Binary Star

Real Magic

It's a physiological fact. It all had something to do with the lizard brain during human evolution over thousands of years... he was pretty sure. He'd read it in a book once. Mr. Science over there could maybe explain it, but anyway what it meant was that if he wanted to move the goalposts, such as 'oh no, suspicious intruder, let's kill him,' to 'suspicious intruder? Well, let's take a listen,' then there was nothing more powerful he could do than to remain calm.

See this? This is magic.

Okay, no. That's objectively untrue.

This is mentalism, the very heart of it.

He eyed the blonde female warrior.

See how calm he is, cutie? Don't look at the sweat on his palms. The only thing you need to see is his smile and relax.

"I thought I'd seen your face somewhere," Senku stated, breaking some of the tension. "You're Asagiri Gen."

"You're acquainted?" asked the blonde. She turned to him for confirmation.

"No, not one bit. He's a magician who used to write trashy psychology books."

"You've read my work?" Gen asked, genuinely surprised. "I'm so happy."

No matter how long he'd been an entertainer, it charmed him to no end when people recognized him. Not to mention, this was a great conversational avenue to jaunt down to take advantage of and inject some personalization into so they could see him as a person and not just an intrusive stranger.

Thanks for the assist, dear Senku, he thought to himself.

He then frowned, "Calling it trashy hurts, though. Call me a mentalist."

He wanted to elicit a sympathetic response, so he started acting a little more pathetic.

"Look, I'll apologize for taking the ramen, so would you please lower your weapons. I'm so scared my arms and legs are trembling."

He smiled a little, internally, when the one he would later learn was called Ginro took his bait and all but tossed away his spear. He'd been trying to scam this one out of his weapon the entire time, given he had seen the whole exchange where his colleague was adamant they resist the temptation of sorcerous food. Give him any excuse to try it and, well...

Gen took a little pride in his work.

"...I might spill this delicious ramen."

"I'll hold it for you!"

Heh heh heh. See there?

Maybe more than a little...

The cute blonde girl looked at him like he was spouting complete bullshit. Which, to her credit, he was. Good instincts, that one.

He continued his story, "I was looking for food by myself when, surprise! The nostalgic scent of ramen hit me, and I wandered over. Man, it's such a terrible lifestyle out there."

Be relatable! Be open! Be friendly! His target demographic wasn't the guards. It was Senku. Already the blonde girl had shown she trusted Senku, and although there seemed to be some friction between him and the guards, it was he who was currently calling the shots on whether Gen got stabbed or not. By all means, of course he would focus on catering to the one person who might talk the others out of killing him.

"Sure," Senku agreed easily enough without protest, "whatever, I'll take your word for it."

Oh, ouch, so he didn't believe him at all, this guy.

Senku continued, "Either way, there's no such thing as a free lunch. Everyone who's had ramen has work to do."

...Say what?