Crossing Yet Another Wall
The subspace work I’d been obsessing over for months had finally borne fruit.
The mana I’d been hammering against the barrier of space pushed past a critical threshold all at once.
BOOOOOOM—!
It exploded.
A terrifying blast, as though the universe inside me were swelling and bursting outward.
The veins all over my body bulged as if they were about to rupture, then collapsed back down in an instant.
But then—
What had broken wasn’t the wall of subspace.
3rd Tier Unlocked
“......!”
The struggle of day and night, of wrenching mana from myself while I battered at the barrier of space over and over and over again.
In the end, the wall I’d shattered was the one around my own rank.
Mana gathered at my fingertips.
Deep navy, dark as the sea at midnight.
Ah...!
I’d thought I’d live and die as a 1st Tier household mage.
Then I’d crossed into 2nd Tier not long ago, and now I was already in 3rd Tier!
I couldn’t even speak.
My heart hammered like mad.
A realm that even the Empire’s geniuses were said to reach only after walking the elite path.
And I’d gotten there by teaching myself in this underground prison, alone.
“......Ha.”
The world looked different now.
I could see the fine weave of mana drifting through the air, even the faint tremor of groundwater moving beyond the walls.
Things I’d only guessed at by feel in 2nd Tier were now as clear as the lines in the palm of my hand.
...Then maybe.
That wall that had refused to open no matter what I did.
Could I open it now?
The buffering Magic Stones I’d buried under the dirt.
If I’m going to take all of those with me, I absolutely need subspace.
Something I’d failed at for months.
The threads of the fabric, the arrangement of mana soaked into them, and the shape of the space that mana was holding together.
Ah...!
A cry slipped out of me.
All this time, I’d been trying to tear space apart and force a pocket into existence.
But it wasn’t about tearing.
It was about folding.
Like folding a broad sheet of paper to make a small envelope.
I would delicately fold the barrier of the dimension, create space in the crease, and then stitch it shut with mana to hold it in place.
“It kept closing back up because I was tearing it. All I had to do was fold it and sew it!”
The realization struck like lightning.
Flash!
I raised a mana needle into the air, then used mana thread to tug gently at the barrier of space.
Fwoooosh.
Though my eyes couldn’t see it, my senses felt space stretch like a sheet of rubber.
I folded the stretched space in half.
“Now.”
With a flash, I stitched the folded part closed with the mana needle.
Shh-shh!
3rd Tier Formulation: Space Stitching
Along the seam of my stitching, a thin line appeared in the air.
Like the mouth of a pocket sewn onto a coat.
“Did it work?”
I picked up a low-grade Magic Stone from the floor and pushed it into the narrow slit.
Whoosh.
The Magic Stone went in.
“It worked! Finally......!”
I was just about to shout in triumph when—
Clink.
Something hit the floor.
“...?”
I looked toward the sound.
Outside the prison bars, in the corridor, the Magic Stone I’d just put in was rolling across the stone floor.
“Huh?”
I looked back and forth between the slit in front of me and the corridor three meters away.
I’d definitely put it into the gap in the air, so why the hell was it popping out over there?
“Don’t tell me...”
This time, I put my hand in.
Suuuuu.
The sensation of being sucked in was strangely eerie.
At the same time—
“......!”
My hand suddenly popped out into the air beyond the bars.
A grotesque sight, like a severed wrist suspended in midair.
I flexed my fingers.
They moved perfectly.
“This isn’t...... a storage space.”
The problem was that I hadn’t sealed the far end; I’d let it run clean through.
“Ha......”
I couldn’t help laughing in disbelief.
I’d failed at making a warehouse, but what I got instead was far more outrageous.
Who would’ve thought I’d end up with a passage connecting two spaces?
“I should give the formula a proper name.”
Like connecting the sleeve and body of a piece of clothing.
Linking the seams on both sides.
3rd Tier Formulation: Seam Stitching
I stood up and, facing the prison entrance, drew a finger through the air.
Riiip.
The seam of space parted.
The inside of the prison and the outside became one.
I stepped through the opening.
Swish.
I didn’t even feel the bars pass through me.
I moved into the corridor as naturally as if I’d opened a door and walked out.
When I looked back, the iron gate that had been firmly locked stared at me as though mocking me.
“Hahahaha......”
My chest swelled.
With this ability, no prison in the world, no sealed chamber anywhere, would be anything more than my own front room.
I went back into the prison.
