kscans

Chapter 130 - Episode 2: Imperial Sorcery (Part 1)

Prince Craig's Knight Order, on their way to Cazelle, escorted us part of the way back before we returned to the Royal Capital. Over five thousand Imperial soldiers are still holed up in Cazelle. There should also be nearly forty horse-dragons remaining. Moreover, with the fall of Kurtheite, the kingdom's main army has no choice but to prioritize the eastern front.

According to Prince Craig's assessment, even if they muster the forces of the western lords, retaking the city will be no easy task.

The day after we returned to the capital and moved into the grand ducal residence as planned, I went with Mia to the director's office at the academy library. A new building was under construction in the courtyard near the library. It was the research institute Fulsy had received in place of a viscountcy. The last time I saw it, only the first-floor frame was up, but now, at least the exterior appeared to be complete.

Through a window, I could see Plural inside, giving instructions. When she noticed us, she offered her usual wry smile.

In the director's office, we found Fulsy and Noel, along with the Chancellor's second son, Leonard Grynisias, who had been dispatched to discuss the budget.

A large number of glass instruments and pots were piled on the desk. It seemed Vinaldira and the others had been hard at work while we were in Bertold. I opened a box to find a solid brown substance inside. It was the item I had requested from Dalgan.

I should probably test this first. With a nod from Fulsy, I took the solid substance and a few pieces of lab equipment, placed them in a pot, added water, and set it on the stove.

"The situation in the eastern part of the kingdom is critical," Leonard began. The Grynisias Ducal Territory is right next to Kurtheite. According to Leonard, who was visibly incensed, the reason Kurtheite fell so easily was because the Eastern Lords' army had been rendered useless.

While we were in Bertold holding the briefing for our honey enterprise, Grand Duke Zangrich of Kurtheite, who had been reluctant to dispatch troops, was apparently making his way slowly toward the capital after the First Knight Order's withdrawal.

The Chancellor's assessment was that Zangrich had likely intended to push the responsibility of a direct confrontation with the horse-dragons onto Prince Craig and Euphillia.

Just as the Eastern Lords' army was about to enter the Royal Capital, the Imperial army launched a surprise attack on Kurtheite, crossing the middle of the great river, a feat that should have been impossible. With only its garrison left to defend it, Kurtheite fell in an instant.

As a result, the Eastern Lords' army became an idle force, useless in the fighting to either the east or the west. With the heart of the eastern region suddenly captured, half of the Eastern Lords had reportedly scrambled back to their own domains.

Currently, Zangrich has been stripped of his command over the Eastern Lords' forces and is under house arrest in the Royal Capital. The remaining troops, under the command of the First Knight Order's commander, are now stationed in the Grynisias Ducal Territory, preparing for an Imperial assault.

The reason for this was the unexpected power of the Imperial army holed up in Kurtheite.

"They say the Imperial legion fired arrows of flame from short tubes! Those flaming arrows struck down the soldiers on the castle walls one after another. Do you have any idea how impossible that is?!"

Fulsy recounted, unable to hide his excitement, a report from a mage who had encountered the fall of Kurtheite on his way back to the capital from the Eastern Observatory. The image that came to mind was the classic Fireball spell, a staple in the games of my past life. I had never heard of such a distinctly magical spell existing here.

Its range was longer than arrows shot down from the walls, and it could apparently home in on targets to some extent, guided by the caster's will. And it was unleashed by over a hundred mages. Of course, the main army was many times larger, but that attack alone had effectively brought down the largest city in the east.

They must have broken through the wyvern territory along the great river because they had the means to deal with flying opponents using projectiles.

It was as if a medieval city had been attacked by an army armed with guns. It was utterly indefensible. And it goes without saying that trying to capture a fortress city armed with such projectiles would be impossible. The forces of the First Knight Order's commander, who had attempted to retake Kurtheite, had apparently retreated to Grynisias in disarray.

"Those horse-dragons you all mentioned were quite something, but their sorcery is far beyond our common sense."

It seemed the real main force had been on the other side all along. If they had come west, we wouldn't have been able to handle them. In that sense, I suppose we were lucky.

"For now, the Empire seems to be focused on consolidating its position in the north, but we don't know when they might march on the capital," Leonard said, his face pale. If the Imperial army headed for the Royal Capital, the Grynisias Ducal Territory would become a battlefield.

"I understand the power of the Empire's sorcery corps, but from a magical theory standpoint, what would you say makes their sorcery so special?" I asked Fulsy, in order to define the problem.

"...In a word, distance. With our magic, the farther the distance, the more the required magic power snowballs. And yet, the Empire used magic itself as a projectile. That should be impossible."

"Um, Noel mentioned that the required magic power increases geometrically as the amount of Sorcery Gold increases. Is it the same as that?"

"Yes. I believe you can think of it that way," Noel replied.

"But you can measure magic power from a long distance, right?"

"Magic power itself, before it becomes magic, travels long distances. For example, in the case of this antenna..." Fulsy pointed to his prized antenna. "The magic that senses that power is activated within the antenna itself."

