The Expedition Departs
Two weeks had passed since we claimed the rewards for the thesis.
In that time, Theo and I had crafted a great many things in the atelier, while the city buzzed with rumors about an entrance to the Demonic Realm.
They'd found the true gateway to the Demonic Realm right here in Astrum, people said.
The Imperial Army was preparing an expedition, they said.
The city administration would soon post a call for a subjugation force, they said.
Once the entrance opened, beasts would come pouring out—and somehow the rumors already covered their traits, how to fight them, and every scrap of related intel with suspicious precision. Of all the places where those rumors burned hottest, none matched the Pioneer Guild.
"Is the rumor about a large-scale expedition force being organized actually true?"
"My friend's older brother is in the Imperial Army. He says they're really sending one."
"This is our chance, boss! If we distinguish ourselves on the expedition, we can finally climb out of being a no-name guild!"
"Get the kids ready right now! Our guild is betting everything on this expedition!"
"Guildmaster, what do we do?"
"If we want information, we'll have to join. Send word to the kingdom—we're participating as part of the expedition force."
Pioneers asking whether the rumors were real. Pioneers preparing in hopes of striking it rich. Pioneers looking to curry favor with the Empire by lending their strength. All sorts of people traded stories—and amid it all, a man and a woman sat arm-in-arm in the guild building's dining area, lost in thought.
"Hmm."
They let out the same breath in perfect unison, like twins, then glanced sideways at each other.
"Hey."
"What is it?"
"What do you make of all this?"
"Doesn't sound like empty gossip. The information is flowing too smoothly and too accurately—the city must have a hand in it."
"Figured as much. And the ones who set this whole change in motion are Hyeonseong and Theo."
Hyeonseong and Theo.
A transmigrator, and the boy who had accepted that transmigrator into himself.
In all their lives, they had never seen a more fascinating pair. One dragged into another world in his sleep and shoved into someone else's body; the other who had welcomed it with open arms. Their time together had been short, but they had witnessed firsthand just how extraordinary those two were—and so they were certain.
"I'm curious what they're up to. Want to go check on them?"
"Their skills grow by the day. Just watching them is a lesson in itself—reason enough to go."
And above all, the best way to get detailed news was straight from the people involved.
They left the guild building and made their way across the city. Before long they arrived at a building marked Theo's Atelier and knocked on the door.
The knights standing guard recognized the two companions and made no move to stop them.
A moment later, the door opened.
"Who is it?"
"Hey, Theo. We came because we were curious about—"
"About the rumors going around the city lately—"
The two companions smiled as they started to state their business—then both stopped mid-sentence.
Because Hyeonseong looked wrecked.
Dark circles under his eyes. A face heavy with exhaustion. A yawn escaping with every breath. The classic portrait of an overworked alchemist.
It was simply that they'd never seen Hyeonseong like this before, so the sight caught them off guard. And thanks to the original body's absurd good looks, he didn't even look like a zombie—he looked like a frail, heavenly-genius pretty boy. That was the real killer.
Cecilia, who had walked in without a care in the world, took a critical hit and sucked in a sharp breath.
"Kh—?!"
"Hey. He's fifteen. Even if he's a transmigrator, the body is fifteen."
"I—I know that!"
While she scrambled to reassemble her composure with a mage's cold, razor-sharp reason, Clovis shoved her aside and asked,
"Did we catch you at a bad time?"
"No. I just finished my schedule, so it's fine."
"Good to hear."
"Come on in. It's a bit of a mess inside, but not so bad we can't receive guests."
Clovis nodded at Hyeonseong's words and dragged the still-dazed Cecilia inside.
Once he stepped into the atelier and took in the interior, Clovis let out a low whistle.
"Whew. You gearing up for a war or something?"
"Something like that."
"For real?"
"We have to deal with a monster wave made up of beasts, don't we?"
Theo's voice drifted in from the side, and Clovis paused. He'd seen it at the Rest Cult, but having two Theos with the exact same face still threw him—especially when one of them was a ghost.
"The whole city's in an uproar over the expedition. Are you two planning to go?"
"Yep! That's why we've been prepping so hard!"
