The Tyner Research Institute
With a soft screech, the car came to a stop, and the slight pull of inertia sent Luke's hair drifting forward.
He smoothed it back into place and unfastened his seatbelt.
At the click of the latch, as Luke reached for the door handle, Yerna spoke with the careful insistence of a guardian seeing a child off.
"Luke, call me when you're done. I'll come pick you up."
"Understood. Yerna, I am most grateful."
"Have a good time."
Luke flashed her a grin, stepped out of the car, and offered a small nod of farewell.
Yerna watched until he disappeared through the institute doors. Only then did she let out a long breath and tip her face toward the clear sky for no particular reason.
"This is completely absurd."
A ten-year-old as a candidate for the Drak Award?
Granted, that was only if Luke's "hypothesis" turned out to be proven fact — but even so, the astonishment refused to diminish.
Come to think of it, there was nothing Ru couldn't do.
Studies, athletics, music… How could one child be so endlessly gifted? Until now she had simply thought of him as a child of extraordinary talent.
"Luke Irushi…"
Perhaps Luke really was something like a reincarnation of Luke Irushi.
"…"
Yerna stared blankly at the drifting clouds for a while, then shook her head. She rested her forehead against the top of the steering wheel and muttered,
"The child I thought had been abused turns out to be the reincarnation of Luke Irushi…"
The moment the words left her mouth, they sounded even more ridiculous.
She didn't believe in anything as unmagical as reincarnation to begin with — and more than that, the images of Luke that rose in her mind shut the fantasy down cold.
A child who crawled into a cardboard box with a phone whenever free time appeared. Who drew pictures. Who threw up a peace sign every time a photo was taken, who flushed easily, who always smiled and said thank you…
That child, the reincarnation of Luke Irushi — a figure said to have possessed a charisma barely human?
In this age, every anecdote about Luke Irushi read like pure myth.
He had raised islands from the sea. Opened the sky. Bent space and time. Twisted dimensions…
Until the day he vanished without a trace, he had been a legendary hero scarcely distinguishable from a god.
An overwhelming presence who could look down upon the world and bring even dragons to their knees.
The most arrogant of mages, precisely because he had been the greatest of them — and now he was a little girl?
"Impossible."
Yerna snorted at the sheer nonsense of the idea.
And honestly — what if Luke really were that Luke Irushi?
Would anything actually change?
Luke would still be Luke, and she would still be his guardian.
Unless, of course, Luke chose to leave of his own accord…
For now, it was enough simply to watch the child look happy.
Yes. That was all.
"Well. For now, that's enough."
Luke's spirits were buoyant for no particular reason.
What form would a research facility of this era take? His Mana Sight had been whirling at full intensity from the moment he arrived.
Pai materialized in front of the bright-eyed Luke and tilted her head, rotating left and right as if puzzled.
— Luke, excited?
"Indeed. I am most eager. Are you not looking forward to it as well?"
— …Excited!
Luke gave Pai's body a brief stroke, savoring the texture of the mana that composed her, then pushed open the institute doors.
Click.
The instant the door opened, he felt the weight of stares.
Researchers mid-stride stopped short and looked Luke over. A ten-year-old walking into the Tyner Research Institute was hardly an everyday occurrence.
A few of them murmured among themselves as they watched.
"Is that the one the professor mentioned?"
"I'd heard, but still — far too young."
"Even cuter than I expected."
Luke, who hadn't quite caught the conversation, merely shrugged once and met Pai's eyes.
After a short wait, James — who had been expecting him after an earlier message — came hurrying out from the back.
"You're here. Well? Didn't get lost on the way, did you?"
James held out a hand as he spoke.
"Yerna brought me, so there was no chance of losing my way. Incidentally, the facilities are quite fine."
"Haha. Kind of you to say so."
Luke and James shook hands.
"I'll introduce you to the other researchers properly later, when we have time. For now, let's head to my office. That suits you better, doesn't it?"
"I appreciate the directness."
"I hear you like cocoa."
James set a cup of cocoa down in front of Luke.
He had bought it the day before and prepared it specially.
"My thanks."
Luke accepted it and blew gently across the surface, cooling the heat that rose in soft wisps.
As he did, he took in the room.
The office was reasonably spacious. Yet every wall was lined with bookshelves, and every shelf was packed with books, giving the place the atmosphere of a library.
Judging by the titles, most concerned history or monster biology. A few volumes on mathematics or magic were tucked among them, but far less frequently.
Every book, however, bore the marks of repeated reading — so James had almost certainly gone through every volume here, unless he had purchased them secondhand to begin with.
Noticing Luke's gaze fixed on the shelves, James spoke.
"Hmm. Something catch your interest? If there's a book over there you want, you're welcome to borrow it."
"In truth, every book here interests me."
"Haha. Lending you the lot would be difficult. You couldn't carry them all, either."
"Well, if that is the case — Three Thousand Years: Forgotten History is the one I most wish to read. Would that be acceptable?"
Content concerning forgotten history did not appear in school textbooks. Stories of the distant past survived only as fairy tales rather than history — and of the books Luke could see, this one appeared to treat the oldest span of all.
"Of course. Take it with you when you leave."
In that genial atmosphere, James suddenly set a stack of materials on the table.
