Chapter 332

The emperor said that since we had to kill the Demon King, we had to focus on getting stronger while they bought us as much time as possible, and the empire would provide maximum support.

It was a very ironic situation, but what could I do about it? I couldn’t exactly say, “Actually, the Demon King? That’s me.”

We had our audience with the emperor, and the break had started.

Soon enough, the last day of the year approached.

On New Year’s Eve, some like-minded folks from Class A gathered in the dormitory for a small party.

Everyone except Vertus was there. Even the hopeless trio and Cliffman joined the party in the dining hall.

I cooked the food with Ellen’s help.

“Whoa, no way... Reinhart, you did all this?”

“What’s so hard about it?”

The hopeless trio were wide-eyed, since it was their first time tasting my cooking. Cliffman, who occasionally joined in for meals, wasn’t particularly surprised.

It was a day of eating and having fun.

Of course, our true blockhead, Riana de Granz, pulled a stunt by bringing alcohol from her ducal house.

“Pour it up, ahhhh!”

“Drink it up, ahhhh!”

Of course, no one else touched it, and only Riana and I drank, getting quite drunk before Ellen and Harriet subdued us.

Thankfully, because of that, we avoided getting caught by the dorm supervisors.

***

The New Year dawned.

Since Sarkegar was trying to get in contact with the Revolutionary Forces and Eleris could update me on the Vampire Council issue at any time, I decided to stay in the capital.

I wanted to follow Ellen to her hometown, but circumstances didn’t allow it, which was a little disappointing.

“I can go alone,” Ellen said.

“Obviously. Who doesn’t know that?”

I was walking beside Ellen, who was dragging a large suitcase.

I didn’t know when Ellen would return from her hometown, but she would be gone for at least a few weeks.

We had already left the Temple, and Ellen just needed to enter the mega warp gate in front of the Temple.

With the imperial emblem at her disposal, she could get priority access, so there was no need to wait.

It was good that she could leave without having to wait. but somehow, it felt a bit underwhelming since she was leaving pretty much at the start of the break.

Ellen’s hometown was a literal rural backwater so small that it wasn’t even marked on the map.

We walked until the gate was visible, then Ellen, dragging her suitcase behind her, nodded at me.

“I’m going now.”

“... Yeah.”

She wasn’t leaving for good; she’d be back soon.

I wondered when she’d return. Since it had been a long time since she’d last seen her family, she could stay for about a month.

As I stared at her, Ellen tilted her head.

“Should I not go?”

“... Huh?”

“If you tell me not to go, I won’t.”

‘This is driving me crazy. I told her not to spring things on me like this!’

“No, you should go. I’m sure your parents must be worried. They haven’t seen you in a long time. Yeah.”

Ellen’s parents had to be worried sick about how their daughter was doing, having gone to such a faraway land. I also had a lot to do and would probably be away from the capital for days, so it didn’t make sense to selfishly ask Ellen not to go.

Following her this far was already a bit much. Ellen looked at the gate for a while, then looked back at me for a while.

Suddenly, she pointed to a café on the street.

“Then, perhaps I could go a little later?”

She didn’t seem to be in a rush.

“Yeah.”

Ellen smiled at my prompt answer.

In the end, we ordered drinks at the café and dawdled, delaying her departure by almost six hours.

We didn’t converse about anything particularly interesting. We just sat there, idly watching people pass by, ordering desserts when we got hungry, and killing time.

“...”

“...”

It felt as though I were a soldier, reluctant to part with his girlfriend before returning to duty, though our roles were reversed. Ellen was the one leaving, and I was the one staying.

The time we spent at that café grew awkwardly long, and Ellen tilted her head.

“Should I just go tomorrow?”

I almost blurted out “Yeah,” but swallowed it back down.

“... No, if you do that, you’ll end up saying the same thing and leave the day after tomorrow. Just go now.”

“...”

Ellen’s lips started to pout.

“I’m not saying this to rush you, but I just know that’s how it’ll end up.”

“I know what you mean.”

In the end, after all that wasted time, Ellen finally stood in front of the warp gate again.

“I’m going. See you later.”

“Yeah, take care.”

I didn’t know what she needed to be careful about, but I said it anyway.

“You too. Be careful. With everything.”

Ellen nodded and walked towards the mega warp gate.

Feeling a bit wistful, I watched her until she passed through the gate.

Just before entering the gate, Ellen turned back to look at me, waved her hand slightly, and then was pushed into the gate.

‘What can I say? That girl and I, we’re really clingy with each other... Not that it’s necessarily a bad thing...’

***

Ellen had returned to her hometown, and I didn’t know exactly when she would come back, but I was just as busy.

“Can I try this?”

