As for Jin...
On May 15th—the same day Laojun was secretly treating Lishia and her companion—Jin was being given a tour of the Shouro Empire's Imperial Palace.
His guides were Reinhard and one other person.
"Jin-kun, I take great pride in our library. I believe it is far more magnificent than anything you would find in the Allied Kingdoms."
The speaker was Empress Gerhardt Hilde von Rubis Shouro. She was already calling him "Jin-kun." She was certainly a frank monarch.
"..."
Since Her Majesty herself was accompanying them, they had a free pass to every corner of the palace. The guards saluted crisply as the group passed through.
They were even granted access to the Repository, the strictly protected section at the very back of the library, without any issues.
"Here we are. I have work to attend to, so I cannot stay, but let’s see... I should be back by noon. We shall have lunch together then."
Without even waiting for Jin's reply, the Empress turned and swept out of the Repository.
"..."
"Phew..."
"Jin, you look like you have something on your mind," Reinhard said, breaking the silence.
Jin finally found his voice. "Yeah. I just never imagined the Empress herself would act as our guide..."
"Haha, that's just the kind of person she is."
"Still, while I appreciate her trusting an outsider like me, I can't help but wonder if being that trusting is a good idea. To be honest, it makes me a little uneasy."
Jin had no ill intentions, but if she treated everyone with such openness, it would be incredibly dangerous. Spies or assassins could easily slip through her defenses.
Reinhard shook his head at Jin's concern. "There isn't much need for worry on that front. You see, Her Majesty has the ability to see into the very essence of whoever she speaks with."
"What!?"
Jin was stunned. If she truly possessed such a power, she was the perfect ruler.
"Well, that is merely the speculation of those around her," Reinhard added as a disclaimer.
That made sense. Jin doubted she would go around broadcasting the fact that she had such a specialized skill or supernatural ability.
"However, it is a fact that Her Majesty's evaluations of people have never been wrong."
"..."
There were certainly people with a natural intuition for reading others. Perhaps her ability was simply that intuition magnified several dozen times over. It was closer to a superpower than actual magic.
Reinhard added that it was fundamentally different from telepathy or mind-reading. Hearing that made Jin feel a bit more relaxed. If she had been able to read his mind during their first meeting yesterday, she would have seen him thinking about how much she resembled his old Orphanage Director. Even more concerning was the thought of her discovering he was from another world.
As of now, only Reinhard and Elsa knew that secret.
"Somehow, I feel like she can be trusted too..."
Jin wasn't sure if that was his own intuition at work or if he was simply biased because she reminded him of the director.
"Father, our time is limited. If there are books you wish to look through, you should do so quickly."
Reiko's voice snapped him back to reality.
"Ah, right. Then I'll gratefully take a look."
Muttering to himself, Jin began to browse the shelves.
"They even have records of past wars."
"Yes. This country hasn't been without its share of internal strife. There were periods where conflict was quite frequent."
As a citizen of the Shouro Empire, Reinhard possessed a fair amount of historical knowledge.
Jin wasn't particularly interested in military history himself, so he asked Reiko to handle those. Reiko could read at more than ten times the speed of a human; she would scan the pages and transfer the information to Laojun for permanent storage.
He also had her read books regarding local exports, botany, and zoology from across the empire.
As for what Jin was looking for...
"This is it..."
It was the legend he had heard from Reinhard long ago while they were at the hot spring on Kunlun Island.
"Hmm? Ah, that one. I suppose I did tell you about it once."
It was a book regarding the world's origins—a collection of legends.
The stories claimed there was another world on the exact opposite side of the sun, and that humanity's ancestors had originated there. Jin hadn't been able to find a storyteller in the Celuroa Kingdom, so he had hoped to find written records here in the Shouro Empire.
"Let's see... Hmm..."
The entry was only a few pages long and wasn't particularly detailed.
