Leaving the reception room, Yugen did not return to the classroom, opting instead to go up to the school rooftop alone. Watching the National Defense Force's self-propelled vehicle recede in the distance, he lost himself in thought.
(...Major Sanada should be well aware of my circumstances.)
High hurdles were in place for the Independent Magic-Equipped Battalion to summon Yugen as a technical officer, one of which was "the inclusion of Special Lieutenant Tatsuya Shiba's summoning order." This condition was added as a result of the Army General Headquarters discovering that a summons had been executed under false pretenses in the spring of two years ago, mandating that any summons had to be of extreme emergency.
No matter if they were inside a magic high school, if information could not be disclosed even within a noise-canceling field, Yugen had no reason to comply. After all, Yugen's summoning regulations explicitly mandated the full disclosure of all military situations regardless of a superior officer's orders.
He was fully aware that the power he possessed as an individual far exceeded the boundary of self-defense. However, he was currently in a position where control over this country's magician society had been handed to him by Retsu Kudo. In that sense, he was required to draw a clear line against those standing in opposition to Retsu Kudo.
If compromise were possible, showing a willingness to step forward would be necessary. Yet, the current National Defense Force could hardly be considered within the realm of civilian control. The entity fostering that state of affairs was none other than the "Senate." Having personally suffered damage due to their existence, Yugen found it impossible to accept certain aspects as someone slated to succeed the Four Elites in the future.
"Well, whatever. I didn't explain it to Tatsuya, but I included an instruction manual only he can read, so he'll understand right away."
Third Eye Eclipse—positioned as the practical iteration of Third Eye, the CAD specialized for ultra-long-range magic targeting rifles—was equipped with hardware completely tailored to Tatsuya's magical aptitude. Beyond precise control such as reducing tsunami damage from the Strategic-Class Magic Material Burst to zero, it also offered support for Tatsuya's specialty: magic negation techniques.
Furthermore, during the recent overhaul, Yugen had secretly added a function. In anticipation of Tatsuya facing Bezobrazov in the future, Yugen pre-coded and installed an enhanced sequence data of Tatsuya's Gram Dispersion as a countermeasure against Chain Cast, the core technology of Tuman Bomba.
By adding ancient magic's thought process to Gram Dispersion—which originally couldn't be used properly outside a laboratory—he devised a ruthless magic-neutralizing spell capable of destroying the core descriptions of a spell to render it useless, ignoring any variable factors.
Currently, the spell that only Yugen and Tatsuya could execute was named Cast Dispersion.
"...I'll send an email just in case."
To guard against interception, Yugen took extra precautions, sending Tatsuya a brief message: It'll be cold on the fly, but I've prepared the text. Good luck with the rest. Anyone ignorant of the situation reading the email would assume it was nothing more than a student studying for qualifications.
After returning to the classroom, Yugen briefly answered Miyuki and the others when questioned during break time. It was just one hour later when the National Defense Force, small craft heading south from Sakhalin, and the magic of Tatsuya and Bezobrazov clashed at the Soya Strait (internationally known as the La Pérouse Strait).
◇ ◇ ◇
Tatsuya was escorted part of the way back and returned to the Shiba household before dinner. Though he seemed unusually unresolved for his usual self, the moment he changed from his uniform into casual clothes, he headed straight for the basement where Yugen was.
Opening his mouth, Tatsuya immediately expressed his gratitude to him.
"Yugen, thank you for today."
"...Saying that means you used the parting gift I left in Third Eye Eclipse?"
"Yeah. I never imagined that even Gram Dispersion could become such a practical spell in your hands. Of course, I won't speak a word of this to anyone."
"Well, even if people knew, that spell is far too specialized for anyone other than the two of us to execute."
Powerful magic inherently came with corresponding activation conditions; Cast Dispersion was embedded with descriptions ensuring no one except its developer, Yugen, and its user, Tatsuya, could cast it.
