In the early morning, Ezekiel arrived at the barracks.
Ophelia seemed to have been waiting for Ezekiel’s return, as she sprinted towards him the moment their eyes met.
“Ah, you’re back!”
Then she discreetly glanced at Ezekiel.
“…Hmm, you must have had quite the ordeal, right?”
It seemed she predicted that Ezekiel had suffered greatly after encountering the crazed Mirabel.
“Not really.”
It was true that it was tough, but for some reason, Ezekiel didn’t want to admit it. After all, the stories of Mirabel and his daughter were too pitiful.
“Anyway, there’s been progress.”
“Eh? Progress?”
Ophelia looked at Ezekiel with a surprised expression.
“Are you serious? Can we fix the Spirit Trap?”
She seemed extremely happy that Ezekiel had returned with some good news, like someone clinging to a straw.
“It won’t take long. I’ll just record a few spells written on the fragments and take them with me.”
“Oh, then… if we can fix the Spirit Trap…”
As she mumbled, something suddenly seemed to strike her. Ophelia gasped.
“Come to think of it, I have news to share. Remember that task I said I would handle?”
“Speak specifically so I can understand.”
“The 5th Princess is calling a massive number of people here, right? I tried to send them back…”
Ophelia sighed.
“It’s a disaster. You know how it is, right? Mages live and die by curiosity. If they can catch a glimpse of miraculous magical vistas, they would risk their lives without hesitation.”
“That’s true.”
“It seems rumors spread that you’re about to successfully repair the Spirit Trap. Everyone is flocking to witness the moment of repair…. The numbers…”
Ophelia couldn’t finish her sentence.
It looked like the 5th Princess had indeed sent a large number of people near the Spirit Trap as she had declared.
This was incredibly dangerous. It felt like taking the citizens of the Empire hostage. The moment Ezekiel failed to repair the Spirit Trap, wouldn’t they all be doomed?
The problem was, just as Ophelia said, there was no way to stop them.
How many could doubt the rumors put out by the 5th Princess? Moreover, Ophelia was right. Mages would gamble their lives for a chance to see magical wonders.
The sight of the Spirit Trap finally getting repaired was something one might only see once in a lifetime. How could they be driven away when their eyes were lit with fervor, rushing over?
“I don’t mean to burden you, but there’s realistically no way to send all those people back. The only option is for you to succeed in the repair…”
“Then I’ll fix it.”
Even though Ophelia’s face was filled with concern, Ezekiel replied confidently without a moment’s hesitation.
A look of doubt mixed with hope spread across Ophelia’s face. She seemed to want to ask all sorts of questions about Ezekiel’s confidence.
“Let’s talk about the rest after the repair. I’m busy.”
Ezekiel dismissed her, very firmly.
The man meticulously recorded the spells from the fragments of the Spirit Trap that still had no answers, then quickly departed.
Ezekiel went straight to find Mirabel’s daughter, Mitel.
Mitel had a very serious expression, intensely staring at the wall, deep in thought.
Upon recognizing Ezekiel’s return, she greeted him.
“Ah, you’ve come? I was reviewing the ground positions corresponding to the fragments for a speedy operation.”
“Hmm.”
“How’s the condition of the Spirit Trap?”
Ezekiel pondered for a moment, then calmly stated the facts.
“The collapse has accelerated. It’s crumbling more and more.”
“Accelerated…? Really?”
Ezekiel covered about 60% of the puzzle pieces on the wall with a Chill technique, coloring it green. There’s no better understanding than what you can see with your own eyes.
“You can regard it as already being contaminated at this ratio.”
“…That can’t be. More than half is collapsed.”
The girl blinked in shock and then nodded decisively, her expression firm.
“Alright. You have the answer, and I have the ground positions, so let’s hurry and pour the answers in.”
With the girl leading the way, Ezekiel followed behind her.
After a short distance, they stopped at a bush near the stream, and she pointed at a specific spot with her fingertip.
“I think we should fill in one by one starting from the outermost parts of the village and moving toward the core. It seems good to start from here… Can we find the answer?”
“Let’s see.”
Since he had just visited the Spirit Trap and recorded all the spells, Ezekiel quickly found the corresponding spell for the location the girl pointed out and completed the calculations.
Boom─! Boom─!
The ground touched by Ezekiel’s foot resonated immediately. It meant that it had received the Mana required by the spell.
