Chapter 161 : Chapter 161
161
Sihan's bold claim was no empty boast.
The carriage rolled forward slowly at first, but once it reached a certain speed, it lifted into the sky and flew at an absurd velocity.
At this speed, I could finally make out the carriage's structure.
"This...... It cuts through the air as it moves. Is it an arrow?"
The glass positioned at the front of the carriage was built at a gentle incline, functioning like a bullet that pushed air backward.
The body was the same way.
It was as if a bird in rapid flight had folded both wings against itself in midair.
"Oh? You really are smart after all, Teacher. You figured that out at a glance? That's right. The barbaric fools of this world can't even begin to appreciate how remarkable this speed is."
"Then what do they usually care about?"
"Maintenance costs."
The words that left Sihan's mouth were somehow so horrifying that my body shuddered.
"......By any chance, how much would it cost for us to fly all the way to the Kingdom of Triban like this?"
"Want to hear? My time is more expensive than anything else. It easily exceeds more than ten Recovery Beds."
"......I would rather not hear it."
Sihan cackled beside me at my response.
And next to him, Rozalin cackled along as well.
"What are you laughing about?"
"I watched how Magitech developed over ten years, remember? This guy, he actually succeeds in mass-producing this carriage later on."
"?!"
At Rozalin's words, Sihan was so startled that his hair flew back, briefly revealing his eyes.
"I mass-produce this thing......? That is impossible. It is not something you can solve just by improving mana efficiency. You would have to invert the properties of mana itself."
"Do not ask me. You just did it."
"Damn it! Why don't you know, you barbarian!"
"You are the barbarian who never taught me, you idiot!"
"Argh! I did not teach you because you would not have understood!"
"Then try teaching it so it makes sense, like our Teacher does!"
That very Teacher was currently struggling because he could not properly teach his students.
Sihan pointed that out.
"Wrong! I listened to Teacher well enough that I made it all the way to Aura Adept!"
"Reaching some fundamentally baseless title like Adept or whatever is supposed to be impressive? You are not even a Master, you loser!"
"What did you just say?!"
It was pandemonium, but the fight did not last long.
No matter that her opponent was a 6th-circle mage, Rozalin was an Aura Adept.
On top of that, she had the experience of a swordswoman who had spent ten years on the battlefield.
Someone who had been holed up in a lab studying was never going to win on stamina.
In the end, Sihan was mercilessly shoved back into his seat, letting out a hollow "Ha ha ha" that sounded like his soul had partially departed, and lay down.
"My future self is such a genius that he can humiliate even my current self...... Fine. A great inventor must compete against himself and improve day by day. Just you wait, future me."
That looked like a textbook case of sour grapes rationalization.
For the sake of Sihan's dignity, I refrained from saying anything and simply observed the situation.
Fortunately, Sihan pulled himself together fairly quickly and came back.
"Why did I develop that kind of technology in the future?"
"Why? Because you are a tech-development maniac."
"I will accept the tech part. But not development."
"How are those two different?"
Since it was a field I knew nothing about, I learned a great deal from even a brief conversation.
Sihan pushed his glasses up with a serious expression.
"We endlessly explore new technologies. We improve the efficiency of outdated technology, raise conductivity rates, and so on and so forth. But developing a mass-production model is different."
Mass-production meant creating something out of necessity and distributing it.
If there was no need, there was no reason to bother making and distributing a downgraded vehicle like that.
"I have no desire for money. Between the Elixirs alone, I have more wealth than I could spend in a lifetime."
This was someone who burned tens of millions of gold on a single trip.
It was not a bluff.
"And yet in the middle of the world ending, I make and distribute mass-production vehicles? That means there was a reason significant enough to warrant mass-production. Demons?"
"Correct."
Rozalin smiled cheerfully.
The subject matter was anything but cheerful.
"Entity name: Train. It lays down rails for itself to travel on all across the world."
"Train, as in a locomotive?"
"Yes. You were the one who coined that name, too."
The problem was Train's size, and its speed.
"Train is about four times the width of this carriage, three times its height. And its length is roughly ten of these carriages. And it barrels around in every direction at about the same speed as this carriage."
"Just...... barrels around?"
"Regardless of what is in its path."
That description alone painted a horrifying catastrophe before my eyes.
"It destroyed roads, circulatory transportation, residential areas, logistics...... It was simply a demon that annihilated human civilization."
"Unbelievable. The speed of modernity crushing the medieval and the barbaric. Long live steampunk."
Sihan clicked his tongue with another one of his incomprehensible remarks.
"Fortunately, the train charged through thirty minutes after the rails were laid, so people survived."
"People, at least."
"Buildings, foodstuffs, cities — all of it was destroyed. About thirty were obliterated? So the vehicle was built to keep pace with Train's speed."
At Rozalin's explanation, Sihan stared blankly with his mouth open before letting out a sigh.
The sight did not feel like someone else's problem.
Stories involving demons had a way of making people feel hopeless.
Even though humanity was continuously dealing with demons and countering them in various ways, it was still the same.
Because no one knew when this fight would end, or how long it would last.
"That is why we need to finish it quickly."
"Sihan, do you truly believe a 7th-circle mage exists?"
"It is just a simple hypothesis. Above Sword Master, there was originally Grand Sword Master. If a 6th-circle mage exists among mages, then naturally a 7th-circle must exist too."
