Chapter 180: The Tin Knight and the Tower of Foresight (7)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 180: The Tin Knight and the Tower of Foresight (7)
The moment they opened the door and stepped inside, a light that was neither too bright nor too dark greeted the party.
The scent of paper and ink drifted through the dry air.
Wooden bookshelves, clearly well-maintained, stood before them.
Dorothea summed up the scene in a single word.
“A library?”
It wasn’t a place of overwhelming scale, nor did it exude a sinister magical aura. At a glance, it wasn’t a particularly special location.
Compared to its title, the Tower of Foresight—which suggested a grand collection of books—its appearance was almost unassuming.
With the clatter of hooves, the silver horse advanced into the library.
Dorothea instinctively moved to follow, but the Tin Knight’s hand shot out from behind and grabbed her shoulder.
Though she flinched at the cold touch of metal on her skin, Dorothea asked for a reason instead of showing her annoyance.
“Why?”
The Tin Knight silently pointed forward, and Dorothea followed his gesture with her eyes.
Clip-clop, clip-clop.
The silver horse was proceeding as if there were no problem at all.
It walked on and on, until its four legs vanished as if they had been cleanly severed.
“...!”
Dorothea blinked.
The horse’s legs, which had looked so clearly severed, were suddenly back to normal.
Instead, the part of the horse above its neck was now missing.
Like a Dullahan from the legends, the headless silver horse moved through the library without a care.
“Hah!”
Adelaide, standing beside her, gasped.
The little lion, still in disguise, turned pale when she spotted the horse’s disembodied head floating in mid-air.
Clip-clop. The horse’s torso elongated.
Clip-clop. The horse’s torso remained the same height, but it was now walking upside down.
Clip-clop. The horse vanished completely.
A deep silence fell.
Faced with such a bizarre spectacle, Dorothea was at a loss for words.
Only one word came to her mind.
A trap.
‘No, that’s not it.’
But Dorothea immediately refuted her own guess.
She checked her surroundings.
Medir was observing them with an expression of interest, curious to see how they would react. The other mages were also watching the situation with a hint of uncertainty.
If this had been a trap, they should have shown some sign of panic or frustration when Dorothea’s party avoided it, but there was nothing of the sort.
Above all, the Tin Knight’s calm demeanor was the deciding factor.
The fact that he had gently restrained Dorothea instead of gleefully entering a battle stance was proof enough.
After considering a few possibilities, Dorothea came to a conclusion.
“The space inside the library is warped.”
“Correct,” Medir said, his tone like a teacher praising a student who had given the right answer.
“You, what floor do you think this is?”
“The 9th floor, isn’t it?”
“It is. But when the tower was first built, this was the 4th floor.”
“...?”
Question marks appeared on the faces of Dorothea and her companions.
Medir continued his explanation.
“When the tower was first constructed, many great masters participated. The one in charge of the 4th floor was the Witch of the North, Orin. But she didn’t much interfere with the tower’s design or structure. She simply built a library in her temporary workshop and organized her books.”
Some mages tried to stop her, arguing that she would just have to move everything again into the tower proper, but the Witch of the North insisted it was fine and continued building her library.
The other mages didn’t think much of it, assuming it was just practice before creating the real library on the 4th floor.
However, what the Witch of the North did after the tower was completed went far beyond their imagination.
“‘This library exists on the second highest floor of the tower.’ That was the rule she bestowed upon the library. And it came to be, just as the rule dictated.”
Sophia asked with interest, “What exactly do you mean when you say, ‘it came to be, just as the rule dictated’?”
“Literally what it sounds like. The library she built suddenly ‘appeared’ on the 4th floor, which was the second-highest floor at the time.”
“...You mean she used spatial movement to teleport the entire library? That’s certainly impressive.”
Dorothea said as much, but Medir shook his head.
“That’s not all. I told you, ‘This library exists on the second highest floor of the tower.’ Do you not understand what that means?”
Dorothea narrowed her eyes as if to ask what he was getting at, but then her eyelids flew open as she realized the implication.
“Don’t tell me, even if you add more floors, the rule still applies? It’s not like she has to cast another spatial movement spell each time?”
“Correct. Whenever a new floor is added to the tower, the library moves from its original location to the new one.”
If the tower has five floors, the library is on the fourth.
If the tower is expanded to six floors, the library moves to the fifth.
Sophia raised a question.
“That seems like it would cause all sorts of spatial problems. Not only would the library’s previous location become empty, but if you don’t prepare a space on the floor where the library is supposed to ‘appear,’ there would be no room for it.”
“Logically, yes. But this library ignores such things. The existing facilities don’t shrink or disappear, yet it naturally occupies a space as if it were part of the blueprints from the very beginning.”
“I see. That certainly qualifies as a miracle.”
