Disintegration

Aoko got up at around ten in the morning.

The moment she opened her eyes, she hurriedly used magecraft to check on the situation in Touko's room. The sight made her grin. She remembered that Touko had slept terribly as a child, and apparently becoming young again had done nothing to fix it.

Her stomach was exposed, the quilt printed with cute rabbits had been kicked aside, and she lay curled up on her side as though she lacked any sense of security. Her breathing was steady.

After confirming that Touko was still asleep, Aoko smiled faintly and swiftly used magecraft and Weave arcana to change clothes and wash up. Then, as unfailingly as every morning, she sat at her desk and began meditating.

After defeating the evil big bad villain Touko, Aoko had indeed gained quite a bit of "experience," but compared with her current caster level of eleven, it was barely a drop in the bucket—not enough to raise her level.

However, when her consciousness touched the fragment of the Weave, Aoko discovered that this time she could choose which class to assign that "experience" to: wizard or incantatrix. This was a "new feature" she had never encountered before.

Perhaps it was only because this was her first meditation after advancing that she had discovered this experience-allocation function for the first time.

Still, to Aoko, "experience" remained something difficult to quantify precisely. Or rather, in her mind, these "substances" that could increase her strength were like a handful of gold dust held in her palm—impossible to pin down in exact quantity, only roughly estimate.

Since she had not accumulated enough to level up yet, Aoko stopped worrying about that "experience" and instead settled down to try fishing more new spell knowledge out of the Weave.

Although, as a Magician, she could barely be said to command the wind and rain in this world based on personal strength alone, Aoko also understood that something so powerful because it relied on the fundamental principles of the universe might not work nearly so well beyond this universe.

Weave arcana, on the other hand, could actually be used even far away from Kingdom Tianyu. Aoko found that simply inconceivable. If she ever had the chance to travel to other universes, Weave arcana would surely be her greatest support.

For others, that might have been an impractical fantasy, but for Aoko, who herself had been mixed with a visitor from another world, the existence of other worlds was already proven. Moreover, the knowledge she had fished from the Weave included quite a few techniques for interplanar travel.

Among the spells she currently knew, neither Misty Step, Dimension Door, nor Teleport could take her to other planes. If she considered things according to the cosmology of crystal spheres, then to leave this "universe," she would have to pass through the Phlogiston Sea.

Yet she could not even prove whether the Phlogiston Sea existed. So-called traversal remained a distant, unattainable notion, one that could only be set aside for now.

"Eh?"

Even in deep meditation, while fishing for spells in the Weave, Aoko let out a startled cry, because she had actually caught something!

Or rather, after fishing for spells for over a decade, she had finally struck it lucky and pulled up the most destructive spell she had ever found: the Transmutation school's signature sixth-circle spell, Disintegrate.

This spell could be called the dividing line between a true spellcaster and an ordinary mage. Once a mage mastered it, their destructive power soared dramatically. So long as one was struck by Disintegrate, unless they had specific protective measures, it was practically instant death upon contact.

Moreover, the spell had variable damage, meaning it could be enhanced with metamagic to keep its damage at the current level's maximum limit.

And compared with disintegrating living creatures, its ability to disintegrate inanimate matter was even more outrageous. At most, it could disintegrate ten cubic feet of matter in a single round, provided that matter stood in the path of the Disintegrate attack.

Miss Aoko happily withdrew from her meditative state and immediately copied Disintegrate carefully into her spellbook, intending to study it thoroughly when she researched spells.

After spending twenty minutes preparing the spells she would use today, Aoko left her room and headed for the kitchen on the first floor of the Kuonji mansion.

The vast western-style mansion was silent at the moment. It seemed that neither Alice nor Touko had woken up yet.

She opened the refrigerator and took out the breakfast she had prepared the night before to heat it up. Then she added some fresh fruits and vegetables, dressing them with salad sauce to make a cool and tasty fruit-and-vegetable salad.

Once everything was ready, Aoko hummed a tune as she pushed the serving cart toward the dining room.

When Alice Kuonji arrived at the dining room while yawning and rubbing her eyes, she found that her housemate had already prepared everything and was quietly reading a book in a seat by the window.

The morning sunlight fell across Aoko's beautiful face like a veil of golden gauze. Her fair skin showed a hint of rosiness beneath the dawn light, making the girl appear even more alluring.

Alice's thoughts drifted for a brief moment, but she quickly regained her composure and gave a light cough to conceal her embarrassment.

"Ah, Alice, you're awake?" Aoko set down her book and greeted her with a smile. "Let's have breakfast first!"

"Mm... what about Touko?" Alice suddenly remembered that the Kuonji mansion had gained another resident today.

"She should be about ready to wake up, right?" Aoko said, thoughtfully stroking her smooth chin.

With that thought, Aoko picked up the kettle and poured clear water into an empty soup mug—a wide-mouthed cup used for thick soup. She dipped a finger into the water, murmured an incantation, and activated a magecraft ritual.

Ripples spread, and an image gradually appeared on the surface of the water in the soup mug. Faint sounds could even be heard.

In the image, little Touko Aozaki had just woken up. Once she saw the rabbit pajamas she was wearing and the cute surroundings of the room, she could not help letting out an adorable wail.

Aoko was just too awful. She had actually installed surveillance equipment in Touko's bedroom!

She was no ordinary bad woman anymore. She had to be...

Aoko watched the flustered Touko in the image with delight. Then she looked up and discovered that Alice's cheeks were slightly flushed as well. Alice stared at the scene in the surveillance magecraft, her body trembling faintly as though holding back laughter was painful.

A moment later, when Aoko and Alice heard footsteps coming from the staircase, they immediately and silently dispelled the magecraft in the soup mug.

Still wearing her rabbit pajamas, Touko Aozaki pushed open the dining room door and stared resentfully at Aoko and Alice, who sat beside the dining table.