Chapter 513

“That’s right. That’s why I asked if you could help me with magic. If we want to completely prevent people from building illegal coordinate systems outside the reach of the state’s surveillance network and living inside them, we need a way to determine whether there’s a button that allows them to move to another coordinate system in the first place.”

“Hmm. By ‘button,’ you mean something like the book you used as an example earlier?”

“Yes. If the magic works by moving you when you pull out a book, then the book itself would be the button that triggers the transfer.”

As Archduke Maria focused on my answer and thought about what might be done, Emanuel tilted his head and studied me. I looked back at him.

Emanuel Wittelsbach probably didn’t consider me quite as close to him as his own words—meant to put me at ease—would suggest. He had been the one to casually ask first if we weren’t friends yet, despite having known me for only two weeks. He wasn’t someone who would easily let another person get close just because they had spent three or four months together. Even three or four years probably wouldn’t make much difference. If he was anything like Elias, then what he had said about the length of time we had known each other was probably true—the length of time didn’t matter. Give him a single reason to open his heart, and he could become extremely close to someone. Without one, he simply wouldn’t.

That didn’t mean we were distant or that he didn’t trust me. If we were, he never would have asked me to stop Maria’s out-of-body experience in the first place. Maria Österreich-Este was probably not someone who was easy to get close to either, judging by the way he presented himself at first and what I had seen of Emanuel’s labyrinth. But from the moment I opened the conversation with the occult, the wall between us had probably come down more than it had with Emanuel Wittelsbach.

Even so, this goodwill had its limits. I knew from the Extra Chapter just how decisively he had dealt with Pleroma.

I didn’t think I would do anything that went against Maria’s beliefs. There was no need to become unnecessarily tense and ruin things by trying some impossible approach. But neither could I simply be satisfied that the two of them were sitting there quietly listening to me. They were willing to hear what I had to say as one person speaking to another. That wasn’t the same as placing absolute trust in me.

Nor did I intend to make up a story just to convince them. If Emanuel’s Discernment could pick up on things beyond whether something was safe or dangerous, I would be exposed in an instant. More importantly, I didn’t want to do that.

“Sir Everett. There’s something else I’d like to ask at this point. Who told you there was a way to ‘build an illegal coordinate system that doesn’t show up on the country’s surveillance network’?”

“To be honest, I saw one myself.”

“When? Where?”

“Well… Your Highness, you remember the place you went with me today, don’t you? That place is similar to the artificial coordinate systems Pleroma creates.”

Maria’s expression showed that he understood what I meant.

“So you’re saying there was one beneath Munich just now?”

“There isn’t one now.”

Emanuel laughed.

“There isn’t? You have quite the Insight. Do they teach things like that at Princeton?”

“Something along those lines.”

“Ah~”

Emanuel tilted his head slightly and fell into thought, slowly shaking it from side to side. Then he raised his brows and looked at me.

“They didn’t teach anything like that at the university I attended. I suppose that’s America for you.”

“You should’ve studied abroad.”

“That’s what I’m saying. I should have gone.”

Emanuel rambled on, placing a hand on my shoulder. The moment he started kneading the muscles around my shoulder blade, I knew what he was planning. He intended to lure me outside. I grabbed his hand firmly, ready to shake it off at any moment, and said, “If you’re planning to get me drunk again, I’m not drinking.”

“Aw, come on.”

I ignored Emanuel and turned to the Archduke.

“Your Highness, do you have a suitable method for this?”

“I’m thinking. Something that doesn’t get caught by a country’s surveillance network… That’s remarkable. Doesn’t every country inspect its territory for illegal coordinate systems? They may not do it often because it costs a great deal to comb through the entire country, but they do inspect it. Besides, most coordinate systems would be destroyed by attacks occurring within them or by attacks from outside before anyone even had to inspect them. That’s why most people wouldn’t dare attempt something so reckless.”

“As you saw, it’s sophisticated enough to be called a second world in all but name.”

“Wow.”

Maria rubbed his chin with interest. He lowered his eyes and thought for a moment before giving a firm nod.

“I think occult techniques are worth trying.”

Emanuel grimaced.

“Are you going to put blood in it again?”

“Maria puts blood into most of his spell formulas. From what I’ve experienced, unless a formula has already been turned into an artifact, I can’t use it. The same seems to apply to half-finished artifacts, where I have to transmit some complicated operation into them myself. What do you call those again?”

“A conditional artifact?”

Maria answered. A general-purpose artifact could be used even by non-mages, while a conditional artifact could only be used by someone with a core—in other words, a mage. Apparently that wasn’t the answer Emanuel was looking for, because he waved a hand dismissively. Then he continued speaking to me.

“I’ve only used it a couple of times, so I can’t really say. But if what you want is a tool that will last indefinitely, there’s probably not much we can help you with. Shall we go back to the room now?”

