[551] Code Decomposition (4)
"Miro…?"
A face Shirone could never forget came into view.
They had fought the heavens' armies together, but because they operated in different areas, Shirone hadn't even known she was alive.
"Long time no see. How have you been?"
It was their second meeting since Shirone had encountered Miro in the rift.
The holy aura from before had been replaced by a solid, tangible presence, but her beauty remained unchanged.
"What's going on? Why are you here, Miro…?"
"Sit. You've been starving for a good while."
As if in reply, a rumble sounded from Miro's stomach.
Miro sat without a word and set a bowl of herb porridge in front of him.
"Eat. There's plenty."
"Thank you. I'll enjoy it."
On the verge of going mad from hunger, Shirone scooped a large spoonful and shoved it into his mouth.
It tasted awful.
A bitterness beyond imagining hit him, and the porridge flowed back into the bowl like a waterfall.
Miro propped her chin on her hands and gave him a wry smile.
"What's wrong? Your jaw bother you?"
"Um… is this some kind of medicine? Is it supposed to cure me?"
"No. It's just my breakfast."
Shirone was at a loss for words. Miro reached toward the bowl.
"If you don't want it, leave it for later."
"No, no!"
Shirone hurriedly swallowed the bitter gruel.
As he ate he wondered if she'd simply been concerned about the state of his long-starved stomach, but maybe that was just Miro's idea of food.
At least the feeling of something going into his stomach was satisfying.
While he ate, Miro told him what had happened—what had occurred in the heavens, how she and Teraje had cooperated to enter the Apocalypse to rescue Shirone from the debt tagged by the Valhalla Action, and so on.
"Rian…"
Shirone felt a sting behind his nose.
An under coder's copies had no link to memory, but the image of Rian risking his life to fight flashed through his mind like something he had seen with his own eyes.
"Rian had it rough. Though I had it worse, of course."
When Miro smiled crookedly, Shirone realized his slip and added, "Ah—thank you. You too, and Marsha-unnie and Fermi. I owe debts I can't handle."
"Right. But you'll have to handle them soon enough."
Shirone finished the bowl and set it down, blinking.
"Handle, you say…?"
"Did you think I saved you for free? Come on. There are things you have to do from now on."
Miro left the bowl where it was and stepped out of the hut.
When Shirone followed, a crisp late-summer mountain view spread before them.
"Where is this?"
"What do you mean where? This is where you're going to roll around like an animal."
"Roll around like an animal?"
Miro didn't answer and led him to a small training hall behind the hut.
Inside the wooden building, candles were lined along the walls and there were only two cushions—nothing else.
"Sit. Follow closely what I teach you."
Shirone sat across from Miro, but his thoughts were in a whirlwind.
It had been only two hours since he escaped the Valhalla Action debt.
He still couldn't believe he'd come back alive from the heavens, and above all he pictured his parents' and friends' faces waiting for him.
"Are we training?"
"Probably. You don't want to?"
"No, not at all, but…"
Shirone asked cautiously, "Could I at least contact my family?"
Miro's smile hardened instantly.
"Don't get cocky, Shirone."
With a whoosh, the candles tilted in unison toward Shirone.
Facing those catlike eyes, he swallowed involuntarily.
"Whatever you experienced in the heavens is over. What's left is the Magic Academy's graduation exam. Competitors are training fiercely right now. Or what—do you really think your current skill is enough to graduate just like that?"
Shirone, lost in thought, looked straight at Miro and answered, "Yes."
Miro's expression softened and she let out a breath.
"That's right. To be honest, I thought so too."
Shirone's magic had improved by leaps and bounds in the heavens.
Her certainty that he could hold his own in the graduating class wasn't arrogance or wishful thinking, but a coldly accurate assessment of his state.
"You're strong. Among your peers, there's almost no one to compare you to. Sure, the Valhalla Action is sealed for now, but it's a function installed in Armand, so it's separate from the graduation exam."
Shirone waited calmly for her to continue.
"You can probably graduate. But that doesn't guarantee you'll become a mage."
"What do you mean?"
"Exactly what I said. The graduation exam only decides whether you graduate; what happens after—what institutions hire you and what life you lead as a mage—is entirely up to scouts' evaluations."
"I heard that from Professor Collie. That's why following the graduation-class schedule is an individual choice."
"Exactly. And let me be blunt…"
Miro twisted her lips slightly. "You won't be able to become the kind of mage you want."
Shirone's eyes widened.
"A mage…?"
"More precisely, the mage you want to be. Graduating Alpheas School of Magic will earn you an unaccredited certificate. You could become a mercenary, you could join the Black Line. But don't even dream of becoming a certified mage in the Association or rising to a high post in a kingdom's magic bureau."
It felt as if his heart had been set on fire and his insides flipped.
"Why?"
"Because you killed a god."
"..."
"What can I say—the world is run by a few rulers. Powers in each country are watching you. Teraje won't abandon you, but she's only one of the Three Emperors in the crusade. Do you think the other two will sit idle? I guarantee you'll be dragged into political struggles, used, bled dry, and then thrown away."
It didn't feel like fiction; it probably was the truth.
Miro had endured the scrutiny of the world's leaders through the Twenty Judgments—she spoke from experience.
"See reality now? I sealed myself behind a dimensional wall and stayed hidden for twenty years. It was my choice, but if I'd refused I'd have died—my whole clan would've been wiped out, like mine was."
Shirone suppressed the urge to cry.
