Chapter 672: Random Box (7)
“Three. Two. One.”
Thwack!!
“……!!”
“Again. Three. Two. One.”
Crack!!
“Argh……!!”
Bellver, eyes rolling back, couldn’t hold back a scream.
Clutching his forehead with both hands, he fell backward with a thud.
“Damn it, I can’t do this anymore!!”
Bellver wailed, his face swollen as if he’d been beaten.
Lennok sat in front of Bellver, shrugging his shoulders as he raised a finger.
“I told you. You have to match the timing.”
Lennok said, bringing his finger closer to the fallen Bellver’s face.
“Let me explain again. I’ll count to three and move my finger; all you have to do is turn your head in a different direction.”
“……”
“Three. Two. One.”
The moment Lennok said that and lifted his finger.
Bellver’s head followed the finger directly.
“Wrong.”
Shing!!
As magic gathered at his fingertip, a shock spell was incanted.
It landed squarely on Bellver’s forehead as a powerful flick.
Wham!!
A loud thud, as if a walnut was cracking.
“……!!”
“Hahahaha!!”
His twin, Bellita, who had been watching from the side, burst into triumphant laughter, and Bellver collapsed limp.
“Van, that’s really amazing. How do you keep hitting him without even using magic?”
“I have my methods.”
Lennok, unperturbed, raised his finger to Bellver’s brow again.
“Let’s go again. Three. Two.”
“A-Alright, alright!! I admit it!!”
“Admit what?”
Bellver replied quietly, as if confessing it was embarrassing.
“It’s not working… no, I… I can’t dodge it.”
“To admit that, you had to take shock spells to your forehead over ten times.”
Lennok said calmly.
“You might think you’re vulnerable to mind games or tactical thinking, but your biggest problem lies in the gap between your motor skills and reaction speed.”
“……”
“It’s not unusual. For physical powerhouses who handle heavy armaments, or superhumans who constantly use weight enhancement, it’s theoretically possible.”
“Theoretically possible…?”
“You’re forcibly inflating your body’s weight by instantly using magic to handle heavy weaponry, aren’t you?”
Without waiting for Bellver’s answer, Lennok continued.
“Because you’re stuffing and inflating magic between your blood vessels and bones, your blood flow slows down and your nervous system is compressed. As a result, your reactions are gradually falling behind.”
“……”
“It might not be noticeable in daily life, but the more you focus and immerse yourself, like now… as if time is slowing down…”
Lennok tapped his temple and smiled.
“Your body and mind are separating.”
Only then did Bellver’s face stiffen as he realized the seriousness of the problem.
Bellita, too, had lost her smile, staring only at Lennok’s mouth.
“In combat, you’ve compensated with your raw power and resilience, but eventually, a point will come when that gap becomes severe enough to trip you up. It probably won’t be long now.”
“……What should I do?”
“It’s simple. You start with training to reduce the gap in your reaction speed, just like this.”
Lennok said that, counted to three again, and twisted his finger to the side.
This time, Bellver gritted his teeth and looked upwards.
“Because your reactions are delayed by one breath, even when I count to three and move, you unconsciously follow that path. You need to compensate through regular training, and later, find the optimal point where your reactions don’t slow down as much, even while using magic.”
“So, I have no choice but to find balance through experiential training…”
“Ask Bellita to help you train, and aim to pass a hundred times consecutively.”
“H-A hundred times?!”
“I’ll judge your aptitude for learning magic based on how quickly you achieve it.”
“Ugh…”
Bellver, unable to retort, quietly retreated and began training with Bellita.
Next to the twins, others who had received different tasks from Lennok were all lost in thought.
“Ugh…!! Damn it!!”
Mila practiced balancing continuously falling water droplets on the side of her dagger, just inches from her face.
[Eee-gee-gee-geh.]
Manson’s two bodies made strange noises with electrodes plugged into the back of their heads.
“Mmmm…”
And Soo-ryun balanced a spear shaft held in a reverse grip, looking troubled.
Jenny watched them from the side, muttering in disbelief.
“It’s like a full-blown circus here.”
“Why? Do you want to join them?”
“……What task would you give me?”
“Nothing.”
Lennok smiled, seeing Jenny’s slightly tense expression.
“Do you remember when I tried to teach you the magic system before, and everyone else had an adverse reaction except you?”
“……”
“Since then, I’ve just been trying to identify who might be adaptable. You, Felix, and Evelyn are naturally exceptions.”
