Chapter 98

There was an expression, “making one’s hair stand on end,” and after seeing Dodol and Kururu, I thought it was an accurate expression.

The experiment we conducted after the test firing of the large-scale magic circle was that extraordinary.

Gerario seemed to have completely forgotten the failure of the large-scale magic circle, while all the fur on Dodol’s body, and the fur on Kururu’s ears and tail, had stood on end and refused to return to normal.

Before returning to the island, Dodol had jumped into the sea in a foul mood to hide the state of his fur, while Kururu kept stroking her own tail.

Magic really was incredible.

Though only the faintest fragment of the ancient large-scale magic circles, whose existence had felt somehow vague until now, we had been able to glimpse a sliver of their power.

If even a shard no larger than the tip of a little finger, compared to their true power, could do this, then how powerful would the real thing be?

Most importantly, among the large-scale magic circles, there were magic circles that were clearly different from attack magic.

What sort of effects would magic that applied such enormous output actually have?

In the church, a gigantic grand magic circle large enough to make one look up at it was displayed in the most conspicuous place.

What, exactly, was the magic engraved there?

Resurrection of the dead, or time reversal?

Or perhaps…?

In any case, even without anyone saying it aloud, everyone shared the same thought.

The mysteries of the large-scale magic circles absolutely had to be solved.

We were already far too conscious of the existence of something that must have been beyond that door to pretend we had never seen this matter.

After finishing that terrifying magic experiment and returning to Jirenu Territory, I left the somewhat absentminded Kururu in Iiria’s care, then headed to where the oddballs I had gathered with magic circle research in mind were staying.

There, the beastman Zezel had compiled the mechanism to be used for semaphore communication, just as promised.

His handwriting was extremely meticulous, delicate in a way that even felt somewhat feminine.

No one would ever imagine that this had been written by a tiger beastman over two meters tall.

Furthermore, the state of their deliberations had been organized logically, making it very easy to understand.

Perhaps the reason he had not joined much in yesterday’s discussion was because he was the type to think slowly on his own.

In any case, their conclusion seemed to have settled on a method of assigning a word to each individual pattern.

Assigning one letter at a time would be good in terms of message expandability and accuracy, but they seemed to have concluded that it was far too redundant in an emergency. Sending letters one by one should be limited to situations where something truly exceptional had occurred.

That was why they had apparently settled on a word-based format, but in exchange, the method of constructing the semaphore arms had been changed.

Rather than the humanoid form I had imagined, it had become a format where rods lined up horizontally were raised or lowered to express bits.

Since one rod could express two states, up and down, every additional rod doubled the number of words that could be conveyed.

In a world without telescopes, this method was also easier to see from far away in terms of visibility.

Moreover, the space at the top of the tower where this device would be installed was limited, so seven rods were probably the limit.

Falone, who also valued the application of theory, had examined this area while attaching a simple design diagram.

Thus, in the end, the format became one in which seven teeth stood on a base.

In other words, the method of expression had two to the seventh power possibilities. It could express 128 patterns. The fact that it was not 8-bit left me feeling slightly bothered, but it could not be helped.

With a mechanism this simple, even if the device broke, in the worst case, it could be substituted with wood growing nearby.

At the very least, I thought their first job had produced more than sufficient results.

“Thank you very much. This is a wonderful result.”

Falone puffed out his chest like a pigeon, while Luano merely shrugged. Alan scratched his head bashfully, and Zezel remained expressionless.

“Well then, make good use of it in war. It was fun.”

Luano said that and tried to leave the mansion, and Falone nodded in satisfaction and tried to follow him.

Alan’s gaze went back and forth between them and me, then he hurriedly tried to follow Luano and the others.

Just as Zezel was about to follow without saying anything in particular, I spoke.

“Um, the real work starts from here.”

The four of them stopped and turned back toward me.

“I know each of you has your own livelihood, but if possible, I would like you to quit those jobs and take on a task I want you to handle full-time.”

Perhaps they had become completely familiar with each other after discussing things all night, because all four of them, including Zezel, exchanged glances.

Then Luano, who unexpectedly seemed to have a boss-like disposition, spoke as their representative.

“You’re saying there’s something even more interesting than this?”

A problem to solve.

For the four of them, that was the greatest reward.

From the feeling I got after asking Marks to investigate the four of them, I thought so as well.

Luano, who never lost at gambling, apparently did not mean that he never lost individual games, but rather that he was never down when he left the gambling den.

After hearing that, I thought that Luano probably understood the concept of probability.

Counting up every possible case and using expected value to place bets was a special way of thinking that ordinary people rarely used. It also required trust in the law of large numbers.

And from the story that Luano preferred relatively small bets, I thought that perhaps he was gambling purely to verify his own thinking.

As Gerario had predicted, Falone was highly likely to have fled from an inquisition.

According to the neighbors, he apparently preached that there were hidden laws in the world, and that if one observed physical phenomena and converted them into numbers, people’s destinies would become clear. He seemed absorbed in something close to numerology, but perhaps he could be called a primitive physicist.

According to the bricklayer foreman, Alan was serious, but slow at work, and had a personality that was abnormally particular about the way bricks were arranged.

He sometimes spent the whole day counting bricks or rearranging them, so they said he might have been possessed by a demon. According to Yoshu, Alan had apparently prepared seven different proofs of the Pythagorean theorem.

Dodol knew about Zezel. He said Zezel was an oddball who liked fine details and spent all day tying and untying ropes. Apparently, strange knots were displayed in rows at his house, and according to Zezel, they represented the shape of the world.

When I heard that, I thought that this Zezel might be the most incredible one of them all.

The ropes on display were probably his attempts to test how many ways there were to tie knots.

In mathematics, that was the starting point of topology.

In any case, I thought that if they had been born in a world with a proper educational system, their talents would surely have been discovered.

And if it was them, they should not shrink back from the mysteries of the grand magic circle.

After all, those who killed gods were always those who believed in the power of science.

“I think this is probably the most complex and interesting problem in this world.”

What I spread out before them was a gigantic magic circle that was truly in the realm of God.