WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Asakusa
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◈ Knight Commander of the Doomed Heroes ◈
Chapter 13: Peaceful Days (8)
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The name Outer God (外神) reflected our fear.
In truth, no one knew.
Had that god truly come from outside, or had it risen from within?
No. Did this divine being that supposedly brought about the end even exist?
We didn't know.
And yet we called it the Outer God.
Because it defied all reason.
The gods whom people of old had praised with cries of “Steliya” were mercilessly slaughtered by the apostles.
Even the being called the chief god had reportedly failed to withstand a single apostle.
The great general who defended the empire at the time left these diary entries.
「Before the armies of monsters, we swore to fight this nightmare to the very end.」
「A twisted angel descended. For a moment, we forgot our oath and despaired. O God. Save us.」
「We saw it. How foolish we had been to despair at a mere angel. We decided to call it an apostle. Once we settled on that, we all laughed. We laughed and regretted it all. Why did I bother fighting? I should have held my son one more time instead.」
Those things were on a different level.
Even their magical power was different from ours.
With a mere handful of magical power, they destroyed the towering, tree-like spells we had struggled to build.
The proud ivory tower we had built over our long history collapsed like fallen leaves swept away by a typhoon.
Humanity had survived only thanks to the girl heroes.
That was why we called it the Outer God.
Surely something so unreasonable, so contrary to logic and common sense, couldn't have come from our world.
Just as the heroes with their extraordinary powers had come from another world, perhaps this doom had come from outside too.
And so.
We made defeat a part of ourselves.
We can't do it.
The power we're born with is different.
We're only human.
We're not heroes.
We're not apostles.
We're not monsters like them.
I hated those thoughts.
Why can't we?
If Harin noona could do it, so could I.
If those girls could do it, so could we.
Why can't we?
We're all human.
Just as human as they are.
In this entire world, I alone believed that.
That was why I had some hope for the results of this study.
“The Academy's research mages. I wonder if they've changed their minds.”
They were always saying there wasn't enough evidence for my hypothesis. Now that they had an excellent sample to study, angelic magical power, surely they had discovered something.
I sat down with the fresh stack of documents that had arrived that morning.
It was a research report on angelic magical power.
The angel's magical power had remained inside the knights who had been drenched in its blood.
By analyzing that higher-order magical power, which differed from human magical power, we might come to understand the deeper secrets of magical power itself.
The report's introduction identified that point precisely.
- Magical power theory aims to reveal the properties of magical power itself and the principles behind its existence.
- Research into magical power theory to date has been led by Lord Revel Vieta, commander of the Order of Eternity and a full member of the Society of Archmages.
- Lord Revel argues that the higher-order magical power possessed by twisted angels, the old gods, heroes, and apostles is fundamentally no different from the ordinary magical power we sense and use. The difference is merely one of density, not a fundamentally different kind of power.
- If this hypothesis is correct, angelic magical power, the least dense form of higher-order magical power, should be closest to the ordinary magical power used by humanity. It should be possible to convert ordinary magical power into angelic magical power, and conversely, to convert angelic magical power into ordinary magical power. This study will focus on that question.
The question humanity had asked.
The question I had asked again and again.
The old gods, angels, apostles, and heroes. Great beings who performed seemingly impossible miracles as easily as breathing.
How, in what ways, and to what extent did their magical power differ from ours?
Why was it so different?
Could we reproduce it artificially?
This report was the Academy scholars' latest answer to those questions.
I was quite eager to read it.
Rustle.
I turned the pages, carefully reading from beginning to end.
- It is an established fact that higher-order magical power requires ordinary magical power. Heroes replenish their depleted magical power through mana breathing, just as we do. The knights who acquired angelic magical power also replenished it through breathing. However, Lord Revel's conclusion that the two are fundamentally the same based on this alone is far too simplistic.
...When had I drawn that conclusion based on that alone?
- Lord Revel claims that the difference in order is merely a difference in magical power density. However, how can magical power, which has a mutually repulsive nature, remain stable at high density? He cannot explain this.
Oh, come on. What in this world was perfect from the start? The whole point of that paper was to suggest we work together to find the answer, and they were treating it like this...?
- No method succeeded in converting angelic magical power back into ordinary magical power.
- No method succeeded in mixing angelic magical power with ordinary magical power.
- Compressing ordinary magical power, no matter how much, did not produce higher-order magical power. As magical power was compressed, the force required increased exponentially. Compressing ordinary magical power to the same density as angelic magical power would require infinite force.
Hmm.
- Comparing ordinary magical power, angelic magical power, and heroic magical power, the overwhelming qualitative differences among the three are difficult to explain through density alone.
Hmmmm.
- This suggests that higher-order magical power and ordinary magical power may be fundamentally different. Although ordinary magical power may be used in its creation, it is reasonable to regard its true nature as something of a higher dimension that we cannot comprehend. Using water and stone to sharpen a blade does not mean the blade is made of water and stone.
- Lord Revel Vieta's original claim is contradicted by his own theory. According to his magical power theory, magical power exists in a different phase from reality and produces phenomena by projecting its shadow onto reality. If so, there is no basis for the claim that compressing magical power would produce a different effect on reality. Whether a shadow is cast by soft wood or tightly compressed wood, the resulting shadow is the same if the shape is the same.
I practically threw the report down.
“You slime-scum bastards.”
I was a fool to have expected anything.
The same conclusion, yet again.
Humans could never reach the level of angels and apostles.
Heroes were fundamentally different from us.
We couldn't do it.
We couldn't because we were human.
In the end, it was just the same thing over and over.
Defeatism.
Tsk.
“Time to present another paper. It's been a while.”
Frrrrsh!
