That’s it.
No overanalysis. No long-winded lecture about magic-thermodynamics relationship or some obscure theorem he read.
Just one flat, irritated syllable.
Shin’s usually a storm of pedantry. He’d correct a god’s grammar mid-apocalypse, or spend three minutes explaining why a fire spell should technically produce a pressure wave from rapid air expansion. I’ve wanted to throttle him plenty of times.
So seeing him stare at the academy grounds like someone unplugged his internal monologue… That unsettles me more than the barrier.
A demonic barrier wraps the entire courtyard like a crimson glass. Graduation banners still hang. Everyone inside… they’re all trapped. Only entry, no exit.
It doesn’t kill you like many barriers from any Magical Skills but…
Demonic barriers run on Negative Magical Energy—corrupted output from demons. Humans and other magical races run on positive-aligned Energy. Negative Magical Energy—as the opposite version—smothers it, like throwing a wet blanket on a bonfire. No flame. No spellcasting. Everyone inside is effectively declawed.
I rush to the window. Below, figures in black move with purpose, encircling the grand hall.
Humans.
Stupid. Humans shouldn’t be able to deploy and be in a demonic barrier unless they have a demon-grade artifact. Or they modified the artifact itself responsible for the barrier’s deployment. Tuned the filter to allow certain energy signatures to pass while suppressing the rest—
“Ray—!”
Mark’s voice snaps me back.
Mark’s shout yanks me back. Right. This isn’t my field. I hit things. Preferably hard.
“Miss Belladonna—!”
I don’t even finish before the royal guard shifts formation. Half scatter to relay orders. The rest including Genivefa cluster around the elder princess.
“While some alert the authorities,” she says, voice steady as steel, despite the sudden shift of the situation, “we shall arm ourselves and address the barrier. This may be a hostage affair.”
““““““Yes!””””””
Hostage.
The word lands wrong.
Joshua glances at me. “The abduction…”
Years ago… same chaos. Shin got caught up—barely. Wrong place, wrong time. He doesn’t talk about it, not while the kingdom scrambles to figure out the abduction. Two noblewomen taken… The suspects stay tight-lipped, but evidence points to adventurer-level bandits in black.
Bad news. They might be the same bandits. No guarantee of a vigilante savior this time. So—
“We three will arm up too.” I step forward. Mark and Joshua fall in behind me. A grin stretches across my face, easy and sharp, the one I’ve worn since high school when we thought we ran the world. “Good thing second-years are allowed personal weapons. We’ll help. We’re Heroes after all.”
She looks at the three of us like a commander measuring risk. Her eyes flick over our faces—calculating, weighing whether throwing untested Heroes into a real battle is brilliant strategy or spectacular stupidity.
With nobles at stake, the wrong answer becomes a national tragedy.
She almost argues.
Instead, her gaze shifts past us.
“What of him?”
He’s still by the window. Not frozen. Thinking. When he turns, our eyes meet. His narrow slightly, like he’s solving for x that only he can see.
“Are you sure?” I ask.
He nods once.
That’s all.
Damn him…!
“He stays,” I say. The words come out before I’ve fully thought them through. “He’ll attempt to open the Covenant. We’ll arm up and handle what we can.”
The room stills.
We’re nowhere near cracking the Covenant. Might need a supercomputer just for starters. But with this demonic barrier and the bandits’ precision… leaving Shin on it… my guts just tells me to do so…!
“Shin can’t really help with combat,” I mutter. “But he hasn’t attempted the Covenant yet. He stays.”
Batshit insane. Covenant, relic of a past Hero, left with Shin. Stupid? Absolutely. But the bandits coordinated this to perfection—barrier timed for the grand hall, when everyone’s supposed to be inside. Their plan assumes total control. We weren’t there. We were summoned by the king to crack the Covenant code. They might not even know it exists. That makes Shin’s presence an unexpected variable.
“He might as well do something, right?”
“I’m glad you trust me,” Shin says dryly, “but it feels like you’re treating me like a turd in the wind.”
I ignore him.
Genovefa glides to his side, smooth as silk sliding across marble. “Then I shall remain with him.”
