"—!"
"—!!"
"—!!!"
What exactly was magic?
Since ancient times, many mages had studied the question, and just as many had never bothered to care about it at all.
It was just as Riveria had once said.
After the gods descended to the lower world, adventurers who received the Falna would automatically gain magic if they had the aptitude for it — no research required, no need to understand anything.
Of course, that didn't mean things came easily forever after.
Mages still had to master the handling of Magic, the art of chanting, and a certain degree of battlefield judgment and melee ability...
But none of that
had anything to do with the actual theory of magic.
Riveria was, in that sense, a fairly traditional mage, one who'd done extensive research into the subject.
Alfia was the purely talent-driven type, and knowing she didn't have much time left, she'd never bothered studying such things at all.
Lefiya, meanwhile, was both talented and had done considerable research into the principles of magic, which was why—
At this moment,
with three mages gathered together, it was the girl who ended up leading.
On the beach,
far off, Artemis and Aphrodite, along with Ais — who was standing by in case anything went wrong and the two goddesses ended up in danger — had no idea what Lefiya and the others were actually doing.
All they could see was an orange head, a green head, and a silver-white head, huddled close together.
What their eyes were fixed on
was a tiny black point floating in Lefiya's hand.
Roughly the size of a pebble. Looking closely, one could see it trembling faintly, constantly straining to expand outward, yet unable to grow even a hair's breadth larger.
And right now,
Lefiya, as the one leading the effort, had already broken into a sweat.
Clearly, simply maintaining the thing's existence was placing enormous strain on her.
Meanwhile,
Riveria was being even more careful, having already wrapped her strongest Defensive Magic, [Dimension Cut-off], around the black point in the girl's hand, layer after layer, sealing the tiny "black point" within.
And Alfia, for her part, stood with every nerve on edge, ready at any moment to unleash her magic [Garden of Stillness], prepared to conjure an anti-magic domain and settle everything the instant it was needed.
None of them dared to be careless.
Because
this tiny "black point" was something the three of them had been researching ever since reaching Lv.8 — no, since Lv.7, or even earlier.
According to Riveria, this was the [Primordial Magic].
Tracing back a thousand years,
poring over the Elves' impossibly ancient records, they had even reached back to a time thousands of years earlier, when Monsters hadn't yet appeared on the earth at all.
The Elves were a "magic race," but how had magic actually been discovered in the first place?
Utterly untraceable.
Even when Isagi had once asked the Great Spirit Aria the same question, a thousand years in the past, she hadn't been able to answer it either.
To a Spirit, magic was simply innate.
And the magic the Spirits used was entirely different from what Elves and humans used.
Both were Magic, technically, but not the same thing at all.
Riveria had found similar records in the Elves' ancient texts — records showing that someone, long ago, had researched this very question.
By compiling and synthesizing that research, with help from everyone — even including the former Magic Kingdom's the Sage, Miss Fels—
they had finally uncovered it.
The [Primordial Magic].
The truest, most essential form of Magic — and also the original reason Elves and humans had ever begun using magic at all.
That reason was "war."
Or, to put it more bluntly, "slaughter."
Though the Elves were a peace-loving people, their history had always been shadowed by war.
Wars started by other nations, mercenaries and bandits come to pillage, and later, after the gods descended to the lower world, even records of dark-aligned gods leading their Familias to attack the forests the Elves called home.
It was precisely because of this that the Elves were so fiercely united.
And valued their kin so deeply.
And so,
"magic" had come into being.
It was the very first weapon the Elves had used to protect themselves and their companions.
Later, as Monsters grew rampant, humans and other races had also learned to wield this power.
Even the Spirits.
Whether it was the blessings they granted to Heroes, fighting alongside those Heroes, or ultimately becoming the very weapons those Heroes wielded —
all of it existed for the sake of fighting Monsters.
Once they understood this,
Lefiya, Riveria, and Alfia all grasped the true nature of magic — or rather, of this [Primordial Magic].
It was "death" and "destruction."
The purest possible thing, meant only for fighting, for killing enemies, for surviving.
And precisely because it was purified to such an extreme, it carried almost nothing extraneous within it.
Which was why,
even something as small as this single "point" mattered so much.
Drenched in sweat, Lefiya looked over at Riveria and Alfia, both just as tense as she was, and the three of them, in perfect unison, nodded.
Then Riveria waved a hand toward Ais, signaling the girl to keep the two goddesses safe for a moment longer.
Only then
did Lefiya begin to act.
As the elf girl worked, the tiny black point began drifting out toward the distant sea.
