Chapter 112
The Price of Curiosity
Five minutes earlier.
The library of Valdrova Castle.
Mori was working there.
Her task was to document and preserve the records gathered from Hestia Village. She also provided legal advice and handled requests to access archived materials.
She was an A-class talent so rare that most organizations could not recruit anyone like her even if they wanted to.
At present, however, she had been reduced to Echidna’s plaything.
—Lady Echidna.
“Hmm? What is it?”
—Being embraced while I am working is inefficient. Under otherwise optimal working conditions, my efficiency has decreased by twelve percent.
There was one rule regarding Mori’s supervision.
Her work efficiency could not be allowed to decrease by more than fifteen percent.
Most people would have interpreted that warning to mean they should only bother her when necessary.
But Echidna, a witch starved for affection, was different.
“Then that means there’s still three percent left, doesn’t it?”
Her intention was to push the limit as close to 14.99 percent as possible.
But if she had been capable of stopping there, she would not have been a witch.
Even as she held Mori, Echidna’s excitement continued to intensify.
At last, she growled like a beast.
“Grrr, I can’t hold back anymore!”
She buried her nose in the crown of Mori’s head.
“Sniff, sniff.”
—I recommend that you stop.
“Hnnngh...”
—Stop—
“Snnnniff!”
“Ghuack!?”
A powerful blow struck Echidna directly beneath the nose while she was lost in the scent of Mori’s scalp.
Her body reeled backward.
She finally collapsed against the wall, sending the books she had used for support spilling across the floor.
“Hieeeeng... That’s too mean. You didn’t have to use violence...”
Tears welled in Echidna’s eyes as she rubbed beneath her nose.
Mori looked down at her with an expression that seemed strangely satisfied.
She quickly wrote something down and held it up.
—My work efficiency has increased by five percent as a result of that action.
“Really? Does Miss Mori have sadistic tendencies? Do you want to become a witch too? I cannot allow you to become a witch!”
—I possess no ego. Therefore, I cannot become a witch.
Mori returned to her work.
Echidna also stopped fooling around and turned her attention back to reality.
Books and documents covered the floor.
It was a complete disaster.
“Ugh, why are there so many papers...?”
If she left the room like this, she would obviously be scolded.
She began cleaning up.
With a simple gesture, the scattered books and documents floated into the air.
As though time itself were reversing, the books returned to their shelves and the documents neatly arranged themselves.
“Who even reads books like these...? They’re not interesting at all... Hmm?”
As she continued tidying some of them by hand, Echidna noticed something tucked inside one of the books.
It was a square-folded sheet of paper.
“This is...”
Even its material was different from ordinary paper.
It was magical parchment capable of absorbing mana.
Magical parchment hidden among mundane documents.
That fact alone was enough to stir Echidna’s curiosity.
She unfolded it.
“A magic circle...?”
Her words ended as a question.
“Is it?”
The pictographs embedded within the circular design resembled the magic circles she had often seen.
However, many parts felt unnatural for elements of a proper magic circle.
More than one component deviated from conventional theory.
As she examined it, an unusual idea occurred to her.
Despite having been struck hard enough to make her nose ache, Echidna smiled brightly as though nothing had happened and called out to Mori.
“Mori deaaaar~.”
Scratch, scratch.
She held out the magic circle.
“Don’t be so cold. Take a look at this. What kind of magic circle do you think it is?”
Scratch, scratch.
“It looks like Regent Ferda drew it.”
Scratch—
Mori’s eyes shifted at the mention of Ferda.
She examined the magic circle from top to bottom as though scanning it.
Several minutes of contemplation followed.
At last, Mori gave her answer.
—I do not know.
“Even you don’t know, Miss Mori?”
—Correct. This magic circle does not exist among the records I possess.
“If even Miss Mori doesn’t know...”
Echidna knew what existed inside Mori’s mind.
The Archive of All Phenomena.
It recorded virtually every form of magic known on the Cerdes Continent, including their names.
—There are three possible reasons why I cannot identify it.
—First, it may be magic that was never recorded on the Cerdes Continent.
—Second, it may be a form of magic too complex to record using the languages of the Cerdes Continent.
—Third, it may be magic personally created by its owner.
Rationally speaking, the third possibility was the most likely.
Magic created by Ferda himself.
—Judging by its structure and appearance, the third possibility appears most probable.
“Right. At first glance, it looks like nothing more than a drawing...”
That was what mages called a magic circle that could not function.
Mages trained in geometry sometimes created magic circles at random in the hope that one might work by chance.
Even then, they were lucky to find a single functional one among ten thousand attempts.
—Furthermore, this cannot truly be called a magic circle. It lacks geometric elements, and its form is unclear.
“Exactly.”
Even magic circles dismissed as mere drawings could sometimes inspire the thought that they might function if studied thoroughly.
Ferda’s did not.