After facing the Level 8 Spirit Conjurer, Madrich Onnion, and acquiring the Ouroboros magic system,
Lennok had once called his acquaintances together to briefly teach them the basic principles of the magic system.
However, at that time, most of them gagged and showed adverse reactions, but Jenny had managed to learn the basics of the magic system quite smoothly.
He didn’t know the reason back then, but now, considering who Jenny’s grandfather was, it wasn’t entirely incomprehensible.
Lennok was now attempting, in a different way, something he had temporarily set aside, using this opportunity.
“You can tell someone’s aptitude for magic just from tasks like this?”
“To be precise, I’m giving them time to ponder deficiencies they weren’t conscious of.”
Lennok answered with a smile.
“It’ll be difficult to solve immediately. Conversely, that makes it quite suitable for testing aptitude.”
“Even so, you don’t seem to be giving them particularly difficult tasks…”
Even the finger-dodging task assigned to Bellver was just a playful game that could be done without any magic, wasn’t it?
However, Felix, who had been watching from the side, shook his head instead.
“No, Jenny. It feels more perplexing precisely because he isn’t giving them difficult tasks.”
“What?”
“The tasks Van assigns are easy for others, but they’re so exquisitely crafted that the person assigned them can’t understand why they can’t do it.”
“……”
“He’s making them realize their unconscious problems through simple tests. It’s true for Bellver’s task, but you can understand it by looking at Mila.”
Felix turned his gaze.
“Mila is an excellent mercenary, but due to her innate intuition, she tends to handle every task in a different way.”
“What does that have to do with balancing water droplets on a blade?”
“That means she instinctively avoids doing regular tasks in the same way. That’s why she finds it hard to continuously succeed at even a simple task like balancing water droplets on the blade.”
“……”
Only then did Jenny’s expression change slightly as she understood Felix’s words.
“That’s quite surprising. A mercenary like Camilla has such psychological issues?”
“The higher one’s skill, the more obsessed one becomes with mental routines and psychogenic variables. It probably has a significant connection to Mila’s own erratic combat style.”
“……”
“It’s the same for everyone else. Tasks that are difficult for them but easy for others… that’s why they truly realize their own deficiencies. Just as Van said.”
Felix stroked his beak, muttering with interest.
“Van always says he’s not good at teaching, but I think differently. He seems more than capable of taking on disciples now.”
“Stop with the flattery, why don’t you.”
Despite Lennok’s unenthusiastic reply, Felix tilted his head with interest.
“If intuition reaches this level, can simply pointing out problems be a great lesson in itself…? I’m learning something new.”
“……”
Felix’s words weren’t entirely wrong.
In fact, the teaching method Lennok chose was something he often used when he was an assistant professor at Rebatenon University.
Rather than trying to teach complicated magic, it was more efficient to give simple tasks and help them compensate for their weaknesses.
Of course, the drawback was that it required understanding each student’s individual problems and setting up customized tutoring methods for them.
But that level of analysis didn’t take Lennok long.
Lennok was now applying the tricks he learned as an assistant professor to the aspiring disciples who wanted to learn magic from him.
“Hmm… Van?”
Meanwhile, Dylan, looking exhausted, walked out from inside the mansion and blankly looked around.
Dylan, rubbing his wrestler mask to clear his head, frowned and muttered.
“Why is everyone suddenly doing strange things…? Am I still dreaming?”
“Dylan, you woke up faster than I expected.”
Lennok turned to him with a somewhat surprised expression.
“Are you feeling alright?”
“……Other than being a bit hazy.”
Fizz!!
Dylan plopped down next to Lennok and popped open a beer can that was rolling nearby.
Dylan chugged the beer, then took a deep breath and coughed.
“Cough, cough!! This beer tastes like dirt?! Did my taste buds finally give-”
Thump!!
At that moment, the Ascension Gate’s lever behind Dylan vibrated loudly.
Dylan, startled, shot up and looked at the mechanical box warily.
“……What is this?”
“It seems to be perceiving you as a different target than before.”
Lennok chuckled and nodded.
“Would you like to pull it one more time?”
“……Are you sure? I…”
“Nothing like what happened before will occur. I adjusted the output after Evelyn’s turn.”
“That was unfair, no matter how I think about it…”
“Hmm…”
After receiving confirmation, Dylan hesitated for a long time before slowly gripping the lever, and the Ascension Gate’s mechanical box began to shake.
