I Get Lonely Easily (1)
I Get Lonely Easily (1)
The first floor of the Tower of Knowledge was immensely spacious.
Even cramming in several soccer fields wouldn't make a dent in the vast, empty space, which lent it a strangely desolate feel.
At the center of that first floor stood the usual single chair and table where Lady Ariel resided.
Today, one more chair had been added.
Seated in that extra chair, I sat across from the Tower Master of Knowledge... Lady Ariel, receiving her instruction.
My attire was different too.
I'd stowed my cadet uniform in a subspace at the start and changed into the pure white cloth garment Lady Ariel had provided for me.
When I checked, it turned out to be similar to the clothes Lady Ariel herself was wearing.
The hem was long; if I stretched out the sleeves, they covered past my wrists.
It was baggy overall, so the fabric fluttered every time I moved roughly.
Some might find that uncomfortable, but it fit my tastes perfectly, so I was wearing it with satisfaction.
Sitting across from each other dressed like that, I got the feeling that both Lady Ariel and I looked like we'd been dusted head-to-toe in white flour.
"Do you have any parts that seem questionable?"
After finishing a segment of the explanation, Lady Ariel asked.
[...Hmm, I don't quite get the formula conversion part.]
[Is there really a need to connect forward transmission by the root? It feels like the output drops too much.]
There's a saying.
Learning what you don't know and teaching what you've learned are entirely different pursuits.
The former is about making yourself understand; the latter is about making someone else understand.
It varies case by case, but being a good learner doesn't mean you're a good teacher.
Especially when something is obvious to you, if someone else doesn't grasp that easily-skipped step, that's usually where things grind to a halt.
Tower Master of Knowledge, Ariel Segnis Ternovsia.
The true founder of the Magic Council.
Before even that, a hero famed as the very first mage, a living legend.
Although much time had passed since her seclusion and her renown had sunk beneath the surface.
Even now, among mages, she is a legendary figure and a great person frequently found in history books.
However great a mage she was, teaching was a separate matter...
"That part is exactly an issue I agonized over in the past myself. I was also dissatisfied with having to make so many compromises for the sake of stability. At first, I added branching formulas by incorporating supplementary equations..."
...or not.
Her teaching skill, too, matched her magical prowess—she was unimaginably adept.
With her finger placed on the part I questioned, she continued with a gentle explanation, saying she had gone through the same thing.
From the opening theory to the conclusion, every bit of the explanation drilled cleanly into my head.
On parts requiring deeper understanding, from the origin of the question to the clarification of the principle, it was thorough and flawless.
The explanation felt so much like she knew exactly what I was thinking that I genuinely wondered if my mind had been read.
"In those days, there was no such thing as magic. Almost no knowledge accumulated by predecessors, and few colleagues to share what knowledge we had. So I had to create it all myself, from start to finish."
To my unspoken question, Lady Ariel replied in a tone that suggested it was nothing unusual.
"Countless attempts occurred in that process... and I personally tried and tested nearly every conceivable question through trial and error."
'Ah...'
Unique abilities, which simply manifest.
And mana, which is grasped and then used.
Unlike those, magic is a technique arranged and manifested according to fixed logic and rules.
Of course, back when there was neither information nor anything else, the technique itself didn't exist to begin with.
"The first magic was not creation, but imitation."
Lady Ariel raised her arm, turning her palm upward.
Fire born from nature.
Rain pouring from the sky, and thunder and lightning.
Wind that carves away cliffs.
Earth that heaves and shakes the world...
A sphere of elemental attributes floated above her palm, drifting like a planet roaming through space.
"Natural Magic... what we now call Attribute Magic, along with Basic Manipulation-Type Magic—which focused on the core output, properties, and manipulation of mana itself, like Mana Strike, Mana Bullet, and Armament Formation—that was the entirety of magic in that era."
Not only vividly colored elemental spheres, but multiple spheres of raw mana also rose up.
Their outward appearance was similar, but the properties I sensed were completely different.
Some spheres felt heavy; others scattered a sharp, piercing edge.
"At the time, I, too, yearned for magic that was intuitive and powerful—something that could subjugate monsters easily and simply—rather than high-dimensional, complex magic. Yes, just like the current Lee Ha-yul."
After explaining that far, Lady Ariel scattered the hovering spheres with a gesture and prodded her own chest several times with her finger.
[Ah.]
"Mana Strike and Mana Bullet. Even within basic manipulation, they are the most easily accessible types, and their power is straightforward. I was fond of them, too. Scattering a few thousand shots was effective, and since the original formulas are simple, they were easy to refine."
[Yes, exactly.]
[The power-to-efficiency ratio was good, and the formula was simple, so spamming it was handy.]
