Chapter 7

Seiden and the rookie member were at a loss, caught between Rainer and Blenn as the two stood facing each other. The tension hanging between them, whether intentional or not, made the two onlookers instinctively walk on eggshells.

Rainer, who had been silently listening to Blenn, roughly swept his hair back. The disheveled state of his hair seemed to reflect his mood perfectly.

“Does this situation look like a joke to you?”

“There’s no way it would.”

“I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but you’d do well to stop climbing all over me like this.”

“I’m a member of the Magic Department and your aide, Lord Rainer. Aren’t we supposed to be a pair who cooperates and moves as one?”

In other words, Blenn was indirectly making it clear that he had every right to involve himself in the matter.

Just then, another member came running out from the Barrier Division office.

“Um… the aide isn’t answering, so they’re asking when the Magic Minister will be able to return to the palace.”

Blenn checked the communication crystal he had tucked back inside his coat. He had been so caught up in his conversation with Rainer that he hadn’t even noticed the incoming call.

A sharp click of the tongue came from in front of him.

Rainer was openly displaying his displeasure, his brows drawn together. Everyone present except Blenn instinctively turned their heads, doing their best to avoid making eye contact with him.

Rainer was deeply displeased with the situation.

As if it weren’t enough that part of the barrier he had considered perfectly reinforced had been breached, causing this entire mess, he had also ended up handing the ministers of the other departments fresh ammunition to use against him.

And to make matters worse, every second counted when it came to resolving the situation, yet people kept getting in the way and making matters more complicated.

Especially that aide.

Rainer had no idea where Blenn had gotten the confidence to step forward like this.

And when Blenn had volunteered to resolve the matter, he had even openly stated the reward he wanted in return.

But what was truly absurd was that Blenn’s offer didn’t sound like empty bravado.

“…”

Rainer suddenly remembered the archive earlier, when Blenn had accurately recalled exactly where the materials concerning the magical tool were located.

“By four this afternoon.”

“Yes?”

“Resolve it by then. If you can’t, you’ll become prey for the old ministers along with me. And you’ll become prey to me as well.”

Rainer’s gaze sharpened.

Under that gaze, sharp as a finely honed blade, Blenn unconsciously tightened his grip on his coat.

“Understood.”

The moment Blenn finished speaking, Rainer disappeared.

Only a faint shimmer of golden light remained where he had been standing.

“A-are you all right?”

Seiden approached Blenn cautiously.

“Yes? Ah… well, for now, at least.”

Blenn scratched the back of his head with an awkward smile.

Until four in the afternoon.

The time left was hardly generous enough to completely resolve an incident of this scale. Rainer had probably chosen four o’clock with the other ministers’ end-of-day schedules in mind.

“But if I can’t resolve it by four, I’ll probably end up in a situation that’s not very all right at all, won’t I?”

Seiden looked at Blenn curiously.

The stories of Rainer’s aides quitting one after another had already become well known even within the Barrier Division.

There were even members here who had once served as Rainer’s aides before fleeing to the Barrier Division because they could no longer endure working under him.

Seiden had assumed that the newest aide, who was only a Third-Class member, wouldn’t last long either. Rainer had always stubbornly insisted that his aide be at least Second-Class.

But this was proving to be far more unexpected than he had imagined.

“I heard you only recently became his aide. You’re quite something. Aren’t you afraid of Lord Rainer?”

“If I were afraid of him, I wouldn’t have been able to stay on as his aide.”

“Ahh, so you’re ambitious. You want to use the aide position as a stepping stone to get promoted, right?”

“Well… I suppose I do have some ambition.”

Blenn trailed off and gave a vague nod.

Of course, his ambition was nothing as trivial as a promotion.

It was a far greater goal—the enormous task of saving the world from destruction.

And to accomplish that, he first needed to formally earn Rainer’s trust.

That was why he had volunteered to handle this matter.

He needed to create the very “accomplishment” Rainer had demanded of him.

“So I’d like to hear more details…”

Blenn turned his gaze toward the member standing beside Seiden.

“Ah! My name is Hernon.”

The rookie member hurriedly introduced himself.

“Then, Hernon, why don’t you take the aide inside and explain everything in more detail?”

“Yes, sir.”

Hernon guided Blenn inside.

Once they entered the break room, Hernon released the breath he had been holding all this time. Then, seemingly realizing that Blenn was still standing there, he gave an embarrassed smile.

“My apologies.”

“No, it’s fine. You were nervous because of Lord Rainer, weren’t you?”

“I’d heard so many things about him through rumors, but actually experiencing it firsthand is something else entirely. Still, since this happened because of my huge mistake, there’s nothing I can really say…”

Hernon lowered his head like a rice stalk heavy with ripe grain.

Blenn couldn’t find anything to say to comfort him.

He still wasn’t certain whether this really was Hernon’s mistake, or whether there was something more behind the incident.

Rainer was the childhood friend of the protagonist in the original novel.

He was a supporting character, not the protagonist.

Naturally, the original story had never mentioned this particular incident.

If Rainer had been a major character, or if this incident itself had been important enough to influence the original plot, it would have appeared somewhere in the story.

Unfortunately, neither was the case.

Which meant Blenn had to investigate everything completely blind, without any prior knowledge to rely on.

After all, his ultimate goal was to prevent Rainer’s death.

“So, can you tell me exactly what happened?”

“Ah, yes. At around four in the morning yesterday, I switched shifts with another member and began my night watch. Then, before the Barrier Division’s main work shift began, at around 6:07, I detected a faint magical response in a different section of the barrier from the area where the problem occurred. So I briefly stepped away to investigate.”

