Well, then. Time to go do something useful with himself. Now that Yutaka knows that he can duplicate items via rewinding he feels alright with the idea of just stealing some cops' guns and duping them. He can also find some military bases and see if he can't get some heavier-duty options, grenades and the like. He has no idea where people would even keep those, but he feels like it oughtn't be that hard. Yutaka can also send out some texts to people from Nada to see whether they can get him in contact with some dealers; there's this guy who wants to be a doctor whom Yutaka is pretty sure does coke for the energy boost so that he can study, which is one of the more understandable uses of coke in his opinion, and if need be Yutaka might figure out the Jedi mind trick to grease some wheels.

In terms of tactics, while he hasn't done the properly-controlled experiments with the light measurement thingy, it does seem to him like rewinding is a lot more expensive than stopping time, and he'd guess out of common sense that rewinding farther into the past or staying in stopped time for longer makes them cost more, which suggests that the best idea for him to get what he wants is try to grab as many weapons as he can within stopped time then rewind ten seconds into the past so that he hasn't actually stolen any of them. The only reason he expects not to be able to get everything he wants in one go is that probably some of the things he wants to get will be in, like, safes or behind metal doors or something, and he'll need to wait until someone else accesses them to come with. But sidereal? He can almost certainly get a lot done in very little time.

That will necessarily involve some unpaused downtime, though, so, "Kyūbey?"

Here it is, hopping along between the roofs of cars! Yes?

"Is it more difficult to track witches in daytime?"

Not particularly.

"Are they any less active?"

Not exactly, but many people who are only lightly touched by a witch can shrug it off while awake and cannot when tired or sleeping.

"Oh, that makes sense.

"Something else I was gonna ask is, do I have a way to tell whether something is a witch or a familiar that's gotten big enough to almost be one but not quite?"

If you defeat it, a full witch will leave a grief seed and a familiar will not.

"But there's no way to tell in advance? You just gotta guess?"

You can try to guess from how many people it is affecting and how big its barrier is.

"...that's annoying." Here's a police station he can raid, he's gonna explore its layout without wasting stopped time on it.

Kyubey balances on his shoulder while he does this.

He scritches the back of its head absentmindedly while he explores.

"Is there a way for me to tell how much more magic I've got in me? Or, I guess what I mean is, how dark can my gem get, and does it get darker at always the same rate or does it get darker faster when it's brighter or something?"

That sometimes varies between different people!

"Oh. Yeah. I guess that'd make sense."

I don't know what to expect from your gem yet.

"Well, the light measurement thingies should have arrived already so I can run some tests later today. After I've killed a witch with the guns I am about to go get, that is."

Pause.

"The guns I just got, I mean."

Congratulations!

"Thank you!" This is a really convenient power, honestly. "Next up, military base..."

who's asking?

...do you not have my number?

it's Iwasaki

yes, i do

and even if i had what you claim i have, i wouldn't tell you about it over text, now, would i?

with both of our names attached to the messages? come on

not that i have it. obviously.

but if i did