Water Magician

TLN: Please read my translations at tseirptranslations.com, I did not give permission to any site to host my translations. 

Editor: Tseirp

“Your Majesty Roberto Pirlo. By anomalies, do you mean the trace magic power being sucked out?”

Ryo, who had just arrived, inquired intrusively.

“Hmm. As expected of you, Ryo-dono, you noticed it.”

“No… actually, I first realized it when Groen-san, who came to call me, narrated the ‘abnormality’.

Roberto Pirlo complimented him, but Ryo smiled wryly.

Even Ryo wasn’t all-powerful.

“Don’t worry, it’s a matter of experience. Having been a magician for seventy-five years, it comes to me naturally.”

Then he put on a serious face and asked.

“It’s the auditorium seats that’s sucking out the magic power. As a member of the delegation, I would like to avoid ruining this inauguration ceremony… since it might affect the outcome of the negotiations that the civilian officials have been working so hard to close. Nevertheless, these civilian officials are the ones suffering the most… So, can you think of any way to resolve this situation amicably?”

Roberto Pirlo, the man Lord Aubrey couldn’t kill.

He is well-known for his intelligence.

But even such a man couldn’t think of a way to ‘resolve the situation peacefully’….

Then Ryo began pondering.

To be honest, he still didn’t completely understand what ‘magic power’ is.

However, it is not something that exists outside of physics, which is the ‘study of everything’.

He could infer that from what Michael (pseudonym) said.

That being the case… it should be possible to block it from sucking out magic power, or in other words, to block the transfer of magic power.

“I have just the right water-attribute magic for the task. To carry out a little test… may I try it out with just Your Majesty and myself? I reckon among those present, only Your Majesty and I can accurately recognize the subtle amount of magic power being sucked out so…”

“Ryo-dono, that’s…”

“It’s okay, Groen. You are right, Ryo-dono. We should try it on ourselves before applying it to the whole.”

Ryo suggested, and as the guard captain, Groen tried to stop him, but Roberto Pirlo interrupted him.

Someone willing to take the initiative and put himself at risk… that’s the kind of man Roberto Pirlo is.

“Now, please excuse me. ”

As Ryo chanted, a floor of ice formed under Ryo and Roberto Pirlo’s feet.

Nothing special, just the usual .

Appearance-wise.

“Oh, it’s an ice floor, so it’s slippery. Please be careful. I tried to make the ice to be not as slippery as possible, but I just couldn’t completely remove that ‘slippery’ characteristic.”

Ryo warned Roberto Pirlo, who was touching the that extended to the seats.

“This ice isn’t cold…”

Roberto Pirlo expressed.

“Yeah, that’s the whole point. I have stopped its change from ice to water and prohibited the transfer of heat. It may look like a single sheet of ice, but it is actually multiple layers, with a layer of ice in the middle that has almost no molecular vibration. In effect, forcibly stopping molecular vibrations, and presumably, that should also inhibit the transfer of magic power.”

No matter what magic power is, it should vibrate.

By forcibly stopping the vibration, its propagation is blocked.

In a very simple model, it would be like a magic power thermos flask, where heat transfer is restricted.

By creating a vacuum between the two layers, the transfer of heat is prevented.

It’s more of a Dexter energy transfer than a Forster resonance energy transfer.

Ryo had also speculated that this was probably the case when he saw , , and , which are said to be absolute magic defenses… it would appear that he wasn’t entirely wrong.

Somehow, it felt a little incorrect, but he didn’t care.

After all, he had yet to comprehend the essence of magic…

“At first, I thought I could just try to prevent direct contact with the audience seats, but… seeing that even with clothes and shoes on, magic power was still being sucked out all the same. Hence the multiple layers. Your Majesty, please see if magic power is still being absorbed.”

“Well… to be honest, I didn’t really understand Ryo-dono’s explanation, but it sounds interesting. We should get together and discuss magic sometime, but for now, let me check to see if the absorption of magic power has stopped.”

Roberto Pirlo said, meditating and concentrating on following the flow of his magic power.

Ryo also closed his eyes, meditating in the same way, and followed the flow of his magic.

The flow of magic power that was being sucked out from the soles of his feet earlier had stopped.

Neither was there any absorption into the air.

The measure seemed to be successful.

Opening their eyes, they nodded.

A familiar face approached and called out to them.

“Your Majesty, Ryo-dono, could you please tell me the outcome too?”

“Oh, Count Hans Kirchhoff. I didn’t know you were a magician… talk about a man of many talents.”

The man who approached was Count Hans Kirchhoff, a member of the Empire delegation.

Roberto Pirlo said jokingly.

“I, too, could feel my magic power being sucked out. Then I looked to the side and saw Ryo-dono heading towards the Union delegation, and was even talking to His Majesty Roberto Pirlo. So I assumed that this abnormality must have something to do with magic.”

“I see.”

Ryo nodded broadly in agreement with Hans’ logical, yet concise explanation.

It seems that truly excellent people are excellent in any situation.

“You sensed correctly, Count, this auditorium itself is sucking a trace amount of magic power out of us. I asked Ryo-dono if he could do something about it without making a scene, and apparently this ice floor he generated seems to have done the trick.”

“So, I’m going to spread it so it covers the entire Union and Kingdom delegations. After that, I’ll go over to the Empire delegation to set it up as well, so Count should return and inform everyone.”

Roberto Pirlo explained, and Ryo added.

Hans returned without asking any questions.

Perhaps he could even guess what the siphoned-off magic power was for.

Same as these two.

