When you read enough papers, you learn to catch things between the lines.
Broadly, you can see the researcher’s personality, their state of mind, even their affection for the discipline.
Minutely, you can even glimpse the expressions they wore while preparing the paper.
‘This is...’
This 120-page paper bore the traces of Galois and his team pouring in their very souls.
‘This isn’t just “worked hard.”’
Some research eats away at lifespan.
Say, for example, there were a study where each page cost the researcher one year of life.
Would anyone sane actually burn a year to add a page?
And yet, history had no shortage of lunatics who did just that. Because only through such madness could the work be finished.
And here arises the dilemma.
All research exists for the glory of the researcher. But if a work is completed at the cost of their own misery, does it hold meaning?
I wouldn’t know.
‘But for Galois, it seems it does.’
After reading in silence, I spoke.
“A splendid piece of research.”
The professors’ eyes widened. They exchanged glances.
“Then... the verification of the formulas we marked...”
That was their true purpose.
But before answering, I paused.
Because 【Script】 showed their thoughts were... strange.
【 Senior Professor Campbell, Faculty of Magic : ‘It can’t be complete. There has to be an error.’ 】
【 Professor Yuon, Faculty of Magic : ‘And if there isn’t? Then we’ll just have to make one.’ 】
What’s this.
They wanted the formulas to be wrong.
They wanted the research to be incomplete.
【 Senior Professor Gustavong, Faculty of Magic : ‘What a pity... that I must ruin this with my own hands. But if that’s the duty given to our research team...’ 】
So it wasn’t that they simply wanted to sabotage it.
“Verification will take some time.”
“Ah!”
“As expected... well, of course, these formulas aren’t simple enough to be grasped at a glance.”
“Even Professor Dante is human, after all. Hah....”
Their faces showed relief.
Whether right or wrong, if I grasped it instantly, their pride would feel worthless.
‘...In truth, I’d already finished the verification at a glance.’
But there was no need to plunge earnest researchers into despair.
“Return tomorrow.”
“Yes, then...”
Once I’d sent them all away, silence fell over the lab. Alone, I sat again before my desk.
“I don’t like it when rats scurry around in front of me.”
Then I spoke into the empty air.
“Come out.”
At once, a man lowered the [Concealment Veil] he had slipped through in the gap when they exited.
A young professor, his face tight with nerves.
“...So you truly are an assassin professor. To pierce through a veil of this level at once... I apologize for sneaking in, Professor Dante.”
“You are?”
“My name is Odian. I belong to Chief Professor Galois’s lab. I came regarding the verification of that paper.”
“I already gave my answer. Was it insufficient?”
“No... but I wondered if the other professors had truly given you the correct paper.”
Doubting his own team.
“See for yourself.”
“...Yes.”
But Odian’s suspicion was misplaced. The paper was genuine.
“Ah, I see... my apologies. That was needless worry...”
He bowed awkwardly, ready to leave.
By then, I had realized exactly why that research team, in their turmoil, had asked me to verify their work.
So I stopped Odian and asked:
“Professor Odian.”
“Ah, yes?”
“Suppose this paper is complete. Suppose the formulas verify without error.”
“Y-yes...?”
“Then Professor Galois will return to the research and finish the work he’s spent years on.”
“Yes.”
“Is that allowed?”
“...Pardon? What do you mean by that?”
“I ask: should this research be completed?”
Odian blinked wide, then tilted his head.
“What kind of question is that... of course it must be completed! We’ve poured everything into this for so long. And I think it absolutely must be finished before the Chief’s health worsens further!”
“......”
“You may not have known, but Professor Galois’s health has grown much worse lately. If he were to die before the paper is complete...”
And with that, I understood.
Professor Odian had no idea.
‘Odian thinks Galois might die before seeing the paper completed.’
But from the other researchers who had been with Galois longer, that was not the truth.
The eldest, Gustavong, had thought:
【 Senior Professor Gustavong, Faculty of Magic : ‘We cannot send Professor Galois off yet...’ 】
That meant only one thing.
‘Galois will die when the paper is completed.’
The researchers were certain of it.
And I knew exactly what phenomenon their thoughts implied.
‘The mage’s miracle called “Stay of Death.”’
Mana is the force that embodies will. And strong will creates powerful magical pressure.
Sometimes it produces impossible phenomena.
Take the “lich,” born once every century.
A lich isn’t just a skeleton good at magic. It’s something far stranger.
A mage who loved their home and lab so obsessively in life that, though dead, the will to guard it remained. Their corpse rises to guard their lab (a dungeon).
