After finishing our preparations, we set off for Alden.
And, astonishingly, we arrived at our destination in just two hours.
It had taken only that long to travel from almost the northernmost end of Rotten to its southernmost point.
You may or may not remember a village called Gidson from before,
but the time it took to get there was twelve hours—in other words, half a day.
If we had gone to Alden the same way we did back then, it would originally have taken three to five days.
So how did we arrive in two hours this time?
Well, it was nothing special...
We flew through the sky.
Mountains? Hills??
Before our great and glorious magic, they were nothing but mere commoners.
Ah, great magic, still surviving in a world overrun by countless Masters.
Truly the “GOAT.”
Thanks to kiss-worthy Signica, the travel time that might have otherwise turned into a long, pedantic conversation was greatly shortened.
And ever since that day, my sense of distance had become completely broken whenever I talked to other people.
Anyway,
since we’d moved quickly already, I’ll also skip ahead through everything up to the teleport.
We were able to arrive at the Magic Tower far sooner than I had expected.
***
— Pat!
The moment we arrived via teleport,
“Wow...”
I understood why this place was called the Magic Tower.
Because every facility, every scene in sight, was simply so very Magic Tower-like.
For example, the place we had arrived at now—I had previously explained it as a space for teleportation, but according to Signica, it was called a “teleport spot”—was different from other places from the start.
For instance, the teleport spot in Alden that we had seen earlier was just a clean basement.
It felt like they had set up only the minimum conditions necessary for teleportation.
But the Magic Tower’s teleport spot was different.
— Beep. Beep.
Blue light continued to flicker within this spot,
and every time it operated, a large screen displayed who had entered and who was leaving.
It was a secondary check, in case some suspicious person teleported into the Magic Tower.
Then how were they filtered out in the first place?
For example, suppose a demon could suddenly teleport into a teleport spot in Rotten.
Then the human realm would already be doomed, wouldn’t it?
Since misunderstandings or confusion might arise later, I’ll make this clear now.
To explain teleportation using Rotten as an example,
within Rotten, teleportation is basically impossible in all spaces.
The Magic Tower is the same; teleportation is impossible in every space inside the Magic Tower.
That is because a magic called “Anti-Teleport” is laid over the entire space.
As the term suggests, it is magic that prevents teleportation.
It uses magic to restrict humans from moving to a specific space through the medium of mana.
And the only space within such a designated area where teleportation is possible is the teleport spot.
However,
even these teleport spots have restrictions on who can use them.
Of course, the basic conditions necessary for using teleportation—such as distance, the image of the place, and its coordinates—must be met,
but the decisive condition that sets it apart from the others is that one needs something like a password granting permission to teleport there.
The password is always assigned at random and must be received through communication magic from the place one intends to arrive at.
The duration of the password can be extended by the other side, and more or less anything else you can imagine is possible.
For example, there could be something like a master key,
or a specific password once granted to someone in the past could be designated, rejected, or deleted.
So, in general, teleport spots were operated in a fairly safe manner.
???: Still, if someone does this and that and blah blah blah, couldn’t they break through it??
...
.......
...............
Katsu (喝)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Teleportation was an extremely useful technique, enough to accept such risks.
If someone has just arrived by teleport, the receiving side can arbitrarily send them back again,
and in emergencies such as war, teleportation can be shut off with a single click from the local lord, so in any case, there is no need for concern.
***
Well, anyway, it would be awkward to explain later, so now that the timing happened to be right, I’ve finished explaining teleportation.
Now it was time to be guided by the mages standing before us and meet the person called the Senior Mage.
It would be boring to explain too much about who the Senior Mage was, so to summarize in one line:
Intern -> Ordinary Mage (graduate student, 4th to 6th Circle) -> Senior Mage (professor, 7th to 9th Circle) -> Elder Mage (10th Circle) -> Magic Tower Master (chancellor, 11th Circle)
Sometimes the Magic Tower Master was at the 12th Circle, but that was something that might happen once in ten thousand years, so I’ll leave it out.
In other words, we were going to meet someone who could be considered roughly a professor.
— Knock, knock.
“Sir Baker. The Hero’s party has arrived.”
“Let them in.”
— Creak.
When we opened the door and entered, a mage younger than I had expected was waiting for us.
Judging by appearances, he looked to be in his early sixties?
As I mentioned once before, being at least 7th Circle in one’s early sixties meant one was an incredible genius.
“Greetings. My name is Baker Horizon.”
Baker Horizon.
As expected, he was a rather famous person.
Even I, who had absolutely nothing to do with magic or mages, knew what he was famous for.
“Perhaps Miss Signica remembers this old man.”
He was famous as the teacher of Signica Violet.
A mage who discovered the dazzling raw gem known as Signica in the Violet family, which was merely a viscount house.
Of course, some people belittled the appraisal that he had an exceptional eye for talent, saying it was just luck, or that with talent like Signica’s, even someone with knotholes for eyes would have noticed,
but the fact remained that he was the first to discover Signica.
But that was merely the public’s assessment, the idle gossip that circulated.
The man himself did not particularly consider it an achievement, nor did he think he had found her because he had done anything especially well.
Moreover, he even described himself as someone unworthy of being called Signica’s teacher.
In truth, the time he spent teaching her was no more than a fleeting moment.
Faced with her overwhelmingly rapid growth, Baker gave up on teaching her, saying, “She is far too outstanding for a lacking mage like me to teach. I fear I may fasten the first button incorrectly.”
