City ​​of Witches 840

## Chapter 840 – #175_Deneb’S Circumstances (4)

#834

1.
“What kind of backwater city treats a nation’s queen like this? This is absurd! To even treat my royal decree as if it were some half-baked witch! I will never forget this humiliation!”

Lürie’s cheeks were puffed up.
Each time she stomped her feet, her magic rippled, showing just how furious she was.

It had only been five minutes since Lürie had been cut off at the entrance alongside Siwoo.

Lürie had protested Metis’s decision with words similar to those above.
The problem was that her method of protest was as arrogant and insolent as a troublesome complainant.

Sharon’s attempts to stop her were futile.

‘Is that so? Well, there’s nothing I can do about it.’

Despite Lürie’s tyranny, Metis did not get angry or blush.
Instead, without batting an eye, she returned Lürie’s donation on the spot and then revoked Lürie’s access privileges.

In the end, she was kicked out of the library alongside Siwoo.

“Siwoo, do you know who I am?”
“You are the rightful heir to the great Nukelavi Dynasty, Lürie Nukelavi.”
“That’s right. So, I ask you just one thing. I want that arrogant curly-haired witch to be drowned along with the library.”
“Please, for my sake, endure it.”
“Ughhh!!! Hurry up and ask!”

Lürie twisted her lips, then, as if exhausted by her own tantrum, slumped her shoulders.

“I’m sorry. I wanted to be of help, but…”
“It’s okay. I know what you were trying to do.”

While patting Lürie’s back to calm her down, the usually gentle Sharon was also fuming beside her.

“What kind of rule is that? How can they not know how amazing Siwoo is? They don’t know anything…! I thought all counts were amazing, but I guess not!”
“Why are you so angry?”
“Of course, I’m angry! They don’t even acknowledge you as a witch!”

I know what she means.

In the witch society, the noblest lineage is that of a ‘witch.’
Any other human, no matter how great, is looked down upon.

Among the rigid traditionalist witches, there are those who would not even acknowledge them as beings worthy of conversation.

For Sharon, it was as if her boyfriend was being racially discriminated against right in front of her.

“I’m going to file a complaint! Can I submit it to the city hall? Isn’t it run with the taxes I pay?”

For the record, the Gehenna City Hall doesn’t have much power.
The library’s operating funds are also covered by donations.

“This is so annoying! They’re so narrow-minded… Siwoo, let’s not go to places like that!”

Each time Sharon, who rarely gets angry, fumed, Amelia’s shoulders would shrink a little.

It was because Metis’s behavior didn’t seem like someone else’s problem to her.

In fact, in the past, Amelia had tormented Siwoo with that rigid, inflexible, and witch-supremacist attitude.

Since Amelia was quiet to begin with, Siwoo, who didn’t notice her shrinking, soothed the furious Lürie and Sharon.

“It’s okay, I was only going to go with you tomorrow anyway, and I just felt bad about leaving you two out.”
“Still…”
“I’m really okay. Well, I’ll try to find another way.”

Earlier, the stuffiness emanating from Count Gremory had naturally made him think of ‘old fogey,’ but her words weren’t entirely wrong.

Siwoo hadn’t actually contributed anything to the library.
He didn’t have any money to donate either.
His attempt to piggyback on others’ efforts might have seemed displeasing to the proud Count Gremory.

However, there was something he was curious about.

“Amelia.”
“Yes, Siwoo.”

Amelia answered in a strangely gloomy voice.

“Is the librarian’s authority that great?”

“Yes, half of the library’s collection has been gathered by the Gremory family, the ‘Bow Book Witches,’ for generations.
It was also Metis Gremory who opened the library for the sake of witch development… Even though the ownership has been transferred to two academic societies, she still has a lot of recognized authority.”
“I see…”

Now, there were two options.

One was to cleanly give up and leave the library investigation to Sharon and Amelia.
Meanwhile, Siwoo could focus on leveling up and researching.

The other was to submit a paper.

It wouldn’t be difficult.

He just hadn’t submitted it yet, but he had quite a bit of research material accumulated so far, hadn’t he?
If he polished it up a bit and submitted it, he might be able to obtain library access, so there was no harm in trying.

He could take this opportunity to systematically organize the overall foundation of magic.

“For now, I’ll leave the library to Amelia and Sharon.”
“What about you, Siwoo?”
“I’m going to go to Trinity Academy for a bit.”

His scholarly passion as a scholar had been ignited for the first time in a while.

2.
The flower of academia, the thesis.

Magic is also a field of study, so it can be said that the pinnacle of magic research lies in the thesis.

Here, a perceptive person would have this question.

‘What? Witches each research their own self-made magic, right? Do they even need a thesis written by another witch?’

In a way, that’s a valid point.

Self-made magic is, literally, unique magic that one develops on their own.
That magic, passed down through generations, leaves no room for others to interfere.

Even if a great witch of the 20th rank were to look at the self-made magic of a 15th-rank witch, they would mostly be unable to understand it.

However, it can be clearly stated that knowledge sharing between witches is useful.

If we were to represent the current state of self-made magic research by many witches in a single image, it would take the form of a sea urchin.
It would be a shape where several spines protrude from a central sphere, each with different lengths and directions.

If one ‘spine’ is the achievement of an independent witch, then the foundational knowledge that the spine feeds on is the ‘sphere.’

Sharing theses increases the size of the ‘sphere.’
It enriches the approaches, inspirations, and formulas for magic that can be used in common.

