The Magic Academy's Physicist-Chapter 118: Dungeon Exploration (2)

Just as an army needed sufficient supplies and rest to maintain a long offensive in a war, one needed to take breaks to successfully conquer a dungeon. In this situation, pacing yourself was important.

“We’ll take ten here, but don’t relax too much!”

As soon as the leader, Miss Heerlein, spoke, the students’ legs started to give out.

They would be exhausted from being in a dark space.

We gathered whatever lanterns that we brought and put them in the center, then sat in a circle around them with our backs against each other’s. Like this, we were also prevented from being ambushed by a Beast.

“Fuah.”

After putting down a cloth and sitting my ass on it, my strength started to return.

With my back against Lotte’s, I stared blankly ahead. As I went over what I was planning to officially start researching next week, she spoke to me.

“I saw your sister use the same magic as you before.”

“You mean Tesla?”

“Mm.”

Lotte lightly nodded her head.

That Akasha or whatsherface must be capable of Element Operation, too.

Then that would mean she knew how to use my ‘Eightfold Way’.......

... Strange.

The Ultimate Innate Magic ‘Element Operation’ already existed so that much was understandable, but ‘Eightfold Way’ was a sub-concept that I’d developed on my own. Probability-wise, it didn’t make sense for her to copy that as well.

Vermel was the only one I could ask about something like this.... Where did he go, seriously?

[Maybe he dropped out?]

Alright, your nonsense has gotten to a point that I can’t take it anymore.

Vermel wasn’t someone who’d do that. I didn’t trust people easily but I was sure of this.

He couldn’t have run off without telling me. There had to be something going on.

[What are you going to do if he really did drop out?]

Then I’ll make carbon dioxide spew from his head1.

[......?]

It wasn’t a joke. The type of people I hated most were the ‘bastards who break promises without warning’.

Vermel and I had agreed to stick together until we beat the Demon King, so if he was running away unannounced before then, then he deserved to be beaten to death.

[... Wow.]

Well, anyway.

“Aether, are you listening?”

“I am.”

“So, I was thinking we can apply the magic you used earlier to a good area.”

“Where, what area?”

My interest piqued at the sight of Lotte who’d turned around with her eyes bright. She must have thought of a good idea.

“We might be able to identify the humanoid Beasts hiding in the Empire using your Innate Magic!”

“... Whoa.”

Did I hear that correctly just now?

I would’ve brushed it off if some other person had said it, but this was the great Lotte who was called a genius at Tilette Academy where only the best gathered so I was having mixed feelings.

The source of this c𝓸ntent is freewebnøvel.coɱ.

Lotte then used the rest of the break to explain her thoughts briefly and concisely.

To summarize her thought process–

‘Tesla’ was a magic that let me shoot whatever electromagnetic wave I wanted. Lotte took this electromagnetic wave to be a kind of mana wave, and thought therefore that a mage could manipulate it using magic elements.

“So if we propagate high-energy mana waves to a certain point and then make it lose some where we want to see it, we might be able to create a light that’s visible.”

“Oho....”

“A Beast’s body consists of machines so if we map the mana waves with your magic, then won’t we get a different picture from a human’s?”

So simply put, she was talking about taking something like an x-ray of the Beasts.

To think that she gained this much insight from the information I just showed in a world where electromagnetism wasn’t highly developed.

Wouldn’t someone like her later become the Mary Curie or Emmy Noether of this world?

“What do you think?”

“It’s doable.”

Now it was my turn to fill in the gaps for her.

... If Rosemary hadn’t been beside us, that is.

“It sounds like you’re talking about something interesting. Do you usually spend your time engaging in these kinds of academic conversations like this?”

My insides twisted up as I watched Rosemary come over waving her fan. How was she showing up and interfering every time, geez.

“If the method Lady Saliere mentioned is valid, then you could try experimenting right away since you only need the magic that you just used and Auto Mapping.”

Wait, this wasn’t good.

“Yeah, it’d be worth a try.”

“Hey, that sounds fun! Count me in!”

“... I-it’s not dangerous, right?”

Just then, the other kids who had been listening in on us joined in.

Standing among all the jabbering kids, Rosemary curved her eyes with the fan over the lower half of her face. Her bottom lids folded up and completed the annoying crescent-shaped look of her eyes.

[You have nowhere to run. What will you do?]

I admit that she was smart, and had to improvise here somehow.

“Sure, I’ll try. So how about you go first, then?”

“I look forward to it.”

“The results of the mapping will show up black-and-white. When the mana wave is in the visible light zone and hits metal, it’ll all reflect back.”

“Then....  If someone is a Beast, their body will appear all white?”

