The Girl Who Hacked The Magic System

"Hello again, my dear friend. It's been some time, hasn't it?"

The guy in the room is in perfect physical health, well fed, and with a comfortable bed to sleep in. He has been quite well treated, in general.

Except for my visits, of course.

His eyes betray the reality of his situation. He's at the brink of madness, and the mere sight of me makes his whole body tremble as he stares in silence.

I'm finally doing that belated visit to my friend paladin, accompanied by Lovelace, who has already set a sound barrier on the room.

"Why…?"

"'Why,' you ask? Well, because you still haven't told me anything of value, of course."

It's been a long time since I last came here, as the war has made me focus on the countless battles and management.

But now I need info for the next part. Info that only he can provide me.

"I have a proposal for you."

The paladin keeps staring at me in silence.

"You can answer what we ask, without hiding anything, and then you have my word that I will never play with you again. How does that sound?"

"The goddess wouldn't allow you…"

"The goddess is not here, is she? Have you tried to commune with her? To listen to her words? Has she reached out to you?"

"…"

"If the goddess were able to cut down our heresy, why are we still here? And why am I winning the war? The Pontifex even fled the country."

Maybe I played with him too hard in the beginning. I confess that I might have taken out some deep anger on him, anger that should actually be directed to the goddess herself.

But he's still sane enough to understand rational arguments and make rational decisions. So, I push forth just a little bit.

"According to the tenets of the Church, this should be impossible."

I create a small portal in front of me that leads to the table at the side of his bed, where there's a jug with water and a cup. Then I pass my arm through the portal, take the cup, and bring it back to me.

"This is not an illusion. You can take the cup out of my hand and feel its reality yourself."

I offer him the cup, which he tentatively accepts. After some time, he takes a deep breath and decides to talk.

"The last time you came, you cut off my arms and legs. And when I woke up again, they were reattached, with no sign of the earlier injuries."

"They weren't actually reattached. Lovelace here simply grew new ones on you."

"…"

"To be honest, she could connect her soul to yours and read your memories, but you probably wouldn't survive it."

Actually, she would have to forcefully go through all his memories one by one… it would be painful to both, and, with his puny mana, there's the chance that he would die before she gets to the things that we're after.

She can do it with me with relative ease because of our mutual trust, so I don't resist her and she doesn't pry where I don't allow her, and also because of the huge amount of mana I have.

"I have witnessed things that only the goddess herself should be able to do being done by both of you. That means…"

Oh, he's getting there.

"That means that either what I was taught all my life was a lie, or both of you are on the same level of being as the goddess. In other words, that would make you also goddesses."

That's… a reasoning of all times.

"Well, it's the first one. We're not goddesses."

Yet. But I won't say that part out loud.

"I see."

He seems to reach some internal conclusion, so, after a brief contemplative pause, he speaks again.

"My name is Echeverry De Arlanda. What do you want to hear? I should reiterate that I'm a mere paladin, so I'm not privy to that much knowledge the higher-ups might have."

It seems that his time alone made him reconsider his situation under a new light. If that means we'll get the info we want without effort, all the better.

And with the battles I fought, I managed to blow off some steam. So it's all good.

:::

"Aurea, can I have a chat with you in particular?"

Lovelace shot me that one as soon as we left the paladin's room.

"Okay. Let's go to my quarters, then."

The arena's underground complex isn't very big, so it doesn't take long for us to get to my room.

"Are we turning Lady Lillian into a goddess?"

"Huh?"

I wasn't expecting that one, so I need to think a bit before responding.

"I mean… it's not the plan, so if it's happening, it isn't on purpose. Why? Did you notice something?"

"Yes. I was already feeling something funny happening, but yesterday I spent the day in Beaudorf and saw some things… and with our chat with the paladin, it clicked."

"Is it about the people's prayers?"

"Yes. They are praying to Lily instead of to the goddess. Some radicals even evicted the priests of the Church from the city's temple and converted it to serve for the Saint."

"I heard something about it… But I didn't give it much importance at the time. And what happens with the prayers?"

"The ones that are being celebrated in the temple are converting the people's mana, in a way that is very different from the mana draining we are used to."

"Isn't it what normally happens when people pray to the goddess?"

"It is, partially. It pools above the temple, like it normally does in the Church's temples. But then, instead of dispersing like it used to do, it's converging in the direction of the capital."

"Where my mother is…"

"Yes. I need to see Lady Lillian directly to confirm it, but she might be receiving all the mana that would usually go to the goddess in this country."

"I see. Let's go see her, then. It might shed some light on stuff that was cut from your memory."

:::

"Lovelace, Aurea! It's been so long. I'm so happy to see you here!"

What the fuck is that aura? She is really emanating something divine, even without activating my mana senses.

"Hi, Mom! How have you been these days?"

"It's weird that I was actually talking about it just a few moments ago with Levy. But I feel more energetic than I've ever been, and my brain seems to be able to process so much more information than it usually does."

I glance to Lovelace, and she nods.

"Lady Lillian, we have a hypothesis about what might be happening. And that's actually the motive for our visit right now."

"Okay, from your tone and the expression on your faces, it seems serious. Let's sit in my personal office. I'll also call Levy."

:::

After we tell them everything, they both stand thinking for some time before Mom breaks the silence.

"Well… I had my suspicions, actually. But I didn't have anything more concrete to work with."

"So I'm married to a literal goddess, after all. It isn't like I didn't consider you a goddess before, though."

"Hehe, I know, silly. But the main question, Lovelace, Aurea. Is it detrimental to the people?"

Lovelace answers her without hesitation.

"It doesn't seem to be. At least you are not sucking the mana of the land to power some artificial system. It seems that humans will always find some object of worship and feed it their mana through their prayers and rituals. If it isn't you, it would be something else."

"I would just add another question, Mom. How do you feel about the whole becoming a goddess thing?"

"I mean, I have already made peace with the idea of being the saint of a new era. If being a goddess will allow me to help the people better, without straining them, then all that remains is to learn to use this divinity or whatever."

I guess we'll find some answers about that in the main temple of the capital.