Chapter 114 — Lab Recluse (1)
Chapter 114 — Lab Recluse (1)
A sharp, ringing sound, like glass shattering—an effect that echoed only inside Roan's mind.
Before any instinctive reflex to flinch,
both of their hands went to their sword hilts.
And Helen's 'Shield' unfurled as if their bodies were one.
In an instant, Helen had drawn her sword and positioned herself in front of Roan, scanning the room.
Roan, however, was staring at the ceiling opposite the door with a frown.
He could tell exactly where the spell that attacked him had come from.
Clear information about the hostile spell,
a vivid sense of danger transmitted through his skill.
Roan realized what his blessing was meant for.
'The Blessing of the Stars'
was meant to ward off mental attacks.
"Oooh... As expected of Your Majesty. Magnificent!"
"...What is the meaning of this?!"
It was Helen who erupted in anger instead of Roan.
Clapping softly, the count crawled out from under the machine and voiced his admiration.
He appeared to have been working on something.
"When I saw the relentless Minister of Finance, I thought I ought to install defensive magic in this room first. I never expected anyone to trigger it so quickly."
Vivid red concentric circles spread endlessly from him.
Through Attentive Hearing, the emotions Roan glimpsed in the count's mind
were disappointment and shock.
The count's mask-like smile was meant to hide his startled heart.
"It was us, so we blocked the spell. But what if a servant had been caught in it? What did you intend?"
The count met Roan's murderous gaze directly and grinned.
"No one would come to serious harm! They would simply obey my orders for a short while."
That statement was true.
But the emotion conveyed within those words
was pure regret—the collapse of his inner hope that I might have been the one ensnared by the spell.
"Such... magic."
"Of course! It's my specialty. Ahahaha☆"
The count laughed cheerfully, skillfully masking his consternation.
His specialty: puppetization.
No target he had aimed for had ever escaped this spell.
Against a weak opponent, they could not resist.
Against a strong opponent, he cornered them so they could not drop their guard or evade the magic—the count's magic boasted a 100% success rate.
This failure, his first in a long while, left the count deeply unsettled.
"Refrain from installing offensive magic recklessly within the castle."
But he was a man accustomed to concealing his emotions.
At Roan's warning, the count bowed his head.
"Understood. Your Majesty."
Even though I knew it was a lie, I had no way to punish him.
Of course, in my tyrant days, I could have shouted 'How dare you fire magic at me!' and thrown him in prison or lopped off his head, deliberate or not,
but I was not that person now.
The count must have known that and acted anyway.
Should I have consoled myself with the fact that I hadn't been harmed because I had the 'Blessing of the Stars' active, and that it had given me a chance to clearly grasp its function?
Roan grimaced darkly.
Steadying his breath, he introduced the count to Helen, who was still glaring at him.
Her already sharp eyes had become even more terrifying.
"This is Helen, one of my guards. She is human—formerly a knight of the Church of Laurecia in Merde, she has since defected to Evirgio."
"The priestess from the banquet?!"
"Correct. Helen, this is the Great Lord of the North White Territory, the Count of the Dark Pit."
"...I am pleased to make your acquaintance. Count."
Helen bowed, not bothering to hide her wary gaze.
But the count paid no mind to Helen's glare. He merely wore a delighted expression, as though he had found a new source of amusement.
"Well then, shall we get to work in earnest, Helen?"
"Understood."
I decided to sit in the chair by the window and simply observe their experiments for the day.
The best spot, bathed in warm sunlight, was taken by the cat tower, so the chair had to be placed in a corner nook.
"Is this it?"
"It is. Count."
The count's eyes sparkled as he examined the sealing box Helen had brought with keen interest.
To his eyes, the contents would merely look like black stones.
But there was no need to reveal my power in front of him yet.
Even in its stone-like form, the crystal still absorbed mana.
Its performance seemed unaffected.
Though, of course, that would be definitively proven once we saw the count's research findings.
"Please take out one piece."
"Yes."
Helen began to unseal it.
The moment she opened the box, mana billowed out.
The count's feline eyes narrowed.
"Oh, I've never seen black crystal like this."
Helen, who possessed only Holy Power, was expressionless,
but the count's face soon contorted.
