The Frame Did Not Lie Down
The frame did not lie down. The Magic Armor was an incredible artifact—the first relic-grade item humanity had ever produced. It recreated the absurdly overpowered performance of those ancient creations, proving that we too could make them. It was a tool that would let even the lowest commoners protect themselves so they no longer had to tremble before monsters. Yet this masterpiece had arrived far too late.
Technical limitations were part of it, but the real culprit was Gi Juseon’s perfectionism. Magic Armor could undermine noble authority and be twisted for war; therefore its existence had to remain hidden. Gi Juseon had carried out the entire project alone. Naturally, his personal vision saturated every detail. In his pursuit of absolute perfection—so that no one could raise a single objection—the release date kept sliding further and further into the future.
To avoid backlash from the nobility, raise accessibility so ordinary people could use it immediately, and lower the operation difficulty. Trying to achieve all of that single-handedly had caused the timeline to balloon exponentially. If someone who shared the exact same dream appeared and became a collaborative researcher, it would naturally lighten the weight of Gi Juseon’s subjectivity.
That was why I had approached him by mentioning that I held the same dream. The result was the conversation we were having now.
“Wait, so you’re saying we shouldn’t build the whole thing at once, but create it in separate sections?”
“Exactly. Instead of a single core that everything connects to, we’ll use six separate cores—one each for the head, torso, arms, and legs.”
“That would drive the cost through the roof. The budget was already steep with just one core; six of them would be…”
“Completing the prototype comes first.”
The reason everything had taken so long was that he had tried to jump straight to mass production. The logical path—releasing an expensive flagship model first, then iterating on the design—had been blocked by his perfectionism. He wanted a price point where anyone could use it, something affordable enough that most households could keep one around like any other household magic appliance. Gi Juseon had dreamed of his Magic Armor reaching that everyday level.
“I believe we should begin with the arm section.”
I folded the overflowing blueprint on the large desk until only the arm schematics remained visible. Even a single arm included cooling functions, heating functions, magic nullification, self-repair, and an emergency shield mode that linked with the core. It looked exactly like the childish dream schools I used to draw as a kid—hallways that were escalators, first floor a PC bang, second floor a comic shop, third floor a study room. Every desirable feature had been crammed in without restraint. The only difference was that I had wrapped it in complicated terminology, plausible diagrams, and neat handwriting. In truth, it was the worst possible design.
“Uh… well… I suppose I agree with parts of it. Yes, it could work that way… But now that we’ve met, shouldn’t we redraw the blueprint together and discuss this properly? It feels like far too much of my own bias is reflected here…”
“No. The blueprint is perfect. We should simply trim the excess sections and begin building the actual item right away.”
“…Haha.”
Gi Juseon couldn’t find a proper reply. He simply let out a dry, hollow laugh. I understood why. The thought that something he had only ever imagined inside his own head was about to step into reality must have been terrifying.
Of course, that wasn’t the only reason.
Gi Juseon was an isolated island who had deliberately cut himself off from everyone. In other words, he had few close relationships with the other professors.
The theory is flawless, but the technology to realize it simply doesn’t exist yet.
That was the second reason it had taken him so long to create the Magic Armor: he had been forced to learn blacksmithing himself. Self-taught mana forging and theoretical knowledge alone, then trying to hammer metal? It was like a child who knew nothing suddenly deciding to build an airplane from scratch. That was why I had worked Kim Seokcheol so hard after bringing him in. A first-year who already understood mana forging could, if trained properly, turn Gi Juseon’s vision into reality. The current crop of research students were all stuck in abstract theory—core-body linkage, output calibration, and other desk-bound ideas. At their current level, actual implementation was impossible.
“I understand your concerns. But isn’t research exactly that—building, clashing, and learning through the collisions?”
It might have been presumptuous, but circling endlessly around theory with no physical testing would lead nowhere.
“What if we partnered with Professor Baktor? I already have a Forenta sapling, a solid steel ingot, and a Pertonba drive core ready.”