As a result, she was able to swiftly become the joint successor of the Magic Tower Masters without complicated procedures.
“It’s been a while.”
Signica bowed her head in greeting.
In her memory, Baker must have been a good adult, so it was only natural.
Couldn’t he practically be considered her benefactor?
Anyway,
“Well... we can save the reminiscing for later. Let us get straight to the point. It is more urgent than expected.”
“What on earth happened for the Magic Tower to request support?”
When Signica, who knew more about the Magic Tower than any of us, asked, Baker answered calmly with an expression that said he understood.
“I know what you are thinking. Problems that arise in the Magic Tower are usually all resolved internally. But this matter alone could not be resolved by our own power.”
Baker handed us several documents.
They were filled with various formulas and graphs,
and we picked them up for form’s sake and began reading slowly.
Probably the only person among us who could properly interpret this data at a glance was Signica.
Indeed, she alone kept muttering something as she read through the documents at high speed.
“2nd Circle magic too... 3rd Circle... 4th Circle...”
The further Signica read, the darker her expression became.
As if she had seen something she should not have.
“Th... this is impossible. One hundred percent magic resistance against 9th Circle magic?”
Only after Signica uttered those words were we able to understand the gravity of the situation all at once.
From roughly the first part, what we could tell was that an unidentified dungeon had suddenly appeared near the Magic Tower, and that its dungeon break was imminent.
Other than that, there were various experimental records written down, making it difficult to understand.
But according to her words, inside the dungeon there existed a being against which 9th Circle magic did not work. In other words, there was a monster of 10th Circle level or higher.
The enemy was so powerful that I couldn’t understand why they had called us.
That was about as far as the impression we could feel went.
But from Signica’s perspective, this was something far beyond that.
For a mage, magic is truth.
Truth must hold in any situation, and that was what was normal.
But the current situation was one in which the truth she believed in as a mage was being slightly shaken,
and because of that, I could understand the expression she wore.
“Lord God...”
Ariel clasped her hands together and murmured softly.
Elladrien, who had the same question as me in this situation, asked Baker,
“If this is true, then why did you call us? Wouldn’t it be right to bring in transcendent beings above us? The Magic Tower Master, or Masters like the Flame Emperor.”
After hearing the question, Baker nodded.
“A reasonable question. In fact, we already expected such a question to arise. The reason we called the Hero’s party before summoning such people is because the monster that 9th Circle magic did not work on is a monster we know well.”
“What kind of monster is it...?”
I was bringing up every list of monsters I could think of in my head.
Goblins... orcs... and so on.
But what came from his mouth was a monster I was scheduled to encounter for the first time in my life, at least from my perspective.
“It is an Elder Lich.”
“Just an Elder Lich????”
Signica sprang up from her seat, shocked by his words.
From her perspective, it seemed a monster called an Elder Lich was an ordinary monster, not all that rare.
“An Elder Lich is usually dealt with at the 7th to 8th Circle level, isn’t it? How are they withstanding 9th Circle magic!!?”
“That was our question as well. The magic that lich used was even at the known level, around the 7th Circle.”
In that case... even to me, who didn’t know much about magic, this situation clearly made no sense.
It could only use attack magic up to the 7th Circle, yet the monster’s rank was 10th Circle or higher?
No matter who looked at it, that was clearly an “abnormal phenomenon.”
“So we made an assumption. What if the rank of that monster is actually the same as an ordinary Elder Lich, the 7th Circle?”
Baker raised one more finger and continued speaking with a gesture like a detective.
“Then the next question naturally follows. Why, then, do our attacks not work? The hypothesis we established was...”
He pointed at the Hero.
“Would the Demon-Extinguishing attribute possessed by the Hero work on that monster?”
“My Demon-Extinguishing attribute...?”
“That is correct. The Hero’s aura is a mystery itself, one we still have yet to uncover. And the Elder Lich’s attack nullification is also a mystery we have yet to uncover. Mystery against mystery. We are attempting to see which mystery is stronger.”
Veronica looked down at her sword.
Since her head was slightly lowered, I couldn’t see Veronica’s expression in detail, but I could sense a bit of pressure from her.
If she failed, then the Hero who was supposed to defeat the Demon King could not even kill a single monster.
If she succeeded, then whenever the same phenomenon occurred across the continent, they would rely on her excessively.
I know Veronica to some extent.
I have already experienced the woman named Bell.
Just as Elladrien, unlike her first impression, turned out to be nothing more than an ordinary elf once we became close,
she too was a woman no different from an ordinary village girl.
Even a Hero is human in the end.
No matter how boldly she beats her chest and speaks of hope,
no matter how much she becomes an unfallen pillar supporting the future of humanity,
in the end, there comes a day when she grows tired.
‘At times like that, I should be by her side.’
Well... it didn’t necessarily have to be me,
but still, I was one of the people who would be with her from the closest position from now on.
I resolved to support her with all my strength,
and to lighten her burden as much as possible.
Veronica raised her head and answered Baker with a determined expression.
“Understood. When should we go?”
Hearing those words, Baker bowed his head to us.
“First, thank you for your help. Please tell me whenever you are ready. The Magic Tower has already completed all preparations.”
Veronica thought for a moment,
“Then, just in case, we will depart once Signica’s mana has fully recovered.”
She conveyed her opinion to Baker.
And so, we spent some time looking around inside the Magic Tower.
Not long after,
we informed Baker that we were ready.