Chapter 82 : The Black Card
Chapter 82: The Black Card
Yul immediately crossed the strait between Frangia and Britain and returned.
Now that it was fully autumn, the academic term seemed quite busy.
“Huh?”
Lucian’s skin had turned a deep brown.
In truth, it hadn’t even been that long since they’d parted. Summer had simply turned into autumn.
“Did you get a tan?”
“No. There was something we had to do outside during classes in the Department of Navigation.”
“Ah. You said you were double-majoring, right?”
As soon as Lucian became a second-year student, he immediately started a double major.
He’d heard that while the Department of Magic Engineering mostly involved tinkering indoors, the Department of Navigation had many classes that required going out to sea and learning seamanship.
That was probably why his skin had darkened.
“But what’s this? The university feels oddly noisy.”
“They say they’re holding the first festival after transferring to the Maritime Academy, so everyone’s excited.”
“Huh. A festival?”
“Yes. There’s a festival every year in mid-October. That’s probably it—there are always some crazy people every year.”
“Crazy people?”
“Ah, I mean, there are some who just act crazy.”
Lucian vaguely brushed it off. In truth, Yul wasn’t all that curious.
“I brought the book.”
Yul pulled a book from his chest. It was the bizarre tome known as The Gray Baran.
“This is the one…….”
Lucian accepted the book with extreme care.
“It’s not really a book. You should be able to read it too.”
“Huh? You’re right. This seems to be history from quite a long time ago.”
“History?”
“If you’re curious, shall I lend it to you?”
“Yeah. I didn’t have time to read it properly on the way.”
He’d been too busy doing this and that to make Lui king.
“The dangerous thing is this Black Card.”
Yul took out a card that had been tucked between the pages of The Gray Baran. A pitch-black card.
“It looks ordinary on the surface.”
“Yeah. But when you inject magic into it, some ‘portion’ of information leaks out, and that often functions as a terrifying curse.”
“What kind of curse is it?”
“Would you believe me if I said a traitor who opposed the King of Frangia was killed with that curse?”
“What? Really? No, cursing a traitor to death…… Yul, what exactly did you do in Frangia?”
“Well.”
Yul said it proudly.
He had ties with Sun King Jean. So he kicked the whining son, Lui, into shape and roughly worked as the king’s shadow. During the war, he revealed his true form and captured the enemy.
Something roughly like that.
“Yul…… why were you staging a solo hero’s tale?”
“You were busy flirting all that time!”
“What? No. Not at all.”
“Your emotional fluctuations were so intense I could feel them even across the sea!”
“Well, I’m not in that kind of relationship with Frenda yet.”
“Yet means you’re in a situationship now?”
“W-well, I guess.”
“Tsk.”
Looking at his reaction, they seemed head over heels for each other.
“Well, a-anyway, this Black Card is dangerous, right?”
“Yeah. When you saw it and vomited, that was only because the effect was weakened through my eyes, but if you saw it directly, you could have died like the Duke of Dawn, Gaston de Valcroix.”
Magical defenses didn’t work at all. As Yul explained the curse, Lucian pondered for a moment and spoke.
“You said it has to be read directly through the eyes, and once it’s read, the text disappears, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Interesting. It can be applied to any intelligent being with enough intellect to understand the text. It’s as if the information itself is alive, burrowing into the brain and killing the person? I’m not even sure that’s possible, but if it is, it’s terrifying.”
“Right.”
“But according to your explanation, Yul, if someone lacks the qualifications, they can’t even comprehend the information at all, correct? What would those qualifications be?”
“There are a few hypotheses. The first is karma, and the second is divinity.”
Yul spoke about the amount of karma he possessed and the divinity buried deep within his soul.
“If those are really required, then I definitely won’t be able to read it.”
“Probably. But what if someone who can read it tells you?”
“Yul, if the information itself is poison, then whatever is inside that Black Card would activate on the target the moment it’s transmitted through any medium.”
“That’s dangerous.”
According to Lucian’s hypothesis, if the information itself carried power, then regardless of whether it was conveyed through text or sound, the mere transmission of the information would inflict tremendous damage.
At that moment, Lucian raised his index finger.
“But what if we process part of that information in a different way?”
“What do you mean?”
“For example, if there’s a word called ‘memory,’ we label memory as A1.”
It was a very magic-engineer-like line of thought.
The phrase “remembering a spring day from a year ago” would be broken down and encoded as something like A1SPOR1Y.
“And then we decrypt the stored code afterward.”
“So in short, we encrypt the information that comes out of the Black Card in a specific way, then decrypt it elsewhere to decode it.”
It was only possible if both parties shared a predefined method of writing the encryption.
‘We wouldn’t need an algorithm or a key since it’s just information exchanged between the two of us. Still, having to resort to tricks like this because direct transmission isn’t possible.’
Yul infused magic into the Black Card.
As a portion of magic entered the card, a fragment of intense information surged into Yul.
Yul first wrote that information down in a book, then rewrote it using the encryption method agreed upon with Lucian.
He handed over the encryption, which Lucian received. Before opening it, Yul stopped him.