It’s a crude analogy, but it’s similar to how the advancement of ‘natural science’ leads to breakthroughs in various applied sciences such as astronomy, architecture, and biotechnology.

“Well, anyway. This should be enough, right?”

Therefore, Siwoo, who had visited his lab at the Geminai mansion, took out a research paper that seemed to have a high degree of general applicability.

The length of a thesis varies from a few pages to a whole book, but in the case of magic, it is particularly thick.
The research paper Siwoo had chosen was nearly 400 pages long in A4 format.

All he had to do was polish it up a bit and give it a title that sounded like a light novel.

“Then, first…”

Siwoo immediately went to see Sophia Avenuga at Trinity Academy.

When it comes to theses, isn’t a professor the best person to ask?
He had experience writing theses, but for a witch’s thesis, it would be best to get help from an expert.

Sophia Avenuga was a head professor and a great witch, making her the perfect person to ask for help.

“This place hasn’t changed much either.”

It had been a while since he had visited, but the academy corridor brought back old memories.
It always felt like visiting a military base after being discharged.

As he reminisced about the memories of laughter and tears, how he had pruned that tree, how he had dug that drainage ditch, he quickly arrived at the research building.

“Excuse me.”
“Come in.”

He had wondered if he might miss her, but luckily, an answer came back at the same time as his knock.
Well, most witches spend most of their day researching, so it wasn’t unusual.

When he opened the door, he saw the figure of Sophia, Amelia’s best friend, a busty older sister with flowing purple hair, who had helped Siwoo during his slave days.

“What brings you here? How have you been? But then again, you’re always getting caught up in so many incidents.”

Sophia greeted Siwoo with a face full of joy.
Even after a long time, her bust was still as aggressively bouncy with even the smallest movement.

“I need some help with something.”

At Siwoo’s reply, Sophia jumped up from her seat.
She looked like an intern who had been sitting around waiting for instructions and had finally found something to do.

“I’ve been waiting for this day. First, would you like to sit down? Coffee or tea, which do you prefer?”
“Ah, tea, please.”

Sophia owed Siwoo a debt.
To be precise, it was Sophia who unilaterally felt a sense of indebtedness.

Sophia was the reason why Amelia and Siwoo’s ill-fated relationship began.
But if it hadn’t been for her, their current relationship wouldn’t exist either.

Moreover, she had been subtly caring for Siwoo during his slave days.
Siwoo, who didn’t dwell on the past, had never thought, ‘I need to be compensated!’

“Here, I brewed the best tea leaves. Would you like milk tea?”
“Huh? No, thank you.”

He was startled and stopped her as she was loosening her collar.
He had a hunch as to what kind of milk she was going to add.

It might seem like a joke, but it was her way of expressing her apology.

“You’re still as mischievous as ever.”
“I was just trying to repay an unpayable debt with my body.”
“I don’t think of it as a debt. And Amelia would be very angry, you know?”
“That’s true.”

Sophia covered her mouth and laughed.

“So, what do you want to ask me for help with? Feel free to tell me anything. I’ll do my best.”

Siwoo explained the situation to Sophia, who was actively offering her help.

He told her about how he had met Metis at the library and was cut off at the entrance.
And how he was planning to submit a thesis to obtain access to the library.

However, although he had read through the materials a few times, he had never written a magic thesis that met the format and standards, so he wanted Sophia’s help.

“I thought it would be a good idea to submit a good thesis to the library.”
“Ah, so that’s the kind of help you need? You’ve come to the right place.”

Sophia nodded.
However, unlike before, when she seemed eager to help, she now looked a little troubled.

“Is it difficult?”
“Hmm… It’s difficult if you say it’s difficult, and easy if you say it’s easy, but if you put the average difficulty, it’s on the difficult side.”
“In what way?”

Sophia touched her mouth with an adorable gesture, then opened her mouth with difficulty.

“The problem is whether you can meet the contribution requirements to enter the library. It’s a strict evaluation system.”
“Is that difficult?”
“If it’s an innovative and sensational thesis, you can be granted access with just one paper. But usually, it’s hard, so people push through with quantity.”
“About how much?”
“In very, very general cases, umm, around 100 to 200 papers?”
“Oh…”

His confidence plummeted.

100 to 200 papers might seem like an absurd number, but it wouldn’t be a big problem for a witch who had been passing down their knowledge for generations.

For example, if an ancestor had 50 papers, and their ancestor had 50 papers, and so on, they would be recognized as contributions under the same ‘witch name.’

But Siwoo was a novice witch.
He didn’t have a mentor who had submitted papers, and even if he roughly organized his research, it would only be around 20 papers.

The absolute time was also a problem.
He already had a lot to do, and it would be too costly to focus solely on writing papers compared to the return.

And did he have the confidence to write a paper so outstanding that it would be recognized with just one paper?
No, he didn’t.

“I guess I should give up. Thank you for the tea.”

It was a little disappointing, but he had to let go of what he had to let go of.

“But you’ve come all this way, so why don’t you show it to me?”
“Should I?”
“Yeah, you never know, right?”

She was trying so hard to help him, so it was hard to say, ‘It seems like a waste of time, so I’ll be going now….’
Siwoo placed the draft with a grand title on the table.

“Here it is.”
“Combination of Different Self-Made Magics: A Discussion on a Repulsion Control Model Using Phase Matching. You’ve given it a good title.”

Sophia’s long fingers opened the first page of the thesis.