Chapter 132: Travel Notes from the Republic of Korea
While I hauled the most interesting materials I’d swiped from Hatobato-san’s mansion back to the inn and examined them obsessively, Hiyori busied herself investigating everything related to Hatobato and reporting back to me.
She uncovered quite a lot.
The biggest discovery was this new fact: if you listen to the information she worked hard to gather while lying around on the bed, she gets mad and stops talking to you.
The second: if you sincerely apologize, she forgives you.
And the third was Hatobato’s history on Earth.
Using her transcendent privileges to get cooperation from Korean police, Hiyori found that Hatobato had casually shown up in Busan three months ago. His movements before that are unknown.
He had no identification, but since he could read and write the international language—magic language—and could control mana, he was recognized as an educated mage and given a registry as a citizen of the Republic of Korea.
Mages are valued in most countries. And the rapidly developing, chaotic Republic of Korea has lax laws—bribery and loose rulings are common, and people don’t sweat the details. It provided the perfect environment for Hatobato to slip quietly into society.
Hatobato arrived in Busan alone. But as a top-tier wand craftsman, he quickly made a fortune and bought a mansion.
Though he lived alone in a large estate, he steadily “increased” his number of servants every day.
Those “servants” must have been the dolls. Producing dolls of that quality on a daily basis—his technical ability is unfathomable.
The trick behind how he made such a large fortune so quickly as a wand craftsman became clear when I examined several of his staffs that Hiyori brought back.
Hatobato was a user of duplication magic.
All the staffs he made were precise copies of luxury products from a high-end wand manufacturer in Korea, “LG Wand Company.”
The police and Hiyori concluded they were just counterfeit goods—but my eyes aren’t so easily fooled.
These weren’t mere imitations. Every component was perfectly identical.
I could reproduce that level of precision by hand, but not at that production speed. Making over ten in three months would be unrealistic.
If I can’t do it manually, then it must have been done with magic.
Hatobato had been using duplication magic to mass-produce high-end staffs and sell them to build wealth.
He really is a doll craftsman at heart—he has no pride as a wand maker.
I wasn’t surprised by duplication magic—I’d suspected it before. Even the Demon King Gremlin had parts that looked like perfect copies.
Either Hatobato was involved in Gremlin’s creation, or duplication magic is commonplace in magic civilization.
Both seem plausible—hard to tell.
That guy… every time I try to solve one mystery, he creates another.
As for what he actually did: after earning money, buying a mansion, and increasing his “staff,” he spent his time either making dolls or visiting antique shops. There were no bad rumors.
When he left the mansion, it was just for shopping.
He bought books on electricity and robotics from secondhand bookstores.
He collected old robots and antique dolls from antique shops.
Sometimes he bought Gremlins or monster materials—apparently that’s why he was at the pharmacy.
Based on the materials he left behind, those were likely used for doll construction.
He also casually bought fried chicken and kimchi from street stalls.
In fact, one vendor remembered him as “the guy who bulk-buys Korean dishes with extra broth.”
Listening to all this, it felt oddly underwhelming.
Despite having such dangerously extreme ideology, he lived a surprisingly normal life.
Even Hiyori—who had been determined to uncover his dark side—reluctantly admitted he wasn’t a bad person (for now), after hearing that he once kindly repaired a child’s stuffed toy while waiting for a taxi.
Until the moment dolls surpass humans, Hatobato is just a doll-loving old man.
The problem is that the moment that happens, he’ll become a terrifying enemy of humanity.
The discovery of “Hatobato” was quickly reported to major countries, and a search network was established.
Sketches and identifying features were distributed to intelligence agencies worldwide. From now on, if he shows his face in a major city, he’ll be found immediately.
Since he hasn’t committed any crimes on Earth that justify a warrant, he can’t be officially wanted. Apparently, fabricating charges is possible—but since he’s estimated to be harmless for at least 500 years, provoking him is avoided.
So they’re just keeping tabs on him.
Hatobato’s combat power—judged by the Blue Witch as “difficult to defeat”—could also be described as “capable of destroying a small country alone.” Not someone to antagonize lightly.
Personally, I’d like to talk shop with him again.