I see. It's highly likely that the geometric increase in required power relative to distance or capacity is a common property in the conversion of magic power into an effect.

"The Empire produces far more magic crystals than the kingdom, correct? On top of that, they must have been stockpiling them for this war. What about the possibility that they are achieving these flaming arrows through an overwhelming quantity of magic crystals?"

"The mage who returned from the Eastern Observatory was bringing back an old model antenna that he no longer needed after I replaced it with my new one. He said that even with the old antenna, he could see it clearly from a distance, so the Empire's sorcery is undoubtedly using a massive amount of magic power. Probably on a scale close to ten times that of the Anti-Monster Knight Order. However, to use magic like a projectile, it should require even more power than that."

"I think it would take tens of times more magic power than channeling it through a Sorcery Gold weapon," Noel added. "If our common sense applies, that is."

It was easy to imagine that the energy required for a remote effect would be orders of magnitude greater than for something in direct contact.

"It seems more reasonable to assume that Imperial sorcery is far more efficient at converting magic power into an effect than our magic is."

Most likely, some kind of breakthrough occurred during their increasingly harsh battles with monsters over the past decade.

"That's a strong possibility. But that's not all. There is one other impossible thing, which is that dozens of people used the same type of magic all at once."

I see. Even setting aside the special case of the Oracle's Crystal, our magic requires an aptitude suited to each specific property. Simply channeling magic power through a Sorcery Gold weapon was not something just anyone could do. There was probably something like a compatibility issue between the magic tool's circuit and the user's own internal circuit. What came to mind was the unnatural way the horse-dragon unit held their reins.

"About the Empire's horse-dragon unit, all of them had their reins wrapped tightly around their arms."

Normally, that would be a dangerous thing to do. In fact, a good number of the Imperial knights who got caught up in their horse-dragons and fell had suffered broken arms. And on the arm where the reins were wrapped, they had tattoos in the same color and pattern as the reins themselves.

"Are you saying the Empire possesses the technology to engrave circuits onto the human body? If so, then perhaps..."

In the words of my past life, it would be an interface. Let's think of it simply. A human is a power unit that generates magic from a magic crystal. A magic tool is a device that converts that energy into sorcery. Take, for example, the relationship between home appliances and a power source in my previous world. The effects produced by appliances using electricity vary, but the power source is standardized through the outlet. Any appliance will work as long as it's plugged into an outlet.

It probably wasn't that simple with sorcery, but I was sure there was a similar mechanism in computer programming for exchanging information between programs. My hypothesis was that everything was information processing, and magic in particular was ultra-efficient information processing. I felt I wasn't far off the mark.

Alright, I'm starting to get it.

"So, what you're saying is the Empire's superiority comes from two things. The ability to efficiently convert magic power into sorcery, and a system that allows for the use of common magic tools."

"...That's right," Fulsy said after a moment of thought.

"...I think so too," Noel agreed.

And the result was the realization of so-called attack magic, the Fireball. Fulsy and Noel both nodded at my definition after a brief pause.

"Great Sage-sama. How can we possibly counter such Imperial sorcery...?" Leonard asked. His face was even paler than before.

"We cannot win. There is absolutely no prospect of victory," Fulsy stated.

I know being complacent or optimistic is out of the question, but I wish he'd consider his position before he speaks. You're the top mage in the kingdom, recently being called the greatest genius since the founding of the kingdom, aren't you? Just on the way to this room, I heard you were being widely hailed as the hero who defeated the horse-dragon unit.

"Th-Then Grynisias is..." Leonard's face fell into despair.

"Well, that would be the case under normal circumstances. However, we have someone here who is not normal," Fulsy said, looking at me.

"I have no magic power at all, and I can't use magic, you know."

"You went to the Red Forest to find a countermeasure for Imperial sorcery, didn't you? You've already made all these preparations. It's about time you told us what you're planning," Fulsy said with a grin, gesturing to the lab equipment on the desk. It felt like he was prioritizing his own curiosity over the kingdom's crisis, but that was just Fulsy.

"Let me be clear, I never expected the Empire to have magic projectiles. I just thought that if they use magic power, there might be a way to influence it."

I immediately went into self-preservation mode. It was too much to expect an application when the basic research hadn't even begun.

"In other words, you mean to say you'll show them you can counter them, even if they use sorcery. Isn't that just like you?" Fulsy said, his expression growing even more amused. My attempt at self-preservation had failed.

"...Well, I suppose you could put it that way."

My self-preservation success rate feels like it's been dropping lately. When I grumbled about it to Mia before coming here, she told me, "How can a probability that was zero from the start go down? There are no negative numbers in probability."

But wait. I think, perhaps, my recent run of bad luck with self-preservation is the fault of the Empire, that irregular factor. If I exclude that, my performance may have actually improved... How pointless.

I stood up and walked toward the stove in the lab.

"To counter the Empire's sorcery corps, there are two things we must do," I said as I lifted the pot from the stove. The things I could do, with no magic power of my own, were extremely limited.