The Return of The Mythical Archmage [EN]: Chapter 416

The Rebirth of a Mythical Archmage-417

West Africa.

A land of death, transformed into a place saturated with poison and miasma by the mana disaster that occurred 42 years ago.

No one has yet discovered the true nature of what is happening in this land.

The barrier of miasma and poison completely obscures any outside view, and even mana and radio waves are entirely blocked, making any investigation impossible.

‘…I thought it was strange that they hadn’t sent a single investigator, no matter how dangerous the land was. But I guess it’s understandable why they didn’t.’

For 42 years since this land became like this, not a single investigation team has been dispatched.

Every country refused to send an investigation team, citing the extreme danger.

Even with an agreement that the country that solves this problem can claim territorial rights over West Africa, no country made a move.

Not even the ‘United States’.

I had been wondering about that. Now I understand why.

The poison here is beyond anything imaginable.

‘…No matter what kind of mage comes, they wouldn’t last even two hours in here.’

No matter how important territory or resources are, there is no resource as valuable as a mage.

Sending a mage to a place like this is simply wasting a high-value asset.

That’s why it’s been left unattended for 42 years.

‘If this situation had happened in the Americas, the United States would have moved to solve it somehow….’

If this storm of poison had descended on the American mainland, the United States would have used every means to purify this land for its own safety.

But this is Africa.

Even if something goes wrong here, it doesn’t directly affect the United States.

The other countries would probably feel the same way.

They all decided to leave this land alone, pursuing their own interests.

‘Thanks to that, the poison has gotten worse.’

After 42 years of neglect, the internal state has become even more of a mess.

There’s no previous data, so I can’t know how much stronger the poison has become.

But it’s estimated to be at least twice as potent.

“Successor. The calculations just came out. If we leave it like this, it will explode within 5 days.”

No, twice is an underestimate.

Three times. It could even be four times stronger.

Otherwise, this situation cannot be explained.

“And after it explodes, this poison will naturally spread across the entire world.”

Miasma and poison.

The two energies are fluctuating as if they are about to explode at any moment.

Even a bomb about to explode would be less unstable than this.

“If we can’t somehow calm the poison and miasma, the world will collapse.”

Mimir warned with a serious expression.

“…Right. It seems like Phinis isn’t the immediate problem after all.”

Phinis or whatever.

We need to solve this situation first.

Finding Phinis can wait until after we solve the problem here.

“Mimir. First, can you find out why the poison and miasma here have become so unstable?”

“…Just a moment. I’m already calculating it.”

Mimir answered me, moving her hands around.

She was calculating using a holographic screen that only she could see.

“Successor. Extract the poison separately and get some data. If possible, from about 10 different places.”

Data is needed for calculations.

And it’s my job to collect that data.

“Okay. Anything else you need?”

“For now, just focus on the poison since it’s the core issue. The miasma isn’t that complex of a structure.”

“Okay.”

I immediately began collecting the poison.

Among the overflowing miasma and poison, I filtered out the miasma and gathered only the poison.

‘And store the collected poison separately using Umbra’s shadow.’

If I leave the poison like this, it will react to the surrounding poison and miasma and fluctuate again.

Umbra will completely block that possibility.

‘That’s one done.’

It took about 5 minutes to complete one lump of poison.

I just need to repeat this 9 more times.

I quickly moved to another spot and gathered poison again.

The second task was a little easier because I got the hang of it.

‘That’s two.’

Next, the third.

The work got faster and faster as it went on. It wasn’t just about getting the hang of it, but I also succeeded in roughly grasping the nature of the poison, so there was no reason for it to take long.

“Mimir. It’s all done.”

The total time it took to create 10 lumps of poison was 23 minutes.

Considering that it took 5 minutes to make the first lump, it was a huge improvement.

“Already?”

Mimir replied with a surprised expression.

“That’s really fast. Separating the poison and miasma wouldn’t have been easy.”

“As I did it, I kind of got the hang of it.”

I handed ten lumps of poison to Mimir.

“As I collected them, I also learned what kind of properties the poison has.”

As a bonus, I also learned why Mimir said, ‘You don’t have to worry about the miasma.’

Certainly, the miasma has a simpler nature compared to the poison.

How should I put it?

The poison is poison, so there are countless variations, but the miasma is just miasma, so there’s no room for variables.

Anyway, I understood why Mimir was only focusing on the poison.

“If you know the internal properties, we don’t need to do a detailed analysis with flasks and materials, right?”

“No. It’s not that far. I’ve only roughly figured out how the structure is. I don’t know the details.”

“Really? Well, I guess even if you’re the Successor, you wouldn’t be able to figure out the exact numbers….”

Mimir nodded a couple of times, as if she understood.

“Okay. Then let’s start datafication right away. Successor, please take out a flask from Aes and collect the internal properties.”

“Okay.”

I quickly started datafying the poison.

“Mimir. Here.”

“Thanks. Please do the next one.”

I handed over the datafied poison to Mimir.

And immediately proceeded to datafy the next poison.

I repeated this process 10 times.

“…I have a conclusion.”

After 20 minutes, the work was finished.

Mimir spoke with a sharp expression.

“This. It’s not a natural phenomenon.”

“If it’s not a natural phenomenon… does that mean someone artificially created it?”

“Yeah.”

Mimir showed me the completed data.

