Ch.14Pressure Interview (1)

The stranger casually spoke of secrets that Kaicle had spent his entire life investigating.

Kaicle concentrated magical power into his prosthetic eye to uncover the intruder’s true identity. The visual information from his biological left eye separated from the observation results appearing from his right eye.

His left eye still showed blurry human features.

However, his right prosthetic eye, powered by magical energy, could only detect something like a human shadow, unable to capture its true form.

The biological eye has countless blind spots. An imperfect, inferior organ compared to the meticulously designed mechanical eye.

Yet why was it the mechanical eye that failed to capture the being before him?

There was no way to explain this bizarre phenomenon.

Step. It moved one step closer.

“How, what a strange thing to say.”

Thud. Kaicle stepped back.

“Didn’t Simon Magers attempt ascension? The procedure to reach the celestial seat where gods reside. How is it strange to deduce that one who seeks to join the ranks of gods possesses divinity?”

“Because they hid it!!”

Kaicle shouted convulsively. Everything this being spoke of was secrets that the Ten Towers had concealed.

“They hid the fact that the ultimate achievement of magic that drove away the gods was simply the birth of another god! What are you? Where did you come from?!”

“In truth, that’s hardly even worth calling a secret.”

The intruder mused that if the Ten Towers had truly wanted to hide it, they would have changed the very term “ascension.”

“Shall we discuss practical matters? Up to a certain point, quantitative expansion was equivalent to qualitative improvement.”

Precisely correct. The more essence of Mount Etna he absorbed, the more refined and powerful the magic he could wield using the artificial Ten Realms became.

“But there are limits. A stage comes when despite increasing magical power, the level of magic no longer advances. I suspect you’ve been stuck at this stage for quite some time.”

On the left, he could see the stranger’s smile. With his right eye, he saw darkness in human form that had carved out a place in reality.

“I know of your failure, of course. But I commend your fierce efforts that led you to that failure.”

“Who are you?! Where exactly did you come from?! An assassin sent by the Ten Towers?!”

No. The Ten Towers isn’t an organization leisurely enough to concern itself with such failures. They’re sufficiently busy competing in the race toward ascension while keeping other towers in check.

But who else besides the Ten Towers could create such an incomprehensible being?

“My, haven’t I been introducing myself all along?”

Lernian Magic Tower? No. Such a being couldn’t possibly exist in a tower of that caliber.

Come to think of it, didn’t he say Lernian was “the closest thing”?

Something from the Lernian Magic Tower? No. The Lernian Magic Tower isn’t substantial enough to harbor such an unfathomable entity.

Kaicle steadied his trembling body and stared at the being. He needed to reintegrate the vision from his left eye with the observations from his right.

It was clear that no matter how much he observed the stranger with his right eye, he could learn nothing. To overcome his fear, he needed to return his vision to normal.

Clap.

At that moment, the being applauded.

Though without hostility, it was enough movement to disturb his concentration.

“Excuse me. You seemed to be losing focus.”

‘He noticed the magic that only works within my body?’

The being wanted Kaicle to observe him with his right eye. He couldn’t possibly guess why.

“There seems to be a misunderstanding, so let me introduce myself again. I am Ortes from Hydra Company.”

“Hydra Company?”

The entity calling itself Ortes shrugged.

“It should be in this month’s information prepared by the Phytos Magic Tower’s automatic information collection program. Something like a rising magic tower that annihilated the Lernian school and took their place.”

“Are you the CEO?”

The smile visible only to his left eye deepened.

“CEO? Hardly. I don’t even receive executive treatment at Hydra Company. Systematically, I’m probably just a regular employee.”

Kaicle couldn’t believe it. In extreme confusion, he groped for the purpose behind the other’s approach.

“Because of the artificial Ten Realms… You came looking for me because of what even you admitted was a ‘failure’?”

“It has been a failure until now. But with us, things will be different.”

Step. Before the shadow approaching without hesitation, Kaicle could only retreat helplessly.

Thud. His heel informed him there was no more room to back up. Kaicle realized he had backed all the way to the control device of the artificial Ten Realms.