I decided to finish the subspace storage I’d originally set out to make.
“If I seal one end of the passage, that’s a pocket right there.”
I twisted the formula of Seam Stitching.
Folded and sewn, but with the opposite opening densely sealed shut by mana thread.
3rd Tier Formulation: Subspace Crease
Rustle.
This time, the far side didn’t open through.
When I reached inside, I felt the end of a vast enclosed space.
“Success!”
What I was most curious about, of course, was capacity.
I poured mana into it and estimated the size of the interior.
It was larger than I’d expected.
Big enough to fit an entire warehouse.
This is enough.
Besides, this magic would evolve as I grew.
If this much is possible at the very beginning of 3rd Tier, then it’ll be outrageous once I reach mid- or high-level 3rd Tier—or 4th Tier.
Or if I ever made it to 5th Tier?
Maybe I could carry an entire mansion around with me.
No need to keep the Magic Stones buried in the dirt anymore.
Let’s put them all in.
Shhhhhh.
The Magic Stones were sucked into the subspace one after another without pause.
The inside was neatly divided by grade, like drawers in a well-organized apothecary cabinet.
I hadn’t done that consciously.
My own obsession with never wasting even a single grain of anything had apparently imposed order on the space by itself.
“......Auto-sorting, huh. Not bad.”
It would be convenient when taking things out, too.
I wouldn’t need to rummage around; if I just thought of what I wanted and reached in, I could grab it.
It’s useful beyond measure.
Smiling with satisfaction, I closed the pocket opening.
Now that my hands were free, greed started to stir.
Should I try another spell?
I had no idea what would happen once I stepped outside.
Before I went, I needed to measure exactly what the vessel of my 3rd Tier body could hold.
Fapapapapap!
With a single gesture, blue light blossomed in the air.
More than a hundred mana needles.
3rd Tier Formulation: Needle Storm
Light.
I could control them as easily as if each one were one of my fingers.
How about this?
I tossed a single bolt of fabric into the air.
3rd Tier Formulation: Steel Curtain
Flap.
3rd Tier mana seeped into the weave of the cloth.
The floppy fabric pulled taut in an instant.
I flicked one of the needles at it.
Clang!
It bounced off.
The soft silk transformed into a wall of steel for a heartbeat.
“......It can do that too.”
My greed grew.
Thicker. Stronger.
I forced more mana into the cloth.
More, more.
And then—
Whoooooosh—!!!
...Huh?
The mana exceeded the cloth’s capacity to hold it and began to reflux, having nowhere to go.
The overwhelming output of 3rd Tier mana!
And on top of that, this was a space with infinite mana.
By the time I realized it, it was already too late.
BOOOOOOM—!
The magic circles carved into the walls all began to writhe at once.
With the balance shattered, even the circulatory spell circles went berserk.
Kugugugung!
“......!”
There was nothing I could do.
BOOOOOOM!
The entire ceiling near the entrance collapsed.
Fortunately, the inside itself was fine.
The Structural Reinforcement Magic Circle I’d layered everywhere as a precaution had held.
“......The mana suddenly increased and spiked out of control. I’ll have to be careful from now on.”
With the entrance destroyed, I had a problem on my hands.
What was I supposed to do about that?
Someone’s already come.
It wasn’t difficult to look outside.
3rd Tier Formulation: Mirror of Resonance
The upgraded 3rd Tier formula.
Through the passage, the scene beyond became visible, if only faintly, as though I were seeing it with my own eyes.
It was Nen.
She was sitting collapsed before the pile of fallen rock, digging through the dirt with her bare hands.
Her hands were bloody, and she was crying.
...She thinks I’m dead. At this rate she’ll ruin her hands.
I couldn’t leave her like that.
3rd Tier Formulation: Seam Stitching
I walked through to the other side of the passage.
* * *
BOOOOOOM!
The earth-shaking roar made Nen stop dead in her tracks.
She’d been walking through the underground passage with a basket of food in her hands when the sound hit her.
“......No!”
The prison entrance was gone.
Massive stones from the ceiling had collapsed completely across the corridor, sealing it shut.
Dust hung in the air, smearing the torchlight into a pale blur.
Hans was in there.
“Hans...! What on earth happened...?”
Nen frantically dug into the dirt with her bare hands.
“I have to save him. He’s still alive. He has to be......”
Even after her fingernails cracked and the skin on her fingertips split open, she didn’t stop.
The huge slab of rock didn’t budge an inch.
