The World on a Hologram
It was done. The firewall, which wouldn't have even registered most intrusion attempts as hacking, had been substantially dismantled.
Of course, Alan hadn't had it easy either. He kept making new attempts, and whenever breaking through one took too long, he set the method aside in memory for later.
I'll have to refine that one and put it to use someday.
To Alan, the agony of failing to bring something down was all nourishment for growth. The old man's figure, growing ever blurrier, was no exception.
Once the magic that had failed to breach the firewall lost its strength entirely, Alan's vision returned to reality. The door that had been sealed shut now stood wide open, as if it had never been closed at all.
Unlike the laboratory, it was a small room. The moment he stepped into its center, a cluster of light walled him in. Only after backing up a few steps did its nature become clear.
It was a round hologram, seemingly modeled after the world itself. Since Katan was a figure of recent history, the shapes of the continents and seas matched those of the present day.
These dots...
Alan checked the positions of the dots marked across the continents. At first he wondered what they were, but the answer came quickly.
This is where Maze City is.
Labyrinths were scattered across the entire world, and the dots matched their locations exactly. The problem was the X marks drawn over some of them.
What does that mean? People usually use X to negate something...
Out of all the dots, only five bore no X mark—and Maze City was one of them.
Since the meaning eluded him, he turned his attention elsewhere for now. The hologram bore other markers besides the dots. This time they were triangles, and a few of them looked familiar.
That's Kasara, and over there is the jungle presumed to be the Tailor's stronghold...
They corresponded almost perfectly with the lands one must never approach carelessly. Almost—which meant there were a few places that didn't fit.
Having committed the map to memory, Alan rose from his spot. There didn't appear to be any more knowledge to be gained here.
Using the runes much as he had on the way in, he was greeted by the sight of ice pillars lashed by howling snow. The moment his boots crunched down on the snow, the snowmen registered his presence.
Heedless of them, Alan stood at the edge and looked down.
I can go back now.
He could finally see why anything dropped beyond the pillar crumbled into dust. It was crushed between space and space, ground apart—like beans fed into a millstone.
Like beans, huh.
Alan wrapped himself in Space Interference and leapt downward.
< Icehenge (4) > — End
< Icehenge (5) >
A week had already passed since Alan vanished.
Taylor and Shiva sat beside the tents pitched beneath the ice pillars.
Worried their food might run short, they had gone hunting and come back—mostly Taylor, heading out alone. Someone had to stay behind and wait for Alan's return, and Shiva's hunting skills left something to be desired.
The blizzard had just died down, so they were roasting deer meat outside. The cuts were slowly transforming into something mouthwatering atop a thin stone slab they'd sourced from somewhere.
Shiva picked up a piece, ate it, and offered his verdict.
"It tastes of oil and iron."
"Can't help it—cyborg deer. Wonder if I'd taste the same?"
"That is a dreadful thing to say."
"Well, I'm old. The meat'd be tough anyway."
"Brother Taylor..."
At Shiva's reproach, Taylor gave a half-hearted wave of his hand.
Shiva studied him closely. The old man had donned a mask of cheerfulness to hide his unease, and the jokes were part of the act. A full week had passed since the disappearance—perhaps that was only natural.
The group of scholars Alan had often crossed paths with had offered their condolences upon noticing one of their number was missing, only for the raw-nerved Taylor to bark them off.
"I'm so sorry for your los—"
"I don't want to hear that shit, so get lost. Say one more word of that garbage and I'll tear your tongue out."
It was a rather violent reaction, but the other party understood his state of mind and withdrew without complaint. Shiva later went to apologize on his behalf in secret.
Crunch.
At the faint sound behind him, Shiva turned his head. The Leopard had crept up at some point. It had been in power-saving mode ever since Alan disappeared, yet here it was outside, for whatever reason.
"What is it?"
He asked even knowing there would be no answer. Naturally, the Leopard simply gazed upward in silence.
