Ch.24Blasphemia Branch (4)

“Magic Interference, ha!”

I could hear the mocking laughter of the branch director guilty of embezzlement and breach of trust. I understood that mockery.

The use of Magic Interference can be summarized as ‘using magic of the same category when another spell is being cast.’ But the detailed principles are far more complex.

To use magic, one needs mana as the material, the will to cast magic, and a formula to give shape to the mana.

Mana is manifested through will and concretized by formulas to ultimately complete the magic.

This is precisely why one must use magic of the “same category” when employing Magic Interference. At the moment just before mana becomes complete magic, there exists mana optimized for that specific magic category.

For example, if casting a spell to fire an ice bullet, the mage must gather mana at some external point to form ice. This is mana imbued with the mage’s will for “ice.”

When this ice-attribute mana exists in the air before becoming complete magic, what happens if someone else casts a blizzard spell?

Part of the mana prepared for the ice bullet gets stolen by the blizzard spell. Ultimately, Magic Interference is a technique that utilizes the opponent’s mana for one’s own magic.

In other words, the faster the process from mana emission to magic completion, the more difficult it becomes to interfere with the spell.

Additionally, for large-scale magic, it’s common practice to prepare slightly more mana than the minimum required to account for various contingencies. The more powerful the spell from a skilled mage, the exponentially more difficult Magic Interference becomes.

For something like the large-scale self-destruction formula the Blasphemia branch director prepared, you’d be better off begging the heavens for mercy.

Unless you’re an Elder of the Ten Towers or Karisia.

And above all else.

‘I can’t use magic.’

The only magic I can handle is magic-inscribed drives or artifacts with pre-imbued magic.

Of course, if it’s not a mass-produced magic-inscribed drive but a more expensive one, causing Magic Interference isn’t impossible.

High-end custom magic-inscribed drives come with an automatic charging option that absorbs external mana to supply the mana needed for activation.

‘It seems he’s mistaken this for a custom magic-inscribed drive….’

The branch director has had many misunderstandings from the beginning. This is another one.

Activating magic with a magic-inscribed drive and then chanting additional magic might slightly increase the chances of successful Magic Interference. Since there are more attempts.

About 0.1% maybe?

I don’t like gambling enough to bet my life on such odds.

My eyes, almost closed. I focus on that sensation.

I activate the sealed senses one by one. I lift my heavy eyelids.

And I see.

Before my eyes, the cables connected to the branch director transform in my vision. Instead of smooth metallic bodies and mana-flowing fibers, I see line-shaped figures made of letters.

Like letters scribbled by a child, they’re irregularly sized and distorted in shape.

But my brain, accustomed to this strain, instinctively interprets the figures.

Lumina-Magnetros alloy. Appropriate mana circulation 1854 ma/s. Maximum circulation 3000 ma/s. Loading magic formula—

I shift my gaze. The branch director surrounded by cables also appears as a human figure composed of clusters of text.

From the chaotically crumpled and bound letters, I read the particularly prominent information. Name: Nardanit. Birthplace: Elysion. Result of an experiment to enhance magical ability by implanting mental issues.

The components of every surrounding entity are injected directly into my brain as information. Chaos drills into me like my head is being put through a grinder.

From what material the unseen door behind my head was mined, to the fact that this train’s name is Charlotte and there’s a maintenance facility at the end of the abandoned railway.

The longer I keep my eyes open, the wider the range of information I read in. I must hurry.

An overwhelming information overload. My brain’s perceived time slows down infinitely as it processes too much information at once.

This is the moment.

In this infinitely slowed world, I could see the mana gradually taking the form of magic.

The moment when mana, tuned by the mage’s will, flows according to the formula and finally completes as magic. A branch of the self-destruction magic formula extends to the pipeline where the blade is inserted.

And when the mana reaches the tip of the blade, I activate the magic-inscribed drive.

***

A precise interlocking without a margin of error. The absurd technique of inserting another formula between magic formulas.

