Dream Life Vol II Chapter 83.2: “Professor Elvine’s Research Notes”

~Kitley’s Perspective~

“I’m sorry to surprise you. It is on a different dimension.” (Zack)

　He had invoked his “storage magic” without chanting.

　He said he did it because it was a compound magic and he could not think of any spells. He also said that storage magic consumed less magic than he expected and used very little magic to maintain and move it in and out.

　He slowly withdrew his hand and pulled out a flat, rectangular box-like tool.

“He said it was an analyzer for trace elements, but I am doubtful about it. The display is so unreliable that it doesn’t make any sense.” (Zack)

　He took out the tools one after another. He was like a legendary magician who takes out tools from an invisible magic bag.

　Storage magic itself is a relatively well-known magic because it often appears in stories like heroic tales. However, no one could actually use it, and it was thought to be an impossible magic from the world of fairy tales.

“That storage magic… how… how can we use it?” (Kitley)

　He shakes his head, his expression slightly clouded.

“This magic requires the four attributes of light, dark, wind, and earth. The theory is so difficult that you would have to be taught directly to understand it. I heard that in the past there were magical tools that anyone could use for transport, but they were discarded because they were wary of the corruption.” (Zack)

　Instinctively, I murmured, “Four attributes… they’re also anti-attributes…”. And I was disappointed that I couldn’t use it.

　He further goes on to describe the different spaces, like the laboratory.

“Places like that laboratory require rather complicated magical tools. He said that a different space is not an environment in which living things can live in the first place. There is no air, no walls, no floors. First of all, it is necessary to put in a sturdy building that can accommodate people. And of course, they need to provide an environment for people to live in, as well as safety equipment for people to safely enter and exit the building. From what I understand, it sounds like the transition magic is difficult, not to mention the laboratory. I heard about it at one point, but I didn’t feel like experimenting with it.” (Zack)

　He also heard about the theory of transition magic, but this magic is very difficult if it fails.

　Originally, safety was ensured by creating the entrance and exit transition gates first, but when used as magic, the caster must connect to the space on the exit side, which has no landmarks, using only his own imagination while creating the entrance. Therefore, if the connection is made in the wrong place, it could be inside the earth or water, and if the connection is made incorrectly, it could lead to being trapped in a different space.

“We are better off not doing it. At least until we can reproduce it with a magic circle.” (Kitley)

　I said, and he nodded deeply.

“Either way, it’s going to take someone like you to have all the attributes, but you’ll have to put that theory together. Of course, I’ll pay you extra for it.” (Kitley)

　He listened to my words and looked a little melancholy. I am sure he imagined that he would be caught by Professor Ruspede, an expert in magical tools, and would be questioned to exhaustion.

　I then summarized the results of what I had heard from Mr. Lockhart in my own way.

　About 20,000 years ago, the history of the ancients began.

　In the beginning, they used “mana,” or the “power of spirits”, in the form of magic, just as we do today. From that time on, they were able to use all eight attributes and had a lifespan comparable to that of elves.

　They were a talented race.

　They showed talent in the processing of magical stones and the creation of magic circles, and gradually developed useful magical tools.

　About four thousand-five hundred years ago, they finally devolved their magical tools into a technology called “magical engineering”. Magical engineering was distinct from previous magical tools, which not only performed a given action but also gave tools the ability to think through logical circuits.

　At the time magical engineering blossomed, there were more than 50 nations on three continents.

　There were various types of governments, including those with a monarchy, those with a council of representatives of the people, and those with religion as their foundation, which were not so different from the states on the Tria continent today.

　However, as methods of transmitting wills over long distances using mana and instantaneous travel by means of transition gates became commonplace, the form of the state changed drastically.

　The ease with which information could be transmitted and moved between nations greatly changed the way people viewed nations. Unimaginable to us, they can now communicate with each other without any time difference, regardless of distance, instead of time-consuming and uncertain means of communication such as letters.

　Even more astonishingly, with instantaneous and inexpensive means of transportation, they were able to travel back and forth over distances of up to a thousand kilometers every day.

　In other words, they could contact another continent just as if we were calling out to our neighbor’s house, and they could commute a thousand kilometers to and from work just as if they were walking from home to work. This accelerated human interaction at a rapid pace and gradually diluted the boundaries between nations.

　As a result, over the course of a hundred years or so, the country was transformed from a group of dispersed nations into a federation of nations, and then into a loose federal system of states. During that time, the powers that be sometimes schemed to maintain their own power, but they were unable to hold together a people who moved as if they were moving to the next town. Eventually, independent nations of tens of millions of people disappeared, and on the contrary, small communal communities became more connected. They do not only belong to a single community, but are connected to various communities by profession, hobby, region, and so on.

　This was possible because the cost of social capital was relatively small. This is largely because the maintenance of the capital that sustains society, roads, walls, and other public facilities, could be automated at low cost through magical engineering. Furthermore, spending on military expenditures was virtually eliminated, and taxes paid by the people were surprisingly low.

　There is another major factor.

　Religion.

　In their world, there was almost only one religion. It was a very tolerant religion. Some took advantage of that tolerance and sought religious power. But the religious leaders, the priests, were immortal or near immortal, and their ranks never changed. Some researchers even hypothesized that the priests were the gods. In other words, it was a religion directly governed by the gods, which did not interfere with the secular world and did not ask anything of the people. However, the religion existed as a spiritual stronghold, they said. For this reason, no new religion arose, and there was no generational corruption, which is common in religious organizations.

　The religion supported their magical engineering. The religion, which was supposed to be conservative in nature, actively supported the development of magical engineering, which led to its explosive growth.

　This dream-like world lasted for about 500 years.

　The witness did not say whether people were depraved during that time. At least, he said that the community he was in was not depraved, but he did not know if this was the case worldwide.

　However, what seemed to be divine retribution occurred. It happened without warning.

　The first such event occurred on the first continent, called Patria. The continent of Patria is the cradle of civilization and has been inhabited by many people since ancient times.

　The first was a mysterious and strange disease, named after the city where it was first discovered, called Cunaan Syndrome.

　The strange disease was frightening.

　First, the hidden parts of the body, the internal organs, were slowly corrupted. It was sometimes accompanied by ill health, but in a relatively short period of time, the body returned to normal. Then, afterwards, the food preferences often changed.

　Next, the effects began to appear on the outside of the body. Some became extremely hairy, others developed fangs or horn-like features, and others had insect-like organs… The disease slowly but surely changed the patients’ appearance into disfigurement.

　In that state, some still retained some reason.

　When the change in appearance ceased, the Cunaan Syndrome entered its final stage. The final stage was a change in memory and personality.

　The memories were rewritten, so that not only were they unable to recognize things they should have known, but they also had memories that had nothing to do with them, a change too great to be called memory confusion.