“Ryo-dono, the siphoned magic power is for activating that thing, isn’t it?”

“Ah, yeah. So Hugh-san did tell you about it. It is probably for activating the huge magic circle in the basement of this Holy Capital. And if they could also strip the envoys who might resist of their magic power, it will be easier to suppress their resistance… killing two birds with one stone.”

Unbeknownst to Ryo and the others, Hugh McGrath was apparently also sharing information with the Union and the Empire.

Those who lead an organization tend to act without the knowledge of those below them.

Otherwise, the organization will not function properly.

Sometimes, some become the head of an organization without understanding such things…

Naturally, the organization won’t operate optimally.

You can’t retain the same mentality as those below, otherwise the organization will quickly go bankrupt… if you want to move up the ladder, you have to learn a lot of things.

For the sake of everyone in the organization.

Conversely, those who are not ready to do so should not be promoted to higher positions.

Your capability as an individual and the ability to run a project or an organization are two completely different things.

The sheer number of managers who don’t understand this…

“Mm-hmm. Master McGrath sent a report to me. And of course, to the Empire delegation as well. Even the one about the ‘sacrifice’ too. I also learned that Ryo-dono has arranged for the magic circle to be rendered ineffective.”

“Yeah. I just made it so that magic power is not supplied to the most central part, effectively rendering it useless… The initial part works fine. In case whoever designed it decides to perform a test run or something.”

“Well, makes sense. So they don’t find out that it’s been tampered with.”

Roberto Pirlo nodded once in response to Ryo’s explanation.

Audience seats for the Kingdom Delegation.

Ice was laid on the floor by Ryo, and the chairs were also covered with ice.

It’s not cold, but it’s hard….

In the audience seats.

“Dammit… I have a bad feeling about this.”

“What’s the matter, Commander?”

Hugh McGrath muttered quietly, but Ignis, the chief negotiator sitting next to him, heard him.

“Nah… just, I’m feeling a little restless in my chest area. At times like this, something terrible usually happens.”

“Ah… Ryo-san called it gut instinct or something. He said that the more someone goes through hell and back, the more intense it is. And speaking of the Commander, I can imagine.”

“I sure hope nothing happens this time.”

Hugh muttered, but he understood that the lives of the entire delegation were at stake.

He shouldn’t have raised that flag.

He had done everything he possibly could. Everything.

But still, he thought.

He still thought he could have done more.

He thought he could have prepared better.

“Commander, it’s all right. You’ve done everything you can.”

Ignis, the chief negotiator, said with a smile.

He is the man responsible for all of the negotiations, which he was exposed to daily under pressure that even Hugh would be unable to handle.

He is, without a doubt, the most mentally drained man in the delegation to the Western Countries.

His conduct of the negotiations would determine the interests, influence, and rights of many countries for decades to come.

Not just for his children and grandchildren, but for generations to come.

And eventually will come a renegotiation?

Will the side that signed a favorable treaty be willing to renegotiate it?

Is there a need to renegotiate?

Of course not.

The opportunity for renegotiation may or may not appear until fifty or a hundred years from now.

How many people will be bound by this treaty by then?

Thinking about it, it is not something that can be described in one word: pressure.

But then, the man said.

“It’s alright”. “You’ve done everything you can”.

Those words, more than Hugh McGrath could have imagined, lifted the pressure from his mind.

“Ah, Ignis. You’re right.”

Hugh gave a small nod, and seeing that, Ignis also smiled and nodded.

While the envoys from the Central Countries were being freed from the situation of having their magic power sucked out of them by placing their feet on the icy floor and sitting on the icy chairs, the inauguration ceremony was going on in the arena.

Ryo had returned to his original seat in the Kingdom delegation.

“I was wondering how they were going to manage the magic power needed to activate that giant magic circle, but to think that they would rig the audience seating at the venue.”

“The scale is pretty massive, isn’t it?”

Etho questioned Ryo’s impression.

“That’s right… and it would take a lot of work. You would have to draw a lot of magic circles… no, you can do this with a few larger ones… maybe? But then again, the magic power that would be used to activate those magic circles…”

Ryo couldn’t find an answer, and his voice was getting quieter…

Then came Amon’s quiet but sharp voice.

“The guests over there from the Dark Continent, aren’t some of them sleeping?”

“Yeah, they are. Well, maybe one or two out of a hundred people… Does that mean they’re sucking magic power out of them too?”

Amon reported what he spotted with his sharp eyes, and Niels agreed.

“Should we destroy the magic circle or device… alchemy tool or something around there that’s siphoning the magic power? If we destroy it, though, it’s more likely that those at the center of this conspiracy will recognize that they’ve failed and take hard measures.”

Ryo asked, turning to Niels and Etho.

The party leader is Niels, and normally he makes the decisions, but in this case, since it was magic-related, Etho’s opinion was respected.

Niels and Etho looked at each other and nodded.

“Let’s destroy it. They will soon realize that they have not been sucking any magic power from the delegation anyway. The enemy will eventually resort to forceful measures. Then we’d better make the first move.”

Niels said, and Etho and Amon nodded as well.

“Understood.”

Ryo nodded.

The four consulted with Hugh McGrath and received permission to proceed.

And so they sneaked out from the top stairwell, behind the auditorium…

Author’s note:

Abel hasn’t appeared for some time!

Are there any readers who think so?

Yes, he hasn’t appeared

It’s not that I’ve forgotten.

There is a reason.

You’ll know eventually.

Yes, eventually… hehehe.

TLN: Please read my translations at tseirptranslations.com, I did not give permission to any site to host my translations. 

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