Prologue
Prologue
The formula floating in midair spat out its final line.
【Conclusion: Return path cannot be established. Origin coordinates permanently lost.】
30 years.
To be exact, 30 years and 4 months.
The final answer of the calculations, into which all that time had been poured, floated in the air of the research lab at the top of the Magic Tower in bluish letters.
"......Yeah."
I set down my teacup and lightly flicked the conclusion with my finger.
The letters scattered like glass powder and disappeared.
To be honest, I already knew. Ever since about 20 years ago.
The circumstantial evidence that the coordinates were lost had surfaced long ago, and the past 20 years were closer to time spent digging only beneath the decimal point because I didn't want to admit it.
So this was beyond a death sentence; it was a death confirmation.
I can't go back to Earth. Forever.
Despair? Wailing? Falling to my knees and screaming at the sky?
I already did all of that in advance about 50 years ago. When a person lives to be around 120 years old, even emotions become capable of down payments.
What remained inside me now was a much more practical emotion.
'......What am I supposed to do with my life now?'
This was the real problem.
What allowed me to endure a hundred years wasn't homesickness, but magic. For the first 70 years, I trained in magic to build up my Circles, and for the remaining 30 years, I calculated the way back.
Having a formula to solve when opening your eyes in the morning. That is what keeps a person—no, an Archmage—alive.
And yet that formula just ended.
7th Circle Archmage, apparent age mid-twenties, scheduled to live for several more centuries thanks to youth restoration magic.
And no hobbies.
This is a pretty serious situation.
I picked up my teacup and walked to the window. The outskirts of the continent, a Magic Tower whose location nobody knew. Outside the window, the exact same coniferous forest had been stretching out for a hundred years.
Trees, you guys must be sick of it too.
Right then, a crystal ball covered in dust in the corner of the desk caught my eye.
"......Ah."
That thing... existed, didn't it.