"This is... the power..."
"Is it that intense?"
Roan, who had been watching his expression from the corner, asked.
"Has Your Majesty ever used a magic stone?"
Roan shook his head.
"Not directly."
Magic stones were cores harvested from Magical Beasts.
In this world, they were used like batteries for mana-powered objects.
But Roan, who had arrived here and immediately begun the life of an emperor, had never had a chance to hunt Magical Beasts or personally replace a depleted magic stone.
He only knew of them from the game.
"I haven't measured it precisely yet, but at a glance, it seems several dozen... possibly even several hundred times greater."
"...Several hundred times...?"
The one who let out an inadvertent exclamation was Helen.
The count was already glued to one of the machines he was so proud of.
"Helen, place that over here."
"Yes, Count."
Helen set the crystal down with a clatter onto a dish-like tray attached to the front of the machine.
Behind the Mana Tracking Camera, the count fiddled with several controls and then burst into admiration.
"Ahahahaha, this is incredible! To think you discovered something like this—Your Majesty truly is magnificent!"
"Hm?"
"A tremendous discovery!"
The excitement in the count's voice was raw and unmistakable as he checked the crystal's mana level through the machine.
"Compared to an ordinary magic stone of the same size, it's several hundred times greater! Even the highest-grade magic stone is only a fraction—this holds dozens of times more power!"
Roan's expression was one of calm acceptance, but Helen was stunned.
"Dozens of times a highest-grade magic stone... Are you saying this holds the power of dozens of wyvern-class creatures?!"
Only then did Roan's eyes widen slightly.
You have to know the scale of something to be shocked by it.
Dozens of times the power of a magic stone from a Magical Beast like a wyvern?
The supply was low, but highest-grade magic stones contained immense power. Naturally, ferocious and gigantic Magical Beasts on par with wyverns were rare.
They were used by mages for experiments or to install defensive magic circles for entire territories, cities, or nations, making them even more precious.
But the cave had been littered with those crystals.
The piece Helen had taken out was just a small crystal the size of a baby's fist.
At the unimaginable power contained within the crystal, both Roan and Helen were struck speechless with shock.
Only the count was chattering away with an elevated heart.
"At this level, it could even be compared to a dragon's magic stone!"
"...Good heavens. A dragon's magic stone!"
In the end, Helen shouted out just as excitedly as the count. Catching Roan's gaze, Helen instantly became flustered and apologized.
"I-I'm sorry, Master..."
"A dragon's magic stone, you say. What is it used for?"
It was Helen who answered, not the count—he was already glued to the machine and had lost all awareness of his surroundings.
Her composure had not yet fully returned.
"Spros... the core of Merde's capital defense barrier is a dragon's magic stone."
"Dragon... Were they not extinct?"
"Yes. They were said to have been wiped out during the war with the demons. The magic stone powering Spros's defense barrier belongs to Bülts, the last dragon."
"This single stone, brought by His Majesty, rivals something so immense!"
The count suddenly poked his head out from behind the machine.
His eyes glistened with a madness slightly different from before, making Roan flinch and lean back.
"Do you truly have no intention of weaponizing this? Your Majesty? Why not simply sweep away those human kingdoms and claim their fertile soil for ourselves?"
To spout such words so casually right in front of Helen, a human—the count really must have been the type who could not survive without saying whatever was on his mind.
Such a method would certainly work in the short term.
But if the corrupted land affected the earth's fertility, as the Lord of the East Yellow Territory claimed, then someday, in the far distant future, the entire continent could become barren.
Judging by how the Lord of the East Yellow Territory kept mentioning that the desert was still expanding, that future might not be so distant.
If these crystals and the 'Seed' were what protected the Dark Forest as a lush woodland, then resolving the root cause by any means possible was the best way forward.
Roan slowly shook his head.
"Weapons only breed conflict. Furthermore, even if we succeeded in an invasion right now, who knows how many years it would take to fully dominate their lands and seize all the harvests the humans reap."
"Hmph."
Letting out a slightly displeased snort, the count shrugged as if resigning himself.
"Well, it can't be helped for now. Helen, shall we try infusing it with power this time?"
"Yes, Count."
