In a Female-Dominant World with a 5:1 Gender Ratio, I Saved a Girl as a Kid, and She Said She Wanted to Be My Bride—Who Would’ve Thought She Was a Princess… - 40

Chapter 40: Invisible Coordinates and the Blueprint of Another World

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(Alto’s POV)

After a firm handshake, we once again faced the workbench. By sharing the secret that we were both “reincarnators,” the atmosphere had completely changed. What filled the space was not sentimentality, but cold calculation and shared killing intent.

“…So then, Senpai. Let’s get to the main point.”

I fixed my gaze on Gideon… No, on a comrade from the same homeland.

“Where is he? If it’s you, you must have already tracked down his location, right?”

At my question, Gideon shook his head with a face like he had bitten into something bitter.

“…No. Up until just now, I hadn’t been able to pinpoint him.”

“Huh? You mean you didn’t know—”

“It’s an embarrassing story. He holds the very source of this world’s ‘mana.’ The magical power he supplies is like rain constantly falling from the entire sky. I couldn’t tell where it was being fired from. The source was too blurred.”

Gideon pointed at the ceiling.

“No matter how much magic power detection I performed, the response was always ‘beyond the sky.’ It was impossible to grab his tail and determine where his true body was hiding on the ground. …It was the same with Eleanor.”

Gideon clenched his fist in frustration. So it was like being bombarded from all directions, unable to see the enemy’s main base.

“Then what are we supposed to do!? If we don’t strike his real body, we’re just going to get worn down!”

“That’s exactly why, Alto. …That’s why I had you carry that ring.”

Gideon looked at me with sharp eyes.

“That ring wasn’t just a defensive barrier. It was a ‘lightning rod.’ The moment you activated that ring and forcibly cut off his interference… He must have concentrated the power he had been diffusing over a wide area into a single point and connected a thick path of magic power to break through that blockage.”

I sucked in a sharp breath. Just before the ring shattered—the overwhelming heat, and the clear image of that holographic man. At that moment, the air in the room had tightened, and I had felt a distinct ‘gaze.’

“…When that hologram appeared!”

“That’s right! For that brief instant when he revealed himself and tried to overpower your power, his magic power stopped being a ‘surface’ and became a concentrated ‘line.’ …The trace of that moment should be left behind in the shattered ring.”

Gideon turned toward the workbench and activated a complex magical device.

“Alto, take out the fragments of the ring you have. From there, we’ll reverse-track the wavelength of his magic power!”

I pulled the silver fragment from my pocket. Gideon held a lens-like device over it.

Kiiiiiiin…

A shrill sound rang out, and geometric waveforms raced across the monitor. They looked like magic circles and at the same time, like the scientific graphs I remembered from my previous life.

“Finally… Finally! With my magic power, I could never force him to get serious… For the first time—no, truly for the first time—I’ve caught him!!”

Gideon’s voice was trembling from a decades-long obsession. A single red line glowing on the map ran north across the continent and stopped at one point in an uninhabitable, frigid glacial region.

“Here it is…! The far north, deep within the absolute ice wall. …This is where his true body is!”

Gideon zoomed in on the map. There, in a coarse image, was the silhouette of a “black tower” towering within an icy ravine.

“The ‘Demon King’s Castle.’ …He has shut himself deep underground here and is managing the world from there.”

“We found him…”

I glared at the black dot on the screen. He was there. The one responsible for making Lilianna suffer, and for stealing Gideon’s past.

“Alto. It’s thanks to you dragging him out.”

Gideon grinned and released the lock on a heavily reinforced bulkhead at the back of the laboratory.

“We know the location. But he’s a monster with power beyond all standards. If you exchange magic head-on, even you wouldn’t win.”

Pssshhh…!

With a heavy sound, the bulkhead opened. What spilled out from inside was cold air and the smell of oil. And the moment I saw what was enshrined within, I caught my breath.

“This is…”

It was a small “cannon.” Its total length exceeded one meter. A dull silver body entwined with complex coils and pipes, and the barrel split like the prongs of a tuning fork. A silhouette of a “weapon” from my past life, utterly out of place in this world of swords and magic.

“‘Phenomenon-Altering Formula Cannon: Gungnir.’ …It’s an anti–Demon King decisive weapon I assembled over dozens of years, ever since I lost Eleanor.”

Gideon gently stroked the cold barrel with affection.

“This weapon is not a magic device that uses magic power as a power source. …You understand, don’t you? This is a ‘railgun’—an electromagnetic cannon that forcibly reproduces the physical laws of our world using magitech.”

A railgun. A mass weapon that accelerates and fires a projectile using electrical energy.

“Magical barriers block interference from magic power. But what do you think happens when pure physical mass comes flying at several times the speed of sound?”

“…They don’t know how to stop it, and it pierces straight through.”

“Correct. If he wants to play god and have a magic duel, then we’ll smash his face in with physics.”

He turned around and sharply pointed at me.

“But to operate this thing requires an enormous amount of energy. The thin magic power of this world can’t even activate it. …That’s where you come in.”

“My ‘power,’ huh.”

“Exactly. We’ll pour that absurd magic power of yours—magic power that ignores the rules of reason—in as a substitute for electricity and accelerate the projectile to near-light speed. …Only with you, an out-of-spec fuel battery, does this gun become a god-slaying spear.”

Goosebumps ran over my skin. This man hadn’t given up. He had been waiting all this time for ‘someone’ who could wield this weapon to appear.

“…Got it. I just need to use my magic power as fuel, right?”

I touched Gungnir. It was heavy, solidly so. Yet strangely enough, it fit my hands.

Demon King, just you wait… We’ll drag you down from that arrogant throne of yours.

I steeled my resolve and slung Gungnir over my back. But then, as I glanced at the map projected on the wall, my hand stopped.

“…Wait, Senpai.”

“Hm? What is it?”

“We know the location. We have the weapon. …But how are we going to get there?”

I pointed to the distance between the forest and the far north on the map. It was a distance long enough to traverse the entire continent.

“Normally, it would take a year by carriage. Even if I kept running nonstop with physical enhancement, it would still take several months to get there.”

I glared at Gideon.

“Lilianna’s condition is a matter of seconds. If we take months, by the time we arrive, she’ll be—”

Too late.

The wall of physical distance loomed before us in utter despair. But contrary to my impatience, Gideon flashed a fearless grin.

“Who said anything about ‘running there’?”

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