Originally, formulas are constructed in the mage’s mind. They can only be inferred from areas where gathering mana is particularly dense or from the echoes of completed magic. This is why magic formulas are treated as secret traditions of the Magic Tower.

High-level mages can reverse-engineer formulas from mana flow, but even that requires time and resources.

Ortes himself called this method “formula overwriting”—making magic deformed by attaching another magic formula to the formula framework at the exact moment when mana flows through a specific point in the formula.

A technique impossible to attempt without eyes that can perceive even mental images. The mana flow, grotesquely refracted by the forcibly grafted formula, eventually goes berserk.

At the end of the twisted formula, mana that couldn’t be completed as proper magic went wild.

“What—”

Nardanit, the magic user, was the first to sense something wrong. The self-destruction magic should have enveloped the entire train and exploded simultaneously without any error.

But mana leaked from one point in the formula.

Right here.

An explosion that hadn’t properly matured occurred with a flash. Flickering flames erupted from where Ortes had inserted the high-frequency blade.

The seeds of explosion scattered randomly throughout the engine room bit into the space as they exploded upon contact with the floor or furniture.

Ortes’s sword was at the center of the explosion. The black high-frequency blade, engulfed in sparks, had become a pillar of fire spewing white explosions.

Nardanit calmly assessed the situation. The self-destruction had failed. He switched objectives. At minimum, he needed to pass information about this person to his comrades. With luck, he might aim for mutual destruction or assassination.

First, he needed to understand the inspector’s abilities. Somehow, the inspector had interfered with the casting of the spell.

No. It was more than that.

The engine room, overflowing with flashes and explosions, had transformed into the middle of a battlefield. Nardanit drew up mana to first block the heated air.

The engine room had reached a temperature where just breathing could scorch one’s lungs, and the interior, filled with noise and smoke, made it impossible to track the enemy’s movements by sight or sound.

It was a counterattack.

‘Where is he?’

As soon as he activated the magic-inscribed drive, the man dodged without hesitation. The magic he activated must be the inspector’s purging secret technique.

Nardanit channeled mana into his hair. The ultra-high-density hairs made of bio-fiber spread in all directions as if invading the room.

He searched for the man’s position through the heat and smoke. The moment anyone touched even a single strand of hair that had spread three-dimensionally in all directions, magic would be fired toward the inspector.

And meanwhile, he transmitted data through his auxiliary brain. Data transmission through cables directly connected to his nervous system.

It was a warning that the secret inspector had picked up a trail. The information transmission command issued to the magic-powered train’s central processing unit would alert his comrades to the danger.

Nardanit, focusing on the vibrations transmitted through his hair, realized something was wrong. Data transmission shouldn’t take this long.

Unless it was video data, he had only sent the text “Ortes. Secret Inspector. Caution.” due to urgency.

‘Why hasn’t the transmission finished yet?’

***

Rustle.

A tiny 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 Arabelle had given him.

After confirming the signal, Arabelle connected to the spider drone and saw Ortes confronting someone who looked half-merged with machinery in some unknown location.

Though perplexed, what she needed to do was simple. The strange distortion on the screen—undoubtedly a phenomenon caused by extremely high mana density.

Seeing the screen shake whenever the cable connected to the stranger creaked, the source of mana was clearly there. A cable that continuously supplies enough mana to distort the screen just by emission?

It was a power line connected to a mana core.

At the end of the power line would naturally be a mana core, which would be linked to the processing unit and database that control it.

Arabelle’s spider crawled along the train’s power line and began hacking the central processing unit’s data.

While disabling the information barrier, a piece of data was trying to be transmitted from within this branch. Arabelle blocked the transmission of that data.

Whatever the data was, it was information being transmitted by Ortes’s enemy.

Arabelle intercepted the data and displayed its details in a corner of the ether space.

“Ortes. Secret Inspector. Caution.”

…?

What is this? What’s happening?

Arabelle was confused.

***

‘Damn.’

I didn’t expect my sword to melt like that.