Chapter 14

—Shiso-kun, why do you think a secret room is a boring setting?

A beautiful girl with black hair and eyes asked softly with curiosity as she looked at the man below her with her head tilted to the side, being on all fours with her cute underwear exposed and her long hair running along the sensual curves of her body.

Shigaraki Sora, the man who had this beauty on top of him while he was completely naked and casually watching the anime on the screen for a few seconds, only smiled slightly as he answered the girl with his own question.

—Why is the appearance of a secret room so predictable in every story, that I can only say "Oh, a secret room again, what a surprise!" every time it happens?

—But isn't it normal for mystery anime like this to have something like that? - The girl blinked cutely as she leaned against his body and pressed her enormous breasts against him, also casually watching the flashback of the killer enjoying their 'game' on the screen beside the bed, —A killer like that, who loves to extract the internal organs of his victims while they're alive and conscious, wouldn't be able to do it without a secret room to take them there, right? How else can he kill in peace if not? I would.

What she said as if nothing was absolutely horrible to anyone's ears, but Sora just laughed as if he found her cute.

That was her crazy thought that he liked.

He also loved how she was naughtily rubbing his currently hard member with her vagina while hugging him, of course.

Sora took his time thinking... or so it seemed, although he was only savoring the feeling of her wet panties against his penis.

—... It's boring. It almost seems like everyone has a secret room where they hide things that are insignificant or downright horrifying to others. On the other hand, I'd be more surprised to find a secret laboratory where strange experiments are conducted inside a child or teenager's bedroom, at least... something you wouldn't expect from them no matter how hard you think about it, given their general appearance.

—But people don't usually expect others to have something like a secret room in their own room anyway... — Sora interrupted her by placing a finger on her tender pink lips and laughed, stroking her head.

—Yüna-chan, we're not talking about the real world here.

The girl, Hinakawa Yüna, snorted in amusement as if she'd just realized she was taking this silly conversation too seriously and rolled her eyes. A mysterious smile formed on her lips as she turned to look at the screen beside her, her head resting gently on his chest.

-Well, that's true...

♦♦♦♦

As he suddenly recalled an insignificant conversation he had intimately with Yuna in the past, Sora remained completely silent, only staring with his expressionless face at the interior of the hidden room he unexpectedly discovered through the automatic movement of his current body.

Although he seemed completely calm on the outside, inside I was quite surprised by this unexpected event, worthy of a classic cliché. Even though it was an anime-style game, I really wasn't expecting it at all.

Although you probably already had the idea that you would be faced with such a boring cliché.

Anyway, although he was already aware that the original Arthur had a secret organization that he would use to deal with the Emperor, he couldn't really anticipate that this Noble Sovereign would have a hidden room in his own room instead of something like an underground or abandoned factory, as would be more rational.

That confirmed that Yüna was right, as expected from a girl as intelligent as she was.

No, wait, what the hell, man? Wouldn't this be a little too obvious? I mean... Even if it has an enchantment that only responds to magical energy within Arthur's bodily fluids, one would expect something like that to be better hidden... What if some random Archmage wants to explore your secrets on a whim?

He, who was confused as to why his predecessor would have a secret room in his own bedroom instead of a more discreet area while considering a very remote possibility like that, soon understood the reason as soon as he entered.

This is... just an alchemical laboratory! So it's not a complete gumball after all!

He saw with his own eyes that the space next to his room was practically a place some scientist would use to experiment with chemicals and such.

There were test tubes, unknown alchemical tools here and there, and biological materials used as raw materials for potions and other rare alchemical products.

From distillers, extracts, mutagens of various kinds, and medicinal plants, there was everything an alchemist needed, including an altanor.

The place was neither too hot nor too cold, which led him to assume that it was the right temperature for storing alchemical ingredients.

The most interesting thing was that the room was enormous; much larger than the place where I slept. I had no idea how many tatami mats I would need to cover it all.

It was just unnatural.

High-level sorcery capable of distorting space? Or does the door simply connect to a different space like a Fairies Gate?

He immediately remembered the tunnel they used to travel from Bomenslik to the Imperial Capital at incredible speed.

The Gates of Fairies were a form of ancient sorcery that is still preserved today due to the inability of beings below Torrius to replicate it viably, and even the latter have difficulty using it.

With that magic, distances were crossed on a continental scale as if it were nothing and it was very expensive to do, but it wasn't considered a form of special manipulation... at least that was the scenario I remembered.

Anyway, this couldn't have been created by Arthur, given that he only learned some arcane magic, nor is he weak with his mana arts. Which means this isn't as secret as I thought...