“That’s right.”

It was technically different from an x-ray so the results of the imaging needed to be interpreted differently.

“If most of the body is mapped white, it’s a monster; if there’s enough gray, then it’s a human.”

I was going to validate the results of the experiment with just this in mind.

Rosemary took off her precious metal necklace and waited for me to use Tesla with her arms spread out. What was she so confident about?

Was she planning to reveal that she was a Beast and bury everyone here?

No, that wouldn’t be like her. If she had been that impatient, the Empire would’ve been destroyed ten times over.

From what Vermel said, Rosemary was currently waiting for ‘something’. Because of that, she would be trying to refrain from acting suspiciously as much as possible.

... It couldn’t be.

Eightfold Way Third Form ─ Tesla

I transmitted electromagnetic waves in the x-ray band and reduced them to visible light near her skin. After, the ratio of the reflection was measured using Auto Mapping and sketched onto a translucent screen like a scroll being etched.

The figure of a girl her exact size was drawn onto my map.

“Gray!”

“It’s gray.”

“Wow, that’s cool. So this means human, right?”

Something was terribly, terribly wrong.

According to the plasmon theory, metal illuminated with light in the visible wavelength band should glimmer. Since visible light was shot directly into Rosemary’s body, the result of the mapping should’ve been white from the reflection. This shouldn’t be happening.

“I can see my skeleton. This could even be used for medical purposes, not just Beast identification.”

There were one of two possibilities.

She wasn’t actually a Beast

Or....

There were Beasts with bodies not made of metal.

Afterwards, a number of eager students asked for their bodies to be examined as well so I had to use the same magic a few times. Then anticipating that the mana stored in the hardcover might run out, I stopped after a certain number.

Because if I used it any more than this, I wouldn’t be able to prepare for possible situations.

But the gods hated me.

“Why don’t you try as well, sis?”

Rosemary immediately urged me, which had been expected.

I shook my head and came up with an excuse.

“The light from Tesla moves so quickly that it orbits this planet more than seven times per second. It’s impossible for me to be hit with the light that I shoot.”

“You can put a mirror and use the reflection.”

“Once reflected by the dielectric, some of it can get absorbed or transmitted so the original data you want to see will be distorted.”

“Then what if you make a scroll that outputs mana?”

“It’s not that easy.”

I deflected all of Rosemary’s attacks by lying appropriately. Jeebus, this was hard.

I felt nauseous at the thought of having to engage in this kind of psychological warfare from now on. I preferrred being ragged on by Hasfeldt.

... Well, relatively-speaking, of course.

“That’s a shame.”

Rosemary grinned and returned to the spot where she had been resting.

She got me. I basically gave her a ‘certified human’ check.

“Alright, everyone. Let’s resume.”

As we walked while being protected by the high-grade golems summoned by Miss Heerlein, we gradually got closer to the deepest part.

It didn’t take long to discover the big iron door that looked like the boss room. As this was a low-level dungeon, it hadn’t been hard to get here, either.

As depicted in normal RPGs, the dungeons of this world contained a boss monster and a reward for clearing it. I expected the reward wasn’t going to be impressive since it was low-level, but that wasn’t the purpose of this class, anyway.

Maybe there would be one Drake at most? It’d be nice if Rosemary didn’t try to pull something here.

As I was thinking that–

Bam!

“Miss! The door shut!”

“What? The golems should’ve been preventing it from closing...!”

Heerlein panicked momentarily, then while taking as much care of the frantic children as she could, she threw an Advanced Earth magic against the door that we had entered.

“This should’ve been enough to break it....”

Normally, the level of a dungeon was determined according to its size, strength of its structure, and the strength of the Beasts that appeared. The wall of a low-level dungeon should’ve been easy to break through with Advanced Magic.

Yet that, too, was the deception of the Cataclysm.

“Miss, th-there’s a Beast in front.......”

“What’s that!!”

An enclosed space the size of 1000 m2. From the other side of this large chamber, a Beast with iron fangs was walking towards us.

“It’s Fenrir!”

An agile monster classified as a Calamity as well as a pup that could be found all over the front yard of the Demon Castle.

When I looked around, Rosemary naturally hid herself amongst the students and watched the situation quietly. The students were in a panic so they had no time to think about her separately.

Boom, boom, boom.

Fenrir gradually loomed closer. Heerlein mobilized the remaining golems to protect the students while preparing to intercept.

But the preparation was pointless.

Why?

[Whine.]

Because this pup ducked its head and lay prostrate in front of me.

1. Probably implying that there will be an opening created for the CO2 in the body to be expelled from. MC being violent and bludgeon-happy as usual