Chapter 82: The Black Card
Yul imdiately crossed the strait between Frangia and Britain and returned.
Now that it was fully autumn, the academic term seed quite busy.
“Huh?”
Lucian’s skin had turned a deep brown.
In truth, it hadn’t even been that long since they’d parted. Sumr had simply turned into autumn.
“Did you get a tan?”
“No. There was sothing we had to do outside during classes in the Departnt of Navigation.”
“Ah. You said you were double-majoring, right?”
As soon as Lucian beca a second-year student, he imdiately started a double major.
He’d heard that while the Departnt of Magic Engineering mostly involved tinkering indoors, the Departnt 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 Mariti 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 so crazy people every year.”
“Crazy people?”
“Ah, I an, there are so 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 to known as The Gray Baran.
“This is the one…….”
Lucian accepted the book with extre 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 ti ago.”
“History?”
“If you’re curious, shall I lend it to you?”
“Yeah. I didn’t have ti 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, so ‘portion’ of information leaks out, and that often functions as a terrifying curse.”
“What kind of curse is it?”
“Would you believe 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.
Sothing roughly like that.
“Yul…… why were you staging a solo hero’s tale?”
“You were busy flirting all that ti!”
“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 ans you’re in a situationship now?”
“W-well, I guess.”
“Tsk.”
Looking at his reaction, they seed 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 mont 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 soone 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 soone 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 mont it’s transmitted through any dium.”
“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 re transmission of the information would inflict trendous damage.
At that mont, Lucian raised his index finger.
“But what if we process part of that information in a different way?”
“What do you an?”
“For example, if there’s a word called ‘mory,’ we label mory as A1.”
It was a very magic-engineer-like line of thought.
The phrase “rembering a spring day from a year ago” would be broken down and encoded as sothing like A1SPOR1Y.
“And then we decrypt the stored code afterward.”
“So in short, we encrypt the information that cos 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 thod 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 fragnt of intense information surged into Yul.
Yul first wrote that information down in a book, then rewrote it using the encryption thod 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 aninglessly the mont 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 seed amiss.
Just as Lucian had said, the information seed 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 ca out in fragnts, 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 so ti, but please.”
“Alright.”
Yul spent so ti 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 ti, 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 fragnt accounts for approximately 12% of the total core circuit. Using it independently without the context of the overall power-flow frawork 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 sothing as dangerous as turning information itself into a weapon? To keep just anyone from taking it.”
“But magic engineering isn’t sothing 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 ntioned 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 more?”
Yul told him what he knew about the Turusains, including submarines and other things.
But Lucian looked sowhat dissatisfied.
“…Hmm. It’s not exactly what I was hoping for, but I understand that there was an extraordinary mariti 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. Co to think of it, this book also ca from the Sanctuary.”
“Excuse ? What do you an 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 fragnted space…….”
“You et 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 ti?”
“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 sowhere 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 mbers 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 , 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 sowhere.”
Ian is alive?
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