The Archmage’s Destruction Strategy - Chapter 30

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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#030. The Three-Body Problem

Hyeon-jo wore a bewildered expression as he watched Sung-jun suddenly bring up Netflix dramas.

It wasn’t exactly a topic that should come up in the middle of a ruined world, while discussing a life-or-death battle with an apocalyptic monster.

Not only Hyeon-jo and Shirasaki Miyu, but even Seoa, who had absolute faith in her teacher, was momentarily at a loss for words.

“Three… Body, that’s a sci-fi drama, right?”

“That’s right. Originally it’s a drama based on an SF novel that was written using ideas from a classical mechanics problem called the three-body problem.”

“Sorry, but I always dozed off in school so I don’t know about classical mechanics and stuff. Could you explain?”

At Shirasaki Miyu’s voice mixed with complaint, Sung-jun opened his mouth with the expression of a teacher explaining interesting scientific knowledge.

His voice carried a joy for pure intellectual pleasure that he had never shown before.

“The three-body problem is about predicting the orbits when three objects influence each other through gravity. It looks simple, but actually this problem has no mathematically perfect solution.”

“A bit simpler.”

Instead of answering, Sung-jun waved his hand through the air.

Then two spheres that looked like the sun and earth began rotating in mid-air.

“When there are two spheres rotating under gravitational influence like this, it’s entirely possible to predict how each sphere will move. But if we assume there’s one more sphere here…”

When Sung-jun waved his hand again, another sphere joined beside the two rotating spheres, and instantly the stable orbital paths began to distort little by little.

“Like now, when three spheres rotate while influencing each other, their trajectories become so complexly intertwined that they’re unreadable. The problem of predicting these orbits is called the three-body problem.”

“So what does that three-body whatever have to do with Yeojiggwi?”

Then Hyeon-jo couldn’t help but interrupt.

His face seemed full of dissatisfaction about whether this was the time to leisurely discuss science.

“That’s exactly it.”

Sung-jun’s eyes lit up.

“Yeojiggwi’s ability, and my ‘Coin of Fate’ are essentially the same. Reading each other’s variables and predicting the most probable future. But if it’s just the two of us, that’s a two-body problem. It becomes a matter of who dies and who lives when we clash. It’s somewhat predictable, and ultimately the odds become a fifty-fifty fight. But…”

Sung-jun’s gaze swept over Shirasaki Miyu and Seoa in turn.

“What if there are three or four beings who can read the future in this game?”

At that moment, Shirasaki Miyu understood Sung-jun’s meaning for the first time. Her eyes narrowed as she put down the gaming device she always carried.

“The orbits… fall into chaos. Even Yeojiggwi becomes unable to read the future.”

“Exactly. My plan is literally to have three people use fate prediction together. While I intentionally accumulate ‘misfortune’ to draw in Yeojiggwi, the other two will accumulate ‘fortune’ to help me. The method is simple. If two people create situations where they experience misfortune and I create situations where I experience fortune, we should be able to control fate’s scales through that feedback.”

“Wait, isn’t that too dangerous! According to what you’re saying, our side also won’t be able to read the future, which is basically the same as fighting with our eyes closed!”

“For now, that’s the best option. Turning certain death into an unpredictable state to make the outcome of the battle unknown. That’s the only way to face a Corrosion Entity with the cheat-like ability to read the future.”

Theoretically it sounded plausible, but Hyeon-jo was still skeptical.

“So specifically, how do you plan to do it? Can those little misses even use that coin magic like you?”

“I’ll have to make it so they can from now on. Fortunately, teaching Shirasaki the Coin of Fate spell isn’t that difficult a problem. She uses magic through a grimoire, not theory.”

Sung-jun first approached Miyu.

Then he reached out toward the grimoire in her hands, Baphomet.

“Let me borrow it for a moment.”

When Miyu obediently handed the book to Sung-jun, he concentrated and turned the pages.

Then a blank page that shouldn’t have existed suddenly appeared in the middle of the book.

“It might be a bit painful.”

Sung-jun’s words were directed not at Miyu, but at the soul dwelling in the grimoire, Baphomet.

