Chapter 12
Translator: True Detective
Chapter 12: Raiding the Duke Estal Family (6)
The next morning, after sending Yveline back.
"Wake up. Someone has come outside."
"5 minutes...... Just 5 more minutes......"
"Do not test my patience and wake up immediately. The energy rising from downstairs is quite a spectacle."
I forced my eyes open at Eleanor's low rebuke.
If a 10th Hierarchy Mage evaluates the energy as 'quite a spectacle', it means it's not an ordinary situation.
'What's going on......'
Even in my drowsiness, my mind cleared up instantly.
As expected.
A cautious knock came from beyond the door.
"Teacher Rihan, His Grace the Duke requests your presence."
Cassian, already?
Seeing as he's calling me from the crack of dawn, it seems he's quite urgent.
I roughly dressed in formal attire and followed the maid.
"Looking at it, it seems he intends to head to where my Spirit Vessel sleeps. The flow of magic in the hallway is strangely twisted towards that direction."
"There aren't any particular traps, right?"
"Nothing is caught in my inspiration yet, but there's no harm in being careful. That guy's eyes have already deviated from those of an ordinary seeker."
The place we arrived at was not the Duke's office.
But a separate laboratory located in the deepest part of the mansion.
Does this man not sleep either?
What did he put so much effort into from the crack of dawn.
Dozens of magic formulas floating in the air are emitting bizarre lights.
"There were many discourtesies yesterday. As an apology, I intend to show you a cross-section of the research I am putting effort into."
It is an apology, right?
I moved my steps to look at the formulas.
"......Let's take a look first."
"It is this."
The magic circle Cassian pointed to was precise.
But mana was hovering at a specific point and unable to cross the critical point.
'Hmm......'
It's not particularly a difficult problem.
Treating mana simply like a single grain.
That's why a bottleneck phenomenon occurs.
According to quantum mechanics, everything in the world is a particle and simultaneously a wave.
That applies to mana as well.
In other words, this problem meant having to consider the wave form of mana.
"Rihan, the flow of the third magic axis over there is twisted. It tries to forcibly confine mana instead of letting it flow, so the efficiency hits rock bottom."
As expected of the 10th Hierarchy.
It seems she instinctively realized the essence without physics knowledge.
The problem is that I can't use alien language like quantum mechanics to Cassian.......
"Your Grace, it looks better not to forcibly compress the magic power of this point into a single path. Mana sometimes has the property of trying to exist in multiple places simultaneously."
"......Exist in multiple places simultaneously?"
Cassian asked, furrowing his brow.
I pointed to the center of the formula and continued the explanation.
"By viewing energy as a single fixed entity and only suppressing it, they collide with each other and annihilate. Do not decide on a single path, but open it up so it can go through multiple paths simultaneously. Not suppressing, but letting it flow overlapping with each other's shadows."
Cassian chewed on my words for a moment.
Half in doubt, he modified the formula at the spot I pointed out.
At that moment, the mana that was fluctuating roughly began to flow like a dam bursting.
Perfect operation.
Cassian's complexion changed in an instant.
A fishy smile hung on his lips.
"......Ha, really."
He burst into a hollow laugh.
"To end my months of worry with just a brief glance. You are truly an interesting person, Teacher."
Cassian's gaze scanned my whole body stickily.
"I intended to test you once, but since you surpassed it so lightly, I feel embarrassed on my side."
Cassian lightly snapped his fingers to block surrounding noise.
In perfect silence, he asked quietly.
"Teacher Rihan. Are you...... a vessel solid enough to contain a secret?"
Asking if my mouth is heavy is quite Duke-like.
Well, the answer is decided.
Since I was prepared from the moment I came here.
"Probably—"
But it was before I even opened my mouth.
Cassian's hand reached out towards my heart area.
Throb—!
An unpleasant sensation like binding the heart with sharp wire sweeps through the whole body.
What is this situation all of a sudden.
The feeling is very ominous.
'......Senior. Is this fucked up?'
"It is a kind of restriction. The moment you try to speak of what you shouldn't divulge, your heart will burst."
No, fuck!
Where is the logic in casting it first without asking properly!
Is being a Duke everything?
"Actually, there is no right of refusal. I found the key to solve my worry, I can't just let it leave, can I."