“It’s not fully tested for safety yet. What if something goes wrong?”

“Would it really kill me?”

“Yeah, it might.”

“Oh, really...”

I brought the bottle containing a mysterious blue potion to my lips, but then put it back down.

I was at the Magic Research Club mansion, checking up on the progress of the Moonshine and Power Cartridge projects.

It felt like I was some kind of supervisor, which wasn’t far from the truth, since I was the president of the Magic Research Club.

Cristina, who specialized in alchemy, said she had a good grasp of things now, so I was just about to taste-test it or something, until her warning made me think twice.

“So when do you think it will be completed?”

“Well, I can’t be sure. Honestly, getting this far already feels like a miracle...”

It seemed unbelievable to Cristina that she had even managed to come this far. And it made sense; the Magic Research Club had been around for less than half a year.

In the original story, though, these items had been created very quickly, under an immense sense of urgency. Thus, I was confident they would be completed before this vacation ended.

“It’s fascinating, you know... I know it sounds funny, but... it feels as though it’s fated. There’s just something about it.”

She had been tasked with creating something absurd, but as she worked on it, she started to understand how to do it. Cristina seemed to find a sense of destiny about the whole thing.

“Well, that’s a good thing.”

“Yeah.”

Ultimately, I couldn’t reveal that I knew the future.

Cristina wasn’t the problem. It was someone else.

“Reinhart...”

“... Uh, yeah... What?”

“Do you want to try this...?”

Anna de Gerna...

She was one of the main players in this alchemy experiment along with Cristina, and she was the problem. Anna, looking slightly sneaky, offered me a bottle of a mysterious pink fluorescent substance.

“Wh-What is this?”

“It’s good for your body... heh.”

“No, no. I’m already healthy enough, I don’t need to get any healthier... Sorry.”

‘I’m scared of her! Every time I come here, she tries to sneak something for me to drink, and her intentions never seem pure!’

Unlike Riana, I couldn’t just ignore her. She seemed to have some kind of goodwill towards me, but if that goodwill turned into malice, I would have no idea what she might do to me.

“Anna! Stop trying to make Reinhart drink weird stuff!”

Fortunately, Cristina stopped Anna, who then put the pink bottle back into her pocket with a sullen expression.

“Tsk.”

‘She’s... She’s really scary...’

Each time I checked up on them, I firmly resolved not to eat or drink anything by mistake.

***

The next thing on my list was, of course, the Power Cartridge. The core purpose of the Magic Research Club was to create Moonshine and the Power Cartridge.

Wooong

...

In the underground safe room of the mansion, designed to withstand maximum impact, Harriet was intensely focused, gripping an artifact made of blue ore.

Wooong!

The blue artifact vibrated and emitted light.

Adelia, the little senior Rudina, and I watched on in silence.

The vibrations from the glowing artifact grew more intense.

Kaboom!

—Eek!

In the end, the Power Cartridge exploded and shattered into pieces. Harriet wasn’t injured thanks to the protection field she had deployed around herself, but if it had exploded while she was unprotected, the force would have been more than capable of blowing off an arm.

Adelia sighed deeply. “It exploded again...”

“Does this happen often?”

“Almost always.”

‘Isn’t this testing process too dangerous?’

Harriet, her hair standing on end from the explosion, emerged from the safe room.

“Hey, why are you testing this so dangerously?” I asked.

“... If we don’t do it like this, how else are we supposed to test it?” Harriet retorted, hands on her hips, as if challenging me to come up with a better method.

“Well, I don’t have a better idea... but I’m just worried about you.”

“I understand your concern, but there’s no other way.”

In the Magic Research Club, Harriet was the best when it came to manipulating mana. Therefore, the only one who could attempt to use the unstable mana within the cartridge as if it were internal mana was Harriet.

If someone less skilled attempted the test and failed, it would be unclear whether the failure was due to the tester’s poor mana manipulation or a defect in the cartridge itself.

That was why Harriet was always the one testing the Power Cartridge.

Recently, they had succeeded in infusing mana into the cartridge, but there seemed to be issues when it came to operating it.

Every time a cartridge exploded, it was a significant dent in our budget.

“What could be the problem?”

“I felt the artifact’s mana syncing with my body. But it’s still weak. So when I try to cast a spell, the circuit can’t handle it.”

“Is it a durability issue?”

“Not just that, I think.”

“Alright, kids! Let’s review the circuit design then!”

The three magic majors were discussing something I couldn’t understand. From what I gathered, progress hadn’t completely stalled; they seemed to have reached an intermediate stage.

Moonshine, and this Power Cartridge... I had a sense that both projects would likely be completed by next year.