And at that moment, tremendous pain like flesh being seared with a branding iron rushed through Baphomet’s soul.

“Kraaaaaaah!!! You crazy human!!!”

Originally, the process of inscribing a new spell into a grimoire shouldn’t have been such a painful process.

Since grimoires were made with the goal of being magical books that could use ‘any magic,’ most spells should have been addable simply by imprinting them.

However, the spell Sung-jun was now inscribing into Baphomet had a complexity of a different dimension from other ‘ordinary’ spells, and it had a difficulty that far transcended Baphomet’s own computational limits.

“O Dea, quae rotam fati nēs, āverte paulīsper oculōs et aliōrsum spectā.”

-Swiiiiish…-

The spell was so complex that Sung-jun was repeatedly inscribing multiple magical formulas across dozens of pages, not just one page.

And when Sung-jun finally finished the entire process and turned the page, dozens of pages with inscribed spells layered together to become one thick sheet of paper.

Baphomet, who had watched this scene in agony, couldn’t help but be shocked in silence.

‘This is… insane. This human isn’t someone who can be evaluated with the simple concept of a mage.’

The 777 spells inscribed on his body were the essence of magic that geniuses of each era had devoted their entire lives to complete.

But the ‘Coin of Fate’ that Sung-jun was now inscribing was more complex and abstruse than all those spells combined.

The ultimate extreme of inefficiency, completely abandoning efficiency as the price for twisting causality.

Yet Sung-jun was handling that insane spell as if it were his own limbs.

‘Is this really something only a human truly mad about magic could conceive…’

When the spell inscription was finished, Sung-jun next turned to look at Seoa.

“Now, it’s your turn. I’ll demonstrate it first, so watch the flow of mana carefully.”

Sung-jun slowly unfolded the Coin of Fate spell before Seoa’s eyes.

Golden mana unraveled like thread from his fingertips, forming complex knots and creating one perfect gold coin.

The spell formula deliberately expanded large for Seoa to see easily consisted of dozens of layers of magic circles equivalent to the size of a 2-story building, and the Coin of Fate seemed to be the result of that magic circle being compressed.

Seoa closed her eyes and desperately tried to make that flow her own.

Drawing up that ‘unique sense’ that had allowed her to become Sung-jun’s disciple to the maximum, so she could learn magic through sensation rather than theory.

However, the complexity of the spell that manipulated fate was beyond imagination, to the point where even her innate sense couldn’t keep up.

‘My head feels like it’s going to burst…!’

Sung-jun considerately repeated the same spell 8 times for his struggling disciple.

And when he judged that Seoa had memorized the form of the spell, he ordered her to try using the magic.

“I’ll try.”

Faint mana rose like a mirage from her small fingertips. But it soon failed to take shape and scattered into the air.

“The order is wrong.”

Sung-jun’s quiet voice broke her concentration.

“You tried to construct from the outer part of the magic circle and gather energy toward the center. It’s like drawing the border first when drawing a map. But this spell is the opposite. You must first form the core that becomes the center, the ‘question’ that will intervene in causality, and then spread that power outward.”

Seoa took another deep breath and concentrated.

This time from the center.

But the mass of mana wouldn’t move according to her intentions.

She barely managed to create the core at the center, but the moment she spread her consciousness slightly outward, the spell crumbled and collapsed like a mirage.

“Increase the amount of mana there. Right now you’re like trying to fill a huge dam by opening the floodgate just a little. At specific sections, you need to intentionally inject magical power explosively to forcibly stabilize the unstable structure.”

Sweat beaded on Seoa’s forehead.

She poured in mana as her teacher said, but this time she failed to control it.

Excessive magical power ran wild and sparked small sparks around her hands.

“Relying on innate intuition is good. But you need to distinguish whether that judgment truly comes from intuition, or if it’s simply impatience trying to imitate what you saw with your eyes. You’re just copying the form of the spell right now. Magic is a means, not an end. Remember that you’re making a tool to achieve a purpose, not that making the tool itself is the purpose.”

At Sung-jun’s sharp criticism, Seoa bit her lips.

Then she reached out her hand once more with the feeling that this was the last attempt.

While gazing with sorrowful eyes at the red evening glow that was already beginning to fade.

