*
It was late in to the evening when they arrived at Sariel's home.
"... Excuse the intrusion..." (Arin)
"Excuse me too..." (Yggdrasil)
They stepped in with hesitant strides. Strangely enough, it was the first time they had entered a friend's home. A friend's home with their parents present was drastically different from one without, certainly they must have gotten nervous at the thought of meeting them. It felt almost sinful. Nevertheless, Sariel's family was very welcoming and warm.
They had relaxed eyes, guiding them into the living room with peaceful expressions.
" Come in! We have plenty of space on the couch." (Sariel's mother)
"Now... This is rather last minute, it's no good to drag others into your selfishness Sariel!" (Sariel's father)
"Enough! You're disturbing their rest! Girls, let's go. To my room." (Sariel)
"Ah! Uhh... Thanks for letting us in." (Yggdrasil)
She did a little bow before wading further into the apartment. Her eyes fixed onto a distant flight of stairs perched at the end.
"Thanks for having us." (Arin)
Compared to Yggdrasil, her composed demeanour was a stark difference. The parents saw them off with partial smiles, leaving them to their own devices. Sariel was a good kid, they were proud that she had some friends that she was close enough to bring them over. When the time came, they trusted her to bring them down for dinner. Preparations would go on slightly longer today, making enough portions for 5 people instead of 3.
Inside her room, they promptly began to look around, sating their curiosity. It was strangely... Normal. Average. The sheets were a milky blue, the walls were a soft yellow. The bed lay next to the farthest wall from the entrance and the rest of the room held studying desks, closets, and various paraphernalia.
"How do I say this... I thought it'd be more girly..." (Arin)
"!? The hell you mean girly? If it serves its purpose what's so bad about it?" (Sariel)
"Now now... Let's... Proceed with our plans." (Yggdrasil)
Yggdrasil could naturally use magic without transforming. It wasn't {Feed}, but to some extent she can match with a low end C grade magical girl's reaction time and recon capabilities. Her body is still pitifully weak, it's a corpse in suspended animation, so there's no way for it to train or grow stronger. If it weren't for Yggdrasil being a spiritual entity, she wouldn't be able to store memories as well. As it stood, the comprehension of the world and the accumulation of memories was left to Yggdrasil, the corpse alone... Was none functional.
Functions, biological processes, everything had to be consciously and individually accessed. It is not beyond Yggdrasil's capabilities to simulate muscle movement or expressions, beyond that there were things like the nervous system, respiratory system, and digestive system that were subconsciously simulated. Then there are many other processes that aren't even touched upon, like the brain's operations, the liver's hormonal balance regulations and detoxification.
Audio, visual, olfactory and tactile information is directly sent to Yggdrasil to process. In this case, even magical senses are active and she can locate sources of magic reactions without transforming. It was only a preliminary method of detection, but it was enough to tell that there wasn't anyone eavesdropping on the three of them.
"... Alchemy, engraving our skills into objects for independent usage, that is the discipline called alchemy. Does anyone else have alchemical knowledge?" (Arin)
Sariel flashed a wry grin while Yggdrasil stared blankly into the air. Arin was only trying to confirm it, but it still stung that she was the only who could do anything about the current situation.
" The core principle of any alchemical endeavour is the same, unlike magic we are not creating something out of nothing, that would be the arcane.
We are handling matters of equivalent exchange, namely the materials that we scavenged from Traces. Usually Traces vanish into dust, but certain parts that remain in spite of that vanishment are unusually strong.
Could you guys think of any materials we might have picked up? " (Arin)
"... So it's like mob loot from a game? They have rare chances of dropping but are suitable as alchemical material? " (Yggdrasil)
" Anything we picked up recently? A Traces primary form of attack would be their skill. Unlike magical girls, their skills correlate to their name or appearance. However that's just it, their attacks are formed of magic and anything they create out of it will vanish first.
It comes down to body parts that persist after death... Parts that escape Eterna's 'Event' Correction phenomena. They escape detection as 'invasive biological waste' and become classified as mystical relics. Something like that beetle horn we picked up a while ago? "(Sariel)
" Yeah, during the time we were all out fighting Traces. There should be some leftovers. Did we leave it all to you? " (Yggdrasil)
With Yggdrasil's suggestion, they turned their attention to Sariel. She was their 'senior' when it came to being a magical girl, when it came to matters pertaining Traces they would defer to her straightaway. Back when they first teamed up and cleared Traces together day after day, before the advent of the Super Satellite Calamity, surely they picked up something every now and then?
"... Yeah, it's around here somewhere in this room. It was a hassle finding a hiding place.... And the amount only kept increasing." (Sariel)
She went to a drawer parked underneath her desk. Casually, she pulled it by the handle and rummaged a bit. Clearing out the mundane items, she removed the false boarding to reveal a secret compartment. There wasn't many places in her enclosed room to hide items. Any place that was left in the open, her parents would inevitably stumble upon one day. Just when she was about to give up, she once saw this trick of adding another board into her drawers in a movie she borrowed from Pheena. It was by total coincidence, and at the time she had been hiding her loot in her school bag.
While there was an increasing quantity of such drops from Traces, they were never much in terms of size. They made the perfect materials for trinkets. The sword she had once commission another magical girl to make had already become obsolete. She had gotten stronger since and was afraid her strength might shatter it. It took a while, but she slowly crawled over the the large gap in power between them. With good training from her closed friends, she might have breached on the lower cusp of B grade.
"... We don't need much in terms of quality, we'll do the fighting rather than rely on tools anyway. But having support items helps a lot more than you think, we'll beat them with this." (Arin)
Her solemn words declared.