Sophia nodded in understanding, but she was the exception.
Most of the people listening looked as if they couldn’t comprehend what in the world this nonsense was. It wasn’t just Dorothea’s party or Rapunzel; even the mages of the tower seemed to have abandoned logical understanding and accepted it as ‘just the way it is.’
Medir’s gaze shifted toward the library’s interior.
“The tower has many brilliant talents, but even they do not know the exact structure of this library. What is certain is that as the tower grows taller and the library repeats its ‘movements,’ its structure becomes more and more complex. For about twenty paces from the entrance, you can somehow manage to get back by backtracking or what have you, but if you go any deeper, you’ll become completely lost. There have been several missing persons.”
Dorothea spoke with disbelief.
“Shouldn’t a place like this be sealed off? I didn’t see any signs of it being blocked when we came in.”
“Any mage permitted to enter this level should be capable of managing their own risks. It is a guardian’s responsibility to not leave a child unattended by the water, but if a grown man goes fishing by the water on a rainy day and drowns, isn’t that his own fault?”
His words were cold, in a way, but the other mages didn’t seem to hold any resentment toward their tower head.
In fact, they even seemed to agree.
What a bunch of weirdos, Dorothea scoffed.
Of course, considering she herself was thinking of diving in without hesitation after hearing the story, she was in no position to call others strange.
“By the way, do we have to offer something every hundred steps in here too?”
“That won’t be necessary. We have no way of checking, anyway. I wouldn’t stop any mage who volunteered to accompany you, but… it seems there are no takers. If it weren’t for my position as tower head, I would have gone myself. A pity.”
“If I find anything inside, who does it belong to?”
“As long as you can return safely, I will turn a blind eye to a certain extent. On the condition that you tell us what you saw inside. Use this.”
With that, Medir handed her a contract written on parchment.
It was nothing compared to a ‘Blood Oath,’ but it was a contract with a fairly strong binding force.
Dorothea carefully checked the contract’s contents for any hidden traps before writing her name.
In fact, if he had tried to send them in without even this level of preparation or any surveillance, that would have been truly suspicious.
Vague, reasonless goodwill usually came with ulterior motives, so a clean contractual relationship where both sides got what they needed was preferable.
The party entering consisted of four members: Dorothea, the Tin Knight, Adelaide, and Sophia.
Dorothea thought for a moment, then took out a golden rope from the Gloves of Haider.
She wanted to avoid showing off the power of her sacred treasures in front of them if possible, but it was better than rushing in without any countermeasures.
Besides, she didn’t think they would naively believe her power came from some ‘magic that knows the past,’ like with the Chalice of Tuberose, forever.
As her party tied the rope to a pillar, Medir spoke.
“The space inside is so erratic that any attempt to leave a trail with something like a thread will soon be severed. I would recommend leaving a mark at every step instead. Someone once made it forty-nine steps that way and returned.”
“We have our own ideas, so don’t worry. More importantly, if they made it that far, why didn’t they just try again the same way?”
“Because after saying they’d try for over fifty steps, they haven’t returned yet.”
“That’s a shame.”
“Indeed. A tragic affair. Though she never joined our tower, losing the Witch of the North’s youngest and most talented protégé is a great loss to the history of magic.”
Dorothea’s movements paused for a moment.
Misinterpreting her reaction, Medir added, “Gale Elilaz. That girl, much like you all now, challenged this place and never returned.”
A brief silence followed.
Adelaide, recalling the events in Tik-Tok, looked visibly flustered, and Sophia let out a thoughtful hum.
Dorothea scowled and was about to say something, but she closed her mouth upon hearing the message that echoed in her head.
[The ‘Tin Knight’ is delighted, saying he can finally have a proper showdown!]
[The ‘Tin Knight’ insists that a rival battle always gets his blood pumping!]
His words seemed to express confidence in the safety of Gale and the white knight who accompanied her.
Gazing at the Tin Knight, Dorothea let out a small laugh.
True, even she couldn’t imagine that eccentric mage falling so foolishly in a place like this.
Clutching the golden rope, the party walked into the library.
One step. No major changes.
Three steps. The library’s lighting grew dim.
Five steps. The nearby bookshelves now appeared far in the distance.
Eight steps. Though they were clearly indoors, the sky was suddenly visible.
Ten steps. The distance between the Tin Knight at the front and Dorothea behind him suddenly multiplied tenfold. The golden rope stretched taut as if it would snap, but when Dorothea infused it with mana, it rapidly extended its length, enduring the sudden change.
It was a rope Dorothea had created using Rapunzel’s hair as a material.
A magic tool so tough it couldn’t be cut by an ordinary blade, one that could even repair and grow itself as long as it was supplied with mana.
Relying on it, the party continued to press forward.