Everyone Has a Plausible Plan
"Auntie, do you even know what you just gave me?"
"Well, obviously something for building a castle, right?"
"……."
Well, she wasn't wrong.
But this wasn't some simple structure like Suwon Hwaseong Fortress.
Judging by the blueprint, a massive amount of levitation magic was built into it. Beyond that, water-gathering magic, condensation magic, elemental magic, circulation magic—the design was far too complex to call it just a castle.
Of course, that wasn't the important part.
The real point of interest was that a vast network of flora and fauna mana circuits was also embedded in the design. Naturally, the castle's master was included among them.
In other words, this wasn't simply a witch's castle.
It was a form of resurrection magic with highly sophisticated reverse engineering built in.
Fortunately it had fallen into the hands of the Hunter Administration. If it had ended up with ordinary people or some cult, it could have produced a fair number of casualties.
If some clueless idiot decided to try using it and poured a massive amount of mana into the thing, the Royal Witch would revive on the spot and rain death down on the surrounding area.
Of course, that idiot would still need to know the basics of design magic.
The fundamentals of design were similar no matter where you went. If all you needed was the knowledge for a simple resurrection, the required skill level wasn't particularly high.
Kang Jiye's mouth fell open as she listened to the explanation.
"Is that for real……? Something like this actually exists? We almost had a disaster on our hands."
She rubbed her arms at the news that the Royal Witch wasn't completely dead. As the boss of a high-tier A-class gate, a revival would require at least three S-class hunters to deal with.
If Kang Jiye or Daebu had accidentally activated the scroll, the results would have been catastrophic.
But it was fine.
If this had been some cheap, easy-to-trigger resurrection magic, every civilization under the sun would have been using it left and right.
"Don't worry. Forcing a resurrection takes an enormous amount of mana. It's been at least twenty years since this thing was defeated, right?"
"Hmm…… more like over thirty. The gate appeared around the time I was born."
Thirty years? Even worse.
It would have been sucking up every scrap of residual mana in the area, and it still hadn't managed to fill even twenty percent of what it needed.
I flicked the scroll with a sharp tap of my finger.
"If we'd just left it alone, it would've eventually gathered about seventy percent of the required mana on its own. In a few hundred years, that is. But after that, things get difficult."
"What do you mean?"
"Well... it's similar to golem crafting, but Auntie, you're completely brain-dead when it comes to golem magic, so explaining it wouldn't help."
Kang Jiye reached out a hand.
"……Hold on. Brain-dead?"
"Yes. I know—golem crafting? You just said you don't know how to use it."
I blinked at her with the innocent eyes of a baby rabbit. Kang Jiye stared back with open suspicion.
"You... did you actually praise me in that interview?"
"Why the sudden question?"
"You said 'layman' exactly, right?"
"Yes."
"Good. Continue."
"Anyway, to put it extremely simply—past a certain point, the mana stops gathering and starts dispersing instead. It's a design limitation. From there, someone who can at least read the framework has to inject mana directly."
And from that point on, it becomes the Royal Witch's domain. She'd use someone else's mana as a thruster to rebuild her own kingdom on her own. At that stage, you could say her resurrection was already halfway complete.
I smacked the rolled-up scroll against my left palm with a sharp thwack.
"The real question is whether the person who gets their hands on this is just a complete idiot."
If she were revived by someone with even a quarter of my design knowledge, the Royal Witch wouldn't be able to achieve full independence. She'd just end up subordinate to whoever resurrected her, get used however they pleased, and die one more time.
Tweaking the design circuits on a scroll like this wasn't particularly difficult, after all.
"So…… you're saying it's not purely dangerous?"
I nodded with a proud little smile at Kang Jiye's worried question.
"Exactly. Depending on how you use it, it could actually be quite useful."
There was a reason this design method had been abandoned by every civilization. If it had been a magic that casually brought people back to life, the Royalty—and even the Demon God—would have coveted it.
No, wait. Maybe not the Demon God?
He probably didn't have any reason to want it. Who knows.
"Anyway! The point is, it's not a completely unusable item. So you don't need to snatch it back from me."
Kang Jiye's eyes went round, as if I'd hit the bullseye, then she gave an embarrassed little laugh.
"……You caught that?"
"I can read you like a book."
The moment it became clear the witch could be revived, the item was already fair game for disposal. Kang Jiye's mind had probably already been replaying a scene of the scroll being shredded by disintegration magic.
But if the one handling it was a magical beast ranked higher than the witch herself, there wouldn't be much of a problem.
"Honestly, Auntie, you handed this over to me because you were curious, didn't you?"
"Well……."
She'd probably already tried leaving it with the item research specialists. But while common runic characters might be one thing, deciphering a design language that had been obsolete in a single region for ages was practically impossible.
Kang Jiye answered honestly.
"I was curious, sure. It was clearly a high-grade item, but no matter how hard I looked, I couldn't figure out how to use it. And like you said, trying basic magic on it without knowing the risks was out of the question."
"Good restraint. But are there more items like this?"
"This is the only one I have. The rest are either managed by the Hunter Administration or privately held by high-ranking hunters."
I should take a look at the rest of them too.
If modern hunters had never even encountered ancient design languages, it wouldn't be strange for a few more items like this to be floating around.
I asked,
"So do they keep a list of those things or something?"
"Most high-grade items, yes? Aside from ordinary consumables."
"Can I go take a look? There might be dangerous ones mixed in."
