Chapter 112 - The Price of Curiosity

The time was five minutes ago.

Valdrova Castle, the study.

Mori was working there.

Her task was documenting and archiving the records gathered from Hestia village.

She also provided legal advice and handled record access.

She was an A-class talent whom anyone would scramble to recruit, but right now, she was reduced to being Echidna's toy.

[-Lady Echidna.]

"Hm? What is it?"

[-Hugging me while I am working is inefficient. It results in a 12% drop in perfectly optimized work conditions.]

There was one set rule when managing her.

Do not let her work efficiency drop rate exceed 15%.

If it were anyone else, they would have interpreted that warning as a sign to only bother her when absolutely necessary.

However, Echidna, an affection-starved witch, was different.

"So that means I still have a 3% leeway, right?"

It was a mindset of pushing the absolute limit right up to 14.99%.

But if she could even manage that properly, she wouldn't be a witch.

Echidna's excitement grew intense the moment she hugged her, and she eventually let out a beastly sound as she cried out.

"Grrr, I can't hold back!"

With that, she buried her nose into the crown of Mori's head.

"Sniff, sniff."

[-I advise you to stop.]

"Snnniiiff..."

[-Sto-]

"Snnnnnnnniiiiff!"

SMACK!

"Gubhk!?"

A heavy strike landed squarely on the philtrum of Echidna, who had been engrossed in the smell of her crown.

Echidna's body staggered wildly before falling backward.

She ended up collapsing, spilling the books that had been leaning against the wall onto the floor.

"Hieeeeng... That's too mean. There was no need to use violence..."

Echidna shed tears while rubbing her philtrum.

The look in Mori's eyes as she gazed down at Echidna seemed strangely satisfied.

She quickly scribbled something down and showed it.

[-Thanks to that action just now, work efficiency has increased by a whopping 5%.]

"Really? Miss Mori has sadist tendencies? Does Miss Mori want to become a witch too? I absolutely cannot allow you to become a witch!"

[-I do not have an ego. Therefore, I cannot become a witch.]

Mori returned to her work.

Echidna also stopped acting dumb and turned her head back to reality.

Books and documents were spilled across the floor.

It was a total mess.

"Eeng, why are there so many papers...?"

Leaving it like this would obviously earn her an earful, so she began to clean it up.

With a simple wave of her hand, the scattered books and documents floated up into the air.

As if turning back time, the books slotted back into their places and the documents organized themselves neatly.

"Who would even read books like this... They aren't even fun... Hm?"

While grumbling and organizing some by hand, Echidna noticed something stuck inside a book.

A squarely folded piece of paper caught her eye.

"This is..."

The very texture she saw was different from ordinary paper.

It was a magical parchment capable of absorbing magic power.

A magical parchment mixed among ordinary documents.

That fact alone was enough to stimulate Echidna's curiosity.

Echidna unfolded the paper.

"A magic circle...?"

Her words ended in a question.

"Is it?"

The hieroglyphs embedded in the round circle were similar to the magic circles she frequently saw.

However, for the components of a magic circle, there were many awkward parts.

It wasn't just one or two things that completely missed the mark from textbook elements.

As she stared at it, a strange idea came to mind.

Despite having suffered a nose-breaking pain, she smiled brightly as if it had never happened and called out to Mori.

"Miss Moriiii~."

SCRIBBLE, SCRIBBLE.

She held open the magic circle and said.

"Don't be so cold and please take a look at this. What kind of magic circle does this look like to you?"

SCRIBBLE, SCRIBBLE.

"I think Regent Ferda drew it."

SCRIBBLE—

ROLL.

Mori's pupils moved at the word 'Ferda'.

She swept her gaze over the magic circle from top to bottom, as if scanning it.

Then came several minutes of contemplation.

At the end of it, Mori's reply returned.

[-I do not know.]

"So even you don't know, Miss Mori?"

[-Yes. It is a magic circle that does not exist among the records I possess.]

"If it's something Miss Mori doesn't know..."

Echidna knew what was inside Mori's head.

The Archive of All Things, which records all creation.

It recorded everything down to the names of most magic known on the Serdes Continent, let alone among humans.

[-There are three reasons why I would be unable to identify it.]

[First, a magic spell unrecorded on the Serdes Continent.]

[Second, a complex magic spell that cannot be recorded in the languages of the Serdes Continent.]

[Third, a magic spell directly created by the person themselves.]

Thinking rationally, the most likely candidate was the third.

A magic spell Ferda had created himself.

[-Looking at its form and shape, the third seems the most probable.]

"Right. Because at a glance, it's nothing more than a drawing..."

That was what they called unusable magic circles.

Mages who learned geometry would sometimes stamp out magic circles in a hit-or-miss fashion, but they would only manage to salvage about one in a whopping ten thousand.

[-Furthermore, this cannot even be called a magic circle. It lacks elements of geometry, and its form is also unclear.]

"Right?"

Even magic circles that were called 'drawings' would make one think they might work if studied well, but Ferda's magic circle didn't inspire such thoughts.