‘...So Chief Galois is desperately postponing death itself, for the sake of completing his paper.’
The obsession to finish the research still moves his corpse. That’s how it had to be seen.
But I chose not to tell Odian. If Galois’s closest aide didn’t know, it meant Galois had hidden it. Not my place to expose it.
“...Then I’ll conduct the verification.”
“Yes, yes! Thank you, Professor Dante! I entrust it to you!”
But I resolved to meet Galois directly.
***
I remembered Galois from when he helped name the Pink Drug paper.
Back then, he hadn’t seemed much different. A wrinkled face, an old man’s body, yet eyes that shone. Mischief sparkling there.
Always pretending dignity, then suddenly cracking jokes—making you spin.
But now Chief Galois lay in bed. His face far older than before.
“It’s me, old man.”
“......”
He slowly turned his head, not even looking at me.
“They say children and old men change by the day. You’ve changed plenty, Chief.”
“......”
“This is a gift.”
“......”
From the Eternal Ship auction, I had bought the 「Full Bloom Vase♣」. I placed a single peony in it and set it by his side.
Even then, he kept his head turned.
But the fragrance must have pleased him, for he glanced and spoke.
“I told you not to announce it...”
“What did you hide?”
“What’s the point of letting the world know I’m a rotting corpse?”
“Why not? What blessing is greater than being surrounded by the young before you die?”
“You brat. What use is that at the end? Whether they see me off or not, it’s a path I walk alone...”
“No, Chief. You’re wrong.”
“...Fine. I’m wrong, brat.”
Different this time was that there was no mischief in his voice.
Even my teasing he accepted quietly—proof of the heavy lethargy weighing on him.
“Why did you come?”
Galois asked.
“For no reason.”
And it was true.
No reason.
For me, always moving with purpose, this was an anomaly.
“No reason, huh... you think you’re a god?”
“God?”
“With accomplishments like yours at that age, I’d think so too. But here, you’re useless. I’ve already completed it.”
He was right.
I could not save him, nor finish, nor publish his research. None of it.
“What nonsense. I just came to watch an old man dying.”
“......”
How he took that, I didn’t know.
But slowly, he turned to face me.
“I’m a spectacle to you?”
“Something like that.”
And only then did the old man twitch his lips into a smile.
“You cheeky little bastard...”
Strangely, whenever I met Chief Galois, the [pretend gravity] I carried melted away.
In truth, I was a normal modern man. My Dante act had always been for survival. Yet in front of Galois, I turned childish.
Looking over his current research, I realized why.
“Chief.”
“What.”
“I always thought you were childish, even in old age. But now I see—it had reason.”
Galois’s smile deepened.
“You’ve seen it?”
“I have.”
“Well then. My research.”
“......”
The curse he was researching.
Curse Number 00.
『Curse of Pettiness』.
But such a thing did not exist. Curses began at 01.
So this was one he was inventing himself. The first curse in human history.
And since Galois often sprayed his own reagent, sometimes people, like him, reverted to childlike states.
“How was it!”
Truthfully—it was astonishing. The mechanisms of psyche and spirit it worked upon were intricate and refined.
“Whose work did you steal this time?”
But I didn’t want to say so. Complimenting him felt somehow distasteful.
“Hah! Are you writing my epitaph? I told you, I never plagiarized!”
“Don’t lie, Chief. At the Soltia Conference, I dug deeper. You lifted some from Wolfgang Yussef’s paper. He let it slide, didn’t push further.”
The old man had flip-flopped for years—first admitting, then denying.
Now it was final. Yes, he had taken a little. Yet he’d campaigned insistently that he hadn’t.
“Bah! Kreutz or Hiaka, who cares! I’m me!”
“It was Wolfgang.”
“You brat!!”
The old man glared, then muttered quietly:
“...Everyone borrows and gives.”
Then chuckled.
Absurd. I laughed too.
“Crazy old man.”
“He’s from the enemy. You admit it?”
“I don’t. Plagiarist.”
“Shut up. A genius like you couldn’t understand the struggles of mediocrity. Enough. If you’re just going to scold me, don’t talk. Leave. Old man’s about to croak...”
By then he was genuinely sulking, so I stopped.
“Fine. But I have one question about your paper.”
“...What is it.”
“The background of this 『Curse of Pettiness』 intrigued me.”
“......”
The reason he pursued it.
“Chief—why did you believe humanity needs pettiness?”
A very important question.
He looked back at me, voice drained.
“...Would you help me step ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ outside, for a moment?”