Trump Card

"I can't get away..."

"Then don't."

Burg's appearance made Sean realize something: the people who had come into contact with him might never have represented themselves as individuals. His social circle had always been small. Every day, he did little besides work, write, eat, and sleep. Only occasionally, when the mood struck him, did he go out to work out. If the other party wanted to, they could easily blend into his network of acquaintances and trap him at the center without his noticing.

Even the friendly woman next door might be one of them.

At that moment, Sean gained a much clearer understanding of "them."

The force behind the Witch Hunt was terrifyingly powerful. It might even be "power" itself.

The thought that he was under their watch every second, that all the familiar people around him wore two faces, sent a chill through Sean. He even wondered whether his desire to write novels had come from their subtle suggestions and influence.

The air grew oppressively heavy again.

The crushing weight of being watched and having his life forcibly controlled was enough to leave anyone gasping for breath.

But Sean, instead, calmed down.

He could tell they were already starting to put pressure on him.

Unfortunately for them, he wasn't fragile.

Fragile people couldn't write novels, either.

Pressure wouldn't break him. It would only lower his limits.

Sean had never believed in the words "no way out."

He preferred the poet Mayakovsky's words: "When someone backs you into a dead end, don't forget that there's still a road behind you."

The girl had warned him: "Their" bottom line was "magic."

The moment he became a true wizard, they would move against him.

They might forcibly capture him, as they had Chris.

Or kill him on the spot.

Low-ranking wizards couldn't fight the weapons in their hands. Becoming a wizard while already under their scrutiny would be tantamount to suicide.

But he was different.

He was the "author" of this strange, fantastical world. He knew countless details and rules of its story, including Basic Theory of Mysticism, Rank Advancement Path, Method of Magic Cultivation, and Principle of Spell Operation. Those were all things a writer had to sort out before beginning a story.

Each of these settings had its own document, saved in a folder named "World Architecture."

Sean wasn't sure whether Burg had cracked his computer password and copied the files, or how many invisible cameras had been installed in his home. To be safe, he didn't open the documents again. He could remember them anyway.

Magic was the product of "meditation," and its essence was a form of energy.

To be more precise, it was energy converted from mass, as people commonly understood it.

It originated within the human body.

The process of converting the mass of the cells inside the body into energy was called "meditation."

The human body was active, transferring energy every moment. When the energy needed to sustain its basic functions ran low, its cells automatically produced more to keep the body's systems operating normally. Modern Biology called this "autophagy." Meditation allowed people to perceive this process and form a clear image of it in their minds.

The energy produced by autophagy alone was obviously not enough to cast spells. One had to intervene actively, using the brain to control the body with minute precision and alter the way its cells consumed one another. By increasing the efficiency of mass-energy conversion, the same amount of mass could be turned into more energy. The portion exceeding the body's needs could then be called "magic."

That was why a mystic in his book had once said, "The human body is a natural vessel for magic. Everyone has the potential to become a mage."

Back then, wizards hadn't been called wizards. They had been "noble mages."

It was the Scholar Era, when knowledge meant power.

Some Archmages who had mastered forbidden spells could even raise their mass-energy conversion rate to 100 percent, causing their entire bodies to undergo a perfect annihilation reaction. The destructive force they unleashed was enough to wipe out a nation.

For example, the protagonist of his book, Karl Black.

Perhaps that was why the Witch Hunt had begun.

They were afraid.

In Basic Mysticism, the unit of magic was named after the mystic who had first publicly proposed the idea that "all things can be annihilated." At first, it had been called a "Dick," but people later discovered that it had an inelegant homophone, so they changed it to a "Lark." This unit provided a broad way to classify wizards by rank.

A Rank One wizard was called a "Newborn" and controlled one Lark of magic. Its energy was roughly equivalent to that of a small grenade, so in theory, a Rank One wizard could already withstand bullets from ordinary firearms.

In practice, however, theory and reality were never the same.