After it held that pose for a while, Shiva tilted his head toward the same spot. Eyes turned skyward, he caught sight of a small dot falling from the summit. As the dot grew steadily larger, Shiva's own eyes went round as saucers.
"Ah!"
It was Alan. He came sliding down the pillar at a terrifying speed, decelerated smoothly, and touched down light as a feather.
Taylor watched him land and spoke with perfect calm.
"There you are."
"I'm back."
Shiva sidled up behind Taylor, who remained seated.
"Brother Taylor, might your legs have fallen asleep?"
"Tch. Enough with the smart remarks—go over there. And bring a chair so Alan can sit."
Taylor scowled at Shiva, then his face softened the moment he looked at Alan. It was blatant favoritism, but Shiva didn't mind in the least. The joy of the return outweighed all of that.
"You must be starving after a week. Come, sit down and chew every bite properly."
"A week, you say?"
"Yes. Exactly 7 days and 2 hours have passed since you disappeared, Brother Alan."
Hearing that, Alan looked up at the ice pillar. It had felt like a day at most, yet here in the world below, that much time had already slipped away.
"Time flows differently here, doesn't it. Only 25 hours passed up there..."
Beep!
The Leopard quietly sidled over and twisted its body, and Box raised its clamp high.
"Ah, the levitation unit is broken."
Beep!
Box let out a high, savage mechanical whine. Watching the thing trundle into the tent, Alan began to recount what he'd been through above.
"The bodies of the explorers who went missing were frozen solid."
"Their equipment? Old magitech collectors would love to get their hands on that."
"I judged them to be grave goods and left them be."
"A truly righteous choice, Brother Alan. Someone ought to take notes."
"Me? I said they'd like it, not that they'd sell it."
"Is that not one and the same?"
Before the bickering could escalate, Alan brought up the runes. Having escaped that strange world, he also needed to verify that Space Interference still worked properly.
"A rune like that actually exists? Let's see it, then."
"I'm channeling power into my right hand right now. Can you see it?"
"I can tell mana's gathering, but it looks the same as always."
When Alan glanced at the Leopard, it drew out a claw without a moment's hesitation and swung it at its master's right hand.
The claws of a genuine beast of prey were the equal of daggers—and the Leopard was a combat machine, so its claws were far more vicious and razor-sharp. Naturally, Taylor's eyes went wide.
"Wait, what are you—"
What was even more astonishing was the state of Alan's palm after the claw had passed over it. Far from running red, it looked even whiter in the sunlight.
"Would you say I inflated the space, ever so slightly? That's why the Leopard's claw couldn't reach it."
"Keep this up if you want to watch an old man die of a heart attack."
"I have magitech with a built-in defibrillator implanted near my heart, so you needn't worry about that."
Taylor frowned, and Shiva spoke in a deliberately measured tone.
"That is not what he means. He means don't go manufacturing opportunities to get hurt."
"Ah, and after that—"
Alan pretended not to hear and changed the subject. The firewall, the hacking attempts, and the penetration program that resembled Katan became the topic.
"It had that distinct a form?"
"Yes."
"Form is meaningless in cyberspace anyway. A complicated avatar just eats up resources."
"You know your stuff."
"That's common sense, isn't it?"
Having heard Taylor out, Alan stabbed repeatedly at his own shadow. Before anyone could even ask what he was doing.
"Ooh!"
Shiva exclaimed in admiration. And naturally, Taylor's face curdled with displeasure.
"What, do I look that ignorant to you?"
"..."
The silence only deepened the creases in his scowl. At Alan's glance, Box kneaded Taylor's shoulder with its clamp, and his expression improved somewhat.
"I remember Katan's personality wasn't exactly pleasant. Hmm—could someone have deliberately copied his appearance just to insult him?"
"Given that the left eye reacted, it may well have been a measure Katan himself left behind."
"Ah, that eye was made by his disciple's disciple, right?"
"Why would such an eye end up in the hands of a drug cartel, I wonder?"
"Maybe one of the disciples was short on cash and sold it, or..."
Taylor stopped mid-sentence and drew his palm across his throat.
