[174] 1. Kergo Autonomous Zone (6)
Sirone was right. Judging by the difficulty of the Chamber of Achievement and Sacrifice alone, what the Kergoans wanted was no rabble.
Someone who could prove their power in the Labyrinth's spacetime—or open all eight at once. If you weren't at that level, you couldn't so much as enter the autonomous zone, let alone the Gate to Heaven.
—Kanis, it's time to bring that out. If Sirone doesn't go, we can't get to Heaven either.
—Surprising, though. I didn't think he'd be this afraid.
—If we're being generous, call it insight. His instincts are moving based on what he's heard. Either way—let's begin.
Taking Harvest's opinion into account, Kanis looked around at everyone. Then he extended a hand and quietly broached it.
"If I… had a way to come back here—what would you say to that?"
A spark seemed to run through the room; light flickered in Sirone's party's eyes. A new phase.
Sirone had judged Heaven dangerous because the odds of returning were markedly low. But if there was an exit, the story changed.
"Spell it out. What's this way to come back?"
"As you know, the Association robbed us of the inheritance our master left. We were tossed out onto the street. And we didn't want to take help from Alpheas either. Anyway, while we were racking our brains for anything we could do, Harvest dredged up an old memory. While you were at school, Arin and I traveled. We found a secret place Archmage Victor Arcane absolutely didn't want revealed. Because he erased that memory, even the Magic Association couldn't find this one place."
"And in that secret place, there was a way to come back here?"
"No. This is beyond that. I'll show you."
Arin took a cube-shaped box from her breast.
Its surface bore patterns in relief and intaglio. It was nearly black, but depending on how the light struck it, it threw off a rainbow sheen. There were gaps like those of a puzzle-cube, as if it would turn if you twisted it by hand.
Tess had never seen the object Arin was holding. But she'd heard to death about that iridescence and those inimitable patterns.
"That's an ancient relic. It's made of a metal that doesn't exist in this world, and the surface is inscribed with sigils imbued with magical force. I've heard you can't use it until its powerful lock is undone. Am I right?"
"Right. And to add—this one is already unlocked. We can use it right now."
Tess's gaze flashed.
House Elzaine gathered intel on ancient weapons because they held enough power to shake a nation's foundations.
As far as she knew, breaking the seals on ancient relics was internationally taboo. If some country disengaged a relic's locks, it was no different from signaling they were prepared to wage war on the world.
"Mind if I take a look?"
When Sirone asked, Arin handed him the relic. Their friends crowded onto Sirone's bed.
He rubbed the surface and examined the seams. As he turned it this way and that, he must have triggered some mechanism: the cube split along a central line and a glass tube came into view.
Startled, Sirone tried to squeeze the cube shut, but it seemed fixed and wouldn't close.
Indecipherable characters floated within the glass tube. Not knowing what the thing was for, he couldn't even rule out the possibility it might explode.
"Wow. Pretty."
Tess's eyes, by contrast, shone. Raised on tales of relics instead of bedtime stories, her chest swelled.
Receiving the cube from Sirone, she asked Kanis,
"But what is it for? No matter how I look, I can't figure out how to use it."
"I don't know the details. Arin figured it out. Toss it here."
Tess supported the cube and carefully passed it over, but Kanis, as if already past trials, lobbed it to Arin without a care.
Watching Arin handle the cube, Sirone realized she hadn't stumbled into the method by dumb luck.
Most people, seeing an ancient relic for the first time, would try to reason from known objects. Sirone, too, had thought of a cube or a bomb. But unbound by fixation on form, she could pick out a thing's singularities.
Feeling the force of the Mind's Eye, Sirone lent his ear to Arin's explanation.
"I don't know why, but if you press certain parts, it works. You do this here and then… press this part, I think."
Red light burst from the glass tube, painting the room the color of blood. When Arin set it on the floor, Amy threw a pillow over her face and shouted.
"What is it—a blast?"
How useful a pillow would be against an explosion was anyone's guess, but she peeked over it like she'd made all due preparations and waited for whatever happened next.
A beeping sped up, then resolved into a steady tone, and the red light died away.
Picking up the relic, Arin pointed at the floor where the cube had been and continued.
"That's the spatial input. It remembers where the cube is placed. Now, let's do it again."
At her touch, the glass tube flared blue.
Arin glanced around for a suitable spot, then set the relic near Sirone.
The glass tube turned to white radiance—and in the air above the cube, a massive black sphere was born. At the spot Arin had just indicated, an identical sphere of the same shape and size hung.
"Huh—this is…?"
Sirone jolted.
It was the black hole he had seen in the Labyrinth's spacetime. The ability to compress space and pierce through. Its purpose was obvious.
"Now I get it. It's a portal. A portal that tunnels through spacetime."
