Luke sat atop Gerard’s shoulder for a long time, looking around as he listened to his explanation.
“What is that?”
“That’s a formation that compresses refined mana and sends it to other households. If we just leave it to spread, the outskirts won’t receive much mana.”
“Oh, so this is how mana is transferred here?”
‘Compared to the past when countless mages had to personally transport mana in their bodies to create potions, this method of delivery is truly excellent. It compresses the mana for easier processing and spreads it through pipes. It’s very efficient.’
As these thoughts crossed his mind, Luke, riding on Gerard’s back and surveying the facility, noticed a female mage approaching Gerard in the hallway.
She seemed to have something to discuss with Gerard and greeted him with familiarity.
“Oh, Colson-senpai! I found you. But who is this little one? Judging by the fact that he’s a Hyun, he can’t be your nephew.”
The woman with fluffy pink hair took off her glasses and perched them on her chest.
Luke slightly turned his head away, distracted by the deep cleavage accentuated by her large chest.
“Oh my, our lady can grow this big too.”
“T-that’s not it!”
She thought it was merely embarrassment.
Gerard spoke.
“Oh, I mentioned that he wanted to observe, so I was giving him a tour. He’s quite interested in magic. He managed to find his way here by himself.”
“Oh my, this little one? Impressive!”
Luke quickly brushed aside the woman’s hand as it went to pat his head before his sense of propriety overwhelmed him.
“What is your name? You can call me Luke Ilrushi.”
“Oh, I’m Miriam Daphne. I’m a junior mage under Colson-senpai. Nice to meet you, Luke Ilrushi. So, are you enjoying the tour?”
“It’s very satisfying; I’m grateful for the knowledge I’m gaining today.”
As Luke nodded with a satisfied smile, Miriam burst into laughter.
“Haha, this little one is quite something! Your speech is really fascinating.”
“Indeed, it is quite amusing.”
“……”
Wondering if his manner of speaking really was such a problem, Luke contemplated whether he should at least attempt to change it.
However, he couldn’t imagine himself speaking like a child.
It would probably be difficult to change his way of speaking just like that.
“Anyway, Miriam. What did you come looking for?”
“Oh, right! Where did you put that report you were working on? I couldn’t find it anywhere. Even when I called, you didn’t pick up.”
“Oh no, I might have missed your call while talking to Luke. Isn’t it in the drawer? I usually leave it there.”
“It’s not there, so I came looking. You might need to come check it out.”
“Ah, understood.”
Gerard set Luke down.
“Luke, wait here for a moment. I’ll be right back. Don’t go off anywhere else. Miriam, please take care of Luke.”
“Got it.”
“Understood.”
Hearing their answers, Gerard nodded and quickly walked down the hallway.
Luke remained still as instructed, calming the knowledge and mana he had gained today and began meditating.
Until Miriam spoke to him.
“Luke, are you sleepy right now?”
“No. This isn’t sleeping; I’m meditating. I’m organizing the things I learned today.”
“Meditating? I see. Hehe.”
Miriam found the small child meditating with closed eyes simply adorable.
She kept staring at his face, but as soon as Luke became aware of her gaze, he could no longer concentrate on his meditation.
Finally, when she poked his cheek, Luke opened his eyes.
“Could you stop staring? Am I that fascinating?”
“Oh, you’re really not sleeping! Sorry.”
Miriam retracted her finger, feigning surprise.
“By the way, did Colson-senpai teach you well?”
“Yes, he would have been a great teacher if he weren’t a mage. His explanations were quite entertaining.”
“Really? That’s strange… He’s actually not very good at explaining things.”
Miriam tilted her head, studying Luke’s expression.
“So, can you explain what you learned?”
“Of course! I’ll start with the mana refinement facility.”
Thus, Luke began to share the information he learned from Gerard without holding back.
It wasn’t that he doubted Gerard’s information, but it was better to cross-reference what Miriam knew for more accurate knowledge.
However, Miriam, who was listening with a bright smile, suddenly wore a look of surprise.
“Wow, you really know it well! It seems you listened very carefully.”
“Right? So, is there anything incorrect in my knowledge?”
