Chapter 122
“Then let's set the book aside for now.”
I leaned back in my chair and said.
Holding onto a book I couldn't read right now would just be a waste of time.
For now, I could only be satisfied with having confirmed the direction ahead.
“The gate-closing scroll. Tell me how to make it.”
[Didn't I tell you last time? I said I needed to know the materials here.]
I thrust the stack of documents I'd prepared in advance in front of the PET bottle.
“That's why I prepared this.”
[What is this?]
“A materials list.”
Hunter Market, black market, auction house....
It was, in effect, a list of every magical material currently obtainable.
A document that even included data on materials collected inside the Tower.
“Now, take a look. See if there's anything usable here.”
I brought the list up to the PET bottle's surface.
The black magician's eyeball busily moved along the list.
But after a moment, he said in a snappish voice.
[Is that all?]
“Yeah. That's everything we've found so far.”
[They're all useless. The names are a mess too. There are too many unknown proper nouns.]
“Hmm... So the language works, but proper nouns don't?”
Come to think of it, that made some sense.
Naming conventions can differ, after all.
“If you saw the real materials or detailed descriptions, you'd still recognize them, right?”
[I can't promise that. I'm no alchemist. But it's far better than just looking at names like this.]
After a moment's thought, I picked up my phone.
On the screen, the latest AI, ChatGPT, was open.
I set the phone up in front of the PET bottle and said.
“Here.”
[What is that now?]
“Tell it the characteristics of the materials you know. Then it'll find similar ones.”
[Is there a spirit inside this thing or something?]
“Something like that.”
[Hmm...]
The black magician peered at the phone screen with fascination.
But then another problem arose.
[Hey, it's not responding.]
“Ah, you have to press the button.”
[....]
The black magician fell silent.
The eyeball inside the PET bottle stared at me blankly.
“Why?”
[How am I supposed to press it without hands?]
“Ah, right... I forgot.”
I pressed the microphone button for him instead.
But the black magician still seemed dissatisfied.
[At this rate, the work speed is going to be far too slow.]
“Then what am I supposed to do?”
[Please lend me your body.]
“You again? I said no.”
[I don't need anything grand. Something the size of the spirit you carry around would be enough. What could I even do with something that small?]
“Still no. For all I know, you could do something.”
He'd turned into cola now, but I still remembered our first battle.
He probably still had plenty of hidden tricks up his sleeve.
I didn't know what he'd do if he got his freedom.
“Just explain it in words. I'll write it down myself.”
[That isn't something that can just be done so easily...]
“There are bound to be some essential materials you don't even need to ask about. Start with those.”
I pulled the phone back toward me again.
The black magician grumbled for a long while, but eventually realized he couldn't overcome my stubbornness and finally spoke in a resigned voice.
[... All right. Write it down. Every scroll needs three things.]
“Three?”
[Ink, information, and paper.]
It was simpler than I'd expected.
I opened my notes app and prepared to take dictation.
“Explain them one by one.”
[First, the ink.]
“Can't I just use a ballpoint pen?”
[For a low-grade scroll, ordinary black ink is fine. But what you want is a scroll that severs the connection to the dimension... It needs ink worthy of that.]
“Specifically?”
[The best is bodily fluid from a higher being. A divine beast, for example.]
“A divine beast? Like a dragon?”
[Divine beasts come in all forms. Horned horses, turtles with snake tails... Among dragons, those that have lived for over a thousand years can be considered divine beasts.]
“… setting aside whether they even exist on Earth, can they actually be caught?”
[Of course, hunting a divine beast is nearly impossible. The standard method is to obtain it through trade with a divine beast.]
“This is rough.”
The difficulty level shot straight up from the start.
“Anything else?”
[Or you can condense a very large amount of mana stones.]
“How much?”
[I don't know how many mana stones there are in this land, so I'll give you the conversion formula. Figure it out yourself.]
The black magician rattled off the exact figures and formulas.
There was no way I could calculate something like that, of course.
But humanity has ChatGPT.
I copied down exactly what I had heard from the black magician.
[To reach the concentration you want, **'half of the world's mana stone production'** is required.]
[This isn't just a simple 'mana stone.' It's the 'proof' that humanity fights against the Tower, and the 'crystallization' of that effort.]
[If you want, should I make a plan for mining mana stones based on your current situation?]
ChatGPT's words rang out like a proclamation.
My mind went blank at the contents.
“Half of the world's output? Why the hell does it need that much?”
[Be grateful that the possibility exists. There are far more cases in this world where quantity can't replace quality.]
“Well, that's true, but...”
The black magician answered.
As he said, it was better than a problem money couldn't solve.
But I didn't personally have anywhere near that astronomical amount.
A scale that would require the whole world to cooperate.
Of course, that possibility didn't look very high.
World politicians would surely hesitate, tallying up the cost of sealing the gates against the cost of leaving them open and stopping monsters.
“Isn't there some other material?”
A higher being.
Had I ever met such a being?
Then, suddenly, a memory flashed through my mind.
The 20th floor. The elves' forest.
And the giant tree standing there.
“The World Tree! What about World Tree sap?”
[... The World Tree? The tree the elves believe in?]
The eyeball floating above the cola widened.
[But the World Tree is only a story from myth. Where would something like that even exist?]
“It exists. I saw it myself. I even brought it back to life.”
