The magic tower was a closed group.

The magic tower was an open group.

While these two propositions seemed contradictory at first glance, both were true.

A group was a collection of many people, and even if they belonged to the same group, there was no law stating that all members’ tendencies must be the same.

In the magic tower, there were those who were indifferent to the outside world and devoted themselves solely to the exploration of magic and truth, and there were those who actively tried to pour out the magic prowess they had accumulated to the outside.

The former remained in the tower, while the latter left the tower to establish new ones.

The Tower of Foresight, belonging to the former, was thus the most closed group.

But here, one problem arose.

The Tower of Foresight valued tradition and discipline.

And among their traditions, there were also disciplines that were created before the tower split.

Disciplines created together by mages who vigorously involved themselves with the outside world and actively interacted with people.

For mages belonging to the Tower of Foresight, this was a big headache.

There were arguments that since the tower was newly born, existing rules should be abolished, and counter-arguments that if rules were changed recklessly for convenience, how would that be different from others.

Befitting a tower where only stubborn and obstinate individuals remained, the debate didn’t end easily.

Some rules and traditions were revised or disappeared to fit the situation, but others remained.

The “Rule of Hospitality” was one of the traditions that didn’t disappear.

This was from when the tower was actively expanding its scale and accepting various mages.

— Do we need to disclose our knowledge and achievements to those who aren’t even our members? I think it’s better to only accept those who say they’ll join the tower.

— If we screen people like that, no one will easily join us. And that would mean rejecting countless wisdom and knowledge that could come to us. The tower shouldn’t be like that!

The Witch of the North, one of the founders of the tower, argued that they shouldn’t be harsh to mages who weren’t tower members, and such arguments contributed to the great prosperity of the tower, which might have otherwise ended up as just a small club.

In a sense, it was a tradition that was like the root of the tower, so even picky mages couldn’t carelessly abolish this rule.

Unable to openly express dissatisfaction with this, the mages of the Tower of Foresight responded by concealing the very existence of the rule.

After all, if no one came, there would be no need to welcome anyone.

Until today, right this moment, that was how it had been.

Murmur, murmur. Whisper, whisper.

Leaving behind the questioning gazes and murmurs of those around, Dorothea’s party strode confidently through the center of the tower.

[The ‘Tin Knight’ evaluates that it finally feels like a country of magic!]

To be honest, the scenery of the Magic State that the party had seen so far had been disappointing in many ways.

Except for some differences in clothing and architectural styles, there wasn’t that much difference from the cities they had seen so far.

But the interior of the magic tower was different.

Mages dressed in attire unique to the tower and golems following them like servants. There were various spirits wandering through the air, doors that opened and closed on their own and moving staircases. In addition to this, strange characters were engraved on walls and floors.

Each sight was dizzying, but it didn’t look chaotic.

The weight of the place itself acted as a central axis, solemnly suppressing them.

“Wow.”

“Hooh.”

Adelaide’s eyes sparkled as if experiencing a stage from a story she admired.

Sophia moved her gaze here and there as if trying to remember every detail of the building’s overall shape and various decorations.

The Tin Knight looked with interest at things like spirits in the form of birds spewing fire in the air or golems, while only Dorothea calmly moved forward.

Most mages just watched Dorothea’s party and Poi, who had unintentionally become their guide and was moving like a stiff wooden doll, from afar, but there were some who blocked the party’s path.

“Wait, Poi. Who are these people? They don’t seem to be applicants, so why are they inside the tower?”

A female mage with sharp eyes and thin cheeks shot at Poi with a somewhat angry face.

The emblem on her chest was engraved with three books.

Poi answered in terror, “T-they’re sightseeing hopefuls! I let them in according to the reception rules!”

“Sightseeing? What nonsense is that?”

“No, well, you know that thing we memorize before every reception duty? Here.”

As Poi quickly held out something like a small notebook, the female mage checked the contents written there and frowned.

