Your Paper Is Dope (3)
Your Paper Is Dope (3)
"Do you happen to know about Flare?"
The moment Vermel heard those words, his mind went blank.
"I'm developing it, but something felt a bit lacking. I'm going to end today's experiment here and pick it up again tomorrow."
What was 'Flare'? It was the core Magic Art that served as a milestone for every event in this game.
When and by whom Flare was developed mattered. It was practically an indicator of how the game would progress in the later stages. The ending could diverge depending on who developed it.
That was why many players reacted so sensitively to the development of Flare. Vermel was no exception.
'Was this why she joined the Alchemy Club?'
Only now were a few puzzle pieces starting to fall into place.
There was a reason the plot had gone off-script from the early academy segment. It seemed Aether had accumulated far more stress than expected.
It made sense. Slavers had captured a girl who had been quietly gathering herbs in the Elankaya Mountains simply because she was a rare species and sold her off at the market. She probably trembled for a month at the prospect of becoming a sex slave, and the brief relief she felt toward the woman who bought her was likely the entirety of any positive emotion she'd experienced.
Then that woman betrayed her. Knowing Professor Haspelt's personality, she would have worked the girl like a dog for three years. Even a superhuman would have been left physically and mentally devastated after such an ordeal.
The only path left for Aether, cornered to her emotional limit, was enrollment in the academy. But if she still failed to adapt to school life after admission, the girl would shut herself away, focusing solely on magic research.
That was Flare.
Vermel stared at Aether. The girl's face was as tranquil as a lake sealed off by land on all sides.
The Gold-Eye Tribe was a race that rarely expressed emotion. They did not laugh when they were happy, nor did they cry when they were sad. They were a species who would calmly sit and think first, even when faced with something that should provoke anger, bewilderment, or fear.
Therefore, if someone made a member of the Gold-Eye Tribe cry or become enraged, it meant they had truly done something atrocious. Keeping that fact in mind, Vermel opened his mouth.
"Couldn't you postpone this Flare thing until later?"
At the earliest, Flare was supposed to become known to the world only after July began. That was the fastest route in the game. The route where Professor Haspelt dramatically developed it right after summer vacation started.
Yet Aether had completed the framework of Flare a full three months earlier than that, and had even proceeded with a discharged test. At this rate, all the events would proceed without giving him any time to prepare for the main events. There was even a chance the Empire would fall before he could finish all his preparations at Tillet.
At Vermel's question, the girl's expression seemed to ask 'Why?' Of course, he had prepared a means to address that question if it arose.
However, Aether showed a firm response.
"I'm sorry, but that's not possible. It's going to be finished in a few days, so it's too much of a waste to back out now."
Aether's eyes were filled with determination.
'Crazy...!'
No, that was something beyond determination.
That something was an emotion called conviction. It was a fact he could recognize without even checking his System Window.
Those golden eyes, which seemed to have scooped up the full moon, shone brilliantly. Her ink-black hair flowed down to her waist along its natural part, despite showing no signs of being cared for.
She truly was an unparalleled beauty. But it didn't take a genius to figure out which direction that 'unparalleled' aspect was pointed. For Vermel, who had died hundreds of times at Aether's hands in the game, even looking at her eyes was a struggle.
'That person in Iliad is the same... why are the Gold-Eye Tribe so difficult to handle?'
Aether intended to complete Flare by any means necessary. If he couldn't stop it, there was only one solution.
'Somehow, I have to prevent the Corruption.'
If she didn't fall to Corruption, it wouldn't be a problem even if Aether completed Flare. The likelihood of her burning down the Capital City with Flare would vanish. Rather, from humanity's perspective, they would simply obtain a means to deal with Extinction-class Magic Beasts earlier.
Vermel deliberately changed the subject.
"Have things been hard for you lately?"
Caught off guard by the random question, Aether tilted her head as if to say, 'Huh?' It was a tone that suggested she was asking why he was changing the topic of conversation.
Aether soon sighed and nodded.
"Tell me about it. It's been hard in many ways. But why do you ask?"
"Ah, no reason. Your face looks half-gone. You don't have to push yourself so hard; you can take it slow. We're only first-years, so we have plenty of time, right?"
"I'll take care of my own health. Unless you're going to help, mind your own business."
"Help...? Me? With what?"
This was odd. Aether wasn't the type of character to ask anyone for help.
Come to think of it, she and he weren't the only ones in the clubroom. Two girls were staring blankly at him from over Aether's shoulder.
"Did you two take part in the experiment as well?"
Rote and Frey nodded at Vermel's question.
'If you enter the route where Aether develops Flare, she absolutely never tells anyone else. She definitely researches it alone from start to finish.'
Since she received no help from others, the development speed was inevitably slow.
'Why is she in such a hurry?'
According to the System, the probability that Aether was a player like himself was less than 7%. Thinking in terms of probability, it wasn't correct to place much weight on that possibility.
"So, what are you planning to use this Flare for once it's developed?"
"What do you think? To hunt and slaughter Magic Beasts."
That was a good excuse. Who would ever say they were developing Flare to wipe out humanity? Those words could very well be a lie.
But such a lie wouldn't fool Vermel.
'Status Window.'
─ SYSTEM : 'Black Day Aether' expresses composure in the face of your suspicion.
'It's not a lie?'
"Aether was telling the truth. Once Flare is completed, humanity will gain the ability to stand against Extinction-class threats."
