Endless possibilities (NT 8, NT 4 E NT 6)

I only needed it to lean in one direction or the other,” she announced as a grin split across her face. “It did not matter if I completed the lance and gained 100% success or became a fairy and gained 100% failure. My actions were sealed by the constant 50% balance between success and failure. I could never know if my actions had achieved heads or tails, so I could never know if I could build on top of that action. Moving forward with constant heads is one possible path. But if I know every path I choose will come up tails, I can achieve 100% success by always moving in the opposite direction of the path I choose!! Failing as a magic god acts as a guidepost towards success as a magic god!! …You two meant nothing from the beginning. Whether I won or lost, you could not stop me from becoming a complete magic god!!

[...]

“It isn’t that either. You know that. You may be a Magic God, but you are not perfect. Or rather, you are too perfect and that gives you a troublesome characteristic. You know that and that is why you have put together this exaggerated plan to free you from that dilemma.”

[...]

“Infinite possibilities sounds good, but that gives you both the possibility of success and the possibility of failure. I suppose it’s something like matter and antimatter. For everything, you must hold the possibility for success and the possibility for failure. No matter how much power you gather, you have a 50/50 chance. If you think of it like Russian roulette, it’s like taking a shot with three bullets loaded. Let’s be honest, Othinus. While you possess the power to destroy the world, you also have a 50% chance of losing to a child in a game of rock-paper-scissors. It’s almost a miracle that Kamijou Touma has lost twice. His misfortune must really be something. But given this condition, you cannot just wield your full power at random. You want to find a way to control those possibilities. Wanting to increase your possibilities for victory is natural, but when your possibilities for failure increase too, you need to find some way of dealing with that. 50/50 is the most troublesome of all.”

[...]

“But a Magic God can do anything, right? Does she really need to rely on others?”

“Being able to do anything is the problem in and of itself.” Ollerus gave a cynical smile as if commiserating with a colleague. “You often hear talk of ‘infinite possibilities’, but that truly means you have as many negative possibilities as you do positive possibilities.”

“?”

“This may be a bit hard to understand for someone at the age where you still believe in infinite possibilities. Just think of flipping a coin. The odds of getting heads or tails are 50/50. That is the true identity of ‘infinite possibilities’. Whenever you take an action, you carry both the possibility for success and the possibility for failure. No matter how hard you train, you still have 50% odds of losing in a fight to a child. That is what a Magic God is.”

50% was quite large.

In terms of Russian roulette, that would be starting the game with 3 live bullets.