“Ohh?! Magic…!”
Dylan groped inside the door, grabbed something, and looked back in surprise.
A slightly excited voice, enough to make the others, who had been engrossed in their tasks, unconsciously turn their gaze.
“It’s hard and slimy. It fits perfectly in my hand. Is it an artifact…?”
Dylan’s expression, unable to hide his excitement even in his groggy state.
Though he didn’t show it, perhaps he had been secretly envious of others pulling out and sharing items.
His voice was clear, almost unbelievably so for someone who had passed out and woken up after Lennok helped him release his limiter.
“Stop with the nonsense and pull it out quickly.”
“Yeah. Let’s see what kind of storage it’s connected to.”
As Mila and Jenny urged him, Dylan tensed his shoulders and lifted his arm through the door.
“Hmph…!!”
His cheeks puffed out visibly even through his mask as he threw the object in his hand as if flinging it.
Dylan exhaled heavily, wiped his sweat, and quickly turned his gaze.
“No doubt about it. It has to be a jackpot…!!”
“……”
Flap, flap!!
Dylan’s mouth clamped shut as his eyes met a giant tuna, half its body missing.
A slimy, firm torso. The lively flapping of the fish. Pupils unfocused and swaying.
An utterly unexpected encounter, not in the middle of the ocean, but in the mansion’s garden.
Jenny and Mila sighed simultaneously.
“That’s just like you.”
“I didn’t expect anything from the start.”
“N-No… Damn it, why did I get hooked on this piece of tuna…!!”
Dylan shouted in a panic, holding up the tuna’s snout.
“Why is this guy even alive with half his body cut off?!”
“It’s not alive. It just looks that way because a preservation spell is cast on it.”
Lennok approached Dylan, looking at the tuna with interest.
“For half a body to be alive, conditions are required. It’s better to think of it as something processed into ingredients and preserved long ago.”
“Th-Then the magic I felt was…”
“It seems you detected the preservation spell cast on this tuna chunk.”
Lennok chuckled, looking at the distraught Dylan.
“Perhaps you were very hungry after waking up.”
“Damn it…”
Lennok ignored the crestfallen Dylan, who couldn’t bring himself to deny it, and turned his gaze.
“Dray, would you bring some cooking utensils from the mansion kitchen?”
“Understood. But what do you plan to use them for…?”
“Since Dylan pulled out such good quality fish, let’s grill it before it spoils.”
“Van? You’re going to grill this?”
Jenny frowned intensely. Evelyn, watching from the side, also asked in surprise.
“You’re going to eat something whose origin you don’t even know? Is that really okay for a wizard?”
“It’s a tuna with such a high-level preservation spell that it’s still flapping even with half its body cut off.”
Lennok smiled and wiggled his finger.
“Undoubtedly, it’s top-grade ingredient. And it’s preserved very freshly. Don’t you think it’d be a shame not to taste it?”
“……”
Indeed, if it was preserved with such a spell, it must be a very high-quality fish species.
Moreover, it was kept fresh enough to still be flapping even after half its body was cut off.
While Jenny and Evelyn pondered for a moment, Felix put a hand on Lennok’s shoulder and stepped forward.
“Listening to you, Van, there’s not a single flaw in what you’re saying.”
He looked at Lennok with reliable eyes and nodded. Drool dripped from the bird-headed giant’s beak.
“You should immediately put that creative idea into action.”
“Wipe the drool from your beak before you speak, will you?”
Jenny retorted to Felix with an exasperated expression.
“Just like a bird, I swear…”
“Do you know that’s a racially discriminatory remark?”
Even as Felix said that, he helped Dray bring a portable oven and a stand from the kitchen, then enthusiastically began preparing to grill the tuna.
Flap, flap!!
“There’s a lot of dust. Seems it hasn’t been used often.”
“It was installed when I moved into the mansion. I haven’t tried operating it separately.”
“That won’t do. I’ll prepare everything myself.”
The bird-headed giant didn’t wait for Lennok’s reply and quickly began wiping the oven and preparing the tuna for grilling.
He seemed unable to bear the curiosity about the taste of this well-preserved Old World tuna.
“Speaking of which, when did you move into this mansion?”
Jenny, sipping her drink while watching Felix, asked as if remembering something.
“I heard you’ve changed addresses a few times, but I never imagined you’d move into a mansion.”
“Over half a year ago. A lot has happened.”
