“It’s active… I asked for mages with expert knowledge about Black Holes, but can we wait until then…”
Said Lobelia as she looked at the ancient magic stone, with her voice sounding aggravated and weak.
Spirito on the other hand, grabbed one of the beast people neutralized by Qualia by the collar.
“How many did you activate!?”
“…Eh… All I know is that that’s a bomb that’s gonna cause a whole big mess…”
“It’s no good. They were probably told nothing except what part to play.”
Lobelia said to Spirito.
But one Black Hole would be enough to make Lobelia, Spirito, and Ina disappear, along with all the ‘tasty’.
That was bad.
“Lobelia, request more information about the ancient magic stone Black Hole.”
“…Eh?”
“The general idea of ancient magic stones was confirmed in a magic book, but there was not enough information about how to stop them.”
“What are you planning to do?”
“Analyzing situation. It is possible to interfere with the ancient magic stone through external magic energy stimulation.”
Qualia immediately responded to Spirito’s question.
Considering it was a lump of magic energy, even someone with zero magic training like Qualia could influence it by holding out his own magic energy.
Of course, in most cases it would either not react, or worse, malfunction. But that depended on how the magic energy was adjusted.
In fact, the beast people also activated it by stimulating it with a specific magic energy.
That meant that in theory, he could avoid hitting the magic energy that would cause it to malfunction, and use the small reactions as feedback to find the right magic energy to stop it and prevent it from swallowing the capital.
Of course, to do this kind of bomb disarming, one would need the calculation ability to read what seemed like an infinite amount of magic energy reactions, avoid taboo, work out the correct magic energy, have the ability to tell apart magic energy by the millimeter, and have the focus to be able to even work with this overwhelming magic stone.
For Qualia, the artificial intelligence, this kind of hacking was his specialty.
“Qualia will learn the ancient magic stone, and hack it to stop its activation.”
Interfering with a system woven with magic energy, the Black Hole magic stone.
The optimal solution chosen by Qualia was the cyber attack known as hacking that Qualia experienced billions of times as an artificial intelligence.
If he found the correct magic energy to solve this formula and make it flow, victory would be his.
■ ■
“Learning complete.”
Qualia considered what little information he received about Black Holes from Lobelia.
The country analyzed and examined their magic energy composition and constitution, wavelength, and matter when they were under their control,
A lot of unknown factors remained, and it was not enough to reach an optimal solution, but it was enough to find an entry point to calculate an optimal solution.
“W-wait. Are you serious!? If you mess with it with magic energy, even a tiny mistake is going to set it off instantly! And aren’t you a total zero with magic!?”
Spirito interjected, unable to keep watching anymore.
She had a right to be shaken. What Qualia was about to do was like a cyber attack and bomb disposal at the same time. If he failed, the Black Hole would swallow everything immediately.
“Affirmative.”
“Then…”
“But even this hardware has the magic energy to access this magic stone.”
Qualia could not use magic, but that did not make him an irregular that was incapable of understanding it.
Magic energy turning into flames was to him as much of a rule of nature as an apple falling from a tree.
When it came to deciphering these codes, meaning, to unravel the rule of nature, it did not matter if one lacked the qualities to use magic, as long as their nerves could connect to magic energy.
But to start from scratch and find the code to stop an ancient magic stone, one would need the computational abilities to solve a seemingly infinite number of reactions.
“Say something too, big sister!”
“…You can really do it, right Qualia?”
Contrary to her sister, there was no doubt in Lobelia’s voice, she was simply checking what Qualia was about to do.
“That’s not all, is it? You’re going to work out the optimal solution to deal with the other Black Holes scattered around the capital, right?”
“Affirmative. Therefore, rewriting with the 5D printer is not ideal. The 5D printer cannot overwrite matter far away. Therefore, Qualia will hack the Black Hole and search for the optimal solution via magic energy. Furthermore, a method to search for other Black holes is being formulated.
“…Okay.”
Said Lobelia, sounding frank as she sat down on the ground.
“Then here is your first order as a member of Hello World. Save the capital.”
“Understood.”
“W-w-w-wait, big sister!? Why aren’t you stopping him!?”
Spirito sounded flustered as she approached her sister, who still had the same freewheeling and listless air around her.
“If the disposal team of mages arrives, we can do something about this Black Hole. But if there are more scattered around, isn’t that a checkmate for us? I think we should bet on Qualia.”
“Big sister…”
“I’m Qualia’s boss, so I have a responsibility to stay. But you should run, Spirito.”
Despite the way she spoke like a light breeze, the weight of her life being on the line was fully felt.
Spirito also felt this, and dropped her arms like she was exasperated.
“Don’t be silly. Who’s going to look after him if enemies show up while Qualia is working on it? Not to mention that the capital being destroyed is not in any way a reason for me to quit being your guard.”
Spirito put her hand on her sheathed longsword, and also sat down.
Her eyes full of resolve were locked on Qualia.
“And I’m Qualia’s teacher. I have a duty to see through my student’s once in a lifetime huge bet.”
“Thank-you.”
“All right then Qualia. You have the lives of two beautiful girls on your hands, so you gotta do your best here.”
Qualia did not understand the meaning of her light remark, and ignored it as it carried low priority.
He instead faced the ancient magic stone.
“Qualia will commence hacking.”
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