WeTried Translations
Translator: Botanica
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◈ I Became the Slit-Eyed Henchman of the Evil Boss
Chapter 24
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Blasphemia Branch (4)
“Magic interference? Ha!”
The embezzling, corrupt branch chief’s sneer reaches my ears. I understood that sneer.
The usage of magic interference is summarized as “using a spell of the same affinity when a spell is being cast.” But the detailed principle is much more complex.
To use magic, one first needs the mana that will become the material of the spell, the will to cast the magic, and a spell formula that gives form to the mana.
Mana is expressed through will and materialized through spell formulas, ultimately being completed as magic.
This is precisely the reason why magic of the ‘same affinity’ must be used when employing magic interference.
At the timing just before mana is completed into magic, mana optimized for that particular magic affinity exists.
For example, if casting a spell that fires an ice bullet, the mage must gather mana at an external point to form ice. It is mana imbued with the will of ‘ice.’
If, while this ice-attributed mana, not yet completed into magic, exists in the air, another mage uses a spell that summons a blizzard?
A portion of the mana prepared to form the ice bullet is stolen by the blizzard spell. Ultimately, magic interference is a technique that uses the opponent’s mana for one’s own spell.
In other words, the faster the speed from mana discharge to spell completion, the more extremely difficult it becomes to interfere with the magic.
Furthermore, in the case of large-scale spells, it is common to prepare mana with a bit more leeway than the minimum required mana amount, assuming various contingencies. The more powerful a veteran mage’s spell, the more exponentially difficult the magic interference becomes.
For a large-scale self-destruction spell prepared by a Blasphemia branch chief, you’d be better off begging the sky for mercy.
Unless you’re an elder of the Ten Towers or Karisia.
And above all.
‘I can’t use magic.’
The only magic I can handle is a Magic Imprinting Drive or artifacts that have magic imbued from the start.
Of course, if it’s not a mass-produced Magic Imprinting Drive but a somewhat expensive drive, causing magic interference is not impossible.
Because high-end custom-made Magic Imprinting Drives come with an auto-charging option that absorbs external mana to cover the mana needed for activation.
‘Seems like that bastard mistook this for a custom-made Magic Imprinting Drive….’
That branch chief has had a lot of misunderstandings from earlier. This time is another misunderstanding.
If I activated magic with the Magic Imprinting Drive and then chanted additional magic, the probability of successfully interfering with the magic would increase a bit. Because the number of attempts increases.
By about 0.1%?
I don’t like gambling enough to risk my life on such odds.
My eyes, which had been almost closed. I focus on that sensation.
I activate the sealed sensations one by one. I lift the heavy eyelids that had been pressing down.
And I see.
Before my eyes, the way the cables connected to the branch chief appear in my vision changes. Instead of smooth metallic bodies and mana-flowing fibers, I see line-shaped figures made of letters.
The sizes are inconsistent and the shapes are distorted, like letters scribbled carelessly by a child.
But my brain, accustomed to this abuse, instinctively deciphered those figures.
Lumina-Magnetros alloy. Optimal mana circulation 1854 ma/s. Maximum circulation 3000 ma/s. During loading, magic formula-
I shift my gaze. The branch chief, surrounded by cables, also appears as a human shape formed by clusters of text.
Among the chaotically crushed and bundled letters, I read the information that stands out. Name: Nardanit. Place of birth: Elysion. Result of an experiment that implanted mental problems to enhance magical ability.
The components of every being around me are injected directly into my brain in the form of information. Chaos like shoving my head into a grinder and pulverizing it penetrates me.
From which mine the door behind my crown, which I certainly cannot see, was quarried, to the fact that this train’s name is Charlotte and there is a maintenance depot at the end of the abandoned railway line.
The longer I keep my eyes open, the wider the range of information I read becomes. I must hurry.
Information overload from the abyss. The perceived time of my brain processing too much information at once slows down infinitely.
This is the moment.
Within the infinitely slowed world. I could see the mana gradually completing into the form of magic.
The moment mana tuned by the mage’s will flows according to the spell formula and is finally completed into magic. Even in the pipeline where I inserted the blade, one branch of the self-destruction spell’s formula extends.
And when the mana touches the tip of the blade, I activate the Magic Imprinting Drive.
***
A precise interlocking with zero margin of error. A technique beyond words: inserting another spell formula between the lines of a magic formula.