If only he’d drop the dangerous ideology… but that’s probably not happening.
After doing everything she could and leaving the rest to the authorities, Hiyori started digesting the knowledge she gained from him.
Specifically, she began trying to recreate his translation magic, group return magic, and mana-sealing techniques.
Apparently, since she can see mana, she understood the flow of magic when he used it.
Like how Iruma shamelessly learned no-chant magic from observing spells, Hiyori tried to reverse-engineer Hatobato’s magic.
Hiyori, being a pure and upright girl, doesn’t have Iruma’s twisted genius—so she can’t just learn it overnight.
Still, she has the best magical sense in humanity, the best wand—Kyanos—and the most experience using no-chant magic.
To me, she just sits in a chair all day with her eyes closed—but apparently she’s constantly experimenting.
Sometimes she gets so exhausted she collapses, dragging me into bed with her.
We’ll be passing through several countries before reaching the Kingdom of Rus.
If she can learn translation magic, travel will become much easier. It’s worth extending our stay in Korea for this.
While Hiyori struggled to learn new magic, I struggled to develop new technology from Hatobato’s materials.
Most of the documents were in magic language, so I sent them to Professor Ohinata for translation.
What I focused on instead were the unfinished doll and its blueprints.
If my theory is correct, this could allow me to give a wand a four-dimensional storage function.
You could pull a wand out of nowhere—or store bulky ones in empty space.
Four-dimensional storage itself isn’t unfamiliar.
Creatures like pouch sparrows and dragons have “stomachs” that ignore volume and weight.
Quodentz are also said to be four-dimensional beings.
But understanding and reproducing that technology is a different matter.
Humanity uses pouch sparrows’ storage all the time, but no one understands how it works.
Like smartphones in the past—most people used them without understanding them.
Using something and creating it are entirely different.
But Hatobato’s materials contained a breakthrough.
In my view, the “four dimensions” understood by science and by magical civilization are quite different.
Like how a biologist and an economist describe humans differently—it’s the same thing, viewed from different angles.
While I was sketching out experimental designs and eating Korean food in my hotel room, Hiyori returned with a letter.
“Replies from Yamagami and Kei. The magic language in Hatobato’s materials has strong dialect features—it’ll take time to analyze.”
“Dialect…?”
“It’s written very differently from the anonymous epic. Like Kansai dialect vs Tsugaru dialect.”
“Ahh…”
Disappointing—but understandable.
Of course magic civilization wouldn’t have just one language.
Hiyori handed me the letter, grabbed a bite of food, and returned to her usual meditative state by the window.
In the end, I was the one who mastered new tech from Hatobato’s clues before Hiyori mastered new magic.
After staying at the inn for 30 nights, I finally grasped a fragment of four-dimensional technology.
I jumped up in triumph, standing on an experimental structure that had vanished from three-dimensional space, and shook Hiyori’s shoulder.
“Hiyori, lend me Kyanos! I did it!”
“…?”
“Hey! Hiyori!”
“!? Huh? Did you say something?”
“I’m upgrading Kyanos—lend it to me.”
“I’m using it right now… And if it becomes harder to use, that’s a problem. What are you doing?”
“I’m adding four-dimensional storage. By reshaping it and using a spirograph-like folding structure—”
She stared blankly after a long explanation.
“…What?”
“Basically, I tweak the shape and add a small gear. Feed it mana, and it stores itself in four-dimensional space. The gear stays in 3D, so you can bring it back.”
“…So you can make the wand disappear and reappear?”
“Yeah, basically.”
She didn’t fully get it.
Honestly, neither did I.
I just adapted insanely complex theory from Yamagami into something buildable.
At this point, no one can build cutting-edge wands alone anymore.
Still—
In just 30 days, I managed to touch the edge of four-dimensional tech.
I stored the upgraded Kyanos in 4D space, panicked Hiyori, then taught her how to retrieve it.
Holding it proudly, I grinned.
I have surpassed legend—become a mythic wand craftsman!
When I first heard about Quodentz being four-dimensional constructs, I didn’t think I could analyze them.
Now… I think I just might.
If magic civilization shows an opening, I’ll bite into it and devour it—turn all that advanced knowledge into fuel for my craft.