◈ Episode 71. I Cannot Stand By and Watch (2)
This was not a matter to be discussed by exchanging parchment.
Click—“I missed this fragrance.”
And yet it was not such a leisurely matter that they could sit face-to-face and exchange teacups over it, either. Formality and etiquette were this important. Marcelo savored the tea, then continued.
“You may have already guessed, but the Quirnberg Machine Tower is indeed a dwarven structure.”……
To speak of something so important as if it were only natural!
That was right—the brilliant technology woven into the Quirnberg Machine Tower.
It had been the work of dwarven hands.‘……
Is this for real.’Dwarves.
From the days when Arcana had been nothing more than a game until now.
They had been no different from beings of legend.
At the very least, there had been sightings of elves.
But when it came to information on dwarves, not even the tip of their noses had ever been seen.
-Aren’t they just gonna appear later because of balance??-Fr, if dwarven weapons started pouring out already lol-Considering the legends, that might not even be wrong???
Yes, all that had been passed down
were legends handed from mouth to mouth.
That dwarven equipment was difficult to obtain even for billions.
That the dwarves’ brilliant technology rivaled magic.
That they had been sacrificed for the sake of balance patches.……
Thinking about it now, none of it had been wrong, had it?‘The Machine Tower’s technology was comparable to the Magic Tower’s.’On top of that, Marcelo was not the sort to speak nonsense.
It seemed the Quirnberg Machine Tower truly was a dwarven structure.
“Indeed, technology of that level is not common.”
Far from having guessed it,
I had been surprised by the sudden mention of the dwarven race.
But of course, I did not show it.
Marcelo nodded and added to my words.
“The dwarves’ technology, pushed to its utmost limits, is indeed comparable to magic. Its direction merely differs from that of the Magic Tower. I can also understand their feelings as they thirst for and hone technology.”
If there were those like them, who explored magic for the sake of truth,
then there were also dwarves who pursued technology.
Marcelo’s words, as if there was something in common between them, lasted only a moment.
“May I ask what happened in the Quirnberg Machine Tower?”
A courteous question, properly formal, followed.
Pleased with that attitude, I replied.
It began with the story of the rift.
In other words, with the story of the quest.
“In that strange space, the rift, I witnessed the Arcana Continent.”
“……!”
“As you must have guessed as well, demons were running rampant.”
“Such a thing……!”
It was the reaction of someone whose fears had become reality.
Marcelo let out a sigh.
Then, with difficulty, he continued.
“I cannot raise my head. To think I can do nothing.”
The hidden story behind the Magic Tower.
I still did not know the exact circumstances.
But his current reaction made me even more certain.‘It’s clear they can’t intervene even if they want to.’Those circumstances must surely be serious.
After all, even the true authority of the Magic Tower,
the Chief Mage Marcelo, had his feet tied.
And so my motivation rose again.
Whether through a quest or whatever else,
if I could just resolve the Magic Tower’s circumstances……!‘I’ll gain an incredible ally called the Magic Tower.’It would be a truly tremendous reward.
So of course, it was not something that could be resolved right away.
Hadn’t I said so?
It was a matter that even Marcelo could not resolve,
let alone speak aloud.
As I always did,
I would simply wait magnanimously for the right time.
Click—I set down my teacup and continued.
“But I also witnessed a possibility.”
Marcelo was blaming himself.
There had also been something that could surely comfort him.
A trace of expectation appeared on Marcelo’s dry face.
“……
A possibility, you say?”
“I mean that I interfered with the Arcana Continent through the rift.”
“……!!”
Of course, there was no guarantee that I would witness the Arcana Continent
and be able to interfere with it in the next rift as well.
Well, it was not wrong, at least.
I did not forget to tell him the details regarding that, either.
“The Quirnberg Machine Tower will hunt demons as Akshan’s decisive weapon until its pride is exhausted. As much as I acknowledge the dwarves’ technology, Marcelo, you would do well to lessen your guilt, even if only a little.”
The story of Akshan naturally had to come up.‘There’s no particular reason to hide it.’And even if I wanted to hide it, could I?
In Grandfel’s dictionary, there was no such thing as an unseemly act.
Marcelo seemed to need time to think.
“……
Thank you for your kind words.”
Then again, I had poured out quite a lot of information.
Now that I thought about it, preparing tea had been an excellent choice.
Otherwise, my throat would have gone dry from all the talking.
“Oh dear.”
Click—As if he felt the same,
Marcelo picked up his empty teacup, then, realizing it, set it back down.
I spoke magnanimously.
“Would you like another cup?”
“No, I could not trouble you any further…….”
“From green tea to Solomon’s seal tea. What do you think?”
A neatly arranged collection of tea bags sat on the table.
Put another way, sale items packed with a thoroughly incorruptible taste.
Marcelo rolled his large eyes, then opened his mouth.
“……
Then I will have barley tea.”
“An excellent choice.”