So the reason we have him here has nothing to do with his plot against Emperor Raymund, I guess... it's just to facilitate access to his private laboratory.

While thinking about these things, Sora realized something that had nothing to do with the current situation.

Hmm? Come to think of it, when I left the Imperial Academy through the door marked [Emergency Exit], I immediately appeared outside the Shopping District, which is pointless without specialized sorcery spells connecting two different spaces... Was it a small Fairies Gate? Is it possible to make something like that for something so expensive?

Not even the science academies on the Neo Tokyo Islands would use space-folding technology for something like this. Bomenslik Imperial Academy is a truly absurd place to use ancient and expensive magical technology as an emergency exit... And I didn't even realize it.

He consoled himself with the thought that at that moment he was too confused by the already strange situation to notice that detail.

Plus, his body behaved so naturally that it was harder for him to notice (not that he realized he was speaking a different language than the inhabitants of Earth until recently).

Sora decided to selectively ignore the fact that at that moment, there was a guard seriously hesitating whether or not he should stop the Empire's only Archduke and the Emperor's son-in-law from using the Emergency Exit on a whim...

Those things, even if they look like normal outputs at first glance, naturally consume the academy's stored magical energy when activated... You know?

Anyway, Sora just casually walked into the alchemical lab as if he owned the place (which he did) and explored the things inside.

He saw a bottle with what looked like a thick, grotesque, brown root from some plant and picked it up. The root was very ugly... and looked dry. He read the label on the bottle, which said [Albaria Roots]. Then he looked around blankly and groaned a little... What am I supposed to do with this?

Now that she thought about it, her body had blatantly told Luminia that she would be doing some alchemy until the evening, but she honestly had no idea what she should be doing to begin with.

Although he could very well create any alchemical product by letting his body do all the work... Is it possible that this is the reason why he can't use any alchemical recipes that the system may contain?

Alchemical questions aside, could this body that never experimented with things like dynamite produce gunpowder or even bombs?

It would be unfortunate if he had to rely on himself to do those things, as leaving it to an expert (ironically, himself) would be more appropriate.

No... maybe the first thing I should do is observe this body performing alchemy and learn by observing. It might work, it might not. I could also read the blue book on the table...

Before doing anything else, Sora first said to himself, "Come on, let's do some alchemy," and waited... but nothing happened. Scratching his head in confusion, Sora walked over to the table with the book and several alchemy vessels and sat down, waiting as well.

".."

Nothing happened either.

His body didn't move on its own, nor did he begin to perform alchemy at all. That made him a little nervous.

Why? Why aren't you doing anything, Arthur? What the hell is wrong with this body, system?

Alice's voice echoed in his mind.

<Because the host could affect the final result of dangerous alchemical products with random thoughts, the body cannot act on its own when performing Alchemy>

Huh? You could really do something so creepy...? No, forget I asked... Sora decided to stop asking how much control the system has over his body.

Why not prevent my thoughts from influencing the creation of Alchemy? Is it difficult?

<No, not at all. The administrator simply encourages the host to acquire knowledge and experience from their new body so that they don't become anything more than an [Observer] who leaves everything on autopilot like a slacker. Incidentally, it's also possible to receive all of your new body's memories by spending SP>

"..." Sora magnanimously decided to let this new insult to his person pass with the elegance of a noble.

Alice, how much SP do I have to spend to access Arthur's alchemical knowledge?

That was all he needed for now, since he had seen many stories in old anime where receiving the memories of a body you transmigrated to is very painful, plus he was afraid of suffering a huge change in his personality if he obtained all of Arthur's memories just like that.

He thought that receiving knowledge and experience of Alchemy would only make him feel a little dizzy or something, so he waited for her response.

<Answer: To gain access to the host body's Alchemy knowledge and experience, around 900 SP can be spent>

A holographic window appeared in his vision when he was asked about this.

<Do you want to spend 900 SP to gain experience and alchemical knowledge?>

<Yes/No >

Oh, Lars! Why is it so expensive? It's more expensive than Gacha tickets!

Forgetting that he promised not to use the protagonist's name as an insult, Sora was shocked to see how much he had to pay just to obtain the original Arthur's experiences in alchemy, and imagined how expensive it would be to obtain his entire life's memories.

Not that I need to do that anyway...

Thinking this, Sora pressed "Yes" and was immediately flooded with information. He felt a slight headache throughout the process, which made him frown.

<System Notice: Knowledge Installation Complete>

But soon the system ended and now he had the true alchemical knowledge.

He already knew what everything in that place was for and didn't need his body to act automatically.

