Your Paper Is Dope (5)
Your Paper Is Dope (5)
The scrolls, arranged in a straight line on the plane, were triggered in the first stage. Unrefined Flare punched through the output aperture.
The mana-particle requirement at that moment was negligible. The casting time had increased proportionally to the reduction in required mana, but that didn't matter. The chance of the caster suffering mana depletion, as had happened last time, had dropped sharply.
The fire-attribute mana particles that composed Flare passed through two optical devices in sequence: a Fabry-Perot interferometer, and a polarizing filter.
The cluster of light, which had contained multiple wavelengths, was stripped of everything except the red hue as it passed through the interferometer. After passing through the polarizing filter, the polarization state of the light was transformed from linear to circular. Circular polarization had been induced.
In the circularly polarized state, Flare passed through the output aperture. Up to this point, the low-efficiency Flare we had seen during the first experiment was complete.
That alone would not be enough to bring down a Calamity-class magic beast in a single strike. Therefore, amplifying the Flare pulse was necessary.
So I had asked Frey to build one more thing.
[Construction: Chirp Pulse Amplifier]
The femtosecond laser passed through the pulse amplifier and transformed into a monster that possessed ultrashort, ultra-high peak power. Energy reaching 10 to the 40th power watts per square centimeter struck Homarus directly in the forehead.
In crustacean-type magic beasts, just as in dinosaur- and avian-type magic beasts, the magic stone was located toward the head. It was no exaggeration to say that the beam had struck that exact spot.
Instead of an earsplitting "Kieeeek!", Homarus emitted a mechanical sound of a fixed frequency and took a few steps forward.
It was a split-second moment.
The instant the beam of light ended, an enormous explosion erupted from its head.
When a high-power laser strikes a heavy metal, it forms plasma. From that plasma, various charged particles are excited and accelerated.
Accelerating charged particles was physically significant because it caused them to emit high-frequency electromagnetic radiation.
Immense gamma rays and X-rays burst forth. Their intensity alone far exceeded the terahertz range.
A portion of the gamma rays struck nitrogen or oxygen molecules in the air and generated an EMP. There was no way a magic beast that was one hundred percent machine could withstand that EMP, laden as it was with colossal energy.
The strategy was as follows: use the laser, the core mechanism of Flare, to pierce the surface of the armor, then penetrate into the interior through the impact. The penetration efficiency itself would be low precisely because it was a laser, but Flare was magic that possessed more than enough output to simply ignore that limitation.
Afterward, sear the perforated area with the spontaneously generated EMP and plasma and destroy the internal circuits. It was valid. It was the moment Flare was proven to be a means of sending a Calamity-class straight to its grave in a single blow.
To ensure no damage from radiation, Frey wrenched the sleeping earth upward and created an enormous concrete wall spanning dozens of meters.
"......!!!"
In its final death throes, the creature let out a terminal scream. That caused an instantaneous spike in sound pressure, which triggered an avalanche. The snow that had been sitting on the high ground was swept down to the low ground.
I lost my balance and slid.
"You okay?"
"...Yeah."
Did the earthquake rattle my skull? My head spun, though only for a moment. By the time I stood back in place with my friends' support, black smoke was rising from Homarus's head. Once the blizzard swept the smoke aside, the creature's head was gone, having been blown far into the distance.
"......Did we kill it?"
There were no anomalous occurrences. Even the cliché that a crisis appears the moment you say it's over was forced to tuck its tail and retreat before the beam of light that Flare had produced.
**
The moment I returned to the clubroom via the teleportation circle, the strength drained from my legs.
"That was insane! Do all Golden-Eyes live in places like that?"
"Say something that makes sense. How could anyone live there with nothing to eat?"
"We went to the far north, remember. I heard most Golden-Eyes live as nomads in the southern mountain ranges."
Rote was probably right. The region where I had spawned had, in fact, been a mountain range in the south. Because the Elankaya Mountains stretched out in a long longitudinal chain, the natural climates of the southern and northern ranges differed enormously.
"Let's see. The camera footage was captured properly. No damage to the scrolls, right?"
"No problems."
In a way, it was a miracle. Although less than thirty minutes had passed, first-year academy students had returned alive from a place close to the Demon Continent.
Not only that, they had also brought down a Calamity-class magic beast. Compared to their classmates, who couldn't even handle mid-grade magic beasts, the gap was absurd.
I immediately extracted and organized the data. The task of sorting didn't take long, because even without calculating anything myself, it was automatically saved in a tree structure within the Hardcover Book I carried around.
Rote serviced the experimental equipment, and Frey dashed outside shouting that she had to buy beer.
"Is this really correct......."
As Vermel tidied up the teleportation circle, he muttered something repeatedly under his breath. He was a possessor, so he must have had a lot of complicated thoughts on his mind.
What I wanted to do was tell him that I was from the same world as him, but I decided not to for the time being. I had judged that it was better to keep watching the elf for a while longer, since he still hadn't lowered his guard.