Both Shin and Belladonna look ready to argue—different reasons, different stakes. They don’t. Time is bleeding.
We move.
Outside, we enhance our legs, moving at the speed of modern cars. We cross the academy grounds in seconds, the wind tears past my face as the buildings blur by in streaks of stone and banners.
“I did not expect you to place such faith in Sir Shin,” Belladonna says as she pushes open the armory’s heavy doors alone. Metal groans in protest. “I had heard you were akin to oil and water.”
Leyni jogs in behind us, armor clinking. She heads straight for the weapon racks and snatches up a hatchet, testing the weight before sliding it onto her belt beside her main sword. “That Hero…” she mutters. “I cannot even imagine being on friendly terms with him, much less trusting him with something so important.”
We flood inside. The scent of oiled steel and old leather hits hard. We grab light armor from the academy racks while the knights head to their section—Kingdom-issued plate, polished to mirror shine.
At the back, separated from the standard gear, is our room. Locked with a specialized key. Mark steps up and presses his crest key into the mechanism. The lock clicks open with a soft metallic sigh. He glances back toward Belladonna while pushing the door.
“They’re more like oil and fire,” he says, chuckling. “But you’re right. Shin’s not exactly the type you casually befriend. Dude’s weird.”
Oil and fire.
My jaw tightens. I’ve always hated his guts. His tone. His calm. His pedantic way of talking, dissecting my arguments like I’m a child. Every conversation with him ends with me feeling like I’ve just been placed inside a perfectly predictable equation.
Yet there’s something irritatingly consistent about him… even in the past.
When Shin decides to handle something…
…he does.
Always.
I strap on gauntlets, metal settling over my hands like a promise.
Thinking about him makes my blood pressure spike. The guy’s a walking encyclopedia with legs—one of those freak geniuses who read textbooks the way normal people read comic books. Back on Earth I once read this light novel that claimed: it’s often claimed there’s a razor-thin divide separating genius from madman—though telling them apart is surprisingly straightforward. Should a discussion leave you with an overwhelming urge to turn a weapon on someone, they’re a madman. But if you could easily sit down for another cordial exchange with them, they’re a genius.
Shin is the first.
And the situation demands a madman. A batshit genius-madman one.
“I just think he’s suited for this type of work. That’s all.”
This is completely irrational. But that’s just how this usually goes. I’m not Mark or Shin.
But irrational or not, the instinct is sharp, unmistakable.
We’ve evaded harm for two years in this world. Nothing that presses down on on our lungs and whispers that people are going to die if you screw up. This is our first taste of otherworld pressure—not new, but… heavier and definitely would be life-risking. So…
I flex my armored fingers and stare at the floor for a moment.
“So… do the usual thing you do…” I mutter under my breath.
It almost sounds like a prayer.
Funny thing is, I don’t believe in gods. Never have. Respecting things that don’t exist always felt stupid.
But I do respect things that are real.
Things that move.
Things that are here.
Him.
I’ve always hated that nerd’s guts.
For someone who claims he wants to live efficiently, you’d think he’d aim for maximum stealth. Logical. Pragmatic. Background NPC energy. The dream of every teenager who just discovered a “cold and calculating” protagonist and decided that emotional detachment equals depth.
Shin checks the first two boxes. He’s logical to a fault. Pragmatic in a way that makes you feel inefficient just by breathing nearby.
But he doesn’t blend in.
That’s the annoying part.
He isn’t particularly handsome. Not ugly either. Just… average. Mediocre family. No flashy talent shows.
If life have a ranking chart, he’d be a stable C-tier.
Stable. Albeit forgettable.
And yet—
Something about him feels like a misprint in the system.
He never flexes. Never competes for attention. Never challenges anyone’s place in the social ladder. Meanwhile, I curate mine like a brand. Smile here. Joke there. Stand tall. Radiate confidence. Be seen.
We are opposites.
But what really sets him apart is this: he doesn’t tolerate inaction.
I remember that day. Heat haze baking the pavement, the smell of melted tar rising. I’m out alone to buy the latest light novel volume from a nearby shop. Limited stock. Priorities.
Then I see it.
