A torrent of magical energy overflowed from my body. It felt like it was shooting out from between my shoulder blades. The force of the magical energy pouring out and my efforts to keep it inside opposed one another, which ended up having the effect of holding the magical energy in one place. Unable to flow as it normally did, the magic instead solidified, hardening into a structure on my back.
I couldn’t see how it looked for myself, but it felt like I’d grown another set of limbs. Had I been able to catch sight of my own back, what I would have seen were wafer-thin sheets of magical energy, crystallized into the shape of wings, six pairs of them.
The fluttering black wings roared behind me, and I slowly floated up into the air...
Patrick and Eleanora raced outside after me, Lemn hitchhiking along in the shadows.
“I was kidding, it was just a joke!” the god of darkness cried. “I was messing with you, miss! I know why the crystal says you’re level 13! You’re not actually level 13!”
The moment I heard his voice, my outburst of magical energy ended. The twelve wings disappeared, and I stopped floating, causing me to silently land on the ground from a mere ten-centimeter height.
“Of course I’m not level 13,” I said. “I’ve obviously known that this whole time, which you can see because of how calm I’ve been.”
“Are you all right...?” Patrick asked, worried.
My body just got a little surprised. It’s like when you get heart palpitations after jumping into a swimming pool, so I don’t think you need to worry about it too much.
“I’m fine,” I assured him.
“You were floating...”
“I’m fine,” I repeated. “After all, I’m completely calm. I’m not level 13. I’m not level 13. I’m fine, I’m okay.”
I mean, even if I am level 13, I’d just get to level grind all over again...right?
I imagined all of my efforts until now going to waste, and my body once again felt the shock. I was starting to lose control again...
“You don’t seem fine at all!” Patrick exclaimed. “Hey, Lemn! Hurry up and explain what’s going on to Yumiella!”
“I’ve never seen such dense magical energy,” Lemn said wonderingly, ignoring Patrick’s agitation. “I think you could easily destroy the world if you wanted to, miss.”
“Now’s not the time to be impressed!” my fiancé snapped.
“Oh, right. Sorry, uh, I’ll reveal the secret of this trick, so to speak.” I gave Lemn my full attention so as to not miss a single syllable of his explanation. “I only realized this just now after watching it work, but the function of this crystal isn’t actually to assess and display levels.”
“What does that mean? Are you saying that the results it’s produced up until now haven’t been correct?” Patrick asked.
“All of its results until now have been correct,” Lemn said. “Which is exactly why I didn’t realize its true function.”
Why won’t this god just get straight to the point? He might be a genius in the art of irritating me—no, I mean, I’m calm. I’m so very calm.
The level-assessing crystal, which was my fifth-most favorite magical instrument, was about to have its true functionality revealed.
The god of darkness continued speaking, settling into a pompous tone. “The proper description of this crystal’s true function is the assessment of the target’s level, followed by the display of the lower two digits of the subsequent result.”
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“I’m not sure who made it originally, but I can see why they’d think a two-digit display was sufficient,” Lemn remarked. “No one would’ve expected someone over level 99 to appear.”
“So the last two digits of my level are 13?”
“Exactly. Though, I’m not sure if your true level is 113 or 1,013.”
What? Does that mean my level could be 1,000,000,013? Hm, what to do...
As I stood there thinking about my level, I realized that everyone else was acting strange. Patrick was bracing himself for something, and Eleanora and Lemn hid behind him and looked over at me.
“Hey, are things okay now, mister?” Lemn asked Patrick.
He nodded a little bit uncertainly. “It should be all right... I think...”
“You never know,” Eleanora chimed in. “Yumiella suddenly turns strange sometimes after time has passed.”
Did I do something to make them distance themselves from me? I tricked Lemn into showing up, then he said something, and then... Huh? My memories are a bit fuzzy.
“What’s wrong?” I called out to them.
“She seems fine...” Patrick assured the others. “I was worried that the wings would come out again.”
I blinked. “Wings? What are you talking about?”
Does he mean those things that birds have?
All three of them looked at each other before shaking their heads at my question.
“It’s nothing, don’t worry about it,” Patrick said.
I mean, I’m curious, but...I guess it’s fine.
For the moment, the mystery of my level 13 result was solved.
So the lower two digits, huh? It doesn’t seem like this will provide me with super useful information, but at the very least I’ll be able to tell if my level has gone up. If it shows 14, then I know I’ll have gone up a level.
Now I would be able to plan what I wanted to do moving forwards.
“If the crystal shows 99 and doesn’t change at all, that’ll mean I’ve hit the new limit, right?”
“What? You want to aim for the maximum level again?” Lemn asked, clearly puzzled.
“Of course.”
“There might not even be a limit anymore,” he pointed out.
“That’s a problem for my future self.”
Just having some sort of rough idea of where I wanted to go was enough, because it would allow me to slowly make progress towards my goal.
I’m so glad. This means my precious crystal can continue to serve me. I’m going to assess my level every day when I wake up and again before I go to bed. I’m going to imagine a large number, well over one hundred, that it can’t display, and I’m going to do my best every day. I’m so glad that this cherished object didn’t break as a result of my high level.
“Wait. Where’s my precious crystal?” My crystalline child wasn’t where it should’ve been. I looked down and saw clear shards scattered all over the ground. “When did it fall?!”
“That was, uh... Oh, it was when you were floating,” Patrick said.
“I floated?”
He shook his head firmly. “No, you didn’t float, nor did you grow wings.”
“Of course I’ve never grown wings. Did you maybe mistake me for an angel or something strange like that?”
Even I wouldn’t suddenly grow wings out of nowhere.
All of our shenanigans surrounding level assessments ended on the most boring and predictable note of all: with the crystal dropping onto the floor and shattering into pieces. As I mourned the fact that my crystal had died so tragically in the line of duty on the very day it had returned to work, the other three were whispering to each other.
“She looked more like a devil than an angel,” Lemn remarked.
“Fortunately, she doesn’t seem to remember,” Eleanora said. “Yumiella would most definitely insist on doing it once more if she did.”
“I think so too...” Patrick agreed. “Those winglike protuberances were something Yumiella would definitely enjoy.”
My mind was filled with the joyful thoughts of level grinding, so their conversation went in one ear and out the other.
I should start carrying one of these crystals with me wherever I go, so I can assess my level whenever I want.
“I should get the backup crystal,” I muttered to myself quietly so that Patrick and the others wouldn’t hear.
Being the cautious person that I was, I naturally had a replacement for this crystal. It had been abandoned in storage along with the first crystal (now deceased).
I don’t have a replacement for the backup, though, so I’ll have to handle this second one much more carefully.
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