Chapter 113 – Trojan

Chapter 113 – Trojan

I was sitting in my study late into the night, using Merlin's invention, listening to the recordings of Mikan's songs. Honestly, I was surprised by what Merlin had achieved here, and I didn't think he would develop something like this so soon. Some principles were taken from the primitive warning system we encountered before, but instead of breaking a linked CC, this time, the connection was about transmitting information and recording it. In this case, the data were the soundwaves traveling through the air. And here comes the thing that bothered me. The device recorded something that should not be possible, at least not as a sound wave.

"Do you like these songs this much?" Sasha asked, walking into my office in her nightgown and smiling at me.

"No... it is not that. I found something..." I answered, and my serious tone made her furrow her brows. "Come, let me see if you notice it!"

Inviting her close, I reached in and rearranged multiple runes within Merlin's 'toybox' formation. The music began playing again, but this time, it was slowed down considerably and sounded awful to the human ears. However, I was not here to enjoy it.

"I don't know... it is weird and distorted, Mikan's voice sounds-"

But then she stopped. Yes, that is exactly what my issue is. There is a voice within the recording that becomes apparent after you play around with it and begin distorting and twisting the base sample.

"Who is that?" she asked, leaning closer, wanting to hear it better. After another change, she could listen to the exact words I did, spoken slowly and sounding like a monster's growl.

"I will kill you all..."

"My guess? It is Mikki-2. We are hearing the old fucker's words. I don't know if Mikan also hears them or if her bracelet prevents her from perceiving Elyzien's words. But the recording picked it up, which means it is leaking out despite our preventative methods. The leakage must be minuscule, but because Elyzien is of pure magic, the CC reacts to it and records her thoughts as a voice."

"Damn..."

"Exactly. I found it out because I was fooling around with the formation, seeing if I could become a DJ and remix the songs."

"Huh?"

"I'll explain later because we have a problem right now. We need to eliminate a ticking time bomb, which in this case is Elyzien."

"Do you have any ideas? I don't want Mikan to be hurt or suffer!" She exclaimed, looking at me earnestly, almost ordering me with her eyes to do everything to save her.

"None yet. We are talking about controlling magic. She came to me before asking me to look into it, but I only ran into brick walls while trying to think up a feasible theory. I just don't know how magic works because I can't use it."

"Is it... impossible?" She asked, looking worried, getting crestfallen quickly.

"No, I wouldn't say that. With this, Merlin inadvertently proved that magic acts like a wave. The question is, do they act like waves only when we measure them or every time?"

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing. Nothing that we need to worry about. I only know some theories about an experiment in my old world that baffled people when it first came to light. It was not part of my studies. It simply reminded me of it because we know very little of magic itself. Anyway! I can start thinking about how to use the fact that magic has the same wave-like properties and how it interacts with CC, even under heavy suppression."

"So... there is hope!"

"Fingers crossed!"

I watched her finish it and raise it in the air after drawing. There was no reason to hesitate, so she activated it without thinking, and I watched as the little paper began glowing immediately. It was like a leaf being held close to open fire as it started curling up, but in the end, it did not burst into flames and remained unburnt—kind of.

"Oooh! That's great!"

"It did not work; it still became charred and... weird."

"Yes, but this is the closest we got to it in the past two weeks!" I laughed, hugging her and kissing her cheek. "Which one was that? Let me copy it down, and we can continue optimizing it!"

...

....

......

It was a warm, early-summer day, and we were gathering around the usual testing site for our newest magic spells. By now, the area had been cleared of every tree, and a rudimentary wall had been set up with warning signs for everyone to stay away. There were four entrances to the location, and all of those were guarded by the young, still-in-training soldiers.

Right now, we were standing around 5 meters away from Merlin, who was holding a simple fireball spell formation—the same one Sasha and I had been working on for weeks. On our end, a different formation was etched into a wooden slab with a pair of charged CCs sitting in it. The whole thing was already activated, and what surprised Merlin was that he couldn't really tell what it was for. He wanted to study it at once because it was something he had never seen before, but I told him to first do the testing, and then we could talk.

"I'm ready!" He shouted, making me shrug, raising my voice.

"Do it! I told you, just aim towards the dummy and cast the spell!" While speaking, I was pointing towards the scarecrow, around fifty meters ahead of him.

"I'm doing it! One... Two.."

"Just do it!" Sasha moaned, reprimanding him and getting impatient because she was just as nervous as I was. When Merlin finally activated it... Nothing happened.

"What... but... Huh?"

Merlin was clearly surprised, looking at the formation... but then again, it was a simple, normal spell, something he was familiar with, as it later evolved into what we now call Dragonfire. He tried it a second time. Nothing. Third? Still nothing.

"...." Looking at us, his eyes were glowing with excitement. He was looking at the formation on our side, already putting the two together because he was sure that the fireball spell was not the issue here.

"Continue trying it!" I shouted with a wide grin and watched as, in the end, Merlin summoned his natural affinity, finally forcing the fireball to appear. Even then, it didn't fly forward or cause an explosion. Instead, it incinerated the paper in his hands, and then it was snuffed out without fighting back.

"How did you do it?!" He laughed loudly and skipped over towards us. His bright eyes were studying the little 'Trojan horse' we had developed.

"Well... Let's just say that we managed to create a method that injects a rogue rune code into the spell when activated, simply preventing it from activating. Right now, this only works with this one low-level spell, but it was to prove the idea that it can be done. Now it is time for you to come and start playing with it, my little genius..." I explained with a grin, rubbing his head. "Feel free to drop everything else and make this your priority."