"But......"
"It is the same as your Aura. Just because it has not existed until now does not guarantee it will never exist in the future."
After saying that, Sihan paused to choose his words.
He wore the expression of someone who wanted to explain a concept but could not quite find the right words in his head.
"It is a vague feeling, but I think it exists."
"As you said, that is ultimately nothing more than a vague feeling, is it not?"
"You said that when you were learning the sword, you had a feeling that something more lay ahead. It is the same for me. The 6th-circle is about glimpsing the order of another world, and I have a feeling that it should be possible to dismantle that order and merge it with this world."
"If we are talking about combining dimensions, then that is......"
"The exact same thing as Demon Summoning."
Once you followed that line of reasoning, another question arose.
If a 7th-circle mage had reached that level of power, then why on earth were they merely summoning demons?
"We will have to catch the culprit and ask them about that."
"The culprit, huh. It would be nice if we could actually catch them."
Rozalin spoke with her chin propped on her hand, looking as though she did not hold out much hope, her tone indifferent.
I asked a question, partly to comfort Rozalin.
"If we assume there is a culprit, is there a way to track them?"
"Hmm, a method, a method. Honestly, even the fact that demons have appeared is unfamiliar to me. I need to see a demon first."
His gaze turned toward the scenery beyond the carriage.
"Who knows? If I meet a demon in person and study it, maybe I will come up with a groundbreaking idea for taking them down?"
***
The reason we had come to the border of the Kingdom of Triban was because of Rozalin's strong insistence.
She had conducted a thorough survey of the demons currently wreaking havoc on the world and carefully selected one.
In other words.
"It is smaller than I expected."
"Weak and fragile, too."
This demon was weaker in class than anticipated.
Entity name: Phantom Steed.
It was a horse roughly two meters in stature, its entire body clad in armor.
Its overall color was close to a pale gray, and its body was translucent, as if it did not truly belong in this world, allowing the scenery behind it to show through.
A ghost horse, in the truest sense.
"What is the problem with this one?"
"It is the counter to knights, specifically their warhorses, so you can just overpower it with sheer force!"
Triban was a nation characterized by its powerful military.
The Empire's military strength came from the sheer might of its knights, like the Lionheart Knights.
Triban's knights were a tier below the Empire's.
Their strength came from horsemanship honed across vast plains.
They moved their bodies freely atop their mounts, loosing arrows or charging with lances.
Phantom Steed appeared to be an entity born to counter those horses.
A horse that could stand against a warhorse.
It was a ghost, translucent, immune to physical attacks, and possessed formidable speed.
Being told to overpower a horse like that with brute force was somehow absurd, yet perfectly Rozalin-like.
Most importantly, it did not seem impossible.
I dismounted the carriage and drew my sword.
— NEIIIGH.
The Phantom Steed, upon seeing me, let out a faint whinny and turned its body toward me.
From the moment it spotted me, a black haze like heat shimmer began to ripple around its body.
It seemed to be the creature's version of a combat stance.
"Hoo."
I watched it and slowly raised my sword.
Through my mind flashed the questions that had tormented me during lectures, the theories that had crystallized through conversations with Sihan, and the things I had yet to put into words.
I let all of it go and simply allowed it to pass.
And then my sword flowed like the wind, as though it knew exactly where it needed to go.
"Ah."
It was not a trajectory — it was a path.
A wide, unobstructed road stretching freely ahead along Triban's vast plains.
I was not swinging the sword. I was following the flow, trailing after it.
WHOOSH—!
Perhaps that was why the sound from my sword was not that of slicing air, but of air stirring.
Accompanied by a breath as gentle as a spring breeze.
— SHRIIIIEEE!
The Phantom Steed's shoulder burst apart.
The ghost horse began thrashing in place.
I had not taken a single step toward it.
I simply swung my sword again from where I stood.
— NEIIGH! NEIIIIIGH! SHRIIIEE!
After the shoulder, its right hind leg was severed at the thigh.
Before the knee could even touch the ground, a section of its body armor shattered.
And before that shattered armor could dissolve into dust in midair, a portion of its neck was cleanly severed.
"Hoo......"
Four strikes.
That alone was enough for the Phantom Steed's corpse to vanish without a trace.
All that remained was a single small jewel — what appeared to be the Phantom Steed's Fantasy.
I steadied my breathing and sheathed my sword.
"......"
Something was different.
Normally, Aura absorbed mana from outside the body and discharged it through the sword.
But what filled my body now was not mana — it was fresh, crisp air.
Of course, it was not literally air.
'The nature of my mana has changed.'
As if I had manifested a Wind spell through magic, the mana that entered my body had transformed into some other property before being released.
My body was slowly changing.
"That was insane......"
After a moment, Rozalin approached with a dumbstruck expression.
"Did you not pick too weak a demon?"
"Seven of the Kingdom of Triban's knights died to this demon. And going forward, about two more knightly orders' worth of knights were going to die to it."
"Only that much......?"
In terms of sheer level, it seemed even weaker than Giant-Block.
"You fool, I told you I wanted to study a demon up close, and you did not even leave a scrap of its corpse — you pulverized it into nothing......"
For some reason, Sihan looked deeply anguished.
Oh no.
I turned to Rozalin and asked.
"Do you happen to know if there are any slightly less pathetic and decent demons nearby......?"
Rozalin answered.
"There are none."