Unlike precise and meticulously constructed magic circles, this one was crude and inefficient.
—It is merely a drawing resembling a nonfunctional magic circle. That is my conclusion.
Mori reached her verdict.
Echidna, however, thought differently.
One could only perceive as much as one understood.
Echidna possessed enough knowledge to create runes.
That was why she could see far more than Mori could.
“This thing works.”
This crude and inefficient magic circle was functional.
Mori turned toward her.
—Do you have evidence?
“Evidence... No. It’s just intuition...”
—Then there is no value in discussing it.
Mori judged matters according to evidence contained within the Archive of All Phenomena.
Human intuition was not logical.
Responding to something illogical would only waste time.
Mori stopped paying attention to the magic circle and resumed her work.
Thus ended their exchange.
Echidna felt disappointed that the conversation was over, but she continued staring at the parchment and muttered to herself.
“How does this work?”
She questioned the intuition she had felt.
Tilting her head, she began analyzing it.
She turned over everything she knew inside her mind.
One by one, she matched the elements together and attempted to strip away the veil surrounding it.
Strangely, however, the more layers she peeled back, the greater the wall before her became.
It was a problem that could not be interpreted through logic or reason.
Like the theoretical existence of utopia, or mana fatalism, it seemed impossible to solve.
Echidna’s eyes began to shine.
The fact that it contained a mysterious and incomprehensible force filled her with excitement.
That excitement drove her toward impulse.
“Let’s dismantle it.”
Her curiosity soon led her to the idea of disassembling the magic circle.
Dismantling another person’s magic circle without the creator’s consent was an absolute taboo.
She knew it might anger Ferda.
Yet the desire she felt was strong enough to make her ignore even that.
“...I’ll only touch it a little.”
Just a little.
There should be no problem if she interfered with only one rune.
In terms of importance, it would be no different from briefly removing a single cog from a machine to inspect it.
Despite saying that, Echidna’s finger reached for the rune at the very center.
The trace of mana engraved into the parchment was transmitted clearly into her fingertip.
Echidna copied the rune she felt and manifested it above her palm.
Now she only needed to take it apart and read its code.
Until that moment, she had no idea that she would pay a price for her curiosity.
“Huh?”
Before the rune could even react, it melted and flowed into her arm.
She felt it surging backward through her mana channels.
“H-Huh?”
Echidna let out a startled sound like an innocent young lady.
But she responded immediately.
As befitted an experienced witch and mage, she cast a fifth-tier sealing spell to stop the rune from being absorbed.
“H-Huh?”
But it did not work.
Her sealing spell could block every magical effect of the Fifth Tier or lower.
The fact that it had failed meant the rune itself belonged to the Sixth Tier or higher.
That was impossible.
The highest tier of rune that humans could create and control was the Fifth.
“Ghk...!”
Echidna paid the price for her curiosity.
There was nothing she could do to stop it.
***
“Explain exactly what happened.”
Mori began writing down everything she knew.
—Echidna touched one of the runes drawn into the magic circle and was consumed by it.
“You mean she was consumed by a rune she created herself?”
—She said the magic circle had been drawn by Lord Ferda.
“A magic circle I drew?”
Ferda frowned.
He had a feeling this was going to become troublesome.
Even so, it makes no sense for Echidna to die...
Ferda had stored several magic circles, but none possessed enough power to kill Echidna.
It should have been even more impossible through runes, her own field of expertise.
Ferda lowered his gaze to the floor, searching for the object in question.
His eyes landed precisely upon something buried among the scattered books.
This is...
Ferda recognized the magic circle.
It was the one he had drawn while confused by the mana inside him.
It had looked so complicated and crude that he had copied it before tucking it away somewhere.
She died after touching this?
Ferda studied the runes drawn within it.
There were seven in total, and Echidna had touched only one of them.
From a single rune?
That defied common sense.
A Fifth-Circle witch—
And not merely any witch, but an expert known as a Rune Maker—
Had died to one of Ferda’s runes.
“And then? Did you actually see her die?”
—After touching the rune, she began showing symptoms of respiratory distress and then disappeared.
“Because of the rune?”
—I cannot determine that much.
Mori made predictions based on recorded knowledge.
Elements visible only to mages were beyond her ability to interpret.
“It was probably circle overload,” Luri suggested.
It was a hypothesis Ferda might have accepted as well.
Though something low-circle mages could hardly comprehend, circle overload was a terrifying danger that mages of the Fifth Circle and above could never ignore.
“That cannot be it.”
“Why not?”
“If her circle had overloaded, Mori would have died in the resulting explosion as well.”
Circle overload was exactly what its name implied.
The mage themselves became a bomb.
No matter how dearly Echidna cherished Mori, there was no way she could have kept her this safe.
There had been a tremendous tremor, but nothing beyond that.
Ferda reached a different conclusion.
