She giggles. "Well, that'd do it. Time stuff... I don't think I've ever even heard of a spirit bearer getting loops, and just slowing or stopping is both rare and exhausting. Dead useful during Named Beast fights though."

"I can do lots of stopping. Haven't actually tried slowing but I might be able to do it, it's on-theme, but I prefer not to be obvious about the theme because when the evil aliens notice me I have to reset. I only have the one reset point though."

"Can you bring folk along? Freeze something else in time?"

"Stuff, yes, if I have it on me when I start, people no."

"Clockwork, the most famous time guy on my side, is really good at bringing lots of allies into slowed time, and making monsters see time faster so they're dead slow to us."

"We don't do the code names thing."

"D'you do the cartel thing? Or unions or clans or guilds or holy orders or whatever else there are..."

"Uh, no. Small teams sometimes but magical girls wind up competing for territory more often than cooperating."

"Makes sense with the stiff competition for, well, survival... Spirit bearers only die if we get into a long-term depressive spiral. At least a month long. Or, like, completely stagnate and get stuck in a rut doing things we don't find satisfying."

"And magical damage, you mentioned."

"Yeah, or getting killed by a monster. On the note of terrible fates... If you take a lot of damage and get near your limit, I mentioned, you go all manic and unstable. If you have pent up emotional issues, sometimes 'almost dead' becomes 'effectively dead, transformed into something else'. If you were bored and kind of depressed, a golem. A magical robot that goes through the motions but doesn't really have thoughts anymore. If you had pent up anger and frustration, you might turn into a wraith. Singleminded violent revenge monster. If you're really a specially pent-up messed-up snowflake and were very powerful and one day just snap, you might turn into what we call an 'elemental'. Even if they're kind of just wraiths that are mad at everything and very powerful."

"Why are they called elementals?"

"Not sure. Maybe because they tend to focus on one 'element' for their fury? Tidal waves. Rivers of lava. Earthquakes. Tornadoes. Pools of all-consuming darkness."

"Is it known why these things happen to spiritbearers?"

"It's mostly to do with how we're technically made of magic now? I'm not sure of the details. Small children can't become spirit bearers either, they'll just go insane and turn into something that's not quite genie and not quite monster. Thirteen's the youngest I've heard of thriving afterward."

"- I was gonna read an encyclopedia -"

"Yeah sorry, I'll leave you to it now."

"You're a fun conversationalist and everything, I just like a more top-down understanding."

"Understandable. I'm sure I can pass the time."

And Bella solicits overview material from Bar.

The overview material suggests this Earth is relatively familiar.

There's one Korea, not two. Invasive species are less of a thing. Spearfighting is an important cultural touchstone, and European vs Asian style is a big debate.

Which Korea? What's the deal with the short historical memory?

Probably the 'north' Korea. And that's because monsters have an aura of rot and decay that especially likes written records. It'll fry your hard drive too.

Poor Koreans. Why does it target writing?

No conclusive answer, lots of theories.