The outside and inside of the barrier were clearly divided.
I looked with the eyes of “Comprehension,” but the efficiency of “understanding” something without any surrounding information was not particularly good.
“......”
I simply walked into the barrier. The small membrane denying entry was torn apart with my staff.
The interior of the barrier was acrid and dark. Everything around me was dizzying, as though stained by red light.
—Everyone, calm down.
A voice came from somewhere. I moved toward it. Passing through the dormitory corridor, I reached the first-floor hall.
The children were gathered under the guidance of the dorm supervisor.
“Professor!”
Someone spotted me and shouted. They looked as though they had found a savior, but I could not respond kindly.
The dense demonic energy within the barrier was grating on my nerves.
“We’re saved! Professor, what do we do now—”
“Shut your mouths.”
The area that had been about to grow noisy instantly sank into silence.
I looked at the dorm supervisor.
Pointed glasses. Wrinkles in her clothes. Dust on her shoulders. Torn fingernails.
I examined the other students as well.
A strand of robe. The creases that formed their expressions. The reflection in their pupils...... I took in every trivial clue.
“Is this everyone?”
“There still seem to be people upstairs.”
The dorm supervisor said. I took the woodsteel from my briefcase.
Ten woodsteel shuriken floated up with a whoosh and shot up the stairs toward the upper floors of the dormitory, while the remaining ten descended into the basement.
“......”
With my eyes closed, I listened to the resonance of the steel.
This was purely the bonus of my “attribute.” As one talented in fire, earth, and metal, it was a special function I had awakened through communion with my cherished possession.
———.
The woodsteel climbed the stairs, darted through each floor, and resonated with me, conveying the presence of human bodies.
At the same time, any strange life-form that was not human was mercilessly torn apart.
As a result, four people were detected by the radar: one on the fifth floor, one on the sixth, one on the ninth, and one on the tenth.
I manipulated the woodsteel to guide the survivors.
—W-what is this? What are you?
—Is it telling us to follow?
—N-no. There’s a monster outside......
They hesitated at first, but I placed my voice within it.
“Follow it.”
The woodsteel vibrated in a special way, creating a “frequency” and delivering my voice to them. Once they heard it, they immediately followed the woodsteel down the stairs.
“......Uwaaaaaah!”
Soon, after escaping to the first floor, they collapsed onto the floor as if falling and gasped for breath. The dorm supervisor tended to them.
The dorm supervisor asked,
“Can we get out now?”
“It is a well-made barrier. Easy to enter, difficult to escape. Since demonic energy was used, it will be twice as troublesome as an ordinary barrier.”
It was possible to dismantle it through calculation and computation. If I could observe the barrier’s “core” with the “Naked Eye,” I could delete it immediately.
However, it would require a long time. The mages already poisoned by demonic energy would not be able to endure that long.
“Then......”
“Shh.”
I placed my index finger against my lips.
Everyone in the area froze. In that silence, I looked over the mages in robes. I examined their condition and attire in detail.
The activation of a barrier is not accomplished by the spell formula alone.
There must be a “caster” who flipped that switch.
“......”
There were no clues on their exteriors, and that made the disguise all the more perfect, but...... I activated “Psychokinesis.”
With “Psychokinesis,” I stirred their hair.
“Hmph.”
A snort. The corner of my mouth twisted. My brow narrowed with a sudden surge of contempt.
I approached someone.
“A person’s body accumulates their own history. Especially, even if one hides their appearance and origin, that ‘passage of time’ cannot be forgotten. No matter how much time passes, it remains deep within the body.”
The dorm supervisor. I reached out and touched her hair.
“From your hair...... ‘ash’ is flowing.”
Traces of ash that had reacted to “Psychokinesis” came off from her hair.
“Now, did you come from living in a pile of volcanoes? One from the ‘Ashes.’”
Everyone turned to look at her with wide, startled eyes.
“......”
She, who had been still, silently pushed up her glasses.
