Chapter 24
Chapter 24
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 24
Chapter Title: Ten Years From Today
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Loan asked the shopkeeper.
"What's inside?"
"Hm, maybe something, maybe nothing. Truth is, I don't know either."
"..."
When Loan gave him a skeptical look, the owner ruffled Loan's hair and answered.
"It's something I picked up in southern Rhodes a long time ago. They said it was an object used to seal some being with a magic circle. I bought it thinking it'd be a useful magical tool, but it seems I was wrong."
"A magical tool?"
"They're special items that hold magical power, just like everything else in here."
The tools and accessories filling the shop emitted a soft glow.
Loan asked again.
"So you're saying if I can use this magical tool or undo the magic circle, something might awaken or change?"
The corner of the shopkeeper's eye twitched upward.
He was surprised at how systematic the child's question was.
"That might be the case... but it's probably impossible. Even the mages from the Union showed interest, but they all ended up shaking their heads."
"Why?"
"It's a rather high-level unique magic. Only the person who created it can use and undo it, so it's useless in anyone else's hands."
"Ah..."
Unique magic.
He had heard of it.
After the palm-pushing exercise at the administration bureau, Lazaros had said in admiration,
‘To replicate my unique magic with such precision...’
Triggered by the memory, Loan's thoughts began to expand rapidly once more.
Loan turned the black stone over and over in his hands, sinking deep into his branching thoughts.
‘It's incredibly complex. I can't even begin to grasp it. If I were to convert this magic circle into a formula, it would be several times longer than Fireball's.’
‘Interpretation is also a problem. Even if I unravel the formula, it's useless if I can't interpret it. The meaning of ancient words can be limitless depending on their structure.’
‘Master Arthur said that the mages of old established the laws of magic. That must mean it's a form of magic that can be interpreted and used by everyone.’
‘Director Lazaros must have called that intricate palm magic his unique magic because only he can use it.’
‘So, conventional magic is just later generations replicating what their predecessors created... You could call it reproduction.’
‘Then is the Fireball I created my own unique magic?’
In the brief moment it took to seemingly choose his next words in the conversation, Loan had worked through a series of complex thoughts.
Thanks to that, his head felt like it was overheating again.
Loan rubbed the cool black stone against his forehead a few times, then asked Lucas.
"What do you think?"
He was suddenly curious about his opinion. After all, Lucas was the one paying.
Lucas took the black stone and looked it over.
"Well, it's probably better than buying a book, right? It looks pretty solid. Good for throwing or hitting someone with."
"..."
At least it wasn't a negative reaction.
The mention of unique magic had piqued Loan's curiosity even more, and he made an impulsive decision.
"I'll take this, then."
Lucas readily purchased the object called the Stone of Goetia, and Loan slipped it into his pocket, stroking it from time to time.
The dense, murky mana contained within didn't leak out in the slightest from its hard shell.
But then, Lucas frowned as he looked at Loan.
"Hey, you're looking a little pale all of a sudden."
"Really?"
"It's because you were in that dusty, cramped place for so long. We came out for some fresh air, this won't do. Let's see..."
His voice trailing off, Lucas turned his head to gaze into the distance.
"Oh? Is that the time already? Loan, hurry. We're going to be late."
"Where are we going?"
"The coolest place in the Union."
The place Lucas took Loan was a small park that served as a border between the commercial and administrative districts.
In the park was an artificial hill made of colorful bricks stacked irregularly.
That was Lucas's final destination.
"Hurry."
Unable to resist Lucas's urging, Loan climbed to the top of the hill.
The ground itself was elevated, so the view from the top was quite impressive.
The two stood facing the main building of the administrative district, surrounded by the structures of the 7th Ranks.
"Isn't it amazing?"
"Yeah."
For a while, they were mesmerized by the sight of the sunset draped over the giant clock tower, slowly fading away.
Then.
Loan's gaze shifted from the distance to something a little closer.
"Is that clock tower building the center of the Union?"
"That's right. It's the Union headquarters, where the Governor-General and the Commander are."
"Ah... Have you ever seen them?"
Lucas lifted his chin with a triumphant expression.
"You'll be lucky to see the Governor-General even once in your lifetime, so that's out, but I did see the former Commander at some event when I was a kid. I went with my father."
"What was he like?"
"Well. He was just cool, you know? Only the Commander wears a white suit. It was like... a lone swan standing proudly in a flock of black crows."
"Oh, so the Commander wears a white suit."
He hadn't known that little detail.
All he knew was what he'd read in books about the military strength of each rank.
Even an Expert, a Commander of the 7th Rank, was said to be incredibly skilled. Capable of single-handedly subduing an entire city.
The Commander, who led these 7th Rank Commanders, could supposedly conquer a nation. He had already entered the realm of the absolute.
And the Governor-General was said to be the most supreme being on the continent, daring to stand shoulder to shoulder with kings.
The author even hinted at his own thoughts by adding the irreverent opinion of connoisseurs that, if one were to discount lineage and authority, the Governor-General's power might even be greater.
For now, they were all distant, colossal beings.
Loan pushed thoughts of them aside for a moment.
