sorry for your loss

[cuteandinnocentpet]

[When people are returned to the main floor, they will find a trail of cupcakes from the elevator to the dining room. There is a table of drinks, pills, and cupcakes and cakes from the automat.

And on the table, in the center, is this asshole, with a party horn in its mouth. Despite that, it talks into everyone's mind.]

As you strangers tend to have a tradition of parties after an execution, I took the liberty. The plates and cups are over there.

[. . .

be merry I guess]

Comments

[cuteandinnocentpet]

That's quite simple.

It means the inevitable death of our home universe, and now of others as well.

[katzenpfote]

... Because they are all clustered together, you mean? Why would change cause that kind of destruction?

[cuteandinnocentpet]

That would be a complicated answer to explain to you, given your reality, but I suppose I will do my best.

You see, the very vast majority of universes that we've come upon run a set of laws called the laws of thermodynamics. The one we're always concerned about is the third:

"The entropy of a system approaches a constant value as its temperature approaches absolute zero."

[katzenpfote]

[Simple enough to grasp, but...]

Entropy is the tendency to fall to chaos and disorder, ja? So what does that have to do with anything?

[cuteandinnocentpet]

That's right. What we speak of, though, is on a universal scale. As a universe loses its energy, it falls into entropy and gets colder, until at last, it reaches a certain temperature. Absolute zero. When that happens...

It's called the heat death of the universe. No universe can survive without its thermodynamic energy, after all.

[katzenpfote]

... And so you are trying to collect energy to stave that off, aren't you? That's why you know about it.

So what, these 'contracts' generate energy for you? I don't see how.

[cuteandinnocentpet]

That's right. Though, since we've become aware of the nature of reality, it's not just one universe we have decided to track, now.

[Its tail swishes.]

Not the contracts themselves, though it aids in energy generation. Emotional energy isn't normally quantifiable, after all. Our contracts simply allow for the emotional energy of those who contract to be manifested into the tangible universe, by incubating their soul within a proper receptacle.

It's quite similar to how a hen lays an egg, and then the egg hatches into a chick. The difference is that all the energy that has been stored up from incubation to birth remains with the soul even as it changes over into its mature form.

The amount of energy that's created with the life of even a single witch is incredible. Even the weakest witches would, as an example, have enough energy for the Mighty Nein to cast mid-range-powered spells at minimum, nonstop for an entire month!

[katzenpfote]

It doesn't refresh like that. You can't simply feed arcane power into a spell on a permanent basis or it'll become unstable.

[He huffs.]

And what of the lives of the ones who turn into witches? They are the sacrifices for your grand energy plan?

[cuteandinnocentpet]

Of course not. But, you wouldn't run out of the energy to cast spells for some time.

[Of course it knows that.]

Their energy is what helps to stave off heat death, but it's more than that, of course.

In our home universe, and from what we've seen in other realities where we've had contracts, magical girls are integral to the evolution of the species. Their magic and their legacies have had a very profound effect on bringing their civilizations to advancements that wouldn't have otherwise been possible.

Quite a few places would lack even the basic understanding of how to make fire without the existence of magical girls.

[katzenpfote]

You didn't answer the question.

What of the ones who turn into witches? You're sacrificing them.

[cuteandinnocentpet]

Ah. Yes, we are. But it's a part of the contract, ultimately, and as I said, their existences as magical girls were and are not in vain.

The overall positives far outweigh the personal negatives, so far as anyone who sees the big picture are concerned, you see. In the end, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, do they not? In this case the few also help in making the universe better, more efficiently than the many, who would not be able to in the same way.

[katzenpfote]

And do they know that they are being sacrificed? Do they fully consent to it?

[cuteandinnocentpet]

Some learn of it, and learn to accept that fate. But many don't think to ask. They just want to fight Witches, and gain a wish.

Of course there are those who try to fight that fate, to find loopholes, but so far only one has ever been found. One that I doubt can ever be duplicated again, given we are now aware of it.

[katzenpfote]

You're putting people in a contract they don't know all of the terms of.

There's a reason I called you a devil before.

[cuteandinnocentpet]

It's not our fault that more people don't think to ask questions about our contracts. If one never feels the need to ask, why would the other feel the need to answer?

Besides, we give them everything they need to fight Witches. They aren't wholly ignorant of all the dangers they might face as magical girls.

[katzenpfote]

If one does not know there are other terms, that is still deception.

... Going slightly back, though - change is not always making entropy. You must always adjust things, as one adjusts a spell's formula, as you and I adjust plans... you can't tell me that change is not needed.