“This is really dangerous.”
Yul was struck by the thought of what he’d do if Lucian were to die meaninglessly the moment he received the information.
However, the very person who might be in danger wanted it even more.
“Just in case, should I decode the encrypted information through my field of vision first?”
“Yes. I think I’ll be fine. I have a basis for that.”
“A basis?”
“When I checked the Black Card’s information through your vision, Yul, I only ended up vomiting. But according to you, the Duke of Dawn, who perceived that information directly, died instantly, magical defenses and all. If it’s been purified once, the danger of the information should be reduced.”
Lucian’s eyes sparkled brightly. This was clarity bordering on madness.
“Fine. You win. I’ll read it once through my vision, and then you can look at it directly.”
Through shared vision, Yul delivered the decrypted cipher to Lucian.
[……A small magic converter inserted into the left thoracic chamber must be surrounded by a triple-layer shielding structure.]
“How is it? Are you okay?”
“Yes. Now I’m sure. I can read it directly.”
Lucian took the cipher Yul had decoded and read it directly with his own eyes. There were no symptoms of vomiting, and nothing seemed amiss.
Just as Lucian had said, the information seemed to have been purified.
“But what do you think these lines are?”
“I don’t know.”
There was a reason Yul hadn’t paid much attention even after reading the information inside the Black Card.
The information came out in fragments, chopped up and arranged haphazardly like that.
If you just read it plainly, it would sound like nonsense. Even a bootleg version of S*arcraft would be more understandable at a glance.
“Doesn’t this feel like magic engineering components to you?”
“Huh? Really?”
“Would you mind extracting a few more pieces of information? It’ll take some time, but please.”
“Alright.”
Yul spent some time continuing to extract the information. The purified results were as follows.
[The base configuration is a 7:3 ratio of Ruby Crystal + White-Silver conductive alloy.]
[All magic flow is routed through the left ventricular core and transmitted to the occipital amplifier. At this time, the backflow voltage generated at room temperature must be controlled with a Level 4 anti-magic component. Failure to do so may induce neural feedback shock in the user’s body.]
[Caution: This fragment accounts for approximately 12% of the total core circuit. Using it independently without the context of the overall power-flow framework carries a risk of malfunction.]
“Magic engineering components…… maybe.”
“It’s certain. They’re magic engineering components.”
Lucian’s eyes began to gleam wildly.
“If the information inside that card is a blueprint for magic engineering components, then wouldn’t they have done something as dangerous as turning information itself into a weapon? To keep just anyone from taking it.”
“But magic engineering isn’t something that was born recently, is it? How could an ancient civilization—ah.”
There was one. The ultra-ancient civilization of this world, the Turusain civilization.
“Do you have any guesses?”
“Did I ever tell you before? About the immortal race called the Turusains.”
He’d mentioned it in passing once in the club room.
“If they were Turusains, they might’ve been at the pinnacle of magic engineering technology.”
“Can you tell me more?”
Yul told him what he knew about the Turusains, including submarines and other things.
But Lucian looked somewhat dissatisfied.
“…Hmm. It’s not exactly what I was hoping for, but I understand that there was an extraordinary maritime civilization.”
“What were you hoping for?”
“I’m looking for information about the Sanctuary.”
That was when Yul realized he’d left out an important detail.
“Oh, right. Come to think of it, this book also came from the Sanctuary.”
“Excuse me? What do you mean by that?”
“More precisely, an angel-like being who called themselves Designated Humanity was the librarian of that bookstore.”
Yul told him about the Sanctuary created by magic, the angel, and the existence of the Labellum bookstore.
“A fragmented space…….”
“You meet the conditions, too, so you could probably enter the bookstore.”
It was a bookstore that could be entered just by knowing about it. Yul wanted to take Lucian there and show him the inside.
“It’d be nice if I had business in Frangia, but right now I’m too busy.”
“You can’t spare even a little time?”
“No. Here’s my schedule.”
There wasn’t a single day off on it.
“That’s insane…… you need at least one day off. You’re sleeping four hours a day, are you not going to sleep at all?”
“I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”
“You’ll actually die at that rate, you know?”
“Ah, don’t worry. I won’t die, I won’t.”
Yul looked at Lucian with a doubtful gaze. In any case, they returned to the original topic.
“Why do you want information about the Sanctuary?”
“Hmm. To explain that, I’d have to go back ten years.”
As if it were a long story, Lucian suggested moving somewhere else to talk.
The club room was quiet and secluded, making it a good place for conversation.
Aside from Yera Mul, who occasionally used it for naps, hardly any members visited.
“It’s about the end…… of my father.”
“Yeah. I’ve heard the story.”
“At the end, he turned into light and vanished. Everyone there, including me, saw it. But people who run out of magic don’t die like that. Their bodies shrivel up like mummies before they die.”
“…He used the grand magic called Great Balance, didn’t he?”
“Even taking that into account, there are no records anywhere in history of a person turning into light and disappearing. So, in my estimation, I believe my father is alive somewhere.”
Ian is alive?