Even so, Lee Han hurled the remaining grape.
The incantationless telekinesis spell traced a sharp arc through the air and struck its target cleanly.
The hamster rolled through the sawdust, trembling at how much more precise his opponent’s telekinetic control had become.
Originally, controlling tiny, lightweight objects with precision was far harder than roughly moving large, heavy ones.
Yet Lee Han had accurately hit a hamster darting around in frantic zigzags.
-Just how much have you practiced this magic?
“Stop dodging the question and tell me the actual method.”
Lee Han’s voice was curt.
This was hardly the time to ramble about telekinesis.
The hamster brushed the grape off its back and squeaked irritably.
-I already told you! You need to sever his lifeline. Do you think I’m lying just to fool some greenhorn?
“Yes.”
-...
Its whiskers twitched furiously as it launched into a longer explanation.
-Listen carefully, you immature greenhorn. Thought-forms are not convenient beings you can control however you please. They are existences fundamentally incompatible with this world.
Beings from other dimensions had to endure enormous strain just to descend into the material plane.
The world itself rejected anything that was never meant to exist here.
And among those foreign existences, thought-forms suffered the fiercest rejection of all.
Unlike ordinary humans, they were not made of flesh and soul, but pure information and power.
The hamster had only approached this thought-form in order to extract secrets before it eventually went berserk. He had never once intended to keep it alive for thousands of years.
That had been impossible from the start.
-You wouldn’t know this, greenhorn, but Gonadaltes’ projections have descended several times before. Have you heard the tale of the Endless Winter Sleep? An entire territory was forced into slumber—
“Ah, shut up already, you magical criminal bastard, and tell me the method!”
Lee Han fired the remaining grapes in rapid succession.
The hamster screamed and rolled through the sawdust.
“Are you stalling right now? Should I interrogate you the Einroguard way?”
The hamster received a genuine shock.
Until now, Lee Han had at least treated him with a degree of courtesy because of his noble origins, but now he was openly growling threats.
Possibly because the grape impacts genuinely hurt, the hamster felt even more wronged.
-What...
“You infiltrated this place to uncover secrets. Someone like you wouldn’t fail to prepare contingency plans. You must have at least prepared emergency countermeasures.”
-!
The hamster stiffened.
He hadn’t expected a mere greenhorn to see through him so clearly.
Naturally, he had prepared methods for restraining the thought-form if it went berserk.
...Though he certainly had not prepared for the possibility of being transformed into a hamster and imprisoned in a cage.
-...There is one method, but it’s nothing more than a delaying tactic. It’s for escape, not healing or recovery... No stones! No stones!
Lee Han had already picked up a rock.
The hamster squealed in panic.
-And I can’t even use that method in this body!
The original plan had been simple.
He had prepared several enhanced subordinates with modified bodies. When the thought-form neared collapse under the world’s rejection, he intended to distribute the overload among them.
Naturally, even heavily modified bodies could never endure the burden that barely an archmage could withstand.
At best, it would buy time.
-I can’t even use that method anymore. All the connections are gone. If that lunatic hadn’t turned me into a mere hamster—
“What about the Descent?”
-What?
“【Gonadaltes’s Descent】. What if I use it to bear the overload myself—”
-...Impossible. I knew you were arrogant, but I didn’t realize you were this arrogant. You’re nowhere near that level!
The hamster was so stunned that it forgot about the pain and snorted.
He knew about the Descent as well.
Among the countless bizarre ancient spells that existed, the Descent was extraordinary even by those standards.
But that did not make it a solution.
A first-time ferryman trying to cross a flood-swollen river during a storm would have better odds.
“You were planning something similar yourself.”
-What I prepared was an incomparably more delicate high-order spell. It required seventy-eight auxiliary spells alone. And you think you can replace all that with a single spell? Even if you somehow succeeded, what about the overload? I know you have tremendous mana, but overconfidence is forbidden!
“There’s no need to argue.”
“!”
Intarendals had stepped outside without either of them noticing.