Its speed was neither fast nor slow —
because Lefiya was still handling it with extreme caution, and so was Riveria, the elven princess carefully adjusting her Defensive Magic to keep it wrapped tightly around the little black point at all times.
Until,
after more than ten minutes,
it had finally been carried far enough away. Riveria first dispelled the Defensive Magic surrounding it from a distance, then began chanting again, wrapping everyone present in a fresh layer of Defensive Magic.
At the same time, Alfia cast Garden of Stillness, forming a complete anti-magic domain pressed just beneath that layer of emerald-green shielding, encompassing everyone within it.
Only once all these preparations were complete
did the others finally look to Lefiya, signaling that she could begin.
For a moment, they'd almost forgotten about Tiona, still off on the island picking fruit — but that probably wouldn't be a problem.
And so.
"—!!!"
BOOM!
Before everyone's eyes, a blinding, pure white light bloomed.
Then came wave after wave of shockwaves, riding on a howling wind, crashing down like a tsunami.
Layer upon layer of seawater churned together, spraying wildly in every direction, and in an instant, like a sudden downpour, it nearly flattened the entire dense forest on the island.
Just then,
Tiona, who really was still up a tree, clung tightly to the trunk in her arms, eyes shut, looking for all the world like she thought thunder and rain were about to hit.
But then, what she felt next was something disappearing.
Completely. From this world.
When the sea finally calmed, Ais flew ahead, wrapping everyone in a gust of wind and carrying them toward the site of the explosion.
And then,
they witnessed something unbelievable.
On the surface of the sea, a "pitch-black round hole" had appeared.
It wasn't large — maybe a few meters across — just floating there on the water's surface, and within it, there was nothing at all.
Only an unfathomable, bottomless black.
From within it, Lefiya and the others could sense some lingering trace of Magic.
It was the very power unique to the [Primordial Magic] they themselves had discovered.
"Erasure."
This small patch of "seawater" — or rather, this small patch of "world" — had been completely wiped from existence, leaving behind nothing but pure void.
The three of them looked at one another, back and forth.
For a moment, all of them wavered, uncertain, wondering whether the test should continue.
Having reached this point,
they now fully understood that what they had just witnessed, what they had just touched, was truly "forbidden knowledge."
This was magic that perhaps shouldn't even exist in this world.
"Whew—"
The three of them nodded at the same time, as though a decision had already settled itself in their hearts...
That night,
Isagi and Ryuu-senpai went together to the Hephaestus Familia's compound.
Soon enough, they easily found Tsubaki, who was currently in her workshop.
As the captain of Hephaestus Familia, the woman had been fairly free lately, and according to Cecil, she'd recently taken quite an interest in [Zero-Level Armaments].
But
the ability to forge [Zero-Level Armaments] came from Cecil's Development Ability, [Mystery].
Or else it required something like Goibniu, a god of smithing.
Even though Tsubaki was very interested — at one point she'd even wanted to collaborate with the girl or serve as her assistant — there was simply no way to make that work. The woman, though, took it in remarkably good stride — probably just her nature.
She didn't seem to mind at all, and reportedly, she was still just researching her own methods.
Same as always.
Her dream was to forge equipment that surpassed even the god of smithing's work, and now, at least, she had a concrete goal to aim for.
Soon,
in her own workshop, after listening to Isagi and Ryuu's request and commission,
Tsubaki agreed to it. After all, she'd had a hand in forging Adi's weapon before, so she was reasonably familiar with crafting a low-lethality piece of equipment. And besides, the trickiest part — using Divine Power to force a "blood-preserving" effect onto it — was something Isagi could handle entirely on his own.
It didn't take long. After hashing out a few details, the forging itself was left entirely in her hands.
In Isagi's mind, he was still turning over what he'd seen just before leaving — that explosion Lefiya and the others had produced.
What on earth had that even been? Surely it hadn't actually been a "nuclear blast"—
Still, it seemed like a good thing overall.
After all, the girls were getting stronger, which meant a better shot at bringing down the Black Dragon when the time came.
He figured he'd ask them about it once they got back, and he felt it was about time to start preparing in earnest.
Was this, perhaps, the final battle?
All that remained after this was exploring the Dungeon... no, wait.
Isagi suddenly remembered.
Fels had mentioned before that he should stop by the Magic Kingdom once, before setting out against the Black Dragon.
He'd nearly forgotten all about it.
Apparently Hermes was still being held "hostage" over there, though Asfi had said it wouldn't matter much even if they just left him be.
Hmm—
With that thought in mind,
Isagi headed back toward the Familia compound together with Ryuu-senpai, mentally sketching out a plan as he went.
____
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