“Please......”
Then—
Tap. Tap.
Someone tapped her shoulder from behind.
“Nen.”
Nen whipped around.
“Ha, Hans?”
A clean face, not a speck of dust on him.
Hans, who should have been buried alive in that collapsed cavern, was standing there on two perfectly good feet.
“How did you...?”
“Shh.”
Hans pressed a finger to his lips.
“Causing a scene would be inconvenient.”
“B-but how...? It collapsed right in front of me...”
“Well.”
He shrugged.
“As you can see, I’m fine. Isn’t that enough?”
He didn’t explain how he’d gotten out.
“More importantly, I need a favor, Nen. I was buried under there and died.”
“Pardon?”
“Tell the count, and anyone else who asks, that Hans died when the cave-in happened.”
Nen’s eyes trembled.
She understood at once.
Dead people didn’t get hunted.
“You’re really okay? You’re not hurt?”
“I’m fine. As you can see.”
Hans took out a scroll.
“Please give this to the young lady. I’ve organized things that might help with her magic studies whenever I had the chance. Think of it as an extension of what I’ve been showing her all this time.”
“......All right. I’ll make sure she gets it.”
“Tell her not to worry. I’m safe.”
He stepped back.
“Thank you for everything, Nen. I won’t forget this kindness.”
“Hans, wait......”
Suuuu.
Before she could stop him, Hans’s body faded as though dissolving into darkness, and then vanished without a trace.
Nen stood there in a daze, staring into the empty space where he’d been.
“......What a monstrous man.”
She had long since known he wasn’t an ordinary tailor.
Slip.
She tucked the scroll deep inside her clothes.
Then she took a small key from her pocket.
A duplicate of the prison lock key.
It had taken several nights to make, secretly copying the original behind the count’s back.
She had planned to hide it in the bottom of the food basket today and hand it over.
We were going to get him out before it was too late.
That had been Ellen’s wish, too.
The two of them had quietly agreed on it long ago.
Because they knew the count would never let Hans go.
Looks like this isn’t needed anymore.
That was a relief.
It’s enough that you’re safe, Hans.
Then—
Thud, thud, thud! Clatter-clatter!
Urgent footsteps rushed toward them from farther down the passage.
The first person to appear was the head butler, Sebas.
Count Valderk followed behind him.
“I heard a great noise here. What happened?”
The count’s words stopped abruptly.
He had seen the collapsed entrance to the prison.
Nen sank to the ground and sobbed.
“It suddenly... the cave collapsed. Hans... he’s in there!”
Her acting was flawless.
Blood-smeared hands, tears streaming down her face.
The desperation from a moment ago still clung to her, so it hardly counted as acting at all.
“Calm yourself, Nen.”
Sebas studied the collapsed entrance with his cold eyes.
It was a complete seal, with not even a gap large enough for an ant to slip through.
“He couldn’t possibly have survived in that situation.”
There was an odd note of relief in his voice.
The count, too, looked for a moment at the entrance turned into a grave.
“How do you expect anyone to dig that out? Even if we brought people in, it would take days.”
The count trailed off and shook his head.
“And in any case, it’s too late. Leave it. The man died serving the Valderk family here. Record it that way.”
An outsider who knew the secret passage was gone.
Without the count having to dirty his hands even a little.
There could be no cleaner ending than that.
“...Tsk. What a pity.”
With that, he turned away.
Sebas followed behind him.
Left alone, Nen watched the two men recede into the distance.
I have to tell the young lady right away. He’s safe.
* * *
The magic tower shop.
A man with his hood pulled low stepped through the door.
His face was hidden in shadow, and the pressure of mana around him was no ordinary thing.
The clerk assigned to greet customers straightened unconsciously.
This wasn’t someone he could afford to treat carelessly.
“Welcome. How may I help you?”
The man spoke quietly from beneath the hood.
“I’ve come to sell some Magic Stones.”
The clerk smiled.
Customers who came to sell were common enough.
At most, a handful of stones.
“Of course. How many are we talking about?”
“Well.”
The man’s mouth curved faintly.
“I’m not sure this tower can buy them all.”
He took something out and set it on the table with a soft thud.
One crystal, brilliant as though red flame were simmering within it.
“......!”
The clerk’s eyes flew wide.
An High-grade Magic Stone.
And not a single flaw on it, either—top quality, beyond question.
“Do you...... have more of these?”
“Of course.”
The man smiled strangely.