Chapter 332
Chapter 332
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 332
Chapter Title: A Midwinter's Night (3)
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Liria answered without hesitation.
“Think of it simply. Evil is everything that rejects good.”
“Is that so? Then what is this ‘good’ you speak of?”
“Everything that rejects evil.”
“…”
As if understanding Dante’s silence, Liria explained.
“It’s a question I get a lot. But you can’t understand it because you’re trying to analyze it in only one way. Logic, in the end, is just one method humans use to understand the world. If you take a broader view, you come to accept what exists before logic.”
Liria raised both her index fingers and crossed them in an ‘X’.
“Good and evil prove their own existence by defining each other. Without good, how would you know what evil is? Conversely, it is because of evil that the concept of good becomes clear.”
“Hmm, so two conflicting concepts support each other’s existence.”
“Exactly. Mages call this the Number of Law.”
“The Number of Law?”
“Every number holds a meaning. In the beginning, there was nothing. Or perhaps, there was infinity. The number that expresses this is 0. Then, as unique names like ‘good,’ ‘evil,’ ‘Dante,’ and ‘Liria’ were assigned, something came into existence. That is 1. That is why a caster’s name must be included in a sealing formation.”
“Hmm, a unique name. In that case, what about the number 2?”
“The reason you couldn’t define good and evil is because you saw them as separate ‘1s’. But when you combine good and evil to create the concept of ‘2’, that becomes the Law.”
Liria held up three fingers and continued.
“Liria is 1, and the Law is 2. Therefore, 3 is the number of finding one’s perfect self within the Law. In the Shrine, we call this the Trinity. Of course, reaching a perfect Trinity is a difficult task.”
Liria’s fingers interlocked to form a triangle.
“Everything in this world begins with the number 3. This is the Number of Law. It is the true meaning of the Akhenian Shrine and the first subject of contemplation given to an exorcist.”
Using the Number of Law, one could express all the principles of the universe.
It was just like how Dante structured the world with 0s and 1s.
And this was the insight of the mages.
Liria continued.
“Sealing formations are different from magic circles. Those who haven't refined their minds through endless discipline can never contain evil. That’s why it’s a spiritual power. Of course, for that same reason, it’s not recognized in academic circles.”
Having organized his thoughts, Dante nodded.
“I understand. So, what do I need to do now?”
“I’ll need your help if the calamity materializes through the Spirit Summoning Ritual. Once it takes physical form, it will be able to affect reality. You should set up a magic circle, and if I’m in danger, protect me. You don’t necessarily have to save my life, but it would be catastrophic if the ritual is broken before the seal is complete. How much time do you need to prepare?”
“Hmm, not long. I think I can start right now.”
When Liria looked at him quizzically, Dante smirked.
“I’m not a fan of large-scale magic circles. I mostly use instant ones.”
Liria nodded readily.
Instant magic circles were less powerful, but they offered the flexibility to respond to unforeseen situations.
In fact, exorcists themselves sometimes used hastily made sealing formations when circumstances were unfavorable.
“Alright. I’ll begin then.”
As Liria knelt and prepared to pray, Dante took a step back, bracing for what was to come.
“O energy adrift in the void, with chains of sacred power, I bind your hands. Linger in this place. Turn away. As my physical form is offered, so shall a thousand masks be stripped away.”
Liria’s prayer continued endlessly.
She was strengthening the will of the corporeal to overwhelm the incorporeal. Raising the intensity of her will by speaking it aloud was similar to an incantation.
With the mage’s signature, the Spirit Summoning Ritual unfolded.
“In Liria’s name, I command you: reveal your true form.”
Dante expanded his Spirit Zone and assumed a combat stance.
For the next minute, nothing happened.
But since Liria remained in her prayerful pose, he did not let his guard down.
A moment later, he felt the ground tremble.
The tremors weren’t strong, but their range was immense. In the distance, snow fell like dust from the Ice Queen’s castle.
*Tch! Come on out, if you dare.*
Dante surrounded the area with a defensive magic circle.
As time passed, the vibrations grew stronger. Yet, there was still no sign of a physical form appearing.
“Hngh…!”
A groan escaped Liria’s lips.
She was squeezing out every last drop of her mental energy, pushing with all her might to force something into reality.
Suddenly, the landscape flashed blue. And at last, a colossal electrical net spread across the night sky.
Dante looked up with a grim expression.
It was clear at a glance that this was not a man-made network, but a form created by the random connections between electrical charges.
“Hah!”
Liria’s upper body shot up as she gasped for air.
Dante was at a loss. Was that the calamity’s true form? If so, was he supposed to fight it?
No, how in the world was he supposed to fight something like that?
“What is it? You have to tell me what to do.”
Liria shook her head, her face filled with dismay.
“I was mistaken. That’s not an evil spirit. It’s a pure mental entity.”
“A mental entity? Explain it so I can understand.”
“It possesses a neutral will, biased toward neither side. I can’t seal it in this state. But… it seems to be rapidly absorbing the Law of this place.”
Dante observed the signals being exchanged across the electromagnetic network.
The patterns multiplied exponentially, making the sky flash with blue light.
*Damn it, what is this thing?*
Not a single pattern was the same.
It was proof that the information entropy of what the Law was learning was extremely low.
How was that possible?