“Of course not. Perfectly accurate. By the way, is senpai really that good at explaining?”
‘Could it be that I just didn’t understand because I’m slow…’
Miriam stopped her thoughts and shook her head, denying that possibility.
He had always excelled at studying, but explaining was his weak point.
This was because he was the typical type who assumed that others knew what he knew.
Thus, his weakness shone especially when explaining concepts people were encountering for the first time.
To understand a concept, they had to grasp its subordinate concepts as well, and as he explained and explained, his words would become so long that it was hard to comprehend.
It was also due to his character of speaking without any metaphors, just as he learned from textbooks.
However, he understood the basic properties of mana better than anyone, and Gerard had put in enough effort to explain using simpler terminologies, making it easy for Luke to understand.
It was possible because the explanations pertained to the basic knowledge of mana and its usage.
For Luke, it was just a new paradigm, and if he approached it with an open mind, it wouldn’t be all that difficult.
Of course, anyone who didn’t understand the basic principles of mana would surely struggle to grasp even a fraction of it.
“If Luke becomes a mage, he’ll surpass this sister by far!”
“Probably, yes. But that’s thanks to mages like you who paved the way. If I had been alone, I wouldn’t have had such thoughts. So I am thankful. Truly grateful.”
Indeed.
His thinking was limited to ‘Circle Magic’, and thus he was bound to the limitation of ‘talent’.
Overwhelming knowledge could, in itself, become a fence, preventing thoughts from arising outside of what he knew.
Thus, even if Luke lived a few hundred years longer, it was uncertain if he could have conjured class magic.
Having heard such lengthy sentiments, Miriam pinched Luke’s cheek and stretched it.
“Wow, your thoughts are quite impressive!”
“Enough, that’s not really—”
Luke protested quietly, but it seemed like his words were lost on her.
“Ugh, you’re so cute. So squishy…”
“Stop it!”
As he struggled to escape from her pinching, Luke distanced himself from her.
If she grabbed his cheeks again, it was clear he would be treated like a child.
Even though he presently looked like a child, such behavior made him feel as though he was being diminished, and he judged that it was dangerous.
“Don’t touch my body any further.”
In response to Luke’s cold warning, Miriam pouted and said, “Aww, fine. Anyway, senpai is late. He still hasn’t found the report.”
Miriam took out her phone and began contacting Gerard.
“Oh, is that so? I see. Then there’s not much to be done. Yes, yes. Take care, senpai!”
Upon seeing Miriam end the call, Luke felt a strange sensation.
“What’s going on?”
“Luke, I’m sorry, but you’d better head home now. It seems something crucial has come up with senpai.”
“Hmm, that’s unfortunate. I wanted to check out the entire facility before nightfall.”
However, there was nothing to be done.
If the facility’s in-charge said to go back, then as a guest, he had to comply.
He couldn’t blame her for being accommodating when he had suddenly shown up without an appointment.
Accompanied by Miriam, he walked through the facility.
Since she wasn’t as tall as Gerard, she was able to match her pace with Luke’s.
Still, she firmly held onto Luke’s hand to prevent him from wandering off elsewhere.
Of course, there was the added advantage of feeling nice when a delicate, soft child’s hand touched his.
After a while of walking through the hallway, Luke asked.
“By the way, you look pretty young for a mage. How old are you?”
“Me? I’m 28 years old. Why do you ask?”
“28 years old; you’re still quite young. Yet you’re a mage, that’s really impressive.”
Overreacting to the comment about being young, Miriam shouted.
“Yeah, I’m young! Senpai always teases me about my age! Calls me an old maid all the time…!”
“That’s unfortunate. However, isn’t it peculiar to be single at 28? Isn’t 12 the age of adulthood?”
“……Are you joining in too? And what do you mean 12 is adulthood! Until age 19, you’re still a minor!”
“……? Is that so?”
Taken aback by Miriam’s cheeks puffed up in mock anger, Luke was slightly shocked.
At 28, she was young for a mage but quite mature as a woman.
It was hard for him to accept the fact that a woman of such age was puffing her cheeks like a kid.
‘No, am I seeing her as a child because I am a child myself?’