“Thank you.”
“Take this tea with you as well. Its fragrance was not bad.”
“Oh dear, I have no shame. You certainly told me last time about the existence of rocket delivery. And yet I have not been prepared to accept new knowledge.”
Prepared to accept new knowledge, he said.
At most, he would need to learn how to use a smartphone.
And perhaps how to shop with a smartphone.
“I see. If you have any questions about it, ask me anytime.”
But seriously, as if it were something incredible,
telling him to ask me as much as he wished.
No matter how I thought about it,
the shamelessness was growing more excessive by the day, truly……....
The office.
Marcelo paced around his office for a long while.
His mind was in turmoil.
He could not easily sit down.
Marcelo lowered his head.
“Tower Master, what should I do?”
He knew no answer would come back.
But his head was so complicated that he felt he would burst if he did not at least speak to himself.
The situation on the Arcana Continent?
He had already suspected as much.
So the shock was not great.
The helplessness of being unable to step forward?
That, too, had not been a matter of only a day or two.
He could endure it.
Besides, there was a possibility.
A possibility of saving the Arcana Continent.
Had Hoyeol not witnessed it?
Yes, that was not why his mind was in turmoil.
“……
Akshan, of all things.”
Yes.
That name that had come from Hoyeol’s mouth, Akshan.
Complicated thoughts began to trail one after another.‘The Quirnberg Machine Tower was Akshan’s decisive weapon. A weapon of the demon hunters. And Sir Hoyeol activated that decisive weapon in order to save Arcana…….’His thoughts were finally sorted out.
What those words meant was simple.
Hoyeol was a demon hunter.
Marcelo smiled bitterly.
“……
Why do you make me owe you yet another debt?”
Akshan.
And the demon hunters.
The Magic Tower owed them a debt it could never repay.
Marcelo let out a groan.
“And not knowing that, I……!”
Completely unaware of the existence of that debt,
he had once again become indebted to Hoyeol.
It felt as though his chest were being torn apart.
A feeling distinctly different from helplessness surged within him.
Yes, this was true guilt.
Grit—Marcelo clenched his teeth.
“No, I do not even have the right to feel sorrow…….”
Akshan.
Demon hunters.
And the Holy War.
If he thought of the trials Hoyeol must have endured in the history of the past, he would not dare……. In that sense, Marcelo could not help but admire him once again.
“How can you be so composed?”
How could Hoyeol not waver?
Even if Marcelo put himself in his shoes, he could not understand it.
Marcelo looked at the tea bag in his hand.
-Take this tea with you as well. Its fragrance was not bad.
And he thought.‘……
If I had been you, Sir.’Could I have shown such mercy?
Marcelo was not confident.
He could not even fathom the size of Hoyeol’s vessel.
But one thing was certain.
“I can endure no longer, Tower Master.”
He could no longer afford to owe Hoyeol a debt.
He could not hear the Tower Master’s answer, but Marcelo was certain.
“Now that I know Sir’s origins, you too would have made the same decision as I, Tower Master.”
So he had no intention of hesitating.
The Round Table Conference, scheduled to resume.
Marcelo intended to set off a bomb at that meeting.
There was more than enough justification.
After all, thanks to Hoyeol, had they not witnessed the possibility of the rift?
Slide—Marcelo opened the drawer.
“Right now, I do not even have the right to accept mercy.”
Inside the drawer, which contained not a single object, not even dust, he placed the tea bag.
He did not know when he would open this drawer again.
But one thing was certain.
A flow unlike anything before would unfold in the Magic Tower.
Marcelo murmured in a low voice.
“The elders would do well to prepare themselves.”*The Quirnberg Machine Tower rift!
From its beginning to its clear.
Everything had flowed in a direction no one had expected.
And by “no one,” that included the AAU.
“Senior, I think I might just hand in my resignation.”
“Resignation? Why a resignation all of a sudden?”
“There’s a limit to how much a person can be harassed, seriously!”
Seong Hyeonjun felt wronged.
It was not as though the AAU was anything all that special.
That had been true back when Arcana was nothing more than a game,
when he had been one of Arcana’s developers.
“No, by common sense, how much could we possibly know?”
Arcana had been profitable even when it was merely a game.
It was only natural that information about Arcana would be worth money.
So security around content had to be thorough.
Even developers could not know everything.
Unless it was the missing CEO, Raymon Sean, perhaps…….
In any case, everyone knew that perfectly well, and yet.
“Why do they keep asking? Me, of all people!!”
Scratch, scratch—Seong Hyeonjun scratched his head.
Since he himself was suffering the pain of shared misery,
Yun Sugyeom replied indifferently.
“They’re probably all frustrated. How curious do you think they must be?”
“I don’t know either! I’m so frustrated I could die too! No matter how many times I say it, they call me from dawn…….”
“Then quit. Though you still won’t have any freedom.”
“You’re too cold, Senior. I’m hurt. So hurt.”
