kscans

Chapter 11 - Chapter 8, Part One. From Prophecy to Prediction

The day after I returned from Leylia, I finished up some work in the courtyard, with the curious and mocking gazes of the other students at my back. From there, I headed to the room next to the director's office. The original director's office had apparently been split in two, with one half now serving as a personal laboratory.

When I entered, I saw windows covered by thick curtains and walls painted black with a material said to block the influence of magic. A thick workbench, the same color as the walls, stood there. Attached to it was a shelf lined with inscrutable jars. A stone slate, just like the one in the director's office, was embedded in the wall.

This room was far more expensive than the rather simple director's office. And it was clearly larger. It was a setup that revealed exactly where its owner's priorities lay, between his hobby and his work. No wonder I, one of the library's top five users, had never seen it before.

Aren't magical tools and their energy source, magic crystals, almost entirely under state control? I guess even a washed-up court magician has his perks.

Across the workbench stood an old man in a black apron and black gloves. He had transformed from the librarian into a scholar. I stood facing Fulsy, with Mia to my right and Alfina to my left.

"Well then, let the experiment begin."

Fulsy raised both hands like a surgeon before an operation and made his declaration. On the workbench lay a long, thin object wrapped in black cloth, the tree sample I had brought from the courtyard, and a sheet of black paper.

The scene resembled a student experiment under the guidance of an old professor. But we couldn't participate. My own aptitude was practically zero, and Mia’s was likely not much better. Magic can only be wielded by those with the aptitude who have mastered the use of a specific magical tool. Alfina was specialized for the Crystal of Prophecy, while the knights used their own weapons and armor.

"First, this 'wood'," Fulsy said.

He picked up the wooden stick. This was the negative control, to confirm that the wood itself didn't have any properties that reacted to magic. Ideally, we would use a tree of the same species that hadn't absorbed any magic, but that was impossible.

Fulsy pressed the stick against the black paper on the desk. He then removed his right glove and extended his middle and index fingers. They were like withered branches, trembling faintly and unsteadily. On his middle finger was a ring set with a small gem resembling an amethyst. The metal part of the ring seemed to be engraved with a maze-like pattern.

Fulsy mumbled something, and a white light overflowed from the ring. The pattern on the ring glowed in response, and several patterns emerged on the gemstone. Finally, the light enveloped his hand. The trembling had stopped completely.

The magician pressed the sample onto the black paper, then slowly moved his two fingers from right to left, from the core of the trunk toward the bark.

When the stick was removed, the black paper had been exposed white. It was perfectly uniform, as if someone had painted it with white ink using a brush. I let out a sigh of relief. If the plant itself had shown a strange reaction, the difficulty of the measurement would have skyrocketed.

"It seems to conduct it honestly. Next is to create a standard."

Fulsy placed ten small, tile-like squares on the paper. The ring glowed, and squares ranging from pure white to nearly black appeared.

The preparations were complete. Next was the positive control.

"This is the sample I had brought all the way from the East."

He unwrapped the black cloth, revealing the hollowed-out trunk of a red-leaf tree. He had apparently used his connections to obtain it from near an observation post in the East.

His fingers moved from the right edge to the left. Fulsy looked at me. I couldn't help but hold my breath. If this showed no result, the entire idea of observing magical fluctuations through tree rings would be a failure.

Slowly, the sample was lifted. Fulsy's eyes lit up.

"I see, so this is how it turns out... How interesting."

A wave-like pattern had appeared on the paper. I exhaled deeply. The areas with less exposure, the black parts, indicated a larger amount of disordered magic, or miasma. The brightness was inversely proportional to the amount of miasma, the same principle as an X-ray. I didn't understand the mechanism by which the magic-infused tree recorded magical energy, but it was clear that the concentration varied by year.

However, the black and white pattern was ambiguous in the area from the core to the middle of the trunk, the older years.

"It seems the very old years are no good. Maybe about ten years' worth..."

"Wait, wait, let me try adjusting the sensitivity a bit."

Now completely engrossed, Fulsy fiddled with his ring. Next to the previous image, a pattern with slightly more contrast appeared.

"There, that's better. Still, it would be safest to discard any data from before thirty years ago."

Impressive. I believe the accuracy was an order of magnitude higher than the observation post's. Since it's a direct measurement, that's probably sufficient, but it would have been useless against a red-leaf tree.

"Alright, now to digitize this. Mia-kun, please take notes."

Mia took out a ruler and pen and made marks corresponding to the stripes on the trunk, which she had shifted to the side. Fulsy, magnifying glass in hand, began converting the density of each tree ring into a numerical value. Their coordination was perfect. She is my secretary, after all.

Alfina watched them from my side, her expression tense.

