Loups-Garous by Natsuhiko Kyôgoku

teleportation, but, like, they really believed in it. But people from even earlier eras thought realistically, so they called those stupid things—like time travel and teleportation—magic.”
    â€œMagic is more realistic?”
    â€œOf course. Magic is not real. A real attempt at magic would be unrealistic. If it were magic, it would be easy. The time for easy living, for thinking you can do anything you wanted, is over. We’re finally back to the old times we were living in originally.”
    â€œI don’t know what you’re saying.”
    â€œThe time for the real has been left running. Order—the unidirectional flow of time—must be preserved.”
    â€œWhat do you mean, preserved?”
    â€œMeaning you can’t go against the stream or do something over again. If I explained it quantitatively you wouldn’t understand. According to the laws of physics, moving around in a closed linear timeline is impossible.” Mio rolled her eyes once and looked at Hazuki. “People from the past had all kinds of convenient theories, like superstrings or wormholes , but it was all a bunch of false logic that existed only on paper. It was useless. Those of us in the space-time continuum cannot alter the continuum itself. But a continuum will do anything without these silly theories. If it’s going to be limited to being on paper anyway, it doesn’t need these exhaustive theories behind it. You can just say or write that you have flown through space or traveled through time. That’s how people used to do it a long time ago. In other words, magic. The slightly less old humanity tried to actualize that magic and built planes and let electricity fly, but when all’s said and done it was just awkward. Fundamentally speaking, you can’t interfere with the system. There’s no such thing as all-knowing magic. That’s why they thought of this.”
    â€œThought of what?”
    â€œToday’s world. To make everything numerical, digital.”
    â€œNumerical?”
    â€œThis is numerical,” Mio pointed at the monitor.
    â€œThis is all signs. The images, the words, they’re all composed of numbers. We look at these compositions to understand the world. In which case, it’s a free-for-all of magic. Since it’s just numbers, I could be 150 years old, or a man. Erasing just over ten minutes was a piece of cake.
    â€œNo one would not do it,” Mio threw out, then faced the dining table. “Still, magic can’t help an empty stomach. Aren’t you going to eat that, Makino?”
    â€œYou can eat it,” Hazuki said.
    Why had she said that? Hazuki twisted her neck. Mio hadn’t asked to eat it. She’d just asked if Hazuki wasn’t eating it. Normally one would have answered that she was going to eat it later or that she wasn’t going to eat it at all. If they’d been chatting through their monitors this wouldn’t have happened.
    In a daze, Mio went to the table.
    â€œI eat Chinese food from downstairs every day, so…” Mio started, and as she spoke she reached out for the ratatouille.
    Hazuki was amazed at how much of a conversation could be understood with so much left out of it.
    â€œDownstairs?”
    Anyway. Hazuki sat down across from Mio.
    She didn’t like being agitated by something like this.
    â€œYou saw when you came. The foreigners. Half of them are Chinese. I don’t know what ingredients or seasonings they use. I don’t know what they use or how, but it tastes good.”
    Mio marveled at the delicacy of it all as she spoke. She ate the raw vegetables, the warm vegetables, and the main course. Hazuki watched her mouth move in a daze.
    â€œAre you vegetarian?”
    â€œNo, but there’s always a protein in those meals. I don’t know what it is, but…they don’t have any good produce there. What’s this?”
    Mio pushed the broccoli in the