"You're the strongest Banya who repelled the heavenly army. That's my title. As an individual I'm strong enough. But Shirone, countries sit above people. Systems are stronger than force. Even that Gaold you know hid for twenty years to save me."
"…So what should I do from now on?"
"Get stronger."
Miro's answer was simple.
"Graduation isn't the main issue. No state will step in until you graduate. Teraje will use her influence, of course. The real storm comes after you graduate. By then you must be strong enough to at least protect your own body."
The cluttered thoughts in Shirone's head cleared.
"I'll teach you the mage stuff later. But that's after you get stronger."
"Yes. I understand. I'll start right away."
Miro liked how quickly he shifted gears and laid out a plan.
"I'll guide you, but honestly, the thing you must focus on most while you're with me isn't magic."
Shirone tilted his head. "Other than magic, what is it?"
"Avatar technique."
It was the avatar technique taught by the strongest human Banya.
"Everyone has an avatar. They just don't realize it. And even if they do, mastering it as a technique is another matter."
Miro demonstrated.
An avatar of the watchful Kannon began to rise behind her, and twelve arms unfurled like petals.
"This is—"
"Thousand-Armed Kannon. If a Banya manifests their avatar outside the body through mental transcendence, the Banya's will can then influence the world's laws."
When Miro widened her eyes, the Kannon's arms lashed forward.
Shirone hadn't even reacted until the arm seemed to pierce his palms; his heart hammered a beat too late.
"If that had actually struck you, you'd have died."
Shirone nodded, expression hard.
"So far, that was just a mental effect. Mental transcendence simply materializes that effect. You could call it a technique, but—"
Miro closed her eyes, and the Kannon avatar began to swell.
It filled the training hall; Shirone gaped up at the ceiling.
"With practice, you can do this too."
Mental transcendence—oneness of self and world.
When Miro and the Kannon brought their hands together, hundreds of candles popped out at once.
The smell of burnt wicks seeped through the air; nobody spoke.
The wall flashed, and Miro reappeared, relighting each candle one by one.
"How did you do that?"
"Simple. The number of Kannon arms matched the number of wicks, so each arm took a wick. You just didn't see it."
"So an avatar's power can affect objects too?"
"Not anyone can do it. Avatars differ from person to person and have unique traits. There are limits of level, and I only applied it using scale magic."
Miro ignited all the candles with Ignite and sat down.
"The basis of avatar technique is strengthening the avatar. There are many methods, but to keep it simple and not get lost in extremes, we'll use the number-sequence method."
"Yes. I learned the sequence method too."
Miro snorted softly. "What the Academy teaches is things like zero-to-hundred timings. Avatars are on another level."
Her finger drew a quick line in the air.
"The zero-to-hundred—the speed of the sequence—increases mental power. It uses the concentration of counting to a hundred in a second. Therefore, unless the speed keeps increasing, mental power doesn't grow without limit."
Shirone had experienced that during practical exams.
"On the other hand, what matters in avatar technique is the sheer magnitude of numbers. You graft numerical scale onto the avatar. Try it. Since you're Banya, it should be easier to apply."
"All right, I'll try."
Shirone took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
Entering mental transcendence, the afterimage of an angel with wings of light appeared.
Strengthen this with the sequence method, he thought.
Using the modularization he'd learned at school, he blasted past zero-to-hundred in an instant, surging into the thousands, then the tens of thousands.
Still not enough, he thought.
Around the five-minute mark, Miro yawned.
There was no way to know how far one had to count for the avatar to strengthen.
Then—driven by stubbornness—Shirone opened his Immortal Function.
He didn't expand it fully—the recklessness of surpassing numbers outright was dangerous—but he boosted the magnitude exponentially.
Shirone's avatar began to take shape; the afterimage faded and a clear outline formed.
"Ugh!"
At that moment, having fallen out of the sequence, Shirone let out a rough breath.
"Not bad. If you'd pulled it off on the first try I'd have been impressed. So—how far did you count?"
Steadying his breath, Shirone fumbled for the memory.
"Um—fifty-eight billion, three hundred eighty-seven million, two hundred ten thousand…"
"All right, stop."
Miro cut him off as soon as the first digits came out.
"You're late, but that's not the point—ten minutes is too little. At that rate you can't handle an avatar."
"How far did you get, then, Miro?"
"Me? Hmm. I didn't really use the sequence method. For example, when I put out the candles just now…"
Miro folded her arms and thought.
"I probably passed gyeong."
"Gyeong…?"
It was beyond any scale a human could reasonably count.
"Why the surprise? That's the level you need to reach over the break."
Shirone's face went pale.
"Me? I have to reach that?"
"You can. I'll help."
Miro, though a talent unprecedented in human history, didn't offer blind assurance.
"I won't say it's easy. But you can't be scared from the start. You've stepped into that world now."
Miro recalled a recent event.
"There was a time in the heavens when I had to stop Satan. It took a while, but I delivered the decisive strike. If you tried to express that avatar technique with the sequence method, what level do you think it would be?"
Shirone couldn't even imagine and shook his head. Miro raised a finger.
"One."
"One?"
"Bulgasaui."
It was an inconceivable unit.
Shirone began to count the way he'd seen in books.
Jo, gyeong, hae, ja, yang, gu, gan, jeong, jae, geuk, hanghasa, aseunggi, nayuta.
As the units climbed, his pupils rolled upward.
"Bulgasaui…"
It was bulgasaui—10 to the 64th power.