Chapter 113
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 113
Chapter Title: The Archmage of the Basement (3)
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About thirty minutes of rummaging through the shelves in the old library.
Nothing worth calling a find.
Of course, I'd just been wandering around aimlessly, killing time, so it would've been weirder if I'd uncovered something.
The fact that even Princess Celestina, who'd been diligently searching, and Senior Sylvia came up empty said it all.
Still, the silver lining was that the team investigating the materials Thomas had gathered was making some progress.
"To sum it up... it seems a student named Laverina Crowell was known as the Witch of Greed."
"Laverina Crowell?"
"Yes. About a hundred years ago, back when Elterion Academy had just been founded not long before. She was a student here."
Thomas the sub-vice-president carefully flipped through the stack of papers as he spoke.
From what I overheard between Claire and the sub-vice-president, it sounded like transcripts of student council minutes and academic records from a century ago.
I had no idea how they'd gotten their hands on stuff like that. Pretty amazing, really.
"The contents... they're not exactly innocuous."
"Yeah. Just like Junior Chloe said, it's definitely suspicious. When we were gathering the materials, we were too busy scraping together whatever we could to look closely..."
At Chloe's words, Thomas cleared his throat awkwardly and began reading from the documents.
"Laverina Crowell. Entered as a freshman in the Alchemy Department, but transferred to the Magic Department in her second year due to pressure from her family..."
"There was an Alchemy Department?"
"They say there used to be way more departments back then. The swordsmanship side had separate spear arts and archery departments, and magic-related fields included alchemy and quite a few others."
"Oh, really? Compared to back then, we've consolidated a lot now, huh?"
"They just lumped 'em together. All the weapon departments got merged into swordsmanship, and the magic ones were bundled into the Magitech Department."
Tired of browsing the shelves, perhaps, Senior Sylvia had sidled up behind Thomas and casually rested her chin on his shoulder.
Thomas's face flushed beet red in surprise, and Claire started giggling at the sight.
Our mushroom-headed sub-vice-president was such an open book.
"A-anyway... even after transferring to the Magic Department, she seems to have holed up in the Alchemy Department's labs all the way through her third year. Barely attended major classes, no interactions with her peers at all."
"Total loner."
At Senior Sylvia's remark, Thomas cleared his throat again, looking a bit stung, and turned the page.
"Her reputation among students was abysmal too. Wherever Laverina went, things would go missing, labs kept collapsing..."
"Professors' evaluations aren't much better. 'Lost in grandiose delusions, neglecting studies,' 'lacking ethics,' that sort of thing."
Thomas flipped another page.
"Then, starting her fourth year, she suddenly got obsessed with something and started attending her major classes diligently."
"Graduation looming probably scared her straight, right?"
"Ha~ Come to think of it, I'll be a fourth-year next year too. Starting to worry about my thesis already~"
"...President, worry about your grades before the thesis. You barely passed a few classes last semester. Might have to repeat a year at this rate."
Listening quietly, it felt like Senior Sylvia had better things to be doing than this investigation.
Eh, whatever. It's not like I'm sticking around the academy another year.
"In the end, she dropped out without graduating. After that, she experimented with forbidden magic, got caught by the Imperial Mage Corps, executed, and expelled from the academy."
"By the way, sub-vice-president, how'd you get records on an expelled student like that? Where'd you find it?"
"Finding recent expulsions from the last ten years is tough, but ones from a hundred years ago? Surprisingly easy."
"For real?"
"There are collectors who specialize in that kind of trivia."
Grinning sheepishly as if admitting he was one of them, Thomas chuckled.
"So, why was this Laverina Crowell called the Witch of Greed?"
"When her forbidden magic research came to light and the warrant went out, it listed 'Witch of Greed' instead of her real name."
"So, what was this forbidden magic anyway?"
"No records on that... Looks like they destroyed them all."
Listening along, nothing seemed all that special.
Just your typical problem child from any era—no talent but overflowing ambition, stirring up trouble until they finally got booted.
