Meeting with the President

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A handshake. The click of a camera. Soulless greetings. Polite ha-ha-ho-ho laughter.

I hoped I could keep those four things firmly in mind. They were the essential virtues for dealing with the high and mighty of South Korea.

That idle thought drifted through my head as I accepted a cup of green tea whose fragrance left a strong impression, sitting in a reception-room-like space where only three reporters had set up their cameras in the corner.

“Haha. This is a gift offered in the name of the Republic of Korea. Aide?”

The man who looked like an aide held out a special naturalization permit and a resident registration card.

“Thank you.”

I bowed my head and accepted the gifts.

The name written on the resident registration card was Yuria, and the birthday listed was January 1, 2001—something they had clearly inferred from my interrogation records.

Now I could claim to be Korean wherever I went. Well, I would need full freedom before that claim became useful anywhere.

“And this is a gift offered in the name of the President.”

The completely unexpected second gift was a letter of appointment.

“Appointment… Director of the Magic Bureau under the Ministry of Science and ICT?”

“The foundation for the magical research you spoke of earlier—that is my gift! Haha!”

According to the explanation, it would not stand in a superior-subordinate relationship with the Ministry of Science and ICT. Like the Korea Aerospace Administration, it would be granted the autonomy of an independent agency.

But organizations with strong independence usually had a hard time attracting investment…

“The budget will be allocated separately as well.”

Oh, hell yes.

“And that is not all!”

His voice sounded exactly like the dubbed narration of those herbal-medicine commercials that always played on cable TV, but I let it slide.

“These documents are gifts prepared by major domestic and foreign corporations. Haha. Take a look!”

The gifts exceeded anything I had imagined.

“All of this? For real?”

There were stacks of contracts promising every kind of support for an agency that had not even been established yet.

Sebyeol, Korea’s foremost conglomerate, pledged 500 billion won per year for ten years plus applied research support across its entire industrial portfolio. Sunkyung Group, which monopolized the world’s memory market, offered 800 billion won per year for five years, computing hardware, and the dispatch of advanced research personnel. The overseas graphics-chip company Invidia promised a massive computer-computation system and hundreds of thousands of its chipsets.

Beyond them, roughly sixty domestic firms and two hundred foreign companies were stuffing my sleeves with money and tangible and intangible resources.

The price: sharing of information related to magical research.

“The conditions are clear enough. Still, I’ll need to think it over a little.”

In truth there was nothing to think about.

From the very beginning I had intended to release every scrap of information about magic as open source.

You could not slap patents and fees on technology that had to be used to stop the end of the world, could you?

But I could not lay every card on the table. The technology and money they were offering were already more than enough.

What I needed was the safe transmission of technique, and research efficiency boosted by a competitive system.

I would have to regulate the speed of information sharing within reasonable limits.

“Haha! I understand completely. Whatever decision you make is yours to make freely!”

If the foreign book I had shared earlier had instilled a proper sense of crisis, that would be fortunate—but there would always be people who, even after witnessing such bizarre phenomena, still went blind with greed for money and vested interests.

The best course was to manage things carefully so that magic could spread as a tool.

“I’d like to start sketching out a concrete schedule and plan for establishing the Magic Bureau.”

“Haha, as it happens I was thinking we might talk a little about that today. Shall we move to the conference room?”

Click-clack, click-clack—we passed down a splendid corridor and arrived at the conference room.

Ten men in suits sat in a long row filling both sides of an extended table.

“Hello.”

I bowed my head and took the seat at the far end of the room.

“Hmm.”

“Mmm.”

Even the youngest-looking among them was a middle-aged woman whose hair was full of gray; the average age of the attendees was definitely over fifty.

The nameplates standing in front of each seat were packed with titles like Minister of This, Director of That Research Institute, Senior Secretary of Whatever—super high-ranking posts that made me feel a little intimidated for no good reason.

No. I had to stand tall. What were they but a bunch of suits? I was the one holding the key called magic.

“Shall we begin?”

The President soon kicked off the meeting.

“Let’s start by looking at the draft legislation needed for the establishment of the Magic Bureau we discussed earlier.”

At those words the Prime Minister switched on his microphone—a middle-aged man whose 2:8 parting barely covered his thinning hair.

“Yes. The statements of purpose for the establishment and operation of this body, as well as the founding of a central administrative agency, are all complete. However, the organizational structure and staffing remain unclear.”

“Organizational structure?”

“In the case of the Korea Aerospace Administration, they base themselves on specialized human resources and use a Director–Deputy Director–Headquarters Chief system with project-unit organization. We intended to adopt that model, but the truth is there are simply no research personnel who possess a high level of understanding of the concept of magic itself…”

Even if they tried to form project-unit organizations, the only specialist who could lead those projects was me.

So of course they would hit a wall right at the basic organizational structure.

It was the Director of the Personnel Management Office who raised a hand at that moment.

“Please speak.”

“In practical terms, magic can be regarded as tacit knowledge. We only perceive the results of the phenomena; we know nothing of the processes or principles. From that standpoint, it would be better to divide the agency into a pioneering learning department that creates information capable of being standardized and networked, an interpretation department focused on systematization and measurement, and finally a personnel department responsible for basic education and the training of magic-related technicians.”

…

Long-winded.

And I understood it completely.

But I will not bother writing down exactly what I understood.

What mattered was the result—building the Magic Bureau. Mm-hmm.

“I see.”

The President, the Prime Minister, and the rest of the suits all nodded while scribbling busily as they listened to the explanation.

From time to time they also checked my reaction; I nodded to show them it was fine.

“Establishing subordinate research institutes to handle practical applied research seems realistic…”

“…so we would raise the Magic Bureau as a public institution for international cooperation, and for internal applied research we would set up something under the provisional name of the Magic Engineering Research Institute.”

