“I will purchase the stat ‘Mana’ for 1,100 pts.”
“The stat ‘Mana’ has increased by +110.”
The unreal phenomenon of mana suddenly swelling around his Circle.
A mysterious sensation that could only be called the power of a god.
Whatever the case, it felt good.
After all, more mana than the First and Second Circles combined had appeared all at once.
The Third Circle should be enough now.
- Heh heh heh. At last, I get to visit the imperial palace library.
For a slightly different reason, Purnel also seemed to be in a good mood.
He had received permission from Sylvia to enter the imperial palace library.
He was the emperor’s benefactor, holding the most honorable position in the empire as a guardian knight.
Well, he was friends with the emperor to begin with, so where could he possibly not go?
Still, official procedures had to be followed.
“You wanted to go to the imperial palace library that badly?”
- Of course. I do not know about anywhere else, but there, all history should be recorded accurately. Without the slightest exaggeration or falsehood.
The reason Purnel had been going on and on about the imperial palace library.
- Is it not strange how little is known about the Abyss and the war?
Because every piece of history should be recorded and preserved there exactly as it had happened.
They were going there to confirm the reason.
- Do you think only mages took part in the war? At the time, it was the golden age of magic, so they did play a large role, but all humans and even other races joined forces to fight.
And yet, in the present age, no one remembers that.
Dragons? Fairies? Elves? Spirits?
Hadn’t they become races that barely appeared even in fairy tales?
The war had become something that had never happened, and there was no one left who remembered their sacrifices.
- It feels different from the loss of magic. Magic may be impossible to learn now, but at least its records have been passed down.
Of course, because this was a world where magic could not be learned, people’s perception of mages had become closer to swindlers or clowns, but they still remembered them, and records still existed.
But nothing about the war had been passed down at all.
Hio found that strange as well.
In the game, there had been no way to learn that kind of backstory.
Because there was a limit to a world seen through a monitor.
Even by the moment the encroaching abyss could no longer be endured and everything they had built collapsed, not much had been uncovered about this phenomenon.
In truth, no one had really tried that hard to find out.
Because it had been a game.
But now, he had to find out, and he had to be curious.
Because this was reality.
And so, Hio headed for the imperial palace library.
He showed his pass to the guard and entered the spacious interior.
A high ceiling, and beneath it, countless books.
Traces accumulated over a thousand years.
It was a tomb of history, made possible because it had never once allowed an invasion from the outside.
“But this can’t be all of it.”
- I agree.
The age before the war.
The empire had existed since an age when dragons breathed fire and brilliant magic was taken for granted.
Could the imperial palace library built in such an era be nothing more than this?
Even without anyone explaining it, finding the way to the lower level was simple enough.
Mana stones were naturally embedded as if they were decorations.
If one followed the faint flow of mana streaming from them, a path naturally appeared.
When he placed his pass against that spot,
the empty floor smoothly opened to both sides, revealing stairs leading downward.
- They do not even know what principle makes it work, yet they have maintained it well.
A secret staircase that opened smoothly.
Mana stones that seemed to have been replaced regularly.
It was precisely because it appeared so well maintained, as expected of the imperial palace, that it was even more perplexing.
It would be one thing if the method of entry itself had been completely lost.
But the fact that it was maintained and people entered it, yet the war of the past remained unknown, was what made it strange.
Holding on to that question, he descended the broad stairs.
The space was clearly narrower than the floor above.
But the books here were the real thing.
[Finon-Style Swordsmanship Manual]
[Secret Swordsmanship Manual of the Videlue Family]
[Barberi-Style Qi Training Method]
[Parmenion-Style Fist Manual]
[Secret Spearmanship Manual of the Gerbus Family]
Starting with martial arts books that looked extraordinary at a glance.
[Grimoire - Ring of Fire]
[Grimoire - Rain of Ice]
[German Babel - The Future and Improvement of Gravity Magic]
There were also a small number of grimoires and theses related to magic.
- There is no need to covet the grimoires too much. They do not look particularly special. Before coming here, they would already have been inspected at the Magic Tower and then sent to the imperial palace, so I suppose that is only natural.
At Purnel’s words that everything here would be in the Magic Tower anyway, Hio cleanly gave up any lingering attachment to the grimoires.
No matter how much it was called a thousand-year empire, when it came to magic, it could only be beneath the Magic Tower.