A girl from our school cornered in a narrow alley. Two grown men. Too close. Too forceful. The air thick with something ugly.
I pause.
If my friends were with me, I would’ve stepped in. Of course I would have. Flash a grin. Throw a witty line. Let Joshua loom behind me like a moving fortress. Social pressure does wonders. Predators hate witnesses.
But I’m alone.
“It isn’t my responsibility,” I tell myself as I turn away, hugging the plastic-wrapped book to my chest like it’s moral insulation.
It’s pathetic. I know that. But what exactly am I supposed to do? I’m a student. They’re adults.
So I walk…
And walk…
And walk…
—Until she screams.
That sound slices through every excuse I’ve constructed. I pivot so fast I nearly drop the book.
“There’s no excuse!” I mutter as I sprint back.
I’m supposed to be amazing. Dazzling. The guy who steps up. So what the hell am I doing?
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I skid around the corner—
—and stop.
Both men are already down.
One is slumped unconscious against a trash bin. The other struggles weakly while Shin—scrawny first-year—has his arm locked around the guy’s neck in a chokehold.
No shouting. No rage.
His face is pale but calm.
Just controlled pressure.
Efficient leverage on the carotid artery.
The kind of thing you’d learn from a self-defense manual or some random documentary. His stance shifts slightly, redistributing weight, making sure the hold stays tight without wasting strength.
The man’s flailing slows.
Stops.
Shin releases him and exhales softly, like he just finished solving a tricky math problem.
It’s ridiculous.
A first-year against two grown adults…?
Granted, they’re not exactly gym monsters, but still—!
Then he looks up and notices me.
“You… you’re the weird guy from the next class—” I start.
That’s when I see it—
A switchblade buried in his thigh.
Blood seeps through his pants in a slow, dark stain. Not spraying. So the artery’s probably fine. Lucky.
Or calculated.
“I—I’ll call for help—!”
He nods once. “That’ll be great…” His voice is thin, tired. “While you’re at it, can you take care of her for a bit?”
His eyes shift. I follow.
The girl sits against the opposite wall, shaking. Even now, safe, she looks at him like she’s not sure what he is.
My hands start shaking too. I fumble for my phone. It takes actual effort to steady my fingers.
That guy doesn’t have charisma. Doesn’t have influence. Doesn’t have backup. He doesn’t have anything I have in my life that made it easy to traverse society.
So why?
Why does he move before I do?
Why does he decide before the fear finishes forming?
He isn’t reckless. I can see that much. The chokehold. The distance he kept. Accepting injury as a statistical risk rather than pretending it wouldn’t happen.
I don’t even think he acted out of emotion.
Which somehow makes it worse.
I still don’t know why he did it.
For someone who claims he wants to live efficiently, stepping into a fight with two adults while armed with nothing but a brain and questionable life expectancy is wildly out of character.
He is—
A madman.
And I respect that madman.
Out of the four of us… he might be the only one who was already becoming a Hero before this world ever called us that.
“Get out of here.”
I move toward the Covenant, hand hovering over the floating keyboard. There’s no immediate reason for panic on my part. My survival odds are fine—adequate training, adequate reflexes. But my attention flicks involuntarily to Genovefa, who stayed beside me instead of following the others out to fetch help.
“And let you do this alone?” she snaps, though the edge in her voice carries more familiarity than anger. She flips through Giasone’s diary with surprising dexterity, pages whispering beneath her fingers. “We should attempt to decipher it together. If we succeed in opening it, the contents may aid Bella and the others. Besides…” She glances toward the sealed courtyard beyond the windows. “I do not feel particularly safe venturing outside with those who seek help. Not yet.”
Right. Those bandits.
Coordinated. Precise. Bold enough to deploy a demonic barrier during a royal academy’s graduation ceremony. They might not know we’re specifically here for the Covenant, but any competent planner would anticipate the possibility of outside interference.
Anyone escaping the barrier would seek help.
Which means—
Anyone leaving the grounds might get intercepted.
Demonic barriers suppress normal Magical Energy inside their field. That much is known. However, the continent isn’t completely stupid. Certain contingency tools exist—artifacts capable of bypassing suppression effects.
