Hearing that the Mage Tower Core was ominous, I couldn’t help but massage my temples.
The Mage Tower Core, as the name suggests, is the heart of the Mage Tower. Even if everything else, including the magic of the Mage Tower’s vision, was intact, if the Mage Tower Core was defective, that tower was a defective product.
“So the tower that Knemon was supposed to receive was actually a scam, huh?”
“When did that happen?”
The time between Carisia and me seemed to simplify such a sentence, munching through all the words. Carisia squinted for a moment before giving an answer that was different from what I expected.
“About three days ago?”
It was indeed a vague period. I thought the unsettling air began to swirl right after I had a showdown with the mental parasite. At the latest, it was either when the Divine Cult had begun their pursuit.
Three days prior, I had engaged in a sort of intermediary trade between Blasphemia and the Divine Cult. It was a while since the day the priests reported they couldn’t sense the parasite’s presence.
If I think rationally, then it’s highly likely that during the preparation of the final trial barrier, the organizers made a mistake, leading to a magical impurity in the Mage Tower Core.
Or maybe they were constantly drawing power from the urban magic network to maintain the barrier, which caused the output of the Mage Tower Core to decline.
Yet, I had a certain conviction.
The term ‘rational thinking’ shouldn’t be thrown around recklessly.
Didn’t Blasphemia behave irrationally in that golden desert? Those guys attempted to kill Carisia and me with an exceedingly rational scheme and ended up going missing after a storm from beyond reason hit them.
Even the Mage King had split his inheritance and was about to ascend, who would’ve thought that his disciples would serve him a tasty betrayal?
In my opinion, rational thinking is surely a luxury that can only be used after everything is neatly wrapped up.
Therefore, what I needed now was irrational thinking appropriate for the irrational situation.
“If it’s so ominous, let’s go check it out,” I suggested.
“Isn’t the Mage Master’s chamber of Amimone Tower sealed until the decision battle ends?”
Carisia’s words carried another implication. She was asking if I was ready to knock out all the barrier wizards and erase the sealing magic with a laser beam before boldly charging in.
Naturally, I had no such resolve. Unlike Carisia, who often hints at a vibe like “Ah, it’s time to head back to the white nameless,” I believed that the fewer enemies there are in combat, the better.
“Haha. It would be a door that doesn’t open for Orthes, the secretary of Hydra Corporation.”
So, it made sense that my method would also be ‘conversation.’
“But what if it’s Blasphemia’s Secret Inspector L13?”
I sent a message to Niobe, the head of Blasphemia in Algoth City.
*
While Orthes let out a bizarre chant – “Uhhahaha! Power! Unlimited power!” – and laughed, Carisia readied herself to follow Orthes into the Master’s chamber.
Orthes’s brief ‘inspection’ of the inner chamber as a Secret Inspector and Carisia, sponsor of the candidate Knemon, accompanying him for inspection couldn’t be put on the same level.
A camouflage magic that dealt with the visible spectrum enveloped Carisia’s body. Her transparent form had none of the distortion from bending light, something you’d find reflected through glass or water.
Upon receiving Orthes’s contact, Niobe met him in a place with few signs of life.
“No matter how much my senior says so, this is rather dangerous…”
Although Niobe expressed displeasure, her statement’s beginning with “no matter how” indicated a fifty percent success right there. It meant she had faith in orthes’s abrupt claim about “something seems off with the Mage Tower Core.”
“Senior, can’t we postpone it just for half a day? By then, the decision battle for the Master would also be over. We could just enter under the guise of a sponsor without raising any questions.”
“I’m afraid it may already be too late for that. If this were a common occurrence, using such a move would be proper, but in times of emergency, creative solutions are necessary, wouldn’t you agree?”
Carisia observed Niobe’s eyes, which held a complex mixture of trust, admiration, and goodwill. Though the look in her eyes was not very welcome to Carisia, it was sure that the feelings held by the Blasphemia agent made things move along smoothly for now, so she had no choice but to endure it for a while.
Niobe supported her chin with her thumb and index finger, pondering. From her expression of contemplation, Carisia realized a plan was coming together.
Anyone pondering in front of Orthes would eventually be persuaded.