Then, she peeled off the skin of her face.
I was inwardly surprised without showing it. As expected, the mastermind of this main quest was a named character.
“A fine deduction, but does knowing that change anything? No, do you know?”
Her mouth smiled, but her eyes glared sharply at me.
“Those from the Ashes are killing every last bastard who calls them Ashes.”
I silently listened to those words.
No—I forcibly suppressed the anger rising within me. A blue vein stood out near my neck. My mouth swelled with curses.
It was a side effect of the demonic energy.
“So, you deserve to die......”
Muttering that, the bastard activated mana.
Gooooooo......
A majestic mana rose from the ground, but that was all. I glared at his spell formula and turned on the switch of “Comprehension.”
......In an instant, my field of vision broadened, and the entire world revealed itself clearly.
The mana flowing through my mind accelerated my thoughts and amplified my computations.
Time seemed to slow infinitely.
The exaltation of my trait heated my entire body with a tingling sensation......
“Die......?”
I grasped the magic he was about to activate in a single instant.
Since its core circuit was visible with the “Naked Eye,” I interfered with it through “Comprehension” and dismantled it.
Tzzzzzzzt—!
The result of the magic he had worked so hard to form was nothing more than a single spark.
“You crazy bastard!”
He immediately attempted another spell.
I dismantled even that just by looking.
This time, it was only a snowball.
“What the fuck?”
Of course, this process consumed mana like mad, but at a similar rate, I absorbed the demonic energy from outside as mana.
“......”
The bastard kept trying, and I kept dismantling.
I wore a sneer.
Inside a barrier this thick with demonic energy, the combination of “Comprehension” and “Naked Eye” allowed me to directly observe and interfere with nearly all magic......
In the end, the bastard gave up on constructing spells first.
“......This is why.”
I spoke as I approached the silent bastard.
“You are called Ashes.”
I spat out each syllable, slowly and clearly, as though chewing on it.
“Trash worse than filth. Vermin rejected by society. Maggots whose composition is too lacking to be called human, and who lack even the slightest shred of charm to be called beasts.”
The bastard glared straight at me. I raised a finger and placed it between his brows. The magical condensation twisting behind his back was immediately cut off.
“Your only talent is wriggling, and your lowly, filthy foundation has no room for salvation.”
“......Ha. You have quite a way with words. If you’re so great, why don’t you dismantle the barrier before the kids die? Or can’t you do that?”
The bastard looked up at me with a mocking laugh.
“Then now, I shall tell you the error of your deficient brain.”
I did not avoid his gaze. I answered it with even greater contempt.
“You were so endlessly foolish and dull that you devoted the barrier not to space, but to the building.”
Ten of the woodsteel pieces had rescued the survivors, but the other ten had instead descended.
Those ten pieces were currently attached to the core supports of the dormitory’s steel frame. They had drilled into the underground bedrock and clung to the pillars supporting the entire building.
“That fact itself means your intelligence is remarkably lacking.”
The woodsteel generated heat in the core of the steel frame.
Furthermore, steel heated to high temperatures was in itself suitable to be called explosive powder.
The bastard belatedly understood my meaning and asked back,
“......Are you desperate to die? You’re saying you’ll destroy the building to nullify the barrier?”
I let out a heated sigh. Some flaw of character boiled up from the bottom of my chest. I lowered my head slightly and brought it to his ear.
—Al Los.
The bastard’s shoulders trembled.
—Do not think I do not know you.
I stepped back again. The bastard was glaring at me with wide eyes.
“It means you should look at your opponent before you come at them.”
......At that moment, the woodsteel underground had grown hot enough to scorch the pillars.
Before long, flames would blaze up, and at that instant, my “Firepower Control” would activate.
————!
A tremor arose. It was a detonation caused by the instantly amplified firepower mixing with the woodsteel.
What followed was truly only an instant.
Collapse following the blasting.
Having lost its core, the building sank straight down with a cloud of dust. The barrier that had consumed the building was also dismantled along with its structure.