Honestly, even if they weren’t finished then, it wouldn’t be a big deal.

Both would be incredibly useful even after the Gate Incident. If they were completed before the Gate Incident, it would significantly enhance our combat capabilities.

After all, Harriet had succeeded in dramatically reducing her casting time. All that was needed was mana.

Once the Power Cartridge was completed, it could be a channel for unleashing tremendous power.

“I think using the open type is the way to go.”

“Do you think so?”

“Let’s try it, and if it doesn’t work, we’ll move on!”

The one who inspired Harriet’s new method of using magic: the little senior Rudina.

Harriet had mimicked Rudina’s talent.

With Rudina’s No Casting talent, the true power of the Power Cartridge could be fully demonstrated.

Things were going well, but I couldn’t help but feel a bitter taste rising inside me.

Thinking that all the work we were doing here was ultimately in preparation for war made it inevitable.

These kids would soon be thrown into a fight where they would have to kill or be killed, and some of them might not survive.

I didn’t want to deny the necessity of this work, but thinking about how everyone would end up getting hurt made it hard to feel entirely good about it.

After the three of them discussed their findings for a while, they decided on a direction, and Adelia said she would redesign the Power Cartridge according to the new blueprint.

“Hey,” Harriet said to me.

“What is it? Are you done?” I replied.

“I’m going to step out of the Temple for a bit. Do you have time?” Harriet seemed to have something in mind. “We need to start the dimensional magic research.”

Although Harriet was in charge of testing the Power Cartridge, her original role was to research dimensional magic.

Now that the tournament had ended and the winter break was upon us, it seemed she was ready to dive into her research on dimensional magic.

“Sure, but why do you need me?”

“Just come along if I tell you to, idiot!”

Harriet dragged me along, demanding that I shut up and follow her.

***

Harriet and I left the Magic Research Club mansion. Harriet had a small backpack with her. I didn’t know what was inside.

“Do you think Ellen got home safely?”

“Probably.”

Everyone knew Ellen had gone back to her hometown.

“I’m kind of curious about what Ellen’s hometown looks like. Aren’t you?”

“It’s just a rural village. What’s there to be curious about?”

“Well, it’s also the hometown of Ragan Artorius...”

Come to think of it, Ellen’s hometown was also Ragan Artorius’s hometown.

‘Does she think it’s like visiting the birthplace of a hero?’

However, the general public didn’t know that Ragan Artorius came from a mountain village. If they did, it wouldn’t remain a rural village.

Regardless of whether Ragan Artorius’s sacrifice was justified or not, Harriet seemed to have a personal liking and respect for the hero Artorius. Who wouldn’t, after all?

“Should I ask Ellen if we can visit her hometown sometime?”

“... That’s up to you. But remember, it’s a rural village.”

“What about that? It sounds like a nice and quiet place, like something out of a fairy tale.”

“Yeah, right. Do you think water will come out just by turning a faucet in such a place?”

“... Oh.”

It was bold of her to assume that the living conditions everywhere on the continent would be similar to those in the capital. Harriet seemed a little taken aback, as if she had never considered that.

“You’d be lucky not to faint when you enter a traditional toilet.”

“Traditional...? What’s that?”

Harriet tilted her head as if she had never heard such a term before.

Of course, you have no reason to think about the importance of toilets.

“Hmm, I never thought I’d have to explain a latrine to you. Listen up, you thick skull.”

“W-What?! If you’re going to talk about something dirty, don’t!”

“In places without a sewage system, they dig a big hole in the ground, bury a huge container, and then build a toilet over it. You do your business there...”

“I-I said don’t!”

“Naturally, the waste doesn’t go down a sewer pipe, but just piles up. So every time you go in, you see all the accumulated... traces of life...”

“Stop it! Ugh, I feel like I’m going to throw up!”

“And when it gets full, they scoop it out with a big ladle, mix it with straw, and let it ferment...”

Smack!

“Enough!”

In the end, I got smacked.

Harriet was the imaginative type.

It seemed she was vividly imagining what I had described, and it was sticking in her mind.

“Th-That’s... that’s impossible... Doesn’t it smell?”

“Of course it does.”

“Then how do you... do your business?”

“You just endure the smell.”

“Ugh, ughhh...”

Harriet looked like she was about to cry. She had seen all sorts of things on the deserted island, but that experience must have left her with some traumatic scars.

She would definitely faint the moment she stepped into a traditional toilet.

“Just because a place looks like it's from a fairy tale doesn’t mean people live like they’re in one.”

“You’re really awful!”

Harriet, disgusted by my unnecessary reality check, stomped on ahead.

“You just realized that you couldn’t possibly go to such a place, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t know!”

