“Bell Lucas.”
Antinoia stood before the rickety wooden door, holding a silk handkerchief she had produced from somewhere tightly over her nose and mouth.
Her eyes, the only part of her face visible, were practically screaming the words “Are you kidding me?”
“Are you sure this is a club activity room? And not the slop disposal room for the academy cafeteria?”
She lifted a foot.
Her expensive lambskin high heels hovered in mid-air, unable to find a single clean spot to land.
The floor was covered in crumpled waste paper.
There were even the corpses of several unknown insects, flattened and stuck to the floorboards.
“This is the place you said would overturn the common knowledge of the magic world?”
Antinoia’s voice was muffled by the handkerchief, sounding a bit nasal.
But the sheer sense of disgust radiating from her could be smelled from two meters away.
Bell shrugged.
Ignoring the young lady’s germaphobia, he turned and pulled Tia, who had been standing quietly behind him.
“Come on in.”
Tia nodded obediently.
Her long silver hair swayed with her movement, the ends brushing against the dust accumulated on the doorframe.
Not a speck of dirt stuck to it.
This was the benefit of Mithril.
Not only was it completely magic-immune, but it was also dust-proof.
“Ow! Com... Coming!”
A tragic cry came from inside the room.
Then followed a series of loud crashes and clatters.
It sounded like someone had kicked over a stool and then knocked over a bookshelf.
Horn Montfoss, sporting a head of blue hair as messy as if he’d been struck by lightning, came stumbling out.
He was clutching a single sock in his hand.
Seeing the people standing at the door,
Horn froze.
The sock in his hand fell to the floor with a soft thud.
“An... Antinoia?!”
His voice was trembling.
It was as if he had seen a ghost. Or rather, as if he had seen a god.
In the Aqua Branch, and even in the entire Royal Magic Academy,
the name Antinoia Milia represented “authority.”
She was a walking database, a humanoid grimoire.
And he, Horn,
was a loser who couldn't even get enough credits, whose club was about to shut down, and who was cursed at by instructors as “academic trash.”
The two of them
were like the clouds in the sky and the mud on the ground.
They had absolutely nothing to do with each other.
“He... Hello!”
Horn bowed abruptly.
The movement was so violent that his glasses flew straight off and hooked onto a nearby skeleton model.
“I’m Horn! Horn Montfoss! I’m... I’m the president here!”
Antinoia frowned.
She didn't look at Horn.
Instead, she turned to Bell.
Her gaze was ice-cold.
“Explain.”
“Did you trick me into coming here just to see this idiot who can’t even put on his pants properly?”
Horn’s face instantly turned the color of pig liver.
He looked down.
Only then did he realize he only had a sock on one foot; the other foot was bare, his toes awkwardly curling against the floor.
“Don’t be in such a hurry.”
Bell smiled.
He bent down, picked up the sock Horn had dropped, and tossed it into the trash can in the corner.
Then he walked to the wall covered in charts.
He pointed to the diagram in the very center.
“Take a look at this.”
Antinoia was somewhat impatient.
But out of her recognition of Bell’s skill in “building a Gundam,” she still forced herself to move her esteemed feet and walk over.
With just one look,
her pupils contracted sharply.
It was a coupling diagram regarding soul fluctuations and mana frequency.
It was very crude.
The lines were drawn crookedly.
The data was also handwritten.
But.
That entry point.
That line of thought that treated the soul as a dynamic wave.
“This...”
Antinoia pushed up her glasses.
She reached out, wanting to touch the diagram, yet afraid of smudging the data.
“Who calculated this?”
Her voice changed.
That high and mighty arrogance vanished.
In its place was a fanaticism that came from seeing a peerless treasure.
“I... I just calculated it randomly.”
Horn shrunk into the corner, muttering in a small voice.
He had already retrieved his glasses and perched them on the bridge of his nose, but he still didn't dare look at Antinoia.
“Randomly?”
Antinoia turned around abruptly.
She stared intently at Horn.
“What kind of joke is that?”
“You call this calculating randomly?!”
Horn flinched at her shout.
He almost fell to his knees.
“I... I’m self-taught...”
“I read the paper you published in 《Truth Daily》 about mana fluids...”
“I thought that model could be applied to the soul...”
Horn’s voice grew smaller and smaller as he spoke.
