“Well then, let us commence the 75,004th attribute meeting.”
The area was a strange space. There was no sense of reality to it, and everything wavered, as if the entire area were underwater. Not even the scenery itself stayed still. It kept switching around, flowing through different looks as if everything was just a dream.
This begged the question: was this reality? The answer to that was both yes and no.
This place was the world of the mind... It wasn’t true reality, but a space that existed within someone’s heart. However, the five strange figures gathered here were able to bring their memories of what transpired in this place back to reality. That meant this place could also be said to be reality, since it would have consequences in the real world.
In attendance were the Ouroboros of the Sun (or Heaven), the Ouroboros of the Moon, the Ouroboros of Fire, the Ouroboros of Wood, and the Ouroboros of Earth. Any one of them was large enough to wrap around Mizgarz, but the size of their bodies in reality was not much of a problem here.
Because any action taken by them would mean the end of the world, they were normally asleep. If it weren’t for this world, they wouldn’t even be able to converse with each other. Of course, the Ouroboros of the Moon alone was able to be active in human form at all times, so these meetings could only happen when he was sleeping.
“Can I go first?”
“Yes, Fire ouroboros. What is it?”
“I’ve been thinking this for a while now... Aren’t this world’s elements a little too haphazard? I get me being Fire. Fire’s a staple. Earth is clearly the power of the land, so I get that too. Wood is exactly that, the power over trees and whatnot. I think that’s fine as well.”
“I can also do wind and lightning though,” said the Ouroboros of Wood.
“What? Isn’t that just way too greedy a skill set?” the Fire ouroboros complained.
“Anyway, as I was saying,” he continued. “What the hell is the Moon element? What kind of energy is Moon? The fact that the moon glows is only because it reflects the sun’s light, so wouldn’t that just be the Sun element? By my estimation, anyway.”
“Well, if it helps, I use things like darkness and space-time,” Orm explained.
“But isn’t that just because those didn’t really fit with any of the other ones?”
What was the Moon element? In truth, not even Orm, the Ouroboros of the Moon who presided over the element, knew. The aspects of darkness and space-time were attributed to the Moon element, but as the Fire ouroboros had said, it felt like those were only there as placeholders. If the light of the moon counted as the Moon element, that would mean the Moon element was at least indirectly the Sun element. What about throwing down moon rocks? Well, that would also be more like the Earth element.
“But if you’re going to go that far, isn’t the Sun element in the same boat?” The Moon ouroboros attempted to change the subject by dissing the Sun element. “I don’t get how it’s different from Fire.”
“True,” agreed the Fire ouroboros, readily jumping on.
To him, the Sun element was also a strange one. Wouldn’t the light of the sun just be fire? he’d always thought. However, this was when the Ouroboros of the Sun (self-titled the Ouroboros of Heaven) objected.
“You fools! The Sun is an allegory for heaven. My element is light itself.”
“No, but isn’t your Solar Flare spell just fire? Shouldn’t that one be mine?”
“Well...”
The Sun element made the light of the sun into a spell, but the spell Solar Flare, which Lufas liked to use, was basically just a stupidly huge fireball. Even so, antifire shields or armor didn’t work against it. It was strange.
“Personally, I think of Metal as the strangest and most meaningless element. I mean, why Metal?” the Earth ouroboros wondered.
“Well, isn’t that...like iron and stuff?” the Wood ouroboros replied, his expression troubled. “You know, that sort of thing.”
“But how is that different from just cutting something with a sword?”
When this just led to further questions, the Ouroboros of Wood was hard pressed for another answer.
None of them were of the Metal element. However, all of them agreed that it was the strangest of the elements. Spells assigned to it ranged from calling down a rain of metal to changing stones into metals like gold, throwing steel swords, and shooting out a clump of gold like a star. From any perspective, none of that was really magic. They were just physical attacks.
“Even though it’s a physical attack when an Alchemist transmutes a sword and sends it flying, it’s magic when a Metal element thing creates a sword to send it flying. Why is that?” the Fire ouroboros questioned, exasperated.
“Hmm... Now that I think about it, this world’s elements really are incredibly strange,” agreed the Moon ouroboros, heaving a sigh.
Then, eventually, they simply came to the same conclusion they always did. In other words...
“Oh well. It’s Alovenus,” all of them said in unison, closing out the meeting.
At the same time, the self-styled omniscient and omnipotent fool who was actually neither of those things sneezed.