“Yes, yes. Miss Yuria, what do you think?”

I had half switched my brain off and was counting the patterns on the tabletop when a question suddenly flew at me asking for my opinion.

Fortunately I had still been listening to what they were talking about, so answering was no problem.

“If we’re talking about an international cooperation department, there was a facility called the Magic Tower in the other world. It was a kind of common zone that anyone could enter regardless of nationality. I’m not sure if that makes sense to you.”

“Ah. Like a United Nations headquarters for magic. A place even the police couldn’t enter freely.”

I nodded at the Minister of Foreign Affairs’s words.

“Yes, something like that. Separate laws and order exist inside it, but anyway. The key point is that every research achievement and result produced within the Magic Tower is made public for a fee. They attach a price commensurate with its value and sell it to outside nations or individuals.”

A very long time ago, when I first heard the name Magic Tower, the image that came to mind was something like the Leaning Tower of Pisa or the Tower of Babel. The Magic Towers of the past really had looked like that. But as the ages changed, they grew larger and larger.

In the end they became enormous ivory-colored hexahedrons three kilometers on each side and more than forty stories high. And on top of that, instead of a roof, a white sphere larger than the tower itself—like a gigantic golf ball.

Seen from very far away, the visual was that of a weather radar whose sense of perspective had broken.

In reality the conversion and expansion into a device for observing outer space and other dimensions only happened long after I had entered the Magic Tower…

Anyway.

“Basic research is shared in common; the announcement of research results is public; but applied research and revenue are competitive.”

I was going to force people into a chicken game in which they would have to pour competitive effort and investment into magical research.

Of course, failure would not leave anyone injured or at a loss.

“Once this Magic-Tower-style research-sharing system is complete, I will share information about magic only through the Magic Tower.”

In other words, there would be no preferential treatment for Korea.

The suits who caught the hidden meaning in my words showed disappointed eyes.

“Mmm… so the Magic Bureau and its subordinate applied-research institutions, plus a Magic Tower system that can function as an international alliance…”

The President ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠wore a look full of thought and then put a question to me.

“Ahem. If we do this for you, what do we gain? What will you do for us?”

Profit? Benefits?

As if there would be none.

“On the contrary—if I give Korea preferential treatment, would that really cause no problems?”

Of course there would be plenty of problems.

“You’re already sweating bullets both domestically and internationally. I wonder whether you’ll still be able to handle it once real vested interests start getting involved.”

At my words the Minister of Foreign Affairs rolled his eyes this way and that, then let out a small sigh.

The core department that ran intelligence operations through open information was not the National Intelligence Service but the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

They were probably suffering quite a bit in all sorts of ways the public never knew about.

My words must have grated more than a little; clear displeasure showed on the faces of the suits who were otherwise experts at managing their expressions.

“And do you really think I would give you no gifts at all?”

I flashed a grin at the President, whose expression had gone a little stiff.

“I’ve received so much—of course I have to give something back. Just a moment.”

“Uh, uh.”

“Her hand…”

Pretending to rummage through subspace, I neatly gathered a clean stack of A4 paper. To their eyes it would look as though my hand had vanished into a black mist in midair.

Anyway.

I placed a content-writing magic tool on the clean stack of paper and filled it with text. I cast it silently so no one would notice, pouring in an enormous amount of mana.

“Hss. Where did I put it…”

I deliberately dragged out the time, pretending to search for something.

Printing work inside subspace—those people could never even imagine it.

I took out the finished bundle of documents and sent it floating gently through the air to land in front of the President.

“What is this?”

“Read it. I think you’ll be satisfied.”

The President calmly skimmed the title on the cover, the table of contents, and then the contents themselves at high speed.

The suits kept glancing back and forth between his expression and me. Not knowing what it said must have been driving them crazy.

“…Huh. Haha! Ha-ha-ha!”

—Clap! Clap! Clap!

Following the President, who began to clap slowly and firmly, the suits who had been watching for cues also started to applaud.

“Th-this is real?”

“Yes, of course. Satisfied?”

“Of course! Haha-ha!”

The title written on the cover of the documents the President tossed onto the table was Mana–Modern Technology Fusion Applied Research Cooperation Plan 141.

One hundred forty-one mana–science fusion research topics I had been mulling over half in daydreams and half in hope ever since the other world.

Concrete execution plans for those topics, attached reports whose results were already written even though the experiments had never been performed, the things I would need to help with, and the expected effects.

Just reading the titles made saliva drip at the over-technology on display.

“I offer these exclusively for Korea. Well? Are you satisfied?”

In a test where everyone was racing to solve the problems first, I had thrown the answer sheet only to Korea.

“Satisfied? At this rate I’d like to give you a full formal bow!”

With the President’s hearty “Kahaha!” the atmosphere loosened.

Not only the atmosphere—the value of the goods on the negotiation table had risen as well.

“Well, the Korean government was planning to decide on this a little later, but…”

As he spoke, the President gestured, and one of the high-ranking people pulled a thick sheaf of papers from a briefcase.

It looked like top-secret material; the cover was stamped multiple times with “Class-1 Confidential.”

The President took the confidential documents and signed page after page while explaining.

“Miss Yuria, regarding the extraterrestrial… is that the right word? In any case, the Korean government will throw its full weight behind preparations against this threat to humanity that you spoke of.”

“Oh-ho.”

“To tell the truth, the extraterrestrial materials you showed us earlier—the Iron Codex, was it?—even after several rounds of research and analysis, the response was lukewarm. I myself only thought ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it was surprising; I had no idea there was a concrete danger.”

He rose from his seat and personally handed me the confidential documents; we shook hands.

“Haha. We will put our strength into the international side of things. Look forward to it.”

I smiled back at the President, who grinned as he spoke.