Strip 1: As you can tell, Meguru is a book-reading nerd. What kind of books Demon Lord!Seren might have written? Strip 2: As it seems, books about random, mostly useless spells.
>Sorry, the furigana for Seren's 1st title is too small and I can't read it. Looks like "ジ グラッド" to me, but as to what is it... "The grad"? Brief search points to some niconico comments mentioning mesopotamian temples, but I can't make it anywhere further.
>It feels like she should have become her apprentice. Wait, but didn't she already?
>Sorry, the furigana for Seren's 1st title is too small and I can't read it. Looks like "ジ グラッド" to me, but as to what is it... "The grad"? Brief search points to some niconico comments mentioning mesopotamian temples, but I can't make it anywhere further.
>It feels like she should have become her apprentice. Wait, but didn't she already?
That's probably a typo of ziggurat. Though 'the' usually is written as ザ, so that's why I'm thinking it should be G ___ or maybe Z ___.
And Kinka is saying that (despite Seren forcing her) Meguru seems like someone who would want to become Seren's apprentice. And then she did. So things worked out the way they should.
>Sorry, the furigana for Seren's 1st title is too small and I can't read it. Looks like "ジ グラッド" to me, but as to what is it... "The grad"? Brief search points to some niconico comments mentioning mesopotamian temples, but I can't make it anywhere further.
For the heck of it, I looked up ジ グラッド and 太陽 (since that's mentioned in the alternate description), and found the link now in the translation note.
It's probably some standard phrase or quote or something, but I can't find any explanation of it. But it seems to mean what it says, so I'm going with that.
PS: If you want to PM me any ones with missing lines, I'll take another look at them.
I'm questioning whether she actually wrote them, or if Seren is just THAT smart that she can write brilliant things by accident.
It's also possible that Meguru is the smart one, seeing the universe in a drop of water - gaining profound insights that were never actually present in books that Seren wrote purely to amuse herself.
Or a bit of both - it's clear that Seren is meant to be a major figure in the magical world, and she could well have such a deep insight of magic that her joke grimoires have subtle insights without her actually deliberately putting them there, but only a patient mind like Meguru's can pick them out of the silliness.
I'm questioning whether she actually wrote them, or if Seren is just THAT smart that she can write brilliant things by accident.
Probably the second case. Like, all she created is silly useless spells, but since she's a powerful and experienced mage, if she explained the detailed process of their creation, it could shed some light on the serious fundamental theory, especially for someone like Meguru :3 I presume it's like the "stupid" programming exercises with no practical application, which are made solely to get you used to the language and to explore its features.
Is Elza angry because even though Seren was making those books to amuse herself, it still had deep magical knowledge or something?
So, Meguru decrypted something off Seren's books that wasn't supposedly there in the first place?
Does that also mean that Seren's silliness also hold deep magical knowledge?
Elza's probably mad because Seren truly was just dicking around with pointless magic spells for no really good reason, in spite of the accidental usefulness Meguru got out of them.
As for the other two questions, as Type-kun and Mithwithi said, it's likely that, in spite of her not really paying it any attention, Seren used such well-documented procedures that someone who genuinely payed attention could figure out how to reverse-engineer actually useful spells out of the pointless one.
The example of programming is probably relevant - whenever I need to learn something in a language I'm not familiar with, I tend to just go straight to the examples of the code in use more than the long, formal explanations of code, just because it tends to be easier to understand something from a practical demonstration of its use.
It's been pointed out that modern programming has colored people's ideas of how magic works, with magic operating with logical, predictable results, and the ability to mix-and-match specific components to gain symmetric changes. (I.E. a level 3 fireball and a level 3 lightning bolt doing the same damage, just with different elemental effects and areas of effect.)
I've only ever used perl myself when messing with IRC scripts... and yeah, everything I learned about perl I learned by just taking existing scripts that did things similar to what I wanted to do, and Frankensteining things together until it did what I wanted. I never really read any sort of real manual on perl or got classes.
As for the camel code, if you look down in the comments section, the second comment basically tells you exactly what every single little thing in the code is, and what it does, so it's pretty easy to figure out, which would probably make it a pretty good parallel for Meguru's experience.
HmphMeguru, you even read those?I've read all of the former director's books that are in the Babel Library.Seren.Meaningless MeaningThe Dictionary of Eastern Spells to Learn RakugoMy books were like that?...Huh?Ohh---Each book only explains meaningless practical spells, but if you truly understand the contents, and completely read all 3, it's amazing!Sit formally here for a bit.I'm angry.Even though they're about such absurd topics, the contents are correct, and as books, they're interesting, you see?The former director's legend only has the bad reputation as 'the human solar cannon' (Z-Gradt) and 'the bomb princess' (Ms. Air Raid).All!?I Didn't Know That...The headmaster praised me for my ability in magical foundation, but in reality, it was all thanks to the former director's books on magic~As opposed to the higher level magic books, no one read the former director's books, so I have a monopoly on them.It's meaninglessness with meaning!There were secrets like that in my-Well, I guess that's natural for how suspicious they look.By putting all of the meaningless practical spells together, my mind was filled with a high level practical magical theory!Basically, there is something to be learned from useless and worthless things!Oh, isn't that a joke magic book that Seren-chan wrote...?*Meguru's image from back then.It feels like she should have become her apprentice....Huh.When I thought that such a brutal person wrote such strange books, I became interested...And once I read them, I was surprised! The direction was odd, but the contents were full of informative explanations of magical theory with lots of different applications!Eheh♪Even now, I read them for fun.Hey, author.The Encyclopedia of Spells to Make People Happy
By: Kamishiro SerenStarting today, you too can be a breeder! With a simple ceremony, you can get a pet. The top 100 undead ~ Skeleton cat ~Couldn't follow along.That's really like her.Sorcery to make cats be friendlyHow to use 'don't you want to eat delicious Haagen Dazs?'-type sorcery.The Encyclopedia of Sorcery to Make People Laugh
By: Kamishiro SerenAs a mage, I find this especially so for The Encyclopedia of Sorcery to Make People Laugh, The Encyclopedia of Spells to Make People Happy, and The Dictionary of Eastern Spells to Learn Rakugo!
