46. Old Story (4)
9-Class.
The pinnacle of magic.
The supreme realm.
The limit of humanity.
This realm, whose very resonance was different, was not something that could be judged merely by a number.
An ordinary person who knew nothing might foolishly say, “Isn’t 9-Class just what comes after 8-Class?”
But not at all.
There existed a vast, undeniable wall between 8-Class and 9-Class.
To put the difference in their magical level bluntly, it was equal to the gap between 1-Class and 7-Class.
The difference between a 1-Class mage, who had only just begun to walk the path of magic, and a 7-Class mage, who had reached the highest point of the magical world.
You might say that was an exaggeration—
but it was an exact expression.
9-Class mages… were such transcendent beings that calling them “mages” at all almost felt embarrassing.
They had glimpsed fragments of the “truth” that existed in this world and attained a special enlightenment, and no longer handled magic as a technique or mathematics, but controlled it as though it were a natural phenomenon itself.
There were fewer than ten 9-Class mages in Aether World.
The reason people expressed that number so vaguely was that no one in the world actually knew exactly how many 9-Class mages there were.
A 9-Class mage was capable of defying the natural order, reaching a level where the lifespan of the flesh no longer carried meaning, and some of those beings had withdrawn into the shadows of the world and could no longer be found.
And so, no one knew the exact number of 9-Class mages.
Hae Seongwol, Master of the Full Moon Great Tower.
Together with Eltman Eltwin, he was one of the few 9-Class mages still active in the magical world, and one of the living legends.
The story of how he suddenly erected a gigantic magic tower overnight in the middle of the deadly Saryeon Desert, where life could not survive, then created a vast oasis and planted the roots of life there, was already famous enough to be included in textbooks.
Though he was far younger than Eltman Eltwin, at “only” a hundred years old, Hae Seongwol still took pride in the fact that he had stacked up countless achievements like a tower and accumulated a truly dazzling range of experiences.
But even for him, this was a first.
“So… you mean to say you want to put that boy in command of the expedition?”
“Yes.”
Hae Seongwol sincerely could not understand Zeliel’s judgment.
At a time when her own father had gone missing, she intended to hand command of this critical mission over to nothing more than a teenage boy.
“You’re out of your mind.”
“No. I am more in my right mind than ever.”
“I see. Baek Yuseol, was it? I have at least heard the name, since he has shown some fairly interesting moves recently. But so what? The mages gathered here are, if anything, more capable than Baek Yuseol, not less.”
“I know that too.”
“No, you do not. To you, Baek Yuseol must look more than impressive enough, having built accomplishments comparable to genius mages even though he is your age. But in the end, he is still only a teenage mage-in-training who has not even graduated from school.”
Hae Seongwol’s words were reasonable.
No—whoever it was, anyone would have thought the same.
Baek Yuseol was certainly clever.
Many mages said that, given ten more years, he was the kind of genius who would carve a line of his own into magical history.
But… he still lacked experience to a ridiculous degree.
He had deep knowledge and sharp wits for his age, yes, but hadn’t he barely done anything properly outside the school walls?
It was indeed remarkable that he had repelled dark fiends multiple times while still a student—
but it had only been a few times.
Most of the magic warriors gathered here had careers boasting the extermination of dark fiends dozens of times over, and were specialists in dealing with disappearances and all sorts of mysterious incidents.
So handing command over to Baek Yuseol…
could be seen as an insult to the experience and pride of these professionals.
“I understand what you mean. But I cannot agree to it.”
When Hae Seongwol cut things off cleanly with that conclusion, Zeliel lowered her gaze.
A brief silence.
At length, she slowly raised her head again and met Hae Seongwol’s eyes.
“…Tower Master.”
Those eyes looked hollow and lifeless, as if they held no emotion whatsoever.
The instant Hae Seongwol met her gaze, he felt a sudden chill.
“Speak.”
“I know that much too.”
“…Yes. I suppose you do.”
Though she had been overshadowed by the existence called Baek Yuseol, Zeliel too possessed the kind of intellect that could be called genius of the age.
It was not only that she excelled in the academic discipline of magic; the fact that she had stepped into the business world at a young age and produced astonishing results was itself proof of her brilliance.
“Right now, more than at any other time, I am grasping this situation calmly and thinking it through. If it means finding my father… I would even offer up my soul.”
He had been wrong.
To think there was no emotion at all in Zeliel’s eyes…
had been a complete mistake.
She was appealing through emotion right now.
A calm judgment? What nonsense.
Zeliel was currently being swept away by emotion and was in no state to make a proper judgment.