Unfortunately those are restricted to official reeves and military officers.
Leyni might possess something like that… though she was only knighted recently. Belladonna might as well, but she came here for a celebration, not a battlefield.
The probability seems… low.
Meaning—
Outside isn’t necessarily safer than inside.
Tch.
This Covenant better contain something useful…
“Alright. But once it opens, you move to safety if possible. Understood?”
“Fear not.” She opens the diary and looks at me with steady resolve. “I have not forgotten my duties as a princess.”
I can’t help the small smile that slips out.
Partly because of her conviction—unchanged since two years ago during that other abduction incident. Mostly because the absurdity of the situation borders on comedy. Everything is collapsing around us, yet we’re calmly standing here trying to solve a mathematical puzzle left behind by a mad Hero.
Alright.
Focus.
Okay… Shin. No supercomputer. Complex mathematical problem. How do you approach it?
Giasone’s diary… useless in the most infuriating way possible. Pages filled with fascination toward absurdly large numbers. Casual references to Archimedes. Trivial notes. Not a single explicit hint about the actual riddle.
A hobbyist obsessed with scale.
Brilliant.
Maddening.
The riddle itself surfaces in my mind, and the moment I recall the final quantity it asks for, the sheer magnitude of the required calculation presses against my thoughts like a gravitational well.
Genovefa tugs my sleeve.
She leans close to my side—close enough that I nearly jump before realizing she simply wants me to look at something in the diary. Her finger points to a line:
Its lock shall be the modified Guardian of All, infused with a mathematical problem framed as a riddle.
“Hey… perhaps it does not require a purely numerical answer,” she says thoughtfully. “It is framed as a riddle, after all. And the interface contains letters, not solely numbers, as Ray and Joshua observed earlier. What think you?”
Hmm.
She’s right.
Riddles are games. Designed traps for rigid thinkers. Their entire purpose is to force participants to step outside the obvious frame of reference.
Giasone—the eccentric Hero responsible for this—was clever. Possibly insane. But not irrational.
Framing the challenge as a riddle grants interpretive freedom. Multiple possible routes toward the solution.
Ray and Joshua did attempt expressing the astronomical value using words earlier but… they failed.
Meaning at least—
“It does say we have to calculate. The first paragraph says so. So the final answer should at least reflect a numerical quantity precisely,” I say with half-grimace.
She frowns. “New problem.”
Damn right. But we’re moving.
The eye necessarily perceives accordingly as it is equipped; erroneous impressions are corrected by the judgment of intellect—as James Joyce puts it. In other words, the brain exists precisely to yell at the eyes when they fall for something stupid. So the trick here is obvious: stop staring at the riddle’s surface and start asking what it’s pretending to be.
…
The riddle. Even when I refuse to recall it, my brain drags it back anyway.
If you are diligent and wise, O Hero, calculate the number of s?hrímnir and heierun belonging to the All-Father—
Hold on a minute…
Giasone’s diary flashes through my memory like someone flipping a card in a deck. The Sand Reckoner… Obsession with absurdly large numbers… Archimedes…
This riddle—
“…Isn’t this just the Problema Bovinum?”
“Huh?”
“Oh—right. Of course you wouldn’t know.” I rub the bridge of my nose. “It’s a… very bizarre mathematical problem from my world. Less a problem and more a prank. One of the very first prominent historical troll aimed at a scholar named Eratosthenes.”
Genovefa blinks twice, clearly attempting to process several foreign concepts at once. “A… troll? Pray cease with these strange expressions and speak plainly!”
“That is the simplest explanation, Your Highness. The longer version involves ancient mathematicians, competitive intellect, and a rather unhealthy fascination with cattle.”
Her eyes widen. “Then you know the answer?!”
“Not exactly.”
Which is the problem.
The realization itself is a massive leap. It literally is just the Problema Bovinum. That said, that just made it the problem all the more insane.
The Cattle Problem—as what normies calls it—balloons into numbers so grotesquely large that modern mathematicians had to throw an actual supercomputer at it. The final answer alone filled dozens of pages when printed. Forty-two. Or forty-seven, depending on the formatting. Later compressed to twelve pages.