“Is this the Ten Realms? Compared to the real Ten Realms, it’s somewhat oversized due to insufficient integration, but its magical compression ratio must be incomparable to ordinary magic stones.”

Ortes’s hand reached past him to the control device. Kaicle’s right eye witnessed this.

———!

And then, a primordial resonance too primal for words filled the mountain. A primitive pulse that flowed through the mountain and eventually made the entire city vibrate.

Flames sprouted and fire surged wherever the sound penetrated. The cooling heart of Mount Etna beat once more.

Kaicle knew what it was.

“The echo…!”

The echo Typhon left in this world. What Kaicle had searched for his entire life.

The legendary great monster called the parent of all magical beasts. The king and god of magical beasts. Mount Etna was the last place where the deeds of Typhon, one of the now-vanished gods, were recorded.

This was why Kaicle had attempted to create the artificial Ten Realms by concentrating the fire of Etna City.

If the Ten Realms were the power left in the world by an ascended one, a human who had acquired divinity…

Could one not create something similar by gathering the remnants left by a god?

But what Kaicle had not anticipated was time.

Even the ascension of the Magic King was already in an era called ancient. So much time had passed since the age of vanished gods that even records had grown dim.

Kaicle had greatly underestimated the power of time that claims all things.

No matter how much fire he gathered from Mount Etna, it was uncertain whether he could find even fragments of Typhon’s divinity that had once walked that age.

Amid growing frustration, as Kaicle was about to acknowledge his failure…

Ortes performed a miracle.

Kaicle’s right eye clearly replayed what had just happened. Ortes’s hand—which appeared only as a black shadow to his right eye—touched the control device of the artificial Ten Realms.

Something surged from the shadow and enveloped the artificial Ten Realms.

Inside the artificial Ten Realms that had accepted something, the remnants of divinity stirred. Ortes had called back the echo of divinity to the world across an immeasurable span of time.

“W-who are you?”

Kaicle asked, finding himself on his knees. Even kneeling, Kaicle’s eye level—originally a giant—was higher than Ortes’s.

Yet Kaicle didn’t feel like he was “looking down” at Ortes. If anything, it felt like Ortes was observing him.

“What kind of being are you to reveal my hidden dwelling and make ancient divinity respond to your call?”

A smiling silence. With each passing second, the beads of sweat on Kaicle’s forehead multiplied.

“I am.”

Ortes broke the silence that had felt like eternity.

“An employee of Hydra Company.”

That couldn’t be an answer. Kaicle tried to object.

“The answer you seek lies within us.”

Why did Ortes know the secrets of the Ten Towers?

Why did his touch activate the artificial Ten Realms?

Before the heretic who had left the Ten Towers stood someone extending a hand, promising answers to all questions.

“Do not fear. The one I serve makes great use of even the small, so how much greater success will he bestow upon you, who has already achieved such enormous failure?”

Kaicle took the offered hand.

***

I don’t know. What is this? It’s scary.

Sensing the conversation was going wrong from the start, I pretended to be a suspicious unknown force to prevent Kaicle from attacking first.

It worked well to back Kaicle into a corner by casually dropping settings from the original work.

It was a bit painful to watch the giant man’s expression change from bewilderment to shock to terror, but isn’t it better to resolve things through words rather than fighting?

In fact, in the original work where Baekmumeong suddenly used the artificial Ten Realms as a bomb, Kaicle never even appeared. He was probably killed by Baekmumeong.

To reduce any chance of Karisia following Baekmumeong’s path, I decided to recruit one competent magician. It was a perfect plan.

I was about to end the pressure interview atmosphere at an appropriate point, touch his invention with some compliments, and entice him to join with smooth talk about “the benefits our company has prepared for you.”

Then came the strange phenomenon when I touched the Ten Realms. I couldn’t possibly guess the reason.

‘Is it because of that mysterious facility where this body was?’

I had hypotheses but no proper evidence.

Kaicle was looking at me with sparkling eyes, almost ready to prostrate himself.

With no good answer, I had only one choice.

Dump everything on Karisia.

She should be capable enough to fulfill the expectations of a giant man who developed depression while researching in a basement under a volcano.