After all, the Tetradia Magic Tower possessed absolute magical authority, regardless of nation.
In the end, what he had to look for here were history books.
[Gumak Commercial Kingdom, Volume I]
[Gumak Commercial Kingdom, Volume II]
[Yeollijeon Eastern Alliance, Volume I]
[Yeollijeon Eastern Alliance, Volume II]
[Yeollijeon Eastern Alliance, Volume III]
...
History books occupied the largest portion.
From kingdoms of the distant past that had never been revealed in the game to the names of nations that still maintained their existence.
History books recording the rise and fall of ancient kingdoms.
- Oho... As expected, the empire was deeply involved in the politics of other nations. And they had pretended otherwise with such a straight face.
There were all sorts of things besides histories of nations.
Detailed writings about important families.
Various secret histories that had taken place within the empire.
Secret records of the imperial family, and so on.
Among those things, he found one book that stood out.
[Struggle Against the Anomalies]
A single book buried among countless history books.
Because he could immediately tell what the anomalies written in the title referred to, he hurriedly pulled the book out.
It was thinner than he had expected.
He read down through the contents written in neat handwriting.
- 1005: Eastern Taulin County, Wadad County, Nuits Viscounty. Consumed by the anomalies.
- 1006: Western city of Keilot, city of Ideneye, Rabel County. Consumed by the anomalies.
- 1007: Emperor Perdicas Verden issues the order to assemble. Official declaration of war against the anomalies.
- 1008: Superhuman Graf Markov, Superhuman Felipe Diosoti, Superhuman Harke Ruad, High Mage Pascal Cardon, High Mage Hamilka Saint-André. Decision made to dispatch them to major anomalous regions.
...
He continued reading... but something was strange.
Wasn’t the beginning too abrupt?
There was no record of what the anomalies were. When and how they had begun.
For now, he roughly read through and flipped through a few of the later pages, but...
“This is... the end?”
It was too short.
And the truly important contents were nowhere to be seen.
- ......Ha.
Purnel let out a hollow laugh.
And at the same time, Hio also realized the cause of that strange feeling.
- This is...
Marks so fine that they were hard to notice without looking closely.
- Are these not traces of someone tearing them out?
No wonder the beginning had felt abrupt.
The thickness was too thin. The contents between sections were strangely empty.
Someone had deliberately torn pages from the book.
They had concealed its contents.
- The others, hurry and check the other books as well!
He put the book down and began searching through the others again.
[Oracles of the Ripyue Order]
A book in which the order’s oracles had been recorded year by year.
It was the same.
Only the oracles from the period of the war against the Abyss had all been torn out.
[Oracles of the Syureudin Order]
[Oracles of the Venus Order]
[Oracles of the Mercurius Order]
......All of them were the same.
Only the contents of the oracles from that exact period were all missing.
They had not gone unrecorded.
They had been torn out.
And they had been torn out so naturally that it would not be noticeable unless one looked closely and paid attention.
- Look... just a little more.
He rummaged through them for a long while... but everything was the same.
All records from that period had been erased by someone.
There was not even a single mention of other races, nor were there any books related to them.
At that point, there was nothing he could do except speculate that it had gone beyond simply tearing them out, and that they had been removed entirely...
- ......Let us go back.
In the end, they obtained nothing.
All they gained from the imperial palace library was an unpleasant feeling.
* * *
- If they reached even this far, then related records cannot be found within the empire, at the very least.
Someone had entered what could be called the deepest heart of the empire and specifically torn out only records related to the Abyss and other races.
“What could be the reason?”
- Who knows... Honestly, at this point, I cannot even guess. Since I became a ghost from the middle of the war onward, I have too little information.
“Tsk. Nothing we can do about it.”
He could not even guess who had done it, or for what reason.
And as for the emptied records of those days, if they were not in the imperial palace library, there was no way to learn about them immediately.
“Then I guess it’s about time to leave.”
His business at the imperial palace had ended with the library.
He had drawn out Sylvia’s energy using Kkingkkingi, and with Theordo beside her, there was no longer any need to worry... and in an emergency, he should be able to contact her through Theordo.
It was time to leave the imperial palace.
- Where are you thinking of going?
At Purnel’s question, Hio grinned.
His destination had already been decided.
“I should go meet Sirbert.”
The process of meeting him had taken far too long.