[That's ridiculous... Just being a bit big doesn't make it the World Tree.]
“I'm serious. My staff was made from a World Tree root I cut off. Oh, and I have a pendant made from its leaves too.”
[...?!]
I brought the items over and showed them to him.
The PET bottle toppled over and rolled across the floor.
The black magician rolled over onto its side, inspecting the items closely.
[I can't believe it...]
The black magician's voice trembled.
[So that was why my curse had been stopped so helplessly back then. I see, now it makes sense. With an item like that on your person, I had no choice but to lose...]
After deciding that on his own, he nodded with the PET bottle instead of his head.
“So what do you think? Does it seem possible?”
[If it's truly sap from the World Tree, that's enough. No, it's far more stable and vastly superior to most materials.]
Good. The first material is solved.
Of course, I couldn't run over there right this second, but surely I'd be able to visit again someday.
Then I'd just ask the elder for some sap.
We're saving the world, after all. Surely he'd give me a bottle of sap?
“Okay. Let's say the ink is solved. What's next?”
The black magician, still unable to shake off the shock from just then, snapped to attention at my urging.
His attitude had subtly changed.
He seemed to think it might really be possible.
[... The second is information.]
“Information?”
[The contents to be inscribed on the scroll. In this case, naturally, the coordinates.]
“A regular map won't do, obviously, right?”
[A map, huh... In a way, it's similar, in that it contains gate location data. That's called a dimensional stone.]
“Where do you get that?”
[It's formed by the shockwave when a gate is created. If you look carefully near the gate you're trying to close, you'll find one.]
A stone formed around gates, huh.
How am I supposed to find that?
I rested my chin on my hand and fell into thought.
Most gates are restricted zones.
And after monsters have been pouring out for years, it's hard to get near them.
Besides, I'd only ever fought inside the Tower; I'd never been out in the field.
“Ah, there is someone who might know.”
The one who'd recently been cleaning house in Mexico.
By now, he might already have reached the gate.
“I can just ask Beetle.”
Didn't he pick up at least one weird stone during the Mexico operation?
Even if he still hadn't found one, if I asked him to keep an eye out, I felt like he'd be able to find one.
The downside was that closing the gate in Mexico wouldn't really do me much good...
But since the first one was basically a test case, it was actually a suitable target.
“Looks like I've got a rough solution for the coordinates too. What's the last one?”
[The last one is the real problem.]
The black magician paused.
[The paper the scroll will be inscribed on.]
“Plain A4 paper won't do, and it has to be some weird animal hide, too?”
[You're quick on the uptake... We use divine beast hide or ancient papyrus.]
“Where do you get that?”
[You can't get it.]
“?”
I frowned.
Why name the material and then say you can't get it?
Sensing my confusion, the black magician began to explain.
[Since you can't hunt a divine beast, you'd have to get a corpse that died of natural causes. Or one that died in a fight between divine beasts. But how long do you think a divine beast lives? It's something that happens once every few hundred generations.]
“Th-then what about the papyrus?”
[The same goes for that. The method for making it was lost long ago. We only still use the ones made in the past.]
The black magician said firmly.
[If you want the material, you'll have to take it from someone. Finding someone who even has it in the first place is hard enough, though.]
“Hmm...”
I fell into thought.
Special paper, huh.
Come to think of it, no animal called a divine beast has ever been found on Earth.
That meant there was only a chance if I went inside the Tower.
'Wait.'
At that moment, a memory suddenly flashed through my mind.
You said it was special paper obtained inside the Tower, right?
I opened the desk drawer.
“Found it.”
It had been when I revisited the 20th floor.
I had stopped by the house of the Magic-Cutting Young Man, but all that was there was this one note.
A sheet of paper that revealed no peculiarities even to Insight.
But since it was something related to that man, I figured there had to be something to it, so I'd brought it along.
“How about this?”
[You're being troublesome. Didn't I say any paper wouldn't do?]
The black magician reluctantly tilted the PET bottle and looked at the paper.
Right after that.
[...?!]
The liquid inside the PET bottle roiled and foamed violently.
[Impossible! Why is a treasure like this in your hands?]
“It can be used, right?”
[This is one of the ancient papyri I was talking about!]
The black magician's voice was full of shock.
I smiled in satisfaction.
As expected, my judgment hadn't been wrong.
“Then I can make a scroll out of this, right?”
[It's a little small, but it's definitely possible.]
The black magician muttered as he stared blankly at the paper.
[Amazing. The World Tree, and ancient papyrus too. How on earth did you get these?]
“I'm pretty amazing.”
I carefully put the paper back into the drawer.
That solved even the paper problem, the biggest hurdle.
The downside was that, unlike the other two, paper supply was unstable.
“Next time I meet him, I'd better ask him for some paper.”
Still, it wouldn't have been strange if that old man actually had scrolls himself...
Anyway, the material problem was solved.
There was just one problem with actually putting it into action.
Namely, revisiting the World Tree.
“For now, I'd have to climb the Tower.”
I got up from my seat.
Making the gate-closing scroll would be a long-term project for now.
For now, all I could do was climb the Tower and pray that a reclimb ticket would show up.
If I got even luckier, I might even come across tailor-made materials inside the Tower itself.
[Wait, we weren't supposed to put me back in that prison—!]
I sealed the PET bottle back inside the refrigerator and headed for the Tower.