Hernon slowly continued.

“But there was nothing wrong, and I determined that the detection device had probably malfunctioned for a moment. That happens occasionally. So I returned to my post. While I was writing up the report about the incident to submit to Senior Seiden… I discovered that part of the formula in another section of the barrier had come undone.”

“And what time was that?”

“It was 6:10.”

After that, Hernon had immediately judged the situation to be an emergency and alerted Seiden and the other Barrier Division members.

Upon investigating, they discovered that part of the barrier’s formula had indeed come undone, creating an actual breach.

Directly breaking through the barrier was the kind of act one would expect from a foreign invader. The Barrier Division immediately formed a temporary search team and combed through the entire Third Border region.

However, they failed to find anyone suspicious and immediately reported the incident to the Imperial Magic Department.

Blenn fell into thought.

From the moment Hernon left his post at 6:07 to investigate the abnormal magical response until he returned and discovered the breach, only three minutes had passed.

So, within those three minutes, an intruder had unraveled the barrier Rainer himself had designed, infiltrated the empire, and then concealed themselves so quickly and skillfully that even the Barrier Division members had been unable to find them during their search?

This person might possess abilities comparable to Rainer himself.

“…”

Blenn pondered for a moment before slowly speaking.

“Was anyone in the Barrier Division office while you were on watch?”

“Hmm… Our schedules are fairly flexible, so I can’t say for certain. But… ah! I don’t know about anyone else, but Senior Karbin should have been working in the archive. He hasn’t been going straight back to the dormitory these past few days. He’s been working night shifts in the archive at the same time every day. He’s an extremely diligent senior…”

“I’d like to meet him. Is he here right now? He might have sensed something when the intruder entered.”

Hernon nodded and stepped away for a moment.

A few minutes later, he returned to the break room with another member.

This was the member he had mentioned—Karbin.

“I heard you came from the palace because of this incident.”

“Yes. I’m Blenn, the Minister’s aide.”

“Ahh, so you’re the aide. I heard briefly that Lord Rainer suddenly stormed in earlier…”

Karbin sat down across from Blenn.

“So you want to hear about what happened around the time of the incident yesterday at dawn?”

“Yes. Were you working in the office archive between six and 6:10?”

“Yes. I have to organize the records for the formula Lord Rainer recently revised, so I’ve been pulling all-nighters for the past few days to finish it. Yesterday was no different. I was working when I heard about the intruder and came out of the archive.”

“Did you notice anything unusual around the time the incident occurred?”

Karbin thought for a moment before shaking his head.

“I was so absorbed in my work that I honestly can’t say.”

“Hmm. Understood.”

After that, Blenn went around asking the other Barrier Division members whether they had been in the office around that time and, if so, whether they had seen or sensed anything unusual.

However, since the main work shift had not yet begun at that hour, most of the members were still asleep in their dormitories.

The few members who, like Karbin, had arrived early were so absorbed in their own work that they had failed to notice anything strange.

In the end, Blenn was unable to gather any meaningful information.

He stepped outside once again and returned to the damaged section of the barrier.

This time, instead of merely checking it as he had earlier, Blenn placed his hand against the spot where the formula had come undone and heightened his detection abilities, carefully tracing the formula piece by piece.

“Strange. How could it have been undone this perfectly…?”

It was something like this.

If a complete barrier were represented by the number ten, while a completely unraveled barrier was zero, one person might create ten by adding five and five, while another might add three, three, and four to reach the same result.

Conversely, when dispelling a barrier through magic—bringing ten down to zero—someone could subtract three and then seven, or eight and then two.

Regardless of which formula had been used to create the ten, as long as it could ultimately be reduced to zero, the barrier could be dispelled.

The exact formula did not necessarily have to match.

But this intruder had done something astonishing.

They had perfectly mirrored the formula Rainer had revised.

They had used the exact same two, three, and five that Rainer had used to construct the ten, subtracting them in the appropriate sequence until the barrier was reduced to zero.

In other words, the intruder had followed Rainer’s exact formula in order to break through the barrier.

As though they had known the contents of the formula from the very beginning.

In simple numerical terms, it sounded easy enough.

But actually tracing and decoding a magical formula piece by piece was an extremely difficult task.

Especially when the formula in question had been created by a mage like Rainer.

“Could this be…”

Blenn furrowed his brow and muttered quietly.

At that moment, the communication crystal inside his coat began to glow.

Wondering if it might be Rainer, Blenn took a deep breath and tapped the surface of the crystal.

—Blenn.

Thankfully, it was Luwen.

—I heard. You’re at the Barrier Division right now?

“Yeah. I’m the one handling it.”

“I see. I was worried, so I contacted you secretly. The atmosphere here isn’t very good.”

“I figured as much.”

If they failed to catch the intruder and that person went on to do something that seriously harmed the empire, the Magic Department would undoubtedly be the first target of blame.

—But isn’t this a little reckless? Even so, putting an entire year’s salary up as collateral…

“Huh?”

At Luwen’s words, Blenn slowly blinked.

“Uh… Luwen? What are you talking about? My precious year’s salary as collateral…? Who? Me?”

—Hm? Wasn’t that the agreement? I heard Lord Rainer say so at the meeting just now. If this matter isn’t resolved by four this afternoon, both he and the Magic Minister’s aide will forfeit an entire year’s salary…

Blenn froze.

“…What?”

For a moment, he wondered if he had heard wrong.

An entire year’s salary?

And his name had somehow been dragged into it?

Rainer had never mentioned anything about that.

Not once.