Both Lee Han and the hamster turned toward him in surprise.
“Is Master alright?”
“Yes. He has taken the prepared elixir.”
“...?”
-!
The hamster understood first.
Lee Han realized it a moment later.
There was something deeply wrong with calling it medicine.
“...Wait. By ‘elixir’... do you mean poison?”
“As expected of Lee Han. Correct. Lord Gonadaltes foresaw this situation and prepared for it in advance.”
Intarendals spoke calmly, though his expression carried an unfamiliar sorrow.
Lee Han stared in horror.
“No...! You said you were loyal to him!”
“Some forms of loyalty require personally feeding poison to one’s master.”
-Calm down, greenhorn. This actually resolved things fairly well.
Lee Han slammed the hamster against the bars of the cage with telekinesis.
The hamster rolled helplessly.
Squeak! Squeak squeak!
“I’ll explain everything. Beginning with what Lord Gonadaltes entrusted to me...”
Crack!
A sharp splitting sound echoed from inside the workshop.
The workshop had been built inside a cavern, its walls made of solid stone.
When rock that thick started cracking like brittle crackers, all three froze.
“What...?”
-...Wait. Could the poison have failed? Did you confirm the dosage?
The hamster crawled out of the sawdust and demanded an answer.
Intarendals looked deeply offended.
“How could Lord Gonadaltes’ calculations possibly be wrong?”
-You idiotic chamberlain...! How can you trust the calculations of a deteriorating thought-form without question!?
“!!!”
Lee Han and Intarendals both looked as though they had been struck in the head.
Intarendals lashed the hamster once with a magic whip before rushing inside—
—but it was already too late.
Craaaack!
The inner wall exploded apart as mana of unimaginable density surged outward like a storm.
The hamster forgot even the pain of the whip and shrieked:
-The Descent! Prepare the Descent, greenhorn! If you don’t stop it now, we’re all going to die!
“It’s not too late yet. I will—!”
At those words, the hamster exploded in rage.
-It is too late! He’s already gone berserk! That crude poison only accelerated the collapse! You need to reduce the calamity itself!
The thought-form was already halfway consumed.
In this state, any ordinary attack was meaningless unless it could kill that madman outright—and no one here could accomplish that easily.
They needed to restore enough sanity for reason to reach him.
Right now, only that greenhorn could do it.
“Silence, slave!”
Squeak!
Ignoring the hamster entirely, Intarendals tried to pull Lee Han away.
There was no way he would risk his master’s disciple based on the words of a criminal slave.
But Lee Han had already raised his staff and begun casting.
No!
Intarendals nearly shouted—
Then froze.
Above Lee Han’s head, a familiar crown was forming.
A crown woven from bronze, copper, and branches.
Simple.
Yet incomparably beautiful.
There was no way Intarendals could fail to recognize it.
“Basilios!”
Despite the chamberlain’s cry, Lee Han heard nothing.
All his senses had narrowed entirely toward magic itself.
It wasn’t simply that the surrounding noise disappeared. It felt as though time itself had stopped, leaving only himself and magic in existence.
A perfect microcosm. When did he reach this level...!?
Intarendals felt ashamed for ever thinking Lee Han lacked discipline.
Without truly becoming a royal disciple, no one could inherit that microcosm.
Essences engraved across countless parallel dimensions manifested simultaneously.
Power poured from those concepts, violently stabilizing the surroundings.
The hamster watched dozens of ancient magic circles appear instantly across the walls, floor, shattered stone, and even midair.
As someone who had once prepared similar spells himself, the hamster immediately understood what the microcosm was doing.
Magic circles to disperse the overload?! In an instant!?
Even considering it was a microcosm inherited from ancient times, the power was overwhelming.
Goosebumps spread across the hamster’s tiny body.
But the most terrifying thing was not the microcosm.
It was the novice mage himself.
Despite wielding that power and directly absorbing the world’s calamity fire, Lee Han remained standing.
No. That’s...