Like a child who had done something wrong.
Antinoia froze.
She looked at the messy, timid boy before her.
Her gaze was complex.
That paper.
She had written it three years ago.
At the time, it had been torn to shreds by countless authoritative instructors, who said she was being whimsical.
She hadn't expected
that in this corner full of trash,
someone would not only understand it,
but actually put it to use.
“Where’s a pen?”
Antinoia suddenly reached out her hand.
“Huh?” Horn was dazed.
“I asked you where the pen is!”
Antinoia shouted.
Horn scrambled to find a quill from the messy table and handed it over.
Antinoia snatched it.
She immediately began performing calculations in the blank space of the diagram on the wall.
“This part is wrong.”
“The variables here need to introduce a time axis.”
“And here, the decay rate of the soul cannot be used as a constant...”
She muttered as she wrote.
She had entered a state of complete madness.
Horn stood to the side.
At first, he didn't dare speak.
But as he watched,
his brow began to furrow.
“Um... Junior.”
Horn spoke up weakly.
“If you introduce a time axis, the entire model will collapse.”
The pen in Antinoia’s hand paused.
She whipped her head around.
“What did you say?”
“I... I mean...”
Horn swallowed hard.
But as soon as it involved his field of expertise, the cowardice in his eyes vanished.
In its place was a stubborn determination.
“The soul has no concept of time.”
“It only has states.”
“If you forcibly introduce time, a paradox will occur.”
Horn stepped forward.
He took the pen from Antinoia’s hand.
Next to that formula, he drew a strange symbol.
“You should use this.”
“Phase.”
Antinoia stared at that symbol for a full minute.
Then.
She took a deep breath.
She tore the silk handkerchief off her face and threw it on the floor.
“Bell.”
She called out without turning her head.
“Where is the club application form?”
“I’m signing it right now.”
...
Half a month later.
Soul Research Club.
If it weren't for the still-crooked plaque at the door,
no one would believe this was the same place.
The floor was polished to a shine, enough to see one’s reflection.
All the instruments were neatly categorized and wiped clean of any dust.
Even the trash can in the corner had classification labels stuck on it.
This was Antinoia’s doing.
At this moment,
Horn was hunched over the table, observing something on the test bench.
He was muttering to himself.
Antinoia sat opposite him, holding a stack of data with her brow tightly furrowed.
“Senior.”
Antinoia spoke.
She didn't call him “idiot,” nor did she call him “hey.”
Instead, she dutifully called him Senior.
“The data for this peak is still wrong.”
“No matter how I calculate it, it’s off by a bit.”
Horn didn't even look up.
“That’s emotional interference.”
“Plug yesterday’s temperature and humidity in, then subtract the resentment value of that dead mouse.”
Antinoia was stunned for a moment.
She picked up her pen and calculated quickly.
Her brow relaxed.
“You’re right.”
In the gaze she directed at Horn, there was an added trace of awe.
In the field of the soul,
she, Antinoia, was a top student.
But Horn
was a god.
Bell sat on a lounge chair by the window, holding a cup of coffee.
He was comfortably soaking up the sun.
Tia sat on a small stool next to him.
Holding a rag in her hand,
she was seriously wiping Bell’s leather boots, which didn't even have any dust on them.
That was the “task” Bell had given her.
It was to give her a sense of participation, so she wouldn't just sit there like a wooden doll.
“Bell.”
Horn suddenly looked up.
He pushed up his glasses.
His gaze landed on Tia.
It carried a hint of inquiry.
“Your girlfriend...”
“She’s really special.”
Bell’s hand paused.
The coffee almost spilled.
“How so?”
Bell asked calmly.
“She’s too quiet.”
Horn pointed to the instrument on the table.
It was a soul wave detector used to detect soul fluctuations.
Normally, as long as someone approached, the needle would jump around.
But as Tia sat there,
the needle didn't budge an inch.
It was as if she were a rock.
Or...
a piece of metal.
“And.”
Horn narrowed his eyes.
“Her soul frequency.”
“It’s too stable.”
“So stable it doesn't seem human.”
“It’s more like...”
Horn paused.
He pulled a new blueprint from under the table.
On it was drawn a complex double helix structure.
“It’s more like code that has been artificially edited.”
“Perfect.”
Rate on N.U.
