From Outer Space
Deep in an ocean of information that Yuria—and the overwhelming majority of ordinary people—knew nothing about, a fierce war was already underway.
“Taxonomy construction complete.”
“Dump it on Section 7 and stick around here. Too many proper nouns.”
Two weeks earlier, a truckload of intelligence assets had arrived from the Central Psychological Warfare Group. Not a metaphor—an actual box truck packed to the roof with A4 paper. And every single day since, another full box of the stuff kept showing up.
Fragmented memories that began on Earth, stories of another world. The sheer volume and detail—like someone had transcribed the unedited black-box footage into text—made the information load staggering.
The task force handling the job had drawn in not only the National Intelligence Service (which normally had no business in someone else’s house) but every intelligence officer of corps-level command rank and above, plus support staff from the Intelligence Headquarters itself.
It was an unprecedented scale, rivaling the bloated foreign-intelligence apparatus of the old Soviet Union during the Cold War. Naturally, every foreign intelligence agency was watching with keen interest.
Yet because the topic already dominated both public and private channels—and every ordinary citizen’s attention—no one dared attempt a clumsy operation or leak. For the moment they could still breathe, like the sea drawing back just before a tsunami.
“Civilian advisory team arriving shortly.”
“Send the behavioral psychologists straight to Room 409. Everyone else waits in the open office.”
The task force kept growing. Counting every indirect resource beyond the officially seconded personnel, three thousand people would have been a conservative estimate.
Away from the dark circles and exhausted faces of the project leads, in an office filled with outside specialists, roughly twenty science and engineering PhDs clustered in front of a whiteboard, deep in discussion about how to analyze and interpret magic.
“So in the end there’s no way to explain the origin of this energy itself. It’s pure circular reasoning…”
“Let’s make identifying the substance called mana our top priority. Especially page 19 of lecture 4271—it mentions spatial wave properties. Focus on that.”
The two researchers trading ideas about verifying the existence of this new substance called mana already half-expected the word “magic” to plaster every top-tier journal within two years.
A completely novel material. It could turn into water or fire—and explode. Handled properly, it might even replace nuclear power and fossil fuels as a new energy source.
“Our lab has a little measurement data from when magic was actually used, so let’s start with that.”
“The good news is the basic principles map cleanly. Four fundamental forces, base-ten number system, mathematical notation that’s unique but close enough for one-to-one substitution.”
“That line about ‘the already-proven extra dimensions of gravity’—do you think they really proved it?”
“If we just understood that, Kaluza-Klein and every derived theory would fall into place.”
“Their grasp of fundamental principles and the depth of their basic physics seem ahead of ours.”
Mentions of academic depth in the world Yuria had lived in, of unsolved problems already solved, of theories that had failed proof—those remarks set the scholars’ hearts on fire.
Yet no matter how many experimental plans or milestones they drafted here, none of it meant a thing.
“So whether it’s this thing called magic or the unification of gravity with the electroweak force… we need someone who can explain it.”
“…There isn’t anyone.”
No one except Yuria knew the knowledge of that other world.
But an unexpected solution presented itself.
“What’s so hard about it? Just file a meeting request and ask her.”
The Seoul mage who had appeared in the navy training video a few days earlier. After the footage went up, the government and the press had suddenly started releasing information far more freely. In other words, access might have gotten a lot easier.
“…All right. Let’s each put in an inquiry.”
The doctors nodded.
A quiet worry had been crawling up inside me.
I’ll help as much as I can so you can stop Earth’s destruction.
The Goddess’s warning about the end of the world. I had to prepare for a catastrophe whose timing and form were still unknown.
Of course I hadn’t forgotten—but how was I supposed to handle something like that alone?
From the moment I arrived on Earth until now, I had told the investigators and every related outsider who came looking for me as much as I could. At last those efforts seemed to be bearing fruit.
Lady Yuria. All of tomorrow’s schedule has been canceled. There are people you need to meet instead.
