Chương 187: Suspicions

"(Sorry, I just saw something funny through one of my esoteric sensory skills,)" I supplied, doing my best to excuse myself while suppressing the erupting aftershocks of sniggers. No wonder they wanted to be quicker! But sensory skills were interesting... Could these beta humans learn [Mana Sense] despite having no innate ability to wield mana?

It was tempting to guess no, given their lack of a mana pool, but there were a wide range of perception skills, from my [Soul Perception] to Cluma's [Monster Perception], and I was fairly sure they didn't hook into any sort of innate biology. And if they could use mana perception skills, what about mana control? That didn't rely on the body's internal mana pool, but I had no idea how it did work.

I must have biology dedicated to mana control in order to spell-cast with my own mana, and Darren certainly had the ability to control external mana, but did the System require it? Would all Earth human mages end up with the [Thaumaturgist] class? For that matter, could [Eye of Judgement] view their race information? [Human] - A sentient race. Known for their adaptability and growth, humans are born weak but develop rapidly. They can show equal talent in either physical or magical disciplines.

[β] - <Error> Yes, but it didn't help.

"(Please focus. I know you're a child, but this is serious, and for safety's sake, we want to complete negotiations as quickly as possible. You say you can provide a hundred cores per year. Is that one of your years, or one of ours? How long will it take to get a batch together? How often should we make a trade? How much are you asking in return, given the limited quantity you have to sell?)"... Well that was rather insulting. Why'd she think I was a child? And apparently, this was the quick-fire question round.

But this seemed to be the point for me to bow out.

"Krana, we're going to need an institute representative if they've decided on any Earth goods they want samples of, and probably a guild representative to make decisions on how much we can send them in trade. They only want monster cores. Level twenty to start with, and they don't want very many of them."

"I thought I requested you to stop nicknaming me," grumbled Krana, but he took to the air regardless.

"(He'll be back soon with the people to answer your questions. In the meantime, I have to ask; why haven't you asked any questions about the System? I'd have thought that would be a priority for you?)" She squinted in suspicion, which seemed an odd reaction to me.

"(We aren't planning to stay, so isn't it a moot point?)" she asked. I glanced at the two I already knew, who were averting their eyes. They hadn't told her? I'd hoped they'd been partially cut off, and hadn't had System interference despite the lack of connection-lost notifications, but they'd both gained levels. It seemed my hopes were in vain.

"(What exactly happened to the area around the Blue Skies Institute when we cut the portal last time?)" I asked.

"(I believe you've already discussed what happened to previous portals when they cut out?)""(Look, I've already told the last lot that I know when non-natives are attached to the System, so it's a reasonable extension for me to also know when people are detached. Or, more specifically, when they aren't. Why are you fishing instead of just asking straight?)" The nameless woman made a good attempt at not glaring, but I could see that she wanted to.

"(Sorry. Then yes, it's true that after closing the portal last time, people have been reporting some... interesting side effects.)" After so many years of living with the Law, and never having to worry about the motivations or intentions of others, it was jarring to suddenly need to think about that sort of thing. I could hazard a guess where she was coming from, though.

"(You're suspecting us of using the System as a weapon?)" The reaction was immediate. Not just the woman, but several members of the delegation twitched, and with my [Mana Sight] I could see weapons concealed on them. None went as far as to reach for them, but they were obviously prepared. Not all of this group were diplomats. I had doubts that a regular pistol could actually hurt me, but I was here in plain clothes, not my armour. I didn't fancy taking the chance.

"(Is it?)""(More of a shield, and not ours. I partially explained last time, but in ancient history, the population of this planet very nearly destroyed itself in the magical equivalent of nuclear war. The survivors built the System to prevent such a thing ever happening again.)""(Given that it has at least some ability to manipulate memory, you can see why we might consider it a form of invasion.)""(You don't know the half of it,)" I grumbled.

"(I once put myself in hospital by buying too many skills at once, causing the System to download so many memories into my head it practically exploded.)" The others in their group seemed to be paying far more attention to this discussion than trade talks.

"(Who maintains it, or keeps it running? Surely they can do something.)" If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"(It runs and maintains itself. No-one controls it.)""(So you claim you have no way of fixing people?)" I tried not to grumble at the term 'fixing'.

"(Theoretically, it's possible to detach people, yes, but we don't have physical access to the controls to do so. If we ever do manage it, you want us to detach everyone? Bear in mind that we've never detached anyone before, and have no idea what the consequences would be.)""(Yes, please detach everyone who was accidentally infected, but to let us research long-term health effects, please leave these five.)" She waved her hand at a group off to the side, who each nodded.

I couldn't help but notice that those five were exactly half of the armed individuals. Shouldn't she want to detach a test group of people first, before doing everyone? Given that detaching them came with its own risks, why would she want to detach the diplomats, but not half the guards? Particularly now that it had turned the English language into a skill. In the worst case, cutting them off could cause them all to forget how to speak.

It looked like English was a second language to the bulk of the group, but that would still be nasty. Besides, how much longer till the System noticed that Earth had a variety of languages?

