"- were they monogamous," May asks Lucian.

Sigh.

"No."

Kiss!

Oh good, she hadn't thought of that possibility.

But not too much kissing because they cannot escalate in front of Lianelle's recently resurrected friend.

But May's so good!

"Ahem."

"Sorry. Using the Spring magic without being burned backlashes me a lot."

"And this requires kissing women?"

"It requires close contact with someone compatible. Most espers aren't at all compatible with most other espers. Also, since my backlash is loneliness, and compatibility requires oppositeness, the most compatible esper I've ever met backlashes into social aversion and won't talk to me and can barely let me touch her. My secondary partner is much less compatible and lives across the country. Strictly speaking kissing doesn't have to be involved but it's pleasant and works really well."

"Wow, those backlashes sound horrible."

"All backlashes are bad, all can be dangerous at high levels if only by tempting people to commit suicide, and there's people I'd trade with but nobody who just gets their magic powers without any horrible."

"Are they what you let resurrect Lianelle and I?"

"So what happened was that for no discernible reason I got yanked out of my world and into the ritual where a bunch of people all agree to fight to the death to control the Spring, a big ol' mana accumulator that appears every quarter-century. I did not want to be in a fight to the death but I wasn't able to opt out and in the process of enrolling me the ritual supplied me with Lianelle to be my champion. After we won I got the Spring. Most people can just use up what it's accumulated and then let go of it, or they die doing a little more, because pulling more mana out of it beyond that first moment is harmful, but it turns out my esper power lets it go straight through me harmlessly, so with commonsense backlash reduction precautions I can keep using it indefinitely but it only refills properly if I live in its universe."

"Huh - how fast can you resurrect people?"

"About one a week if I'm not using it for anything else but I will be as things come up - putting Lianelle's memories'll be something else, getting rid of the big old dungeons which I should do before the next time they recur will be something else."

"Ah, yes, I suppose one a week would require you to consider trade-offs carefully."

"Which is why it's going to be mostly espers, they're the highest leverage single individuals in saving more total lives."

"What sort of capabilities do the espers you'll be resurrecting possess?

"So I'm not solely sorting by power, because esper efficacy depends so much on partnerships - for example I'm not going to bring back this one big Chinese esper who was an incredible dungeoneer because after she died her partner and husband very loudly remarried his secondary he'd apparently been having an affair with and talked shit about his dead wife in every media outlet that would listen and I have no way to be confident that she'd shrug that off and find a new partner and go back to clearing dungeons if I brought her back. But the combat esper powers that work the best are really varied, my list's got everything from psychics to this one Guatemalan who made things explode. And there's healers, and sensors - sensors are the ones who case a place in advance so everybody else isn't going in blind - and teleporters, who do logistics to get the most important powers to the places where they're needed. And a few people whose own powers are useless but who were supporting their heavy hitter partners who've since gone inactive."

"I see."

Not so different from if she were trying to resurrect an army.

"If it's all right with you I'd like a minute alone to collect my thoughts."

"Sure, there's another room over there." Point.

"That was sort of a lot," comments Lianelle once he's gone.

"Yeah. You don't sound super excited to have your memories back?"

"I... don't know? It would be really weird if I suddenly had feelings for someone else."