When the Torchlight folks came back from the showers, they immediately got to work on preparing for a barbecue. New charcoal was added to the grill they’d used to cook sausages during the day. There was a new massive cooler filled with ice water, keeping beer and carbonated drinks cool. Once I saw the spare ribs and bone-in chicken come out from their previous unopened luggage, I knew very well that lunch had just been a prelude to what was to come.
Before the first round of meat was done cooking, we all gathered for a toast. Sasazuka looked around to see that everyone had their drinks before she began.
“Good work on your first day of training, everyone! Cheers!”
Good work, everyone! Cheers!
It would be tough having to engage in social situations like this with people I didn’t know very well...or so I had feared, but after that first toast things settled down a little, and everyone naturally broke off to party in their own little groups. We, the four indoorsy types, snatched some food and drinks, then headed back to the front of our own tents. There was music playing from a speaker somebody had brought along. This was probably the liveliest the Farm had ever been.
“Do you think most of Torchlight are Americans? This barbecue’s on a whole different scale from what Japanese people would do,” Tsuji remarked between bites of a kebab. Toriko cocked her head to the side.
“I wonder. Listening to them talk, I feel like they’re more multinational.”
“Though, isn’t it very Japanese of them to start the toast with a ‘good work’?” I noted.
That got a laugh out of Tsuji. “True that. Maybe that’s something that slowly seeps in if you’re running a company in Japan.”
Migiwa and Sasazuka wandered over to see if we were having any trouble or needed anything, but they generally hung around in Torchlight’s circles. And the operators didn’t go out of their way to come see us.
Given that we were the ones who’d made that creepy training site, maybe it wasn’t all that strange that they would avoid us. But if anything, it felt less like we were being shunned, and more like they were leaving us alone. They probably had no more idea how to strike up a conversation with us than we did with them, so that went both ways. Sasazuka and Torchlight had known Migiwa for a while, so maybe they were somewhat used to strange events like this one.
The area quickly darkened as the sun dipped below the tree branches. The floodlights were hooked up to the generator, lighting up the yard. As Runa had predicted, the temperature rapidly dropped at sunset. We lit up our own lanterns, and started preparing the campfire.
We put the logs into the hole Toriko had dug, added some kindling, and set it alight. It was apparently something called a Dakota fire hole, which helped the fire to burn better because a second hole provided a draft of air.
“Mama taught me when I was a kid. I’m glad I remembered how to do it,” Toriko explained happily as we watched her skillfully start the fire.
Once we started cooking the food Toriko and Tsuji had brought over the fire using a skillet, delicious smells that rivaled those of the barbecue filled the air. Toriko apparently wanted to take this opportunity to try out all sorts of things, because she’d brought two skillets with her. I was sitting there with nothing to do until she asked me to cut the ingredients, so I took out my knife and started cutting sausages and deep-fried thick tofu. It was the knife Toriko gave me as a present. I had to question if it was all right to use it like this, even if it was meant for daily use, but Toriko looked happy when she saw it in my hands, so I guess it was fine.
Sausage and Camembert fried in garlic oil, deep-fried thick tofu wrapped with bacon, dumplings fried with the grease from chicken skin, and cheese fondue with brussels sprouts. Everything was delicious, and paired well with the red wine that Tsuji had brought. Tsuji was drinking too, but it didn’t change how she acted.
“C’mon, Urumi-kun, have some more. You’re still young.”
“I am eating. I told you, I’ve got enough! I want to lose weight!”
“What’re you talking about? Don’t try to lose weight when you’re still just a minor.”
“What’s with this person? Save me, Nishina-san.”
“Huh? Me?”
“If I ask Kamikoshi-san to save me, she’ll just ignore it.”
“Looks like you finally clued in, Runa.”
“Please don’t talk like this doesn’t concern you, Kamikoshi-san.”
“Sorawo can be so awful, can’t she?”
“Huh?! Wait, why are you pouring wine on the meat?!” I protested.
“It’s flambé. Flambé.”
“Ahh... The meat I raised...”
“You don’t raise meat.”
“I was watching over it until it was cooked just right!”
With our stomachs filled, the conversation turned to Tsuji’s magic as we were drinking what remained of the wine.
“That ritual you did first. What was it called again? L... LG...” asked Runa.
“It’s LBRP. Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram.”
“Why do you suppose it had no effect? Even with such an impactful performance.”
“I know, right? If I was to hazard a guess at the cause, I might note that the LBRP is a ritual to purify the caster themselves. Not a place or object.”
“So the target was wrong?”
“No, it wasn’t. The basic idea in modern magic is to bring about an effect in reality by rewriting the perception of the caster. By purifying my own perception of the room, I purify the room itself. But it had no effect. Although, I somewhat expected that.”
“You went into it thinking that it wasn’t going to work?”
“No, I went in with every intention of making it work. If I were to give another reason, I think a big part of it is that the ritual is too dependent on a preexisting system of symbols, and it didn’t mesh with the context dominating that place.”
“By a preexisting system of symbols, you mean...”
“It’s based on the Jewish Kabbalah and the Old Testament. Before me, Raphael. Behind me, Gabriel. And so on, and so forth. That’s powerful, in a way, but not against the spell you cast, Urumi-kun. Because it’s not like you pulled out some preexisting spell or chant, you did all those renovations using your own sense of taste.”
“Well, yeah. And?”
“That’s powerful. It leaves me no openings to attack. If you were like, ‘I’m going to summon the demon So-and-so and curse this land!’ or, ‘I’m going to call up the spirits of animals to possess it!’ that would have made things simple. I’d use a technique that was in line with the images you borrowed, and overwrite them with something even more powerful. Like, ‘Pfft, animal spirits? Step aside. I’ve got the angels of the four cardinal directions, and the name of God which must not be spoken, Yod-He-Vau-He.’ But what would you think if I said that, Urumi-kun?”
“Huh? I don’t know any of that stuff. Piss off. That’s what I’d think.”
“I’ll bet. You’ve created a domain of your own, which doesn’t waver in the face of authority. That’s why I needed to use a more primitive method. I needed to whack that space with something that would make its creator falter.”
“And that’s why the explosive laughter...?”