Flame Alchemy
Arca’s 3rd Research Institute was a place that turned up suspiciously often in the game.
After first making its mark with the Academy cadet assault incident, it eventually transformed, as the story progressed, into a kind of workshop players could use for themselves.
According to the official lore, the 3rd Research Institute specialized in Mystic Material Engineering.
They studied materials harvested from monsters and their unique properties, then pushed further—into research that would turn those materials into tools humanity could actually use.
Monsters were an enormous threat to mankind, but if you could bring them down cleanly, they became an extraordinary resource.
Nothing particularly groundbreaking, really. Crafting gear from monster byproducts was a staple of hunter web novels and any number of RPGs. Researching the traits of materials from slain monsters and processing them into weapons and armor—that was the classic product of Mystic Material Engineering.
Which was probably why…
The 3rd Research Institute keeps a whole range of monsters captured and contained.
Monster materials sometimes arrived at the Institute already processed into goods—but every so often they were delivered still alive. Rather than working only with byproducts like hide and bone, researchers would capture living monsters, quarantine them on-site, and study them that way.
The problem is, this raid exploited exactly that side of the Institute.
It was the kind of plot you saw all the time in anomalous-entity urban fantasy. A contained specimen escapes, its abilities trigger a chain of further containment failures, and the whole facility flips into chaos—plenty familiar.
This Academy cadet assault, though, twisted the formula just a little. It wasn’t a simple containment failure born of the Institute’s own mistakes. It was a containment breach engineered by an outside force.
“The barriers have come down…!”
Sayulcheon, having arrived at the front of the Institute, let out a low sound of frustration. The bulkheads sealing the facility the cadets had entered were down—layers of steel plate, locked tight.
“The situation is more serious than expected.”
This was a security measure built for precisely this scenario: minimize the damage if a contained monster broke free. By completely sealing the exits, the Institute itself became one enormous containment cell—so nothing inside could slip out into the city.
“Stand back.”
Having set me down, Sayulcheon advised me to retreat a few paces. At the same time, golden mana stirred and bloomed in her hands, then surged upward, radiant with starlight.
Sword Aura Congealing into Gang.
A realm beyond ordinary sword aura, the kind of peak you only saw in martial arts epics, rose into view without warning. I’d watched Sayulcheon use her martial arts often enough in the game that it should have felt familiar—and yet seeing it in person still hit differently.
Still, I can’t just stand here admiring it.
In the instant before Sayulcheon’s Gang-clad hand could shatter the bulkhead, I stepped forward and strode right up to the barrier. At my sudden move, the arm she’d been about to drive forward froze; her face twisted into a scowl.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“If you punch through that roughly, the monsters inside might get out.”
“Do you take me for someone who would miss something like that?”
Maybe she thought I was underestimating her. Sayulcheon glared at me, irritation laid bare.
But I had my reasons. In the original, Sayulcheon had smashed the bulkhead exactly like that to rescue the cadets—and neatly left gaps for several kinds of monsters to escape. Worse, one of the escapees had absurd breeding capacity, and that creature alone had spawned its own whole incident. The image of game-Sayulcheon bowing her head and apologizing while writing up a formal report was still burned into my mind.
“There’s always the chance.”
I buried that thought deep and offered her a bright little smile. Breaking through something didn’t have to mean smashing it with force. Humans were a species that had invented any number of tools and methods just to get through walls.
Whether she decided I had a point or not, Sayulcheon dispelled her Gang, exhaled a long breath, and asked,
“Then do you have a way to catch both rabbits at once?”
Both rabbits: entry into the Institute, and a safeguard against even the remote possibility of a monster breakout.
“Of course.”
I answered with complete confidence. Unlike other professions, alchemy could honestly claim to be all-purpose across situations just like this—and plenty more besides. To me, this wall wasn’t an obstacle to be forced. It was simple provisional material I could knead however I liked with Ether.
“If there’s no entrance, we just make one.”
“…What did you say?”
I set my hands on the bulkhead. At the same time, I fixed in my mind, hard and clear, exactly what I meant to transmute.
Universal Transmutation let me transmute whatever I had resolved to create. What I wanted was a door—one that opened easily from the outside with a simple shove of body weight, but from the inside required a hard pull.
The material of the door rose into focus. The structure of the hinges, how the substances needed to be fitted together—I understood it all. I poured Ether through the visible matter, breaking it into molecules, then splitting those molecules into atoms.
It wasn’t enough. A bulkhead of hard stone and metal mixed together wouldn’t function as a proper door from a mere change of shape. So I didn’t stop the breakdown. I took one more step and split the atoms themselves—separating nuclei from electrons, dismantling every structure, then rebuilding from the ground up with the protons and neutrons stripped from those nuclei, together with the electrons.
