Chapter 168 – Fixing a bug

The group was a little confused over how the new knowledge about magic would actually be relevant as little changed about its usage. Canir confirmed that, for most, it simply serves as an explanation for why magic works the way it does. For those that can use chantless magic, it has a little more impact, though. If one treats magic more like a person and imagines the usage the way you'd explain it to someone, the result would most likely end up being more correct. Magic's also able to learn, which opens up a whole lot of possibilities for Sophia, a girl that came from a world with endless and curious inventions.

Eventually, magic being the main topic, slowly came to an end, though, and the group chatted with Canir about all kinds of other stuff.

"Say... What's up with the weird naming scheme in this world?" Sophia remembered a topic that had been bugging her since the very beginning but always forgot to address it.

"Hmm? What do you mean?" Canir only tilted his head.

"Well, the language is basically the same... Now that I think about it, that in itself already is plenty weird... Even so, some words are only almost the same. They occasionally sound or are spelled ever so slightly different. It’s super weird!"

"That's indeed odd..." Canir also seemed confused for some reason. "Could you give me a few examples?"

"Sure...?" Sophia had no idea why he would need that. "Cow is kow, bear became baer, deer to teer, horses are called harses now, and the ever so delicious pizza suddenly is a piizza. There are many more examples, but that's the gist of it. I'd so like to know how that happened..." She was really curious about it.

"Err..." He needed a moment. "It seems like there was a small bug."

"A bug?" The tiger stared at him. "In the language of this world?"

"Come here for a moment." Canir got up from the ground and gestured her closer with his right hand.

"Really...?" As she was still leaning against Aura while being clung to by Maya, her motivation to stand up wasn't the highest. "Fine..." Eventually, she got up and walked towards the overseer.

"What a noble sacrifice." He rolled his eyes.

"Alright, what do you- OUCH!" She suddenly yelped in pain while she was holding her head. Out of nowhere, Canir had flicked her forehead with so much force that it almost looked like a shockwave that even moved the dust in the area came out from the back of her head. At the same time, a flicking sound echoed through the area.

"Okay, that should fi-" Unable to finish his sentence, the overseer was suddenly gone.

"What do you think you're doing!?" Sophia yelled in the direction he had disappeared to. At the same time, she also started nursing her fist that had turned bright red after having connected with Canir's face a few seconds ago. "That hurt!"

"Wow."

"Nice punch, girl." The wolves, especially Aura, had enjoyed the show.

"W-What just h-happened...?" Maya was a little more shocked.

"That's what I'd like to know!" The tiger sounded angry. "Why would he flick my forehead like that out of nowhere?!"

"Err... n-no..." That wasn't the issue the cat-girl had. "Y-You just punched the Canir, you know?!"

"And?" She only tilted her head. "It's far from the first time, too, after all."

"I-I, uhh... was kinda hoping it was just a figure of speech the other time..."

"Nope, it always was the fist-meets-face kind of thing~." She sounded strangely happy while saying so.

"H-He isn't dead, i-is he?"

"Nah, he's a sturdy one. I don't think I can kill a go-, overseer." The tiger corrected herself as she didn’t want to call him a god anymore after finding out she could become the same if she wanted to. A god was way too much for her to deal with there. "And trust me, I tried~."

"R-Really?" Maya sounded dubious. "It looked like you punched him into another dimension or whatever, though..."

"Yeah, I'm quite proud of that one." There was not even the slightest bit of regret in Sophia's voice.

"Y-You really are something else..." Maya gave up.

"Ehehe~." It was a compliment for her. "Still, why did he even do that...?" She glanced at the place Canir was a little while ago again. "Did he come up with those names, and I hurt his feelings? Maybe he invented the language, and he had a speech defect during that time? Ah, that must've been hard... I never said I disliked those names, you know? It just confuses me all the time... I don't really care if it's kow instead of cow now. It actually sounds kinda cute. Harsies~ has a nice ring to it, too. I might like that even more than horsies.”

"Mmnh?" Fen stared at her with a confused expression. "What are you even talking about?"