“Someone cast a spell.”
“Had the magic circle activated, would Mori not have said so?”
“Of course.”
A magic circle was something Mori could perceive as well.
“But matters are different when the witch bears the name Philiase.”
Blue light shimmered within Ferda’s eyes.
He began seeing more than what was visible on the surface.
“As I thought.”
Traces of mana remained where Echidna had been standing.
But those traces indicated more than the mere activation of mana.
Ferda poured magical power into the faint shape and brought its outline into vivid clarity.
Luri stared in surprise.
It had taken the form of a rose.
“Is that rose-shaped thing a trace of mana?”
“It is a mana signature, something only high-tier mages can leave behind.”
“Then do you know whose it is?”
Ferda nodded.
It was a signature he could never forget.
“Lucy Philiase.”
The first witch.
Only she left behind a signature like this.
That meant she had interfered with the interior of the castle in order to retrieve Echidna.
To do so, she had violently disturbed the magic circles throughout the castle.
“Then... are you saying someone invaded from outside? The castle’s barrier should never have allowed magic of this scale.”
“The magic circle had already been implanted inside Echidna’s body. It only needed a small stimulus to activate.”
All that was required was a tiny spark to ignite the fuse.
Lucy Philiase had intervened solely to provide that spark.
“Since Echidna bears the Philiase name, this must have been a magic circle engraved by Big Sister to recover her body.”
Killing a witch was difficult.
Some hid their life vessels elsewhere, while others used clones to keep their true bodies safe.
Ultimately, however, they lived beneath the protection of Big Sister.
She could penetrate even the impregnable nest of a dragon.
What sealing magic could possibly stop her intrusion?
“Echidna was an excommunicated witch. Would that protection still apply?”
Unlike the other witches who hated men, Echidna loved them.
She must have been excommunicated because their ideologies clashed.
Why would they bother retrieving her corpse?
Ferda answered simply.
“What is inside her head does not care where she came from.”
Whatever else she might be, Echidna was one of the rarest and most valuable artisans on the continent—a Rune Maker.
Luri nodded, finding the explanation convincing.
“What dreadful creatures witches are.”
“That is not limited to witches.”
I was the same.
Ferda could not take his eyes off the lingering trace.
“There is still one thing I do not understand.”
“Something troubles you?”
“It ended too cleanly.”
All that remained was the rose-shaped trace.
Nothing else in the surrounding area had been disturbed.
That was exactly why it felt strange.
“A witch would never finish things this neatly...”
“She could only interfere from outside. Would it not have been difficult for her to leave anything more behind?”
Luri’s reasoning was sound, but Ferda refused to dismiss the matter.
After thinking for a while, he asked her,
“Has everyone inside the castle been evacuated?”
“Yes. They should all be standing before the inner gate like a pack of frightened meerkats.”
“Let us go there.”
Luri looked puzzled.
Was the answer hidden among them?
Ferda looked down at the people gathered beneath the stairs.
Among them were Zed and Penelope, casually yawning.
“Zed Swallow.”
“Yes?”
Ferda crooked a finger, ordering him closer.
Zed walked over with a thoroughly annoyed expression.
“You used to be a ladies’ man, did you not?”
“That’s right.”
“Then I assume you have flirted with the women working inside the inner castle as well.”
“What?! Do I look like some bastard who can’t survive without women?”
Zed exclaimed indignantly.
Luri shot him a look of disgust.
“You are exactly that sort of man. Every time I pass your room, those damned moans never stop.”
“Huh? That probably isn’t because of Zed, but because of me—Mmph!”
“Shut up. The adults are talking.”
“So, your answer?”
“...I have become acquainted with some of them.”
Zed scratched the back of his head awkwardly.
Ferda ignored his embarrassment and gestured toward the crowd gathered below.
“Do you see any woman among them whom you have never seen before?”
“Even I am not shameless enough to memorize the face of every woman in the inner castle—huh?”
“What is it?”
“There is one woman whose face I don’t recognize.”
Exactly one.
There was a woman who had somehow escaped Zed’s radar.
He pointed toward an ordinary-looking woman.
Everything about her was unremarkable.
She possessed the appearance of a person with no distinguishing traits whatsoever.
“Are you certain?”
“Yes. I have never seen her anywhere in this castle.”
Zed sounded completely confident.
The disgust on Luri’s face deepened.
Ferda walked toward the woman.
“The regent is coming down!”
“Everyone, show respect!”
When the people saw Ferda descending, they shouted and dropped to their knees.
Ferda saw only the woman Zed had indicated.
He walked straight through the crowd and stopped before her.
Seeing Ferda’s feet in front of her, the woman raised her head and bowed.
“I greet Regent Valdrova—”
Pew!
She never finished her greeting.
Before she could, a sphere of mana formed at Ferda’s fingertip and pierced straight through her forehead.