My Refrigerator Turned Into A Dungeon

Vitality Is Like Lamp Oil! Then, Magic Is…

"Hey, Egetsu-san. Right here, it's gotten so stiff."

"Ah, not there!"

"Feels good? Hey, it feels good. Then I'll rub harder!"

"Muooo!?"

10 p.m., I was being stepped on by Serai-san.

It's nothing shady, just Serai-san giving me a foot massage for treating her to dinner. Well, if you were expecting something more, I'll say.

"Too bad."

By the way, today I'm visiting Serai-san's apartment.

At Serai-san's request, "I want to eat that shrimp again." we went to the river during the day. But whether it's the season or not, the fishing wasn't successful, so instead, we gathered a lot of wild plants growing on the embankment.

Wild plants like mugwort, shepherd's purse, and rapeseed flowers.

I've camped before, so I've studied a bit about edible wild plants. Since then, as an otaku, I've reinforced that knowledge through cooking manga and survival manga, so it wasn't difficult to pick out easily recognizable wild plants by the embankment.

"But Egetsu-san, it's rare for you to be so stiff. Is something wrong?"

"Ah, no, I just got carried away and pushed my body too hard."

That's a lie. The truth is, feeling anxious that my skills wouldn't improve any further, I got carried away and tried to fill that gap by exercising. I should be calmer at times like this, but I still have a long way to go.

But if I say that, I'll only cause unnecessary worry, so I'll keep it to myself.

"Well then, next, I'll go from your back to your waist. Here we go!"

"Ah, that feels good too."

With her hands on the wall, Serai-san puts pressure on my waist with her toes. Since she's also practiced massaging, she remembers the pressure points, and it feels good.

"Ah, the shrimp was delicious today. I didn't expect mugwort tempura to be so delicious."

"Haha, I see. I'm glad you liked it."

The long shrimp and mugwort were used for tempura. The shepherd's purse, which resembles garlic chives and leeks, was put into instant miso soup. Chopped finely and added with eggs, it tasted like leek and egg miso soup. The rapeseed flowers were boiled and the bitterness removed, then eaten as a side dish.

The long shrimp was consistently delicious. Crispy and fragrant, it increased my appetite. Although the catch was small, the mugwort tempura covered it. It was slightly bitter and tasted similar to chrysanthemum tempura, and it was delicious.

When eating soba noodles, I usually top them with chrysanthemum and croquettes, so it was familiar and very easy to eat.

The rapeseed flower side dish. Well, this is an adult taste. Sprinkle bonito flakes on it, add a drop of soy sauce, and when you put it in your mouth, a slight bitterness spreads along with a faint bitterness, making you want to pour it down with miso soup.

"Even though it was so delicious, the food cost only amounted to the rice we cooked and the instant miso soup. It's surprising and economical. Ah, I wish I had met Egetsu-san earlier."

"Hey, hey, you're not thinking of me as a budget item, are you?"

While saying that, Serai-san gets down on all fours from a standing position and massages the muscles around my buttocks with her knees. Oh! That's also very pleasant.

To what extent is it pleasant? If there were a shop that provided such a service, I'd be willing to pay up to 30,000 yen for it.

"Speaking of which, Serai-san, didn't you say something about your hometown being in the countryside before? When you were at home, did you ever pick wild plants or anything?"

"Mm, I wasn't interested in that kind of stuff at all. Although butterbur grows abundantly along the school route, even if I knew it was edible, I never thought about picking it."

"I see. If you think there's plenty of it, you won't feel like consuming it. Wasn't your hometown Yasu?"

"Yeah, but it wasn't a prosperous place like with hot springs; it was more towards the mountains. It wasn't really the countryside, but even so, back then, I admired the city."

I see, so Serai-san was a girl who admired the city. Then she was engrossed in fashionable things and didn't pay attention to wild plants.

"But now, I'm a little worried. Monsters came out of the dungeon so easily. In places where people don't go, like deep in the mountains, it seems like the monsters from that time are still there."

"Yeah, that's worrying."

The Self-Defense Forces did their best and exterminated the monsters that came out of the dungeons all over Japan. But even now, monsters are still coming down from the mountains and making the news.

There must be dungeons like the crab dungeon we have, popping up all over Japan.

…..

We finished our enjoyable meal, took a bath, and had a massage. Then we spent quality time together and fell asleep while hugging each other.

It's a harem-like daily life with beautiful college girls like an erotic game. I couldn't have imagined this a year ago. Well, I had plenty of dreams.

While sleeping in my arms, Manami asked to have love whispered in her ear until she fell asleep.

Yes, she's like a cat type. Confirming that "even if I'm selfish, the other person will fulfill my wishes" gives her a sense of fulfillment.

So I continued whispering love to Manami.