And because of that, Hae Seongwol’s heart dropped.
‘This child… is pleading through emotion?’
It was hard to believe.
Her father might not know it, but Zeliel had been a child with no emotions at all.
She might hide it and behave like an ordinary person, but she could never deceive the eyes of a Grand Sage.
Hae Seongwol had watched her since childhood, knowing she was a girl incapable of feeling emotion…
and so this moment was utterly unbelievable to him.
What had changed her?
Had her father’s disappearance dealt her such a great shock?
No.
There was something else.
Something… something very intense had been stimulating her slowly, over a long period of time.
And that thing had recently exploded at last, granting emotion to Zeliel, who had once been even more machine-like than a machine.
“…If that is truly your will, then this once, I will bend mine.”
It was Zeliel of all people who was pleading like that.
As Melian’s close friend, he could not possibly refuse.
And so—
an utterly absurd phenomenon came to pass: the Black Team, the magical investigation unit classified as elite even within the Full Moon Great Tower, would be commanded by a Stella cadet.
Naturally, the mages of the Full Moon Tower might have had reason to voice complaints—
but not one of them showed any sign of doing so.
Not because they had no complaints.
Partly because they trusted Hae Seongwol’s judgment completely, and partly because, as mages, they knew how to restrain and conceal their own emotions.
‘Well, this is pretty burdensome.’
He had wanted this situation, but now that he actually had to command them himself, even Baek Yuseol felt slightly pressured.
On top of that, 9-Class archmage Hae Seongwol was personally observing the entire situation, so how could anyone casually open his mouth under those conditions?
But Baek Yuseol possessed the Blessing of Crimson Spring March, and even without that, he was shameless by nature, so it posed no great problem.
“What do you intend to do first?”
When the mage who had originally been commanding Black Team asked, Baek Yuseol gave the prepared magical heavy equipment here a brief glance and said:
“I need the alpha version of Spirit Rate. Any MPM value above Stage 3 will do, and the scan rate should be over 300,000.”
“Why do you need Spirit Rate? If you’re thinking of tracing back the mana flow, then don’t bother.”
Baek Yuseol’s suggestion was fairly novel, but there was no way the mages of the Full Moon Tower had failed to think of “novel ideas ordinary people wouldn’t.”
They would already have mobilized every possibility, without regard for method or means.
“We tried it ourselves as well, but achieved nothing.”
Melian’s disappearance.
It was unquestionably a magical phenomenon.
The Full Moon Tower investigation unit had installed every kind of magical device and analyzed the incident from a magical perspective. The flow of mana over the past month, what kinds of spells had been used, what attributes had shifted, what traces had remained.
The movement of mana always left a trace, and the Full Moon Tower’s investigation unit possessed the excellent technical skill to detect all of them.
But no matter what magical devices they used, they gained no information at all.
It was as though a mage one level above them had played some kind of trick.
“I won’t be trying things that senior mages would obviously already have tried, like reverse-tracing mana.”
“Then?”
“Would it be alright if I modified the spell code for Spirit Rate just a little?”
“…Do it.”
Every time Baek Yuseol tried to do something, someone stepped in immediately, but that was not because they disliked him.
It was a legitimate question of whether there was truly a need for it, when this entire precious team had to move together.
“As you all know, every human possesses their own unique wavelength within the soul.”
“That is only a hypothesis. Even now, directly measuring the wavelength of a soul is nearly impossible.”
“It may be impossible for other mages. But with the Full Moon Tower’s technology, it should be possible in theory.”
“…What?”
There were magical devices in the Full Moon Tower with extremely special capabilities.
But they had still not been using those capabilities properly.
Tap! Giiiiing!!!
“…W-what is that?”
After Baek Yuseol manipulated the device a few times, a strange sound effect abruptly rang out and the machine came to life.
The fact that it then lit up with a vivid blue glow meant it had properly detected something.
He smacked the machine once more with the palm of his hand, then said:
“From this point on, we will reverse-trace the location of Carmenset, who vanished together with Chairman Melian’s soul.”
Eizel and Flame.
The two girls had gone out in search of one of Silver Age November’s relics, and successfully managed to join the Karakorn Mountain expedition led by Gerawin.
Although both of them were 4-Class mages, the expedition members, uneasy because they were still too young and had not proven their experience, had voiced a few complaints—
but after several days, all of that disappeared.
“Alright, alright, five minutes till this place turns into total chaos!”
As Flame shouted while banging a ladle and a pot together, the expedition members began lining up with their trays.
