Chapter 616: Tier (4)

“Excuse me.”

In a ruined castle that was almost completely collapsed.

At the sudden sound of a woman’s voice, the black eyes that had been closed until just a moment ago—

“Hm?”

Nataman looked at her.

With pitch-black eyes that seemed as if they would suck one into an abyss.

“What is it?”

At the black-eyed man, who naturally wore a playful smile at the corners of his mouth, the woman opened her mouth with a slightly dissatisfied expression.

“I thought about it a little.”

“About what?”

“My name.”

“Name? Didn’t we decide that last time?”

Nataman tilted his head.

But she let out a haa— sigh.

“That’s what I mean. I do not really like that name.”

“Why? ‘Seat of Diligence’ is fine, isn’t it?”

Nataman grinned broadly.

“......I do not think it is fine.”

When the woman still acted as if she was dissatisfied, Nataman lightly waved his hand.

“The others besides you said they had no complaints?”

“That is true, but—”

The woman— no, the Seat of Diligence, stared fixedly at Nataman, then let out another haa— sigh.

“Never mind. I should not have said anything.”

“The others?”

“They are taking care of the work you ordered them to do.”

“Really?”

“But, how long do we have to keep doing this?”

The Seat of Diligence continued speaking as she looked at Nataman.

“I am starting to get tired of it. For months now, aside from ‘cleaning,’ we have just been rolling around idly in this ruined castle, haven’t we?”

Her words were fairly reasonable.

Because it was exactly as she said.

Even though quite a long time had already passed since they descended, all they had done until now was a little bit of cleaning. They had done nothing else at all.

However, even at her dissatisfaction, Nataman smiled as if telling her not to worry.

“Well— do not think of it so urgently.”

He leisurely looked up at the sky.

“It is about time for us to start moving properly too.”

With a small smile.

####

The risen sun fell once again.

The coffee Deus had set down turned cold.

And around the time the library, which had only been bright before, darkened once more and the magic lamps began to turn on.

“.......”

Alon silently looked down at the book.

The book he had opened contained 7th-tier magic.

Of that, half was the magical formula of 7th-tier magic, and the other half was Heinkel’s basic interpretation for digging into the essence of this magic.

And after spending most of the day reading through that book, Alon was able to reach one conclusion.

‘It is certain. There is a code hidden in it.’

“.......”

Alon silently lifted the book.

The formulas Heinkel had personally written down, recorded in detail across an enormous number of pages.

Had she known that a code was drawn into this formula?

Alon soon shook his head.

The reason he had noticed the code in the first place was the sense of incongruity.

An inexplicable sense of incongruity, and intuition.

And more than anything, it was because he knew how Elivan used a True Mage’s formula to convey letters that he had been able to realize it.

In other words, simply interpreting the code would not be enough. Unless one had the “standard rules” Elivan had written so Alon could understand them easily, these letters could not be interpreted.

In other words, even if Heinkel could interpret the formula, she probably had not noticed the anomaly that had appeared in this magic.

“......Ah.”

As Alon thought that far, he suddenly let out a low exclamation.

Because once he had inferred up to this point, one question naturally arose.

Why something like this was hidden in 7th-tier magic.

How Elivan knew and used these rules.

And in a form so easy for Alon to understand, at that.

‘......I made a mistake.’

Alon scratched his head.

Because he had focused too much on magic and only asked a few pieces of important information. He had not asked Elivan about these kinds of details.

‘Elivan— would not be here at this point.’

As far as Alon knew, Elivan was no longer at the Central Mage Tower.

Because he had been focused on raising his tier, he had not been able to properly talk with Elivan, and the last thing he had heard from him was only that he had something to do and would leave for a while.

In other words, at this point, he could not ask Elivan.

“.......”

But that was fine.

Because what mattered right now was not why Elivan knew something like this, but why there was such a hidden law in the 7th tier.

Scrape—

Soon, without hesitation, Alon rose from his seat and began heading somewhere.

“Hm......?”

Toward Heinkel, who had recently been concentrating on writing something in the depths of the library.

“A law?”

“Yes.”

“You are saying there was something like that? I had no idea at all......?”

Heinkel looked puzzled when he told her about the law he had spent an entire day finding.

“There really is.”

“......For now, why don’t you explain it properly?”

But that lasted only a moment. Heinkel nodded as if she understood and gestured with her chin toward the book and notebook Alon had brought.

At that, Alon immediately sat down in the seat beside Heinkel as if he understood, and began explaining the facts he had discovered one by one.

How much time passed like that?

When the sky, which had been dyed in twilight, darkened, and at last all the library’s light had been replaced by magic bulbs.

“So, in the end, if these are combined like this—”

“You are saying a hidden word appears?”

“That is correct.”

Alon finished speaking.

“......What do you think?”

Heinkel, who had been silently staring at Alon as he quietly opened his mouth, then said this to him.

“As expected, you— are a little strange.”

####

“......All of a sudden?”

