Eureka
Eureka.
The word Archimedes shouted upon discovering the principle of buoyancy, so lost in his revelation that he forgot he was naked.
Technically it was “Heureka,” with the H sound intact. But that wasn’t important.
Jin simply thought the two engineers dancing with joy in that moment looked a lot like Archimedes that day.
“You figured it out? For real?”
Broph, sprawled on the floor and pedaling an invisible bicycle, burst into a loud “Wahaha!” at Jin’s dazed question.
“That’s right!”
His eyes were bloodshot, his grin stretching ear to ear. Jin felt a chill and gripped the doorknob, glancing sideways.
There was Bagmar.
The dwarf-like android was frantically flipping through papers beside the wriggling Broph. Ink-stained memos scattered wildly only to be snatched back and reordered in a frantic loop.
“Right? Yeah. Right? Uh-huh, yeah, that’s it.”
Anxious, then relieved. Anxious again, then relieved again.
Just watching gave Jin secondhand ADHD.
Jin tilted his head and stepped back outside into the cold wind of the workshop.
Katrina was walking toward him, fur hat pulled low.
“Already leaving? Huh? What’s wrong?”
Jin grabbed her shoulders, spun her 180 degrees, and said, “We need a little time.”
“Why? Did something go wrong? You don’t have to push yourselves so hard…”
While Katrina muttered worriedly, Jin draped an arm around her shoulders and began dragging her back the way they had come.
Let’s grab lunch first. Maybe conversation will flow better after that. Hmm. Should I ask the missus to make some dumplings? We could make them together, all round and plump. Or maybe warm soup? Damn, I’m already hungry.
He was just talking to himself.
“If the flow of existence remains constant and its boundaries exist nowhere, then its essence ultimately converges into a single perfect sphere. That sphere is both everything and nothing.”
Huh?
Jin blinked blankly at Broph’s words. The rapid-fire explanation made zero sense. His eyes glazed over and his mind began replaying the lunch menu they had just eaten.
“Phase magic…” Katrina murmured to herself.
Broph snapped his fingers. “Way smarter than the blockhead here. Exactly. Phase magic.”
He tapped the blueprint with his palm. “That’s the meaning hidden inside this damned design. We translated every sentence into runes, then wove those runes into an ancient grammatical semantic web. That’s how we reached the conclusion.”
“…Runes? That ancient language died out ages ago. Reconstructing the original form should be impossible in this era.”
At Katrina’s question, Bagmar silently tapped his temple with a fingertip.
“It remains in my memory. Though fragmented and imperfect, I can still assemble the framework.”
“Your memory?”
Katrina tilted her head. Broph and Bagmar both flinched.
After all, she still thought of Bagmar as a dwarf-themed android and Broph’s assistant. The odd sense of dissonance she had felt all this time finally clicked.
Katrina’s gaze shifted to Jin’s profile. He was smacking his lips, lost in thought about something else entirely.
“What are they talking about?”
“Hmm?”
“Bagmar isn’t an ordinary android, is he?”
Jin blinked rapidly, dragging his mind back from its tangent. Finally! My moment to shine has arrived.
“Well, you see, it’s like this…”
Jin launched into an explanation, delighted to be useful. By doing so, he effectively handed Katrina a “trust sticker.” The truth about Bagmar was only shared with truly reliable people in Jin’s circle.
How rare was that? Let’s see…
Kalipa, Pow, Broph, Wonder, Sylvia, the Colonel, Q, Elina, all the Law Enforcers, the Pilgrims, the Sergeant… D’Andre would obviously be told if he asked. Natasha? Natasha could know too. Eanna went without saying. Our Cerebellum King? Why wouldn’t he qualify?
At this point it was basically an open secret shared with over ninety percent of his acquaintances. The bar was comically low.
Well, what could he do? Jin had always been weak to his own people.
He simply hadn’t found the right moment to tell Katrina until now. But the truth came pouring out, refreshing and honest.
The result:
“…He was really a dwarf?”
For the Nth time that season, Katrina’s eyes widened into perfect circles.
How could she not be shocked? The very beings who had created the Eternal Dawn were dwarves.
But the surprise lasted only a moment. She quickly steadied herself for something far more important.
“I roughly understand what happened. We can go back to what you were saying earlier.”
“Right. So, as I was saying—”
Broph’s eyes returned to the blueprint. His wrinkled hand slowly traced the paper. Geometric shapes intertwined with strange patterns. Everything converged at a single point, which he tapped with his fingertip.
“In phase magic, the properties change depending on how you fold and transform space. That’s the core.”
Jin’s expression soured again. Great, they’re back to talking in their own secret language. What the hell is phase magic anyway? Should I just glance at the Mana constellation real quick?
If I light up the star, I’d instantly become a doctor, an expert, a grandmaster.
He didn’t do it, of course. The experience points he had painstakingly saved were reserved exclusively for illuminating mana circuits in the future.
Three ridiculously powerful constellations already filled his mindscape. No need to branch out. Straightforward output—that was the manly way.
So Jin slipped back into blank-minded mode.
Listening won’t help anyway. Focusing would only hurt me. Better to spend the time thinking about dinner instead.
And so the alien words flowing from Broph, Bagmar, and Katrina passed straight through one of Jin’s ears and out the other, like water through a bottomless jar.
Meanwhile his hands busily unwrapped and devoured snacks, proving he had mastered the art of selective muting.
