I've never been in this underground storeroom.
So why do I know about this hidden compartment?
This doesn't make sense.
-You can hear me, can't you! Right? That's what this means, right?
The self-proclaimed Velkarion shouted.
Yeah. That's the thing.
-AAAAGH! Answer me! If you can hear me, say you can! At least tell me that much!
Velkarion was outright screaming now.
And his voice was unmistakably laced with terror.
I'll say it again: I've never set foot in this underground storeroom.
And yet I know about this hidden compartment because Velkarion told me.
That's where the problem arises.
The knowledge and perception of an illusion I see, a being in my imagination, cannot exceed my own knowledge and perception.
Meaning: what I don't know, the imaginary being shouldn't know either.
It would be a creation of my own mind, after all.
But Velkarion knew about the hidden compartment in this underground storeroom I'd never once entered.
And the Mana Stone fragments inside.
They weren't particularly high in purity or large in size.
Literally Mana Stone fragments.
But for a bandit to possess them, they were fairly valuable.
I've never been here, yet Velkarion knows the layout of this storeroom.
In other words.
"You weren't my hallucination, were you?"
-Guh!
The thing let out a sound somewhere between a scream and a groan.
"Answer me."
-Correct. I am no mere hallucination of yours, but the great dark sorcerer and the Lich who achieved eternal life, Velkarion Asengrave!
"Like hell."
-H-how dare you use such language!
His voice surged with indignation again.
I know how to handle this type.
He'd even given me the hint himself. A roadmap for how to manage him, no less.
"Don't feel like talking, I see."
-What?
He fired back, but I gave no reply.
-Hey! Aizel Renhardt! Or is it Kalian Facial? Anyway, hey!
I let his words roll off and finished collecting every last thing from the storeroom.
When I stepped out of the bandit leader's quarters, a huge pit came into view.
Where the bodies of the bandits, including the rat, were heaped.
It was a bit of extra work, but I fetched some oil, doused the corpses, and burned them.
A pile of bodies like that would draw beasts or monsters, which was dangerous.
-Um, excuse me?
Velkarion's tone had suddenly turned polite.
But I didn't answer.
You had to break this type from the start to keep them manageable.
Give them an inch and they'd take it as their due.
He couldn't beat me anyway.
***
Deep in the night, twenty masked figures sprinted down a path.
Twenty moving as one without the slightest disorder.
Not a sound.
Spaced roughly three meters apart in a single file, they simply ran.
Their coordinated, rapid movement spoke to the brutal training that had forged them.
After running for some time, the masked figures finally entered a certain mountain.
That was when it happened.
The masked figure at the very front hurriedly raised a right fist.
Again, no sound.
Every one of them halted in unison.
And without a word, each drew their weapon.
Their blades, curved like crescent moons, were scimitar-shaped, but shorter than usual, about fifty centimeters long.
If one had to name them: short scimitars.
Between the masks and the weapons, these bore every hallmark of covert operatives.
As the masked figures scanned their surroundings, a voice rang out.
"Vermin. I'll give exactly one of you a chance."
A beautiful yet razor-sharp woman's voice.
The masked figures turned as one toward the source.
More precisely, they looked up.
The sky.
Someone hovered high above, regal and aloof.
Silhouetted against the moon at her back, only her outline was visible.
A small woman with a slight build.
She continued.
"One person. Only one of you gets the chance to confess."
The masked figures gave no answer, but the woman made her intentions perfectly clear.
This time not with words, but with action.
She pointed her staff at the ground.
A crimson glow gathered at the staff's tip.
The red light seemed to swim through the air of its own volition, then in an instant traced a perfect circle.
Circle, then another, then another.
Five concentric rings materialized in a flash, geometric patterns blooming within them.
Between the patterns, ancient script written in light was etched strand by strand.
The masked figures, of course, did not stand idle.
PFFT, PFFT-PFFT!
SHEEEK!
Some raised long blowpipes to their lips and fired poison darts, while others hurled daggers drawn in the blink of an eye.
But.
This time, the woman's left hand moved.
Her hand moved fast and in an instant drew a second crimson Magic Circle.
Double Casting.
A spell entirely separate from the one her right-hand staff was producing, manifested from her left hand.
RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!
The poison darts and daggers scattered with a clamor.
Less than a single second had passed between the projectiles' launch and their arrival.
In that razor-thin window, she had activated the Third Circle spell [Mana Shield].
Double Casting alone was terrifying enough, and on top of that, the casting speed was staggering.
"Scatter!"
The word finally burst from the lead operative's mouth.
But this, too, was already too late.
FLASH!
Crimson light erupted from the Magic Circle drawn at the staff's tip, and at last the spell activated.
Light swept across the entire area in an instant.
A colossal Magic Circle encompassing all twenty masked figures blazed to life on the ground.
And the mountain cried out.
Fifth Circle Grand Magic.
[Earth's Courtship]
The overturned ground, the surging soil, wrapped around the masked figures completely.
Standing upright, they were wrapped in earth that piled into burial mounds one by one, only for that soil to be swept away all at once.
And the scene it revealed.
They were clay figures. Earthen dolls.
Below the neck, clay. Above the neck, living human.
A chilling sight, as if severed heads had been displayed atop clay dolls that were nothing but torsos.
A killing field in the most literal sense.
The masked figures' eyes wavered.
They were now fully assimilated into the clay from the neck down, and they knew it.
Yet their heads remained alive, still thinking.
A Fifth Circle spell was no idle thing.
The wavering lasted only a moment.