But soon, as if remembering something, a relaxed expression appeared on her face.

Dorothea asked the female mage blocking her way, “Do you have something to say?”

“Where did you hear about the rules? No, I don’t even need to ask. Judging by how you brazenly wander in front of others in that vulgar attire, you must have seduced some man.”

It was a venomous insult.

But Dorothea remained calm.

“If you’re done talking, could you move aside? I’m a bit busy following him.”

Dorothea pointed at the silver horse that was trying to move somewhere while being held by its reins by the Tin Knight.

Unlike outside, they had prepared this because letting the horse move freely inside the tower could cause various problems.

The female mage’s expression twisted for a moment, but soon she spoke with a relaxed smile, “You seem to be acting arrogant just relying on the rules, but ‘guests’ of the tower are only mages. And those who can bring new knowledge and wisdom to the tower—“

“Your tongue is long.”

“What?”

Dorothea cut off the female mage’s words and took out a small glass bottle, opening its lid.

The black liquid that flowed out from inside the bottle, instead of falling to the floor, floated in the air and drew complex patterns.

“That’s…!”

“Is it air control magic?”

“It’s not the Wizard school’s method. It’s closer to Alchemist style.”

People around first showed doubt, but befitting a tower full of skilled mages, they soon realized the value of the technique Dorothea showed and their eyes lit up.

“You say only those who bring knowledge and wisdom are guests? Then I’ll give you some. Whether I have that ability or not, those who came to my shop would know better than anyone.”

Leaving the petrified female mage behind, Dorothea declared, “But it’s not free. For every hundred steps we walk, I’ll give you one piece of knowledge that you’ll find interesting. If you don’t block my way like this again, that is.”

The Tower of Foresight. One of the four pillars supporting the Magic State.

Without showing any sign of intimidation towards those even decent nobles wouldn’t dare to act boldly against, the black witch threw down a challenge.

“You claim that mages are those who pursue wisdom and knowledge, right? Instead of petty power struggles, let’s compete with that ‘essence of being a mage.”

The tower heated up.

***

Turning the clock hands back a bit, to when mages were visiting Dorothea for restoration of various lost documents instead of fortune-telling about their past.

“Hide the information?”

“Yes. If what we find out is 100, it’s enough to reveal about 30 to 50 of it. The rest, especially information not directly related to what the client brought, should be kept separately without revealing it.”

The past shown by the Chalice of Tuberose had quite a bit of arbitrariness, sometimes barely showing small fragments, while other times providing extra information that wasn’t particularly sought after.

For example, when looking into the past of a parchment with a specific spell engraved on it, images of other parchments being produced on the same desk might also appear.

Of course, it was an ability with almost no practical use.

To begin with, it wasn’t a record that could be actively viewed, and such “extras” often passed by before the content could be properly read.

However, Sophia was an exception.

She could remember almost perfectly any content she had successfully recognized even once, and she was also excellent at reproducing the exact words or patterns on paper.

The Tin Knight evaluated her as a human printer.

“But there were plenty of things I couldn’t interpret either.”

“We don’t need to interpret them. If we just throw the originals at them, they’ll start analyzing them happily. No, they might burn even more passionately than if we gave them the interpreted version.”

***

And returning to the present, Dorothea thought.

They really are burning with passion.

“What’s this one? A picture?”

“No, it’s text. It seems to be from the city-state alliance era…”

“Dictionary, someone bring a dictionary.”

Every time Dorothea and the others took a step, numerous mages followed behind, moving in a group.

There was no one shouting or running around, but the fact that they were doing such things with polite expressions and tones made it even more bizarre.

It was fortunate that the tower was so enormous; if similar behavior had occurred in an ordinary tower, the corridors would have been so packed with people that proper movement would have been impossible.

[The ‘Tin Knight’ says it feels like he’s become the Pied Piper!]

In truth, not many of the pieces of information Dorothea handed over were tremendously powerful or practical in themselves.

