Chapter 187: Modern Day Magic Academy (3)

[Successfully returned to the original world.]

When I regained my consciousness, I was already standing in the middle of a familiar room. The interior of the room, the sounds of passing cars and other noises which came seconds later assured me that I had returned to Earth.

I stared at the blue crystal ball I was holding tightly in my hand. It was crystal with a function of recording videos, just like a camera.

If all my plans came to fruition, Malea would still be alive after several decades and not meet her end just like last time. Thinking about her once again, I couldn’t help but let a sigh escape my mouth. If the Yoo Seodam from two years ago knew that the current him was working this hard hoping to meet her again in the future, he would have laughed and called himself stupid. After all, for the me from two years ago, such a thing was considered useless.

Did I perhaps change a lot during my numerous trips to other worlds? If it was indeed the case, that is a good thing because taking care of your relationship with others is proof that you have spare time in life.

I took off all the armor pieces covering my body and put it in my inventory. After changing into my working clothes, I took out the textbooks I had received from Aracelli.

‘I did my best to imitate the textbooks I studied when I was still a student at Vivienda Academy. But, it will be a lot less detailed than the original.’

Well, I couldn’t complain much about it. Vivienda Empire was a place with technology far more advanced than Earth. Because of that, textbooks weren’t written in physical format but rather in holograms or databases. There were no physical books she could pass on to me. However, due to her nature as a wizard, Aracelli could not simply forget the books and essays she either found or wrote. Fortunately, among the ocean of knowledge she couldn’t throw away, textbooks were one of them, and she said that she had a lot of books that she had ‘stored’ in her head because she was exceptionally fond of books.

Yes. It was not ‘memorized’ but ‘stored’. It seems that Aracelli gained an ability similar to my [Library of White Witch] when she reached the level of an archmage.

I must say that I was very lucky to have such a library in my head even though I wasn’t an archmage.

[Magic Theory Understood Through Object-Oriented Principle!]

[Easy to Remember! Magic Plan]

[Magic is Design! Magic Blueprint -Basic Edition-]

[The Principle of The World Understood by Magic! Is The World Actually Perfect?]

Some of the books I received from Aracelli were way too advanced for the current Earth. And because of this, unfortunately, I had to put them to sleep forever in my inventory. For example, the ‘Dark Matter Theory' which deals with unknown energy that exists in the universe and the ‘Space-Time Travel Theory' which uses the energy of black holes. I even received a ‘Theory of Everything' that deals with the origin of the world, which was several centuries more advanced than Earth’s current civilization. As it was an advanced science, I didn’t dare reveal it to the public.

But aside from those books, I was still able to acquire a lot of useful material about ‘Magic Engineering’ for Yekaterina from Aracelli even though it was not in great detail because it wasn’t Aracelli’s major. I hoped it would help Yekaterina to achieve the fusion between magic and science easier.

Putting down the textbooks I had inspected, I stared towards the air.

[You have killed a level 179 protagonist.]

[1790 days of lifespan has been paid.]

[Your current lifespan: 6307 days 9 hours 41 minutes]

It seems that the completion reward increased since Wigen, who entered the tutorial as an ‘Overspec Irregular’ like me and Aracelli and was already as strong as an S Rank superhuman before he entered the tower, became even stronger as he climbed the tower thanks to numerous unique items he acquired.

While I was there, I also looked for those items. However, I couldn't find any of them. It was probably because most of the items were reserved for the protagonists by the ‘Protagonist Correction'.

[Your level has been raised by 3.]

[Level increases by additional 3 due to successful hunting of a protagonist of the worst difficulty.]

[You have acquired the skill ‘Cold Gaze’.]

‘Cold Gaze' skill. The explanation for this skill was simple. It helps you analyze everything in your surroundings better as you become even more calm.

And that skill was further strengthened when it was fused with [Soul-piercing eyes (C)].

[The skill ‘Looking at All Things With a Cold Gaze (B)’ has been created.]

In other words, with the newly fused skill, I would be able to look at the essence of that very thing. Of course, it consumes a lot of magic power, so I won't be able to use it often…

And after a long wait and countless hours of hunting protagonists in other worlds, one of my core skills finally levelled up.

[The skill level of ‘Protagonist Hunter’ increases.]

With this level up, I expected that I would be able to intervene more actively with the protagonist’s story or I might have received a few convenient functions, but I was wrong.

As the level rises, only one sentence was added to the explanation.

[You will be able to jump on the flow of the story of the world.]

I couldn't understand the meaning at all, so I tried to ask the system. 

But…

<Is that so…>

She became quiet after giving an unhelpful answer.

"Hmm…"

Something was very suspicious, but as there was no other way to find out, I decided to take it as it is for now.

–

<Yoo Seodam>

[Level: 167]

*Stats

[Strength 163] 

[Strength 179] 

[Agility 165]

[Energy 1] 

[Mana 278]

*Talent

[Swordsmanship S] 

[Hunting D+] 

[Shooting S]

[Cooking D-] 

[Intuition A] 

[Quick-wit A]

[Insight B] 

[Vitality SS+] 

[Others…]

*Skill

[Protagonist Hunter Lv. 5]

[White Swordsmanship (S)] 

[Sixth Sense (B)]

[Inventory (S)] 

[Dharma Heavenly Wind God Technique (SS+)]

[Concentration (SS)] 

[Holy Conversion (F)]

[Ara-Sunyoung Mana Circling Technique (SS+)]

[Library Of The White Witch(C)]

[Looking At All Things With a Cold Gaze (B)]

–

My level rose as much as a rat's tail really. The road to the SS rank was truly long and rough. If I could help it, I would like to leave to receive another quest right now, but unfortunately there’s a lot of work left to do on Earth.

* * *

“Seodam-nim, I thought you wouldn't make it in time!”