"(You heard me say detaching someone would have unknown effects?)""(Yes, of course.)""(Cool. Just checking there was a reason why you wanted to limit the superpowers to half your team of guards, and strip them from everyone else.)" The guards twitched again, while the other diplomats gave far more interesting reactions. They obviously knew, but I wasn't supposed to.

"(Esoteric senses, remember. I can see your weapons as clearly as those tubes you have up your bums. It's best to pretend I have x-ray vision.)""(Sending a group to an unknown world, with unknown intent, I think we can be forgiven for taking precautions,)" said their spokeswoman.

"(Yeah, I wasn't complaining about the guns,)" I said with a shrug.

"(It's more that I don't understand why you wouldn't want to test cutting off a small group first.)""(Because the sooner we're rid of a foreign influence that's obviously capable of mind control, the better. The risks of keeping it are worse than the risk of removing it.)" Were they trying to create a few super-soldiers? None of the others looked particularly bothered, so no-one disagreed with this course of action.

I suspected the real reason was that they didn't want to know the side effects, and believed they couldn't be worse than letting people keep their System powers. In the worst case—if detaching someone killed them—if they tested beforehand then there was no longer a way they could tell me to detach the tens of thousands. If they didn't test for side effects first, then they could just claim innocence through ignorance.

The ethics of that were horrifying, and were only made more complicated because this group would be cut off too. Any side effects would equally apply to them, and they were willing to risk it.

"(Then why keep anyone?)""(What if in the future we wish to exchange permanent diplomatic envoys, or even have a migration treaty? We'd need to know the long-term effects.)" Eww... Migration treaty? I could imagine the swarms of hero-wannabe teenagers already. They'd make our current brash-newbie-delver problem look like a picnic in comparison.

But that didn't change the fact that I was going to have to give them more details about the effects the System infection would have, particularly now that crossing over had exposed them to the Law. I didn't need to admit the System and Law were different things, but as far as I knew, the others back on Earth hadn't been Lawified, so they'd get the superpowers without the mind control. That would be a giveaway if I failed to detach them.

"(It's my opinion that migration, or even long-term visitation, is too dangerous. The System has generally proven itself to be adaptable and safe, so I doubt it'll cause direct problems. I've mentioned the superpowers, and I can imagine the chaos if they were unleashed on an entire population, but there's also the mind control element. You might find that those exposed to the System long term will change personality.)" The guinea pig guards suddenly looked less enthused about their experiment.

"(Then why haven't you cut yourself off?)" she replied, being annoyingly observant.

"(Oh, my personality has definitely changed. I used to be a complete introvert. Now I'm here talking to alien visitors. I even have a girlfriend.)" She frowned, possibly sensing there was more going on than I was admitting, but I really didn't want her finding out the big, scary dragons behind me were not only incapable of harming her, but would also fall for every deception and plot she devised.

"(You keep talking about superpowers and fireballs, but could you give some concrete examples? What abilities, exactly, does the System grant?)" In response, I crouched, activated my physical buff spells, and using the full power of [Superimpose] and my high jump enchanted ring, I leapt into the air. With all the boosts, it was getting hard to estimate just how high I was, but it was certainly higher than any house in Dawnhold.

"(The primary colour glows are spells from the [Body Mage] class that increase my physical stats,)" I said as I grabbed my head by the ears and lifted it off my neck.

"(And this is a spell from the [Eldritch Mage] class. It's how I made the eye-hand-spider things.)" That certainly caught everyone's attention. When thinking of a magical display, particularly just after mentioning fireballs, plucking my head off probably came as a surprise.

"(And this is an [Apprentice Mage] spell,)" I added, using a maximum range [Far Step] to leap away from the crowd before stepping back in. And realising what an idiot I was being. Not that I could do anything about it; that ship had sailed when they first saw my hand-eye-spider. The people had zero sized mana pools, and were unlikely to be able to take the mage classes. By admitting I had mage classes, I was admitting I had non-zero mana.

Perhaps they wouldn't jump from that to realising that I'd reincarnated, rather than fell through an accidental rift, but it was still a big clue something was up. It didn't matter much to me, personally, but I could imagine the religious wars that would result on Earth if hard evidence of reincarnation turned up. Not to mention that without the Law, soul stuff wouldn't be filtered from the System. Even if people couldn't take soul mage classes, eventually someone was going to get [Eye of Judgement].

"(Yes, I think we would prefer people weren't arbitrarily granted abilities like that,)" she said, lending additional credence to my theory as to why they didn't want to test detaching a small group first. Hmm... Actually, given that Cluma wasn't here, I could think of a good use for those guns.

"(While we're on the subject... Since you've brought guns, and it'll take Krana a while to gather the people we're waiting for, would you mind shooting me in the arm? Theoretically, there shouldn't be any Earth metals that can penetrate, but I'm interested in seeing what happens in reality.)" The group of thirty stared at me so hard that even Serlv picked up on it.

"Please tell me you are not subjecting our guests to your eccentricity..."