[Haven't we reached the point where you should be revealing it soon? That you're both from the same world.]
No. I shouldn't assume that a possessor who knows the future would always be well-disposed toward me. On the contrary, what would I do if I told him we came from the same world before we got close, and then he stabbed me in the back?
[Oh, come now, you think that elf would really do that? At least based on what happened today, he was trying to be good to you, Master.]
That was something I wouldn't know until I waited a little longer. This wasn't the first or second time I'd seen someone plant a knife in another's back with a smiling face. Take Professor Haspelt right now—her first impression hadn't been bad either.
I'd said before that whenever I formed a human relationship, I always thought in terms of business. I preferred to recognize what each party wanted, confirm that our goals were the same, and only then enter into a contract.
If it looked like things would deepen beyond that? Well, who could say.
As of now, with Vermel's specific objectives still unknown, I had to proceed cautiously. It could be said that, for safety's sake, we needed to coordinate our efforts at least one or two more times before confiding our respective circumstances to each other.
[You're clumsy at trusting people. Did you get scammed in your past life or something?]
"I have no reason to disclose my past history to you."
From here on out, I had to pour every ounce of mental energy and time into the paper. After thanking my business friends, I returned to the dormitory first.
[□ Under Development: Bethe-Feynman Equation]
Now it was time to require insight.
**
Time passed. Before I knew it, a month and a half had gone by since the new students had enrolled. The cherry trees had long since changed into their summer clothes.
When this time of year arrived, professors teaching undergraduate classes became so busy they couldn't see straight. Not only did they have to approve all manner of administrative paperwork, they also had to set the midterm exam problems.
Meri was no different from the other professors. Composing exam questions without a single error was a nuisance for any educator. It was made worse by the fact that you couldn't even just change the numbers from the bank of past exam problems.
"Kleis."
"......."
"Kleis?"
"......."
"Kleis!"
"...What."
Meri jabbed at the forearm of Kleis, who was sitting beside her and half-spacing out.
"Are you thinking about something else, by any chance? Why has your pen stopped?"
"...It's nothing that concerns you. I'll manage my own pace, so don't worry about it."
"Aha, it's because of that Flare again."
That was right on the mark. Kleis's brows drew together.
Her closest friend couldn't have been unaware that she hated it when other people interfered while she was deep in concentration. Therefore, when Meri broke Kleis's concentration, it meant she had something important to discuss.
"Is there a problem?"
"You know that composite magic research we were doing together until recently? Did you finish analyzing the data I gave you back then?"
"Not yet. It looks like it won't be done until after midterms, at the earliest."
"Ugh, you said you'd get it done by early April!"
"I'm sorry, but that isn't what's important right now."
Meri didn't nag Kleis any further. Looking at her expression, it was perfectly obvious that if she pushed any harder here, voices would be raised. Instead, she clicked her tongue in frustration.
'That damned Flare, Flare, Flare!'
Of course, Meri also knew that House Haspelt's long-cherished wish was Flare. No, not just her—surely the overwhelming majority of the Empire's citizens would know it.
House Haspelt had guarded the north of the Empire for hundreds of years. Generation after generation, they had swung their staves on barren land to keep the magic beasts from breaking the front lines, and had commanded operations while incinerating magic beasts numbering in the hundreds of millions.
'So maybe that's why she's obsessed with such a mirage.'
They were the house that had encountered Extinction-classes the most, so they were also the people who had watched their comrades die the most. And they were likely the family that had lost the greatest number of kin to Extinction-classes.
Having been born the heir of House Haspelt, Kleis was no exception. Every time she faced a Calamity-class that was too much to handle, the words "if only Flare had been completed" always hovered at the corner of her mouth. It was a kind of habit.
'Still, this is too much.'
Five years had already passed in the time she had poured into that single top-grade magic art alone. And even so, there seemed to have been no meaningful progress until now.
Meri stole a glance past Kleis's desk. In the middle of composing the midterm exam, Kleis had laid out yellowish calculation sheets and paper meant exclusively for treatises underneath. Kleis was writing on top of them.
'You ought to focus on one thing when you're working.'
Kleis was secretly raising the corners of her mouth as she wrote out formulas that even Meri had never seen before. It seemed she had found a breakthrough, after all. Looking sideways at it, she saw that it was an equation that converted mana particles into energy and then integrated it over time.
'Can that even work? Isn't that too much of a leap?'
Meri tilted her head, but soon decided to dismiss it. She herself was someone who researched Earth Magic, so she had judged that it was prudent to be cautious when approaching fields outside her own specialization.
Meri went outside to get some fresh air. Just as she was about to take a turn around the Central Park, a familiar face caught her eye.
It was Aether, the girl from the Gold-Eye Tribe whose enrollment she had helped with. Meri was about to raise her hand and greet her, but she noticed something strange and stopped.
'That's... somewhere you never go except to submit a paper.'
Aether was entering the building that housed the Imperial Magic Society.
With a thick bundle of paper held in both hands.