Kwa-gwa-gwa-gwa-gwang......
In the pandemonium of shattered debris pouring down like rain, I calmly looked down at the bastard.
“It is time for you to return to your true body.”
“......!”
At that moment, the bastard showed even greater surprise than when I had spoken his name.
But soon, my woodsteel pierced his throat, and as the light vanished from his pupils, he transformed into a mannequin.
A kind of “specialized magic” that can manifest when manipulation and harmony systems are taken to their extremes—
Puppetry.
Al Los’s signature.
Kyaaaaaaaak—!
The mages screamed. I twisted my head slightly and looked behind me. The lights had shattered, and darkness had dyed everything around us, but there were no casualties.
There could not have been.
Cough, cough.
There was only coughing caused by the dust.
All of them were under the protection of my “Psychokinesis.”
* * *
Epherene was being detained outside the barrier. Julia and the professors had practically forced her to stay back when she insisted on entering herself.
“Uh, uh, uh! It’s collapsing!”
Someone shouted then. Epherene opened her eyes wide and witnessed the sight.
————!
The entirety of Dormitory Building 3 was collapsing.
The explosion itself was clean. Without fragments of the steel frame flying out, it simply sank straight down. Then a massive cloud of dust spread thickly.
It was a blast that occurred in the blink of an eye.
Belatedly, the knights rushed over. They immediately entered beyond the dust cloud.
However, before they could charge in in earnest, a human presence arose. They retreated for a moment with their swords in hand.
“......?!”
Deculein.
He was walking out.
Emerging unharmed from the heaps of wreckage and fragments, he was with the victims.
“Are you all right!”
To the knights who crowded around him, Deculein handed over the mages and brushed the dust from his body.
“Do your work.”
“Yes, sir!”
......And as he was about to leave.
He felt the gazes of the professors watching from afar.
He approached them.
There were still a few words he had yet to say.
“Honestly...... for those who call themselves professors of the Magic Tower, to shrink back like this in fear of one measly barrier you know nothing about.”
The professors could not bring themselves to meet his openly contemptuous gaze.
“It was utterly pathetic. Reflect on yourselves. Be ashamed.”
He glared at them with rightful loathing, then left the place.
“Profe—ugh!”
“Professor.”
At that moment, someone approached him. At first there were two, but Sylvia flung one of them far away.
“Are you all right?”
A voice without intonation or pitch. A tone stable by its very nature.
“......This is a dangerous place. Stand back.”
He only lightly patted her shoulder before passing by.
Because he had overused demonic energy, the mental fatigue was tremendous.
......
After midnight, once the entire situation had been resolved.
“Is he strong?”
Someone asked from a bench not far away. Al Los nodded.
“Far stronger than expected.”
“Is he not a hothouse flower?”
“For a flower, he was a bastard with plenty of force. Especially the way he talked, and the way those eyes of his glared.”
She answered that way and swept back her long hair. She tried to pass it off as nothing, but the heat that rose belatedly warmed her face.
“What should we be wary of?”
“His mind was exceptional. Every spell I tried to use was dismantled, and he saw through the fact that it was a doll. I couldn’t carelessly attempt hand-to-hand combat either. Even at a glance, his body was solid.”
“We will have to be cautious. The work?”
“Only partly successful.”
The objective had been to absorb life force through a barrier of demonic energy.
Mages were excellent materials for making dolls, so the plan was to liquefy and absorb their vital essence and mana, then pass it off as the work of a demon.
“This is all we got.”
Al Los pointed to the liquid sloshing inside the bottle. It was a woefully insufficient amount.
Someone answered in a heavy voice.
“……The path of faith is as difficult as this. To think even saving that trifling flesh would be obstructed so.”
The slogans they always had on their lips.
Faith (信仰). And seeking the Way (求道).
Al Los barely held back his laughter.