"Yeah, I can tell just by looking. But where did you even get the materials to make all this?"
"We dumped every last material we got as a thesis reward into it!"
The Theo floating in midair explained with sparkling eyes. Watching a kid throw himself into his work with pure, genuine delight put a fond smile on Clovis's face. By his standards they were still little brats, and seeing them bustle around making things was honestly pretty adorable.
That didn't mean he'd forgotten why they'd come.
"I've got some questions about the expedition. Mind if I borrow a bit of your time?"
"Ask as much as you want. I'll explain everything I know."
"Then, about the entrance to the Demonic Realm…"
Starting with the gateway itself, he worked through his questions one by one. Cecilia, finally back in her right mind, joined the conversation and asked her own. Hyeonseong and Theo shared everything they knew without holding back, and the two companions walked away thoroughly satisfied. As they organized what they'd learned, their eyes drifted to the pile of spiritual goods stacked on the table.
Items prepared by the two geniuses themselves.
They couldn't help wondering what kind of results those things would produce.
Recruitment notices for the expedition force went up all across Astrum.
The moment the swirling rumors hardened into confirmed fact, throngs of hopeful participants flooded the city administration. Through the administrators' noble sacrifice—overtime—the roster was whittled down.
One thousand Imperial troops. Two thousand pioneers. Five hundred others, including priests and support personnel.
Commander: Third Prince Casian.
For a force heading out to open the entrance to the Demonic Realm, the composition was almost absurdly lean—but if every last one of them was a mana user, that changed the equation entirely.
Casian surveyed the expedition arrayed across Astrum's central plaza and flashed a broad grin.
"No need for a long speech. We march!"
"Waaaaaaaaah!"
The declaration was so brief it bordered on outrageous, and both the expedition and the crowd packing the plaza roared in answer. Spirits high, the force marched out onto the grasslands beyond the city walls and fell in under Casian's command.
"Form up exactly as briefed! The Imperial Army takes the front! The flanks go to the pioneers, with the major guilds as the core!"
At Casian's order, the expedition moved as one.
Every person in that force knew just how nightmarish the Demonic Realm could be. If sheer numbers alone made exploration easy, it wouldn't be called the Demonic Realm. So even with this many people on the move, they kept their tension tight as they pushed into the forest—and hell unfolded right on schedule.
"Kyaaaaaaah!"
"Kieeeeeek!!"
Monsters, stirred by the expedition's advance, came charging with eyes rolled white. A large military force moving through the Demonic Realm was no different from an invasion of that territory. The monsters fought with everything they had to keep from losing their homes, and casualties followed.
"Gah—?!"
"Keten!"
"Damn it, the lead tank just got wrecked by an owl bear!"
"Bring potions! Buy time until a priest gets here!"
Situations that would normally have been handled with a detour or a light skirmish before moving on now turned into full fights. The monsters of the Demonic Realm feared death like any living thing—but from their perspective, dying here in battle and dying after fleeing into some other territory amounted to the same thing, so they resisted. The expedition gritted its teeth and met them head-on.
Even so, the pioneers on the edges didn't complain. Compared to the center of the formation, the flanks were almost cute.
"Kuaaaaaah!"
"Don't drop your spears and shields! We are the Empire's claws!"
On a wide clearing, hundreds of orcs clashed with the Imperial Army. Every time a soldier's aura-wreathed spear met an orc's fighting-spirit-charged club, shockwaves burst outward, and knights and orc champions hunted each other's lives across the field. The orcs had been multiplied in strength by the Demonic Realm's influence, but the Imperial Army was no soft target. While the rank-and-file pushed the orcs back, the mages in the rear unleashed the spells they'd prepared.
A massive storm of flame erupted in the heart of the orc horde and burned everything it touched. Only then did the orcs lose their will to fight and scatter.
As the fighting settled into a lull, Casian scratched his head.
"Maybe we should've just taken an airship."
"You were the one who said that once the entrance opens, the beasts will start moving in earnest, and we need the pioneers to build combat experience for that, Your Highness."
"I know. I'd make the same call even if I went back."