“Now you feel bad for Ellen, don’t you?”

“Just shut up!”

Harriet, on the verge of tears, yelled at me to be quiet.

***

Harriet and I were close to the mega warp gate at the Temple’s entrance. Although the atmosphere in the capital was still tense, the commotion had died down, and the warp gate wasn’t excessively crowded, aside from the usual queue.

“Dimensional magic...”

Although the reason I had given her—to visit another world—was absurd, Harriet had been conducting research on dimensional magic as I had requested. Of course, she had been busy with other things, so she hadn’t managed to achieve any significant breakthroughs.

“First of all, do you remember that I mentioned dimensional magic is used in various fields of magic?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know the difference between dimensional magic and spatial magic?”

“How would I know that?”

I only knew that magic existed; I didn’t understand its principles. I wondered if I could even grasp Harriet’s explanation.

Harriet and I walked to a quiet clearing outside the Temple, where we could still see the Temple warp gate.

“I can’t use teleportation yet, but you’ve seen me use Blink.”

“Right.”

“Watch this.”

Harriet seemed to focus her mind, and soon she appeared about three steps to the right from where she had been standing.

“This is Blink.”

“Yeah, I see.”

It seemed she had chosen a secluded spot to avoid startling people with her magic.

“This concept involves moving my body. Teleportation isn’t much different. It’s about swapping the spatial coordinates of my body with the target location... You’re not understanding any of this, are you?”

My eyes had started to glaze over. “No, not at all.”

Harriet sighed in exasperation. “Anyway, teleportation and Blink are about manipulating space.”

“Aren’t space and dimension similar concepts?”

“Hmm... They’re similar, with slight differences. In magic, dimension is a higher-level concept.”

Harriet pointed to the distant warp gate. “The warp gate system doesn’t manipulate space; it manipulates dimensions.”

“How is that different, exactly?”

“Hmm... How should I explain this? There are many types of magic related to portals and gates, but they all ultimately connect one space to another.” Harriet spread her arms wide. “Let’s say my left hand and right hand are gates of the same type. Even though these spaces are physically apart, the magic makes them function as if they are connected, either as a one-way or two-way portal. That’s a gate.”

“Well... that makes sense.”

I’d used warp gates before, so I understood that they created dimensional doors that make distant spaces function as if they were adjacent.

“Do you understand the difference between moving my body and creating a dimensional door that connects spaces?”

“So connecting spaces is higher-level magic?”

“I’m not sure if ‘higher-level’ is the right term, but the basic premise is entirely different. Spatial movement magic requires that I calculate the exact coordinates of my location and the target location, while gate magic creates a portal that connects two distant spaces.”

Both warp gates and teleportation involve moving between distant spaces, but their fundamental operating concepts were entirely different.

“Of course, calling spatial magic a form of dimensional magic isn’t entirely wrong. But the magic powering gates is more about finely interfering with dimensions.”

Harriet had mentioned that the concept of dimensional magic was rare because it was used to some extent in most magical systems.

“Actually, the thing you’re curious about—traveling to another world—isn’t that difficult.”

“... Really?”

‘It’s not that difficult? What’s she talking about now?’

“Theoretically, if you have infinite mana and precise knowledge of exactly where the other world is located, it’s possible. Of course, a typical dimensional door wouldn’t work, though.”

“So, you’re basically saying it’s impossible, then??”

“Right,” Harriet concluded clearly.

The method itself was simple. However, since such a thing called infinite mana didn’t exist, and the location of the other world was unknown, simply knowing

how

to do it didn’t help.

But ultimately,if connecting a dimensional door to another world didn’t

actually

require infinite mana, then infinite mana was not a necessary condition and it was possible to pull off. Moreover, the warp gates already connected different places together, which meant the condition of infinite mana shouldn’t be necessary.

While I had this small realization, Harriet was still staring at the distant warp gate.

“But as I did more research, I found out something interesting about these warp gates.”

“Yeah?”

“They’re using much more advanced magic than I thought, and there’s a lot of secrecy around them. Almost nothing is publicly known, and they’re strictly managed by the Magic Association and the imperial family.”

“That makes sense.”

“Of course. Since you can’t have just anyone making warp gates.”

Warp gates were crucial infrastructure for humanity, so maintenance would be thorough, and keeping the technology secret was of utmost importance.

Harriet tilted her head as she looked at the warp gate. “So, I got curious.”

“About what?”

“Is it possible to create a private warp gate? And if so, could it be connected to the existing warp gate system? If someone could interfere with the dimensional doors of the warp gate system... that would be a big problem.”

Harriet hadn’t foreseen the Gate Incident, but she seemed to have grasped the potential dangers of the warp gate system.