The amount of knowledge about Alchemy he had in his head was surprising.

Now I understand everything and... somehow, Alchemy feels strangely fascinating right now...

To be honest, while he saw the usefulness of alchemy, Arthur wasn't actually as enthusiastic about it as the original seemed to be.

But now that his knowledge and experiences were integrated into his being, he felt different.

At the time, I was quite excited about the idea of ​​experimenting with various plant ingredients and seeing what magical principles extracted from them would react with each other, as well as the resulting potion from these mixtures.

♦♦♦♦

The flasks in these alchemical laboratories were used to mix, prepare, or store various plant ingredients, whether solid or liquid.

Depending on the type of use the container will be given, it will be more appropriate to use a container made of one type of material or another.

Glass stands out as the most commonly used material in alchemical flasks because it is inert and highly abrasion-resistant.

Made using transmutation, a high-level alchemical technique, the quality of the glass in this room is guaranteed. Furthermore, although the color is topaz, its transparency allows the quantity of the product to be verified without light damaging the preparations.

For use in a laboratory, there are a multitude of glass bottles that can be used.

The choice of one or the other will depend on the function to be given and whether its purpose will be curative, cosmetic, or magically enhancing.

The root jar Sora was holding earlier was used to store herbal ingredients with magical properties. The purpose of these jars is to protect the herbal ingredients from light and excessive moisture, at least until they can be used by the alchemist.

The use of magical plants and other rare ingredients as tools to achieve magical effects has been part of the craft of almost every sorcerer specializing in alchemy since ancient times, but in modern times, a branch of this art has emerged that is known simply as 'Modern Alchemy'.

This modern alchemy abandons the use of symbolic objects pre-infused with magical energy in favor of harnessing special biochemical elements within innate magical elements. It was almost a scientific discipline from a certain point of view, and modern alchemists use them to create potions with powerful and unique effects.

Currently, the so-called magical plant is any plant that contains in its various parts some magical principle that can be used for alchemical purposes, while the plant ingredient is the part of the plant that contains the magical principle.

The magical principle would then be a biochemical substance responsible for the alchemical use of that plant ingredient.

All modern alchemists who make potions, including Arthur and Jheane Lorens, do not follow any real scientific method, but their alchemical experiments involve throwing ingredients with specific magical properties with others to see what they become, and then writing down in a notebook which ingredients worked well so they can be replicated again in the future.

It was like Alchemy on Earth in that sense…only, in this case, being a technique derived from real sorcery, alchemy is, of course, neither a simple protoscience nor the charlatanism of false magicians.

Modern alchemists also did not seek to create the Philosopher's Stone, let alone the Quintessence... At least, most of them did not seek such a thing, perhaps with the exception of the lunatics who called themselves the "Order of the Holy Stone", an antagonistic group in the game <Britannia: Lost Order>.

All normal alchemists (?) considered the creation of a true philosopher's stone to be theoretically impossible, but only they insisted on crazy research and dangerous rituals to achieve it, not caring about being the laughing stock of real alchemists and the whole world.

In any case, it can be said that here, alchemy was a magical art where the powerful senses of a sorcerer had to be used to see if the magical principles in the plant ingredients mixed correctly and had a mana reaction.

Depending on its intensity, the reaction was something that had to be controlled by the alchemist using his or her own maryoku to ensure a successful final product.

And the roots of Albaria were the plant ingredient of a famous alchemical product in this world, {Resistentia dulcia}, which is popular among adventurers and knights not only for its powerful effects, but also for its delicious taste.

An alchemical product that would be the small achievement of Arthur Pendragon von Draco Silva himself….

-Hahaha... - Sora laughed in disbelief upon realizing this truth, then smiled ironically.

She never expected that it would be Arthur, this "villain," who would create the famous alchemical sweets that most of the game's main cast would use to regain strength and that Jheane secretly despised with all her might.

Of course... the original Arthur also wouldn't have expected that there would be an idiot who would use his invention to recklessly train his body, foolishly believing that having a strong and healthy body would make him more powerful as a sorcerer... Far from it, it would lead to him being defeated by Lars!

If that's not ridiculous, then what is?

♦♦♦♦

Lars Hamilton (And something else…)

As you know, that was the name of the world's protagonist.

The son of a border baron and a commoner, Lars was originally an insignificant child in the grand scheme of things.

Although he was born with a strikingly handsome appearance that could even be said to charm men and women alike if he tried hard, he was by no means a child born with extraordinary qualities.

And much less was he someone who had the necessary qualities to be part of the prestigious Academy or Bomenslik, unlike Jheane, his childhood friend.