In the end, twenty-eight years of data were laid out on the paper. Fulsy took a scroll from his breast pocket. Shielding it from our view, he compared the obtained values with it. Then he tossed the scroll onto the desk.

"Um, Professor, this has the mark of a classified document on it..." Alfina said hesitantly. Well, of course, it was probably a military secret.

"This classification is meaningless now. We have the very same thing right before our eyes," Fulsy said.

I compared the numbers on both sides. Twenty-eight years ago, the observed value was 30, and the tree ring measurement was 14. Twenty-seven years ago, observed 33, measured 15. Twenty-six years ago, observed 40, measured 18. Of course, the numbers didn't match exactly, so they had to be relativized against their respective averages. It seemed multiplying by a little over two would make them correspond. No, three years ago it was 24 to 12, exactly double, so there was some decay over time. But this was well within an acceptable range.

Without a word, Mia began relativizing the data as positive or negative against the average. Normally, we would also calculate standard deviation and run statistical tests, but with this small a sample size, it was of little use.

"To think such a method existed. Who in the world are you?"

"I was just lucky. I never thought we'd get such clean data."

Fulsy, who had been enjoying his new toy just moments ago, now looked at me with sharp eyes. I replied with a strained smile. I couldn't possibly say it was knowledge from another world. That would sound even more dubious than a prophecy.

"............In the past twenty-eight years, there has been one medium-scale and four small-scale Monster Floods in the East. As you can see here, the magic veins become active five years before a Monster Flood. They peak three years before, and after two years of decline, the Monster Flood occurs. The corresponding tree ring pattern is right here."

On the black paper, I could see a band that gradually darkened over three gradations.

"That's amazing. It's happening just as you said, Ricardo-kun."

Alfina squeezed my hand. Her beautiful eyes were slightly moist. When this princess gets emotional, her reactions become a little... innocent, you know?

"Ahem."

Mia cleared her throat. Alfina hastily let go of my hand.

"...The credit belongs to the director for discovering such a clearly predictable pattern."

The number of monsters must increase as the magic from the veins grows, with the peak in monster population coming slightly after the peak in magic. The increased number of monsters then go on a rampage, triggered by the subsequent decrease in magic. That was my guess.

"Hmph. ...Well now, here are the values obtained from the tree rings up to four years ago. There are no major fluctuations. From today's experiment alone, we can predict that a Monster Flood will not occur this year. Of course, in the case of the East, this is merely a corroboration of the observation post's data. But..." Fulsy's eyes pierced the bundle I held in my hands. Yes, this contained unknown information. And it held a far more serious meaning than just an academic record of magical fluctuations in the West.

I looked at Alfina. She nodded. I handed Fulsy the sample the two of us had cut.

Now for the real test. A tense air filled the room. Fulsy began lifting the stick from the side opposite the bark, from the older years. A white exposure appeared on the paper. The measurement results slowly, tantalizingly, stretched out before our eyes. But even as we reached the part where the pattern should have started appearing based on the previous sample, the paper remained white.

Finally, the bark lifted off the paper. I stared intently at it. But there was nothing to see but white.

Are there no fluctuations in the magic veins? Does the disaster the prophecy foretold not a Monster Flood? Do I need to consider the next hypothesis? Or perhaps the prophecy itself was... My mind spun in circles.

"How odd. It's unnatural for there to be no fluctuation at all. Did you properly... drat it! I forgot to reset the sensitivity."

"Hey, old ma... Director, please."

Fulsy scratched his head and twisted the ring. His fingers moved over the tree rings once more. The sample lifted from the paper. Again, it was pure white... no, there was a faint shadow.

In the white line, near the end, there seemed to be a single, faint haze.

"I'll adjust it a bit more."

Third time's the charm. Fulsy let out a "huff" and put the stick down. What appeared was the undesirable result we had been hoping for.

The core of the trunk was completely white. The middle section, on closer inspection, showed a faint wave. And right next to the bark, there was a single black band.

Placing it next to the sample from the East made it perfectly clear. In the West, the magic had indeed been stable. However, that was only true up until five years ago. A slight shadow appeared four years ago, which grew darker three years ago, and then two years ago. Then, one year ago, it returned to white. This year's data was incomplete, but at least no shadow was visible.

"I'll remake the standard with this sensitivity, but there's no need to digitize it. The signs have appeared. Most likely this year..."

"A great calamity, a Monster Flood, will occur in the West. Is that what you mean?"

Though there was no wind, the lamplight flickered.

At our conclusion, the two girls fell silent. One faced a disaster that would strike her homeland. The other had just been shown proof that the horrifying vision she had seen would become reality.

A mysterious, vague image had been transformed into a numerical prediction. It was the moment prophecy had changed into information.