Let’s briefly summarize the situation.
So, the place I’m in right now is inside the romance fantasy novel I’d started reading in my past life and never finished?
And not just any novel, but the very one I’d dropped halfway through without even seeing the ending.
But here, one very critical question arises.
‘Why on earth is Ibelin here?’
If things were following the original, she should have enrolled in the Imperial Academy by now and be locked in a fierce power struggle with the original heroine, “Yuna Floris.”
Wasn’t her fixed curriculum supposed to be harassing Yuna, scheming against her, and then ultimately getting thoroughly crushed by the main male leads before meeting a guillotine ending along with her family?
So why did she abandon that brilliant path to ruin and crawl into this trivial little research institute?
‘Then what’s supposed to happen to the original plot? How bored will the readers be!’
If the original villain gets holed up in a research institute writing papers, the genre suddenly changes from [Romance Fantasy] to [Office/Academia].
“…………”
The cause was obvious.
The magic circle I had modified.
My paper on physics-based magic had dragged the massive variable that was Ibelin into this gloomy research institute.
“I should’ve done things in moderation…….”
Just as I was about to tear at my hair, thinking the situation had become hopelessly tangled—
A brilliant hypothesis suddenly flashed through my mind.
‘……Huh? Isn’t this actually a good thing?’
Let’s quietly run the numbers.
What if I managed to keep Ibelin firmly glued to this laboratory?
1. Villainess Missing: Ibelin, who would have tormented Yuna Floris, disappears.
2. Heroine’s Rapid Growth: With no obstacle in her way, the original heroine will awaken much more comfortably and safely.
3. Peace for the Family: Since Ibelin won’t cause trouble, the Duchy of Estal won’t fall, and the Empire won’t be shaken.
4. My Work-Life Balance: If the Empire is peaceful, my life as a salary thief will be guaranteed forever.
In conclusion, as long as I made Ibelin quietly devote herself to studying magic here, everything would be okay.
Right. There was no need to get deeply involved.
I just had to teach her a bit of magic, keep a reasonable distance, and turn her into a permanent fixture of the research institute.
In other words, turning calamity into fortune.
“Not bad.”
I nodded to myself and let a smile rise to my lips.
Locking Ibelin inside a prison called “graduate school.”
That would surely become the most perfect sealing magic to protect both the Empire and me.
At that very moment—
The heavy door to the laboratory was flung open roughly.
Bang—!
The dazzling pink hair I’d seen yesterday filled my vision.
Ibelin von Estal.
She walked in with eyes burning even more brightly than yesterday.
In her hands were the magic books I had casually tossed to her the day before.
*****
“All mana in the world carries an innate directionality from the very beginning.”
I continued speaking with the most solemn expression I could muster.
“For a mage to ignore that causality and twist the path is foolish. It’s like trying to stop a flowing river with your palm.”
I paused for a moment and observed Ibelin’s reaction.
Her eyes were wavering.
Good. It was working.
“The explosion you experienced was merely a reaction.”
“……A reaction?”
“Yes. Acknowledge the inertia of mana, and let causality flow smoothly. Once resistance disappears, only pure flow will remain.”
Honestly, even I thought it was an absurd explanation.
I’d taken the concepts of inertia and vectors from modern physics and slathered them in mysticism.
If my academic advisor from my previous life had seen this, they would have slapped me across the face with my own thesis.
But what else could I do?
This was a world of swords and magic.
A romance fantasy novel with a severe lack of common sense.
The scientific development of this world was so miserable it brought tears to my eyes.
And what filled that empty space was an unbearably rigid religious color.
In a place like this, if I suddenly said things like, “The Earth is round and revolves around the sun,” or “According to the second law of thermodynamics—”?
It was guaranteed.
I’d be invited by the inquisitors and make a glorious debut as the star of a public burning.
I did not have the courage to follow in Galileo Galilei’s footsteps and mutter, “And yet it moves.”
So I thoroughly repackaged every law of physics in a fantasy-like manner.
Gravity became the earth’s yearning pull, and action-reaction became the law of karmic retribution.
“I understand.”
Her speed of understanding was truly astonishing.
This young lady deserved to be called a genius.
She absorbed the physical concepts I tossed out through rough analogies like a sponge.
No, she went beyond absorbing them and practically recreated them as her own.
The problem was that, in the process, her attitude had changed drastically.