Bullets traveled far faster than the human body could react. By the time an enemy fired, it would be too late to chant a spell. If you were unlucky enough to get hit, your frail body would lose the ability to move in an instant. The cavity effect would tear through your flesh and numb your nerves, while blood would soon flood your throat, leaving you unable to speak even if you opened your mouth.

As a result, the vast majority of Rank One wizards couldn't even manage to take an armed enemy down with them.

They couldn't even finish chanting a single spell.

But—

There was one kind of spell that needed no chanting.

These spells existed on the foundation of the world's most basic laws and material principles. They were deeply intertwined with mathematics and philosophy, and needed no incantation to guide them. A mere thought could trigger a resonance, manifesting magic in a form that no one else could understand. They were different from all other spells, and had a special name—

True Formula.

This was something his former self had kept hidden for a very long time, and his present self had kept hidden for just as long. As a bestselling author, Sean knew to give his protagonist a few tricks no one else knew about, adding twists to the story.

In the original plot, after he and Oliya had shared a passionate night, a great battle would follow.

He had run off with the Holy See's Saintess, after all.

From the faithful to the pope, everyone in the Holy See opposed the match. He would have to persuade them with reason, and was expected to reveal his true strength around ten chapters later.

True Formula was his trump card.

Now, it was his trump card.

Sean thought he might use it sooner than his character in the book.

He already had a plan.

These people liked keeping him under surveillance, didn't they?

Whether it was Floris Hospital, represented by Quill, the police station where Burg worked, or some other organization, if he left Holkodo, they would almost certainly send someone to follow him and make sure he didn't "flee to avoid punishment."

Sean narrowed his eyes.

He planned to give them a surprise.

All he needed was a little magic. Rank One would be enough.

Every bullet fired at him would end up as a weapon he used to kill his enemies.

According to the Flame Crow Girl, his awakening wasn't complete, so he hadn't gained any magic. Sean understood "not fully awakened" to mean that he lacked talent—that he hadn't learned meditation on his own. That was why she thought he wasn't cut out to be a wizard.

But that didn't matter. He could go find the Spring of Enlightenment.

It was a natural spring that could help people grasp mysticism, also known as the Spring of Knowledge. In Sean's story, its pure, crystal-clear water had helped countless idiots enter a meditative state and become wizards. It had once been revered as holy water bestowed upon the empire by the gods. Only after the more miraculous Spring of Abstinence appeared was its title of holy water taken away.

Sean had also made a special table of items important to wizards like these, to help him remember them. The Spring of Enlightenment came first. In his dream, he had first encountered the world's mysticism through the spring, and that was what had allowed him to create True Formula, a spell that surpassed others of the same rank.

If his previous self could take that path, so could his present self.

The only real problem was where to find the Spring of Enlightenment.

If not for Chris, Sean might never have believed that the spring truly existed. Chris had pointed him toward it: the small patch of woods where Chris had once gone and witnessed all sorts of fantastical events with his own eyes.

Now that Sean had calmed down, his thoughts were perfectly clear.

Chris had realized something was wrong with the world after seeing the events Sean had described in his book. That meant he wasn't an Awakened One, and couldn't have learned meditation out of nowhere. So the magic Chris had shown him—the magic that had made milk turn solid—could only have come from the Spring of Enlightenment.

Thanks to Quill, his old friend could no longer speak, so Chris couldn't tell him exactly where it was.

But Sean could ask.

Chris always went on his expeditions with a group. He belonged to a Wilderness Survival Club. Sean had once called the club to ask about him after Chris had been missing for a long time.

At the time, Sean had only cared whether Chris had come back. Once he got a positive answer, he'd hung up without asking where Chris and the others had gone.

But expeditions like those were dangerous, so their routes were usually planned in advance and a copy given to the club. That way, if anything went wrong, the club could quickly contact nearby rescue teams to go help them.

In other words, the club was bound to know where Chris had gone two years ago.