Chapter 28:

Chapter 28

A Bloody Methodology


The children have been put to sleep and only the adults remain awake. Esia wanted to speak to the both of them about something important, so they sit across each other in one of the tables in the main hall.

“I... received a letter from my grandparents on my mother’s side who live in Orzshresha . They want me to visit them.” Esia spoke with a dejected tone.

“Isn’t that great? If you are worrying about us or the children, I can support them myself and with Aniem here, it would be much easier.” Frianne wondered why Esia looked downcast.

“The visit is just a front. They just want me to get married and settle down.”

“Advanced congratulations!” Aniem sarcastically spoke which just enraged Esia.

“I don’t plan on getting married yet. There are still a lot of things I need to do, and it would just begin after all the kids graduate from here. Besides, If I go, I would be there for at least a month. Two months at most.”

“Isn’t that alright? We can manage that time, although the kids would feel lonely.” Frianne spoke.

“I can choose not to go...” Esia pasued and Frianne interjected with a ‘but...?’. “But they would come here instead. The reason my mother left my grandparents’ is because they consider non-humans to be dirty and foul. Like how Pharazus’ views as well. And my mother had many non-human friends. Then it got to the point she eloped with my father.”

Esia then heaved a big sigh after giving a light explanation.

“I don’t know how they found my whereabouts, but since they are nobles, it’s expected. Now they want me to marry into a house. Like I give a shit about aristocracy.”

Esia just ranted on and on about it. After calming down, she reiterated her intention to travel as she planned to visit them once and cut ties with them if they force her to marry into a family and discard any thoughts about non-humans.

“It’s fine, Esia. We can handle it. And majority of the students already know basic maths and can read and write two languages. That in itself is pretty amazing. And what’s a few months there in the west compared to years here, watching them grow.” Frianne gave her honest reply to Esia’s predicament.

Esia was silent as she smiled faintly and her eyes lightly closed.

“Alright. I trust you two would take great care of the orphanage and the kids.”

“Of course. But, when do you plan on leaving?”

“I originally planned on leaving a month from now, but I received another mail from them to be there by the second week of next month. With that, I’ll travel next week.”

“Oh my! That’s quite an adjustment.”

Esia strongly agreed. The adjustment was truly an inconvenience in so many aspects.

“Well, I’ll also have to inform grandpa about this.” Esia added on.

“Well, that was all I wanted to talk about. I’ll prepare my things tomorrow.” Esia got up and stretched lightly. “I’ll head to bed first.”

“Alright. Good night.” Frianne spoke as she and Aniem saw her back fading into the darkness.


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It was late night and the watchmen who were stationed kept their eyes peeled on the orphanage. No changes, no suspicious activity, nothing. But unsuspecting, Esia was not in her room. She was not even underground. She was in a different space, the dungeon.

In her study where majority of her research are placed, both books and just written text on paper, Esia sits at her desk. Her elbows on down and fingers crossed as she places her mouth near her hands. She contemplates on what her moves would be, especially given that her time had been dramatically shortened. She had initially thought that the Count would take action at the beginning of spring, but her assumptions were wrong. She now suspected she only had two weeks at most. But to be safe, she needed to leave after a week. To her, that was way too little time considering just the papers and research she needed to transport.

Both Teiyninya and Altafaigaman were with Eiulj in the room, contemplating on what to do next. The proposal of being intentionally captured then saved by Teiyninya and Altafaigaman was rejected almost immediately. It would cause unnecessary casualties which Eiulj didn’t need or like at all. Disguise as someone else and exit normally. It was put into consideration as the timing would need to be right. Fly with Teiyninya out to the forest. Altafaigaman would be left and is too heavy for Teiyninya to carry, and since he needs to be within some distance to Eiulj for the transformation spell to work properly lest it comes undone and a battle with the city would break out. Several more ideas came out but most were rejected.

“If only I can drag this whole dungeon with me, we can force our way out through the north without dealing any harm to the people.” Eiulj sighed and leaned back on her chair again.

“Why can’t you do so again?” Teiyninya seems to have forgotten.

“If I destroy a certain space, I would need mana to do so. With how little my mana is, it would be exhausting. Even if you guys let me use your mana, it would only allow me to compress half of this entire space.”

Even after some more explaining, Teiyninya still didn’t understand.

“Imagine this. You’re about to travel to a distant place for an extended time, so you would need a lot of stuff. You only have a single bag that can hold a number of things. The things would obviously be the paraphernalia inside this dungeon. The space in the bag is the space here, rooms, corridors, even this study. The bag itself is the container that holds your things, in this case, my ring. There is also a concept of weight in this, which is the mana used in holding these things. The force exerted to carry them. The bigger the space I have in my bag means more things I can carry, which also means the heavier it becomes, thus needing more mana. Alternatively, the less things I carry the lighter, thus needing less mana. If I take the dungeon with plenty of empty rooms with me, it’s like carrying a large heavy bag and all I’m carrying is a wooden spoon. That’s why I had the both of you transport as much Evealora and vials out of this dungeon as much as possible to reduce the things I would carry.”

The two were nodding as she explained. Eiulj was even surprised Altafaigaman didn’t know. All this time she thought he knew how magic spaces worked. She only drew a blank expression when she saw this.