Lennok replied, checking a small rope Bellita had brought and recording it in a ledger.
“And I plan to move again soon. I’ve already looked into potential new locations.”
“……Huh?”
“Really?”
Jenny and Evelyn muttered with somewhat disgruntled expressions at his words.
“I don’t plan to stay in one place for long. The invitation was only possible because I plan to leave after this current business is done.”
Using Davi’s abilities, finding suitable properties that met Lennok’s conditions wasn’t difficult.
There was so much unused space left in the mansion that managing it was bothersome.
Aside from the laboratory, there was too much leftover space, so he planned to separate the laboratory from his residence.
“Hmm, that’s a bit disappointing. It would be nice if we could gather like this more often in the future.”
Mila, who had been listening to the conversation, picked up a skewer from the table and said.
“The location doesn’t have to be my address, does it? It’s just a matter of time and opportunity.”
Lennok replied, rising from his seat.
“It seems all the necessary data has been extracted. Let’s finish up after eating the tuna Felix grilled.”
Lennok raised his glass and pointed to the distant part of the garden, from which smoke was rising, and smiled.
From Felix’s face, as he grilled the tuna by half-dismantling the oven and skewering the fish upside down, one could even discern the sublime passion of a master craftsman.
“Wouldn’t it be something you’d regret forever if you left without even tasting that?”
-Jenny has started showing interest in the marine industry.
“Is that so.”
-She’s trying to significantly increase the proportion of seafood among the currently distributed goods.
“Understood.”
-No, Van. Anyone can see she’s doing this just because she wants to eat tuna. Stop her, please!!
Dylan shouted exasperatedly through the communicator.
-There’s no one but you who can object to her business plan…!!
The mercenary’s voice echoed loudly across the vast laboratory.
But Lennok, unperturbed, continued to bend his head, slowly moving his hands to finish the ongoing work.
Shush…!!
Pure white magic shimmered like smoke, then solidified into hard crystals and fell to the floor.
“Hmph…”
Having completed a round of work, Lennok finally straightened his back and let out a low breath.
Lennok, holding a cigarette and leaning against the workbench, finally responded to Dylan’s words.
“The marine industry is one of the promising businesses in Vulcan, having received continuous investment. As the city is located not far from the sea, there’s high potential for profit if the environmental issues in the undeveloped zones are resolved.”
Lennok took a puff, extinguished the ember of his cigarette, and put it down.
“Regardless of the impetus, I don’t see it as a negative thing.”
-Th-That’s true, but…
Dylan said, aggrieved.
-Jenny is trying to partner with the Agents for business alliances and send us out to sea…!!
“……”
-At this rate, I’m going to be sold off to a shrimp boat. Please help me, Van-!!
“A tuna boat, you mean.”
Lennok, listening to Dylan’s desperate plea, pressed the call end button and cut the connection.
Perhaps the tuna they grilled and ate at that party had slightly altered someone’s life trajectory.
But to think of starting a business hand-in-hand with the Agents, it seemed Evelyn and Jenny liked the taste of tuna far more than he had imagined.
“……Evelyn was a vegetarian, though.”
Since there were many categories of vegetarians, had she not violated her principles?
Lennok, lost in meaningless thoughts, soon dismissed them and rose from his seat.
Come to think of it, wasn’t it Dylan’s karma for pulling out the tuna from the Ascension Gate?
Whether Dylan was sold off to a deep-sea fishing vessel or not, it was Jenny’s business to handle.
Right now, he had to finish the work he started in the laboratory.
“Davi, how’s the output adjustment?”
[Spatial interference 3%. Timeline separation 0.2%. It’s still at an absurd level.]
Davi replied incredulously through the lab’s speakers.
[To think it can subtly push away and consume surrounding space-time just by existing… A Transcendent’s Will-Thought Entity is truly a strange object.]
A workbench rose in the middle of the laboratory.
Surrounded by countless mechanical arms and laser projectors, a pure white jewel floated above the workbench, slowly rotating.
Crackle, crackle…!!
Space-time around the jewel slightly warped, creating illusions that fragmented and shattered.
Ever so slightly, almost imperceptibly, its mere existence was intervening with the real timeline, pushing away the surrounding space-time.
“Yes. It truly is a strange object.”
Lennok quietly observed the jewel’s pulsations, then slowly took out an old pocket watch from his pocket.
“Because of that, I think there’s one more thing we can attempt.”