They were the documents Luke had submitted to the publisher.
"I wanted to talk about these materials."
"Direct as ever, I see."
A careful sip — the cocoa was still hot.
Luke lowered the cup carefully from his lips so as not to spill, and set it aside on the table.
The conversation ahead looked likely to run long; there would be ample time for the cocoa to cool.
The discussion gradually wound down and settled into a lull.
They had covered countless questions, points of doubt, and apparent contradictions in the materials — and at every turn Luke answered without hesitation.
Bold, tightly constructed speculation.
James found himself drawn deeper and deeper into Luke's explanations.
The demon realm Luke described was utterly unlike the middle world, and yet an ecosystem in which life could plausibly thrive took shape in James's mind.
He spoke with genuine admiration.
"Luke, I have to say — it's hard to find a hole in your reasoning. I can't prove you wrong."
But Luke caught the meaning beneath the words.
"And yet, by the same token, one cannot prove it correct either."
"…Exactly. That's the greatest obstacle in monster studies right now. There's no way to verify any hypothesis about demon-realm biology."
Luke sighed.
Of course. This was information he had seen and heard firsthand.
He had offered a conjecture that could not possibly be wrong — and still had no means of proving it.
If he wished to force open the gates of the demon realm, sealed for five thousand years, he would need to become a ninth-circle mage once more.
Ninth circle…
When Luke muttered that winning an award would be rather difficult, James agreed that of course it would be.
"Hmm."
Luke took a sip of the now-sufficiently-cooled cocoa and held it on his tongue.
Cocoa really was a rather fine drink.
He swallowed another mouthful, then spoke.
"Tell me — why is material on the ecology of the demon realm so scarce?"
"Blame the 'Battle to Be Forgotten,' three thousand years ago. After that day, the losses were immense. Lives, records — even memory itself."
Luke's brow furrowed slightly.
"Even memory? That was no ordinary battle, then. Who fought, and against what?"
"We don't know — which is why we call it the Forgotten War. Since no one remembers, if we don't make the effort to uncover it, even the fact that a battle took place will vanish."
James spoke with a solemn gravity.
Luke found something odd in that and asked,
"Hold a moment. Then what, precisely, is written in that history book?"
Luke pointed to the volume he had been considering borrowing — Three Thousand Years: Forgotten History.
If three thousand years ago a vast battle of unknown cause and purpose had left records and memories hollowed out with no means of filling them, what content could that book possibly hold?
"It deals with the lost history. Which parts are currently blank, and which theories are most credible."
"…Most intriguing."
What Luke knew belonged to five thousand years past; of the intervening span, even he had no way of knowing. What could have happened to erase history itself? His curiosity was thoroughly piqued.
Watching Luke sink into thought, James glanced at the watch on his wrist, made a startled sound, and rose to his feet.
"Oh no — quite a bit of time has passed. I got so caught up talking I lost track. I was supposed to organize the research materials today."
"Go and attend to it. I shall wait here."
"You will? I'll be right back."
As James made for the door, Luke suddenly called him back.
"Ah — a moment, James."
"Something you wanted to ask?"
Luke nodded and pointed toward a peculiar potted plant set deeper in the office.
It was a cactus of some kind, but the pot was filled with mana formulas of extraordinary complexity and precision.
He had been curious about it from midway through their conversation, but had held the question back for fear of breaking the flow.
"What on earth is that?"
"Ah. That's a computer. Don't you have one at home?"
"I am seeing one for the first time. What is it used for?"
"Solving advanced calculations, compiling and sorting large volumes of information. You can search things with it, too… Though I have to say, not knowing what a computer is in this day and age is a little startling."
James scratched his cheek.
These days there was hardly a household without one. What kind of life would leave a person never having seen a computer?
Unless it's some kind of amnesia…
Or perhaps the guardian was far stricter than appearances suggested?
Well — a household raising a child might not have a computer, he supposed…
Luke, oblivious to whatever James was thinking, asked with perfect innocence,
"So you mean… it is something akin to a calculator, or a librarian?"
"Not quite… Hmm… Hard to explain when you've never seen one. Well, the best way is simply to try it."
"…May I touch it?"
In answer, James walked over to the computer and pressed a button.
A low hum of mana activation sounded. Mana surged into the cactus and then drained out again, powering the computer's mana circuits.
Luke activated his Mana Sight and watched every step of the process without missing a beat.
It was similar to the way a phone operated. Unlike phones, which ran on mana stones and cores alone, the cactus portion seemed to regulate excess heat gathering in the mana circuits so they would not be damaged.
"Well, I've backed up all the important files, so it should be fine. Feel free to use it while I'm gone."
"Truly!"
Luke dashed to the desk in an instant, pulled out the chair, and his eyes shone.
"One operates it with this crystal orb, then?"
"That's right. Use that to control it. I've left a search window open on the screen, so if there's anything you're curious about, go ahead and look it up."
"My thanks for showing me!"
James left the room, and Luke settled into the chair, resting a hand on the crystal orb.
"This is a novel experience indeed."
Luke had handled crystal orbs for scrying the future before, but never a magical device of this kind.
His heart beat a little faster for it.
— …
Pai growled softly at the crystal orb.
As if she found it disagreeable that Luke was stroking something that resembled her.