Noticing this, the girl smiled.
“Ah? It worked! If we proceed one by one like this, I think we can do it? Next is below the wall. After that, we can head toward the market!”
Ezekiel pursued Mitel’s footsteps, pouring answers into each ground they encountered.
However, perhaps due to not having worked together before, there were times when Mitel’s gauges for ground positions were slightly off. She wasn’t always right.
“Huh…? I thought it was around here?”
Eventually, during those moments, they had to search through the surroundings to find the ground where they could pour Mana.
Thus, after completing several repairs, Ezekiel shifted his mind.
“This is too slow.”
Then, the girl tilted her head quizzically.
“…It’s slow?”
She had a look as if she couldn’t understand what Ezekiel was saying.
“When I was doing it alone, I could barely fix one piece in a month. This is quite fast.”
“Yeah, it’s faster than what you were doing, but considering the Spirit Trap’s collapse rate, it’s slow. We need a way to repair multiple pieces at once.”
Ezekiel rubbed his chin thoughtfully and asked.
“Are the ground positions you’ve studied accurate? Even if they’re not exact, they must be relatively close, right?”
“Of course. Even if there’s a significant margin of error, it’s not more than fifteen steps away. We found it pretty quickly, didn’t we?”
Ezekiel swiftly calculated in his head. Currently, they were at the village market.
If so…
“Can you bundle the pieces located inside the market together and point them all out? Every single one, not leaving any out.”
“Uh… this one, this one, and this one…”
The girl spread the map of the pieces and began pointing at them one by one with her index finger.
Ezekiel couldn’t help but smile.
As she pointed at the pieces one by one and moved to the next, it made him wonder how to even remember what she was telling him. While Ezekiel could memorize it, other mages might just blink in confusion.
What if he had asked his assistant Agnes to do this task? She would have highlighted everything clearly, marking it with bright Mana.
It wasn’t that the girl was foolish. It was just that he felt a pure innocence from her that made him smile.
At the same time, his heart ached. It was a shame that such a talented girl was unable to attend the Academy and was stuck repairing the Spirit Trap instead.
“…”
Suddenly, the girl made eye contact with Ezekiel.
“What are you doing? Not concentrating?”
“How am I supposed to figure it all out if you tell me like that?”
“…”
Realizing how absurd that was, she seemed embarrassed, her face turning red as she got angry.
“I’m just telling you what you asked for!”
“Alright. This time, let’s go through it slowly again.”
As the girl awkwardly pointed out each piece again, Ezekiel watched, painting them with Mana as she pointed.
“Um… this is it! This is all that’s in the market!”
They had only pointed out the pieces in the market, yet the count had exceeded a hundred. That was only natural. The Spirit Trap was a barrier made from thousands of fragments.
The world had become considerably darker. Night had fallen.
The girl yawned.
“Wow, we’ve been really busy today. Let’s stop here. I think we can finish it tomorrow after a good sleep.”
“No, we’re finishing it today.”
“…?”
The girl looked at Ezekiel as if he were speaking nonsense. Her expression seemed to suggest she had heard something absurd, like the sun rising at night.
“How can we finish today? We’ll be running around pouring Mana from now on, and we won’t have enough time.”
“We have to do it in one go.”
Ezekiel began to draw up Mana.
However, it wasn’t just for one piece of spell corresponding to one fragment. He prepared to emit the Mana corresponding to every piece located in the market that the girl had pointed out.
He placed one palm on the ground.
He began to release Mana, one by one. All of them were the answers corresponding to each ground in the market.
Boom─!
Boom─!
Boom─!
With each emission, every spot in the market started to respond. Just pouring in the answers made the nearby grounds react on their own.
To other mages, this would seem nonsensical. But, for Ezekiel, it was far from impossible.
It was a skill made possible by having three times the energy of others.
“…”
The girl stared blankly at Ezekiel.
Her small face was a mix of emotions. The joy of the Spirit Trap being repaired, and on the other hand, the shock of whether such a thing was even possible…
After a while, she opened her lips.
“Did you just activate every spot in the market?”
“I told you, I plan to finish it by dawn.”
Ezekiel nodded lightly.
“Let’s move to the next location.”
But just then.
“Oh, there you are!”
A panicked voice called out to them.
It was Ophelia, the female mage in charge of the Spirit Trap. She looked like she had run here, drenched in sweat.
“Wait! You need to come to the barracks!”
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