He pointed at the clock tower and asked.
"That clock tower... it looks like you can see it from anywhere in the Union, right?"
"That's right. You can see it from the school, too."
He just hadn't noticed because he hadn't been paying attention.
The Union clock tower had originally been built to be visible from anywhere, as it served to tell time and announce important events.
But Loan found it difficult to read any information beyond the time.
"How do you read that clock?"
Besides the intuitive hands for the hour and minute, it was extremely complex.
At Loan's question, Lucas scratched his head and answered in an unsure voice.
"Um. That outermost ring..."
"The circumference."
"Uh, it shows the year. See how there are lines divided and overlapping under that red band in the center? I don't know how to read those, though. It's just that right now..."
Listening to the explanation, he realized they looked like tilted versions of the symbols used to convert ancient words into their true forms.
Loan immediately interpreted the symbols.
"The year 262?"
"Huh? That's right. Year 262 of the Kingdom Calendar."
Lucas stared at Loan, his face a mask of surprise, as if asking how he knew.
Loan's eyes were still fixed on the clock.
"Then the circumference below that must be the month and day. The combined symbols mean June 14th."
"Huh? Uh, yeah. So today is June 14th, year 262. And it's seven twenty."
Lucas kept tilting his head, confused as to whether he had just taught Loan how to read the clock or not.
Loan, on the other hand, was lost in deep thought.
He wasn't just amazed by the clock tower's grandeur.
‘That clock tower was there, too.’
It was because, at the intersection where past memory met present reality, the future had become clearer.
In the vision the tree had shown him.
He remembered that the clock tower had been there, among the fallen bodies and collapsed buildings.
Like everything else, it had been destroyed, toppled to the ground. And the time it showed was.
June 14th, year 272.
Exactly ten years from today.
***
After eating dinner and returning to their room.
Lucas left again, saying he needed to make up for the training he'd missed today.
Left alone, Loan stroked the black stone he'd bought at the shop and thought about the vision the tree had shown him.
‘I can't just ignore it. Even if it was a dream, there must be a reason for it.’
He couldn't dismiss it as just a feeling of déja vu.
It was more accurate to call it a prophecy or a premonition.
Naturally, the question 'What do I do?' followed.
He had to prevent the vision from becoming reality, no matter what.
‘Let's not think of it as an unchangeable fate.’
So, what could he change, and how? How could he make the prophecy fail?
‘First, I need to extract as much information as possible from the scenes I saw.’
But it wasn't easy.
Although he never forgot what he saw or read, the vision from the tree hadn't been very clear.
Besides, the sequence and locations were all jumbled.
‘It's a good thing the clock tower is visible from any direction.’
A significant number of the visions included a small glimpse of the clock tower before its collapse.
Using that as a baseline, he began to connect the fragmented pieces in chronological order.
As if arranging a pile of pictures spread across the floor.
Then, for the visions without the clock tower.
‘In this scene, the red-roofed building hasn't collapsed yet, so it goes earlier... The black-haired Runner is still alive in this scene, so this one goes here...’
He struggled with this for quite some time.
The process was made all the more difficult because it took place entirely within his mind.
‘Alright, it's organized.’
Having thus melded dozens of memory fragments into a continuous flow, Loan.
Now it was time to replay it over and over, gathering information.
‘The next hurdle is the blurry impressions.’
When the foreground was in focus, the background was blurry.
But what he had seen was what he had seen; the information had to be in his mind somewhere.
He just hadn't perceived it in the moment, but if he focused just a little...
Vmmm—
Loan grew even calmer.
Only the sound of the mana rotating in his heart grew more intense.
Using that sound as his power source, he navigated the labyrinth of his consciousness.
The more he strained, the hotter his head became, but he didn't stop for fear of getting lost.
And finally.
As if focusing from a distance to a nearby point, the blurry scenes transformed into clear information.
The faces of people from the vision overlapped with those he'd met since coming to the Union, sharpening their once-muddled outlines.
People he'd seen at the administration bureau, at school, on the streets.
He distinguished between Union personnel and outsiders among the living and the dead, and even identified non-human entities.
Once he had done that, his understanding and perception led him to another horizon.
He found himself wanting to look at a scene he thought he had already examined enough from a different perspective.
‘I'm curious about my rank.’
Loan re-examined the final scene, the only one that contained his own image—his grown self staring at a jet-black being floating in the air.
The problem had been that he was in profile, so he couldn't see his rank badge, but now, it somehow felt possible.
Vwooom—
Following the rotating sound from his chest came a wave of mana that felt like it was racing to the crown of his head.
Into his two eyes, which cooled for a moment before growing even hotter.
The world reflected in the swords of the fallen, the world projected on the glass of collapsed buildings—they connected and reassembled.
Front and back, side to side, up and down.
The scene, once remembered as a flat image, was given three-dimensional depth.
‘Ah...’
Finally able to see his future self in full, Loan lamented inwardly.
There was no Union badge on his chest.
Instead, there was a large hole.
‘So I die in ten years.’
That's why it was the last scene.
There was no future left for a non-existent Loan to see.