Kang Jiye fretted at her lip with a fingertip, thinking it over.
"……You're right that we can't just leave them sitting around. But I can't get you access right away. Like you said, rare items are under tight security."
"So what do we do?"
"You could get a job at the Magical Tool Research Institute? For someone like you, earning a doctorate shouldn't be hard."
So that would take years, then.
Yeah, no. I'll just skip checking.
Even if a few stupid humans caused an accident, it wouldn't be my fault. And even if there were casualties, it wouldn't put a serious dent in overall combat power, right?
In my past life I was too lazy to even take the TOEIC once. Why would I go through the trouble of earning some degree?
Kang Jiye, still examining the scroll, spoke with a note of admiration.
"By the way, Pecia."
"Yes?"
"Is it because you're a magical beast that you know all this obscure stuff? I figured you'd figure something out, but I never expected you to launch into a full lecture the second you looked at it."
"Ah... heh heh. This much is nothing."
"Are you actually ridiculously old? You'd have to be, to know ancient design magic."
"Oh, no, that's not it. Actually, there's a secret I can't tell you…… wait."
Come to think of it, that was strange.
This wasn't a setting that had appeared in Gate Apocalypse.
And even if it had—had I really been enough of a hardcore player to remember something this detailed?
"Pecia?"
…….
No idea.
Anyway, knowing rare knowledge is a good thing, right?
"It's nothing. Shall we try using this, then?"
Kang Jiye looked mildly startled.
"Right now?"
I nodded.
"I've stockpiled plenty of materials from dungeon runs, and for mana we can just draw from the amusement park."
"Doesn't it take a while if it's not a simple summon?"
"Oh, so you do know a little. But it's fine. I'm not the one processing the mana calculations."
"……."
"You have no idea what that means, do you?"
"Nope."
"Sigh, as expected of a brain-deeead……."
Thwack!
A sharp sting rang through the top of my head. I clutched it with both hands, tears pricking at the corners of my eyes, and looked up at Kang Jiye.
"Wh-why……?"
"The sigh was already a problem. And you deliberately dragged out the 'brain' part."
"……."
"Give you an inch and you start sniping and mocking out of habit. Want me to really discipline you?"
"I'm sorry."
I opened a gate, reflecting on my foolishness.
Auntie's too sharp for this. I'd better try it on someone else next time.
Rumble—!!!!
At the edge of the amusement park, a small island the size of a modest hill rose into the air.
The uppermost layer was covered in greenery, with a bed of soil beneath it, all of it supported by a mass of rock that narrowed downward into an inverted pyramid.
A classic floating island.
Being an ancient construct, there was nothing particularly special about its design or function. At best, there had been a few unidentified poisonous-herb traps scattered across the island, and those had been cleared out during the restoration process.
I couldn't very well leave things like that in a space where Yena would be staying.
"Oh... it's pretty."
The moment she stepped onto the island, Kang Jiye looked at the castle and let out a murmur of admiration.
It was a familiar Gothic fantasy castle, but seeing one in person was a different experience entirely. With nothing but brightly colored buildings in the surrounding area, the monochrome palette only deepened the bleak, heavy atmosphere.
"Looks like this style is more your taste, Auntie?"
"Well…… it's just that too much color hurts my eyes. But wait—who's that standing over there?"
Two armored figures that looked like royal guards stood at the castle's main gate, spears in hand.
Then, the moment they spotted Kang Jiye, they charged.
Clank! Clank!
"……?"
The guards stabbed away diligently at skin that refused to be pierced. Kang Jiye tilted her head, then casually swung her leg. The guards stuck to her shoe went flying at tremendous speed, tracing a long arc before crashing down somewhere toward the amusement park.
Kang Jiye let out a hollow laugh.
"What is with these guys...?"
From somewhere, a sound like a crow shrieking in soprano began to ring out.
A witch in pitch-black attire shot up from somewhere on the castle astride a broomstick and swept a full circle through the air.
Kang Jiye turned to me.
"What's she saying? You can understand her, right?"
"Mm…… she's just running her mouth."
"Ah."
The witch alighted lightly atop the castle tower and pointed her broomstick at me.
What she was saying, essentially, was this.
I'd been deliberately leaking a little mana on purpose—just to see how the witch would react.
Interesting.
Black smoke billowed from the witch's entire body, and her silhouette began to shift.
From the classic wide-brimmed witch's attire, she transformed into a flowing white one-piece dress. The same clothes I was wearing right now.
Her face and body proportions became startlingly identical to mine as well.
Oh ho.
Whoosh—!
The witch charged this way and landed right in front of me.
In an instant, the Royal Witch's expression went blank. She stared up at me for a long moment, eyes round as saucers.
"……."
"……."
"……."
Kang Jiye, who had already pieced together the situation from body language alone, finally lost the battle and burst out laughing.
"Pffft! Ahahahaha!!"
"???"
I let a smile of my own slip through as well.
Looking down at the still-bewildered Royal Witch, I said,
"Here's the thing. Fully resurrecting you would take something on the level of a Back Straight Flush, but all I used just now was a regular Flush. Sorry about that."
Only then did the Royal Witch look down at her own two hands and start patting herself all over.
Kang Jiye clutched her stomach as she watched the Royal Witch plop down on the ground.
"Ahahahaha!! Hey, who needs a comedy show? Ahahahaha!!"
Barely taller than my knee, the Royal Witch was, honestly, far too adorable.