Chapter 19

“…No way.”

Only after the situation that had unfolded before our eyes had finally settled down did Kengo manage to say that.

I had collapsed at the knees and was sitting there limp. Kururu, who had activated the magic stone, was no different, and Iiria was clinging to Kururu from behind.

What had been carved into the magic stone was a fire-starting magic circle, since in the dark it would be easy to confirm whether it had activated.

Kururu had said her own ability was even below that of a mere apprentice mage, so I had thought it would be cause for celebration if even the faintest flame appeared. If we could confirm the method was correct, that alone would be enough to rewrite history.

That was why I had strained my eyes so hard not to miss even that tiny flame that I thought I would go blind.

In fact, even if I had been blind, I probably would have sensed the activation of the magic stone.

After all, a gigantic blaze had scorched both my eyes and my skin.

The mound at the stone dumping ground was smoking, and parts of it were glowing red with heat.

The magic stone that had been in Kururu’s hand instantly turned to ash, and the wind created by the sudden temperature change in the surrounding area scattered it in all directions. For that matter, the sleeve of Kururu’s clothes had turned to ash too, and a little smoke was even rising from her hair.

And yet Kururu noticed none of it, utterly spellbound by what had happened before her eyes.

“A dream?”

Was that because a girl who had lacked even enough ability to call herself a mage had caused an explosive blaze like a great archmage?

Or was it because something made from reprocessed magic stones that had been thrown away for being impossible to carve magic circles into had functioned perfectly well as a magic stone?

“I thought the logic should hold… but…”

Rubbing my dazzled eyes and coughing heavily, I spoke.

“I never thought it would actually work.”

That was my honest impression.

“I still… think I’m dreaming…”

Kururu was gripping the trembling hand she had placed on the magic stone with her other trembling hand.

I wondered if she had been burned by the backlash of the magic, but her skin still looked unblemished.

“And… why? Right, why did you two come to this?”

Kururu seemed to remember Iiria’s presence and wrapped an arm around the shoulders of her mistress, who was too shocked to even speak. Looking at us in that posture, her eyes seemed somewhat frightened too.

“The fact that it really worked was partly luck. But the framework was inference.”

“Inference?”

“The existence of giant magic circles is obviously illogical.”

In a house full of drafts, even from a distance the light of the blaze must have streamed in easily.

As I answered, I watched Kengo go off to smooth things over with the beastfolk who had come to see what was happening.

“I wondered whether the kind of desperate trial and error Kururu-san carried out could really have been done in the middle of a harsh war. Especially with magic circles this huge, just how many enormous magic stones would have had to be wasted? Just mining them, hauling them out, and shaping them would require enormous labor. Or rather, if giant magic stones had really been abundant, then simple magic circles would have been enough. The power is… well, just as you can see.”

It was only about the size of a third-grade stone, and it had been activated by a dropout who had never been able to become a mage, yet it had this much power.

And it was precisely because even this makeshift combination had such a powerful effect that weak humans, with limited resources and while still enslaved, had been able to wrest control of the world back.

“Then… um…”

Still seeming unable to believe the magic she herself had caused, Kururu stared at her own hand as she spoke.

“The legendary magic circles… what are they, then? And the Church’s teachings?”

We didn’t know whether our hypothesis was correct, but assuming it was, we had already thought that part through as well.

“They were probably made in a later age.”

“What?”

“If people found out that any scrap magic stone could be processed into something huge as much as they wanted, they’d obviously try making giant, complicated magic circles, and those would carry more authority, wouldn’t they?”

To convey the Church’s precious teachings to people with low literacy, visual impact would have been necessary. If people were shown something giant and complicated rather than a simple figure, they would surely fall prostrate without even understanding why.

All the more so because even a simple figure could unleash power great enough to alter the map of reality itself. If people saw something complex with their own eyes, they would probably bow as if God were standing before them.

“And as for the technology for processing this scrap magic stone… I think it probably wasn’t forgotten so much as deliberately sealed away.”

“Sealed away?”

“With a magic stone of only about third-grade quality and such a simple magic circle, this is what happened. So, um, I don’t want you to get mad, but… what do you think would have happened if a truly exceptional mage had activated it?”

Kururu flinched and looked at the pile of scrap stones that was still smoldering.