[And the refinements really were easy...]
"However."
Abruptly, Lady Ariel's tone grew firm.
At that, the clicking from the necklace, which had been excitedly chattering, came to an abrupt halt.
Lady Ariel, who had paused her fingers for a moment, stared intently at me.
"...I have never actually deployed a refinement as extreme and perilous as Lee Ha-yul's. To be precise, after conducting several experiments, I judged it to be a worthless thing that would ruin its user with just a single mistake."
[...Yes.]
"Yes, of course the danger varies with the user's capability. Since your natural talent cannot be compared to mine, you are surely capable of handling such hazardous magic with ease."
Having said that, Lady Ariel closed her mouth for a moment.
"...However, the magic you've been practicing lately... no, calling it magic is shameful... that violent and bizarre mana manipulation technique is, frankly, beyond my understanding."
Violent and bizarre.
It was an abstract description, but I could tell at once what she was referring to.
The technique imitated from the 5th Iteration.
Manifesting a magical formula through the mana circuits.
"...Arbitrarily twisting your circuits is already insa... a reckless act, but using that as a formula? At best, your bones and flesh would explode off you wholesale; at worst, the backflowing mana could permanently destroy the circuits and core throughout your entire body. It's a dangerous endeavor."
[That's, um...]
"The physical body of Lee Ha-yul inside the fifth Observation Record... only achieved that eccentric feat because his entire body's circuits had been meticulously pre-manipulated with an artifact, barely, and even then, just barely. In the end, even that control failed, resulting in self-destruction."
[Yes...]
Barely, and even then, just barely.
Amidst that soft, admonishing tone, the words she emphasized with particular stress made my head droop low.
I'd been hearing such warnings since the first day, but today the criticism was especially pointed.
And the one who had provided the reason for it was me.
With my head still lowered, I furtively touched my right arm, which had half-exploded just yesterday.
Lady Ariel's gaze fixed on the crown of my head.
Her worried eyes, as if looking at a troublesome child, made my head sink even lower.
"...You may find my words disagreeable. Even if you dismiss it all as impertinent criticism, I have no right to argue, but..."
[No, I don't think that at all.]
I shook my head repeatedly.
My thoughts regarding the Tower Masters were still complicated, but I didn't believe her concern was mere pretense.
It had been roughly ten days since I entered the Tower of Knowledge and began receiving instruction from Lady Ariel.
During that time, I'd heard the circumstances I hadn't caught on the first day, and I'd been steadily trained in magic.
Though it was an exceedingly short time compared to my whole life.
In the days I'd spent closely interacting with Lady Ariel, I hadn't detected any sign that she was using me with ill intent.
...I hope the other Tower Masters will be the same, if possible.
"Yes, thank you for accepting it as concern."
A hand reached out and gently cupped my cheek, lifting my bowed head.
"On another note, did you get any sleep last night?"
Lady Ariel suddenly asked that.
As if handling a delicate craftwork, her slender fingers brushed the area around my closed eyes.
I tilted my head.
[No.]
"What about the night before... no, have you slept at all since you entered the tower?"
[No, I...?]
My voice, which had been answering without much thought, grew quieter.
Lady Ariel's gaze shifted once more into the look one gives a troublemaker.
With both cheeks still held, I rolled my closed eyes around beneath the lids.
.
.
.
The interior of a tower operates under laws separate from the outside world.
The foremost concept is space.
A tower is an immense structure that defies common sense even when measured from outside.
But the interior, observed personally upon entering, was so vast it couldn't possibly fit into the category of a 'building' as measured from outside.
The Tower of Knowledge was no exception.
'It's been ten days today... time feels both fast and slow...'
Over the past ten days, I'd roamed the Tower of Knowledge quite a bit.
I scanned everything with Observation, and I moved my own feet to check it with Qi Sense too.
The result was that I learned the Tower of Knowledge was vast in a different way from the Tower of Growth.
The Tower of Growth was partitioned into multiple levels and walls.
It had a gargantuan space like a dense, dinosaur-era forest where monsters thrived, as seen during my first tower entry.
And it also had comparatively small spaces, like the desolate wasteland where I'd grappled with the 2nd Iteration.
Those spaces were all divided, so when I examined them with the Authority of Space and Observation, they all registered as 'individual spaces.'
The Tower of Knowledge was not like that.
There was no division here; it was a single, enormous space.
The first floor was empty.
Aside from the table and chair at the center where Lady Ariel usually read, there was nothing.
The only other things were the long hallways that branched out in eight directions from the first floor.
Identical doors lined the left and right sides of those hallways.
Those rooms were broadly of two types.
One type was for residential use, and the other was storage.
There were no reading rooms or study rooms.