The right material was steel. The form I held in mind was a brutally thick iron door, as deep as the length of my arm. From those two conditions, I transmuted an iron door that would catch both rabbits.
Understand. Disassemble. Reconstruct. The three most universal, orthodox processes of alchemy.
“Alchemy of this level… without even a Transmutation Circle?!”
Sayulcheon’s eyes flew wide with shock. I’d been using it so naturally I’d almost forgotten—alchemy basically required a Transmutation Circle. In theory it wasn’t mandatory, but for all kinds of practical reasons, a circle was half-essential to the craft. For a mage, a magic circle was optional. For an alchemist, a Transmutation Circle was close to required.
“I’ll make the door this way. It’ll be a bit thick, but that shouldn’t be a problem, right?”
“…Fine. An explanation can wait until later.”
Sayulcheon threw a punch. This time she hadn’t wrapped it in Gang, so the fist looked like any ordinary woman’s. Anyone who saw what that single blow accomplished, though, would never again think of it as ordinary.
CLANG!
With the distinctive ringing of something hard slamming into a mass of metal, a steel door leaf that had to weigh several tons at the least swung wide open.
…Okay, and how exactly was she planning to close it like that?
“My apologies! Transmute it shut again!”
Well, re-transmuting it closed was simple enough. I ran alchemy over the flung-open iron door, restored it to a shut state, and entered the Institute with Sayulcheon.
“Do you know where the cadets are?”
“I do. We head straight there from here. Keep watch on our surroundings and follow.”
Sayulcheon advanced without the slightest hesitation, smashing through the Institute’s interior walls as she went. As long as the final bulkhead dividing inside from outside stayed properly sealed, it didn’t matter whether the inner walls came down—so I didn’t bother stopping her.
“…But there aren’t any monsters?”
More to the point, this was no time to worry about interior walls. With the Institute’s barriers down and every last-ditch security system fully active, the inside of the facility was startlingly quiet. Not a single escaped monster in sight—not so much as a hair. Sayulcheon seemed to sense something was wrong as well; she picked up speed.
“Ah! W-wait a second!”
I called after her urgently. But she only kicked off the ground in a rush and was gone in a bound. My body couldn’t reinforce itself with mana; it was ordinary civilian grade. Catching her pace was impossible.
Well, it’s not like I’m in danger because of that.
By now, every contained specimen in the Institute would already be gathered in one place. The people behind this incident had deliberately triggered a containment failure, sealed the whole facility, then released every monster under quarantine and herded them toward the cadets. Creepy atmosphere aside, there was nothing here that particularly threatened me.
In that case, maybe I should go after the raiders.
Three criminals had hit Arca’s 3rd Research Institute and set this disaster off. Led by Jumper, who commanded spatial abilities, there were still Trapper—who could craft all kinds of traps—and Doctor, the mad physician, somewhere in the building. Rather than waste effort suppressing freed monsters, capturing those three and handing them over would do far more for my evaluation and reputation.
The question is where they are right now.
Whether to call it luck or rotten misfortune…
“I expected the Dragon-Slaying Practitioner to enter. But who are you, coming in with her?”
I didn’t even have to go looking. They’d already noticed me and come looking themselves.
“An alchemist.”
“…That’s all?”
“‘That’s all’? You’ll hurt an alchemist’s feelings, talking like that.”
I twisted one corner of my mouth into a grin. About ten paces ahead, Jumper watched me; from behind, Doctor and Trapper were easing closer. They’d clearly clocked that I had no mana—they weren’t even bothering to hide their presence, footsteps loud and deliberate as they approached.
Jumper’s ability opened Warp Gates. Catching him as well would take more thought, but even just bagging Trapper and Doctor would be a major win. If I’d had mana, I might have found a way to pressure Jumper too—a real shame. It almost made all the work I’d put into transmuting the air in the area feel wasted.
“Let me ask you one question.”
“…In a situation like this?”
Jumper let out a short, amused snort, but I ignored him. Holding his gaze, I lifted my hand. Thumb and forefinger pressed together—the posture right before a snap—and Jumper’s eyes flicked to my fingers.
“Do you know the three elements required for combustion?”
“Fuel, oxygen, and heat.”
He answered easily, as if wondering why I’d even bother asking something so basic. I beamed at him and stamped my foot.
Tap!
A bright, sharp sound—and a searing spark flared under my sole. The raised hand had only been to draw all three pairs of eyes. The real ignition point was the sole of my shoe, already prepared by transmutation.
“Correct, you three idiots.”
Fwoosh!
The spark that rose where I’d stamped raced outward along the airborne dust I’d already seeded through the atmosphere, spreading like invisible fuses. The flame crawled those unseen trails of powder until it reached the three of them—
KRAAAAAANG!
Empty air suddenly vomited a violent blast of heat, and a whole section of the Institute vanished into the sweep of the explosion.