I said nothing, simply looking down at him. Emanuel was leaning against the desk with one arm, supporting himself as he turned his head to look at me. As a subtle tension settled between us, Maria reproached him with an incredulous look.

“You’re being a little harsh. There are plenty of spells that anyone can use. More importantly, Sir Everett, can’t we just destroy that spatial magic?”

“We can. But to do that, don’t we first need to know where the spatial magic is attached? We also need to find the piece of furniture that serves as the button for the spatial magic.”

The Archduke’s eyes lit up, and he held up a finger. Signaling for me to wait a moment, he darted off somewhere and returned almost immediately. He held a small semicircular object right in front of my eyes. The upper part was covered in glass, while the base beneath it was a short, black cylinder.

As I stared at it in confusion, the Archduke exclaimed, “A mana vacuum collector~!”

“What is that?”

“I used to use it for cleaning up my laboratory desk… But actually, this is used to collect taxes from delinquent taxpayers.”

“…….”

So he used that thing as a vacuum cleaner?

I took a step back, accepted the artifact, and asked, “Collect taxes? You take this home and use it to suck up mana?”

“Exactly. You just stand in the room and turn it on, and it automatically sucks up the mana. It doesn’t absorb ambient mana, either. It collects the mana contained in artifacts, potions, barriers, and the like that you’ve accumulated at home.”

“That’s basically artificial mana. What are you supposed to do with that tiny amount of artificial mana after collecting it again?”

“Even if it’s only a little, you have to put it back into the tax treasury! It’s used to maintain the water and sewage systems, power the streetlamps, pay for health insurance, and so on.”

“Do you actually manage to collect enough to cover the tax?”

“Often, we don’t. The state practically tries to wring every last drop out of us when it collects mana from our bodies, doesn’t it? They scrape us clean without mercy. It’s nothing compared to the mana in an object the size of your palm. But most people don’t want tax collectors showing up at their homes and destroying their belongings and barriers, so they submit it on time. You probably didn’t know because there aren’t many delinquent taxpayers. Besides, even the tax collectors don’t use this thing all that often.”

He raised one eyebrow and continued, “I had to know about it since I’m part of a ruling house. Anyway, I’m thinking of improving this.”

“How?”

“How to improve it…”

The Archduke thought for a moment before drawing out his words. He set the mana vacuum collector down on the desk and began taking it apart as he spoke.

“I’m going to modify it so that it absorbs all mana except ambient mana. If it can absorb human mana and artificial mana, wouldn’t that accomplish what we need? After all, the space itself was constructed using human or artificial mana as its foundation. Ah, if I could make it absorb ambient mana as well, that would be ideal.”

“But then wouldn’t the button used as a portal disappear instead of the connected space? Or would both disappear?”

“That’s true. Both would disappear.”

“What about humans?”

“Humans… Hmm… Let’s think about that.”

“What are you planning to do?”

Emanuel looked the Archduke up and down as he scolded him. The Archduke ignored him and looked at me instead.

“We need a non-mage. Someone without a core.”

“So a mage can’t use it.”

“They might die…”

Emanuel let out a sigh at that, braced himself against the table, and turned to me with a resigned smile.

“Sir Everett.”

“I’m sorry. But I think it’s a hypothesis worth hearing out.”

“See? When mana enters, this light comes on. It’s actually a very simple sensor. Adding that function is no trouble at all. If we use this, the light should come on when human mana or artificial mana enters the collector. So we wouldn’t be able to tell exactly where the button is, but we could at least tell whether there’s a button somewhere in the space! Assuming there isn’t an artifact or a mage in that space, of course.”

“And then we lose the button we were supposed to use to move there, right? If we assume the movement magic was placed on a book, only the book would remain and the movement magic would disappear.”

“This really is a case of every advantage having a drawback. Yes, well…”

“Haha…”

“I’ll see if I can find a way to fix that.”

When the Archduke finished with that solemn declaration, Emanuel pulled me by the shoulder. He led me into the hallway and said, “Then we’ll leave the technical development to Maria. All we need to do is find Father Ralph Huber, right? Before that, should we stop by the city hall and try pulling out one of the books?”

“We’re only going to the city hall to check. I’m not expecting to find anything there, but Your Highness stands out too much, so we’ll have to think about that.”

“You think I’m inconspicuous?”

“Let’s cut our hair before we go.”

Though I’d probably end up looking like a certain someone. That part did worry me a little.

“No. Cutting it won’t make a difference. I’m just going to invite Father Ralph Huber to my house and ask him to hold Mass here.”

“I’m not sure. There’s a chance it could lead to consequences that would be difficult to deal with.”

“So it’s not completely out of the question?”

“I just want to proceed carefully.”

