The Empire guarantees freedom of religion, ‘to a degree.’ This meant that any religion that threatened the well being of the Empire would be crushed, while the rest would be left alone. It was a rather flexible religious policy.
However, despite this flexibility, the influence of the Empire’s religions dwindled with each passing year. This was because people preferred visible miracles over invisible faith. Magic was causing religion to decline.
Continuously, and steadily. Because of this, the hearts of the Orthodox clergy were quite troubled. Even they, the largest religious body in the Empire, could not go against this great tide.
The Orthodox Grand Cathedral in the capital. The grand conference hall. Bishops from each diocese were receiving a report with grim faces.
“Therefore, thanks to the efforts of Sir Valerius and... a rising figure named ‘Howard,’ the Guides of the Lantern have been effectively dismantled.”
Listening to the report, the cardinal took off the glasses on his nose with a trembling hand.
“I see... They didn’t leave any room for the imperial family to interfere, did they?”
“No. Immediately after the incident, we issued a statement in His Holiness the Pope’s name, condemning the blasphemous actions of the Guides of the Lantern.”
It was a blessing in disguise. While the mages were wiping out the heretics, the church, for its part, fulfilled its role. At the very least, this incident would not diminish the church’s standing.
“Good. Next report.”
“... As predicted by ‘Isaac Upperhills,’ the eighth planet, ‘Neptune,’ has been discovered.”
“Dammit...”
“... Pardon?”
How many years had it been since he had last sworn? The cardinal’s vision swam.
‘To think that actually came true.’
The cardinal closed his eyes tightly and massaged his temples.
“Among the major scriptures... how many passages mention the number of planets?”
“The passages that specify seven planets... total 478.” ‘That’s a hell of a lot.’
The cardinal swallowed a curse.
“What do we do now?”
The parchment scriptures were too expensive to recall and destroy entirely. The budget was already tight due to supporting the northern dioceses, and why did this blasted parchment have to be so expensive... On the other hand, having the priests correct each one by hand was too much work.
“For now... have the new scriptures that are to be copied be distributed with the correction.”
“Yes, sir.”
The cardinal wanted to just ignore the whole thing. But one way or another, this Empire was a nation that revolved around mages. If they didn’t want to end up like the Guides of the Lantern, they had to follow the trend.
‘Why did he have to go and make a discovery like that...!’
Of all times, for something like this to happen during his tenure.
‘Just three more years and I could have retired...’
The wrinkles on the cardinal’s brow deepened.
Recently, Anna had one piece of good news and one piece of bad news. The good news was that her nickname, ‘Ice Princess,’ had finally disappeared. Her efforts of smiling at her friends whenever she had time, occasionally going on outings, and even taking the lead in group projects had paid off.
It was truly a victory of effort. The bad news, however... was that a new nickname had taken the place of ‘Ice Princess.’
Step, step.
Anna walked silently down the hallway of the Magic Academy without a word. But whenever she did, the surroundings descended into chaos. Anna’s friends shouted.
“Hey, move it! ‘The Mage Who Reads the Stars’ is passing through!”
A great clamor. At their words, the crowd in the hallway parted. The Mage Who Reads the Stars.
That was Anna’s new nickname. She had been given that name after Neptune, a planet whose existence was first predicted mathematically in the Principia, was actually discovered. It was better than Ice Princess, but... this had its own difficulties.
‘If the other students dislike it, I could at least try to tell them to stop...’
But the students showed no resistance to the sudden traffic control.
“Wow. ‘The Mage Who Reads the Stars’... so she really does attend our school.”
“That’s the... co-author of the Principia...!”
“Even the way she breathes is noble...”
Just then, a late-blooming student with a bushy beard stood before Anna. In his hand was a handwritten copy of the Principia. He asked Anna.
“Um... if you don’t mind, could I get an autograph here...”
“Hey, mister! You can’t do this!”
Her roommate, Stephanie, skillfully blocked the fan. In the midst of it all, Anna felt her mind go blank.
‘Should I... give him an autograph?’
If she signed it here, she would surely have to write a phrase like, ‘Anna Upperhills, The Mage Who Reads the Stars’ with her own hand. She would rather die.
“You look just like my niece, so please...”
But it was also hard to turn away someone speaking with such pleading eyes. In the end, Anna picked up a quill. After finishing the fan service, Anna headed to the headmaster’s office.
There, the headmaster said to Anna.
“I’m counting on you for tomorrow’s presentation. Here are the related materials.”
“Yes, headmaster.”
Anna nodded mechanically. How many times had it been already... The same presentation every time.