"Bull's-eye. It's a device called a Meta Gate. This will be our trump card. We'll have Harvest do the demo."
Kanis knew there wouldn't be any volunteers to fling themselves into a black orb. Harvest, being without life, was perfect for such trials.
When Harvest thrust a hand into one black hole, it popped out of the other.
Amy and Tess sprang up onto the bed.
The distance between the portals was three meters. Harvest was straddling both, three meters apart. If they'd used a person for the experiment, the spectacle would have been even more grotesque.
"K-k-k-k, this part never gets old."
"Harvest, that's dangerous. Come out now."
Arin spoke in concern. According to their tests, a portal held for one minute.
When Harvest withdrew and the portals vanished, Kanis snatched up the cube again and spoke with swagger.
"Well? It's a warp device that remembers a specific point and links spacetime. If we cache this location and then use it in Heaven, we can return whenever we want."
A ripple spread through Sirone's party as the impossible shifted into the possible.
Tess's voice trembled with elation.
"This is… enormous, isn't it?"
An ancient relic owned because Archmage Arcane had risked his life to reach Heaven—enough by itself to count as a state-level top secret.
More astounding still: its seal was already undone.
If the existence of this thing got out, diplomatic frictions were guaranteed.
This wasn't on the level of the spell circle the Parrot Mercenary Corps had used.
What if a single spy infiltrated the royal palace and activated the Meta Gate? Troops would flood in and the kingdom would face overthrow. That was the kind of thing an ancient relic was.
Amy reached the same conclusion. Beyond its use, its monetary value alone defied imagination.
She didn't know how much inheritance Arcane had left Kanis, but this one item had to be worth several times that. There was no doubt.
"Could we… sell it?"
She knew it was an absurd notion. But she was, in fact, curious.
Honestly, she was dying of curiosity. A billion? A hundred billion? If they could sell it, her twelfth-generation great-granddaughter would bow nightly before Amy's portrait. Now she understood why Kanis had kept the secret.
Tess gave it serious thought. Propping her chin like an appraiser, she studied the Meta Gate, then shook her head.
"Frankly, there's no one who could buy this. At minimum, it would have to be a nation. Not just the money—the shockwaves would be huge. Outside of nations, the most plausible buyer would be the Ivory Tower."
Any mage residing in the Thormia Kingdom couldn't be free of the Magic Association. And other countries had their Associations.
But the Ivory Tower didn't approach things in those terms. They pursued magic regardless of world affairs—an extra-national body whose might wouldn't lag even against the whole world.
"The Ivory Tower's called the world's cutting edge. I doubt even an ancient relic would move them."
"From a mage's standpoint, sure. It's still 'just' an object. But the possibility's real. The Exmachina incident seventy years ago tells you that."
"Exmachina?"
"The name of an ancient weapon the country of Cotria possesses. My father told me this: Cotria once tried to bolster Exmachina's security by relocating it. They were moving it to a newly built bunker thirty meters from its original position—and the international community went wild. It felt like a world war could break out any minute. Get it? Just because an ancient weapon moved thirty meters, that happened."
"Terrifying. What kind of weapon is it?"
"House Elzaine took part in the spy games, but learned nothing. We don't know its form, size—not even its activation principle. But judging from neighboring countries' reactions at the time, odds are high it's a map weapon."
"A map weapon?"
"Not something you use on a battlefield. It's a name from decisions made over a map by the top brass. They say its seal hasn't been broken—but who knows. It's already been seventy years."
Map weapons have no humanity. Nothing is marked on a map—who lives there, what culture they enjoy, what must be protected. It's a world calculated with straightedge, compass, and pencil.
Kanis merely listened while they appraised someone else's property.
He had no intention of selling his master's relic. He'd kept his mouth shut to etch in his own sacrifice—the will to go to Heaven even if it meant exposing an ancient relic.
"Mm. Exmachina. And this is a Meta Gate."
Sirone broke off muttering and looked back at Kanis.
"Wait—how do you even know the name? You said Arcane erased his memories."
"It was written on a note. Just a string of words—but enough that, even if someone found the hideout, they couldn't infer the substance. Very like Master, that meticulousness."
"What else was on it?"
"Nothing special. Not a scrap about Heaven. I guess he really didn't want any of that out. But we can scout. Because we have the Meta Gate. So—how about it? Is that enough of a trade for the Immortal Function?"
There was room to consider it. The Heaven that had approached only as fear had shifted into a small thrill. With Kanis, the odds of returning skyrocketed. But… what would he gain?
"Why do you want to go to Heaven? 'Because Arcane went' isn't satisfying. It's not like you have detailed intel. I need to hear your motive before I can decide."
Seeing Sirone scrutinize the possibility of a trap to the very end, Kanis felt, rather, a sense of trust. If you had to head into danger, it would be several times more efficient to travel with Sirone than with some half-baked mage.