Confinement Life (Literally)
Was this confinement? Detention? Or maybe just a protective measure?
If I blurted out that line from American police bodycam videos on YouTube—“Am I detained? Yo, fucking bye-bye!”—it would stir up all kinds of controversy.
Fighting, every police uncle around the world. Thank you. Arigato.
A life with nothing particularly urgent to do, no incidents or accidents, had already stretched into its tenth day.
I sat through interviews with various impressive professors and scholars, occasionally lighting a little flame on my fingertip and putting on a cute little magic show for them.
“This is just a small token…”
Somehow word had gotten out that I liked tasty things. Lately the outside visitors who came for interviews had started bringing snacks or coffee.
Today’s offering was cheesecake.
“Whoa, this is a real treat.”
My interview partner for the day was a middle-aged man in a casual white shirt and jeans.
“I’m from the Ministry of National Defense. More precisely, the public relations department.”
“Ah, yes.”
He pulled an Americano out of a bag stamped with the name of some coffee chain called Giga Coffee, moving in a scattered, unfocused way the whole time.
His head and eyes never stopped darting around, and his hands couldn’t stay still either. It was a little irritating.
“Right, well. So that’s that. And what else was it… Ah.”
…Irritating wasn’t quite the right word. Frustrating fit better.
“In the near future. Uh, we’re going to do a little filming. Using YouTube and the PR channels. Ah, you know YouTube, right?”
“...Yes.”
Tick-tick. Tick-tick.
The sound of him picking at his nails started up, and I completely lost the ability to focus on the conversation.
And did this guy not know I was a returnee? Asking if I knew YouTube…
“Anyway. That’s how it is. And, uh… You’re not having any trouble with daily life, are you?”
If I said I was, would they actually do something about it?
“Aside from being bored and feeling like I’m wasting time, it’s fine.”
What I meant was that time right now was incredibly boring.
“Alright. Then let’s wrap this up. Enjoy the cake.”
With that, he grabbed his bag and bolted out of the room.
What the hell?
He really just wrapped it up and left?
“That was fast?”
Five minutes, tops?
The suit-wearing guy standing outside the interview room poked his head in and mouthed a silent question.
Something wrong?
Dunno.
He tilted his head and pulled back again.
I was just as confused, but there was nothing I could do about it.
The next interviewee had arrived a little early and was already waiting.
This time it was a middle-aged man in a white uniform, carrying a box of soft, moist cookies.
Soft and moist, huh. What a childish name for a snack.
“Pleasure to meet you. I work in naval operations, and I was hoping to request a bit of cooperation.”
Had they all been briefed not to give name tags or identifying information? Most people didn’t even tell me their names.
Of course, after days of this I’d gotten used to it.
“Cooperation?”
I glanced at the shoulder of the navy man who’d brought up the subject of cooperation. One star. Not exactly a low-ranking guy.
A rear admiral, huh. Most of my memories from my military days on the old Earth had been wiped by the contract, but even so, you couldn’t not know how strong a rear admiral was.
In some pirate manga rear admirals were weaklings, but reality worked differently.
The navy rear admiral, who suddenly looked a lot more imposing, nodded.
“Nothing major. The higher-ups have already finished talking it over. We just want to confirm a little that Ms. Yuria is thoroughly versed in combat magic, so the navy’s going to arrange a small venue.”
From the plan he described, a large-scale naval exercise was already scheduled, and they wanted to properly observe my magic out on the open sea where there was no risk of starting fires.
“Obviously there’ll be security gaps… Ah, so that’s what you’re aiming for.”
Instead of answering, he gave a forced little laugh.
“...Heh heh.”
Of course the surrounding countries would be watching everything crystal clear—with recon planes, satellites, radar, or methods nobody even knew about.
My identity was going to spread through the media and eyewitness accounts anyway, so instead of trying to control it they’d decided to use it.
And while they were at it, they clearly intended to casually leak information about me to other nations.
“I’ll be paid for it, of course, but I’ll cooperate.”
The rear admiral’s expression shifted as if he hadn’t expected that answer. Then the corner of his mouth curled up.
“If there’s anything you want, we’ll do our best to accommodate it.”
I smiled leisurely and held up the index, middle, and ring fingers of my right hand. Then I pinched the middle and ring fingers with my left hand.
“The first two are non-negotiable.”