Because from the second floor upward, the entirety of the tower was a library and reading room.
The empty first floor had no ceiling.
Above it, the endlessly open second floor and beyond held nothing but bookshelves and books.
'Mm...'
Inside the Tower of Growth, the Blessing of Growth was amplified.
I didn't know if that was its original function or something the Tower Master of Growth had added separately.
It worked on a similar principle to how a dungeon granted vitality to allies and imposed oppression on invaders.
The Tower of Knowledge had no such blessing.
Instead, its interior housed books in numbers practically indistinguishable from the infinite.
With an odd expression, I slid the book in my hand back into its place and tapped the cover a few times with a finger.
Normally... most people read books with their eyes.
Those with visual impairments interpreted them through braille, or relied on audio that read the contents aloud.
I perceived the entire book at once using the Observation Authority.
It was an overwhelmingly faster, more efficient method than seeing with the eyes or perceiving via braille or voice.
Of course, perception and comprehension were entirely different matters.
So rather than understanding, I simply crammed the data wholesale into my mind and picked through it slowly later to comprehend it.
The books in the Tower of Knowledge were difficult to perceive that way.
With an odd expression, I promptly pulled out the book right next to me.
『Advanced Attribute Magic Studies—Fire System』
The cover was ordinary.
A modern exterior rather than an antique one, bearing no traces of handling or age.
Not brand-new off the press, but it felt like a freshly printed book that had never been touched by human hands.
The texture was fine, too. Rubbing the smooth surface felt the same, as did the sound of the pages riffling open. Even running my fingers over the inner pages felt normal.
But it was different.
When I refined my observation, I could sense a structure minutely different from an ordinary book.
'Is all of this made of Authorities...?'
This book was materialized through the Authority of Knowledge.
If I had to put it precisely, was it a mass composed of information and mana?
Not just the book I held right now, but every single book scattered all around me was materialized through the Authority of Knowledge.
'And the number keeps increasing even now...'
When I first entered the Tower of Knowledge, I'd said it felt like every book in the world was here, hadn't I?
That statement was partially correct.
The books housed in the Tower of Knowledge were still increasing.
Whether that was a function of the Authority and the Tower, or whether a significant portion of newly published books flowed into the Tower of Knowledge from outside, it happened regardless.
'Like this...'
I laid my palm over the roughly opened paper and gently raised my mana, channeling it into the page.
— Crackle... ting...
At the alien sensation that followed, as if something were rifling through my brain, I faintly furrowed my brow.
Foreign memories and landscapes that were not my own bobbed to the surface of my mind.
A normal person would probably convulse from such an unfamiliar and alien sensation.
But through observation, I'd already experienced information reception to the point of vomiting blood.
This much I could brush past as easily as breathing.
'Sss...'
A moment later, the wave of information cut off.
With an odd expression, I tapped the book.
Information infusion.
I still didn't grasp the exact mechanism.
But whatever it was, its transmission of information was overwhelmingly superior to roughly skimming with the eyes.
'This is hard...'
But it was hard.
I scratched my head and narrowed my brow.
It wasn't just my own stupidity; magic itself was difficult.
Magic was a discipline.
Its history might be shorter than that of other fields of study, but the accumulated depth and substance behind it were by no means shallow.
The discipline of magic, built upon blood, flesh, and sacrifice, was never a half-baked field of knowledge.
If anything, it was staggeringly difficult.
That tendency multiplied exponentially the higher the level of magic became, and once you dug in properly, incomprehensible material came rushing out in droves.
'Tch...'
Of course, with Mana Affinity and All-Rounder, it was possible as long as I kept at it.
It might sound like self-absorbed nonsense, but setting aside intelligence, when it came to these kinds of talents, I really was an exceptional bastard.
Still, instantly understanding, mastering, and then handling such vast content with skill was simply something that required time.
The books materialized through the Authority of Knowledge did subtract quite a bit of that time, but the fact that I still had to put in the effort remained the same.
After hearing the full story in the Tower of Knowledge.
The burden had lessened considerably.
Before, I'd pretended otherwise, but the pressure had felt like it was crushing my mind and body.
Once I realized that the Tower Masters were actually doing their utmost to help me, a great deal of that dissolved.
'I have to work harder.'
So I sharpened my resolve even further, making sure I wouldn't slacken.
By the time I ended up in the worst possible situation later, it would be too late to start trying.
I had to do it now.
While I still had some breathing room, I had to act.
The Tower of Knowledge was already a place with a limited entry period.
I couldn't forgive myself for idling away time here.
I'd slept back when I was outside the Tower of Knowledge.
A month? Two months? I didn't need sleep.
I'd long since realized that my body wasn't human, and I'd also realized that sleep wasn't a necessity.
