If You Can
"Hold on. Even three weeks seems like too much to me."
From behind the crushed Lycan, yet another figure stepped forward.
A man who, moments ago, had been standing among the crowd of nobles.
A remarkably refined aura circled around him like a quiet storm.
"I am Aldri Rune Titus, Third Prince of the Kingdom of Titus. I also serve as commander of Titus's Magic Engineering Corps."
"Magic Engineering Corps?"
"Think of it as a tower master, for simplicity's sake. Only a touch more precise and new-generation than pure magic."
He smiled and gave a light flick of his white-gloved hand.
At once, sky-blue mana gathered around his fingers, spinning up two spell circles that began to interlock like meshing gears.
In mere moments, those two ordinary-looking circles carried the force of a dozen combined.
Aldri rolled the spell circle—now brimming with thirty times its original power—as he slowly stepped forward.
"For the past three days, I have investigated the magic used in the sealing. A formation woven from over a dozen interlaced spell formulas. With so many formulas entangled, it is powerful indeed—but that very entanglement leaves it vulnerable to any stronger surge of mana."
"......"
"In three days, I can break the seal. If my entire Magic Engineering Corps is mobilized, it is more than feasible. So, what do you say? Now perhaps you'll—"
"It's serious."
"Obviously it's serious, which is why—"
I breathed a whisper of the Hatchling's biting frost into Aldri's spell.
Crack!
The spinning gears roared as the mana, a mere thirtyfold amplification a heartbeat ago, surged past a hundredfold in an instant.
The spell's structure twisted, shuddering under its own instability.
And then it detonated.
"My lord!"
The nobles behind him cried out as if screaming for their lives.
Blasted head-on by an ice bomb, Aldri winced and brushed the frost from his face.
He looked like a man who had spent weeks lost on the Snowy Mountain.
"What is the meaning of this!"
"Amplification and overheating. And on top of that—storage, multiplication, transfer, linking..."
With every spell formula I recited from his construction, Aldri's expression hardened another degree.
It was the face of a man whose every flaw was being laid bare.
And yet, separately from that, my own mood wasn't good either.
It bothered me.
It bothered me a great deal.
"Cramming this many spells into a mere two formations? Step even slightly outside the margin of error and the whole thing goes up in flames."
It was the composition of the spell that bothered me.
There's such a thing as simplifying properly, you know.
No matter how difficult the challenge of layering spell formulas is for a mage, this is simply not the way.
Stuffing a box with every function imaginable doesn't turn it into a car.
Bolt on the finest motor, add another engine, put wheels on it, throw in whatever else you like—the fundamental truth remains that it's a box.
It will never run like a car.
"If you'd actually cast this as-is, the formation would have blown itself apart. Though... I suppose at least it wouldn't have ended with just messy hair this time."
Because instead of messy hair, the head itself would have gone flying.
"Do not mock me! This is a spell born of countless experiments and years of research!"
"And you're proudly announcing that you stuffed it all in one place because the computation was too hard."
To wield that many spells together, you must create multiple spell formations and link them to one another.
Simply put, you summon several boxes and divide the contents among them.
Splitting the load reduces the strain, and the durability and performance of each box improves as well.
Of course, that makes the calculations considerably more complex—both in volume and in method.
If a single spell formula demands ten units of computation,
then two interlinked formulas demand fifty to a hundred.
And with every additional formula, the computation multiplies by at least a square.
"To use that spell properly, you'd need at least six layered formations. On top of that, you'd require supplementary, cooling, and repair formulas as well."
Because if it overheats and blows up like before, that would be a problem.
"Also, the linking spells would need to be completely rebuilt. Compared to the spells they connect, they're far too weak—the throughput drops drastically. Simply put, the terminals aren't properly connected, so the output is degrad—"
"Enough! Enough! The point is, three weeks is far too long!"
Tsk.
I was diligently explaining all of this, and he just flat-out refused.
If this were the Academy, he'd have clutched his head and listened to the very end.
Feeling a flicker of regret, I nodded.
The moment of choice.
I had more than enough reason and logic on my side. If I pressed my opinion here, most would concede—but that would not be a good direction to take.
No matter how dominant I was in raw strength, entangling these nobles, the kingdoms, the broadcast, and the users for three whole weeks was simply not feasible.
But lifting the seal was out of the question.
"Too long, is it... Fine. It may well be."
Grrrrrr...
