Chapter 95

The Allied Army’s Archmage (2)

Four heroes followed Ian, the Hero. They were the allied army’s greatest fighting assets, and Iliana was the woman known among them as the Archmage.

In truth, I hadn’t been particularly close to the allied army’s heroes in my previous life. Their positions were far too lofty for me to maintain friendships with them. More importantly, we operated in different spheres.

The special task force I belonged to fell under the allied army’s Operations Command. In other words, we answered directly to Ian. We acted and moved only on his orders, carrying out missions that could never come to light—the sort that went unrecorded.

That made the special task force a special operations force run separately even within the allied army. Unless our missions happened to overlap, I rarely had the chance to so much as speak to its heroes. So rather than being friends, Isolde and I had been on bad terms.

But I’d spoken with the Archmage quite often. More precisely, I’d had a lot of questions for her: questions about my Predation[S+] ability, and curiosities and knowledge concerning evolutionary abilities.

In that sense, everything I now knew about evolutionary biology was something I’d learned and studied under the Archmage during my time in the allied army. She had never found me a nuisance. She set aside time to teach me, even researching things I hadn’t asked about and passing that knowledge on to me.

Of all the allied army’s heroes, she was the one I’d been closest to, and the one who had helped me the most. And now that same Iliana was sitting demurely on one side of the restaurant.

Perhaps she noticed my gaze, because she looked up. Then our eyes met.

“Ah...!”

She flinched and hurriedly looked away. As though sitting on pins and needles, she fidgeted restlessly, unable to keep still for even a moment.

Just as I’d thought. She was far, far too different from the woman I’d known in my previous life.

The Iliana from my previous life—the Iliana I remembered—was someone who always kept darkness hidden in her heart. Her face was almost always expressionless, as though she lacked emotions altogether.

These helpless gestures, that faintly flushed face, the way she hung her head to avoid meeting my eyes... I’d never seen any of it in my previous life.

I might have returned to the past, but surely her personality couldn’t be this different.

‘Could I have mistaken her for someone else?’

When I activated Predatory Instincts[S], a neatly organized display of information appeared before my eyes.

==<Character Information>==

Name: Iliana Segretus

Classification: Kingdom Animalia, Class Mammalia, Family Hominidae, Human

Sex: Female

Age: 16

Traits: Insight[L], Peak Human Intelligence[A+]

Fortunately, I hadn’t mistaken her for someone else. Her name and age matched the Iliana I knew exactly. More importantly, there were those distinctive abilities. I activated Predatory Instincts[S] again, and descriptions of her abilities appeared before me.

◆Insight[L]

: The user can intuitively grasp all phenomena. This applies to all forms of information, knowledge, wisdom, experience, and more, allowing the user to instinctively understand the origins of this complex world and the flow of its fundamental energies, and perfectly grasp how they function.

Its rank was [L], signifying Legend. That put it one rank below Isolde’s Omni Vessel[M]. But that hardly made [L] a low rank. Wrath of The Frenzied Dragon[L] was that very same rank.

More importantly, Insight[L] wasn’t the only thing to consider.

◆Peak Human Intelligence[A+]

: Acquiring this skill causes an explosive increase in the distribution of neurons and neural networks in the brain. This allows you to attain the highest level of intelligence within your biological limits.

Intelligence quotients for reading comprehension, memory, and reasoning increase by [+5,850%].

You take [+2,330%] additional damage from aging and blows directly associated with brain damage. The likelihood of developing a mental illness increases by [+18,325%].

<This is a passive skill that applies permanently upon acquisition.>

Intelligence and endurance: humanity’s two exceptional abilities. Iliana was a kind of “mutant” whose intelligence had evolved to an extreme. Its rank alone was an astounding [A+], one step above Isolde’s Perfect Muscle Control[A].

In other words, it was on par with a dragon’s inherited abilities, meaning Iliana’s intelligence rivaled a dragon’s, if it didn’t exceed it. Insight[L] and Peak Human Intelligence[A+] produced a synergistic effect.