I folded the two fingers I was holding, leaving only the index.
“This one’s a wish-list item.”
I spread all three fingers again.
“First: once I gain economic autonomy, you pay me proper compensation in money. Second: from now on, you share and obtain my permission regarding any concrete internal policies, guidelines, or future plans that involve restraining me. Those two are mandatory.”
“...Yes. I’ll actively persuade the higher-ups. I think we can get a positive answer.”
“And the final wish-list item… even if it’s not right away, let me take full charge of building the facilities and systems for magic research. Not as an advisor or consultant—the top dog. Total responsibility.”
A glint appeared in the rear admiral’s eyes.
“Actually, the third one might be simpler than the second.”
Of course it would. Putting the conditions they’d obviously accept as the “wish” and the unreasonable ones as mandatory was just common sense, right?
“I’ll make sure to pass it up the chain carefully.”
I shot him a thumbs-up.
“And, well, there’s one more thing we need…”
Trailing off, he pulled out a sheet of paper and held it out.
“What’s this?”
“A few basic questions about offensive magic. We don’t know anything about magic, you see.”
I tilted my head and scanned the contents of the paper.
1. During the process of using magic, is there a risk of altering the state of adjacent living or non-living things, or of destroying electronic devices?
2. When using offensive magic, are there any restrictions based on terrain or fixtures such as soft ground or slippery floors?
3. Please write the name, description, and lethal radius of one medium-power offensive spell.
4…
It wasn’t anything particularly deep.
“Want me to include the reasoning too?”
“That would be even better.”
For number one: No issue unless it involves state changes like corrosion, or high heat or poison.
Number two: Floors aren’t a problem, but gravity-type magic can’t be used on soft ground.
For number three I hesitated a moment, then picked one of the explosive spells and wrote it down.
Explosive Ball. A high-speed projectile that adds an explosion to a Fireball that ignites on impact. Lethal radius up to 50 meters from the point of impact, but power can be reduced or increased further.
The rest of the questions were equally low-value, so I filled in every blank in no time.
“...”
Come to think of it, if the navy was doing magic experiments, it would probably be at sea, right?
Using magic at sea…
It would be the first time since I’d fought that forgotten existence in the deep ocean of the other world.
As the first of the Four Heavenly Kings the Demon King had ever chosen, it hadn’t exactly been weak.
“Thank you. We’ll wrap it up here for now and let you know once the upper levels decide.”
“Sure thing.”
I waved my hand loosely at the rear admiral as he stood up.
I deliberately wiped the image of the strongest of the Four Heavenly Kings that had just floated up from my mind. Just imagining that form made me feel like my sanity was being shaved away in chunks.
I was free.
Not free as in free of charge.
Though, of course, I was being worked for free.
“Shall we begin?”
An underground air-raid shelter with no exposure to the outside.
The dim floodlights cast a gloomy horror-movie atmosphere over the bunker, whose ceiling, walls, and floor were all thick reinforced concrete and armor plating—a nuclear-protection-grade facility.
I never expected a space big enough to park an entire tank unit to exist under Seoul, but this was a new experience in its own right.
Why was I here? Because I’d been asked to show a bit of magic while carefully controlling my power.
“Yes. Please hit the red target straight ahead.”
The researcher in the checkered shirt who had requested this pressed the record button on the camera as he spoke.
I nodded and kindled a flame above my hand. Just imbue mana with heat and split water vapor—easy. If you want to save on lighter fluid, feel free to learn it.
Magic in the other world had none of those “how many circles, how many cycles” concepts you saw in fantasy novels. It was more like an application program.
You took the basic materials of nature, painted mana over them, and changed them. That was magic. Sufficient computational power and endurance, mana capacity, and the ability to precisely control the flow of mana that manifested the spell—those were the metrics of magical skill.
I had been the number-one mage in the other world.
Yes, that was bragging.
“Path designation. Motion impart.”
I stretched a thread of mana a handspan toward the direction the flame would fly. Then I calculated the time-based directionality and scalar of the vector mana to match the speed and trajectory, drawing a path that was almost a straight line with a slight parabolic curve.
I didn’t know the exact purpose of the experiment, but the target didn’t look particularly sturdy, so I had to dial the power way down.
“Weaken. Reduce. Position focus. Mana split. Shape.”