"Or it got taken from them through entanglement with those bastards. By your reasoning, the cartel itself is tied to one of the Tailor's disciples, isn't it?"
"Ah, since we're on the subject of the Tailor."
Alan then explained the planetary hologram. The dots marking the labyrinths, the X marks, and the triangles marking dangerous regions.
"Only five dots without an X?"
"All five were locations with labyrinths."
"So he gathered the five largest labyrinths in one place. The one we're standing in right now is the biggest, though."
Taylor sounded distinctly proud of that. Alan shared the sentiment. A big labyrinth drew big crowds, and the more people gathered, the more knowledge accumulated.
Taylor went on.
"Katan traveled from labyrinth to labyrinth. An X usually means rejection—or that his business there was finished."
"I thought so too. He must have run out of lifespan with labyrinths still left to explore."
"A shame, thinking of what it meant for magitech's advancement. Eccentric as his personality was, his skill was the real deal."
When Alan drew the triangles onto the holographic world map from memory, Shiva, seeing where they fell, raised a hand to his mouth.
"Could the triangles mark the strongholds of top-tier dangerous criminals? Kasara is the Destroyer's, the jungle is the Tailor's. And in the Sagar Mountain Range—could it be the Collector's?"
The Sagar Mountain Range was a high-altitude range lying between the Eastern and Western Continents. The terrain was brutal, and the monsters adapted to its punishing climate were famously ferocious—a place ordinary people simply could not approach.
Alan nodded that it was possible, but Taylor remained indifferent.
"I'd already assumed as much."
"You worked for Breaker, Brother Taylor, so you must have had access to high-grade intelligence."
"Wasn't all that highly classified, actually. But, Alan."
"Yes?"
"If it were you, would you mark dangerous criminals separately on a map?"
"No."
Bounties might hang on their heads, but they weren't beings anyone could capture—and what fragment of knowledge would he gain by going to them anyway?
"See? Katan probably thought much like you."
"Then their settling in those places was no coincidence. There must be something there—an object or a structure important enough for Katan to mark separately."
Alan recalled the ghost city and the blue crystals that had existed beneath the Destroyer's lair. Even the Blue Lady, who seemed as though she'd smash everything in her path, had moved with the utmost caution along the thoroughfares—and only there.
At some point the deer meat had dwindled considerably. As Alan moved to clear the dishes, Taylor stopped him.
"Eat more."
"I'm full."
"Skin and bones like that—how do you plan to fight through the Snowfield? You starved for a week, so you fill in what you're missing."
"For me, it was one day—"
"It was a week for me."
In the end, Alan found himself pinned in place, force-feeding down the meat. Taylor seemed determined to fatten him up at this opportunity.
Shiva stepped in to help.
"Is Space Interference not truly a remarkable rune? Yet Brother Taylor's reaction seems rather muted."
"We've got a Spatial Gate now—a rune's nothing special by comparison. Besides, I've resolved to just take whatever Alan gets up to in stride. Alan."
"Yes?"
"You know, right?"
"Of course. I have no intention of spreading word of it here and there."
Knowledge was better the more one had, and better still if one alone had it. And the more valuable it was, the more vermin came crawling—so it was best kept hidden.
"You weren't planning on telling Vito, were you?"
"Someday, perhaps. But not now."
Vito still lacked both the ability and the standing to handle the runes Alan had acquired. Willingly or not, he would likely ruin himself.
"Knowledge beyond one's capacity to bear is the wellspring of calamity."
"And you?"
"I'm fine."
Taylor liked the shamelessness of it—the sheer confidence. He'd told the boy to be careful, but if a young man was to be a young man, he ought to have that kind of fire.
"He needs to break plenty, that one. There'll be times he despairs t—"
Taylor's lips pressed shut. Come to think of it, Alan had never once shed tears in front of a book, nor so much as sighed. If anything, he'd only kept grinning like a madman.
Alan meant to stay at Icehenge a while longer, but Taylor objected. Fully mastering the newly acquired rune would take...