Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Trudge, trudge. With each step I took down the dark spiral staircase without a single window, my surroundings were gradually enveloped in purple mist. This was what was called “deposited mana,” a strange phenomenon created when the mana lines, byproducts of magic experiments repeated from the primordial age until now, had settled entirely inside the Magic Tower without leaking outside.

An ordinary person would be unable to endure the dense concentration of this “deposited mana” and would flee at once, but I instead felt my heart gradually settling into comfort. The familiar air and atmosphere I had breathed for more than nine hundred years without change was, to me, a kind of solace that warmly wrapped around a heart worn down by worldly affairs.

Ah, this is nice. Home really is the best after all. Grinning at the comfort I tasted for the first time in a while, I moved the hem of my robe aside roughly and sat down at one corner of the stairs. Following my movement, a nearby mana lamp lit up and illuminated the surrounding scenery. Nothing had changed in the slightest since I left for the field investigation. All kinds of magic tools, experimental tools, grimoires, experiment reports, and the like were scattered about in disorder.

Someone who knew nothing might say, “Why do you live so messily without cleaning anything up?” but I had arranged it all according to my own rules so I could take things out and use them easily. Well, it was nothing more than copying Master’s organizing habits exactly.

I did not remember what my original organizing habits had been like. Perhaps because it was so far in the past, I simply could not remember. The one thing I did clearly remember was that after what happened at the Royal Academy, I had become someone who was seriously incapable of organizing things. How bad was I at organizing? Bad enough that it was certainly a psychological problem. The entire room, except for the space where I curled up to sleep, would be filled with all kinds of odds and ends and garbage, becoming a source of stench pollution.

As time passed and my mental state improved little by little, I began imitating Master’s organizing habits, and I did manage to make things look more or less fit for a person to live in. I threw out garbage on time and got household chores such as cleaning and laundry done here and there - usually when there was a research assignment I did not want to do waiting ahead of me.

In any case, I was living fairly well by simply following what Master had done, but....... thinking about it now, it did seem like Master was not especially talented at organizing either, did it not? I had never felt any particular inconvenience, so it did not really matter.

Chuckling like that, I rummaged inside my roomy hooded robe and took out a box. It was the box containing the source formula of the magic scroll, which I had recovered from the Hustein family’s headquarters.

Was my vanished motivation returning because my heart had grown calm after all? The thought suddenly occurred to me that I should finally complete this. Well, in truth, the formula itself had already been completed back then. Elclid had merely stolen the thesis I had been organizing into a form others could read.

In any case, after all rights to the formula were taken from me like that, I had fallen into despair and lived as if I had forgotten it all....... But looking over it now, memories of how deeply I had been absorbed in research at the time came back one after another, and it became enjoyable. It was also a little funny how obvious it was that this was the immature design of an eight-year-old.

Let’s see. This side certainly looks a little clumsy, just as one would expect of something designed by a child. If it were me now, instead of designing it like this....... Yes, modifying it this way makes it much more efficient. Hmm, it is clear I put quite a bit of effort into this part. Not bad, past me.

Letting out a series of my own little exclamations, I slid down from the staircase, lay sprawled on the floor, spread the formula’s design out in the air, and began correcting the design code one by one. Once I cleared away the parts Elclid had scribbled roughly and wrote in the necessary content, the formula had turned a much deeper purple than before.

***

[Research Assignment] No. 703083-453

＃001. Field Investigation of the Location Where the Pillar of Fire Manifested

→ Complete!!

＃002. Identification and Analysis of All Formulas Involved in the Pillar of Fire Manifestation

→ Formula design state and defect check complete!!

→ Source formula recovery, restoration, and correction work complete!!

***

“Good, that’s done! Ugh, that was fun.......”

Feeling my face loosen into a silly smile from the lingering satisfaction, I immediately sat up and stretched. As I loosened my body, which had grown stiff in the meantime, and tried to estimate how much time had passed, a loud noise of something collapsing suddenly came from upstairs.

“Hm......? What is it? Did something fall over?”

What was there that could fall over? Ah, maybe the pile of books got pushed by the wind and toppled over. When books were stacked and stacked, that did happen from time to time. Uh, but had I left the window open? Strange, I’m sure I closed it.......

As I tilted my head while thinking this and that, I suddenly came to my senses. Ah, right. I had brought a person upstairs. I had completely forgotten. Then that sound just now was...... made by him?

“He finally woke up....... Ugh, why did he wake up.......?”

Of course, I had been waiting all this time for the young man to wake up so I could find out about that strange formula....... But feeling confused and unsettled now that the situation had actually arrived, I hurriedly ran up to the top floor. I had expected it from how loud the noise had been, but the state of the top floor was truly a complete mess.