"Eh?"

"What's with the sudden relapse? How many times did we go over that already? They're called cows and not kows like you use every so often, girl. It's the same with horses." The wolf looked tired.

"H-Huh...?" Sophia had no idea what was going on anymore. "I know that they're called cows and horses, but you all always told me that they're actually slightly different. Baer, teer, piizza, rozes, podadoes, chocolade, and all that..."

"No..." Maya joined Fen's side. "Those are the funny pronunciations you came up with, Sophia. They're called bears, deer, pizza, roses, potatoes, and chocolate here."

"W-What...?" The tiger couldn't find any better words. "Eh...?"

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As Sophia was beyond confused at this point, the entire group was at a loss about what to do here.

"That's what you get for punching me, idiot." It took him around 15 minutes, but Canir suddenly reappeared in front of the group while not even having a scratch on his face.

"Want another one?" The blonde already readied her fist.

"I do not!" While saying so, he increased the distance to the tiger and half hid behind the wolves again.

"Coward." Aura shook her head while looking at him.

"H-Have you seen her punch?!" He got loud. "She actually, literally, punched me back to my own domain!"

"Nice job, stripey one." Fen seemed genuinely impressed while glancing at Sophia.

"That's what you get for flicking my forehead, Canir! What was that even for?!"

"I just fixed the error in your language settings. I need to get a little more physical when using my blessings outside of my realm..."

"I see... I'm sorry about that, then... Still, you should've warned me beforehand-, Wait, what?" It took a while before the words had registered in her brain. "My language... settings...?"

"Girl, you are in a different world. What made you think they actually use the same language as you do?" He stared right into her eyes.

"Err... I hadn’t actually put any thoughts into that... It did confuse me a little earlier, though... Wait, what...?" She repeated herself because the tiger couldn't follow him even the slightest bit.

"This world uses its very own language that didn't exist on Earth."

"E-Ehh...? B-But I can talk with everyone relatively fine, though...?"

"Yeah," Fen nodded. "She says some funny things every now and then, and sounds a bit stupid from time to time, but I understood most of what she told me."

"Exact- HEY!"

"That's because the changes to your body and the boosts weren’t all I did for you." Canir interjected. "I also made you understand the language of this world. To a point where your brain wouldn't even notice that it was different from what you were used to."

"S-Seriously?!" The blonde was shocked. "Uhh... t-thank you very much for that!"

"You're welcome~. While it could've been fun to see you struggle with a different language, even I found that idea a little too cruel."

"A-Again, thank you very much! I'm also really sorry for punching you earlier!"

"You aren't." Canir didn't buy it.

"You are correct! It was awesome! I'm sorry for lying!" She sounded excited and itching to go again.

"Stop that." He couldn't deal with this type of Sophia.

"Gladly."

"Good... Well, I gave you the language of this world as another gift, but it seems that it hadn't implanted itself to 100% in your brain. Hence, some slight pronunciation issues surfaced."

"Wow..." The blonde needed to let that sink in. "So, it wasn't like someone was just incredibly lazy when coming up with those names? It really seemed like that to me. You know, as if someone just exchanged a few letters and syllables and thought that works well enough."

"That’s just stupid, girl."

"I know!" Sophia gave him a big nod. "That's why I got so confused about them every now and then.”

"No, that was my fault. Or maybe yours because your skull's so thick that my gift didn't get fully through it."

"Hey! Well, I can't deny that possibility..." She's pretty self-aware, after all.

"It should all be fixed now, though. I made sure it gets to every corner of your brain this time."

"You sure did..." Sophia rubbed her forehead while saying so. "It super hurt!"

"Yeah..." He rubbed his jaw in response. "Very."

"Hehe.” She let out a small chuckle. “Still... I don't even know how long I'll still be using the wrong names, though... cows have totally become kows for me..."

"Good luck with that." He had no better words for her.

Afterward, Sophia needed some alone time to fully understand what she just had found out and how she was the one in the wrong with the weird-sounding names the entire time.