How to Return Home

I showed Ellie the magic tome of Patulga in order to return to my original world. It was an action with the hidden expectation that Ellie, who had become a great wizard, might find something I didn’t know.

Ellie slowly and meticulously checked the contents of the magic tome, slightly furrowing her brow at the page explaining the passage of dimensions. When she checked the page describing how to create a passage to another world newly added to the magic tome, she even distorted her eyebrows.

After flipping back and forth between the pages several times for a long time, staring intently at the book, Ellie broke the silence only after letting out a long sigh.

,Ross-ssi, to be honest, I can’t believe what’s written in this magic tome with my head.”

Ellie, shaking her head in disbelief and closing Patulga’s magic tome, rested her chin on her hand with a face full of worries, like a scholar facing an unbearable truth.

“Recognizing space as coordinates is never an easy task. Calculating fixed spatial coordinate values to install a portal takes even the imperial wizards several weeks. Moreover, the concept of magic itself, which connects the dimensional passages created in the mind by creating entrances and passages… I think it’s impossible.”

Ellie rubbed her forehead and continued.

“I can’t explain how you use it freely either. Frankly, if someone other than you had shown me the magic tome, I would have been convinced that they were a stupid con artist who couldn’t even tell a plausible lie. I can’t even magically interpret the last page at all.”

I was embarrassed by Ellie’s words. Suddenly, I had a sense of déjà vu from a similar conversation and rummaged through my memories.

Estelle also said something similar to me as Ellie. That ‘the concept of a dimensional passage itself is impossible.’ I didn’t understand it properly at the time and just brushed it off, but seeing Ellie say this too, it seems like there’s something wrong.

“…But you also teleported me here with teleportation magic, right?”

“That’s right, I simply twisted and reversed the formula structure of the academy’s anti-crime security magic that I installed, and set the movement result value of the intruder to this room instead of the underground prison.”

Saying that, Ellie switched her crossed legs to the other side.

“But teleportation magic and the dimensional passage you use are different in nature. In the first place, teleportation used by wizards, unlike portals, does not use spatial coordinates.”

I was shocked by Ellie’s words. I naturally thought that she used teleportation magic by recognizing spatial coordinates like my space magic. I couldn’t understand it at all, so I asked.

“If there are no spatial coordinates, how can you move to the desired location?”

“It’s not about creating a passage in space, but about realizing the distortion of space with magical power and using the flow of magical power using the rebound of space to use the directionality of dimensions.”

Ellie explained in a kind voice, but I couldn’t understand the explanation at all. It was so different from the magic I used.

Ellie, who had been looking down for a moment and contemplating, let out a deep sigh and muttered softly.

“…Maybe creating a dimensional passage is not the realization of magic, but should be interpreted as closer to the manifestation of authority. Assuming there is plausibility, that’s the most plausible explanation.”

I was suddenly curious at Ellie’s words and asked.

“You just read Patulga’s magic tome. Can’t you create a dimensional passage even now?”

Ellie didn’t answer right away. Ellie, who hesitated and pursed her lips for a moment, lowered her gaze slightly and answered.

“No, I can make one.”

At Ellie’s answer, I gave her a what’s-the-problem look. Then Ellie pouted her lips slightly and said weakly.

“…If you give me the spatial coordinates and give me enough time for a week… about one.”

“A week…? Even for one?”

When I asked back in a slightly surprised voice, Ellie pouted her lips a little more, as if she didn’t like my reaction. But I couldn’t help but be surprised to the point where I couldn’t hide my expression. Ellie, who became a great wizard, had become a wizard with tremendous skills.

She’s a powerful wizard who can bind me so that I can’t move a single finger without giving me a chance to resist. The reason for my surprise was that Ellie, who had become a great wizard, couldn’t use the basics of space magic, the dimensional passage, as skillfully as I could.

“Yeah, I can’t recognize spatial coordinates and create dimensional passages during combat like you can. Even Nelson-seonsaengnim couldn’t have done it…. Could you show me how to use space magic once?”

At Ellie’s request, I nodded and recognized the spatial coordinates around me. I put my hand into the dimensional entrance I created in the air and pulled it out through the dimensional exit I created in front of Ellie. Ellie suddenly grabbed my hand and fiddled with it as if tickling it, then put her own hand into the dimensional exit in reverse.

After checking several things, Ellie nodded slightly as if she understood something, then took her hand out again.

“Even if your hand comes out in another place, the sensation is the same, and there’s no problem with using magical power…”

Ellie, who was muttering to herself as if trying to remember, blushed slightly and said as if making an excuse, as if she had felt my gaze staring at her.