Time passed.
Finally, one sentence managed to slip through Jin’s extremely loose mental sieve.
“…Therefore, our conclusion is that the Eternal Dawn is not an artifact that exerts physical force.”
Jin startled. Wait, what? Why did we suddenly jump ahead? What happened while I was spacing out?
It felt like trying to follow instructions for folding a paper crane:
1. Fold the paper in half.
2. Finished paper crane.
Jin wore a blank expression.
“More precisely, it is an object that binds a single existence to two worlds at once.”
Bagmar’s fingertip drew a small circle. Katrina, watching, spoke with a grave expression.
“In other words, the one who possesses the Eternal Dawn remains human while…”
“…simultaneously becoming an existence akin to a spirit.”
“……?”
Broph nodded and added the rest while Jin failed to keep up, his face blank.
“…I see. So that’s what it was.”
Katrina pressed a hand to her forehead and murmured to herself.
“The Founder was one of the rare half-human, half-spirit beings in all of human history. Because the secret art he created has been passed down through generations, we—who have grown ever closer to pure humanity—can no longer bear its power. The Ice Age curse.”
Her deep-blue eyes settled on the copy of the Eternal Dawn.
“The only way to overcome it……”
What Jin had missed was this:
The legendary artifact known as the Eternal Dawn did not grant the power to freeze the world with a single gesture, nor did it merely alleviate or shoulder the burden of the Ice Age’s side effects.
What it bestowed was the power to simultaneously anchor its owner’s body to both the human realm and the spirit realm, transforming them into a half-human, half-spirit being.
Like the faint light lingering on the horizon just before dawn.
A boundary where day and night blurred.
An artifact that stretched that fleeting moment into eternity.
Thus the Eternal Dawn—
A secret known only to those who inherited the Marjie name, a tale lost seven hundred years ago that now transcended time once more.
Clap clap clap.
Jin applauded. He had no idea what any of it meant, but it sounded like an incredible discovery, so enthusiastic cheering seemed appropriate.
The moment passed.
…Wait, this isn’t right?
The heavy, somber atmosphere was nothing like he had expected. Jin froze in a prayer-like pose and rolled his eyes left and right, reading the room.
Broph let out a deep sigh, as if he had been waiting for this.
The man who had been joyfully pedaling an invisible bicycle in the air was gone. Only a deeply wrinkled face remained as he muttered,
“The problem is that we can’t actually make the Eternal Dawn.”
“Huh? But you finished deciphering the blueprint.”
“Blockhead? Since when were you paying attention…? Anyway, you’re right. We did finish the interpretation. Thanks to that, we now know exactly what functions the Eternal Dawn performs and what materials are required to create it.”
“And you still can’t make it?”
“Correct.”
Broph nodded.
“From the start, this blueprint—or rather, this grimoire—had a fatal flaw. Part of the incantation’s core structure, essential for artifact creation, is missing. Whether it was intentional or not, I can’t say.”
“…It was probably intentional.”
Katrina chewed her lower lip and added, “I once heard a rumor that our ancestor deliberately damaged the original to prevent counterfeits from being born. I never thought it was true……”
Jin’s mouth fell open. What does that mean? It was impossible to create from the very beginning?
“Then what do we do?”
“With our current abilities, this is our limit. We spent nearly two months without proper sleep learning and interpreting runes that shouldn’t even exist in our era. Damn it.”
Broph’s disappointment was as great as his earlier joy. No one had been more sincere about creating the Eternal Dawn than he had. Yet even in this situation, he offered an alternative.
“I’m no expert on incantations, but I do know that when it comes to phase spells and spirits, Florence stands at the top. Is there any chance we could ask them for help?”
Katrina slowly shook her head.
“They’re even more closed off than the Marjie family. If Thea were still around, maybe. But now that Cecil has betrayed the family and allied with black mages, I can’t imagine them sparing time for another house.”
She clenched her fists.
“Still, if that’s the only path left, I’ll go myself.”
“…Florence is closed off? Them?”
Bagmar wore an expression of cognitive dissonance. Apparently the Florence he remembered (at least a thousand years ago) differed greatly from the Florence of today.
And Jin……
was frowning.
It wasn’t because the blueprint problem remained frustratingly unsolved.
No, something else had been glittering in the corner of his vision for a while now, demanding attention like an alarm that refused to be ignored.
Why the hell is this popping up again? I was doing fine not looking at it.
Jin was the type to become infinitely stubborn about things he disliked.
So he gritted his teeth and ignored the translucent alarm that had appeared without warning, completely out of place with everything around it.
For a long time.
“Then I’ll be going.”
When Katrina stood up with clear resolve, Jin finally broke his stubborn streak.
“Wait a second.”
He grabbed her slender wrist. With a soft sigh, he glanced toward the corner of his vision.
As if it had been waiting, a status window bloomed into view.
Frozen Aspiration
📍 Location: Marjie Territory
🎁 Reward: 55,000 XP
“Jin?”
Katrina called his name in an awkward half-standing posture. She didn’t shake him off. Instead, she quietly savored the pleasant warmth of his hand—different from her own—while clearing her throat.
Time passed.
Jin stared into empty space, then suddenly clicked his tongue. Tilting his head, he slowly moved his lips.
“Grandpa, by any chance… was the missing incantation section about four lines long?”
End