Only then did the hamster notice Lee Han’s condition.
The enormous reserves of mana had hidden it, but blood was already streaming from his mouth, nose, and eyes.
No matter how limitless one’s mana might be, mortal flesh still had limits.
-Disperse it more! Activate additional circles! Don’t absorb it directly—scatter it!
Even knowing Lee Han couldn’t hear him, the hamster screamed desperately.
And even if Lee Han could hear him, responding would have been impossible.
The ancient magic circles were already dispersing the calamity fire at maximum capacity.
The distorted space and violently swirling mana made that obvious.
If the mage maintaining all this collapsed instead, there was no telling what catastrophe would erupt.
Click!
What ultimately saved the master was the microcosm itself.
The tiny flask-shaped necklace hanging from Lee Han’s chest forcibly opened and poured its contents into the master’s mouth.
That was not all.
The overload also flowed into artifacts like the behemoth-bone necklace and the Dawn Star.
As the burden poured into Manma’s Bracelet, inaudible screams from demons echoed like a chorus within it.
Finally, the microcosm wrapped around Basil and hurled the baby basilisk far away.
Basil, who had stubbornly tried to endure the burden together with its master, lashed its tail furiously.
The hamster buried his face in the sawdust and prayed.
Please... you brat...
If this disaster ended only for an even more unstable thought-form to emerge afterward, he could not even imagine what would happen.
“...Basilios has strict conditions for use.”
-!!!
At that cold, familiar voice, the hamster nearly burst into tears.
The insane duplicate stepped out from the ruins and looked at his disciple, still immersed in magic, with troubled eyes.
“It cannot be summoned unless the user possesses true nobility toward others. I never imagined royalty alone would satisfy that requirement...”
“Master!”
“I apologize, Intarendals. My mistake has caused unnecessary trouble. However... this can still be resolved immediately.”
The hamster nearly shouted Then hurry up and kill yourself already, but restrained himself.
At least the thought-form seemed capable of handling things properly.
“There’s no need for that.”
-?!
“!”
Not only the hamster—even the insane duplicate himself was visibly shocked.
Without anyone noticing, Lee Han had regained awareness and spoken.
-How... how are you conscious!? Wait. What exactly did you drink?
The hamster panicked at the unnatural intelligence shining in Lee Han’s eyes.
Having consumed the wine of wisdom, Lee Han spoke with profound conviction.
“Look. The world’s calamity fire, these great disasters—in the end, they’re still magical phenomena. If a mage fears them and panics, wouldn’t that alone disqualify him from being a mage?”
“You speak boldly for someone already half-destroyed after a brief encounter.”
The insane duplicate sounded displeased, but Lee Han ignored him entirely.
“If Master truly is a mage, then you should stand and confront it properly! Otherwise, what could your disciple possibly learn from you? If, after exhausting every possible method, you still fail to stop it, then I won’t interfere either. But secretly preparing poison behind everyone’s backs and then failing anyway—that’s no different from a thief! What happened to the royal dignity you always taught me about?”
-Y-you insane bastard. There’s a limit to what you should say...!
The hamster was horrified.
Whatever relic Lee Han had consumed, it seemed to have granted courage alongside wisdom.
Yet the insane duplicate did not grow angry.
Instead, he fell silent.
A long silence followed.
Finally, the insane duplicate spoke.
“...You are correct. If I truly trusted my disciple, I should not have hidden my plans from him. I acknowledge my mistake. This was the royal’s failure.”
“Ma-Master!”
“I will attempt to suppress the calamity fire myself. Without concealing anything from my disciple—”
No.
A familiar telepathic voice echoed from behind them.
Everyone turned.
A familiar skeleton floated in the air, gazing down coldly.
You’ve thought this through well enough, but that is not the correct answer.
-Gonadaltes!
The hamster shrieked in terror, but the Skull Principal ignored the mere magical criminal completely.
Fixing his burning gaze solely upon the duplicate, he declared:
The correct answer... is to seal it away forever.