"I love you," "I love you so much," "I won't let go." and so on. Every time, Manami hugged me tightly, looking happy. Despite everything, she's happy to have time to monopolize me.

But if it continues, she'll get bored, so this time she asked for "a sleepy story…"

"I see, then let's talk about magic."

"Yeah."

Magic. It has a fantastic feel to it, a really nice ring.

I love this word. I mean, who wouldn't be tickled by the word "magic"? Maybe military otaku, train otaku, perhaps.

Well, anyway, I'd like to delve into magic.

In games, characters' vitality is represented by HP, and their magic by MP, for example.

For example, "I have 10 MP left now, so I can use two more spells that consume 5 MP each," and so on. Depending on the game, stamina is also added to this, representing the energy level of the body.

What's the deal with real magic? Well, it's not as simple as you might think.

In games, characters inherently recognize and possess magic. Well, even if not, it's common for characters to awaken to magical powers during early-game events.

But even in fantasy worlds, there are plenty of ordinary people who can't handle magic.

In most cases, magic users are rare, and it's generally accepted, that people can't handle magic or magical abilities.

But fortunately for me, having acquired skills, I could somehow handle magic as well. Maybe it's because I had a high aptitude for being a wizard back then. It's nice, but if that's the reason, I can't really be happy about it.

Anyway, as a result of researching and contemplating, "Magic ≥ Vitality."

Yeah, it's rough.

But I think there's no mistake in this. So it's safe to say that magic is "something that transforms vitality into high-density spiritual power."

That leads to the aforementioned, "It's not as simple as you might think." But before explaining that, let's talk about "vitality" and "magic".

First, what is "vitality"? It would be reasonable to explain it as "the mental energy everyone possesses". Yes, everyone has some level of vitality. Yeah, this should be easy to understand.

And vitality is like, well, it's like "lamp oil" that everyone can handle easily…

So, the "vitality = lamp oil" equation holds. Ah, well, this is just an analogy, so please don't think too deeply about it.

On the other hand, what is "magic"? It can be described as "high-density or high-concentration spiritual power."

Yes, it's not energy but power.

Yeah, I think that's closer. In other words, "magic is something that combines energy and dynamic power," or in other words, "while vitality = lamp oil, magic is like handling difficult-to-use aviation fuel or nitroglycerin," to put it another way.

So it's a bit forceful, but the equation becomes "magic = aviation fuel or nitroglycerin." Yeah, it's a conceptual discussion, so I hope you can understand the nuances.

From these points, "magic ≥ vitality," but that's why you can't keep a large amount of magic inside your body.

Having too much magic in your body puts too much strain on it, and it's dangerous to have various things like carrying a bomb.

So what do you do? The answer is "to generate it each time it's needed."

What does that mean? It means "magic is the output for skills or casting spells, with the mind as the engine and vitality as the fuel" as the relationship.

In other words, it's like "using vitality as fuel, elevating it with mental power, and outputting it as magic" kind of thing.

Just like monsters are a bit special, they can keep a considerable amount of magic in their bodies as is and even use it directly. Well, that's because they're monsters. They probably can do that monstrous thing.

For example, even if you take a giant cockroach on the second basement floor, it shouldn't be able to move as quickly as it does just by enlarging its size. Yet, they could move around much faster than normal cockroaches on Earth.

Although there shouldn't be a big difference in gravity between the surface and the dungeon, right?

The reason for this is that they can convert the magic they have in their bodies directly into power to move their bodies. And… Dungeon explorers who defeat such monsters and acquire their life energy might also… be able to acquire such characteristics.

In fact, I've become able to maintain a certain amount of magic in my body. This is like having acquired an MP gauge. Well, of course, it's not visible, just a feeling.

So when trying to use skills to perform magical actions, magic users are forced to concentrate their minds as if they were casting a spell. Simple magic can be covered with the magic power you have, but if you try to use a bigger technique, you'll inevitably run out of magic power.

So you concentrate your mind, elevate it with mental power, and transform it into magic power. I've named this theory "vitality fuel, mental activation, magic power output."

By using vitality as fuel, elevating it with mental power, and outputting magic as the activation of magic or skills.

Yeah, I think it makes perfect sense. As for aura, it's the same as magic power, but the degree of refinement is different. If we were to express it in an equation, it would be "vitality ≤ aura ≤ magic."

The above is the result of further contemplation from the interpretation I had previously, which was "magic = vitality."

In the early stages, I didn't understand it well because the amount of magic I could maintain was too small, but through the process up to now, I've come to understand a lot about that difference by comparing fluctuations in abilities.

And as I whispered those things, I realized Machi was quietly snoring. Hehe, she has an adorable sleeping face.

Well then, while savoring the joy of holding my beloved woman in my arms, I'll also sleep soon.