Using mana as a rope, I shrank the flame, lowered the oxygen content, suppressed trajectory error from drag as a side effect of the energy reduction, split the supplied mana, and finally gathered the form into a sphere.
With every preparation complete, I glanced back at the researcher standing behind me.
“Throwing it?”
“Yes.”
Inwardly boasting that fewer than one or two mages out of a thousand could stack five or more multi-layered spells like this, I launched the fireball in my hand.
Whoosh! Thwack!
The fully nerfed-edition fireball, guided along the calculated trajectory, struck the exact center of the target…
Crack-crack! Boom!
An explosion bloomed with a firework-like flash from the residual mana. Even with two 20-kilogram dumbbells pressed against the back for stability, the blast was strong enough to tip the target over.
The facility personnel let out impressed whoas, and the researcher’s eyes went round as saucers.
He stood there with his mouth hanging open, then snapped back to himself and asked me a question.
“...Hah. Was the magic you just threw on the strong side?”
On the strong side, huh…
It was ridiculously weak.
“Hmm… Researcher, you know what a knuckle-rap is, right?”
“Huh? Ah. Yes, a knuckle-rap. I know. But why…?”
“Is a knuckle-rap a strong attack?”
Catching my intent, the researcher went oh and shook his head.
“Compared to punches or kicks, no.”
“Compared to weapons used in war?”
“...Excuse me?”
This time he looked like he didn’t understand the point at all.
“Pistols or rifles, or bombs. Cannons or missiles. Or… strategic weapons like nukes. How do those compare to a knuckle-rap?”
“Uh… no comparison, obviously.”
I grinned.
“In the previous world, I filled the roles of cannons, missiles, and nukes. Sometimes more than that.”
It wasn’t a childish metaphor—it was literally true.
The explosive magic I’d carpet-bombed across the front lines at a rate of two hundred shots every three minutes had held back the Demon King’s army’s offensive for a full week while we waited for reinforcements.
I’d also dived into the Demon Realm alone with the holy sword and wiped out six legions over the course of a year.
I’d personally developed extinction-class magic and delivered a nuclear-weapon-level catastrophe to the fortress of the Four Heavenly King who had seized air superiority.
Since people in the other world had never asked me, “Is that Fireball you just used strong?”, I got a little carried away and started explaining everything with metaphors.
And deep down I wanted to brag a little too…
“There might be a chance to show you even more ridiculous magic soon, but the opportunity will come.”
Feeling suddenly awkward, I hurriedly wrapped up the explanation.
“Haha… I’m really looking forward to it.”
After that I showed them every kind of magic under the sun.
Fire, water, ice, wind—the four basic elements of a mage.
Magnetism, gravity, light, darkness, motion, mathematics—the applied attributes of a magic engineer, plus magical engineering itself.
When he asked whether mathematics and motion seemed a bit random, and I told him I was the one who had spread them, the researcher gave me a dubious look.
“That’s an incredibly vast concept, and the depth isn’t ordinary either.”
“I just sat the magnetism and gravity engineers down and recited middle- and high-school math at them.”
Just because a civilization was behind didn’t mean its people were stupid. If anything, with the unique phenomenon of magic woven into the foundation of their civilization, you could say new perspectives were already open to them.
Fundamental interpretations of gravity and research into gravity leaking into extra dimensions had already been completed—but under a system of experiment, verification, and magical engineering rather than a mathematical framework.
When I taught them just a rat’s-ass amount of mathematical structure, they finished concepts like differentiation, integration, and linear algebra among themselves in a few decades.
“Over there they called it magical mathematics. It was used a lot for the precision of magic and for etching circuits into magical tools.”
“If I could understand even half of what you’re saying, this would be the year I finally graduate…”
Aigoo, poor guy.
After the necessary experiments were finished, we spent a long time talking about magical engineering research.
“The first research will probably be proving the existence of mana. I’ll teach you the research methods from that world. And…”
I pulled a few books out of my subspace and handed them over.
“These are the basic textbooks. I translated them into Korean myself. Just scan them, keep copies, and use them like open-source material.”
“Y-you’re really giving me something like this?”
“I’m rooting for you to graduate for sure.”
It wasn’t because I saw my own self from two thousand-plus years ago in the figure of a poor eternal master’s student who couldn’t finish his doctorate!
When you see someone pitiful, wanting to help is just human nature.