I settled down in earnest and began taking apart the Academy's research report, examining every detail.
Its conclusion might not have been what I had hoped for, but the wealth of experimental and observational data it contained was precious material I could use for a new hypothesis.
“So... in the end, no amount of compression can turn ordinary magical power into angelic magical power. That's the problem, isn't it?”
What happened if you blocked the opening of a syringe and pushed the plunger to compress the air inside? At first, the air would compress a little, but eventually you would reach a point where you simply couldn't push any harder. This was a similar problem.
Both angelic and heroic magical power were clearly compressed to a high density. Heroic magical power was so compressed that its phase twisted and encroached on reality. That was how magical power overload occurred.
So why couldn't we create that state by compressing magical power ourselves...?
I turned the pages with that question in mind.
Flap. Flap.
Huh?
“The values come out like this here? Then... Wait. Could it be?”
As I read through the data, a realization struck me like lightning.
Why hadn't I seen this before?
When the air inside a syringe could no longer be compressed, what would happen if you applied even more force?
The syringe would probably break.
Yes. It would break. Break through the existing phase.
“Hah.”
I felt like an idiot.
What? I'd known the answer all along.
How could magical power be compressed?
How could mutually repulsive magical power remain stable in a compressed state?
Why did compressed magical power produce stronger effects when projected onto reality?
I already knew.
A hero's magical power overload.
A problem caused when magical power compressed to an extremely high density twisted out of phase and went so far as to encroach on reality.
Hadn't the answer been there from the start?
I picked up my pen, dipped it in ink, and began drawing the picture taking shape in my mind.
A new framework for understanding this world and magic.
A way for humans to attain higher-order magical power.
The sun set. The moon set. The sun rose again.
Scratch. Scratch, scratch.
Ink traced paths across the paper.
* * *
Papers lay crumpled, folded, scattered, rustling, and stained with ink.
On top of them sat a single bound paper, written more neatly than any of the rest.
I picked it up and went outside.
Today was the day of my presentation at the Academy.
The paper had come together much faster than I had expected. Just five days.
The wounds the angel had given me hadn't even fully healed.
Once I understood which direction to take, everything had suddenly become clear.
Clack, clack.
I passed through the Academy's main gate and entered the conference hall. Countless research mages turned their eyes on me.
“He's presenting the principle behind compressing magical power to achieve higher-order magical power, right?”
“He's just being stubborn for no reason. It's been proven impossible, hasn't it? The results showed it would take infinite force.”
“Right.”
“Even if he could muster infinite force, so what? What would he do then? Magical power repels itself. How does he intend to stabilize it in a compressed state?”
“Exactly.”
The Academy's research mages were intelligent.
As one might expect of the brightest minds in Estel, they didn't worry about pleasing other people.
The fact that I was one of Estel's six grand dukes.
The fact that I was a full member of the Society of Archmages, highly respected even within the Academy.
None of that mattered to them. If I made a claim they thought was wrong, they openly mocked me for everyone to hear.
By their understanding, I was unquestionably wrong.
But this sort of thing didn't actually bother me much. The remarks that bothered me more... were these.
“I understand him. Honestly, wasn't the Three Spirits, Eight Bodies Formation of Severance and Linkage incredible? They killed an angel with human strength. And they even acquired angelic magical power. Huh? Doesn't that mean we might be able to acquire an apostle's magical power too? It's only natural to think that.”
“Oh, it'd be hard to resist.”
“Exactly. But then the results come out, and they say, ‘Absolutely impossible.’ Just like that. Would you be able to accept it right away?”
“So he's throwing a tantrum?”
“Right. We should humor him. He's doing great things for the world.”
Humor me?
You lot?
When I'm right and you're wrong?
Just who do you think is humoring whom?
I stood before the lectern.
The noisy mages all fell silent and focused on me.
Their eyes gleamed in the silence.
That gleam was no different from the light on a blade or an arrowhead on the battlefield.
Those eyes held a firm resolve to find and strike at every flaw in my logic.
Cold and sharp. Their presence was as keen as elite soldiers preparing for battle.
But there was one thing they didn't know.
I had never lost a battle.
I decided to start with the conclusion.
I ran a hand over the lectern.
Then I spoke.
“At last, I have discovered a way for humans to obtain higher-order magical power like that of angels. Today, I intend to demonstrate it and share the hypothesis I have developed.”
The moment I spoke, the auditorium fell quiet for a while.
The research mages all tilted their heads slightly.
As though they couldn't quite understand what I'd said.
Then, like a stream thawing and flowing again in spring after a frozen winter, murmurs rose, almost like groans.
“He succeeded in obtaining higher-order magical power from ordinary magical power?”
“He's going to demonstrate it?”
“That's impossible.”
“I knew it! Lord Revel Vieta! I believed he'd find a way!”
“Is that... possible? Could he have made some kind of mistake?”
“If he can't prove it after saying that, he'll be utterly humiliated.”
“Again. He's overreaching again. Put someone in a position beyond their abilities, and this is what happens.”
“Holy shit. This is going to be fun.”
Confusion. Doubt. Admiration. Scorn. Excitement.
Every kind of emotion poured out.
Without realizing it, I found a broad smile spreading across my face.
A head of platinum-blond hair in the front row suddenly caught my eye.
Eihen Giheis, head of the Academy.
I glanced at his strange expression, then took out the paper I had prepared.
Flap.
This was a battlefield.
With the same resolve I would have shown charging into an army of monsters with a sword in hand, I opened my paper and addressed the research mages filling the hall before me.
“Then, let us begin.”
Footnotes:
“Noona” is a familiar term a male speaker uses for an older sister or an older woman he is close to.
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