The same sequence every time. The only thing that changed was the audience. It was a mystery where they all came from, but every time, there was a new set of listeners.
It wasn’t difficult, but it was getting old. Giuseppe had told Anna he had ‘cut down everything that could be cut,’ but it seemed like a lie no matter how she looked at it. It seemed Giuseppe was planning to clear away all the bothersome events before Isaac returned from the north.
‘Still... if I go around giving these lectures, my brother can rest a bit when he gets back to the capital, right?’
The thought made her feel a sense of pride. It felt like she was starting to pay back one of the hundreds of debts she had accumulated so far. On her way back to the dormitory after leaving the headmaster's office, Anna had a thought.
Whenever there was a presentation like this, the ‘fake Isaac’ and Anna would each take half of the speaking time. Of course, the ‘fake Isaac’ changed every day.
‘Who was the stand-in playing my brother’s role tomorrow?’
Anna sincerely hoped it wasn't Callen. When Callen transformed into Isaac... there was an excess of unnecessary fan service. That in itself wasn't a bad thing, but... seeing someone who wasn't her real brother smiling with her brother’s face... made her blood boil.
“Ah... I wonder when brother will come back.”
Anna stared blankly at the distant northern sky. She wished he would come back soon.
As promised, I completed the customized combat manual for Sarah’s squad. Combat Mage Field Manual: Search Party Edition. I handed the completed manual to the squad members.
“Wow... you really made all of this.”
“Let me see!”
“Me too!”
The squad members gathered around the single book. A moment later, Sarah asked me.
“Most of the magic circles in here are forms I’ve never seen before... Can you demonstrate?”
“I’ll show you right now.”
As I drew a magic circle on the dirt floor, I asked.
“It’s a bit different from the rock cannon spell you all usually use, isn’t it?”
“Yes. The number of circles is different, for starters. It’s increased from a 4th-circle to a 5th-circle.”
I nodded.
An increase in the number of circles in a magic circle meant that the difficulty of constructing the spell had risen. But as it became more difficult, it also came with a proper return. I asked them.
“What usually happens when you stop in the middle of visualizing a magic circle in your head?”
“You get a rebound.”
“But not with this spell.”
“... What do you mean.”
I activated the 5th-circle rock cannon I drew on the ground only up to the ‘4th circle.’ Then I said to the squad members.
“See? Nothing happened.”
The squad members stared blankly, their eyes darting between my hand and the magic circle on the ground.
Sarah spoke.
I said to the squad members.
“Until now, what did you do if the enemy’s position changed while you were constructing a spell?”
One by one, the squad members answered my question.
“... I moved until I was in a position where I could hit them.”
“While doing that, I slowed down my incantation or the construction of the magic circle.”
“But if you slow down too much and fail to construct the spell, you get a rebound, so you have to maintain a state of tension.”
I said.
“You don’t need to do that anymore.”
This was an application of a trick I saw in Valerius’s first special lecture. Stopping a spell by using an antagonistic structure. In terms of an electrical circuit, it was like putting a switch right before the final circle.
“Think of it as moving all the commands corresponding to firing to the last circle, in exchange for adding one more circle.”
At my words, one of the squad members raised his hand and asked.
“Is... something like that possible?”
“I just showed you, didn't I? If you're curious, try it yourself.”
“Is that okay?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“...!”
At my words, the squad members began to demonstrate the magic one by one.
Sarah stared at her squad members, dazed.
“Holy crap, this was actually possible?!”
There was a subordinate who was purely impressed.
“What kind of fighting have I been doing all this time?”
There was also a subordinate who felt a sense of doubt about all his past practice and research. Sarah’s case was closer to the latter. Anyone can have the idea of separating the loading and firing process.
But making it a reality is a story on a completely different level.
‘I thought he would just create a structure that could moderately adjust the casting time...’
This was on the level of creating a completely different spell.
‘How on earth did he do it?’
Just finding the isolated firing structure within the magic circle was a challenge in itself.
‘To figure all that out, you’d need a verification system with a completely different structure from magic circles and incantations...’
Could it be that he used mathematics? Like he showed in the Principia?
‘No. There’s no way that’s possible.’
Although many parts had become calculable, it would be impossible to handle everything with calculations. It was more correct to assume that Isaac's intuition was simply on par with that of a Great Mage.
Just then. Clang! Clang!
Clang!
The warning bell outside the barracks rang three times in rapid succession. It was the signal for a magical beast appearance. The squad members, who had been engrossed in their magic practice, all stopped at once.
