After a while, Lilia-san seemed to have grown somewhat accustomed to the situation, as she began to enjoy our conversation with a more relaxed air. Being an open-air bath, the scenery was breathtaking, and a tray of Japanese sake had materialized out of nowhere, so we were currently sipping on it together.
"Still, this is quite easy to drink. Was it called 'nihonshu'?"
"Yeah. Trinia has something similar, and Noin-san even brews her own, but it’s definitely a niche drink here. It goes down smoothly, but the alcohol content is fairly high. If you drink a lot because it’s easy, then later... hmm... If we drink in a dream, do we actually get drunk, I wonder?"
"Who knows? Even if we can taste it, actual alcohol isn't entering our real bodies. I imagine we wouldn't..."
"Lilia-san, you aren't very good with alcohol, are you? Are you okay?"
I remembered back when we first visited the Arclesia Empire and brought Bell home. Lilia-san had been drinking wine and mentioned that she didn't have much tolerance. I rarely saw her drink, and even when she did, it was usually just a small glass of wine. I asked because I was worried she would be in trouble for the rest of the party if the intoxication somehow carried over to the real world.
"For now, I don't feel tipsy at all, so it's fine. Besides, I can negate or dispel status ailments, so even if I were actually drunk, I could clear it immediately. Though... when you brought Bellfried home, I was intentionally trying to get drunk as a form of reality escape."
"A-Ahaha, sorry about that... But on that note, I hear about 'negating status ailments' quite often. Is that something everyone can do once they reach Count-class?"
"There is some variation based on skill and magic power capacity, but the technique itself isn't difficult. To put it very simply, resisting status ailments involves imbuing the magic power you naturally radiate with a resistant property. Once you're used to it, you can keep it active subconsciously. It's one of the first things taught during knight training."
"I see. So the effectiveness depends on your mastery and the raw strength of your magic power."
Come to think of it, Falce-san had mentioned that Laguna-san had such high resistance that almost any poison was neutralized instantly. Since Laguna-san didn't seem like a particularly precise or dexterous type, it really did suggest that magic power volume was the deciding factor.
"Clearing alcohol from your system isn't a hard spell, either. If you focus, you should be able to sense exactly how much alcohol is in your body. From there, you just visualize the magic removing it."
"I... see."
Sense exactly how much alcohol is in your system? No, I definitely couldn't do that. She spoke with such casual certainty that I couldn't tell if this was common knowledge or not. It was always hard to judge with Lilia-san.
According to Luna-san and Sieg-san, Lilia-san was a terrible teacher. Or rather, she suffered from a fatal disconnect in perception. It wasn't that her explanations were poor; she genuinely tried to tailor her guidance to the student's level. However, because she was a transcendent genius, things she considered "perfectly normal" were utterly impossible for anyone else.
"I remember Luna-san warning me never to take your 'it's not difficult' at face value."
"Eh? U-Umm... It’s true that Sieg and Luna were often exasperated with me, even back in the knights..."
"They mentioned your instincts are just too far beyond a normal person's. Did a lot of things happen?"
"It's a bit embarrassing to talk about my own failures, but... for example, when I was asked to teach someone how to counter magical restraints or seals... Whenever magic or a barrier touches my skin, I can instinctively read the formula's structure. I thought my job was to teach them how to dismantle it... but apparently, one is supposed to start by investigating what kind of formula it is in the first place. You have to learn how to quickly see through or predict the structure. My students were quite speechless."
"Ah, I see. Since you've always known it instinctively, it felt natural to you. But to everyone else, it looked like you were analyzing the formulas with high-level knowledge. They asked for guidance, but since you were just relying on your incredible innate senses, the lesson wasn't helpful at all."
"Yes, that happened frequently. I often did intuitively what others had to hone through years of study and experience. It led to a constant gap in perception. I even used to think everyone could perfectly mimic an action after seeing it once, as well..."
Lilia-san was a peerless genius. Even at the White God Festival, she had scored a perfect 100 in the free-throw game after watching only a few people play. While she likely understood that her "normal" wasn't everyone else's, it must be difficult to judge exactly where the line was drawn. Being a genius clearly came with its own set of burdens.
"Come to think of it, Alice told me that Vul... Vulpecula, one of Isis-san's subordinates, is a genius on par with you, Lilia-san. She can do almost anything after seeing it once and is incredibly dexterous. You might actually find someone who speaks the same language as you."
"Is that so? Then I would certainly love to speak with her sometime."
"I'll introduce you when there's a chance."
The thought had occurred to me randomly, but the chemistry between Uru and Lilia-san really did seem promising.
???: "Um, Kaito-san? Could you please not? If you let those two meet, they're going to cause a massive chemical reaction. Specifically, Vulpecula-san's growth speed will hit Mach speed. She's already on track to break every 'youngest ever' record; please don't hand her an awakening flag. Do it for the sake of Alice-chan's stomach's peace..."