Watching the scene, Eizel gaped in disbelief.
“What can I even say… you’re genuinely amazing in so many ways…”
The expedition members were veterans by nature, so they mostly treated Flame and Eizel as little more than porters and neither properly spoke with them nor assigned them real roles.
But Eizel did not complain about that situation at all. Whenever a beast attacked, or when they entered dangerous territory—times when others hesitated—she would step up first and try to resolve it herself.
And on top of that, Flame displayed an even more advanced form of sociability. She would use all sorts of nimble skills to mend the expedition members’ clothes, fiddle around with a wrench to repair light equipment, and once mealtime began, take sole responsibility for cooking for the entire expedition.
Her stamina and diligence were astonishing enough, but before that, where in the world had she even learned such skills?
Ordinarily, students attending prestigious magic schools like Stella only knew how to use magic and nothing else.
“Hey, you’re good at cooking too, aren’t you?”
“Pardon? W-well, yes.”
To begin with, Eizel possessed the traits [Jack of All Trades] and [Multi-Talented], so she was absurdly good at these sorts of things. Of course, Flame’s cooking was so close to a professional chef’s level that Eizel’s ability didn’t stand out much.
“Man, those Stella brats are more useful than they look.”
“Seriously. Bringing them along was the right choice.”
“I still can’t believe I’m eating actual food while out on a dispatch mission.”
With Eizel assisting and Flame cooking, the quality of the meal was so high that one could believe it was being served by a professional restaurant.
True, many of the ingredients had been gathered from the wild, so it fell slightly short in places, but compared to tearing into thin porridge and jerky, wasn’t it practically a feast?
And even after the meal was over, Flame’s role still wasn’t finished.
“Hey, Stella kid. I think there’s a problem with the contact circuit in my robe. My mana shield keeps crackling…”
“It’s a line connection error. Just a moment. Eizel, you fix that one. I need to shave this down.”
“Okaay…”
Both Eizel and Flame studied alchemy as a minor. Perhaps because they had watched the genius alchemist Baek Yuseol up close, little tasks like these weren’t particularly difficult for them.
“Haha! Thanks! If anything happens to you two, I’ll definitely protect you!”
“Oh my, thank you.”
They were multi-talented, skillful with their hands, and a great help to the expedition. On top of that, their extraordinary beauty—something no one could see just anywhere—brightened the expedition’s atmosphere, so their presence only grew larger with each passing day.
Though, to create that sense of familiarity, they had to dash around busily even during rest periods when everyone else was taking it easy.
“Yo, little brats. Things seem good with you two.”
“Kayla Unnie. Need something fixed?”
“No. Want a beer instead?”
“Eh? We’re still in the middle of the expedition, though.”
Soft light spilled out from the temporary campsite they had set up halfway up the mountain.
They had cast magical barriers so that smell and light barely leaked outside, leaving little risk of attracting beasts, but even so, drinking in such an unguarded state was still quite dangerous.
“Then I’ll drink alone.”
“No. Please hold back a little while we’re still on the expedition.”
When Eizel snatched the beer out of Kayla’s hand, Kayla smacked her lips.
“I don’t remember raising you girls like this…”
“When did you ever raise us?”
Their cleanup more or less finished, Flame and Eizel also began preparing to go to bed. Since the two girls had handled so many miscellaneous chores, they were not assigned watch duty.
Kayla, however, apparently had been, and complained that watch duty was a pain.
“Ah, well. At least I got the first shift.”
Dropping heavily onto the ground, she looked up at the sky.
“Hey, little brats. See that constellation?”
Eizel and Flame both looked up at the sky at once.
The constellations shone far more brightly than they ever did in the city, filling their vision. It felt as though they were drifting in a vast sea of starlight.
“It’s pretty.”
“…That’s not the problem.”
Noticing something, Flame sharply furrowed her brow.
At Stella, they were taught all kinds of techniques needed to survive in the wild, and among them was how to determine one’s current location, coordinates, and even the time by observing the stars.
And so, something felt wrong.
“…Huh?”
“Now you’ve noticed?”
Covering her mouth with both hands, eyes wide with disbelief, Eizel slowly voiced the reality she could hardly bring herself to believe.
“The constellations in the sky… they’re rotating backward, aren’t they?”
“Yeah. That’s right.”
Chuckling softly, Kayla said:
“The deeper we go into this mountain range… we may be walking toward the past.”
Her words sounded like a line from some beautiful poem, but unfortunately, at this moment, it was reality.
Eizel and Flame could not even manage a reply.
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