Constructed from three Activation Sequences to form a single Magic Sequence—making it unanalyzable even through modern magic grammar—it was a spell impossible to invoke without possessing either immense magic calculation capacity or a specialized magic calculation area.
"So, you have other things you want to ask me, right? Like about Bezobrazov's Strategic-Class Magic, Tuman Bomba."
"...Yeah. I figured you might know about that Strategic-Class Magic, Yugen."
"I do. During 'Halloween,' when I cast Starlight Breaker off Sado Island, it was fired as a countermeasure. Though my magic ended up 'devouring' the spell itself."
Tuman Bomba, the Strategic-Class Magic of Igor Andreivitch Bezobrazov, one of the New Soviet Union's Thirteen Apostles. The absolute defining feature of that magic lay in Chain Cast, a technology capable of multi-variable generation and automatic replication of magic sequences across multiple layers.
If it were merely a difference in coordinates (location), Gram Dispersion could handle it. However, if even the activation timing (time) was staggered, all magic sequences could no longer be processed as identical units.
And the core characteristic of this magic lay in the control of oxyhydrogen gas—"controlling water."
"I named that technology Chain Cast for convenience, but the versatility of that magic is quite remarkable. Don't you think so too, Tatsuya?"
"Indeed. Speaking as someone who witnessed it firsthand, it was precisely because of the magic you provided that I was able to handle it so swiftly."
The first real combat deployment of Tuman Bomba occurred eight years ago—in the year 2089 during the Arctic Hidden War in the Bering Strait. It was a dark clash of magical forces driven by the aligned interests of both governments at the time. In that battle, the USNA lost not only William Sirius, developer of Molecular Divider, but also a two-digit number of Star-Class Magicians.
Magicians were rare assets relative to the total population. Yet, the USNA side hesitated not at all to send out "Sirius," who was also actively engaged in magic development back then. If evaluated as national deterrence, it made one question the sanity of the government at the time, but Yugen had managed to hear the detailed background from Celia.
Reincarnated as Excelia Kudo Shields, the first thing she tackled upon entering the military was investigating the backdrop of that battle. That was likely because she refused to allow herself, let alone Lina, to be treated as disposable assets by the government.
William Sirius was indeed an exceptional individual. The fact that he was held in high regard as the Stars Commander-in-Chief was indisputable, with the intermolecular bond separation technique Molecular Divider standing as the pinnacle of his achievements. Yet, the very existence of Molecular Divider became the decisive factor dragging him into that battle.
It began in the late 2080s, when signs of large-scale magic activations were observed in succession within the New Soviet Union—where Leonid Kontrachenko had previously been the only confirmed Strategic-Class Magician. Satellite analysis suggested it was a spell causing explosions via oxyhydrogen gas. The USNA government demanded information disclosure from the New Soviet Union, which refused. While a massive clash between the US and the Soviets nearly erupted, what resulted instead was a small-scale shadow conflict in the Bering Sea.
Believing that Molecular Divider could counter an opponent using intermolecular bonds, the USNA government dispatched William Sirius to the battlefield. Betrayed by another faction within the government backed by anti-magic movements, that battle turned brutally fierce.
To return to the main point.
"Still, Bezobrazov is an exceptional scientist before he is a magician. He'll surely formulate countermeasures... Tatsuya, do you want to try learning a Strategic-Class Magic other than Material Burst?"
"What? Is there a spell that even someone like me can cast properly?"
"If I say there is, what will you do?"
"...Teach me."
Tatsuya was well aware of Material Burst's lack of practicality. Being a spell that embodied Einstein's mass-energy equivalence equation, the result obtained relative to the activation target naturally tended to be massive.
Hearing Tatsuya's response to his question, Yugen typed on the offline terminal's keyboard. Displayed on screen was a vast amount of Activation Sequence data, causing Tatsuya's eyes to widen as he scanned the spell.
"...Indeed, this is a Strategic-Class Magic even I can handle, but is it really alright for me to take this?"
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