The combined Explosion magic this time was exactly as Jhin had predicted — not nearly as powerful as when their mana was linked. Megumin, having learned from last time, aimed her target well away from the abandoned castle itself.
Blowing up the castle would be a problem for future visits — it was the only landmark they had. The shockwave of the blast swept through the surrounding forest like a rolling green tide. Megumin's face was flushed and gleaming, her expression one of pure, unrestrained bliss — and then she toppled straight backward.
Jhin caught her with practiced ease, hoisted her onto his back, and set off on the return journey.
"By the way, you look especially happy this time. Is having every last drop of your mana wrung out really that satisfying?"
"I'm not happy because my mana is empty — I'm happy because I got to cast Explosion magic. There's a difference," Megumin grumbled, tilting her head to rest it against Jhin's cheek. "Between looking after you and Pecorine, it's been over two whole weeks since I last fired off Explosion magic."
"I'm truly sorry for making you hold out that long." His voice was warm and low, rich with a gentle magnetism — and it slipped into her ear like a current of electricity. It was the first time Jhin had ever spoken to her with the same soft tenderness he usually reserved for Kokkoro.
"D-Don't talk to me like that, it's embarrassing... I-If you feel that guilty about it, you'd better make it up to me by doing more combined Explosion magic."
"I'll keep that in mind."
Hmph. Holding out this long was worth it after all. Right now, Jhin is absolutely drowning in guilt over me — he must be desperate to make it up to me somehow.
Megumin indulged herself in a gleeful fantasy about enhanced, upgraded Explosion magic once a day, every day, going forward.
If he weren't currently carrying her on his back, Jhin might have wiped the tears forming at the corners of his eyes. For a girl as thoroughly addicted to Explosion magic as Megumin, going a single day without casting it must have been genuine agony.
It was like a teenage boy discovering the joys of a certain solo hobby for the first time — one day without it and he's climbing the walls. Force him to hold off for two-plus weeks, and when the ban finally lifts, he'll paint every surface in the room. Megumin's situation was precisely that. Which was exactly why Jhin had been so gentle with her. Poor kid — after holding it in that long, she must've been ready to blow up her own staff.
"What do you want to eat when we get back? I'll make it for you."
"Don't be like this... I'm not used to it."
"I'll grab you a can of cola too. We're down to the last few bottles — I'll save them all for you."
"I said stop it! You're being way too nice and it's freaking me out. I'm starting to suspect you're going to turn me into a dish when we get home." Megumin strained her neck and bonked her head lightly against Jhin's cheek.
"I already told you — you have a persecution complex. Someone treats you a little nicely and you can't even handle it. I'm not some scheming mastermind. Why on earth would I cook you?"
That first line landed squarely, sending Megumin spiraling into self-doubt.
...D-Do I really have a persecution complex?
She wavered — but didn't reach a verdict just yet. Jhin's returned warmth felt familiar in a way she couldn't quite place, so she decided to shelve the matter for now.
"How come your walking speed keeps going fast, then slow, then fast again?"
"Just noticing now?" Jhin chuckled softly, then explained, "I'm building [Elemental Armament] armor on my legs as we walk. When the speed dips, it means the construction failed and I temporarily lost the boost."
"Do you think you can build it over your whole body?"
"No problem at all. Following your method cuts the mental strain enormously — I've got plenty of room to work with."
As they talked, the leg armor took shape. His talent [Within Reach] allowed him to rapidly absorb the lessons of each failed attempt and apply them to the next iteration — after dozens of trial runs, he had the leg guards in their initial form.
Like the gauntlets, the leg armor was silver-grey, with no elaborate design. Both were still in their earliest stage, needing extensive refinement and real combat testing before they could be considered truly complete.
Though it had diverged from his original vision of a support-and-protection spell, [Elemental Armament] had become something more like a magic tailor-made for himself alone. Unless he had a thorough understanding of someone else's body and fighting style, it couldn't be applied to another person — making it, for now, his personal exclusive ancient-tier spell.
As the old saying goes: if I kill all the enemies myself, won't my allies be perfectly safe?
The leg armor's enhancement was pure speed. This modular, piece-by-piece approach to buffing satisfied Jhin's desire to have it all — and spared him the headache of cramming every conceivable enhancement into a single spell.
The abandoned castle was nowhere near as far from Landosol as the Shattered Stone Desert — still over an hour's walk normally — but with the leg armor's boost, Jhin covered the distance in roughly half an hour, passenger in tow.
Megumin was impressed by the pace. Then, as if remembering something, she squirmed and asked in a small voice, "Jhin... what you said earlier — about leaving all the remaining cola for me — does that still count?"
"It counts."
"Yes! Then go grab me a bottle the second we're home!"
An enhanced Explosion magic that satisfied body and soul, and then an ice-cold cola waiting at home. Life was truly wonderful.
Her smile grew even brighter. What strength had returned to her legs swung them in an easy rhythm as she hummed a little tune under her breath.
"We've got a commission to run tomorrow — remember to get up early."
"Didn't Pecorine's injury only just heal? We're already jumping back into commissions?"
"It was actually her idea. On top of that, buying all those premium ingredients wiped out most of the reward money from hunting the Sand Scorpion King — the guild's funds are pretty thin."
"You spent two million Eris on ingredients?!" Megumin couldn't believe what she was hearing. "What kind of ingredients cost that much?! You weren't ripped off, were you?"
"The person who could swindle both Pecorine and me on food ingredients doesn't exist in this world." Jhin said it with complete confidence. After cooking with so many strange and exotic ingredients in this other world, he had a faint feeling — a feeling that his Cooking skill, which had gone untouched for a long while, was on the verge of a breakthrough to Lv.8.
If Lv.6 to Lv.7 was the dividing line between an ordinary person and a genius, then Lv.7 to Lv.8 was the gap between a genius and a prodigy. Go even further, and Jhin suspected he'd reach the transcendent tier — the level where ordinary ingredients could produce dishes with their own built-in buffs. As for Lv.10, he currently only possessed two skills of that rank.
One was [Linguistic Mastery]. The other was [Void Genome]. The former's array of reality-bending effects alone was proof enough of just how broken a Lv.10 skill could be — forcing communication with mana and elements, concepts that had no intrinsic notion of language, and then gaining the ability to manipulate them directly. By any measure, that was the kind of power that rewrote the rules.
Jhin suspected that if he wanted to, he could use that skill to hold a conversation with something completely inorganic — a rock, for instance. But for the sake of his own sanity — his SAN value — he wisely chose not to test that theory.
After all, if he started chatting up everything around him and accidentally struck up a conversation with Lord Cthulhu, that would be a very entertaining disaster indeed.
____
Danmachi: Summoning Ruri Gokou, And oth
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