As if he understood, Emanuel gave a little wave of his hand before leading me to the dressing room. He rummaged through the clothes and handed me a Bavarian civil servant’s uniform he had. Whether or not the age listed on Lukas Everett’s passport was the truth, I had grown a little taller and filled out somewhat as I got older, so it was no longer as uncomfortable as when I had worn Leo’s clothes in my eighteen-year-old body. I straightened my clothes and headed toward the inside of the estate wall, where the warp point was located.

Emanuel opened the coordinate book and muttered the numbers under his breath as he took hold of my arm. In an instant, we moved to Bamberg, home of the Archdiocese of Bamberg.

The wind, having changed direction, swept through my robe. I had just been in Munich in the south, and now I was in Bamberg in northern Bavaria. It felt strangely refreshing.

Emanuel headed toward the bridge over the river as naturally as if he had been to Bamberg countless times before. The city hall rose oddly from the middle of the bridge. He shrugged in front of its locked doors.

“So, how are we going to open the door?”

“…….”

I pulled out a wire, inserted it into the lock, and prodded it this way and that. Unfortunately, I wasn’t Elias, so I had no idea how to pick a lock with a wire. But there was something I could try, inspired by Elias’s method…

Remembering the shape the wire had taken inside the lock, I pulled it back out and closed my eyes. Then I pushed mana into the lock and cast solidification, hardening it for an instant.

Visualization was just as important to magic as calculations, but I couldn’t quite grasp the shape I needed, making the spell difficult to cast. It kept coming undone. So what could I do?

I had no choice but to rely on speed.

After calmly counting down from three, I squeezed my eyes shut, pictured the shape, and quickly twisted the end of the hardened mana.

Click.

The mana turned into air and scattered.

“Wow.”

Emanuel whistled and went inside first. He climbed to the third floor and waited for me, and I followed him upstairs, watching him lean against the railing on the staircase.

A room beside the hallway window, and the third bookcase.

I went inside. Emanuel looked around the room with a thoughtful hum.

“There are no books.”

I slowly nodded and carefully ran my gloved hand over the empty bookcase. I felt around behind it as well, but aside from cobwebs, there was nothing to be found, and it didn’t lead anywhere.

I sent mana into the room and searched through the other objects as well. Then I dusted off my hands and said, “Just as expected, it’s not here. Let’s go.”

As I suspected, Pleroma in 1898 had clearly changed its entry point to a place it considered safe after the destruction of the Archdiocese of Munich-Freising. That meant we would have to find our way into their world from somewhere else. We needed to capture Father Ralph Huber and get the information from him. Emanuel gestured for me to hurry.

We restored the lock to its original state and returned to Emanuel’s residence. More precisely, to his room.

There were three things I needed to investigate. First, was there another space connected to the city hall? We needed to enter their world to find out where important facilities such as the offices and archives of each diocese’s senior clergy were located.

Second, now that we knew there was nothing in the city hall, was there any meaningful information we could get from Father Ralph Huber? At this point in time, Pleroma was still relatively small, which meant they had fewer people and less technology to work with. Their spatial magic technology probably hadn’t advanced much yet, so they might not have properly established a world of their own. In that sense, finding Father Ralph Huber might not even be worthwhile.

That left the third option: focusing on my cooperation with Archduke Maria. We could combine Archduke Maria’s technology with the magical knowledge I had from 1898 and create something we could use to wipe out Pleroma even in this era. This had been the most important thing from the beginning, and it still was. So right now, I had to either go to Maria and exchange ideas with him or go meet Father Ralph Huber.

But Emanuel had no intention of letting me go anywhere. I put a hand to my forehead and asked, “Why won’t you let me leave?”

“I never stopped you.”

“You’re making it pretty obvious that I shouldn’t leave whenever I try to get up. How is that not stopping me?”

I struck the floor loudly with my heel and tried to stand. Emanuel used magic to block the door. Sorry, but I could easily break through it. I was tempted to just destroy it, but that would have been rude.

I returned to the sofa and sat down carelessly. Emanuel offered me a drink and lit a cigarette. I shook my head. There was something about the technology Archduke Maria had suggested earlier that I needed to think over. As I felt my body growing heavy, I put a hand to my forehead.

“I don’t really understand why you’re keeping me here, but if you have nothing to say, I’m going to go get some sleep.”

“Do you know why the house is so dark?”

What? Out of nowhere? I had no idea what this was supposed to be about. I narrowed my eyes, unable to figure out what he was getting at.

“No.”

“Didn’t you see the yellow lights floating around in the hallway?”

“That’s why I said I don’t know why the place looks like some secret club party.”

Emanuel laughed as he slowly exhaled a long plume of cigarette smoke.