However, it explicitly stated that there was another world directly behind the sun, that it was much larger than this world, and that a group of chosen ancestors had traveled across the sky to this world aboard a Heavenly Ship to become the progenitors of the human race.
The only details that expanded on what Reinhard had told him were the "much larger world" and the "Heavenly Ship."
Jin found himself wondering if the people of this world were actually the descendants of colonists who had arrived on a spaceship.
On Earth, creation myths usually involved a creator deity or a giant fashioning the world from their body. Here, the myth claimed they had simply migrated from somewhere else.
In a way, that felt more plausible. If that were the case, then spaceships—the "Heavenly Ships"—might have actually existed in the distant past.
Jin was lost in his imagination until Reiko tugged on his sleeve.
"Father, I have finished the books you requested. What shall I do next?"
"Right, thanks. Here, scan this one too."
He handed her the book of legends to finish.
The idea of a Heavenly Ship intrigued him, but even Jin didn't have the knowledge required to build a spaceship. The biggest hurdle was the lack of any means of propulsion in a vacuum.
"Well, it's not like I need one right now."
He felt the itch to build one, but it was strictly a hobbyist's curiosity. For now, he had more immediate matters to attend to.
Since their time was short, Jin moved through the library and Repository, examining one book after another. There were many volumes on magi-engineering, which Jin skimmed through. Most of it covered things he already knew, but he did find a few interesting techniques, which made the trip worthwhile.
He also found books on religion. Jin had been curious about why religion was almost non-existent in this world, so he took a quick look.
"...I see."
Essentially, almost all religious figures had been high-ranking magi. Because of this, their internal mana capacity was significantly higher than the average person's.
Consequently, when the Ether Stampede occurred, nearly all of them had been killed.
With the sudden death of so many religious leaders, people realized that "divine protection" didn't actually exist. This led to a mass exodus from organized religion, leaving behind only small pockets of folk beliefs.
"It really does all come back to the Ether Stampede..."
There were other religious texts, but he didn't find anything of particular use. None of them provided a detailed explanation of what the Ether Stampede actually was.
It was a dead end, but that was to be expected.
"Alright, let's try this section."
Jin moved on to the general bookshelves.
He found even less of interest there, but one topic did catch his eye: alchemy.
"Sorry, Reinhard. I think I might have asked you this before, but what exactly does alchemy cover in this world?"
Reinhard, who had been engrossed in a book on magi-engineering, looked up.
"Alchemy? Well, it's things like refining medicine from herbs or boiling seawater to extract salt."
From that description, Jin gathered that it was essentially the local equivalent of chemistry. It didn't seem to be the pursuit of turning lead into gold.
Intrigued, he picked up a volume titled An Introduction to Alchemy and began to read.
"I see, I see."
Apparently, in the beginning, there had been attempts to turn lead into gold or create elixirs of immortality. However, over time, it had evolved into a practical science, even if the old name had stuck. That was the gist of the first chapter.
The second chapter provided an overview of metallurgy, and the third covered the extraction of liquids from medicinal plants. It was actually quite interesting.
"You seem to have taken a liking to alchemy, Jin," Reinhard said with a smile.
"Hmm? Oh, yeah. The field of alchemy had already vanished in my world, so this is fascinating."
"That’s right, you called it science, didn’t you? The foundation of your knowledge."
"Yeah. But it looks like alchemy here is in the middle of transforming into that very science."
Reinhard gave a mischievous little grin. "Jin, have you ever heard of a man named Toa Eschenbach?"
He paused for a moment for effect.
"That man, Toa Eschenbach, is the leading authority on alchemy in our empire."
Jin's interest was immediately piqued. "Toa Eschenbach... I wonder what he's like? I'd love to meet him and talk shop if I ever got the chance."
Reinhard patted Jin on the shoulder.
"I think I can arrange that, Jin. After all, he resides within my family's territory."
Hearing that the premier alchemist lived within House Randol's lands, Jin felt a surge of excitement. He had found one more thing to look forward to in the near future.