He shrugged at the Imperial Army commander's words. As the man said, sending a small elite unit to break the seal would have spared them this misery—but opening the entrance meant fighting the beasts for real. And the Demonic Realm held more than just monsters and beasts. Its environment and mysterious phenomena couldn't be ignored either.
Gurgle-gurgle-gurgle.
"Pwah! There's still moisture on your face, so it's not an illusion-type."
"Damn it, turning back from here costs us three days. Any way to deal with this?"
"The mages and alchemists are working on it, but it looks like it'll take quite a while."
The field commander checked the wall of water blocking the expedition's path and looked thoroughly stuck. An enormous volume of water had swallowed part of the forest in a vast dome. One of those mysterious phenomena that cropped up in the Demonic Realm whenever you started to forget they existed.
"Of all things, a water-related mystery…"
A kind of primal magic born when the environment forced a colossal mass of mana to coalesce. In the distant past, people had supposedly mistaken such things for divine miracles—there were records of it—but right now it was nothing more than an obstacle barring the expedition's way. They could last anywhere from a few days to several centuries, and the field commander was still wrestling with what to do when—
"Hm?"
—he spotted a pair of boys standing in front of the water wall.
The two looked identical, like twins, and one of them was, curiously enough, a ghost.
"Familiar pattern. Should just need a little tweaking."
"You're right. It's exactly like what I saw in the Book of Memories."
One of them held a strangely shaped lantern and had little ghost children trailing around him. The commander was still puzzling over the sight when he recalled the advice his superior had given before the expedition set out.
Listen carefully. You must remember the appearance of the person I'm about to describe.
A distinguished guest, sir? We're going to be too busy with the expedition to spare them any attention.
He's a talent that His Highness the Third Prince and Her Highness the Fourth Princess both have their eyes on.
I'll listen with my ears wide open, sir!
Thanks to his superior's thorough briefing, the commander recognized the boys in front of him at once. He'd figured their looks were distinctive enough that forgetting them would be impossible—and seeing them in person, they really did stand out. How could a human face even be that beautiful?
Leaving them alone probably wouldn't cause problems, but if they got hurt somehow, he and his men were looking at hellish training for certain.
You, you, and you—with me.
Yes, sir.
He gathered his best with a wave of his hand and started toward the boys.
"Excuse me. The area hasn't been secured yet, so I've come to escor—"
"Done!"
"Whoa!"
Rumble-rumble-rumble-rumble!
But before the commander could reach them, the two boys—who had been fiddling with something—stood up from where they'd been working. The wall of water barring the way ahead split left and right, carving out a path wide enough for the entire expedition to pass through.
The field commander and his soldiers, witnessing a sight that defied all common sense right in front of their noses, stood slack-jawed.
"Captain, what did those two just do?"
"…I have no idea."
While the rest of the expedition reeled in confusion, only Casian and the alchemists grasped the situation at once and moved to restore order.
"Hahaha! Theo solved it! The path is open—advance as we are!"
"As expected of Senior Theodore!"
"Ohoho! To think he'd touch the flow of mana itself to carve a path!"
At their reaction, the expedition turned astonished eyes on the two geniuses. Whether gazes poured in from every direction or not, the pair paid no mind—they simply sparkled as they admired the water wall split cleanly in half.
It was the kind of talent that made it obvious why the royalty and the alchemists kept them so carefully under their wing.
And all across the force, minds started turning.
Theodore, was it? Better stay on good terms with him.
Nigredo-rank, and that much potential already…
Any chance we could bring him on as a guild exclusive? We're a major guild, after all…
They ran the numbers every which way, but every calculation landed on the same conclusion.
From here on out, we need to be friends with those two.
It was painfully clear they would grow into core talents of the city. Having reached that judgment, the pioneers' gazes locked onto the two geniuses.
Somewhere, you could almost hear the sound of the coin Clovis and Cecilia had bought at the bottom going to the moon.
Confirming that the expedition was heating up over the two boys, their companions smiled with thoroughly wicked satisfaction.
"Heh heh heh. This is what investing looks like!"
"I didn't expect results this fast."
All that hard travel had been worth it.