When I woke in the morning and looked out the window, the first snow of the year was falling.
It was a little late, but only now did it truly feel as if winter had arrived.
A few days ago, something rather startling had happened.
I had sent Cassian into the city on an errand to buy some things we needed, but he had not returned until so late that I began waiting in worry, wondering if something had happened to him.
Only deep in the night, when everyone else was asleep, did he finally come back, looking utterly ragged.
Who knew where the clothes he had been wearing had gone; he had returned draped in rags that looked ready to tear apart at any moment.
And on top of that, he had brought Rutina with him, who had been nowhere to be seen that day, as if she had hidden herself somewhere.
From what I heard, Rutina had apparently crawled into his backpack without him noticing, and he had carried her out just like that.
No wonder I hadn’t been able to find her anywhere in the house.
The problem was that Rutina’s wing had been bent in a strange direction, looking terrible even at a glance.
As I treated Rutina’s wing and asked what on earth had happened, Cassian answered that he had been captured for a while by something like a band of thieves.
He said he had been ambushed while wandering near the slums, but in any case, it was fortunate that he had returned safely.
Thanks to that, it was also very good that Rutina had now completely taken to Cassian.
Of course, I did have to scold him a little for falling for such a stupid trick and getting ambushed, but that was a matter for later.
Meanwhile, Chloe and I also went and cleaned up the band of thieves that Cassian had been unable to deal with properly because he had returned in such a hurry.
We freed all the people who had been captured, and handed every surviving thief over to the guards.
More than half of them had died from excessive bleeding after being pierced by sharp spears, but what did that have to do with me?
If one intended to harm others, one had to be prepared for the same to happen to oneself.
◇
With the heavy snow falling outside the window as my backdrop, I was reading a book while drinking warm tea.
It was a mystery novel about two thousand years old, and the trick, which showed off the author’s creativity, was entertaining.
While I was absorbed in reading, Chloe opened the door and came in, holding several scrolls imbued with mana in her arms.
“Master, now that I think about it, it’s about time for maintenance.”
“Maintenance?”
“The barrier, the barrier. So, Master, could you take a look with me? You never know if I might miss something on my own.”
By barrier, she meant the spatial distortion barrier surrounding this house.
Naturally, a barrier on this scale could not be used forever without any measures taken, so maintenance was necessary at least once every several decades.
“And how about bringing Cassian and Iliana too? You’re going to teach them anyway, aren’t you?”
“That’s true, but it’s still too early.”
“You can use it whenever you like, but even you can’t use it without any concerns, can you, Master? It’d be good for them to see it once while they have the chance.”
Thinking about it, she had a point.
They probably would not understand what was what by looking at it now, but the speed of understanding was bound to differ between something one had seen before and something one was seeing for the first time.
If I was going to show it to them someday anyway, it did not seem bad to show it to them now, when I could do so without worrying about side effects.
I nodded, then called Cassian and Iliana, who had been playing outside with Rutina while Chloe prepared to go down.
The core of the barrier was beneath this house.
And the passage leading down to that basement was connected to Chloe’s study.
When Chloe infused mana into the third book from the right on the top shelf, one wall of the study opened to either side, revealing a staircase leading downward.
“Wow……”
“I’ve always wondered, but why did you make something this pointless? No one comes here anyway.”
“Because it’s cool.”
In other words, it was romance.
Mm. If it was cool, then there was nothing to be done.
Accepting that, we descended the stairs leading to the barrier.
After going down nearly three hundred steps and opening the tightly shut iron door at the end, we were able to see the core of the barrier with our own eyes.
A magic circle written in an incomprehensible language, unlike ordinary magic circles.
Three metal pillars marked with bizarre lines whose purpose was impossible to guess.
And finally, in the center of the room, a round blue sphere floating in midair, releasing an immense amount of mana.
Cassian and Iliana moved their gazes here and there with blank expressions, trying to understand the structure.
But naturally, the techniques were still far too difficult for the two of them to comprehend.
“W-what is all this?”
“This is the core. You see those pillars over there? They cause mana resonance between them and amplify the output, and this over here is……”
“I don’t really understand even when I look at it……”
“It’s fine if you don’t. For now, just try taking a look around.”
After saying that, I walked around the room with Chloe, checking to see if anything was damaged.
Since the amount of mana being consumed was so great, it would not have been strange for natural deformation to occur in the barrier without our knowledge.
Fortunately, however, from what we could see, there did not seem to be any significant change from when it was first set up.
I checked it carefully once more, confirmed again that there was no problem, and then returned to Cassian and Iliana.
They still wore expressions that said they had no idea what in the world was going on, but even so, it was pleasant to see them trying to figure something out.
Well, I had no intention of teaching them right away, so they did not need to try quite that hard.
“Now then. What kind of barrier did I say this was?”
“Uh, I’m sure you said it did something to space……”
“That’s right. It’s a structure that twists space and completely isolates the inside from the outside.”
For example, if one point on a sphere and the point directly opposite it were connected spatially, then when you placed your finger on that point, it would protrude from the opposite side of the sphere.
If the entire surface of the sphere were covered in that way, the sphere would certainly exist, but it would become impossible to touch.
Similar to that, the main principle of this barrier was to wrap the forest in a spherical shape, connect one side to the opposite side, and isolate the interior.
“Well, you don’t need to understand the principle yet. The reason I brought you here is because I wanted to show you spatial magic.”
“Spatial magic……”
“I’m going to teach it to you someday, so I brought you here to at least show you how mana is manipulated.”
Spatial magic was an extremely useful form of magic.
If one became able to use it freely, one could twist space, ignore distance, and launch attacks from zero range.
Or, though it required an extremely high degree of control, even teleportation was entirely possible.
Even the defensive magic I used when I became the slightest bit serious worked by twisting space and sending attacks flying beyond the dimension.
However, if there was just one problem—
“As you can see, it’s ridiculously difficult. So for now, just watch and try to get even a rough sense of how the mana is used.”
“……The control is absurd. Are you sure a human can use this?”
“Of course. Chloe here used it back when she was still an ordinary human.”
Not only Chloe, but nearly all the children among my disciples who grew into mages knew how to use spatial magic.
Some of them had not even reached the level of an archmage.
In other words, while it was extremely difficult, it was not magic beyond human imitation.
At least, not if they had a master like me to point them in the right direction.
At that moment, Chloe cut in and added a word.
“Though there is the minor problem that the Church has designated spatial magic as a whole to be taboo.”
“……What?”
It was just as Chloe said.
If one was caught researching it privately, or if by any chance an inquisitor saw one using it, one could be summarily executed on the spot under the pretext of divine punishment.
And if the scale was a little larger, even nations were no exception.
Though it had happened quite a long time ago, there had even been a country powerful enough to be called a great nation that was erased from the records simply because it had attempted to research spatial magic.
“Are you sure that’s all right?”
Cassian asked, looking at me, and I gave a slight shrug as if it were no particular problem before answering.
“You just need to become strong enough that the Church can’t touch you.”
Even Chloe, for instance, was under the watch of the Divine Council, but she was living perfectly well without a care.
Even if they knew, nothing good would come of touching her, so they were pretending not to notice and letting it pass.
However, after hearing my answer, Cassian’s expression was filled with nothing but disbelief.
His face said, How are we supposed to do that against an armed group powerful enough to annihilate a nation?
Well, in a few years, he would understand what I meant.