Pitiful bastards chasing after a god already dead. The resurrection of a god was nothing but a fantasy that could never come to pass, yet these fanatics never tired of struggling desperately for it.
“Next is Marik, Al Los.”
“I know.”
But for now, their goal and his were the same, so there was no need to throw cold water on things and earn their hatred.
“Hmm.”
Al Los merely sank into thought.
Deculein.
That head professor bastard had been more difficult than expected. His skill had far exceeded all predictions.
No, that mysterious mana interference and dismantling was practically close to a divine technique……
“Is there even anyone who can complete a spell in front of him?”
Was his very existence the antithesis (Antithese) of a mage?
Even if Al Los had been in the state of a doll……
The celebrity of the Ashes frowned, troubled by such concerns.
* * *
The next day.
I sat in the chair in my mansion’s study and closed my eyes. A system window appeared over my darkened eyelids.
◆ Memorize Status
: Beginner Psychokinesis
┏Basic Firepower Control
┣Basic Fluid Manipulation
┗Metal Reinforcement (Progress 33%)
It was a form of “visualization.”
I saw the 「Psychokinesis」 inside my body with 「Vision」. Numerous spells, including 「Metal Reinforcement」, 「Firepower Control」, and 「Fluid Manipulation」, had clung to the formula of 「Psychokinesis」.
After organizing the traffic of that circuit, I refined it a little more cleanly.
“……”
The pain felt as if it were crushing my entire body, but it was bearable.
After enduring that agony for about thirty minutes, I slowly opened my eyes.
Suddenly, last night’s main quest came to mind.
“Al Los…… should I consider him a villain?”
My current foremost objective was to clear the main quest.
Whether the result of clearing it was returning to Earth or something else, it did not matter much right now.
In any case, I had no family waiting for me on Earth, and if I failed to clear it, this entire world, myself included, would be destroyed. There was no other option.
However, in order to clear that main quest more easily—in other words, to lower the difficulty—a good named character had to grow stronger, or an evil named character had to die.
Until now, I had focused only on the former, but I now realized the latter was also a competitive method in its own way. ……It was thanks to certain memories I had grasped from Deculein’s diary.
—Master. The Public Security Bureau has come.
Roy suddenly knocked on the study door.
The Public Security Bureau—was it because of last night’s incident?
I rose from my seat and went down to the first floor. At the entrance on the first floor, a familiar face was already waiting for me.
“It has been a while.”
Deputy Director of Public Security Yurine Primien. Her navy-blue hair tied back like a horse’s tail, she bowed expressionlessly.
“What is it?”
“Have you heard the news that Lord Ruina has gone missing?”
“……”
Missing? At those incomprehensible words, I shook my head.
“I have not.”
“Since you have now heard it, I will ask. We have received news of the disappearance, and at present, as a suspect—”
“……Do you suspect me?”
“No. It is merely an investigation. Given who the missing person is.”
“Yurine Primien. Know who it is you are dealing with right now.”
Being suspected did not feel pleasant in the slightest. I was genuinely angry.
Even so, Yurine continued calmly.
“I will say it again, this is not suspicion. It is simply because there is a high possibility that Professor Deculein was the last witness. Lord Ruina disappeared immediately after leaving the Imperial Palace.”
“……”
I quietly recalled the events of that day.
The road back by car. As I looked out the window, darkness settled for an instant amid the passing scenery. I thought it was the work of mana, but it was the shade of a tree. When I looked at the rearview mirror afterward, Ruina’s car, which had been following behind, had vanished……
Wait.
Was it truly the shade of a tree?
Could it be that I failed to notice it because I had been magically exhausted at the time?
“It seems you have none. Thank you for your cooperation.”
Yurine nodded and put away her notebook. I stared intently at her back as she walked out through the garden with her staff.
I returned to the study.
“……!”
However, a trace of mana that had not been there just a moment ago was wavering atop the desk.
I immediately interpreted the sentence.
「We are still following your orders.」
At that moment, a certain ominous thought flashed through my mind like lightning.