Through them, Iliana had come closer than anyone to the truths known only to the gods—the laws that constituted this world. That was how she became the first person in the continent’s history to earn the epithet [Mage of Truth].

After checking her information, I lit the grill.

SIZZLE!

The pleasant sound of Prime-grade Rex meat cooking filled the air. A dazzling show of flames followed, drawing the eye as a rich, savory aroma spread.

“Huh?”

Iliana, who had been watching me nervously, suddenly looked different. She sniffed like a puppy, and her tense fingertips trembled slightly.

Her blue eyes were fixed on the grill. They began to sparkle with anticipation.

“Oooh...!”

She gently bit her lip, as though holding that little flutter of excitement close.

But perhaps she couldn’t contain it after all. A trickle of drool escaped the corner of her mouth.

As expected, nothing beat delicious food when it came to getting someone to lower their guard.

* * *

An appetizing, beautifully grilled Rex steak lay before her. Her blue eyes briefly lost focus, then sharpened again.

“This is... monster meat?”

“It is.”

She didn’t rush to touch it.

GULP.

But the sound of her swallowing her saliva was loud and clear.

“What you’re worried about won’t happen. Please, give it a try.”

Even then, she hesitated. But in the end, perhaps her wariness couldn’t overcome a mage’s curiosity.

“Th-then...”

She carefully picked up her knife and fork. Excitement flashed in her blue eyes before she deftly moved the utensils in her hands and cut off a piece of steak.

Juices dripped from the perfectly cooked steak. As Iliana stared at it, drool dripped from her mouth, too.

At last, her small lips parted gently. The moment she put the steak in her mouth, her eyes drifted shut, as though she were savoring its flavor with every sense. A little moan began to escape her slender throat.

“Mmmm!!!”

Her small shoulders quivered as though a thrill had run through her. Her gently closed eyes immediately flew open so wide they looked ready to split.

Before she had even swallowed the steak in her mouth, she speared the rest with her fork. She had long since abandoned her knife. Stuffing the uncut steak into her mouth, she chewed like someone who hadn’t eaten in days.

“Mmmmm!!!”

Her whole body trembled as she expressed its deliciousness in her own distinctive way. Her reaction was similar to Seraphia’s, yet subtly different. Before I knew it, the Rex steak had vanished in the blink of an eye.

“H-how...!!”

Her face held equal parts ecstasy and shock.

“I really haven’t gone mad?!”

And it wasn’t just because of how the Rex meat tasted.

Really, Iliana’s intellectual curiosity was in a league of its own. In that respect, she hadn’t changed at all from my previous life.

“But this was one of the problems posed by Arcanis himself...!”

Arcanis Rilsein, the first mage. Thousands of years ago, in the distant past, that Great Sage had devised a method of converting mana into an available energy: magical power. Using that power, he had become the first to reproduce the phenomenon known as magic.

In other words, Arcanis was not only the first mage, but also the originator of magical studies as a discipline. Later, he had considered the direction in which magic should develop and selected crucial problems for the magical community to solve in the future.

“Have you heard of the Twenty-Three Problems of Arcanis?”

Those were what people now called the Twenty-Three Problems of Arcanis. Apparently, merely posing these questions carried profound magical significance. The creation of the homunculus I’d encountered previously had also begun with one of those twenty-three problems.

-Are life and the soul the same thing, or are they separate?

In their quest to solve that problem, mages had finally brought the creation of life out of the divine realm and into the realm of human reason. The results were golems and homunculi.

There were various other problems as well, though I didn’t know the details.

“I’m familiar with the broad outlines.”

Thanks to what Iliana had taught me in my previous life, I had a vague understanding. To name a few that came to mind...

“Regarding the permanence of magic: is magic permanent, or does it dissipate with the passage of time? If a magical effect can be made permanent, what conditions are necessary?”