"I'm sorry."

The date of the first magic lecture on Earth was getting closer. Even though I had experienced it for so many times, it was still surprising and fascinating at the same time how almost a year spent in the other world had only been two months on Earth. 

Though, even after those big time-differences, I was still almost late.

No regrets though.

“By the way… the quality of these textbooks is amazing! Just in case you failed to return, I was also making temporary ones… But, they are incomparable to these textbooks! This book is so easy with it’s explanation, to the point where it can be taught to kids who don’t know anything about magic.”

"Really?"

It seems like the textbooks Aracelli had prepared contain the basic principles of mana. However, this so-called ‘basic’ was still extremely difficult as it needed an extent of knowledge of someone on college level or higher.

“Besides, this… just what is this Seodam-nim…”

Yaketerina seems to have fallen in love instantly after she laid her eyes on the first few pages of [Blueprints of Magic Engineering] book.

"Unfortunately, it's very different from our technology, so I can't use it as it is… but the principle alone is enough to make my research easier."

“Um… that’s good.”

Unfortunately, research on magic or anything related to that was not my field, so it would have been of little use to me if I was the one who received it.

Once again, I thought that I was really lucky to have Yekaterina.

"Uhhh… I want to read this right now, but I have to send it to the researchers first. Oh, Seodam-nim, do you know what? All the researchers in my lab recently became 3-circle magicians. All of them had almost no talent for superpower, but right now they are at a level where they can defeat even a C rank monster!”

"Oh… Isn’t that great?”

I had no idea that the researchers would grow that fast. I haven't even seen their faces yet, but from the fact they were hand-picked by Yekaterina, I could infer that every single one of them must be smart and talented. Indeed, magic seemed to be a science which could only be taught to smart people.

“Based on this textbook, I have to change the order of the lectures scheduled for tomorrow a little. Wow, even elementary school students can learn magic! What if we… promote it like that? Wouldn't the response be amazing?

Yekaterina said so as she hummed and skipped towards her desk. Then, she started to write something down. I also picked up a pen to help her even a little, but just a few seconds in, my smartphone suddenly rang.

[Seol Jungyeon]

It was a call from Noonim.

* * *

Mirror World. 

(T/N previously translated as ‘alternate world', but I feel that it was not so apt, so I changed it. Sorry about that.)

It was an unknown world, which was not a dungeon, not a gate, nor a different dimension, and was detached from reality, However, this phenomenon could be found in many places on Earth.

As it was detached from reality, normally it did not cause much damage to the earth. However, in some cases when the influence of those Mirror Worlds grew powerful, it could interfere with reality. A representative example for the phenomenon those worlds caused was ‘Poltergeist'.

However, several months ago, Mirror Worlds were something which could be cleared thanks to the suggestion made by Another League's Yoo Seodam. But Yoo Seodam didn’t lead the operation himself. Rather, it was now headed by the New Murim Alliance who were in charge of cleaning such worlds. 

“What… is this?”

in the northernmost land in Alaska, Seol Jungyeon looked at the devastated land that unfolded before her eyes.

The scale of the devastation could be said as small. In terms of gates and dungeons, it would be similar to the damage caused by an unattended D~C rank dungeon because there was only one building which was destroyed. However, what was worrying was that the entire building was covered with material from ‘Mirror World’. 

“M…my lord… Just what is that…”

“…”  

Seol Jungyeon also looked at the building with confused eyes.

The building in question… no, could they still call it a building? After all, it had become a living creature after the Mirror World fused into earth. The ‘lower body’ of the building was rhythmically moving as gas could be seen from time to time just like when humans exhale CO2.

Inside the building, they could see a pair of eyeballs rolling around, proof that there was another living thing there.

“Should we engage, my lord?”

"We should. It’s our duty to get rid of everything that seems dangerous.”

Seol Jungyeon didn't know why something from the Mirror World had come to reality, but she felt that it seemed like an ill omen. That’s why getting rid of it was the first priority.

With that in mind, she drew her sword and walked graciously towards the building-like creature.

“Kuoookkkk!!!!” 

From the inside of the building, something that looked like a living creature jumped out and screamed. It was a terrifying creature with a weird head, seven arms, no legs. However, despite its horrendous appearances, Seol Jungyeon felt that the creature seemed to want to ‘communicate’.

Seol Jungyeon stopped walking and tried to stop him.

However…

Fwooosh~!!

An energy missile fired by someone brushed past her side and hit the lower floors of the building.

Kurreung…!!

The building began to completely collapse. At that time, the creature from earlier eventually began to express its anger, and there was no choice for Seol Jungyeon to retaliate.

“…”

When her sword sliced through the creature’s neck, an eerie feeling rushed towards her.

‘What is this?’

Why is it so easy?

The situation ended instantly. It was only natural since unlike in the Mirror World which could only be entered by very strong people, here on Earth, there were many hunters who came along with the New Murim alliance to investigate. And their power was enough to kill the building-like creature.

Seol Jungyeon slowly looked at the ‘corpse' of the building. The building was also huge, but since it had no offensive or defensive ability, it wasn’t something which could give them any headache.

She then entered the building and walked around while looking for anything which was left behind. When she finally reached the highest floor, she could see something. However, It wasn't difficult to understand because it was just a picture.

In the painting, the ‘end’ in which all life died and disappeared was drawn. It seems that the painter drew it in a way that was easy to understand so that anyone who found it could understand it even if they died.

‘They have some intelligence?'

No, if that is so…

‘What did they mean by the ‘end’?’

Seol Jungyeon looked at the top of the picture. The whole thing was covered with blood, as if they were trying to erase the wrong picture, but for Seol Jungyeon, those pictures seemed to convey the meaning of ‘nothing’ or 'empty'.

‘I should contact Yoo Seodam.'