Unlike precise and meticulous magic circles, this one was crude and in an inefficient shape.

[-It is merely a drawing resembling a non-functioning magic circle. I will conclude as such.]

Mori drew her conclusion like that.

However, Echidna was different.

One only sees as much as they know.

Echidna was profoundly knowledgeable enough to create Runes.

Thus, much more was visible to her eyes.

"This works."

The fact that this magic circle, with its crude and inefficient shape, actually functioned.

Mori turned her head and asked.

[-Do you have evidence?]

"I... don't have evidence. Because it's a gut feeling..."

[-Then there is no point in discussing it.]

Mori evaluated evidence based on the contents of the Archive of All Things.

The intuition possessed by humans was not logical.

Replying to something illogical was a waste of time.

Mori paid no more mind to the magic circle and resumed what she was doing.

And so, her Q&A with Mori ended.

Feeling disappointed that the conversation was over, Echidna simultaneously looked down at the parchment and muttered.

"How does this work?"

Echidna questioned her own intuition.

Tilting her head, she began to analyze it.

She rolled what she knew around in her head.

Fitting the components together one by one, she peeled back the veil.

However, peculiarly, the more she peeled it back, the more a massive wall was revealed.

A dilemma that could not be interpreted with logic and reason.

It was like an unsolvable theory, akin to the existence of a utopia or mana fatalism.

Echidna's eyes sparkled.

The fact that a mysterious and unfathomable power dwelled within it excited her.

That excitement drove Echidna toward an impulse.

"Let's dismantle it."

Her curiosity eventually led to the idea of dismantling the magic circle.

Dismantling a magic circle was a taboo act that must never be done without the creator's consent.

She thought it might anger Ferda, but she felt an intense desire capable of ignoring even that.

"... I'll just touch it a little."

Just a tiny bit.

Just touching a single Rune wouldn't matter.

In terms of importance, it would only be like briefly taking out a single cogwheel to look at it.

Even as she said that, Echidna's finger touched the Rune at the center.

The mana marks engraved on the paper transmitted clearly to her finger.

Echidna copied the Rune she felt and manifested it onto her own hand.

Now, she just had to tear the Rune apart and read its code.

Until then, she hadn't known.

The fact that she would pay the price for her curiosity.

"Huh?"

At that moment, before she had any time to react, the Rune melted and flowed right up Echidna's arm.

It felt like a backflow within her mana passageways.

"Huh-uh?"

Echidna panicked.

She made a sound like an innocent young lady, but she responded swiftly.

True to being a witch and an adept mage, she blocked the absorbing Rune with a 5th-tier blocking magic.

"Huh-uh-uh?"

However, it did not work.

Her blocking magic negated all magical effects of the 5th-tier and below.

The fact that it didn't work meant that the Rune itself corresponded to the 6th-tier or higher.

That was impossible.

Because the 5th-tier was the limit for Runes that humans could create and handle.

"Kehegh!!"

Echidna paid the price for her curiosity.

There was absolutely no way to stop it.

"Explain the circumstances."

Mori began to write down the facts she knew.

[-Echidna touched a Rune drawn in a magic circle and was encroached upon by that Rune.]

"She was encroached upon by a Rune she made herself?"

[-She stated it was a magic circle drawn by Lord Ferda.]

'A magic circle I drew?'

Ferda crumpled his expression.

He had a gut feeling this was going to be a messy affair.

'Even so, it doesn't make sense for Echidna to die...'

Ferda had a few things stored away, but none wielded the destructive power to kill Echidna.

Much less with Runes, which were her main specialty; it was an impossible feat.

Ferda cast his gaze to the floor to find what it was.

His eyes landed accurately among the messy books.

'This is...'

Ferda recognized that magic circle.

The magic circle Ferda had drawn when he was confused because of mana.

It was the very magic circle that looked so complicated and crude that he had copied it and slipped it somewhere.

'She died from touching this?'

Ferda looked at the Runes drawn in that magic circle.

There were seven Runes in total, and Echidna had touched just one of them.

'From just a single Rune?'

It was a difficult thing to accept reasonably.

A witch of the 5th Circle.

And an expert possessing the title of Rune Maker at that, dying to Ferda's Rune.

"And? Did you see her die?"

[-She showed symptoms of breathing difficulty after touching that Rune, and then vanished entirely.]

"Caused by the Rune?"

[-I cannot know up to that point.]

Mori made predictions based on knowledge.

Elements that could only be seen by a mage were understandably beyond her.

"It must be a Circle rampage."

Luri guessed as such.

It was a hypothesis Ferda might have also accepted.

It was a story one could not experience in the lower-tier Circles, but in the world of mages of the 5th Circle or higher, it was a terrifying event that could never be overlooked.

"That wouldn't be it."

"Why is that?"

"If a Circle rampage occurred, Mori would have also died from being caught in the explosion."

A Circle rampage was literally akin to turning oneself into a bomb.