“Here. As you can see, the structure of the poison is quite deformed.”

“…Deformed?”

I could understand the structure, but I couldn’t tell that it was deformed.

“It’s deformed. If you look, there’s an artificial structure inserted between the basic poison structural formulas connected by Delucia, Perlein, Solan, and Fuloarentirun.”

“….”

I don’t know.

I don’t have any information about the basic structure of poison, so I can’t tell what’s a deformation.

“…Okay. Anyway, it’s deformed, right?”

“Yeah. Very. It’s a structure that can never occur naturally.”

It’s a 100% artificial phenomenon.

Mimir was so sure of it.

“Okay.”

If Mimir is that sure, it means it’s 100% true.

“So, someone intentionally deformed the structure of the poison to send it to the entire world?”

“It’s not that they deformed the poison itself to be unstable. It’s designed to heat up by being affected by the miasma….”

“Anyway. It’s true that someone intentionally created this phenomenon.”

Let’s put aside Mimir’s incomprehensible theory for now.

I summarized the conclusion of the current situation.

“That’s right.”

“…Okay.”

Someone intentionally created this situation.

That means.

“…Veil Stole. Or Veil Stole’s subordinate. It must be one of them.”

“Yeah. It probably is.”

That means the black magician created this situation.

“Originally, miasma and poison were powers that black magicians have always handled. It wouldn’t have been that difficult to craft it like this.”

Deforming poison.

It would have been easy for Veil Stole, the originator of black magic.

“I think he probably judged that it would be difficult to beat Sein in a 1:1 fight and started preparing to slowly erode the entire world.”

“…That’s something Veil would do.”

From Veil’s perspective, who dreams of the world’s destruction, it’s something he would definitely do.

“…I don’t know if I should call this lucky or unlucky.”

I came to find Phinis, but instead, I have to prepare to stop Veil’s scheme.

Should I call this lucky or unlucky?

“It’s lucky. If we hadn’t noticed, we wouldn’t have been able to just say, ‘We got hit once.'”

“…That’s true too.”

It’s true that finding Phinis has been delayed, but as a result, we were able to prevent a potentially fatal situation.

It could be said that we were lucky.

“So. What’s the solution to this situation?”

I know that this situation was created by Veil Stole.

Now the point has shifted to how to stop this situation.

“….”

Mimir closed her mouth.

She has a serious expression.

“…There isn’t one?”

Could it be that she hasn’t found a way to stop it yet?

“Is it because we don’t have enough data?”

If the lack of data is the cause, we can just collect more data.

“No.”

Mimir shook her head.

“We have enough data. The poison in the depths might be a little denser, but the structure itself will be the same. Data isn’t the problem.”

Mimir stared straight into my eyes.

“The problem is that there’s no way to use this data.”

There’s no way to use the data.

That means.

“…There’s no way to return the changed poison to its original state?”

“No. There is a way to return the poison itself to its original structure. After all, we know that this structure is deformed. There’s no way we wouldn’t know how to return it to its original structure.”

Knowing that the structure is deformed means that we know its origin.

Knowing both, it’s not that difficult to change a deformed structure back to its original structure.

“The problem is that returning it to its original structure won’t solve the problem.”

“Why?”

“The already mutated poison has heated up and started to create an updraft by merging with the miasma… no, a turbulence.”

“Turbulence….”

It means that the poison and miasma have become one and are spreading in all directions.

“Even if we return the poison to its original state now, we can’t stop the flow of this turbulence itself.”

Even if we return it to its original state, we can’t stop the flow of the air current.

That’s what she meant.

“To solve the situation, we need to change the structure of the poison to a negative structure, not the original structure.”

“Negative… You mean we have to create a structure that opposes the flow of the turbulence?”

“That’s right.”

Mimir narrowed her eyes.

“In short. It means we have to newly modify the poison.”

“….”

A new transformation.

We have to do that in this place, within 4 days.

‘Even if it’s Mimir….’

Even if it’s Mimir, that’s difficult.

It might be possible if it’s related to mana, but poison isn’t Mimir’s specialty.

It would be close to impossible to complete it within 4 days.

“It’s difficult to stop this situation through research or modification of the poison.”

Mimir bowed her head with a sorry expression.

“…Okay.”

I thought things were going too smoothly. Well, that’s how it is.

“If we can’t eliminate the cause, then we have no choice but to eliminate the result.”

“…Yeah. That’s right.”

Mimir replied, still bowing her head.

“Purely with power. We have no choice but to eliminate the poison here.”

Eliminate all the poison here.

If not all of it, at least purify more than half of it.

That’s the only way.

“Then. First, I’ll contact Sein and gather as much manpower as possible….”

No matter how dense the poison is.

If we gather the power of all the mages that exist, we should be able to handle it to some extent.

Since the situation has become like this, we have no choice but to gather the power of the entire world.

“…No. Wait a minute.”

As I was thinking that.

A method suddenly came to mind.

A method that doesn’t require us to take the gamble of gathering all the other mages.

“Mimir.”

“…Why?”

“Phinis.”

The mythical magic that breaks down boundaries and opens gaps. Phinis.

“…Huh?”

Mimir’s eyes slowly widened.

“If we use Phinis, wouldn’t we be able to remove all the poison inside?”

Ironically, the clue to solving this situation was inside this place.