The real reason I had taken Baktor’s blacksmithing lectures was simple: right now, the only person capable of actually forging the Magic Armor was Baktor himself. Born with dwarf blood, his innate talent could drag pure theory into the physical world. And if we prepared the materials in advance—
“Hmm… uh… still…”
Gi Juseon had run out of escape routes. The manic energy he usually radiated was gone. With unusually calm eyes he looked back and forth between me and the blueprint. A first-year who had dropped out of the sky talking about the dream of Magic Armor and immediately demanding they build it. I could see him weighing whether to trust the boy’s words or put the whole thing on hold a little longer.
Time to play my trump card.
“During today’s dungeon practicum, one student died.”
“…What?”
His eyes asked why I was only mentioning it now; his voice carried surprise that no one had come to the lab to report it. I didn’t let the opening slip.
“Students die. So how many ordinary people must be dying? That’s why… that’s why I came to you, Professor. Because I believe these things must never happen again.”
People die someday. The inability to choose the day of one’s death is simply how life works—inescapable. Even so, couldn’t we at least stop them from being killed by monsters? With that resolve burning in my chest, I looked straight into Gi Juseon’s eyes.
“…”
I didn’t know the full story behind Gi Juseon. All I knew was that he was building Magic Armor for the sake of the public.
That was enough.
Indeed, after hearing my words he fell into deep thought and remained silent for a long moment.
“…I’ll contact you separately tomorrow.”
The quiet words clearly meant get out. I nodded, turned, and left the laboratory.
He’ll need time.
I hadn’t received immediate approval, but I wasn’t disappointed. In that last sentence I had heard a tremor of something overflowing.
Time to go train Infinite Orbit.
The bait had been laid. All that remained was to wait for him to bite. I turned on my heel and headed for Akasa’s training ground. Every minute, every second mattered; I couldn’t afford to rest easy.
“Malena, what should I do?”
In the laboratory after Lee Seokhyun had left, Gi Juseon picked up the frame that had been lying face-down on his desk and stood it upright for the first time in a long while. Inside was the image of a brilliant woman he had sworn never to look at again until the Magic Armor was complete. An intense smile that seemed to hold the sun itself, golden hair that shone like polished treasure. A white dress that captured the essence of spring, and the straw hat she clutched tightly to her chest. Malena Melr—Gi Juseon’s first and last love.
“You always gave me the answer at times like this, didn’t you, Malena?”
It was a painfully familiar story. A commoner and a noble who had lived together, separated by the gulf of status, yet whose hearts never stopped reaching for each other. After overcoming countless trials and promising marriage, the two of them ultimately—
Died because they could not defeat the monster that appeared before their eyes.
An accident that was and was not an accident. A tragedy. If the person standing there had been a proper noble youth training to become a knight instead of a powerless commoner, Malena would not have died. She would still be alive, smiling that smile full of sunlight.
“Give me courage.”
The reason he had thrown himself so madly into Magic Armor was not some grand cause. It was atonement sent to Malena. A vow that he would never let the same thing happen again. If Magic Armor had existed back then—if such items had been commercialized quickly enough for people to protect themselves—Malena would not have died, and he could have lived happily while protecting her.
The shattered past became a shackle that bound the future. At the same time it became a terror that pressed down on Gi Juseon. The days when he had dreamed of a happy future without ever trying had passed. Now that the time had truly come to make the dream bloom, he realized how utterly hollow those earlier thoughts had been.
Lee Seokhyun had even said it would be fine to register the shield under his own name, but that was something a professor could never allow. Wanting to see the results while avoiding all responsibility by hiding behind a student? He would rather die than live that way.
Gi Juseon turned those words over and over in his mind, recalling again and again what Malena used to say.
Tick. Tick. The second hand seemed to urge him toward a decision.
Tap. Tap. Tap. His fingers kept drumming against the arm-section blueprint on the desk. Again and again, like hammering iron, like forging the Magic Armor itself.
The sound of him tapping the table continued until the researcher arrived to report the student’s death.
Malena’s frame no longer lay down. The future was slowly beginning to change.