Someone like him was supposed to have only grown up in the fields, helping his impoverished father and mother tend the crops, playing with the other children of his village, and then growing up to simply inherit the title of Baron that seems to exist in name only, while his childhood friend should have been the only one to achieve success after the Imperial Academy, becoming an undisputed leader of the alchemical world.

That should have been the path many would assume a noble frontier vassal like Lars would have taken, one so common and boring that no one would read it if it were turned into a light novel.

But of course, fate (The game's plot) had other plans, and after an incident where his childhood friend was almost kidnapped, Lars awakens the power of the 'God of Sorcery', the manifestation of the Demon King Mammon's Authority, which interferes with sorcery through his eyes as a means of interaction.

No one knows how, but Lars somehow received the Demon King Mammon's Spiritual Core, which stored his authority over the concept of sorcery, and integrated it into his conceptual bodies; obtaining this incredible Authority, which expresses itself as Magic Eyes of immense power. (You know, because of that whole eyes-are-windows-to-the-soul thing and all.)

The awakening of such powers naturally brought Lars to the attention of the great powers of the empire.

So, without anyone expecting it, the headmistress of the Bomenslik Imperial Academy acted quickly and shamelessly took Lars under her wing, enrolling the boy without hesitation in her prestigious Academy regardless of his will (although he himself was not against it) so that he could grow properly under her supervision.

Of course, hiding the origin of his power from the other students.

That's where the whole story would really begin.

By the way, all of the above is shown in a cinematic at the beginning of the game; with no possibility of player interference, and the first episode deals with the entrance ceremony, leaving the duel between Arthur and Lars for the second episode... something that is obviously already spoiled.

Emperor Raymundo and the nobles on his side wanted to use the one who has the Authority of a True Demon King for their own benefit, while on the other hand, the Director, Amelia Dumbardonnia, wanted Lars to use those powers to fight for humanity.

This naturally led to a political conflict between both sides in which the Emperor himself cursed his ancestor for allowing the Academy a high degree of autonomy that could hardly be eliminated, especially now.

Of course, that's a topic for another time.

The power of the Authorities that the Gods and Demon Kings possessed was something that many coveted, and Lars having that power rooted in his own Conceptual Body made him a target they could use for their own ends.

If Lars could use his Authority to control all sorcery, who knew what he could accomplish? After all, it allowed him to be invincible in the three paths of thaumaturgy, alchemy, and summoning.

In fact, two heroines approached Lars knowing of his powers, initially trying to use him for their own purposes...

However, there were only a few problems with Lars himself, the possessor of such transcendental power.

The Maryoku that the loser could generate and store was so abysmal that it was pitiful and embarrassing to mention, and the development of his magic circuits was also simply very pathetic, limiting the potential of such excellent power... there's a reason why almost everyone in the academy considered it an insult to sorcerers...

That was what Sora thought as he ground the Albaria roots into powder with complete ease.

He was preparing to create a large batch of sweets for himself, in preparation for the future, while idly thinking about the story of this world's protagonist. (He had no plans to mutilate himself, so the minor potions the system gave him are set aside for now.)

As mentioned, since birth, Lars has Magic Circuits that are extremely subpar in quality and quantity, resulting in a paltry ability to generate, accumulate, and regenerate maryoku. Not only that, he lacked Magic Affinity, or even Attributes, and had a poor ability to manipulate his magical energy (in fact, he didn't have any at all).

Even with his magical eyes expressing the authority of a Demon King over Sorcery, in the early game he could only cast the weakest Class 3 Mortal Order spells before collapsing from exhaustion.

Not only that, his intelligence left much to be desired. He couldn't understand even the simplest theories of natural or magical phenomena, and his imagination was also very poor. These things were necessary to recreate natural or imaginary phenomena, and he failed at all of that.

Although he could use magecraft without any spells or magic sequences in the process using nothing but magic languages, he wasted a lot of power in doing so and overall, almost any random student in the Academy could beat him because they were all geniuses who surpassed him in... Everything!

Also, it was incredible how physically weak he was at first despite living more or less like a working peasant... It was just pathetic.

The only thing that stood out about the boy was his pretty, girlish face, his decent EQ, and his natural talent for flirting with both women... and men.

He was wonderful at it, although he did it without even realizing it, which caused him several problems among the male population.

You couldn't help but feel that the power of a true Demon King was wasted on someone like that... and in fact, there was an episode where he almost fell victim to human experimentation to try and transfer his spiritual core into a competent Sorcerer.

In fact, the only reason Lars was able to grow and defeat Arthur, who initially gave him the beating of his life, was thanks to the help of the heroines, his friends, and, ironically, the Dulcias that Arthur himself created.