At Alon’s bewildered question, Heinkel let out a sigh.

“You— do you know what you just explained?”

Heinkel’s question.

At that, Alon thought for a moment, then spoke with an expression wondering if perhaps this was it.

“Is it perhaps a rule that makes the interpretation of magic much faster......?”

“No. It is not that.”

Heinkel spoke firmly.

“Mm— but strictly speaking, it probably will become faster, yes. Since we now know all the useless rules are strings like this. Compared to before, it seems it will be shortened to about one-third.”

Well, even so, it will not change the fact that it is still slow, Heinkel muttered, then continued speaking.

“But that is not the part that surprised me. To be precise, it is the rule you explained.”

“......The rule?”

“You realized, because that child named Elivan told you, that several of these interpreted magical formulas created letters based on a certain rule, right?”

“That is correct.”

“And this is the rule you first saw, meaning the rule that child named Elivan used.”

“That is correct. I rewrote it from memory, but there should not be any mistakes...... Is there a problem?”

At Alon’s words, Heinkel let out a sigh.

“Of course there is. A lot of them, too.”

“......Is that so?”

When Alon showed confusion, Heinkel spoke.

“Alon, you said you interpreted the rule after looking at this, right? You even understood this the moment you saw it and tried to solve it.”

“Yes.”

“But do you really think this rule can be recognized at a glance like that?”

“......The rule is clearly expressed between formula and formula, so all one has to do is find that relationship and combine them, is it not?”

At Alon’s answer, Heinkel thought for a moment, then opened her mouth.

“Let me give you an example.”

“Yes.”

“There is an ordinary person. But this person knows nothing about goblins, because this person lived in a world without monsters.”

Heinkel continued.

“If you told someone like that what a goblin looks like and asked that person to draw one, what do you think would happen?”

“......The drawing would be similar, but probably not perfectly identical. That person would never have seen an actual goblin.”

“Right. Overall, it could be similar. But it would be difficult to draw one exactly the same. The fine details would be lacking. Wouldn’t they?”

“Probably.”

At Alon’s agreement, Heinkel added without hesitation.

“That is exactly the current situation.”

“The current.......”

“Yes. The fact that you arbitrarily interpreted and solved this rule just from seeing this is the same as telling someone who does not know goblins what a goblin looks like and asking that person to draw one...... only for the person to draw it perfectly identical.”

No, it is actually more than that. There are dozens of times more things to calculate here. Heinkel added that, then looked at Alon with an extremely serious face.

“It seems you have more secrets after all.”

She said that.

“Secrets even you do not know.”

With certainty in her voice.

####

Right after having that conversation with Heinkel.

“Since doing this interpretation will help you as well anyway, let us divide the work like this. Once you finish the first-stage interpretation, I will handle what comes after.”

She decided to help Alon with the interpretation.

“Thank you.”

“There is no need to thank me. To be honest, now that things have turned out this way, there are things I am curious about too. However— this will probably take a long time.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. You know too, do you not? It is not as if we solve a short formula and see a string. It was made so that we have to solve almost entire chunks to obtain a single string.”

“......That is true.”

When Alon nodded, Heinkel spoke.

“For today, it is late, so rest. Starting tomorrow, let us begin properly.”

“Understood.”

“Sleep well. From tomorrow onward, you will probably be awake a little longer.”

Heinkel’s words.

At that, Alon nodded as if he understood, then soon turned around and disappeared.

“.......”

After confirming that Alon had left the library, Heinkel glanced down at the books she had written and murmured.

“Why did they make it like this—”

If there was something they wanted to convey, there was no need to go out of their way to divide the string across an entire book and make it long.

But why?

Why—

“Ah.”

As Heinkel thought that far, she soon let out a low exclamation.

As if she had realized something.

“I see—”

With a small smile.

“This itself is the purpose.”

She looked at the book she had written.

####

Starting the next day, Alon and Heinkel spent almost all of their time together.

Alon learned 7th-tier magic while interpreting the rules Heinkel had interpreted.

And Heinkel repeated the work of interpreting the formulas Alon interpreted one more time and turning them into strings.

It took quite a long time.

Alon, who had been going through several books on the 6th tier in a single day, took an extremely long time just to read an entire book after reaching the 7th tier.

And unlike the rules Elivan had used, the rules were scattered very widely, so even with Heinkel helping with the interpretation, it took a similar amount of time to create the string.

From the point Heinkel joined in, the sun rose and set through the library windows several times.

Deus silently set down coffee for them dozens of times.

The mages who had returned from Divine Land came to the library, read the room, and left again dozens of times.

And only after quite a long time had passed like that did Alon and Heinkel manage to restore the code contained in one of the 7th-tier spells.

Laughably, the code contained within it was a word of only three syllables.

In truth, it was an endlessly meager result to call the product of decoding an entire book.

However, even so.

“.......”

Alon’s eyes could not help but tremble.

Because the characters written in the notebook through the interpretation......

“......Lord Alon.......”

Were that call.