There was that problem, for one.

“Regarding the subordination of magic: to what extent can magic influence reality? Can it transcend the laws of reality, or is it subject to them?”

And there was that one, too.

“Regarding the ethics of magic: can magic be divided into good and evil? What ethical standards should a creator consider when devising powerful magical formulas and spells?”

They were headache-inducing problems along those lines. Four had been solved, seven had been partially solved, and twelve remained unsolved.

And one of those four solved problems was...

“There’s also the problem you just mentioned, Miss Iliana: ‘Can the Madness imprinted in monsters at the genetic level be removed?’”

As I’d said, that problem was considered “solved.”

Impossible.

The Madness imprinted in monsters at the genetic level could not be removed. That conclusion had settled the matter.

Yet now the answer to that solved problem had been overturned. To mages—especially Iliana—this was pure shock, astonishment, and horror.

“A-are you a mage?!”

Sure enough, she cried out in surprise. Her wide eyes held even greater astonishment than when she had eaten the Rex steak.

“I’m not a mage.”

“Then are you a scholar of magic?!”

A scholar of magic was someone who studied the discipline of magical studies. Mages were practitioners; scholars of magic were researchers. That was roughly the distinction.

“No, I’m not a scholar of magic either. I merely have a superficial knowledge of magic.”

It was all knowledge I’d learned from Iliana in my previous life. Even that was full of headache-inducing concepts, so I knew little more than the basics. Calling myself a scholar of magic would have been embarrassing. But perhaps she didn’t see it that way.

“I-if you don’t mind, could I ask you a few questions?!”

Her blue eyes gazed at me, shining as brightly as a puppy’s just before a walk.

* * *

A few questions, my ass. It wasn’t a few questions—a few hours had gone by in a flash.

Seriously... my head felt like it was going to explode.

I glanced out the window to find dawn slowly breaking. We’d been up all night. Yet Iliana apparently never got tired.

“To think you could look at it that way...!!”

She still had the same bright-eyed, cheerful puppy face she’d started with.

So far, I’d somehow managed to answer her. But honestly, I no longer knew what I was saying. I was just reciting what she had taught me in my previous life.

In that sense, none of what I’d said so far came from my own research. It was all knowledge Iliana had researched and uncovered in my previous life. I was merely tossing out fragments of it. More precisely, it was nothing more than the magical knowledge I’d had “no choice” but to learn so that she could teach me evolutionary biology.

In short, Iliana, you were the one who’d done all this.

“You’re a true genius!!”

Did she even realize she was singing her own praises?

Anyway, I’d reached my limit. No matter how hard I wracked my brain, I had nothing left. Simply put, I’d exhausted my entire stock of knowledge.

“Then what do you think about the impossibility of exceeding the speed of light?!”

I had no thoughts on it. I didn’t want to think about it.

“And why are ancient runes more efficient for incantations?!”

I didn’t know. Ask a dragon about that, not me.

“Why did creatures capable of using magical power evolve to respond to it?! What biological changes occurred as they adapted to magical power?”

Sorry, but I couldn’t wield magical power at all.

“Darkness and light cancel each other out, but couldn’t we use them simultaneously to create neutral magic?!”

That should be possible. You were doing exactly that to me right now, Iliana.

Chaos.

Thanks to you, my head was a seething mass of chaos.

“Is there a physical difference between naturally occurring lightning and lightning created with magical power? If there is, how could we detect it?”

... My head was going to burst with a bang any second now.

“Undead have no life energy, so how can they move? Is there another kind of energy we don’t know about?!”

But there was no end to Iliana’s intellectual curiosity. Honestly, Isolde had been much better.

Sure, Isolde had tried to kill me out of nowhere, but at least I’d been able to settle things by convincing her with a simple brawl. Now, though, my brain was being worked to exhaustion, and the endless barrage of questions was driving me mad.

In other words...

“And, and another thing...!!”

... Grinding affinity with this girl was way too hard.