Building a magic system on threat of destruction

The aftermath of the almost altercation between kingdoms was very boring to Jack. He had nothing to offer in the coming peace talks and kingdom-related gestures. Mostly, his duties boiled down to granting statuses to the POWs. The queen of Cheria had sent a missive asking that the captured Vitlavin troops not be granted status screens, but Jack had chosen to ignore the request.

He didn't like how the Queen had maneuvered in this case. She knew that the King of Vitlavin would venture into the compound and had used that to entrap her enemies inside. Jack didn't appreciate the exploitation of needing to come see him directly. Letters and messages arrived over the next few days from various worldly powers, requesting that Jack come and visit them. The Queen of Cehria had scared off many potential world leaders, which made Jack annoyed. So in retaliation, he made an effort to do anything he could that might annoy her.

The POWs were only held for a few days before being escorted to the capital. One of the POWs was Vrim, who worked eagerly to help write up contracts and missives. Apparently, they also sent the equivalent of a resume to the kingdom of Cheria, requesting government work in exchange for state secrets.

Jack remained frustratingly uninvolved. Isekai protagonists always seemed to have insightful advice or world-changing words of wisdom, but he was completely lost in the government jargon. So instead, he tried to focus on system-related issues. With Deis indisposed, he couldn't add any new features to the system screens, or change key features. What he could do though, was edit existing information. Jack consulted with Plexion about all the skills they had documented up until now, trying to decide if it would be worth hiding a vast majority of the skills.

Jack had long wondered if it was worth reading through the incredibly long lists of redundant skills. Things like the [Toothpick Usage] skill didn't exactly scream 'magic system'. Although, Jack was willing to bet there was some braindead story out there that made a skill like that OP. Jack figured that he could make something like a hidden folder that obscured most skills while still keeping them on the status screen. The skills could still be updated by the butterflies, but if he asked them not to create pop-ups, then people would never know.

When Jack brought this up to Alpha, the butterfly displayed a surprising lack of knowledge. [If you erase skills then people can't do that thing anymore?!?] It asked in horror.

"You really didn't know?" Jack asked.

[No!] The butterfly paused, somehow looking sheepish. [Honestly, I might have tried to do it if I did know though. Just as a prank though.]

Jack sighed. "Do you think other butterflies would do that?"

[Maybe?] it said. [I just wanted to have fun. Messing with people could probably become fun pretty easily.]

It was another reason to track down the butterflies. Perhaps Jack would have to trek out into the world to search for them. While he idly contemplated all of these things, he made an effort to return to the white void. Claiming there was something he needed to check on, he had Reph and the others temporarily deactivate his body.

Checking on the body that was Deis was paramount. It was like a bomb waiting to go off, and Jack had no idea how to prevent it. There was no change to the status of the god, and he was exactly where Jack had left him. Leaving the 'God Realm' as Jack had taken to calling it, he returned to the normal white void. He waited for Plexion to phase into his awareness.

The late King of all demons had worked hard to adjust his magic so that Jack could see him. However, it only worked when Plexion made a steady conscious effort. It made talking in person a bit annoying for the demon, but he was desperate for Jack's company.

"Hey, Jack! Good to see you again." He reached out and clasped Jack's arm in a firm handshake.

"Good to see you Plexion. How are you holding up?"

He shrugged. "I've been worse I suppose." Then he grew a bit more serious. "Though I think I've been seeing things."

Jack focused on him, suddenly worried. "What kind of things?"

"Not sure. I thought maybe I was seeing butterflies in the distance or something. Just blurs really far away."

Jack frowned, thinking hard about this. "Should I be worried about you, Plexion?"

Plexion laughed. "Always! I'm a chronic troublemaker." He took on a more serious tone. "I might try to investigate. The blurs are always in the same direction, so I think it might actually be something."

Jack nodded, the added detail giving him some small relief that Plexion wasn't going crazy up here. "Be careful."

