Happy Birthday, Dork | Backdated to August 31

[crouching_sin]

Sender: Naoya
To: Everyone
Subject: Birthday boy

My cousin, who recently arrived, has a birthday today. Wishing him a happy birthday is encouraged.

He's 18 now after all. In many places that makes you an adult, Kazuya.

Yes, I know you can see me writing this.

Comments

[crouching_sin]

[Brat.]

You assume that I need friends.

[Friends are useful, but not essential. He prefers 'allies'.]

[whatsamada]

[....]

How about this? I can be both your friend.

[This was getting so awkward..............]

[belheir]

... Didn't you just hear him? You don't want to be friends with someone like that.

[Atsuro is probably the closest person to a friend Naoya even has, and Kazuya really questions Atsuro's sanity on that one most of the time.]

[crouching_sin]

It's fine, Kazuya. You don't have to keep making the case against me, I can do that just fine myself.

... Why did you want to go through my things anyway? This is a dream world, can't you go chase gumdrops or something?

[whatsamada]

Yeah but...

[It was still nice to have some allies around? But he'll keep that to himself. Either way, he'll look back at Naoya and then back at Kazuya to see what else he would say.]

[belheir]

[... Why the hell would he go chase gumdrops? Is that even a thing? It better not be a thing.]

Because it'd annoy you. But also I wanted to see your notes to see if maybe you'd figured out something and just weren't telling me anything.

[crouching_sin]

Or you could just ask. I have no reason to hide information about this place from you. Really, why would it benefit me?

[whatsamada]

[This was getting so awkward. He shook his head as he suddenly felt like he was trying to find peace between two separate team again....]

Then is there information that you have?

[belheir]

It wouldn't, but asking you directly isn't as fun as going through your stuff and making a mess out of it.

[ pause. ]

It's also funnier for me, because I can tell when you start getting frustrated.

[ And writing your notes in a different language!! ]

[crouching_sin]

Probably nothing significant - especially if you've been here longer than me.

... You frustrate me even just by talking sometimes.

[Though he probably - no, definitely - does the same.]

[whatsamada]

...Do I need to leave again?

[Because he is about to!]

[belheir]

[Whats that? Naoya admitting that Kazuya frustrates him??

Put that on the scoreboard as a win for him.

(Even if it's like, Naoya - five billion, Kazuya - three).]

It's fine. He's just being a grumpy old man.

[crouching_sin]

Yes, yes.

[He folds his arms again and watches the other two intently.]

Are you quite finished?

[whatsamada]

I'm finished whenever Kazuya-san is.

[Because why was he here again? Who knows but, despite what he says, he knows not to leave his friend alone. Still, he looks at the both of him as he's unsure what to do.]

[belheir]

I'm done.

[ For now. There's always later, when conpany is gone. Maybe he'll make a paper airplane out of one of his loose notes later. ]

Oh, Amada-san, didn't you wanna ask him about the COMPs before?

[ He did promise an introduction... though it's a little late for a proper one. Oops.]

[crouching_sin]

Oh?

[A special interest has been unlocked. He sits up a bit straighter and nods.]

I can answer questions. Either the modified kind or the regular kind.

[whatsamada]

Well...

[He said with a mumble or two. There were a lot of things he wanted to ask but he'll have to take this one at a time.]

I'm curious, how were you able to get them? Since they're used to summon demons, you must have gotten them from someone special right?

[belheir]

He's the one who programmed the demon summoning app, actually.

[Pipes up the helpful peanut gallery.]

Though I wouldn't actually be surprised if he managed to rebuild a COMP and all it's functions from the ground up either.

[crouching_sin]

He's right. On both counts - I can put together a COMP from its component parts as well. But my main focus was the demon summoning application. That one I wrote from scratch.

[He didn't go to a fancy tech school for nothing. He had the magic part, it was the coding part he needed.]

[whatsamada]

Then how are you able to do it? Because back in my world, my leader had to trick himself into thinking he was in danger to summon a couple of demons back home.

[Which....he'll just keep silent on that as he wonders what the other two would say.]

[belheir]

[ This he also knows, though he's definitely less clear on it. Something common primal tongue, something a song.

And... that's about it, really. Though he does look at Ken with raised eyebrows. That explains the gun, then.]

[crouching_sin]

Ah. A complicated question. Essentially... I have to cast a spell in the pre-Babel language. Which is, as you might imagine, not exactly easy. I found a singer capable of doing it, but to explain the technical details is... probably more into the weeds than you'd want. Suffice it to say that I figured out how to weave a spell into code and power it with emotions from the internet. The coding itself forms a ritual circle that powers it.

fitting it all into the COMP's software was tricky, but with a few shortcuts I managed it.

[Like having the summoner fight their first demon on their own. Not in the original plan, but it worked.]

[whatsamada]

[And all Ken could do was stare for a moment. There were a lot of technical language that he doesn't understand nor could he really comprehend how one could use the internet to summon a demon but....]

...It makes me wonder what kind of world you are from if you're allowed to do that. It seems like a really powerful way to summon the unconscious onto the internet somehow.

[belheir]

I don't think it has anything to do with summoning the unconcious onto the internet. It's more emotions are pulled from the internet to summon the demons.

[ Since strong emotions summon demons, after all. ]

You need strong emotions to summon demons, so using all of the emotions already present on the internet to feed them makes that easier.

[crouching_sin]

Kazuya has the right of it. Demons feed on energy made from emotions, and you can use that to entice them to cross between worlds.

To summon one literally onto the internet is an interesting concept, but I knew that phones and internet would be cut off at the time so that idea went nowhere.

[Yes, he did think about that one.]