He thought that there was a reason why she treated him completely like a child.
In his era, women underwent coming-of-age ceremonies at 12, and men at 14.
Thus, even if he didn’t consider himself an adult, he thought he shouldn’t be treated as a complete child.
He hadn’t expected the criteria for adulthood to extend to this extent.
‘She appears to be around 10 years old, so it wouldn’t be bizarre to consider her an adult…’
Shocked by the disparity between his logical conventions and the conventions of this world, Luke stopped briefly and asked Miriam.
“Is it truly a commonly accepted norm that one can’t marry until the age of 19?”
“Of course!”
“I see….”
Luke nodded, but he still found it hard to grasp.
Why had the criteria for adulthood changed?
At this rate, wouldn’t there soon come a time when 28 would be considered the adult age as well?
In that case, Miriam wouldn’t be in the wrong.
Though he didn’t quite get it.
“Indeed, if that statement is true, then from a societal perspective, you’re considered young. Nevertheless, I hope you find your partner soon, as it only becomes more challenging the longer you wait.”
Miriam tugged on Luke’s cheeks, speaking like a concerned mother scolding her child during a holiday.
“……You can’t tease your sister, Luke!”
“Okay, okay.”
As they walked down the corridor with her stretching his cheeks, Luke suddenly began to perceive an unknown phenomenon with his magic sight.
‘This formation is unlike any pattern I’ve seen in Gerard’s explanations.’
Having almost fully explored the research facility and accumulated knowledge about all kinds of mana patterns, he tugged at Miriam’s sleeve to immediately address his curiosity.
“Miriam, what’s over there?”
“That? That’s a place where high-concentration mana is stored. It’s dangerous for you.”
“Is that the, high-pressure mana area?”
“Yeah, that’s ultra-high pressure among the high pressure. The mana density there is an astonishing 400 times that of the natural state. No one can enter there casually.”
‘What on earth do they intend to compress it that much for?’
Mana compressed to 400 times its natural state would be so volatile that any living being touching it would likely explode.
Only creatures like dragons could possibly harness mana in such a wild state.
Miriam asked, “Has senpai not shown you this?”
“That’s right. He said high-pressure mana would be dangerous for me.”
Indeed, Gerard had deliberately avoided the high-pressure mana area during the tour.
However, unaware of that, Miriam quickly took Luke toward an exit route, and thus Luke experienced the energy of high-pressure mana for the first time.
“……”
Luke felt as though the mana was calling out to him.
Even though pure mana shouldn’t have any will, why did it feel so now…?
At that moment.
-Beeep, beep, beep.
A red light filled the hallway, and a loud, unpleasant noise assaulted Luke’s ears.
He immediately covered his ears to block out the noise, but he couldn’t help but scream at the sensation ringing in his head.
“AHHHHH!”
Luke wasn’t the only one startled by the abrupt alarm.
Miriam also seemed flustered, waiting for an announcement.
-Warning: High concentration mana leak. Personnel in Zone B-21 must evacuate immediately.
-Beeep, beep, beep.
“What’s going on all of a sudden?”
Zone B-21 was this place.
Miriam grew serious as she looked towards the blast-proof door containing the high-concentration mana.
Upon noticing thin lines on the sturdy blast-proof door, she became alarmed.
“Luke, grab my hand! We need to get out of here! Hurry!”
“I understand.”
——–
Miriam ran with Luke, thinking.
The marks on the blast-proof door seemed as if someone had cut it from the inside…
‘That can’t be right?’
No one could enter a high-concentration mana area without permission, and if permission were granted, the manager like her would surely remember it.
Moreover, unless one had special protective gear, ordinary people would die the moment they entered such ultra-high-pressure mana areas, which meant that the only entities capable of damaging the inside of the door would be…
Other than spirits, it would have to be.
Spirits.
Mental beings born from mana.
The only entities that could ‘exist’ in ultra-high-pressure mana regions were spirits, whose bodies were composed entirely of mana.
However, it had long been since communication with them had been cut off, making it hard to determine when that might have occurred.
It was an era where numerous spirit mages, and even elves, had lost their connection with spirits.