“If you’ve got time to complain about your lot, take a look at this.”
“What is it this time?”
“What else? Lee Hoyeol.”
“Ah, seriously! Even you, Senior?”
Lee Hoyeol.
It was a name he felt he heard more often than his own three syllables.
Rattle—Seong Hyeonjun grumbled as he pulled over his chair.
Then he saw Hoyeol’s image on the monitor.
“What, Senior, you subscribed to Park Hwigang too?”
“He makes incredible Lee Hoyeol fan movies. Anyway.”
What mattered was not that.
It was the Quirnberg Machine Tower in the background.
The mouse cursor moved about, pointing at the background.
“You can tell at a glance, right?”
“I can. It’s the Quirnberg Machine Tower. Though I don’t know what it is.”
“That’s an accurate way to put it.”
It was just as Seong Hyeonjun had said.
They knew it, but they did not know exactly what it was.
That was the limit of the AAU’s information.
Even if it made them look incompetent, it could not be helped.
“We were only supposed to use that much later, weren’t we? Originally.”
“Right. Though we didn’t know how it was going to be used either.”
“Raymon, that damn bastard, probably knew, right? That rotten……!”
“In any case, there are testimonies from players about it.”
The players’ testimonies.
Those were the messages that had appeared
at the moment the rift was cleared.[Someone has uncovered the secret of the Quirnberg Machine Tower.][The decisive weapon Quirnberg Machine Tower begins its counterattack.]
Seong Hyeonjun suddenly flared up.
“That’s right! I nearly died because of that too, you know? Of course it was Lee Hoyeol. I answered kindly when they asked, and then they said they already knew that much. No, then why did they call me? Why, exactly?!”
Why had they called?
Yun Sugyeom moved the mouse.
The mouse cursor pointed at the second line.
Seong Hyeonjun began to speak passionately again.
“That’s what I’m curious about too! I don’t even know what the Quirnberg Machine Tower is. How would I know what it’s a decisive weapon for? Senior, you know how I feel, right? Right?”
“No, not there.”
“Huh? Not the decisive weapon part?”
Looking again, the cursor was pointing to the latter part.
“……
Begins its counterattack?”
Yun Sugyeom said meaningfully.
“System messages don’t lie. That’s a promise of sorts.”
“That’s true, isn’t it?”
“So that message must be true as well.”
Counterattack begins.
Seong Hyeonjun read the message over and over, then flinched.
“……
Wait, senior. If it says the counterattack is beginning?”
“That’s right. It means the counterattack has begun not in the reality we’re in, but on the Arcana Continent, where the Quirnberg Mechanical Tower exists. Hyeonjun, you know what that means, don’t you?”
“O-of course I do!!”
The state of the Arcana Continent?
He couldn’t witness it, but he could imagine.
Time flowed four times faster there than in reality.
Which meant the growth rate and forces of the demon monsters were expanding even faster than the passage of time itself.
Just by looking at fallen Frost, he could tell that hypothesis wasn’t wrong.
So.
Seong Hyeonjun cautiously opened his mouth.
“If the system message isn’t wrong……”
“On the Arcana Continent, which must be close to a living hell. A meaningful counterattack has begun, one even the system has no choice but to acknowledge. Someone in that message. Yes, thanks to Lee Hoyeol uncovering the secret of the Quirnberg Mechanical Tower.”
“……
Senior. Isn’t this a really big deal?!”
“Yeah, it’s a really big deal.”
Perhaps what Hoyeol had accomplished just now was none other than—
“Humanity’s first counterattack against this damn situation.”
And not only in reality, but on the Arcana Continent as well.
It would be the first counterattack across both worlds.
Even if the world didn’t know that fact yet.
Hoyeol, the person involved, surely did.
In that sense, the two of them couldn’t help but be amazed.
“If it were me, I’d be shouting it all over the neighborhood……”
Shake, shake.
“No, what am I saying, the neighborhood? I’d be bragging to the whole world! Seriously, isn’t Lee Hoyeol’s character one of a kind? Sometimes he seems like an attention seeker, and other times……”
“Hyeonjun. I saw people on the internet call that sort of thing blasphemy.”
“……
Huh? Blasphemy, even?!”
“Yeah. Do you think the word Homen came about for no reason?”
“Man, I can’t even make a proper joke about Mr. Lee Hoyeol. Seriously.”
Seong Hyeonjun sighed, then glanced sidelong at Yun Sugyeom.
“……
Don’t tell me, senior, you’re one of those too, are you?”
Yun Sugyeom playfully raised the end of his words.
“Homen?”
“Ah, seniorrrr!!”*……
My ears are itching terribly.
If I had my way, I would have dug a finger into them.
But I couldn’t.
Click—decorum that knew the proper time and place.
For I had just set foot inside Frost’s main castle.
Yes, it was to check the [Authority] function that had been activated thanks to my relationship and influence in Frost reaching their maximum.