“Ahem! Since I don’t have a lot of strength, I could only carry a few things. This means I have to leave behind a lot. That is why I had already destroyed the emptied rooms or rooms with things I don’t really need just to reduce the mana needed to compress the dungeon inside the ring. But I still have a lot of essential items that I need to bring with me, which are my research materials and the research itself. If I use the maximum amount of mana I could muster to carry the dungeon with me, I could only hold on to this room and the circle hall where Veyrr and the bastard are. That is like being sleep deprived for a couple of months while eating a small piece of bread for the day and performing extraneous exercise from dawn till dusk non-stop. To put it in your perspective, Ninya could carry about 11 times the whole dungeon filled with assistants and Evealora beds with relative ease. The difference in our mana capacity is like a drop of water into the ocean.”

It was no surprise the both were shocked to know just how little mana Eiulj had. It was amazing how she survived about three millennia with such a pitiable amount of mana, especially being a devil who are known to have large amounts of mana.

“We strayed a bit off topic there. Going back, If I insist on carrying everything with me, which means going over my limit, there are two things that can happen. Either the dungeon space won’t be moved and stay in place until I have the capacity to carry it again. Or the bag’s locks and seals would come undone, causing everything to burst out and scatter. The former is the best thing that could happen. The latter is just... chaotic. The space in this dungeon would merge with reality and nasty things could happen. The contents in the dungeon would spill out into reality, it might cause a large explosion where the space and reality merges, or space would bend and maybe even teleport you to some place unknown like in the sky, the bottom of the ocean, or even inside a volcano. Those are still mild compared to what I saw.”

That already sounded horrifying to the two, especially the last bit. But they could not imagine what else could be worse.

“What... would happen.” Teiyninya really asked the important questions.

“Well, a portal connected to hell would appear where the space distorted causing hellspawns, which even devils find difficult dealing with, to ravage the land. Or Another reality from a different world would suddenly merge into this one so the chance of a super advanced civilisation, who can harness the light’s energy and weaponize them, almost dominating a whole continent in just a matter of months is not nil. Or even the appearance of a black spherical matter that expands so much that once it disappears so anticlimactically, everything it touched and was inside of it disappeared. Well, I learned my lesson only carry what’s less than my mana capacity and to keep this spell to myself for now until I can find a better way to control it, tee-hee.”

Eiulj knocked on her head with her tongue sticking out while saying ‘tee-hee’. The two just sat there with mouths agape, thinking of the horror and calamity the space they’re in could cause if Eiulj would not handle it well.

“Tsk. What’s with that no-reaction. Kid’s humour these days. I’ve grown much too old for ancient comedy to humour them. That black sphere could never... (maybe)... happen. And besides, hellspawns are relatively easy to deal with by just setting a tall enough wall surrounding the portal. After a while, it would lose energy then you can kill the hellspawns in one fell swoop. As for the super advanced civilisation, there’s almost a hundred per cent probability that our resources are not compatible with what they need, so even if they managed to conquer a whole continent, they would die out because of no resources.”

Eiulj spoke as if she was reminiscing an enjoyable youth of craziness and foolishness. But the two did not seem amused especially with the pause at the beginning.

“Bottom line is, I can only carry so little so I might have to abandon majority of what’s inside here. Now, any questions?”

Teiyninya enthusiastically raised her hand muttering ‘me, me’.

“Yes, Gaman.” Teiyninya voiced her complaint but only fell onto deaf ears.

“Abandon meaning, you will only take what you can carry and leave the dungeon as is? So, humans or any skilled mage can access the entrance?”

“Exactly right. I can carry with me selected rooms and leave the rest. That’s why I’m in a stump on what to carry and what to dispose of. Yes, Ninya.”

“Yes! How do you how much you can carry before actually compressing it? Also, why is us providing you mana not going to help?”

“Those are... actually pretty decent questions. To answer the first inquiry, there are two ways. The computational method and the brute force method. The first is a very complicated process. You would need to determine the numerical value of your own mana capacity, the mana value of the space of the container, the mana value of the things you put inside, and the safety limit percentage of your capacity. I still have not fully developed a complete formula but if you remember the labels of the Evealora beds, it contained ‘mana concentration level’, those were derived from my current formula. Well, as expected, Ninya’s head is being fried. Then there’s the second method which I still trust even after developing a formula. Keep inserting things until you feel exhausted enough to want to sleep. Once that happens, you’re a few values away from the safety limit.”

“Ohh! I understand now.”

Eiulj drew a blank expression once more.

“Now, the second inquiry, a person’s mana has a certain limit. It usually grows with age. Once it hits that limit, it would not grow anymore. Right now, there is no method to increase the mana limit of a person. So, all that could be done is supply another person with their own mana, like what I have you guys do to me.”

“So, no matter how much mana we provide you, my Lady still would not be able to transport the whole dungeon.”

“Exactly.” Eiulj responded to Altafaigaman’s conclusion.

“Well, it’s not all that bad. Other devils would not be able to detect me if they measure my mana.”

She laughed it off while roasting and belittling herself. As the night was still long, the three just spoke, sharing stories. After all, it might be the last time they might talk to each other as such.

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