“I, I usually study alone, so I talk to myself like a habit.”

I tilted my head at Ellie’s words. The master of the Black Magic Tower who rose to the position of great wizard is alone, doesn’t she have any assistants or disciples? When I asked about that, Ellie answered as if it were nothing.

“…It’s more comfortable alone.”

For some reason, Ellie looked lonely when she said that. I pretended not to notice and turned my gaze away, returning to the original story.

“Like creating a dimensional passage, is there a way to fix the exit of the passage to another world to the world I was originally in?”

Ellie’s eyes lit up at my question. Ellie seemed to be very interested in conversations related to magic above all else. Ellie came closer to me and explained her hypothesis.

“I couldn’t interpret the explanation about the passage to another world, but if you think about the fact that creating a dimensional passage is written as the basis of space magic… wouldn’t creating the exit of the passage also follow the existing method?”

“If it’s the existing method… the way you used to create dimensional passages? But you can’t create dimensional passages without spatial coordinates. Because you can’t create an exit at the coordinates. I don’t know the coordinates of the original world I was in either.”

At my answer, Ellie raised her eyes for a moment, thinking about something, and then looked at me and asked.

“Can you explain how you made the passage most recently?”

At Ellie’s question, I explained as much as possible about the magical phenomena and the operation of magical power that I felt.

Ellie, who listened to my explanation calmly, nodded and muttered to herself so softly that she couldn’t hear, then scratched her forehead covered with bangs.

“The passage to another world may be a condition that doesn’t require separate spatial coordinates. Because you arrived at a place that was geographically distant from where you were originally twice.”

“But the problem is that I don’t know which world I’m going to. I don’t even know if I can return to my original world. I might keep wandering around other worlds and be killed as a demon like this time.”

When I said negatively with a sigh, Ellie’s eyes, which resembled obsidian, lit up.

“Maybe, like creating a dimensional passage in your mind… at the moment you create a passage to another world, you should think of an image of the destination of the passage?”

“An image of the destination…?”

“Didn’t you say that when you first created the passage, you realized the passage with the thought of escaping the crack in the dimension, and the second time, you just thought of creating the passage because you naturally thought you would return to your original world?”

I nodded unconsciously at Ellie’s words. That was true. I, who naturally thought I would return to my original world, only thought of realizing the passage.

“All magic tomes are based on basic magic and then move on to the second half. So I think that basic space magic must have been used as the basis for the magic of the passage to another world written on the last page of the book.”

It was information that could be found from Ellie’s point of view, who had read countless magic tomes that I couldn’t guess. The possibility seemed high enough.

When I listened to Ellie’s explanation and recalled the method of creating the passage again, I was able to find a part similar to the method of creating the dimensional passage. When I made a happy expression at the thought that I had found a way to return home, Ellie urgently grabbed my arm.

“Wait, don’t be so hasty. This is just a hypothesis that has barely built the framework with explanations and theories of magic that has never been used. When you actually create the passage, the image may have nothing to do with it.”

“But it sounds like the most plausible thing. There’s no other way besides that… I have no choice but to check it myself.”

At my words, Ellie nodded with an expression that she couldn’t help it.

“Still, just in case, why don’t you make a memo in advance? If you go to another world, you’ll forget the conversation you had with me because my magical power won’t be maintained. Even if you fail, if you tell the hypothesis to me over there, I can help you again.”

I nodded at Ellie’s words and took out a notepad from the space warehouse. Thanks to the Blessing of Oblivion, things related to Ellie are naturally corrected in my memory as other people, or forgotten, so I had to write them down.

After finishing the memo, I checked the state of the rune on my wrist. I had to wait a few more hours to create the passage.

“I think I can create a passage in about three hours.”

Ellie’s expression darkened at my words. She helped me return home, but she seemed to be sad to part ways when I said I was leaving. When our eyes met, Ellie managed her expression with a dry cough and nodded vigorously. As she smiled brightly, it seemed that she was going to send me off with a smiling face.

I also smiled back at Ellie. There’s still time. It will be enough time to have conversations that we haven’t had. Thinking that way, I was about to open my mouth, but for some reason, I felt a strange sense of incongruity. I feel like I’ve missed something important.

As I pondered what it was, I finally realized the difference from the previous world. The person I should be most careful of when I go to another world came to my mind.

I asked Ellie in a trembling voice.

“You must have felt my existence clearly, so why didn’t Roel come to find me?”