Flat hung up the phone, stuffed it back into his pocket, and hummed a tuneless little melody as he walked toward the front desk.
He booked another room at the front desk, right across from the original one.
When he received the key card, he specifically asked, "How's the soundproofing?" only to receive a meaningful look from the front desk lady and a guarantee: "Don't you worry, young man, our soundproofing here is top-notch."
Flat blinked, not quite understanding what that look meant, but he smiled and thanked her anyway.
As he turned toward the elevator, his mind began to calculate other matters.
The Professor had mentioned on the phone that the students from the class had run off to Snowfield City.
Thirty people acting as a Master for a single Servant.
"Pfft."
Flat couldn't help himself and laughed out loud again.
The elevator doors opened with a 'ding'. He stepped inside, pressed the floor button, and leaned against the car wall, watching the numbers jump up floor by floor.
He imagined the scene: thirty students from the El-Melloi Class surrounding one Servant, all talking at once to discuss tactics, arguing over the distribution of Command Spells, and fighting over who would be the commander-in-chief.
Just thinking about it felt lively.
"I wonder whose Servant it is..." Flat muttered softly. "Maybe we'll even get to meet."
The elevator stopped at his floor.
The hallway was quiet, save for the faint hum of the central air conditioning vents.
He walked to Olga Marie's door, stopped, and sensed the surroundings first.
A massive, almost terrifying amount of Magical Energy was converging from all directions, like a tide drawn by an invisible vortex, continuously surging into the space behind this door.
The free-floating Mana in the atmosphere, the Mana flowing through the underground Ley Lines, and even those imperceptible Mana particles were all flowing toward this spot.
Standing at the door, Flat could feel a slight tingling sensation on the surface of his skin—a physical reaction caused by the high-concentration Magical Energy environment.
He raised his hand, his fingertips tracing a few phantom strokes in the air.
Pale gold Magic Circuit Patterns flashed briefly before quickly settling down.
"The Barrier is still functioning..." Flat nodded. "Good thing I set it up in advance, otherwise such a huge disturbance would definitely have been discovered."
He thought about it, then raised his hand and knocked gently on the door.
"Miss Olga Marie? I'm back."
There was no response from inside.
The trajectory of the Magical Energy flow didn't waver in the slightest, indicating that the person inside had heard him but simply didn't care to respond.
Flat didn't mind. He opened his newly booked room, took a quick look around—it was almost identical to the one across the hall except for the color of the bedsheets—then stepped back out. He walked to Olga Marie's door, gripped the handle, and gave it a light twist.
The scene inside the room hadn't changed much since he left.
Olga Marie was still sitting upright in the only chair, eyes closed, her silvery-white hair draping over her shoulders with the ends nearly touching the floor.
Flat's gaze didn't linger on her for too long.
His eyes fell upon the things that were "flowing."
Magical Energy.
Invisibly to the naked eye, but through his Mystic Eyes, their existence was clearly visible, converging into thin streams of light that meandered toward Olga Marie.
Then, the moment they touched her body, they were drawn in, compressed, refined, and merged inside the body.
Once those streams of light entered her body, they flowed along specific paths into the Saint Graph.
Flat narrowed his eyes, observing closely.
The cracks on the Saint Graph were being glued back together and reinforced bit by bit.
The process was very slow, yet also very fast.
"Hmm..."
Flat let out a meaningless syllable and sat down on the edge of the bed.
He just sat there, hands propped at his sides, body leaning slightly forward, staring at Olga Marie without blinking.
To be precise, he was staring at the trajectories of the Magical Energy flow and the subtle fluctuations produced as Olga Marie's Saint Graph repaired itself.
"So that's how it is..."
He whispered to himself, his fingers unconsciously tracing patterns on the bedsheet, simulating the trajectories of those Mana flows.
"The flow is a bit sluggish here... is it because the Saint Graph damage has narrowed the Mana channels?"
"The repair speed here is clearly slower than in other parts..."
"Hmm... this fluctuation frequency..."
Flat was engrossed.
He was born with an extraordinary perception and understanding of Magecraft, Mana, and all things anomalous.
At the Clock Tower, he was called a genius, a monster.
He didn't really care.
As long as he could see it, understand it, and manipulate it, that was enough.
The disorganized fragments of knowledge in his mind began to automatically click together and reorganize.
Along with the surface parameters of the Saint Graph he had sensed in that brief moment when he touched Olga Marie's horns...
"If..."
Flat murmured to himself.
"If I could intervene in this process..."
A flash of inspiration suddenly struck his mind, and a thought formed.
A very bold, very crazy, and very likely death-defying thought.
Why not try?
Once this thought appeared, it could no longer be suppressed.
Flat stood up from the bed, the excitement in his eyes nearly overflowing.
He walked over to Olga Marie, squatted down, and looked up at her.
Olga Marie's eyes remained closed, her breathing steady and nearly imperceptible.
Only the continuous influx of Magical Energy proved she was in a state of deep repair.
Flat reached out, his fingertips slowly probing toward Olga Marie's hand resting on the armrest.
His movements were very slow and very careful. Just as his fingertips were about to touch the back of Olga Marie's hand.
That hand moved.
Flat didn't even see what happened. He only felt his wrist tighten as a massive force pulled him forward. Immediately after, sharp pain exploded from his wrist, racing along his nerves all the way to his brain.
Flat sucked in a breath of cold air, his entire face contorting in pain.
"Sss—ha—!"
He felt his wrist bones wailing, protesting, screaming a plea of 'it's going to break, it's going to break'.
Olga Marie had opened her eyes at some point.
She had stopped actively guiding the Magical Energy; the Mana in the atmosphere was still automatically converging toward her, just at a much slower pace.
"What are you trying to do?"