“An hour. Our side would not object to your business, but the time to shift the attention of other Panoptes agents away from the Master’s chamber is limited.”
“Don’t worry. It’ll all be over before then.”
Orthes winked.
To Niobe, it might have seemed like a merely clever gesture, but Carisia recognized the true meaning behind that motion.
Orthes was preparing to open his eyes.
*
“Huh?”
In front of Amimone Tower, Orthes muttered absently as he prepared to enter while avoiding prying eyes.
The tower exploded.
To be precise, it looked like destruction to others only. To Orthes’s eyes, the shattered pieces of the tower seemed to not have “destroyed” in a physical sense.
Space distorted. All sorts of experimental tools and items within the tower were visible outside, and the exterior that wrapped around the tower was engraved in the sky.
Like scattering hundreds of images capturing the internal and external scenes of the tower across the celestial sphere of Algoth City. Soon, those images began to divide further and further. From walls to bricks, from bricks to sand.
The space was gradually breaking down. The phrase “assembly is the reverse of disassembly” popped into Orthes’s mind.
However, it was doubtful whether the disassembled space would resemble a ‘Mage Tower’ when reassembled. Perhaps ‘demonic creature’ was more fitting.
“Niobe! Bring in Blasphemia! If something is casting magic inside, we could offset it by supplying magic from the outside!”
Orthes’s on-the-fly suggestion had its own merits. Any magic is built upon the law of will that governs magic power to manipulate it as desired. If impurities can be introduced into a spellcasting process, it can either fail or at least be forced to a half-success.
Thus, Orthes’s words were both a directive to Niobe and a call for help directed at Carisia, who was hiding right next to him.
Carisia thought.
“It wasn’t indicated how to infuse the magic, was it?”
As expected, she preferred direct and simple methods.
Had Orthes peered into Carisia’s mindset, he would have labeled it sheer ignorance.
“Huh?”
A sound akin to when he witnessed the tower explode escaped Orthes unconsciously. Unbeknownst to him, Nastion, who was peering into the darkness, expressed his bewilderment with the same phrase.
The sky warped. The mental parasite’s attempt to merge with the Mage Tower caused space distortion.
Yet it was evident that this instance of spatial distortion was not a harmony called upon by the mental parasite.
Though there was no magical evidence, Nastion was certain.
This was because it had begun to burn Amimone Tower.
The round, distorted piece of sky acted like a convex lens, accumulating light at one point. If it got any brighter, it would feel like it could ignite the observer’s eyes.
At the very moment that the concentrated light reached a critical point, the focus of the gathered light shifted.
Instead of the void in front of the space lens, it aimed toward Amimone Tower.
Light beams scorched the sky of Algoth City.
*
I did say to infuse magic.
But I didn’t say to break it.
Instead of holding my throbbing head, I infused magic – often referred to as a beam attack in the Ten Towers – while observing how the Mage Tower, which received it, reacted.
The rate of disintegration clearly slowed down, yet the work continued slowly and steadily.
It suggested that additional magic was being supplied from somewhere. I immediately looked down at the ground. Below was the underground where the magical conduits were laid, capable of siphoning surplus magical energy from the air and transferring it to the tower.
Naturally, the magic conduits continued supplying magical energy to the tower.
Although Carisia’s death beam bought us time, if this continued, Carisia would be the first to run out of magic.
I saw Niobe bringing in the Blasphemia agents. Thanks to Carisia’s effort to physically suppress the parasite’s mutations, time had been bought.
We must utilize this leeway to the fullest. What can we do via Blasphemia? Among them, what is the most effective?
As I crystallized the questions, the judgment concluded.
The barrier prepared for the Master’s decision battle.
If we establish a high-level barrier around Amimone Tower that completely isolates the interior from the exterior, the connection between the magical conduit and the Mage Tower Core will be severed. The magic necessary for the parasite’s merging will naturally dwindle.
In that case, we could at least leave behind the foundation of Amimone Tower. I can’t very well say to Knemon, “Sorry, but the tower is gone” when he returns victorious.
I shouted at Niobe.
“Everyone, over here!”
Niobe nodded vigorously and replied.
“All personnel, attack towards the Amimone Tower causing an extra-dimensional mutation!”