Ancient books, grimoires, bundles of documents, and the like, which I had arranged and stacked according to my own classification rules - though a third party would absolutely not see it that way - had toppled and mixed together any which way. The magic tools I had arranged for the convenience of daily life had activated on their own and were running. Some of them had even begun interfering with one another and were tearing through the room at random.

Haha, it had turned into a total disaster. Letting that empty impression slip through my mind, I hurriedly cleared away the mess with telekinesis magic and searched for the young man. I clearly remembered laying him on the bed, but the bed was empty.

No, looking closely, the young man was not the only thing missing from the bed. The pillow and blanket I had spread carelessly across the bed - unbelievable as it may sound, I had organized them in my own way, as Master taught me - had also vanished without a trace.

Only after carefully looking around to see what had happened did I realize that something was flapping behind the bed - in other words, on the opposite side from where I was standing. It was the young man, struggling while wrapped in the pillow and blanket.

“Um, what are you doing over there?”

“......!”

Perhaps he had not noticed my presence at all, because the young man flinched in surprise and looked back at me. Startled along with him, I hid behind the bed without realizing it.

A silent confrontation continued for a while. Soon, I hesitantly poked my head out and quietly checked on the young man. Seeing that he was still staring this way made my shoulders shrink on their own.

What should I do? We can’t just keep confronting each other like this. I feel like I have to say something....... As I hesitated for a while, unable to gather courage, the young man suddenly spoke to me first.

“Why...... am I alive? Was I not dead......?”

“Uh......?”

“Yes, I am certain of it. Surviving there should never have been....... Yet how......?”

“What are you talking about?”

Somehow...... he was speaking as if he had been through a fierce battle before losing consciousness. Had he perhaps lost consciousness while fighting those strange creatures? Well, considering he had collapsed in the place where they were rampaging, that possibility was certainly sufficient.

However...... when I found the young man, I had not discovered any traces of battle on him. There was some dirt and dust on him, but his clothes showed not even the signs of a scuffle, and his sword had been quietly stored in its scabbard. Even the shoddy defensive formula carved into his armor showed no signs of having activated at all.

How should I put it? He had looked like a patient who was walking down the road alone and suddenly collapsed from a heart attack. Of course, when I checked him while bringing him here, the young man’s heart was beating perfectly well, so it would not have been anything like a heart attack. Ah, perhaps it would be the correct inference to think the young man normally suffered from narcolepsy.......

While thinking that far, I suddenly realized the young man was feeling around his chest. Puzzled, I furrowed my brow and stared at the young man, but he paid no attention to my gaze and merely felt over his body here and there while muttering things like, “Why is there not a single scar?”

How long is he going to keep doing that? As I quietly watched him for a while, the young man looked down at the area below the knee of his right leg, then started in shock and asked me.

“H-How is this...... How did this happen?! Why is this attached?!”

“Uh, um......? What is?”

“My leg, why is my leg...... attached here?!”

I could not understand what he was talking about at all. What did he mean, why was his leg attached there? I thought it was normal for a person’s leg to be attached there. Or rather, when it was attached somewhere else would be the time to ask, “Why is my leg attached here?” would it not?

Surely he did not think his leg should be attached somewhere other than there....... For some reason, a frightening thought occurred to me, so I quietly stepped backward and tried to put some distance between myself and the young man. The young man, who had been blankly looking at me, seemed to realize something, let out a small exclamation, and hurriedly added.

“Ah, I apologize for saying something strange. That is not what I meant. I was merely...... surprised that this leg was still properly attached.”

“Wh-What......”

Why would he be surprised that his leg was properly attached? After rolling my eyes around and thinking for a moment, I soon came up with my own interpretation of the young man’s words. Apparently, this person had thought those strange creatures would tear off his leg.

And that meant the young man had clearly witnessed those things and the strange formula that summoned them right before losing consciousness. For me, that was truly fortunate. I would be able to hear detailed information from the young man.

“So you mean you thought you’d lose your right leg after being attacked by these things?”

“Hm? What is...... this? No, more importantly.......”

When I asked while unfolding the design code of those things stored in my mind, the young man, who had been staring at them in bewilderment, widened his eyes and looked back at me. Because I met those emerald eyes head-on, I flinched without realizing it and turned my gaze away.

“Could you be...... a mage?”

“I-I am, but.......”

“I see...... Hm, you do certainly look like a mage.”

No, but why is he observing me so thoroughly? Feeling as if I could not breathe, I anxiously pulled at the hem of my robe and hid my body, but the young man’s gaze showed no sign of leaving me. Just as I was about to protest and tell him to stop staring so much, I suddenly thought that the young man’s posture, which entered my eyes, looked strangely uncomfortable.

Uh, what is this? For some reason, he looks like he can’t use his right leg at all. Am I right?