This is a really absurd guy.
But Eleanor snorted as if it was laughable.
"Making petty threats. Do not worry, Rihan. Dispelling a curse of this level is a piece of cake for me."
'......Really? I trust you?'
Phew, I barely calmed my trembling breath.
It was clearly a life-threatening situation, but strangely, my head became calm.
I know well how cruel a character Cassian was in the novel.
But I am a physics student.
How were the pioneers of Earth in the past?
They faced radiation with their bare bodies.
And watched the scene of a nuclear bomb exploding from just a few kilometers away.
Madmen who willingly put their own lives on the experiment table to see the end of knowledge.
If Einstein were here.
He would have surely said this with shining eyes.
'Go even if I die.'
"My mouth will be much more solid than Your Grace's secret safe."
At my answer, Cassian took the lead as if satisfied.
"Follow me."
Now there is no way back.
I followed Cassian down deep underground.
The density of the air becomes heavier as we go down the stairs.
"......It remains the same. A thousand years have passed, yet this arrangement hasn't changed."
Eleanor's voice became low unlike usual.
A faint tone as if recalling the distant past.
"Have you been here?"
"Would I not know this place. Look, Rihan. The arrangement of magic conductors wrapping that wall. The design method my disciple devised staying up all night is inherited without a single inch of error. To protect it this neatly for a thousand years......."
Blue magic power wavered faintly wherever Eleanor's gaze lingered.
"Estal, I said he ruined his child farming, but he passed down the family's pride excellently. Even if he forgot the magic I taught, he didn't forget the order I left behind."
Suddenly, Cooper, the protagonist of the movie Interstellar, comes to mind.
The appearance of him sobbing seeing his aged daughter even though he only skipped about 50 years.
Eleanor has crossed a time 20 times longer than that alone.
All the people she knew turned to dust and disappeared.
How would it feel to be welcomed only by the cold stones and formulas they left behind.
'Living long isn't always just good.'
I scanned the formulas on the wall without saying anything.
Eventually arrived at the end of the basement.
There stood a huge door.
"It is the Estal family's treasure vault."
Cassian stopped.
"No locks, no mechanical devices. Only several layers of seals handed down for generations protect this door. However, even I couldn't open the last two seals."
He slowly turned his body and stared at me.
6th Hierarchy mana fills the narrow hallway.
Bloody atmosphere.
"With your heterogeneous perspective, Teacher, can you read the formula of this unsolvable crest?"
It's nice to call it a proposal.
This is clearly a test.
The problem is that I am a complete layman regarding sealing arts.
I could try interpreting it by substituting it physically.
But I can't guarantee how long that will take.
At times like this, Senior has to step up.
I suppressed my tension and called Eleanor.
'Senior, is this analysis possible? How is the structure formed?'
"......."
No answer.
Eleanor, who always chattered endlessly offering advice, closed her mouth like a lie.
'Where did she go?'
This level of perfect silence is the first time since connecting with her.
"How is it, Teacher Rihan. Did you figure something out?"
Cassian's voice became one layer lower.
He is looking at me as if to kill me.
No, this man might really kill me!
'Fuck. Where did you go!'
Instinctive fear stimulated the brain.
I can't just wait for Eleanor right now.
If I don't do something, I really die.
I swallowed saliva and took a step closer to the door.
"......I will look a little closer."
Why did Eleanor close her mouth at this decisive timing!
She should have at least said something before leaving, what am I supposed to do!
"Phew......"
I swallowed dry saliva and carefully reached out my hand to the door.
It was the moment my fingertips were about to touch the geometric pattern engraved on the surface.
Click―!
A clear metallic sound ringing the entire basement.
The loop of magic power maintaining one of the two seals unraveled weakly like a lie.
"......!"
Cassian's pupils are dyed with shock.
A seal that no family head for hundreds of years, not even the 6th Hierarchy Cassian, could budge a single inch.
But it reacted to just one finger of a nameless researcher?
"How...... You, what on earth did you do?"
Cassian's voice trembles.
The intimidation pressing me had turned into an emotion close to awe before I knew it.
The problem was me.
'I don't know either, please don't ask me.'
Because even I didn't understand this situation at all.