Surely everything as far as the eye could see would have become a sea of fire.

A mage was worth a thousand soldiers.

The scene before us was exactly what that meant.

“As long as this method was widely known in the world, magic circle development would surely have continued. And I think that development eventually reached the point where using magic would also bring disaster upon the one using it.”

For example.

Like nuclear weapons.

“But… but that’s strange too, isn’t it?”

Kururu said.

“There was no need to make magic that powerful, was there? After defeating the beastfolk, what on earth would they have used such magic for?”

Wasn’t that Kururu’s natural impression, after having tasted even a little of just how difficult magic circle research was? And judging from the devastation of the stone mound before us, it was terrifying even to imagine what would happen if one of those huge, complex magic circles recorded in the holy text were activated.

The beastfolk, who could not use magic, should not even have been able to stand against simple magic circles, so perhaps by then there had been no enemies left anywhere at all.

But I knew human foolishness better than the people of this world did.

“Wars between humans.”

Kururu and Iiria both widened their eyes at the same time.

“The Doflore Empire is the second or third empire since the age of the holy text, right?”

When I spoke the knowledge I had heard from Kengo, Kururu slowly nodded.

Like a beast drinking the blood of its companions in order to survive.

“I looked into it a little myself, and between the era when the holy text was supposedly written and the present age, there’s a strangely undocumented period of history. Especially regarding what is said to have been the second empire.”

As Kururu tilted her head as if to ask what that was supposed to mean, Iiria, who had stayed still until then in Kururu’s arms, moved.

“…Are you saying that just because it’s an ancient era, that doesn’t explain the loss of history?”

Kururu was smart, but Iiria was surely smarter still. It was probably no coincidence that the two of them had managed to survive in this territory despite everything they had suffered. The two of them had joined forces, used their wits, and gotten through it together.

“That’s right. I think magic had probably already become excessively powerful by the time of the first empire. And I think the second empire—and perhaps even the first one—was obliterated along with its enemies because it actually used the kind of ancient magic circles preserved in the holy text.”

“That’s… absurd.”

Kururu said it with a strained smile, but I did not smile in return.

“In our previous world, things like that really happened.”

It was said that the only reason nuclear weapons were never launched and humanity was not destroyed during the Cold War was sheer luck. Even among the cases known publicly, such as the Cuban Missile Crisis and retaliatory measures prompted by false alarms in nuclear warning systems, there were incidents where the launch button was only barely not pressed thanks to the judgment and decency of just a handful of people.

But what if the humans had only just wrested control of the world back from the beastfolk, drunk on a sense of omnipotence?

I wouldn’t be surprised if they had used every weapon in their hands and destroyed one another utterly.

“It’s possible that once, a great deal of knowledge was lost. It’s also possible that new rulers actively sealed away the source of such abhorrent technology so that the follies of the past would never be repeated.”

At a level of civilization where information networks had not advanced and even contacting distant towns was difficult, that should not have been hard. Most people probably spent their whole lives without ever leaving the place where they were born, and there simply were not many people to begin with. If there were few ambitious people willing to defy tradition and experiment, rediscovering the technology would be difficult too.

And besides, the mental shackles of tradition and custom were terrifyingly strong. Most people never even try to think of paths other than the one right in front of them. Even things that seem obvious in hindsight often go unimagined by anyone for a very long time, and that is not rare even in the modern age.

For example, when the major online retailer Amazon obtained a patent for its one-click purchasing system, it was roundly mocked for patenting something so simple that anyone could have thought of it. Technically speaking, it really was something anyone could have built.

And yet at the time, nowhere in the vastness of the internet had anyone actually created that system.

Even in a world as advanced as the previous one, that sort of thing still happened.

If that was so, then no one would think that crushing up scrap magic stones and hardening them with nikawa [animal glue] might produce an effect not all that different from natural magic stones.

“So, well, maybe we’ve discovered something that should never have been discovered.”

Perhaps this was how the scientists of the Manhattan Project had felt when they first witnessed a nuclear explosion.

But by the time the flash of that nuclear blast faded, they must have uttered the same line I did.

“But it’s an unbelievably useful technology.”

Still sitting down, I looked at the stone mound and fought desperately to keep myself from laughing.