“Maria seemed quite pleased that you were the one who brought up magic first. I think he found it refreshing to see you actively asking for help with such an urgent look on your face. That’s what he said.”

So that was why he had made the house like this? I answered with a look that said I finally understood. I should bring it up with the Archduke later. I couldn’t just bluntly tell him I was happy about it too, so I’d have to choose the subject carefully…

When I opened my eyes, my head was resting against the sofa. I pressed a hand against the unfamiliar-feeling fabric and frowned. When had I fallen asleep? Even now, I still felt drowsy. There was nothing particularly unpleasant about the sensation, but the fact that I had fallen asleep without even realizing it was shocking. And after everything I had experienced so far, that was enough for me to have a pretty good idea of what had happened.

“How can I be convinced that you’re loyal to Bavaria?”

He hadn’t given me any alcohol, and I hadn’t smoked the cigarette he offered me… Then how? I rolled my half-open eyes toward the voice. Emanuel was sitting on the other sofa, watching me. There was no cigarette in his hand. He was drinking water instead. He was the one smoking all this time, so why—? Ah, damn. Right. What a flawless trick. Had he covered himself with something so it wouldn’t work on him? Was this guy using one of Archduke Maria’s inventions?

“Even if His Majesty has given his approval, I’d like to hear a little more.”

Why? I moved my lips, but no sound came out. It must have been because I was so sleepy. My throat had practically fallen asleep. Emanuel seemed to understand what I was asking and kindly answered.

“Because you’re my nephew’s teacher, a retainer of mine in His Majesty’s kingdom, and a foreigner of unknown identity in that kingdom. And because you’re also my new friend and a new source of support for my old friend… So, I’d appreciate your cooperation.”

“Ugh…”

“It really is true that someone named Lukas Everett attended Princeton. In that sense, you’re not exactly a person of unknown identity. But when Sir Everett’s friends in America gave testimony about you, what they said differed somewhat from the person I know you to be.”

Of course it did. Unlike Lukas Müller, whose information I had been able to piece together, there was no way for me to guess Lukas Everett’s background. I hadn’t even had a chance to adjust my act accordingly… I closed my eyes. Sleep was invading my body. The voice from outside grew distant.

“To be honest, my head tells me you’re not dangerous, and my heart tells me not to be wary of you, but… I am a little concerned that you keep bringing me information from places I know nothing about and asking for technical assistance.”

That ‘brain’ of his must be his Discernment Special Ability, while the ‘heart’ must refer to what he had felt after spending the past few months with me… He had used his Special Ability to confirm that I wasn’t a threat to him, but he couldn’t simply dismiss the matter as settled, nor could he leave it at a vague ‘I’m sure there must be some circumstances behind this.’ He was royalty, and I was staying in the Royal Palace. And because I was deeply involved with the people he loved, he had no choice but to seek an answer from me. He wanted to hear something more truthful from me than what his ability had read—something beyond the rough, shallow intrusion of an ability, beyond the realm of intuition and information, which had neither emotion nor time nor depth. I had to reassure him with my own words, in my own voice, with my own face. That was what he wanted.

I understood that well enough. I swung my fist against the sofa to steady myself and pushed myself upright. Squeezing out what little strength I had left, I managed to sit up against the backrest, only to slump forward and bang my head against it. The cool leather of the sofa against my cheek, even through my shirt, at least helped clear my head. The coolness it had when I first touched it would soon heat up from my body temperature—boy, I felt like I was going to throw up. Summer was slowly approaching. Whether I ended up looking like a certain someone or not, I needed to cut my hair off or do something, because otherwise I felt like I might actually throw up right now. My stomach was churning so badly I couldn’t…

I slammed my fist against the sofa and scattered divine power. The cold air from the divine power, barely able to manifest through my drowsiness, at least gave me something to breathe. I dragged as much clarity back into my mind as I could and spoke to Emanuel.

“I knew you’d do something like this. You said we were friends, didn’t you?”

I understood. He was asking me for an answer because he wanted us to remain friends. And I understood something else, too. I probably had stirred up his anxiety today. Even if Archduke Maria hadn’t noticed, someone as naturally sensitive as Emanuel would have had plenty to worry about. Damn it. I just didn’t expect him to go this far. Then again, considering the strange sharpness I had noticed in him at the beginning, could I really say I hadn’t expected it at all? Silence always leaves everyone afraid. But if I explained everything, how much of it could he really believe?

Emanuel shrugged.

“Friends sometimes play like this.”

“Well, what would you like me to do? What would satisfy you?”

I said it even though I already knew the answer. Emanuel fell silent, and so did I. I knew what I needed to say. I blinked my sleep-heavy eyes for a long while, then forced myself awake, frowning. Emanuel was watching me. Only after what felt like a long time did I finally open my mouth.

“Fine. I’ll make it simple. I can travel through time.”