He gave Jack a thumbs-up. "I won't do that, but I won't die. I promise"

Jack chuckled, trusting Plexion to know what he was doing. They said their goodbyes, and Plexion vanished from Jack's sight. Jack waited patiently for the appointed return time. The bore-bots were going to turn Jack's body on soon, so he waited patiently, browsing through status screens. He sat in his chair made of screens and hummed to himself before a sudden shadow passed over the screen he was looking at. He almost dismissed it, before remembering that he was in the white void. He had never seen anything that could fly in here.

He looked sharply up, his eyes searching out anything that might have caused the shadow. He couldn't see anything, just the white emptiness in every direction. He stared into the void above him, eyes straining desperately. He wondered if he had imagined the shadow, his mind playing tricks on him. He looked back down. The ground around him was covered in shadow. It wasn't blackness, but rather it reduced the light of the void. It was like seeing something dark under the ground, like a fish under under the ice.

Jack froze, not daring to move. The shadow shifted in shape and size slightly as the edges, not keeping a set form. He was at the center of the rough shape, and he worried that whatever was making it was either right above or below him. It was impossible to tell what was making the shadow, he couldn't hear anything or even sense anything. Jack stayed stock still, the shadow unmoving, until he felt himself be pulled back to his body on Drowl.

He sat up immediately, his gaze quickly searching the room.

Glimm flinched back away from him in surprise. "Jack? What's wrong?"

Jack didn't see any sources of shadow or anything wrong, but instinct told him something was happening. "Glimm, can you use magic to search the room?"

She looked at him, worry clear on her face, but she obliged. Her mana hit him like a physical force, and he saw things rattle and shake as she magically searched the room. "Is there anything in here?" He asked softly.

Glimm shook her head. "Nothing I wasn't expecting to find. What's going on, Jack?"

He shook his head, still unnerved. "I'm not sure...did anything happen while I was gone?"

"Not that I know of. But I was down here the whole time. Jeler is upstairs if you want to ask him."

Jack looked around, then nodded. 'Good idea. Thanks, Glimm."

She nodded at him, turning back to her work as he went upstairs.

As he ascended upstairs, he typed out a message to Plexion. [Did you see the shadow? Are you okay?] There was no reply. Jack knew that the demon might not reply, he only checked Jack's status screen every now and again. Besides that, Plexion had wandered off somewhere in the white void. But despite those explanations, Jack couldn't help but feel worried.

Jack saw Jeler lounging languidly in the living room. The animalus perked up as he saw Jack, rising to meet him. "Didn't get delayed this time?" He asked the question in good humor, but then he grew serious at Jack's expression. "What's wrong?"

Jack shook his head, unsure. "Something spooked me. I don't know what it was but..." he trailed off, not sure how to explain what had happened. "Has anything strange happened here?"

Jeler shook his head. "In the hour since you left? Not that I know of. No alarms or anything." He looked at Jack curiously. "You really seem spooked. Want me to check the rest of the house?"

Jack nodded, and the two of them went room to room, checking for any signs of trouble. Jack's anxiety didn't vanish, rather it only grew as no obvious signs of trouble presented themselves. Jeler seemed to notice this. "Why don't we go check in with Riniox? If a mouse so much as sneezed in camp, she probably knows about it."

Jack nodded, his eyes still darting around to look at every shadow on the walls and floors. They went downstairs and Jeler opened the front door. jack looked out and saw that the weather had become overcast. Dark, stormy clouds gathered overhead. The sheer scale of the cloud cover was massive, so much so that it blocked Jack's sight of the rising horizon of Drowl.

Jeler whistled softly. "Looks like a big storm is rolling in." He turned to look at Jack, stopping when he saw the look of concern on his friend's expression. "Jack?"

Jack stared in horror at the cloud. Its shape was like the one he had seen in the white void, indistinct around the edges, but he was sure that it was the same. Jack knew deep in his heart that this cloud...or rather this ducol...was here for him.