Not even the brain of a newborn baby was this active. It already had some learning about its own nature at the genetic level.
“…It’s not from this world. It came from somewhere else.”
There was no other way to explain it.
To the mental entity, the information it was gathering here would be as valuable as state secrets were to a human.
Liria didn’t know about entropy, but she had reached a similar conclusion as Dante.
If the mental entity was from this world, it couldn’t possibly have been born in such a purely neutral state.
“Then we have to seal it now, more than ever! If we leave it, it will quickly absorb the evil of this world! I’ll attempt the sealing formation!”
The moment Liria knelt again, a sound like fingernails scratching on a steel plate came from the sky.
The sharp noise found a specific frequency, creating a bizarre soundwave that no human could produce.
“Who… am I?”
Dante’s face grew serious.
The question “Who am I?” meant that a self had been born.
So, what would happen next?
Before he could sort out his thoughts, a simple, blind shockwave, devoid of any personality, slammed down toward the ground.
“Damn it!”
Dante erected a defensive magic circle where Liria was.
The mental entity’s shockwave struck the ground with incredible density, then spread out in a ring, generating a fierce gale.
Swept up by the powerful wind, Dante was sent flying.
“Dante!”
Startled, Liria rushed over to him.
The mental entity vanished into the night sky as if fleeing, but she couldn’t even think of giving chase.
“Dante! Dante! Wake up!”
Tears welled in Liria’s eyes.
She was the one who had dragged Dante into this. And he had precisely fulfilled his promise to protect her until the sealing was complete.
It was her mistake about the enemy’s true nature that had put Dante in danger.
If anything happened to him, it would be all her fault.
“Ow, my head. That was a surprise.”
Just then, Dante sat up, rubbing his head.
Liria stared at him with a blank expression.
“Dante, are you okay?”
“Whew, this is why I like instant magic circles.”
Dante held out his palm. A coin-sized defensive magic circle, glowing blue, was etched upon it.
In that moment of crisis, he had constructed a defensive magic circle in the shortest possible time to split the shockwave.
Liria finally understood the situation.
But she still wondered if it was even possible to do that in the fraction of a second he’d had.
The strength drained from her body, and she collapsed from her standing position, landing on her bottom with a thud.
“Hah, thank goodness. I’m sorry. Do you have any idea how scared I was? I thought you were dead.”
“If something like this could kill me, I’d have died a hundred times over. Anyway, what in the world was that? How can a mental entity create a shockwave?”
Liria regained her composure and stood up.
“It was probably the Law. A defensive instinct that suddenly emerged when its ego was born.”
“The Law? How can using the Law produce that kind of monstrous destructive power? That was almost on the level of magic.”
Mages who used the Law would strengthen an opposing concept to suppress the one they wished to attack.
Thus, while magic artificially twisted phenomena, the Law twisted them according to the natural order.
For that reason, it wasn’t bound by equivalent exchange, but its physical power was, in fact, weaker than magic.
“It’s likely a Law that transcends the human scope. In terms of the ‘Number of Law,’ while humans perceive the Law as 2, to that thing, it’s 1. It was the Law from the very beginning. It must have existed as a mere mental entity for an eternity. Now that such a being has materialized, the intensity of its Law is bound to be different.”
“So that’s why the information entropy was so remarkably low. If it was a being from this place, it would have appeared before now. In any case, the lower the entropy, the faster the change will occur.”
Even if Liria was a stranger to information entropy, she agreed on one point: they were out of time.
“That’s the problem. We have to catch it as soon as possible. Now that it’s materialized, it’s bound to turn into something that will destroy the world.”
“But… it’s still in its initial stage, right? There’s no guarantee it will necessarily turn evil.”
Liria shook her head firmly.
“Lord Foriter can’t see every disaster in the world. But once he sees the future, it is never wrong. He said it was a being that would bring about the end. I can assure you, that mental entity will eventually become evil.”
“Hmm, I see. After all… we wouldn’t have even known something was here if not for this Foriter person. Alright, so what do we do now?”
Liria paused, looking at Dante.
There was something she had to set straight before they began the exorcism in earnest.
“By the way… you’re really strong. To be honest, I didn’t expect much help since you’re just a student.”
“What’s this all of a sudden? I’ll help you without the compliments, so don’t worry and just tell me the plan.”
“No, I’m serious. As a member of the Exorcist Association, I’ve been through countless exorcisms. I’m well aware of how powerful that shockwave was. If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t have made it this far. On behalf of the Akhenian Shrine, which follows the path of good, I express my gratitude.”
Liria respectfully pressed her palms together and bowed her head.
But Dante didn’t even seem to care.
Words like ‘amazing’ and ‘thank you’ were things he had heard so often since childhood that they now made him yawn.
“Alright, that’s enough. What’s the plan? Now that it’s materialized, that spirit summoning thing won’t work anymore, right?”
“To a newly born mental entity, this place is like a cradle. It won’t leave easily. Of course, this is no time to be complacent.”
“Hmm, why don’t we go outside and get help? No one believed us before, but now we can show them physical proof of the disaster’s existence, right?”
Liria shook her head with a regretful look.
“It’s too late. By the time we get back from the city, it will all be over. If the mental entity reaches the stage of intelligent thought, even I won’t be able to hold it.”