Twelve A4 sheets of nothing but digits.
That’s still ridiculous.
I know the digit count of the final answer. That little trivia nugget is stuck in my memory. But memorizing the entire number? Even someone with excellent recall taps out somewhere after a dozen digits.
Even the shortened mathematical expression is a numerical eldritch horror.
Giasone wanted the Covenant opened by the next generation of Heroes. There is no universe where he expects someone to memorize two hundred thousand digits like a deranged calculator.
Even madmen eventually compromise with reality.
So—
I tense slightly.
Genovefa steps away from my shoulder, giving me space. “Have you discovered something?”
“Trying something.”
I type.
47 pages worth of digits.
The interface glows red.
Wrong.
42 pages—
Red again.
12—
Red.
More variations.
Red.
Right, of course. The number of pages is a byproduct of formatting, printing standards, font size. Too arbitrary. The riddle explicitly says we must calculate. The answer must reflect the magnitude of the result itself—not the editorial preferences of whoever prints it.
My fingers hover above the floating keyboard while my brain tries to outrun itself. Come on. This is precisely the moment intellect is supposed to justify its existence!
A muffled clash echoes from outside.
Both of us flinch.
Steel striking steel.
Belladonna and the others have started fighting.
Genovefa suddenly grabs my coat sleeve. “P—phrases.” Her grip trembles before steadying. “The scholars attempted phrases as answers as well… though to no avail.”
Phrases. Right.
If someone did know the final result of the Problema Bovinum—and if Giasone assumed otherworldly Heroes might eventually deduce it—how would one phrase the answer while still honoring the fact that it’s a calculated quantity?
…
!
I feel like I got hit by a massive wave of epiphany—like I’ve tapped into the field invisible to the eye. A strange sensation follows immediately after, as if some hidden pattern suddenly snaps into alignment. The feeling reminds me of a handful of odd experiments from my world—like the McDougall Water Maze, the 1983 BBC Experiment, even David Bohm’s Holomovement.
Moments where knowledge seems to travel faster than logic.
As if the brain briefly dips into something deeper than conscious reasoning.
Which is… unsettling.
Why does this feel familiar?
No.
Don’t get distracted.
I type again.
Not the digits themselves. The fact those digits represent.
The number of beasts vastly stretches to 206,545 all digits strong.
For one suspended heartbeat, nothing happens.
Then the entire floating interface blooms green.
The Covenant hisses, its lid lifting slowly on its own.
I turn just in time to see Genovefa already gripping my arm tightly.
“Be well,” she says quickly. “I shall attempt to slip through the chaos and bring the officials here.”
I nod and she releases me promptly, bolting outta here.
Silence returns to the chamber. The Covenant sits open before me.
“Well then…”
I step forward.
“Let’s see if this thing was worth the effort.”
“Surround the barrier!” Belladona calls out, and we move in coordinated cells—Ray, Joshua, and I falling into a tight triangular formation, shoulders squared and spacing calibrated for mutual support.
Bandits begin pouring out from the edge of the crimson barrier.
So they did anticipate someone slipping out to call for help.
“Don’t let them reach the liaisons!” Leyni roars.
She charges first.
Two attackers rush her. One thrusts low with a spear. Instead of stopping the strike, Leyni turns her hatchet sideways and catches the shaft just above the spearhead, guiding the momentum past her hip. At the same time she pivots sharply, snapping a front kick into the guard of the second bandit’s sword.
Steel jerks sideways. The man stumbles.
Her counter comes instantly.
She steps forward, the spike of her hatchet driving into the first bandit’s thigh. The blade slides upward along the muscle. The man collapses before the scream finishes forming.
“Light armor!” She shouts. “They rely upon numbers, not protection!”
Joshua answers with action.
He leaps.
When he lands, the ground shudders beneath his boots. Earth surges through the soil and a thick wall of stone erupts upward like a rising cliff.
Several bandits slam straight into it. Others—faster, more experienced—scramble up the rough surface, vaulting over the top.
Ray clicks his tongue. “Mark!”
I reverse my grip on my daggers and cross my arms in a sharp X. “On it.”
Electricity ignites across my skin.