To lump her in the same category as some world-ending final boss witch? Felt kinda cheap.
"Sounds like just some alchemy-obsessed klepto senior to me."
I replied indifferently, and Senior Sylvia pouted.
"Aw, you're no fun. I thought there'd be more to it."
Just as everyone sighed in disappointment and started packing up the documents...
"Oh my."
Princess Celestina let out an exclamation from a corner of the shelves.
"Everyone, come take a look at this? I think I've found something pretty interesting."
In the princess's hand was a thick, leather-bound book.
The cover's leather was so worn from years of neglect that it was frayed and tattered.
The princess set the dusty tome down on the table where we'd gathered.
"What's this, Your Highness?"
"Seems like a thesis written by that person Thomas mentioned—Laverina Crowell."
"...Pardon?"
The princess blew the thick layer of dust off the cover and opened the book.
The title alone was anything but ordinary.
[How to Implement Infinite Space in a Finite World: Magitech Treatise on Spatial Compression and Conversion]
"Spatial... what now?"
My body reacted before my brain, intuition before reason.
I sidled up next to the princess and peered over her shoulder at the contents.
"Huh? This..."
[I Want to Bring Infinite Subspace into Reality!]
At first, I figured it was just some flighty delusion scribbled down.
The writing style didn't suit a thesis at all—like something a kid had dashed off.
The title was normal enough, though. Maybe her advisor slapped it on?
But the more pages I turned, the more this thesis started looking different.
[Topologically overlaying coordinates of arbitrary points A and B to adjust the volume coefficient...]
[Compressing density to the limit while preserving mass...]
The equations unfolded in a fascinating way.
Not the brute-force method of twisting mana flow to tear open existing space and create new ones.
Instead, wedging a new dimension into the gaps of existing space.
It matched almost perfectly with the theoretical foundation I'd been researching lately, even digging into ancient tomes for subspace creation magic.
"...Oh."
An involuntary exclamation escaped me.
"This theory is way more solid than I thought."
At my reaction, Senior Sylvia's eyes lit up.
"Really? To me, it just looks like a bunch of nonsense strung together."
"Yeah. The phrasing is weird, and implementing the equations is borderline impossible, but the theory itself? Flawless."
"For real? Even our archmage here is impressed?"
"Well... if you perfected the magic in this thesis, you could create something like infinite subspace."
"So, like carrying a whole carriage-load of stuff around?"
"One carriage? Try ten, no, twenty."
At my positive assessment, Senior Sylvia hopped right up onto a chair.
"See? No wonder they called her a witch!"
Not fully grasping it herself, she snatched the thesis and started flipping through pages.
"And look! Laverina wrote it like this on purpose!"
She reached the back, where a chunk of pages had been ripped out, and suddenly raised her voice.
"She got results but hid them!"
"...Huh?"
"Why else would the appendix pages—all summarizing the experiments and detailed results—be perfectly torn out? She did it herself!"
This was a thesis from over a hundred years ago...
"Old books naturally get pages torn and ragged over time, don't they...?"
"If it were natural wear, why are only the experiment process and results sections so neatly missing? Suspicious, right?!"
"I'd have ripped out the core equations from the main body first."
"Tch! Lunaris, you're not being mysterious at all right now. As a Ghost Story Research Club member, you need an open mind for weird phenomena."
For a split second, I felt the urge to retort to Senior Sylvia.
By that logic, she was the biggest mystery here.
How was this a ghost story?
Witches weren't the same as ghosts.
But arguing would just tire me out, so I let it go.
For Senior Sylvia, whether it was a ghost story or not didn't matter.
She just wanted the thrill of heart-pounding spots that creeped people out.
"W-well, anyway... where do we find more on this person from a hundred years ago?"
"Where else!"
Senior Sylvia pointed out the window at Thomas's question.
"The place Laverina practically lived—the old Alchemy Department's lab building!"
The president's lips curled into a sly grin.
"Tonight's exploration spot is right there."
"Tonight?"
Tonight...?