─ SYSTEM : 'Red Flame Rote Saliere' holds respect for the great achievement of 'Black Day Aether'.
"That's right! This pointy-eared guy couldn't comprehend how great of an experiment we conducted today even if he died and came back to life!"
─ SYSTEM : 'Demon Fox Emperor Frey von Pastrend' wants to knock back a cold beer.
'Since when did those three get along so well?'
This was the first time he had seen such a thing. He couldn't comprehend it.
While he had been busily running around Tillet searching for additional Fortuitous Encounters, the relationship between the three had progressed to this point. He had never seen a route like this in his life.
"Is, is that so...?"
"Yeah! I'd say it's about 99 percent done! It might be finished as early as tomorrow! Ack!"
"Who said you could decide it was 99 percent on your own? There are at least a couple of things that need fixing before we submit it!"
"That doesn't mean you have to hit meee!!"
'So that means it's at least ninety percent complete.'
If that were the case, there might have been a change in the System Window. Vermel quietly murmured the command.
A semi-transparent screen appeared before his eyes.
─ SYSTEM : The current probability of heading toward a Bad Ending is approximately 80 percent.
He had no choice but to accept that the plot had completely derailed.
**
"This is ridiculous. A route I've never seen before, and it's triggering as an event too?"
What the hell was this guy talking about?
An event? What was he suddenly mumbling about in his sleep? The only event I knew of was the event horizon.
From the looks of it, he was hiding something again.
As I glared at him, Vermel cleared his throat with a 'hem, hem.' An awkward air settled over the clubroom.
"No, it's nothing. Developing this Flare or whatever—if it's something like that, Eliyev and I will help you out too."
"You'll help?"
I doubted my own ears.
"We're all members of the same club, aren't we? If you need anything, just let me know anytime."
Uh.... His attitude had changed somewhere. Just a moment ago, he was so adamantly trying to stop me from developing it.
Whether he tried to stop me or not, I had to develop Flare to fill in the Magic Compendium. Once I completed Flare alone, understanding all the other Fire Magic Arts would come almost automatically.
After observing Vermel's expression, I realized the guy was rolling his eyes sideways. If someone was lying or up to some trick, their eyes usually moved like that.
Was he sick or something?
I didn't particularly care if Vermel or Irka helped. It wasn't exactly difficult to write a single line of thanks for them on a corner of the paper.
"You're an Air Magic user."
"Th-that's right."
"So can you control and maintain things like temperature and pressure at will?"
"It's difficult, but it's not impossible."
"Oh."
At this rate, this work would be finished quickly.
All right, Kanf. You're in charge of the tokamak. I'll make an artificial sun later, and you somehow keep it stable.
As I nodded, Vermel let out what sounded like a sigh of relief.
"But you know how to use teleportation."
"That's right."
"So can you teleport not just yourself, but our experimental equipment or us as well?"
"With a little preparation, it's entirely possible. But why the sudden question?"
"You said you'd help with our experiment. To properly confirm Flare's power, we need a much wider space."
To conduct the experiment in this cramped place, we'd have to limit the maximum output one way or another. If we limited the output, it would be difficult to confirm whether a Calamity-class Magic Beast could actually be killed. So what if we increased Flare's confinement ratio? If we messed that up, the clubroom... no, the entire school would blow sky-high.
So I figured it would be better to do this out in the open.
"Right, let's go somewhere where at least a Calamity-class Magic Beast is running rampant. We'll load it up and then fire it there. If the Calamity-class gets hit and dies immediately, we can consider the experiment a near-total success."
"...Were you always this reckless?"
"Someone once said something: A great person is someone who acts at the same time they think."
"......."
I didn't have time to hesitate. If he said he'd help and then dawdled like this, he was nothing but dead weight.
"If you don't want to, you don't have to help. Announcing the theory first and doing the experiment during summer vacation won't be too late either."
"No, if you're going that far, I'll help you."
And so Vermel became my limited assistant on this experiment. It was unexpected, but one thing was certain: the situation was flowing in a favorable direction.
Vermel was an Air Magic practitioner. I didn't know the extent of his talent, but since he had ranked first in our year, his competence was practically guaranteed.
I'd heard that among the Air Magic Arts, there were spells to manipulate thermodynamic variables like temperature and pressure. Human Air Magic users were rare, so I'd been itching to learn properly. If I could pick up even a little from this opportunity, it would be a considerable gain.
Controlling temperature and pressure was crucial in plasma physics. The hotter the temperature and the stronger the pressure, the easier it was to form and sustain plasma. Plus, temperature and pressure played a decisive role in triggering nuclear reactions.
Ah.... Come to think of it, to make a hydrogen bomb, mastering just Fire Magic wouldn't be enough. It was time for some interdisciplinary study.
In the end, the journey to defeat an Extinction-class threat was practically the same as the journey back to my original world. Thinking of it that way, everything felt so much easier to handle.
The next day, right after the morning assembly ended, I approached where Vermel was sitting. He flinched in surprise and then clutched his chest. Ignoring his reaction, I asked what I came to ask.
"Can you teleport us the day after tomorrow or the day after that?"
"Hm, that depends on the location."
"It's relatively close from here."
My answer was already decided.
"The Elankaya Mountains."
A frozen hellscape of despair and howls where Calamity-class Magic Beasts teemed and great powers nearing Extinction-class occasionally popped up.
At the same time, the place known as the homeland of all the Gold-Eye Tribe.
The first testing ground was there.