The Door

"I once made a vow that as long as the descendants of the Aozaki family did not surpass me, they would not be allowed to enter 'there'," my grandfather said. "Now, it seems this vow is no longer necessary."

"Why?" Aoko asked, surprised. "I thought I'd have to fight you first."

"Hahaha," my grandfather let out a stiff laugh, the first time Aoko remembered him ever laughing out loud. "Look at me now, how could I possibly still defeat you?"

"So, that scoundrel Eiri Fumizuka really killed you?" Aoko exclaimed in disbelief. "Is a 'Mage' something so fragile?"

"That's not it," my grandfather shook his head. "While I am still strong with my physical body, I have lost the possibility of further advancement."

"You mean the limit of my talent?" Aoko inquired.

"No, I mean I took the wrong path," my grandfather recalled. "In my research and use of the Fifth Magic, I went down the wrong road, and there's no turning back. The price for this mistake was the gradual loss of my human sensibility, so I had the brat from the Fumizuka family discard that body for me."

"The Fifth Magic has that kind of effect?" Aoko frowned. "If that's the case, I'll have to reconsider if I want to obtain the complete Fifth Magic."

"You misunderstand," my grandfather said. "That's not a flaw of the Fifth Magic, but mine. As I approached it, my own flaws led me down the wrong path, so I decided to pass on the Magic Crest to you and abandon my original body."

Aoko pondered for a moment, then continued, "So that's why you made the vow that 'only those who surpass you can enter the cave'?"

"Exactly," my grandfather said in a clear voice. "Because if no one stronger than me existed, approaching it would be meaningless, just a waste of time."

"I obtained the Fifth Magic very close to the source," my grandfather reminisced. "But that was as far as I could go; in fact, it was still a little short of reaching the origin of all things."

"So, I decided to see if any of my descendants would appear who were more capable than me, and then try my luck in the cave that leads there."

"If you succeed and manage to return alive, I will give up on staying on the surface of the world and head to the outer realms," my grandfather continued, speaking to himself. "Because if I continue to stay in the inner realms, it will dilute the authority of the Fifth Magic."

"I understand," Aoko said, with no intention of persuading her grandfather or having Touko create a new body for him. "Then I've decided to enter the cave."

The entrance to the cave was hidden by my grandfather in the deepest part of his workshop's basement.

Aoko followed her grandfather's footsteps to a wall that was completely blank.

"It's right here," my grandfather said.

"Huh?" Aoko looked confused. "There's nothing here."

"Think carefully with the Crest you just received," my grandfather tapped his head with his finger and said to Aoko. "I've fixed the timeline of the entrance, so if your level of Fifth Magic usage isn't high enough, you absolutely won't be able to enter."

"It sounds like some kind of inherited defense," Aoko said, frowning at the wall. "So, you want me to disarm it?"

My grandfather remained silent, merely gesturing for her to proceed. Aoko braced herself and walked over to begin examining the wall, contemplating how she should approach it.

She couldn't see any magical aura on the wall, nor could she feel any trace of Magecraft. Aoko ran her hand over the unremarkable wall, wondering if she should just break it by force.

However, since her grandfather had said it was an entrance sealed by the Fifth Magic, even if she managed to destroy it, she wouldn't find the entrance behind the wall.

With that thought, Aoko prepared herself. She closed her eyes, made up her mind, and unhesitatingly plunged into the process of activating the Fifth Magic.

The immense power of the Great Source, after being converted by her vast Magic Circuits, was channeled into the Aozaki family's Magic Crest. Aoko's right arm, which was touching the wall, began to glow faintly, with fine patterns of light like integrated circuits appearing on her skin. Her consciousness ceased its activity in the material world and plunged into the endless river of stars, while everything outside of her fell into a state of stasis, except for her grandfather, who was still observing her.

Originally, a normal human body would have found it difficult to withstand the burden of operating the Fifth Magic, my grandfather mused. He himself had endured immense pain when using the Fifth Magic, a pain caused by the limitations of his humanity, which led him to abandon the sensibility that felt such pain.

All Laws are enemies of the world, and for a human born into this world to use "Law" from beyond the world, they must endure the pain that the world inflicts in its attempt to erase humanity for self-preservation. This pain exists on a spiritual level, a means of annihilation specifically designed to target human sensibility.

He had abandoned his sensibility in order to advance further. But when he reached the threshold, he lost the origin's characteristic code due to his own incompleteness, ultimately reaching the limit of his individual existence.

Yet, the descendant before him, this girl mixed with unknown components, was enduring the pain of her consciousness on the verge of fading while continuously activating the Magic Crest, which made the old Mage unable to help but feel anticipation.

Aoko was enduring extreme pain and loneliness in the proximity of the world, but that pain and loneliness were merely that, Aoko thought coldly. For some reason, in Aoko's eyes at this moment, the "price" paid for bearing the use of Law seemed utterly insignificant. These 'signals,' which appeared in her thoughts from somewhere, were completely unable to stop her from continuing to use the Fifth Magic, let alone destroy her consciousness and make her disappear.

That's right, the pressure that counterattacked from the world's struggle was completely useless against Aoko now, because if the person enduring it simply didn't care about these painful 'signals,' then such an attack would be like a gentle breeze, completely ineffective.

The world's consciousness fell into confusion. The amount of pain it had invested was enough to easily destroy a human, but why was this human showing no reaction at all? Was she even human?

Aoko was completely unaware of the world's psychological activity at this moment; she was simply trying to get closer to the Root, attempting to disarm her grandfather's seal by partially activating "Law."

"Subjective Axis Release," Aoko murmured. This was not a spell, but a keyword for her self-suggestion.

As the girl spoke, the wall before her gradually changed. A door that hadn't existed before appeared on the wall, and the spatial-temporal fluctuations that had been occurring at Planck time intervals had vanished.

Aoko opened her eyes again and was delighted to find that she had succeeded. Just as she turned her head to boast to her grandfather, she found that the old man's soul was gone. Perhaps the Fifth Magic that had been continuously activated on this door was his soul's anchor.