Helen picked up the crystal from the tray and channeled her Holy Power. Having undergone considerable training himself, Roan could now feel the path of her Holy Power flowing.
The sensation of the energy roaming through her body gathering at her fingertips.
And then the crystal
began to glow with a faint blue light.
"Hoooh."
Letting out another sound of awe, the count quickly retreated behind his machine.
"Helen, continue infusing power."
"Yes."
As the intensity of Helen's concentration increased, the crystal began to shine even brighter.
The crystal emitted a transparent light mixed with blue and violet. However, it did not glow with the brilliant radiance it had displayed when illuminated by Roan's 'Starlight.'
And most crucially.
"Hm, direct infusion of Holy Power causes no fluctuation in the mana flow. When Holy Power is not applied, it loses light and reverts to a black color..."
At the words the count muttered while jotting down his observations, Helen turned to look at Roan with a puzzled expression.
Unlike the transparent crystal that had been subjected to Roan's magic once, the crystal Helen was infusing with Holy Power was the black specimen Roan had freshly picked up from the cave not long ago.
It had received Holy Power, but unlike when it reacted to Roan's 'Starlight,' it was reverting to black.
Roan had no idea why either.
He could only surmise that it was because the power he possessed was strictly different from the Holy Power Helen now wielded.
Roan gestured with his chin toward Helen, signaling her to focus on the research.
In that moment.
The count, who had been staring into the machine and continuously taking notes, suddenly approached Helen and snatched the stone.
"Count?"
It happened in an instant.
Unconsciously, Roan shot to his feet.
As if in some pain, the count suppressed a groan and grimaced deeply.
"...Hut."
In the end, with a clatter, he dropped the crystal.
"Are you all right, Count?"
Helen asked with concern, but the count waved it off as if he were fine.
"I'm all right. I'm fine, Helen. Please read the numbers recorded on the machine's display for me."
"Ah, yes!"
At the count's request, Helen hurried to the back of the machine. It seemed even Helen had never seen such a large device before, as she cautiously examined various parts of it.
"Ah, the figures appearing on this square panel..."
"That's right. The numbers displayed in yellow."
"It says... 5312."
"What about the memo I left in front of it?"
"That says 5280."
"32..."
The count stared at the numbers and let out a troubled laugh.
"Ahahaha, this really is a frightening object."
"What do the numbers mean?"
Rubbing the wrist of the hand that had held the crystal, the count answered Roan.
"It means it drained 32 units of my power. For reference, 1 on that machine equals the approximate power of a magic stone harvested from the lowest-grade Magical Beast."
Roan's brow furrowed.
At first glance, the number 32 did not sound small.
"Are you saying it just stole the equivalent power of 32 low-grade Magical Beasts?"
"That is correct. Your Majesty."
Low-grade Magical Beasts were roughly the size of cats or dogs—dangerous if one let their guard down, but manageable enough for an ordinary person to kill.
Their magic stones were typically used as mana supply materials for everyday household goods...
Was he saying the crystal was powerful enough to drain that much energy just by gripping it in his hand for a moment?
"Simply being exposed to it at my side right now is enough to make me feel ill. Helen, has the machine's value changed?"
The Lord of the North White Territory still stood beside the crystal on the floor where it had been dropped.
And Helen, seeming flustered, nodded before speaking aloud.
"Yes. It just increased by... 1."
The count looked at the emperor and shrugged once more.
"That is how potent it is. Your Majesty. It is as if a single low-grade Magical Beast just died inside my body."
Helen was actually more flustered by the count's statement than he was.
It meant he was being continuously drained of mana.
And that could hardly be good for her master.
Hastily, Helen picked up the crystal that had fallen in front of the machine and returned it to the sealing box.
Roan bit his lip lightly.
The crystal was far more powerful than he had anticipated.
It was true that it was a promising material.
But could the count, a mage, continue his research like this?
"Count. It is a dangerous object—more so than I had estimated. Will you be all right?"
"Ah, I'll be fine! Knowing the scale of it allows me to respond accordingly. I'll need to stop by my castle and bring back a mana-shielding suit and some tools."
Nonetheless, the count's face had regained its excited glow.
Having declared he would bring even more luggage,
the once seemingly spacious laboratory
looked set to become far more cramped.