When they had met on Earth, Hio had said he would come find him soon.
Too much had happened in the meantime.
Berga’s death. The Tetradia Magic Tower. He had met Purnel and learned proper magic... and even met Sylvia and made her emperor.
Only after going through all of that had he finally arrived.
Imenia Academy.
And if Hio’s prediction was correct,
“The mage’s house should be hidden there.”
A portal that could lead to the Tetradia Magic Tower should be somewhere in Imenia Academy.
His immediate plan was to meet Sirbert, talk with him, find the mage’s house hidden underground, and head to the Magic Tower.
“When I go to the Magic Tower this time, I’ll have to stay there for quite a while.”
Because he had been fighting a civil war, magic training had inevitably been pushed to the back burner.
If there was a portal at the academy as expected, and he could go to the Magic Tower, he intended to invest the time and properly learn Third Circle magic.
- A good decision. I will finally be able to meet the other me in the Magic Tower after so long. Heh heh heh.
* * *
Imenia Public Academy.
An academy boasting grounds so vast they could be called a city of their own, as well as a long history.
Talented sprouts dream of attending Imenia, and those whose abilities have already been proven consider it an honor to become professors there.
That was why it had established itself as one of the empire’s enormous and important institutions.
The training of skill users and knights.
The strengthening of connections among the talented individuals who would lead the empire’s future.
The social gatherings held within. Invisible political struggles. Grudges between families... and so on.
In any case, Imenia was a complicated place in many ways, and remarkable to that same degree.
“Just because abilities are similar does not mean they are the same skill. The most important thing is to accurately determine the effects of the skill you possess.”
Sirbert, a full professor at that academy.
“Once you have determined its precise effects, the next step is to identify the traits you possess. Skill and trait. You must be able to separate these two.”
His lectures were quite popular.
He had a neat appearance and a similarly tidy personality, making his lectures easy to understand.
Furthermore, unlike other professors in the Skill Department who stupidly insisted only on practical combat, he had established his own theory, and the abilities of students who actually attended his lectures had improved by leaps and bounds.
Was that all?
He had even proven his own strength.
At least among the students attending Imenia, there would be no one who did not know Sirbert’s strength.
He had achieved the unbelievable feat of annihilating an orc settlement, an old headache of the western Lugo region, in half a day.
And for that, he had even received the title of Master of Telekinesis from the imperial family. That was Professor Sirbert.
Naturally, his lectures were always packed with students.
“In order to smoothly strengthen the skill you possess, you must clearly understand what your skill is, what your innate traits are, and what kind of synergy exists between them.”
The lecture hall was filled to capacity.
Countless gazes were focused on the famous professor Sirbert.
Within them, Sirbert’s voice rang out calmly.
“As for methods to clearly identify your own skill...”
Just as Sirbert was continuing his lecture, the door to the large lecture hall suddenly opened carefully.
“Um... Professor Sirbert.”
At the appearance of Assistant Professor Hopen, everyone in the lecture hall turned their eyes toward him.
“I think you need to step out for a moment.”
At those words, Sirbert’s brow narrowed.
Had Hopen ever barged in like this during a lecture?
He should know well that Sirbert hated being interrupted.
Because of that, Sirbert headed toward Hopen with a sense of suspicion.
Only after stepping into the hallway and closing the lecture hall door did Hopen explain the reason.
“Um... someone has come looking for you, Professor, so I think you should go see them as soon as the lecture ends.”
At last, Sirbert’s expression crumpled sharply.
“You interrupted my lecture and called me out just to say that?”
“No, it’s just that the person who came looking for you has the imperial guardian knight medal.”
“Guardian knight medal?”
A certain figure reflexively came to mind.
When one said guardian knight, one thought of the Sword Saint.
When one said Sword Saint, one thought of the guardian knight.
That was already a perception ingrained in everyone like a concept from long ago, so Sirbert’s question was only natural.
Hopen shook his head with an awkward expression.
“It’s definitely... the guardian knight medal of His Majesty the Emperor, symbol of the empire, but it isn’t the Sword Saint. It’s someone else.”
“Someone else has that? Who?”
“Well...”
Hopen trailed off.
He himself did not know what to say and was searching for words.
And at the word he finally managed to come up with,
“He seems like... a clown?”
Sirbert was so dumbfounded that he was left speechless.