Normally I fire the charge outward. This time I keep it contained, letting the current coil through my muscles like a battery charging to capacity.
Then I release.
The discharge launches me skyward.
Ten meters up in less than two seconds.
The wind snaps against my coat as I crest the arc. I redirect the stored energy into the soles of my boots, forcing a focused electrical arc downward. The reaction converts cleanly into thrust, pulling me into a controlled descent.
Below, one of the bandits spins toward me. “What—?!”
I land beside him, driving a dagger toward his neck—but the tip glances off his chainmail’s links. I’d held back on reinforcing my arm to maintain speed, so instead of forcing it, I pivot on my back foot. My other dagger sweeps low, its edge finding the gap between his greave and tunic to slice across his shin. As he buckles, I shift my grip again to a forward hold and drive the blade into the soft tissue just below his cuirass’s side plate.
I shove him back with my boot, then throw one dagger at a charging bandit—aiming not for a kill, but to force them to deflect with their own blade. The distraction is enough: a massive stone fist crashes down from above. Joshua’s construct pulverizes him into the dirt.
I turn.
Ray is already in the middle of four bandits.
He fights the way he always does—loud, aggressive, but never sloppy. Broad swings that look reckless until you notice the footwork. He shifts laterally after every contact, forcing his opponents to constantly readjust.
One bandit lunges.
Ray catches the sword on the crossguard of his short sword, binding the blade just long enough to guide it past his ribs. He steps off-line and answers with a thrust that punches cleanly into the man’s upper arm.
Another attacker swings high.
Ray ducks under it, slapping the blade aside with the back of his gauntlet before driving the hilt of his weapon straight into the man’s temple.
No Magic Skill.
Just body enhancement and ruthless timing.
“Heh… As expected… Never change.”
I freeze as I sense massive wave of killing intent.
A bandit with green hair—no mask—bursts through the chaos, blade already mid-swing.
F—fast…!
I start to raise my arms to guard, but steel armor flashes first: Belladonna steps in, her longsword angled to catch the man’s blade just above the ricasso. She uses a mutazione parry, turning her wrist to redirect his thrust rather than meet it head-on—but he maintains his momentum, driving forward to lock their blades together, his grip shifting to gain mechanical advantage.
“The eldest princess herself?!” he snarls, eyes blazing with fanatic delight. “Against us folk cast aside by your system? WHAT AN HONOR!”
Belladonna’s stance doesn’t break. Her back foot plants firmly. She pivots, breaking the bind before snapping a sharp front kick into his torso—aimed precisely at the gap below his breastplate. Not meant to cripple. Just enough force to create space.
“This is not justice for your cause,” she says coldly. “It is terrorism. Innocents will suffer.”
“You mean those noble—”
Before he can finish his retort, Ray slides in from his blind side, moving along the line of least resistance to drive his short-sword for the man’s ribs. The bandit reacts instantly, drawing a dagger from his belt with his off-hand to intercept the thrust, the two blades clashing with a sharp crack.
“And the so-called Heroes…!” he snarls, twisting his wrist and shoving Ray backward with surprising strength. His main blade whirls in a wide molinello, forcing Ray to disengage before the arc can bite. “Still young for combat. But you’ll do!”
I feel so stressed out already. Maybe we bit off more than we can chew.
But that doesn’t change the objective.
We just need to stall.
Buy time.
Either for reinforcements to arrive—
or for Shin to finish whatever absurd calculation he’s doing back there.
Then we clear these bandits.
Then we deal with the ones inside the barrier.
Assuming this doesn’t spiral into a full hostage disaster first.
…
A quiet chuckle escapes me despite the tension.
Shin… we’re waiting!
Doing commission works while juggling college and video editing really got me fcked up bruhhhhhh. Anyway, here is some elite ball references:
- ”Field invisible to the eye” (Morphogenetic Field—specifically Rupert Sheldrake's resonance from non-local Morphic Fields) -
- 1983 BBC experiment conducted by Rupert Sheldrake -
- The McDougall Water Maze Experiment -
- Holomovement - &
- James Joyce’s quote is from his novel Ulysses - Go find your own copy!