As long as my consciousness held out, I could remain awake indefinitely.
At Siyoram, I'd fall asleep on my own whenever people scooped me into their arms, but...
There was no one here to do that.
'...I miss Yeon-hwa.'
Just as I was about to search for the next book.
A vivid red book cover abruptly lodged itself in my mind.
The person that color conjured made me bite down on my lip.
'...I miss Seo-yul too. And my teacher... Ellia too, I miss everyone.'
Only ten days—a short span of time I could count on both hands—had passed, and yet the piercing longing settling in one corner of my heart weighed heavily for some reason.
I'd been apart for far longer stretches before. It was strange.
I bit my lip firmly and opened the book.
* * *
'When do you intend to sleep...'
Ariel, the Tower Master of Knowledge, couldn't view Lee Ha-yul's behavior with purely positive eyes.
Now, nearly ten days since he'd entered the Tower.
In Ariel's eyes, Lee Ha-yul's intensity was deeply alien.
Though she was now a Tower Master and bound by restrictions, before becoming a Tower Master she had been a hero known as a pioneer.
Even after becoming a Tower Master, she had never neglected her training.
Her true skill and caliber as 'Ariel Segnis Ternovsia'—not merely 'the Tower Master of Knowledge'—were also lofty.
Through those eyes, she had received multiple impressions when she first took in Lee Ha-yul.
A crystal of purity.
A mass that could dissolve into nature at any moment.
An existence carrying curses upon its body.
A disharmony where spirit and flesh did not align.
An unprecedented latent potential that, even now that he had become a formidable powerhouse, still seethed endlessly without knowing its limits.
And.
A child, like a puppy, who couldn't help but reveal wariness yet desperately wished the person before him would turn out to be a good person...
Now his entire atmosphere had changed.
He'd seem perfectly fine, then suddenly turn gloomy.
He'd be staying still, then the moment some thought crossed his mind, dark currents would swarm around him like fog.
Abruptly, he'd grow downcast and let his shoulders droop, his lips jutting out slightly as if longing for something.
At other times, having apparently entertained some foul thought, he'd erupt with a murderous, bloodthirsty intensity in all directions, as if about to tear someone apart.
From any angle, he looked mentally unstable and was overexerting himself.
She had asked him about it out loud, but truthfully, from the moment Lee Ha-yul entered the Tower, Ariel had been grasping his every single move.
She knew everything he'd done these ten days, like a stubborn child.
'......'
Ariel's gaze abruptly fell to the corner.
And she scanned the Status Window that had become accessible to her after Lee Ha-yul entered the Tower.
[Player Correction System: Measurement]
▶Mental State
｢Loneliness｣
｢Desolation｣
｢Impatience｣
｢Agony｣
｢Doubt｣
｢Desperation｣
｢Motivation｣
｢Affection-Seeking｣
｢Separation Anxiety｣
｢Sleep Desire｣
｢Curse of Solitude(?)｣
'Oh dear.'
Ariel, who had been calmly examining the Mental State section, furrowed her brow upon seeing the final entry.
The Curse of Solitude.
One of the two curses those bastards had placed on Lee Ha-yul was at work.
Originally a curse that would have stopped at restricting his senses, it was now shaking Lee Ha-yul, whose heart had been thrown into turmoil after hearing the full truth.
'Tch...'
Potential was unmanifested power.
Living beings tended to draw out latent potential the more desperate they became, drawing out abilities beyond their norm.
Lee Ha-yul was the same.
He was desperate, and in extreme moments, he would explosively unleash that unprecedented latent potential and bloom with terrifying speed.
'But...'
Lee Ha-yul needed a different kind of desperation, not that sort.
He needed to live a human life, not that of a monster.
He needed to exist within happiness, not loneliness.
He must not dismiss pain as something familiar.
He must not use the situation as an excuse to crush and suppress his emotions.
That wasn't merely the hope of Ariel and the other Tower Masters.
Even purely for the sake of efficiency and practical benefit, it had to be that way.
He must become not an avenger or a slaughterer.
But a savior and a guardian.
...If someone were to ask who they were to say such things, they had no real qualifications, but...
In the first place, sooner or later, Lee Ha-yul had been fated to throw himself into battle, yet in the end, the ones who had pushed him into the fight at this very moment were themselves.
'As I thought, I should put him to sleep.'
Still, leaving him like this was no good.
Ariel nodded to herself with firm resolve.
And then, as if embarrassed, she tinted her cheeks faintly red.
After hesitating a moment and fidgeting with her hands, Ariel let out a deep sigh and quietly parted her front robe.
— Shrrrk...
The garment, designed from the start to open easily, slipped apart helplessly at the light gesture.