That was the message I received last night while I was still sketching the draft of a basic magic textbook that might prove useful later.
And now, today.
The place was a nameless café a short distance from the facility. For the first time I was meeting foreigners—specifically one East Asian and two Westerners.
“Pleasure to meet you. I’m Nelson Kim. Just call me Kim. And these two are…”
In slightly awkward Korean, Kim introduced himself and gestured to the man and woman seated beside him.
“Hello. Samuel Koda.”
“Nice to meet you. Margaret Sterling. You can call me Meggie.”
English I had never studied. But that was fine—I could understand it.
“Yuria. Nice to meet you.”
Magic really is powerful. Anyone who has to prepare for an English exam should remember to master at least a language-conversion spell. It only took me two years.
“Wh-what? That’s Korean, so why can I understand it…?”
They were probably hearing Korean sounds while the meaning arrived simultaneously in a form they could grasp. New experience, right?
“Magic.”
“…Ah.”
Nelson Kim’s confused expression cleared almost at once, and he continued the introductions.
“We’re from NASA. An international agency that observes space and studies astronomy.”
“I see.”
He held out a tablet. Against a pitch-black background, sparse white, yellow, and blue starlight dotted the cosmic landscape.
“This is why we urgently requested a meeting.”
“That’s space. But why…?”
I looked at the three of them with a face that clearly said I had no idea what I was looking at. Margaret pointed to the upper-right corner of the image.
“If you look carefully here…”
“Hmm…”
Nothing but empty black space.
“It’s just black.”
Margaret checked the tablet again and finally realized her own hand’s shadow had dimmed the screen.
“Ah—if you max the brightness, you can see this.”
It was an extremely faint shape, like a human arm. So close to transparent that you would miss it without focusing. And on it, burned in like a blur, was a tattoo of three diamonds in a row—something I knew all too damn well.
“…Oh, fuck.”
It looked sickeningly similar to the mark of the Demon-God cultists.
“Do you know something?”
Kim’s sharp eyes locked onto my expression.
“Even a guess would—”
“…Demon God.”
“Sorry, what?”
“It resembles the mark of Demon-God worship.”
I had the sudden feeling that preparations needed to be accelerated. Meeting people from an international space research agency right now might be the opportunity.
“When I was in the other world, there were beings that threatened the world besides the Demon King. Among them were the Demon Gods—evil deities—and their worshippers, who made human sacrifice and atrocity their doctrine. They were a serious problem.”
“I… see.”
They were listening with half-belief. What would it take to convince them?
“I know it’s hard to accept. So I’ll give you this.”
I pulled a book the size of my torso out of subspace. Its cover was steel plate and nails, bound tight with heavy chains—more like a vault door than a book. The three of them half-rose from their seats in alarm.
“What is that?”
“Part of the research materials on the outer entities known as Demon Gods.”
It would let them observe the truth for themselves. The book was exactly what it claimed: a text about outer gods. Because their names were written inside, the moment someone opened it and took the letters into their eyes, the outer gods would look back. A forbidden book of that class.
Of course I had personally censored and post-processed it, so it wouldn’t summon anything or kill anyone. At worst the reader would end up with a mental illness.
Samuel Koda’s eyes lit with curiosity as he pointed at the book.
“May we read it?”
Of course…
“No.”
Absolutely not. Koda’s face fell; his voice went limp.
“Then why give it to us…?”
I tapped the cover with the back of my hand.
“The contents matter, but… how do I put this…”
“Hmm…”
“Prepare the highest security level, the strongest weapons, the most overwhelming firepower, and the most effective sedatives you have. Then open it in the safest place you can find. You’ll understand what I mean.”
“….”
They probably couldn’t make sense of that. I didn’t have a better way to explain it either. From here on, they would have to test it themselves and feel it.
Since everyone was already on their feet, the meeting ended there.
“One, two!”
“Urgh…”
I watched the three of them awkwardly haul the book away, then rubbed the bridge of my nose with a finger.
Rhinitis? My nose had been itching for no reason lately.