“Rihan, then what about this part? If you twist the mana into a spiral and fire it, doesn’t that strengthen something called angular momentum and increase penetration?”
At some point, she’d started speaking casually to me.
Wasn’t I supposed to be in the professor position here?
And since she was a duke’s daughter, I couldn’t exactly complain.
In a class society, what power did I have when my leash was being held?
Fine then. I decided to sneakily speak casually as well.
That was what teachers did, after all.
“Right. When a projectile spins, its energy converges into a single point. Its efficiency gets maximized.”
At my clear affirmation, Ibelin’s eyes sparkled.
Seeing as she didn’t complain, it seemed she didn’t care about casual speech either.
I had preserved the dignity of a professor.
‘Well, the better you understand, the less work I have to do.’
If Ibelin stayed glued to the laboratory and dug only into magical formulas?
She wouldn’t have time to torment the original heroine, Yuna.
And the ducal house wouldn’t be destroyed either.
Then my peaceful life as a salary thief would be guaranteed forever.
“Mm, I see. Then the next formula is…….”
Watching Ibelin bury her head again and begin writing down equations, I let out a sigh of relief.
Grow up big and strong, Ibelin.
Until you become the Empire’s greatest (graduate student) mage.
*****
However, even Ibelin, who understood theory with uncanny ease, struggled when it came to actual practice.
“It won’t work! It exploded again! Why can’t I produce that blue flame like you!?”
Ibelin shouted as she launched a fireball into the air.
The firepower itself was tremendous.
But it wasn’t the plasma-like flame I had shown her, with energy compressed into a narrow space.
What was the reason?
Was it because my talent was peerless?
Or was there some overpowered cheat hidden in this body that even I didn’t know about?
‘Hmm… Honestly, I don’t really know either.’
But there was one hypothesis that seemed most likely.
She was a person of this other world who had lived her entire life believing that magic was the resonance of the soul.
Trying to imitate it using only images and instinct, without a deep understanding of the formulas, caused errors at the stage of microscopic molecular control.
Scientific talent.
In other words, it was a limitation that came from a lack of foundational knowledge.
“Don’t be impatient. It’s rare for anyone to be good from the very beginning.”
“Hmph, just you watch. I’ll master it perfectly soon.”
She huffed and began gathering mana again, then seemed to remember something and stared straight at me.
“By the way, Rihan, what tier are you?”
“Tier?”
When I stupidly asked back, Ibelin began explaining as if I were pathetic.
In truth, I had a rough idea because I’d read the novel.
But hearing the explanation in real life carried a different weight.
“All mages ultimately devote themselves to magic for the purpose of Ascension. The indicator that represents that is what we call tiers.”
Ascension, huh……
If I compared it to my previous life, would it feel like reaching the end of scholarship and breaking through the singularity, the domain of God?
“Then has anyone actually succeeded in ascending? What, do they ride clouds and become immortals or something?”
“There are a few recorded in history books. Legendary figures who transcended the world. But in the current era, the one closest to Ascension is only the Great Sage Elysia.”
“What about you, my lady?”
“I’m 2nd tier. Across the entire Empire, there’s no one else my age who’s reached it.”
Ibelin puffed out her chest proudly.
It seemed it was quite the achievement.
Well, in the original novel, she had been the genius villainess who pressured the heroine with that arrogant talent of hers.
But soon, a strange doubt colored her gaze as she looked me up and down.
“But you’re really ambiguous. If I look only at your mana capacity, you’re at a rat’s-tail level that hasn’t even crossed the threshold of the 1st tier. But the efficiency and precision of the magic you show…… are on a level that even 2nd-tier mages can’t imitate. I don’t even know if that should count as a tier.”
It was an evaluation I couldn’t tell was praise or an insult.
And the part about my mana capacity being a rat’s tail was true, so I couldn’t refute it.
“Well, I’m not interested in things like tiers. I just want to live a modest, long life.”
“Don’t say something stupid. The fact that you stepped into this field means you have a desire for knowledge too. A mage’s final goal is the same. Ascension. Don’t you want that too?”
At Ibelin’s words, I gave an awkward smile.
In truth, she was right.
If I had no desire for knowledge at all, would I be insane enough to apply physics to magic in this dangerous world?
‘It’s true that I’m greedy for knowledge.’
Now that I’d already stepped into a world where great figures like the Great Sage Elysia or whatever were mentioned—
My ordinary life as a salary thief might have already sailed far, far away.