This time, the shape of a coin seemed to form clumsily in the air.

But it was closer to a distorted piece of metal than a gold coin, and soon became particles of light and disappeared with a whoosh.

“Unlike other spells where the power simply changes or activation is canceled, the Coin of Fate is a complex spell where specific results must move organically. You need to operate it more delicately, like handling a living creature, not just pouring in mana.”

Eventually she drooped her shoulders as if exhausted.

Deep self-reproach lingered on her face.

“I’m sorry, Teacher… I’m so lacking… I feel like I’m only holding you back.”

Rather than frustration at the spell’s failure, fear of disappointing Sung-jun was deeply evident in her voice.

Then Sung-jun sighed and spoke soothingly to comfort her.

“It’s okay. I wasn’t expecting much that it would be possible from the beginning. It’s not your fault.”

“But… then the plan…”

“It should be fine since we have Shirasaki. Just the two of us should be enough to disrupt Yeojiggwi’s foresight.”

Sung-jun’s voice saying this was infinitely gentle, but inside he was burning coldly.

The reason he had desperately tried to gather four members, even going so far as to teach the tremendously complex spell to the still clumsy Seoa.

It was because of the single variable that exists in the three-body problem, the mathematically interpretable ‘special solution.’

Just because a two-body problem becomes a three-body problem doesn’t mean every case becomes uninterpretable.

Because the three-body problem has ‘special solutions’ that are exceptionally predictable under specific conditions.

While that was limited to mathematical solutions, Sung-jun believed that in reality too, when three variables satisfied specific conditions, a situation like the special solutions of the three-body problem would occur.

However, he simply couldn’t be certain whether that predictable future would lead to an outcome favorable to him, or to an outcome leading to his death.

And if that special solution was decided in a direction favorable to the Yejigwi, he would face 100% certain death.

Creating a four-way structure to make complete chaos was the only sure winning strategy, but now that plan was unusable.

‘But for now, this is the best I can do.’

While Sung-jun was hiding his anxiety, Hyeon-jo brought up the main point.

“So, now that we have the conditions somewhat in place, how exactly do you plan to create misfortune?”

“To be precise, we need both fortune and misfortune simultaneously. I need to keep triggering good luck to accumulate bad luck, while Shirasaki needs to keep experiencing misfortune to build up good luck.”

Hearing Sung-jun’s words, Shirasaki Miyu opened her Grimoire. Then a golden coin identical to Sung-jun’s appeared above her palm.

“And Hyeon-jo. I need your help.”

To the puzzled Hyeon-jo, Sung-jun explained.

“Even if I repeatedly bet against Shirasaki and keep winning, fate won’t change significantly. After all, the total amount of fortune I can absorb equals the total amount of misfortune she can endure. So to deceive fate, I must use the fortune of a third party unrelated to me. Similarly, she too must accumulate good luck by losing in bets against a third party unrelated to me. And all of this must involve actual ‘losses’ and ‘gains.'”

“In what way?”

“We need to find a singularity where human luck activates most powerfully. For example, a place like a casino.”

The singularity where Sung-jun thought human luck swirled most violently. That place was precisely a casino.

“A casino… you mean a gambling den? Teacher. Would there be people gambling in times when survival itself is difficult?”

To Seoa’s question about where there could be humans leisurely gambling when the government had collapsed, Hyeon-jo smiled and answered.

“Miss, gambling is one of human nature’s traits. It probably won’t disappear until humanity goes extinct.”

Hyeon-jo led the group toward ruins deep in the collapsed city, as if he had a place in mind.

Then he absurdly guided them to a location that even had neon signs lit up, blatantly advertising itself as an entertainment district.

In a world where money had become worthless paper, Seoa was curious about the system that kept this irrational space running.

“Money must be useless now, so is there a separate currency used here?”

Hyeon-jo exhaled a long stream of cigarette smoke and gestured with his chin toward the casino entrance guarded by fierce-looking armed security.

“Anything.”

Food, weapons, information, even human lives. A place where everything became ‘value’ and moved across the tables.

That was literally the most essential keyword symbolizing a post-apocalyptic era casino.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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