [paraphernalia dominion], her attack was akin to a baby waddling towards my feet. I sliced it in half and the furniture's properties diverted it away from me. It hit the ground behind me on my left and right side respectively. While I could feel some residual heat behind, it wasn't much since the furniture's enchants extended to my body as well.
[False furniture]
Creating an illusion of the previous furniture missiles, I summon a storm of them in the air. Projectiles ranging in the hundreds, there were countless ready to strike at my command. They stood pointed at her from all directions, her light attack shouldn't be able to cover all angles from what I've seen so far. Nonetheless, 75% of it isn't real, they were just mirages meant for intimidation. But they could be made real. I can overlap the illusion and create a real furniture inside it. I call this feint furniture.
Without any preliminary movements, the projectiles flew down. Her counterattack also begins as she desperately shoots small beams of light in multiple directions. I space out the furniture projectiles, ensuring that multiple of them don't cluster together can get annihilated all at once. Despite them being mostly fakes, I still need them to keep her on her toes. Her hands glow a brilliant white before it shoots for the, engulfing the projectiles. The violent energy of her power disintegrates them apart, leaving nary a bit of ash behind.
...!? She can tell them apart? While I had mixed some feints in there, the ultimate purpose of [false furniture] was to reduce the exorbitant cost of creating enchanted furnitures. While I did have an S grade well, it was still a large problem due to the nature of enchants.
After the first enchant, each subsequent one took more and more magical particles to embed into the furniture. While the creation speed had been trained to the extreme so I don't fall behind in battle, the cost wasn't something I could easily change unless cut corners.
As such, making fakes to intimidate the opponent was all I could do, the illusions were very cheap in comparison. Even when I wanted to do feints I could simply create the real one inside the illusion in the middle of battle. It was really convenient. Yet, she was going around this strategy of mine.
Fortunately, I've learned to do more than just this single strategy over the years. Since the jig is up, I snap my fingers once more. With this, all the illusionary furniture became real ones- and they multiplied as well. An overwhelming deluge that blocked the sky surrounded Paridia. This is something that she can't easily counter on a whim, just as I have expended extremely high amounts of magical particles to cast this, she has to spend a similar amount to counter it and keep herself safe.
Though that hinges on what she does next...
Unlike most of the battle before, she began exhibiting signs of using another skill... After all, all the projectiles sent at her had stopped in mid air, as if there's something blocking them...
***(Paridia)
[Bountiful treasure trove]...
I haven't used this skill in a long time. I used to rely on it all the time... But I wanted a more aggressive battle style and ended up forgoing it most of the time. I almost forgot it even existed... No, I did this on purpose. What I had actually almost forgot wasn't the existence of this skill, but the purpose of hiding it. I suppose I wanted to hide information from the enemies and allies alike.
Even the arc maiden that I was currently fighting, Triney had forgotten too. They should have my info considering I used to work with the cult, but even they had spent quite some time since they first gleaned over it. I haven't used it since I fought Kaori after all... Perhaps that was why... It tore me up inside when she lost her memories... I could have prevented it, but didn't.