In the eyes of most, a steely resolve took hold.
Every single one bore the transcendent gaze of those who had accepted death.
But twenty people meant twenty minds.
Not every thought could be perfectly aligned.
The woman mage, Chloe Facial, one of the legitimate heirs of the great House Facial, moved her left hand once more and drew another Magic Circle.
WHIIISH!
A sharp wind blew from somewhere and tore through the masked figures' coverings.
Their faces, laid bare.
Chloe Facial's keen gaze swept over each of them.
And then.
The paused [Earth's Courtship] resumed.
RUMMMBLE!
Fifteen of the twenty heads turned entirely to clay and crumbled.
The surviving five went white with horror.
They had feigned composure, but deep down, all five had been drowning in fear.
Chloe Facial asked.
"Who will answer?"
Even as she spoke, crimson light surged from beneath the surviving operatives' feet.
A threat.
In that instant, all five spoke at once.
"I-I'll talk!"
Just as satisfaction flickered in Chloe's eyes.
ZIIIIING!
"GAAAARGH!"
The surviving operatives screamed in unison.
They died simultaneously.
Their heads, the only parts still alive, suddenly went pale and lost all life.
"Whoa!"
Chloe let out a startled cry.
But it didn't end there.
The dead heads were enveloped in crimson light and crumbled to dust in the blink of an eye.
All that remained were the clay torsos.
But even those soon collapsed into shapeless heaps of dirt.
"A magical restriction?"
Chloe identified the phenomenon at once.
She descended to the ground and approached one of the remaining torsos.
The cross-section.
Where the head had turned to crimson light and disintegrated into dust, a clean cut remained at the neck.
Chloe drew mana into her right hand.
Her index finger danced through the air, and a Magic Circle materialized.
Third Circle spell: [Mana Extraction].
"Hm?"
Chloe's expression hardened.
There was no response whatsoever.
'It's not magic?'
To anyone's eyes, that phenomenon had been a magical restriction.
A spell that triggered when one attempted to divulge secrets.
And yet no mana could be extracted.
'Who are these people?'
Chloe's mouth felt bone-dry.
Ten days ago, her younger brother Kalian had vanished.
The cause: kidnapping.
The moment she'd learned the truth, Chloe assembled a rescue team and mobilized every resource to track her brother's trail.
After an arduous pursuit, the trail she'd caught led to the masked men she had just fought.
Perhaps the only lead.
And now every last one of them was dead, so of course she was growing desperate.
"Lady Chloe!"
A shout came from the direction the masked figures had traveled.
She turned to see a young man galloping toward her on horseback.
He reined in just before Chloe, leapt from his horse, and cried out.
"We've found their hideout."
"And Kai?"
'Kai' was the pet name Chloe used for her younger brother Kalian.
"W-well, the thing is......."
"Spit it out!"
"We were unable to find Young Master Kalian. However, the house where he's believed to have been held was in complete disarray. We suspect a physical altercation may have......."
"Where?"
Chloe cut the young man off.
"Ah, the location is......."
He pulled a small note from his pocket and held it out.
"These are Lady Jane's calculations."
Scrawled hastily on the scrap of paper were numbers.
Three sets of twelve digits each.
Coordinates.
"I'll go ahead. Follow me."
"Yes, ma'am!"
The words had barely left her lips before Chloe let her staff drop and swept it through the air.
Five concentric rings of light materialized around her.
The geometric patterns and letters filling the space between each ring were magic formulas.
FLASH!
Light exploded from the instantly completed Magic Circle.
Fifth Circle spell: [Phase Displacement].
The light enveloping Chloe vanished as if snuffed out.
And Chloe with it.
WOOOOOOM!
A strange resonance suddenly filled an empty space.
"Everyone, stand back!"
A woman in her fifties with half-gray brown hair shouted to those around her.
Meanwhile, a cluster of light had risen where the resonance originated.
Particles of pure white light formed the shape of a person, then scattered in an instant.
And in their place stood a single figure.
Chloe Facial, who had leapt across space using [Phase Displacement].
"Chloe."
The middle-aged woman hurried over.
"Teacher, has anything else turned up?"
The middle-aged woman's name was Jane Lind, Chloe's teacher.
Jane's expression turned grave.
Chloe flinched, her movements freezing.
Jane extended her hand.
"See for yourself."
Placed on Chloe's outstretched palm was a small, transparent vial.
Inside it were finely shattered crystals.
Crystals tinged a murky violet.
The residue left from tracing magical signatures.
Chloe's face flooded with dismay.
"Teacher, this is Dark Magic!"
A cry that was nearly a scream.
Jane closed her eyes and nodded slowly.
"A dark mage among those who kidnapped Kai?"
"There's no other way to interpret it."
In that instant, Chloe's mind flashed to her battle with the masked operatives moments ago.
But there had been no trace of other magic on their bodies.
'I'll table that judgment for now.'
She coolly organized her evidence, then asked.
"Have you found any trace of Kai?"
"Through Mana Extraction, I've found the direction the traces of Dark Magic lead."
"But you can't confirm those traces belong to Kai."
"If there are no other leads, we have to follow that trail, don't we?"
Chloe nodded at Jane's words.
'If he has a seizure while he's out there.......'
A sudden worry flared, and her stomach knotted.
"Let's hurry."
Her brother's safety was worry enough, and now a dark mage was involved, so the situation was growing more dangerous by the moment.
Chloe hadn't the faintest idea that the one who had used Dark Magic was the very Kalian she was so desperately searching for.