Originally, spell formulas are constructed from a mage’s mental image. One can only infer them from parts where the converging mana is particularly dense, or from the lingering echoes of completed magic. This is why spell formulas are treated as the secret traditions of Magic Towers.
Though high-ranking mages can reverse-engineer spell formulas from the flow of mana, that too requires time and resources.
This technique, of making magic deformed by attaching a different spell formula to the frame of the formula at the exact same moment that mana flows into a specific point of the formula, Ortes himself called ‘spell formula overwriting.’
A skill that would be impossible to attempt without the eyes that can perceive even mental images. The flow of mana, grotesquely refracted by the forcibly grafted formula, ultimately runs rampant.
At the end of the twisted spell formula, mana that could not be completed into proper magic raged wildly.
“Wha-”
Nardanit, the user of the magic, was the first to sense the abnormality. The self-destruction spell was supposed to envelop the entire train and burst out simultaneously with zero error.
But mana leaked from one point in the spell formula.
Right here.
An explosion that had not properly ripened burst forth with a flash. A flickering flame surged from the spot where Ortes had stabbed the high-frequency blade.
The seeds of the explosion, scattered haphazardly throughout the engine room, burst upon contact with anything, whether the floor or furniture, biting into the space.
Ortes’s sword was the center of the explosion. The black high-frequency blade, wrapped in embers, had become a pillar of fire spewing white explosions.
Nardanit calmly assessed the situation. The self-destruction had failed. Switching targets. He must at least pass on this man’s information to his comrades. With luck, he could aim for mutual destruction, or even a kill.
First, he figures out the inspector’s ability. He didn’t know how, but the inspector had interfered with the spellcasting.
No. It was more than that.
The engine room, overflowing with flashes and explosive sounds, had transformed like the midst of a battlefield. Nardanit raised mana to first block the superheated air.
The engine room had now reached a temperature where even breathing would burn the lungs, and the interior, filled with noise and smoke, made it impossible to discern the enemy’s movements through sight and hearing.
It was a counterattack.
‘Where is the bastard?’
As soon as he activated the Magic Imprinting Drive, the bastard had dodged without hesitation. The magic he activated was probably a secret technique for purging an inspector.
Nardanit flowed mana into his hair. The ultra-high-density hairs made of biofibers spread in all directions, as if encroaching on the room.
They pierce through the heat and smoke, searching for the bastard’s location. The moment the enemy so much as touches even a single strand of the three-dimensionally spreading hair, magic will be discharged toward the inspector.
And in the meantime. He transmits data through his auxiliary brain. Data transmission via the cables directly connected to his nervous system.
It was a warning that a secret inspector had caught a lead. The information transmission command issued to the mana-driven locomotive’s central processing unit would alert his comrades of the danger.
Nardanit, who had been focusing on the vibrations transmitted through his hair, realized something was strange. Data transmission was not something that took this long.
It might be different for video data, but time was short so he had only sent the text: ‘Ortes. Secret Inspector. Caution.’
‘Why isn’t the transmission finished yet?’
***
Crunch.
A metal spider smaller than a fingernail was moving along the cable.
As soon as Nardanit revealed his true colors and connected to the engine room’s cables, Ortes released the spider Arabel had given him.
Confirming the signal, Arabel connected to the spider drone and saw Ortes confronting someone who looked half-merged with machinery in some unknown place.
She was bewildered, but what she had to do was simple. The strange distortion on the screen. It was undoubtedly a phenomenon occurring due to the extremely high mana density.
Seeing the screen shake every time the cable connected to the stranger creaked, the source of the mana was over there. A cable that continuously supplies such a quantity of mana that even its discharge distorts the screen?
It was a power line connected to a mana core.
At the end of the power line, there would naturally be the mana core, and it would be connected to the processing unit and database for controlling the mana core.
Arabel’s spider crawled along the train’s power line and began hacking into the central processing unit’s data.
While unlocking the information barrier, one piece of data inside this branch tried to transmit. Arabel blocked that data’s transmission.
Whatever the data’s identity, it would be information sent by Ortes’s enemy.
Intercepting the data mid-transmission, Arabel displayed the intercepted data’s details in a corner of Ether Space.
『Ortes. Secret Inspector. Caution.』
‥‥‥?
What is this. What is happening?
Arabel fell into confusion.
***
‘Damn.’
I didn’t expect my sword to melt away like that.
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