The Genius Programmer Turned Wizard - GPW Chapter 8: The Shallow Hollow (1) (Part 2)

This time, it glowed a deep red.

‘What the—? I haven’t even digested the last one yet.’

Still, if she kept showing me new code, I wasn’t about to complain.
I hurried to shove it into my brain.

‘Mana type: fire…?’

Fire…!
I finally found fire!
More precisely, it was probably a fire-related command.

‘Even just analyzing this might let me try coding a flame-type spell.’

While I was celebrating like a caveman discovering fire, the letter of recommendation in Adeline Rubylake’s hand suddenly burst into flames.

But of course, the letter was left unharmed.

“A real letter of recommendation, huh?”

Only then did she start reading it.

“Who dares to drop a recommendation into my party without permission… Kedgan Maddox?”

“What? That old bear?”

Liam Windweaver exclaimed in awe.

“Wow, how’d you pull that off? That old bear used to rant about how useless the apprenticeship system was—not even a speck of real-world application, he said. And now he’s writing you a rec?”

Meanwhile, behind them, Ethan, who had just been peeking over, suddenly widened his eyes.

“Wait—hold on! You’re that golem guy!”

“Golem?”

“He’s the one who controlled the golem during the 1,000th Anniversary Exhibition Match!”

Adeline’s eyes changed instantly.
Her gaze shot straight to my chest—right over my heart.

She was likely trying to assess my general level, maybe checking my mana or how far along my magic circle had developed.

But her expression quickly soured.
She squinted like she thought she saw wrong and refocused.
But it wasn’t like my magic tier had changed in the past few seconds.

“…Hmm.”

She turned a suspicious glance toward Ethan.
Just then, Liam stepped forward and held out his hand.

“Has the old guy lost it…? Hey, apprentice! Don’t go trying to show off and get yourself killed. Just stick close to the senior mage.”

Of course, that was my plan from the start.
I had a lot to learn from her.

“Yep.”

As I moved to stand behind her, she suddenly raised a finger with a snap.

“Not me. Go stick to him.”

She was pointing at Ethan.

—

It didn’t take long for me to realize why she’d done that.

“Man, when that golem slammed into the VIP seats? That was nuts—”

This guy talks way too much.
She was dumping both the annoying Ethan and the potentially annoying apprentice mage on each other at once.
Meanwhile, with his attention focused entirely on me, Adeline seemed to be concentrating on something near the dungeon entrance by herself.

She mumbled with a blank expression, then suddenly cursed under her breath with a twisted face.
It was like she was possessed or something—but to me, it was familiar.
Mages aren’t so different from programmers, after all.

‘Huh. But if even a mage like her isn’t noticing anything off…’

The strange code scrawled at the entrance, the garbled letters—it all looked like something was seriously wrong with the dungeon.

…That’s what I was thinking when it happened.
She tilted her head, eyebrows narrowing.

“What is this mana…?”

Mana?
Was there some connection between this code and the anomaly in mana?

“This—this really isn’t normal. For a shield to be this heavy…”

Just then, Ron’s voice came from the front, and the entire group abruptly stopped walking.
The chatterbox Ethan went silent, sensing the shift in mood, and I finally had a chance to focus on the floating characters in the air.

`[add %rdi, %rax]`
`[sub %rdi, %rdx]`

‘It’s definitely clearer now.’

It was still hard to read, of course—but that made sense.
The language this code was written in wasn’t designed for humans to read easily.

Assembly language.
If C or Java were high-level languages made for programmers, then this was a low-level language made for the machine itself.

If magic code was written for mages, then this was written for the world—the medium that accepted magic.
In other words, while a normal spell acted through magic, this was the code of mana itself.

Not magic—but mana force.

There were still unanswered questions.
After being exposed to mana so many times, why was I only seeing this code now?

‘Does that mean ancient magic uses an entirely different type of mana?’

It did seem like Adeline had sensed something in the mana too.
Liam grumbled at Ron.

“Damn coward. Just fall back!”

“No, sir! As long as the expedition continues, I have a duty to protect the party as the tank—!”

Suddenly, I sensed something dangerous.

“Watch out!”

The moment I shouted, Adeline leapt forward from behind.
Her staff was already inscribed with a magic circle—one that looked far more complex than before.

Fwoooosh!

A massive fireball, at least dozens of times larger than what she used on the letter earlier, erupted from the circle.
It raced down the narrow corridor, just grazing past Liam and Ron.

BOOOOM!

KYAAAAAK—!!!

Lizard-like monsters that had been clinging to the ceiling fell, engulfed in flames.

“What the hell?!”

Liam’s expression darkened as he identified them.

“Shit—what’s a Shadow Lizard doing in a D-rank dungeon?!”

Shadow Lizards.
Creatures that hid in the shadows on cave ceilings, ambushing unsuspecting adventurers.
They were monsters that had no business appearing in a D-rank dungeon.

“If it weren’t for Miss Adeline, this could’ve gone real bad!”

Everyone turned to Adeline in awe—
But her eyes were fixed on me.

“How did you know?”