Even if she cared for Mori terribly, Mori could not have remained so safe.

A massive tremor had occurred, but it had only ended as a tremor.

Ferda's deduction was this.

"Someone cast magic."

"If a magic circle manifested, wouldn't she say that a magic circle manifested?"

"Of course she would."

Because a magic circle was an element Mori could also see.

"But if it is a witch granted the name of Philiaz, that's another story."

A blue light shimmered in Ferda's eyes.

He began to see more than just simple things.

"Just as I thought."

Traces of mana remained in the spot where Echidna had been.

However, those traces didn't merely indicate the manifestation of mana.

Ferda infused magic power into the hazy shape, vividly painting it with color.

Luri was surprised when she saw it.

It was in the shape of a rose.

"Is this rose-like thing the trace of mana?"

"It's a mana signature that only high-tier mages can use."

"Does that mean you know whose it is?"

Ferda nodded.

Because it was an unforgettable signature.

"Lucy Philiaz."

The first witch.

She alone left behind such a signature.

That meant she had intervened all the way into the inner castle to take Echidna away.

For that intervention, she had greatly shaken the magic circle present in this castle.

"Then you mean... she intruded from the outside? This castle's barrier shouldn't allow magic of this level to be cast, right?"

"She had already planted a magic circle inside her body. It only takes a little stimulus to manifest it."

All that was needed was a tiny spark to ignite the fuse, and Lucy Philiaz had intervened to provide that spark.

"Because she is a Philiaz, it must be a magic circle engraved by the Big Sister to retrieve her corpse."

Killing a witch was tricky.

They might keep a life vessel separate or use an avatar to keep their main body safe, but ultimately, it was because they lived under the protection of the 'Big Sister'.

If she could pierce through an ironclad dragon's lair, what blocking magic could possibly stop her intrusion?

"Echidna should be an expelled witch, so does that protection still apply?"

Unlike the others who hated men, Echidna loved men.

She must have been expelled due to conflicting ideologies, so what good was there in retrieving her corpse?

Ferda answered simply.

"What's in one's head doesn't care about origins."

Whatever the case, she was one of the few and most precious artisans on the continent, a Rune Maker.

Luri nodded slowly as if it made sense.

"How terribly persistent. Those folks called witches."

"It's not just witches who are like that."

Because I was like that too.

Ferda could not take his eyes off the trace.

"Still, there is one thing I don't understand."

"Is something bothering you?"

"It ended too cleanly."

All that was left behind was the rose-shaped trace.

Excluding that, nothing in the surroundings had been interfered with.

That was why it was strange.

"There's no way a witch would finish things this cleanly..."

"It should only be at the level of a mere intrusion, wouldn't it be hard to leave anything else behind?"

Luri's words also made sense, but Ferda had no intention of overlooking it.

He pondered carefully before asking Luri.

"Has everyone who was inside the castle been evacuated?"

"Yes. They're probably standing like frightened meerkats in front of the inner castle gate."

"Let's go there."

Luri made a puzzled face.

Did that mean there was an answer among them?

Ferda looked at the people gathered at the bottom of the stairs.

Among them, Zed and Penelope could be seen leisurely yawning.

"Zed Swallow."

"Yes?"

Ferda beckoned him with his finger, instructing him to come over.

With an expression full of annoyance, he walked over to his side.

"You were a playboy, right?"

"I guess so."

"You must have hit on the women working in the inner castle too?"

"Huh?! Do I look like the kind of guy who'd starve to death without a woman?"

Zed grew indignant.

At that, Luri glared at him with disgusted eyes.

"Aren't you exactly that kind of guy? Every time I pass by your room, those damn moans never end."

"Uh? That's probably not Zeze but becau—mph!"

"You shut up for a second. The adults are talking."

"So, your answer?"

"... I just recognize them to some extent."

Zed scratched the back of his head in embarrassment.

Not minding it, Ferda jutted his chin toward the people gathered below the inner castle.

"Is there any woman you're seeing for the first time among the women gathered over there?"

"Even so, I'm not such a shameless creep who goes around memorizing the faces of every single woman in the inner castle—huh?"

"What is it?"

"There's one girl whose face I don't know?"

Just one person.

There was a woman with an appearance that had eluded Zed's radar.

In the direction Zed pointed, an ordinary woman stood.

She had the appearance of a human who was completely ordinary in every aspect, lacking any distinct features.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. She's someone I've never seen before in this castle."

Zed was certain, and Luri's disgusted expression deepened even more.

Ferda walked toward that spot.

"The Regent is coming down!"

"Everyone, show your respect!"

Seeing Ferda descend, the people shouted and all dropped to their knees.

In Ferda's eyes, only the woman Zed pointed out was caught.

Ferda cut through the middle and stood in front of her.

Seeing Ferda's feet on the ground before her, the woman lifted her head and offered her greeting.

"I greet Regent Valdrov—."

ZWHIP—!

The woman could not finish her greeting.

Before she could, a single mana orb formed at Ferda's finger pierced straight through her forehead.