This is because the Spartan training that idiot underwent was not entirely without merit.

Of course, that doesn't mean that increasing his physical power gave him more maryoku to manipulate reality, but having a stronger body allowed him to better withstand the pressure generated by using magic circuits, allowing him to cast magic for longer than the average sorcerer.

Not to mention that possessing an excellent physique will help him fight with knights compared to common sorcerers, even receiving precious items from the heroines and friends throughout numerous missions that helped him increase his maryoku reserves to advance as an Aspirant, in addition to the insistent education that some gave him to better understand the phenomena that can be replicated with sorcery.

It could be said that it was his connections, and indirectly Arthur himself, who ultimately helped him use his Authority properly. Of course, the current Arthur had no intention of being defeated by Lars.

He planned to get stronger and even take advantage of that idiot's trick to strengthen his physical body to ridiculous levels. It wouldn't be the first time he trained like crazy to be stronger than others.

How do you think he became powerful enough to defeat so many criminals with supernatural abilities on Earth? By building muscle with intense sex? No! It was through firm, scientific training (sort of!)!

...Although this time he would train of his own free will and not on the orders of an inhuman martial arts master.

Sora could almost hear the voice of that muscular old man he had once called Sensei saying, "Train to death or die, Sora!" And he trembled in fear.....he would train hard, but certainly not to the brink of death.

Anyway, once Arthur finished grinding the roots into a powder very similar to flour (albeit brown in color), it was ready to be used in the preparation of Dulcias.

To be honest, one could eat these raw Albaria roots and regain a certain degree of stamina almost immediately, which is very magical.

However, eating too much could cause cancer due to toxins that cause problems in the body's cells.

Plus, they're hard to eat.

For this reason, many alchemists prefer to extract the magical principle from the root, which is a delicate process that requires many hours of concentration and can often fail.

However, Sora didn't need to do that, as he discovered a different method to get even better results than the typical stamina potion, which tasted horrible and had low effectiveness.

It involved eliminating toxins from the root by using hot water, tree sap with detoxifying effects, and certain special leaves.

That's how she did it. That is... creating the Dulcias that a certain Siscon Alchemist(?) always complained about. If she found out...

Not only that, Arthur even enhanced the positive effects of the magical principle while making it easier to consume by adding flavor to the final product.

The recipe he created to achieve this was quite simple.

Grind dried Albaria root into powder and then mix it with Potian sap in fresh water.

Boil at 15 degrees Celsius for 6 minutes. The sap heated in fresh water will allow the toxins to float to the surface, and the Mahana leaves placed on top will absorb them.

¡¡Gyaaaaaaaa!!!

Haha, good thing I have specialized magic earplugs... Still, this thing's scream is just as horrible as I expected!

While the above mixture is being heated, the essence of a living Mandrake must be extracted, then combined with Latym flour to form a paste.

Finally, pour the mixture of albacore root and hot fresh water into the dough, and once well mixed, add 6 grams of apple extract.

Then Sora observed with his powerful senses the reaction of mana when magical principles were mixed and when he felt that the mana in the environment was being sucked away, he activated his magical circuits.

As expected, it's the same... Did Typemoon create his universe using spiritual paths and other anomalous phenomena as reference for his works?

Feeling the familiar pain of opening spiritual paths, he couldn't help but reflect on the phenomenon for a moment indifferently before finally putting it aside. He quickly injected that Maryoku (Ki) into the mixture until the alchemical substance was satiated.

<Transmutatio Materiae>

He then used his transmutation to divide and shape the mass into small balls, and that was it. It only required a simple and extremely short chant—something he had to thank the current magic system for—and soon a magic circle appeared that allowed him to perform the phenomenon.

It's good that thanks to these memories I'm now also able to use magecraft smoothly as I should, or it would be impossible for me to be able to interfere and break the physical structure of materials and reform their forms into something else with transmutation.

Still, while I've seen plenty of Abnormals using their distorted spiritual paths to alter and affect the surrounding environment and create anomalous phenomena, seeing the manifestation of a magic circle and manipulating matter is something completely new…

That was what he thought as he continued his work creating Dulcias.

Since the above ingredients don't have much or any flavor, adding apple essence to the mixture I was making gave it a better flavor than without it. Plus, it doesn't diminish its positive effects or add any negative effects, which gives it points in its favor.

Thus, in a short time, Sora created the famous Dulcias that praised all the knights and adventurers of this world, at least 50 in total.

If it weren't for the fact that apples don't have magical principles, it would never have been possible to create a tasty alternative to potions.