Among them were things like an ancient complaint letter that Sophia had glanced at and said, “This is written in ancient script even by the standards of my era, but the content is just complaining to a scammer.”

But the mages didn’t seem to mind even that.

Even if the written content itself wasn’t directly related to magic, they could use the analysis and understanding of the written words to interpret other magic-related documents.

“Ah…”

Every time they climbed the floating stone stairs to the next floor, some mages stopped with regretful expressions.

It seemed that even as tower mages, it wasn’t possible to freely enter all spaces.

The fact that Dorothea’s party, who were outsiders, was freely coming and going through such places caused various whispers to leak out from the surroundings.

“But is it right to allow ‘sightseeing’ this far? Isn’t this level only accessible to those of 3rd rank and above?”

“You can check the old case books.”

“What case books? How can you bring up cases from when the tower was only five stories tall?”

The mages seemed perplexed.

They seemed to feel that something was off about this situation, but due to the lack of clear regulations to stop Dorothea’s party, they appeared to be struggling with their judgment.

It was only because the party was walking solely following the silver horse instead of poking around here and there that there was less resistance.

If we had been rummaging through various rooms, they would have been much more wary then. But why are the stairs in this tower unnecessarily scattered all over the place? The flow of movement is really inefficient.

Dorothea’s inner thoughts weren’t very comfortable either.

Although she was increasing the quantity by mixing in documents that didn’t seem very important, there was no way that trade materials hastily prepared in a few days could be so abundant.

There was a calculation that sprinkling one piece of information every hundred steps would be good to captivate the mages’ minds, but seeing the silver horse showing no signs of stopping even after passing the 7th floor, she thought maybe she should have adjusted it to one hundred and fifty steps instead of a hundred, even if it looked a bit sparse.

Dorothea had steeled herself to possibly reveal a few of her own magic techniques in the worst case, but fortunately, that wasn’t necessary.

9th floor of the tower.

Finally, on the level where only core figures among the tower’s faculty, those of 4th rank and above, remained, the silver horse headed in a direction other than the stairs leading to the next floor.

A massive door about twice Dorothea’s height.

Seeing the silver horse unable to enter and pacing in front of it, Dorothea asked, “Where is this?”

“Yes, uh, yes?”

Poi, the apprentice mage who had been acting as a guide, couldn’t answer properly.

Well, he was a guide in name only, having just followed along with Dorothea’s party behind the silver horse as if going with the flow of the surrounding atmosphere, so he couldn’t possibly answer the question properly.

Poi had inwardly hoped that other seniors or professors would tell him, “You can’t go beyond this point, so we need to send someone else instead,” but the mages, whose eyes had been captivated by Dorothea’s performance, didn’t spare a glance for this presence-less apprentice.

Thinking this one was useless, Dorothea turned her gaze back.

And frowned.

A man with long black hair.

Medir Geldnir was there somehow… but that wasn’t the issue.

It wasn’t strange for the head of the Tower of Foresight to be in his own tower.

But the fact that Rapunzel, the blonde girl they had left outside to avoid getting too involved in this affair, was with him was clearly a problem.

Seeing Dorothea’s expression turn harsh, Medir said, “Don’t misunderstand. It’s not like she’s a hostage or anything. I just thought it would be good to give her a tour of the tower interior while we’re at it. Such opportunities are rare.”

“I-I’m fine, really.”

Even Rapunzel nodded repeatedly, emphasizing her safety, so Dorothea turned back with an indifferent expression and asked, “So, where is this?”

The mages, surprised that the tower head had mixed among them without a sound, directed even more shocked gazes at the girl in fortune-teller attire who was throwing casual speech at that tower head without hesitation.

Of course, the thick-skinned Dorothea didn’t mind at all.

Medir said, “You’ll know when you go in.”

“…”

It was a very dubious answer.

Although Dorothea felt somewhat uncomfortable, conscious of the Tin Knight’s presence right beside her, she reached out without hesitation.

The door opened.

***

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