Three weeks was a long time—for the kingdoms dreading the Empire's war, and for the users with schedules to keep.
For me, too, it had been long. It had taken considerable time to reach my decision about what to do with Sgaredo, fallen into the state she was in.
The answer was already decided, and I intended to carry it out.
"Uuu?"
But was that truly the right choice?
"...The seal will remain."
"Yes!"
"However."
Yes. If she truly wants it that badly.
"Then I will change the subject of the seal."
If she's that desperate to be caught, I will let myself be caught.
"The seal will expand from Sgaredo alone to the entire Snowy Mountain. The Initial Damage that would have reached part of the continent will likewise spread no further than this mountain. Of course, with the affected area shrunk, it will be a little stronger than before, but..."
If that's what she wants, it's hardly my concern.
When I said this, color bloomed across their faces.
"That is more than enough!"
"We must prepare for the raid! Thank you!"
"As long as it doesn't spread beyond the mountain, it's fine. Understood."
"We should have done this from the start."
The people looked at one another and nodded.
As if every second counted, they rushed up toward the Snowy Mountain without even finishing their preparations.
I, too, slowly began my ascent, and spoke.
"Anyone who needs to evacuate, do it now. If you don't leave now, you will die."
"Ha! The weak can just stay out of the way!"
"Cold? Not a problem worth mentioning."
"I use fire magic, so I'm fine, right?"
"The kingdom's affairs are too urgent to delay..."
Everyone, for reasons of their own, refused to leave.
I didn't bother persuading them again and climbed upward.
The crowd was still thick.
Yena, who had sidled up beside me at some point, asked in a worried voice.
"...Are you okay?"
"About what?"
"Well... it seemed like you had a whole plan, but everything got tangled up because of all these people."
Yena scratched her head for no good reason.
I looked at her and shook my head.
"She's that desperate to be caught—so we should let her be caught, shouldn't we?"
"That... um..."
"Don't you want to catch her too, Yena?"
"I do, but... wait, what was that? Ah, it's complicated. Anyway, whatever you decide, I'm on your side, Lily."
"......"
"What?"
"That was reassuring."
Coming from Yena, that's about as reassuring as it gets.
Hehe. As if confidence had surged through her on the spot, Yena squared her shoulders with a proud little shrug.
What an easy person to read.
"I said I was the reassured one. Speaking of which... that's the baby White Dragon, right?"
The truth was, plenty of people had wanted to ask about the pure-white bundle of fluff—but she had claimed it so naturally as her own that no one had worked up the nerve.
Perhaps she'd heard herself being mentioned—the Hatchling's bright eyes lifted to look up at Yena.
"She's adorable and all, but... I genuinely didn't expect you to be into taming. Oh, is it for when you take down the White Dragon...?"
"Something like that."
With the Hatchling at my side, I slowly walked up to the spear.
Thum. The instant my hand closed around it, a piercing chill began to seep toward my heart.
"One final warning. Anyone leaving, say so now."
No one did.
Instead, voices rose from all sides, telling me to hurry it up already.
If she wants it.
Hmmm. The Hatchling and the spear began to resonate.
'Come in.'
KWAAAAAAAAM!!!
"Ugh!"
Piiii~!
A pure-white bird wheeled through the heavens.
The moment it beat its wings once, the white chains binding Sgaredo collapsed.
RRRRMMMM—!
As the sleeping colossus of Sgaredo stirred, the entire Snowy Mountain shook.
The temperature plummeted.
At that same moment, white light erupted from the spear and swallowed the mountain whole.
A savage blizzard snatched away sight and sound, and cold sharp enough to freeze bone seized the bodies of the weak.
In less than ten seconds—ten short seconds after revealing herself—
half the Snowy Mountain had frozen solid.
"Ha! It'll take more than this—!"
Crash! Lycan, his body mended, charged at the unsealed Sgaredo alongside the rest of Madness.
Watching them go, I stroked the Hatchling, who had gone limp under the strain of her excessive power.
'Sgaredo, the Frost Dragon.'
A powerhouse whose strength once rivaled Fulgur the Thunder God Dragon, who had once sought the title of Dragon Lord.
A transcendent being who had lived for over ten thousand years—long enough to defeat even a lesser angel of Heaven.
Sovereign of the Millennial Kingdom of Aslandia.
'Then if she wants it so badly—let her prove it.'
"...Huh?"
KWAZIK!
If it can be done.