“Everyone, assemble!”
At Sarah’s shout, the squad members instantly ran to her.
Isaac asked.
“Has a magical beast appeared?”
“Yes. Our squad is on standby today. We have to leave right...”
Before Sarah could finish her sentence, Isaac pointed to the manual in her hand.
“Then you should try using that.”
“... Yes, sir!”
Sarah’s squad immediately moved out. Sarah asked the observer.
“Enemy’s location and number?”
“In front of stockade number 7, one Giant Ice Wyrm.”
“Understood.”
When they arrived at the location in question, the snow-covered ground beyond the outer stockade of the fortress was rising up in a huge mound. It seemed a Giant Ice Wyrm had appeared, just as the observer had said.
“That thing again?”
It was the same magical beast that Isaac had killed with her before, no, that Isaac had killed alone. An opponent that would require an entire squad to take down if encountered during a search mission outside. But the method of response near the base was different.
The principle was for at least two squads to engage it together to lower the casualty rate. In this case, Sarah’s squad was to act as the anvil, buying time until another squad, the hammer, arrived. But Sarah suddenly had a different thought.
Sarah asked her squad members.
“Can you use what we just learned in a real fight?”
The squad members’ eyes blazed with confidence.
“Of course, squad leader!”
“We’ll strip it down to the bone!”
“Wyrms don’t have bones, you idiot.”
“Ah, damn it. It’s just an expression!”
A small smile.
Sarah smirked.
She supposed it was true. They had honed their skills through practical combat instead of theoretical study until now. For people like them, to fail to follow a manual written so kindly would be a disqualification as a combat mage.
A short while later, the battle began. As Sarah’s squad moved to the front, the regular soldiers guarding the stockade opened a path. A squad member using a detection spell shouted.
“Wyrm reappearance in ten seconds!”
“Everyone, load rock cannon!”
At Sarah’s shout, the squad members all constructed their spells up to the 4th circle and waited. Eight rock cannons, ready to be fired at any moment. Normally, it wouldn't be strange for a rebound to occur at any time.
But now, the squad members’ mana wavelengths were stable.
“Three seconds! Target, straight ahead!”
Kwoooaaargh!
As predicted, the Ice Wyrm shot up from the ground, opening its massive maw. In the past, only a few who were lucky enough to have delayed their spell casting would have opened fire. But now was different.
“Fire!”
As Sarah’s command fell, the rock cannons were fired.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
The temporal error was greater than before. But the accuracy was much higher. This was because each individual mage could finish constructing their spell at the ‘perfect timing that feels like it will hit.’
Power increases, and rebounds decrease. With a thunderous roar, the rock projectiles hit the Ice Wyrm. Two hit its head, and the rest hit its torso.
Kwaduk!
The hard ice armor shattered, and purple blood burst forth. An Ice Wyrm that has started bleeding cannot escape underground. Now was the chance.
Sarah shouted.
“Fire as you load.”
Thump! Thump! Thump!
One by one, more wounds appeared on the Ice Wyrm’s body.
Kwajik! Ujik!
The Ice Wyrm, lacking vocal cords, could not scream. But its form, writhing in pain, could be seen clearly. The regular soldiers around them began to murmur.
“Crazy... what is that.”
“I heard Captain Sarah’s squad was good, but... were they this good?”
This was a first. Sarah felt a thrill.
Kwajik! Twitch, twitch. Thud.
The wyrm’s movements stopped.
Sarah said.
“Cease loading.”
The squad members all stopped firing at once. Even the squad members who were in the middle of constructing a spell were able to stop at the 4th circle. If things continued this way, misfire accidents would also greatly decrease in the future.
Fwoosh! Sizzle!
The wyrm’s blood met the air and created a hazy steam.
Hehehe. Sarah laughed.
Next to Sarah, her squad members muttered.
“At this rate, I don’t think we’ll even need another squad in the future...?”
“This spell is way more convenient than I thought.”
Situation over.
At Sarah’s gesture, regular soldiers approached to dismantle the Giant Ice Wyrm.
Just then. Rumble, rumble.
The support squad arrived late. Their squad leader said to Sarah.
“Sarah! Sorry we’re late! Are you guys okay... huh?”
Thud.
The squad leader stopped in front of the Ice Wyrm’s corpse. The rest of his squad members did the same.
They muttered.
“It’s already over?”
“What... did Mr. Howard step in again?”
“... No. It’s just Sarah’s squad here.”
“Then how on earth?”
They stared with blank faces, looking back and forth between Sarah’s squad and the Ice Wyrm.