Chapter 13 TSH Vol. 1 Chapter 3 Part 1

Chapter 3 – A Tour of the Temples

“…Huh? …Something’s weird,” a girl muttered, peering into a cylindrical magic tool.

She snapped her gaze away from the tube and began to roughly shuffle through a stack of documents on a nearby desk. The papers were filled with past observation results and calculated projections. The girl’s eyes darted back and forth, comparing tonight’s results with the numbers on the page.

She reached out, grabbed a sweet from a nearby plate, and stuffed it into her cheek, crunching on it loudly. Even as she ate, her gaze remained locked on the sea of numbers scrawled across the documents.

She took a large gulp of tea from a cup at her side, and suddenly, her eyes froze on a single point. The next instant, she let out a magnificent PFFFT!, spraying tea everywhere.

“…Eh? Huh? WHAAAAAT!?”

The girl frantically wiped the tea from her papers, snatched up a pen, and began to calculate with manic intensity. After a moment, she reached her conclusion.

“…It’s off.”

It was off. Her predictive calculations and tonight’s observed results were misaligned, even if only by a fraction. This was the first time anything like this had happened since she’d begun her work.

This was the girl’s private observation hut, tucked away in a remote mountain range. She visited it periodically to continue her watch over the celestial bodies and spacetime itself. A hundred years had already passed since she’d started. She didn’t even remember the exact date anymore.

Inside, magic tools from the Age of the Gods and grimoires straight out of legend were scattered about carelessly. If someone could make off with even a single item from this hut, they would be set for life.

But no one could get in—not the most skilled thief, not even the highest-ranking mage. This hut was an impregnable fortress, protected by a four-layer ward of Invisibility, Repulsion, Defense, and Counter-attack, further fortified by more than ten types of vicious physical and magical traps.

Furthermore, inside the hut were the inorganic magical creatures she had created to serve as watchdogs; a black dog made of obsidian and a white dog made of sacred silver. The two hounds sat in a corner, watching their master’s frantic state with a distinct lack of interest.

The girl, still calculating, suddenly shouted in excitement.

“I knew it! This discrepancy… the origin point is three years ago! I gotta go check this out!”

What she had observed was a rift in spacetime. This tiny anomaly had her eyes shining with a motivation she hadn’t felt in ages.

The cause of this distortion, could it be—

“A trace of time-travel, maybe? Guhuhu… If that’s the case, it means someone might be redoing this world!”

She leaped to her feet, her cheeks flushed with excitement. Her life’s goal was to resurrect the ancient, lost magic of time. And now, she had finally observed a phenomenon that might be a clue.

“Yaaaaahooooooo!”

Overcome with joy, she threw her arms in the air and began to dance, stomping her feet on the floor in a bizarre jig. Her two dogs just stared at her, deeply suspicious.

“Whoops, no time for this! I gotta get going and investigate!”

The girl, who had been standing in her underwear, pulled a robe from her wardrobe and threw it on. She grabbed an absurdly large travel bag, far too big for her, and began stuffing it with books, documents, and other miscellaneous junk. When the bag was bulging, she threw her full weight on it to force it shut.

Of course, she was fully capable of using the spatial magic [Infinite Storage]. But she’d long since decided that doing so was completely tasteless. She would only take what she could physically carry. A journey, she believed, was more fun when it was inconvenient.

As she bustled about, her mind raced. She tried to recall if there had been any other abnormalities recently.

She ticked off possibilities on her fingers—not that, not that—until something suddenly struck her.

“Oh yeah, the Hero awakened, right? Is it that time of year again…? Hrmm… Dunno if it’s related… but maybe I’ll start the investigation there? Yeah, let’s do it!”

She laughed at her own rambling and walked over to the dogs in the corner. Placing her hands on their collars, she replenished their mana. That much should last them for ten years or so. Sensing she was about to leave, the dogs nuzzled against her affectionately.

“Kyahahaha, that tickles! Kuro, Shiro—I’m leaving you in charge of this place!”

Kuuun~, the two dogs whimpered in response.

She stood up and stomped her foot hard on the floor. Instantly, a massive magic circle lit up, covering the entire room. She checked its power levels and grunted.

“Yeeep, this is probably the last time I can use this. Next time, I’ll probably have to fly here. Ugh, what a pain.”

The magic circle on the floor was for [Teleportation], the pinnacle of spatial magic. [Teleportation] consumes such a vast amount of mana that it’s practically impossible for a single person to use. The girl, however, was forcing it to work by tapping directly into the raw mana flowing through the earth itself. This specific region had a flow of mana—a leyline—that surged close to the surface. She was using that mana reservoir as her battery.

“Ah, whatever. I’ll worry about it later. …Now, what was that country called again? The Regal Theocracy…? No, that one fell ages ago… Uh, pretty sure it was Vel…something… Ah! Veltoria!”

[Teleportation] was convenient, but normally it could only be used between major cities. Because of this, she always used a kingdom’s official [Teleportation Gate] as her destination. These gates were ancient, inter-city transport devices, usually located deep underground in a capital, and were precious relics used only by royalty and the highest nobility.

As the girl designated her destination, the circle on the floor began to glow. Simultaneously, her hair stood straight on end, as if a powerful wind were blowing up from beneath her.

“Whoa! I forgot to tie up my hair!”

She fished a tie out of her pocket, grabbed bunches of her hair, and quickly fastened them into pigtails on either side of her head. Her newly-tied hair swayed softly, as if floating in water. The motion revealed the ears that had been hidden by her hair. They were long and slender—a very distinctive shape.

A [Teleportation Gate] was, of course, one of a nation’s most critical assets. Using one without authorization was an offense far worse than treason; it was tantamount to a declaration of war. But the girl couldn’t care less about that.

In the entire, wide world, the only ones who could possibly reprimand her were a handful of people back in her ancestral forest. She was an observer of the world, one who had lived for thousands of years, watching nations rise and fall, and keeping an eye on the planet’s fate—

She was an elf—and not just any elf, but a High Elf, one of the rarest of their kind. High Elves were a race so sacred and sublime that they were often worshipped as deities. No human in existence had the standing to scold her.

“Aaaalright… well then, time to go!”

Waving to her dogs, the girl flashed a wide grin and vanished into the void.

Destination: The Veltoria Kingdom, Underground Teleportation Gate.

And just like that, the girl’s first research trip in decades had begun.