“Because this mountain of scrap stone is going to turn into a mountain of treasure!”

A magic stone about the size of a hand was worth a thousand gold coins. And with fragments of magic stone that were being thrown away as worthless, you could make as many of them as you wanted.

“Though to make a huge fortune with this technology, we’ll need a bit of ingenuity.”

“…?”

Kururu and Iiria looked at each other in puzzlement.

“The method for making substitute magic stones is simple. We managed it ourselves, so anyone can imitate it.”

“That’s true… anyone could understand it just by looking… they could make dangerous magic endlessly…”

I nodded toward Kururu.

“That’s why we need one extra twist.”

We couldn’t just sell the substitute magic stones as they were.

Then what was it that we would sell?

“Iiria-sama.”

When I called her name, Iiria—whose knowledge of history, learned as a noble, and whose common sense as a person of this world had both been shaken—flinched and looked at me.

“W-What? What is it this time?”

I wanted to ask, Did you know the Earth is actually round? but decided against it.

“There’s something I’d like to ask. Didn’t the Bax Company make an offer regarding mineral prospecting at the mine?”

Iiria blinked blankly, then gave an uncertain nod.

“They did… but what about it?”

“Why don’t we take that on ourselves?”

“Huh?”

At that, Kururu’s eyes widened.

“I see! With the magic stone from earlier, we could blow up the entire mine!”

Blowing it up would be no good, but shattering bedrock for prospecting purposes should be child’s play.

“I’ve heard that prospecting work requires both mages and magic stones, so a considerable sum of money is allocated for it. We have Kururu-san as our mage, and we can make magic stones from scrap magic stones. Since we can prospect without spending much at all, all the prospecting fees paid by the Bax Company can become ours.”

Whether in investing or in business, great sums of money flowed where there were information gaps.

If we kept the secret of these magic stones to ourselves alone, earning a large fortune would not be difficult.

“It should amount to quite a substantial sum. With that money and the secret of these magic stones as our capital, shall we strike back?”

As for exactly what we would be striking back at, each of us probably had our own answer.

But I was sure both Kururu and Iiria understood what I wanted to say.

Because Kururu’s eyes were shining, while Iiria’s anxious brows had drooped downward.

“Kururu…”

The spirited attendant whose name had been called answered her mistress with eyes full of confidence.

“It’ll be alright, Iiria-sama.”

Kururu looked at us and smiled.

“These two start saying incomprehensible things all the time, but at least they can be trusted.”

“Eh…”

I couldn’t tell whether that bewildered voice had come from me or from Iiria.

Looking at the stone mound still giving off smoke, Kururu was smiling clearly.

“And besides, it’s fun. The nonsense these two talk.”

That was probably a jab at how I had gotten carried away all by myself when we first discussed the plan.

When I gave Kururu an annoyed look, Kururu—who had once seemed like an irritable wild beast—shook with laughter as if she were being tickled.

“Iiria-sama, you should smile once in a while too.”

At Kururu’s words, Iiria’s ear fur bristled as if someone had stepped on her tail.

“I-I’m not involved… no, I guess I am…”

Iiria touched Kururu’s cheek with her right hand.

“You’ve always been working so hard for my sake, haven’t you?”

And for our moneymaking too, we needed Iiria’s backing.

Still looking somewhat uncertain, Iiria took a deep breath as though bracing herself, then looked at us.

“When I found out neither of you was a mage after all, I was disappointed from the bottom of my heart, but it turns out you really were saviors.”

There was a custom of leaving bodies at the mine, because those who returned from the mine might become mages.

“We still don’t know that yet.”

When I answered with a realistic remark, Iiria gave a sardonic smile that suited a lord.

“Kururu, let’s return to the mansion.”

Iiria stood up, glanced at Kengo as he came back toward us waving his hand, apparently having finished smoothing things over with the beastfolk, and then smiled at Kururu in front of her.

“Tonight, I’m sure you’ll finally be able to sleep well too.”

Kururu looked as if she were about to cry, then hurriedly looked over at us and rubbed at the corners of her eyes.

Kengo was grinning without any tact at all, but I at least had the sense to avert my eyes.

And above us, the moon looked down from the sky.

It was such a beautiful perfect circle of a moon that it made me want to inscribe a magic circle on it.