Even the rare manifestations of spirits observed nowadays had become so unintelligent that they couldn’t even communicate anymore, to the point where they were thought to exist merely in fairy tales…
“Oh, I see, are you saying you’re offering me this mana?”
Miriam looked down at Luke, who suddenly began muttering to himself.
In her urgent state, she hadn’t heard what he had said at all.
“Luke, what did you just say?”
Luke released Miriam’s hand.
“Luke? What’s wrong?”
“I’m fine. Just go ahead of me.”
“What? No way! Luke, are you feeling unwell? Your complexion…!”
“I said I’m fine.”
As he inscribed the circle, the touch of another would only disrupt his focus.
Luke felt the mana flowing into his body as he thought,
‘It feels like it’s overflowing, but it doesn’t. However, I can sense a fierce current.’
He realized that an unknown blue spirit was swirling in front of him, adjusting the mana to a level he could handle.
Following its movement, he accepted the mana into his heart as a circle.
“Ugh…!”
‘It hurts, but it’s incomparable to the first time I did this. Is it thanks to the growth of my capability?’
No one could experience inscribing a first circle more than once.
Thus, luck was just as important as skill and talent.
Correcting a misinscribed circle takes far too much effort and time.
“Ugh….”
While groaning at the pain of his heart being inscribed with the circle, Luke felt a sense of fulfillment.
‘Perfect.’
Finally, the first circle was complete.
An utterly flawless circle.
As he realized this, it felt as though this first circle was akin to a tenth circle.
The mana infused, the formation, the regulations – all were perfect.
For a hundred years, having dealt with ten circles, he had long fantasized about the most ideal form of a ‘circle.’
Finally, being able to carry that in his heart, Luke felt a form of ecstasy.
He immediately began to manipulate his circle.
The mana and will coursing through his body manifested through the world, and Luke’s vision went dark.
——
The red-hued hallway regained its original color.
-Stabilization of mana leakage. Personnel must be immediately dispatched to Zone B-21.
-A shutdown will be conducted to stabilize the high-concentration mana leakage. Personnel must prepare for shutdown. 3. 2. 1.
-Click.
The lights in the hallway went out, and only the yellow guiding lights illuminated the walls of the corridor.
As the announcement indicating stabilization was sounded, Miriam reluctantly forced her trembling body upright.
“What the hell is happening…?”
Suddenly stabilizing the mana?
As a mage, that shouldn’t be possible.
Mana indeed has a property of stabilizing itself, but high-pressure mana is different.
High-pressure mana is incredibly dangerous, possessing a property of becoming volatile in contradiction to its natural stabilization characteristic.
To stabilize that which is exposed, one would need to either burn it off with at least a class 5 ‘Mana Burn’ or forcibly calm it down with a class 6 ‘Chain Slow’.
No other realistically possible methods exist.
Yet it suddenly stabilized without reason…?
As a mage, she didn’t want to talk about miracles, but this was a miracle.
“Luke, snap out of it, Luke?”
Miriam spotted Luke, who had collapsed on the ground. She immediately picked him up and began to gently slap his cheeks.
The sudden mana leak was certainly suffocating; a child would undoubtedly not have been able to endure the pressure of that mana sounding from every direction.
Miriam herself had been unable to lift a finger as she lay on the ground.
Moreover, this child had told her, “I’m fine, so go ahead.”
With such agonizing groans escaping his lips…
Perhaps it was already too late.
Although they had been acquainted for less than a few hours, witnessing a life flickering before her was immensely sorrowful.
Especially given that she had felt favorably toward him.
With tears welling up, Miriam bowed her head as…
“Miriam? Why are you acting like that? I’m perfectly fine.”
Luke’s voice rang out.
“……Luke?”
The turquoise and golden eyes turned towards her simultaneously.
Luke wore an expression of genuine satisfaction as he spoke to her.
“Yes. Today was truly a remarkable day. I’ve had so many good experiences. I will never forget this day.”
“Really, are you really okay?”
“Of course. Can we return now?”
Miriam briefly wore a look of disbelief upon hearing Luke’s words before letting out a shriek.
“…Go? Where are you going? You need to go to the hospital for a check-up!”
“Eh.”
