Chapter 159: Summary

After the Future Sight group disappeared, Dairi and the others finally left Wangoi City after staying there for nearly half a year. Conrad suggested they write a medical research paper together, but Dairi flatly refused. He insisted he was a wand craftsman, not a doctor, and worried people would start saying “0933 quit wand-making and became a physician.”

More importantly, getting sidetracked too much was delaying their journey to the Lucie Kingdom. Nearly two years had passed since Dairi’s resurrection, and he still needed to reach the kingdom within another year to begin analyzing Quodents, an artifact said to surpass even Demon King Gremlin in magic complexity.

Traveling west along the Ganges River, they eventually switched from riding the tiger beast Dun to a steam train and arrived in Delhi, the crowded capital of India. The city was chaotic and lively—far from Tokyo’s orderly streets—with peeling paint, dusty fruit stalls, magical beasts helping at food stands, and cheap monster meat sold openly in markets.

After checking into an inn, the group visited a bookstore. Tsubaki had recently become interested in studying after learning from Conrad and wanted to understand things like oil chemistry and preservation methods. Since neither Dairi nor Hiyori knew much about the topic, they decided to buy her some books.

Dairi quickly realized a problem: the books were written in Hindi, which Tsubaki couldn’t properly read. But Hiyori calmly guided her toward the picture book section instead, reasoning that someone who had only ever read manga shouldn’t start with advanced academic texts. Watching Tsubaki carefully sounding out Hindi words from children’s books, Dairi realized she had genuinely been studying during the past five months.

While Tsubaki browsed, Dairi wandered through the foreign-language section and found an English book about the “Nameless Epic,” a reconstructed collection of magical chants believed to form an ancient narrative.

According to the book, scholars believed the epic began with the magic stabilization chant:

“This epic tells the life of him.”

The mysterious “him” was interpreted as someone named Tarqua. The author theorized that the Nameless Epic was divided into four major arcs:

• “Tarqua’s Departure” — Tarqua leaves his small village and solves various incidents. 
• “Defeat of the Astral Eater” — Tarqua opposes and defeats a being once worshipped as a bringer of blessings, eventually becoming king. 
• “The Revolt of Hatobato (The Dolls)” — Hatobato leads an army of dolls against humanity, but a temporary truce is eventually established. 
• “The Army of Puppets” — A terrifying puppet-magic user nearly conquers the world before being killed by an enraged Great Witch. 

Dairi found many missing details frustrating, but some parts connected suspiciously well with people he had personally met. He realized the puppet mage likely referred to Iruma, while the furious witch sounded like the “Witch of Rubble” or “Witch of Sanctuary” mentioned before.

The thought horrified him: had he unknowingly encountered two boss-level figures from the Nameless Epic already?

He also wondered if the Astral Eater might someday appear too—especially since Hatobato, who supposedly died in the epic, was somehow still alive.

The book’s author only cared about reconstructing the epic itself and avoided discussing whether it was a prophecy or a historical account. Dairi personally leaned toward the idea that it described real events from the past.

Completely absorbed in the book, Dairi was eventually interrupted by Hiyori, who asked whether he intended to buy it. Though tempted, he hesitated because he wanted a Japanese edition instead. Hiyori suggested asking Professor Kei-chan or the Queen of Lucie directly, but Dairi replied that reading information himself was always better than simply hearing explanations from someone else.

“And even if I asked the Queen, she probably wouldn’t tell me anything anyway, right?”

“Who knows. Even I struggled terribly just to get a single resurrection spell out of her. But if your absurd, otherworldly communication skills somehow work on her, then maybe… No, actually, don’t. Please don’t charm any more witches.”

Hiyori poked Dairi’s cheek with the corner of the pet encyclopedia, then dragged him toward Tsubaki, who was standing in front of the register with sparkling eyes while clutching a huge stack of picture books.

According to Hiyori, the Queen of the Lucie Kingdom knew numerous spells that even she—after spending decades traveling the world collecting magic—had never encountered.

The Queen herself refused to speak about it, but Hiyori suspected that she “probably knows the entire Nameless Epic by heart.”

In other words, she knew every spell.

Hiyori’s theory was that during her mutation, the Queen had acquired some kind of information-gathering magic—something akin to “magic that knows magic.” Whatever the reason, she was unquestionably a terrifyingly dangerous witch.

And since such a terrifying witch had specifically ordered them to come investigate Quodents within a set deadline—absolutely without fail—they couldn’t afford to arrive late.

There was still a full year remaining before the deadline the Queen had given them.

But considering how often they kept getting dragged into incidents and side adventures, Dairi made a mental note to be very careful not to lose too much time anymore.