Chapter 25: The Meeting
《Third-Person PoV》
“So, the Grace family is absent?”
“Figures.”
“There’s no way they could attend.”
“The Frost Guard was defeated, after all.”
The heads of the Five Great Magical Families had gathered for their usual meeting, but this time, the Grace family was absent.
The five ducal houses—Freya, Walt, Grace, Light, and Sylph—ruled this kingdom.
But that power was beginning to waver.
“I still find it hard to believe. The Frost Guard being defeated…”
The head of the Freya family spoke with a frown.
“However, it’s a fact. Grey, the heir to the family, has regained consciousness, but apparently he still can’t move properly. Furthermore, he seems to be constantly frightened of something. It appears he has been pushed to his limits both physically and mentally.”
“That Grey, huh… So that swordsman defeated the entire Frost Guard, including Grey, by himself?”
“That is the only conclusion we can draw.”
“Does that mean he’s stronger than the Sword Saint?”
“It’s highly possible. However, the bigger problem right now is the serial killer, not that swordsman.”
The head of the Walt family attempted to shift the topic toward the serial killer, but the woman objected.
“Wait a minute. Isn’t the swordsman a bigger problem than the serial killer?”
“That swordsman eliminates threats that come his way, but he isn’t actively going around fighting mages. As long as we don’t make a move against him, there shouldn’t be a problem for now.”
“But what about the authority of the nobility?!”
The head of the Freya family valued noble authority more than anyone.
She believed that they were at the very pinnacle of the nobility, and that their position must never be allowed to waver.
However, this was ultimately an emotional concern.
“If we’re talking about the authority of the nobility, then the serial killer is a much bigger problem. You two agree, don’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“Indeed. Even high-ranking mages within the Mage Corps have already become victims. This is an extremely serious matter.”
“…Tch.”
Since everyone other than her agreed, she had no room to argue.
“There is also a movement among the liberals. If we mishandle this situation, the position of us conservatives could be shaken.”
In reality, even in a society dominated by magical supremacy, not everyone shared the same ideals.
The conservative faction, led by the Five Great Magical Families, undoubtedly held overwhelming political power within the kingdom.
However, there was also an opposing faction known as the liberals.
The liberal faction was not powerful enough to challenge the conservatives head-on, but this incident had provided them with a major opportunity.
Meanwhile, the conservatives were gradually beginning to lose their foothold.
“Perhaps we have no choice but to mobilize the Mage Corps in earnest.”
“Wouldn’t everything be fine if the Corps Commander were involved?”
“Well, who knows? In any case, our immediate objective is to capture or eliminate the serial killer. Their survival is irrelevant. If we don’t act before the liberals do, we really could lose our political power.”
Countless complicated agendas and motives were intertwined.
And all of them were ultimately converging on the serial killer──.
†
“Hmm. I see.”
The three of us were at home studying the information on the serial killer.
It had been provided by the Adventurer’s Guild and contained detailed information that ordinary people would never have access to.
The times of the attacks, the crime scenes, the condition of the bodies, deductions based on the evidence, and much more.
“This… contains information that even my family wouldn’t have known.”
“Is information not shared among the nobles?”
I asked naturally, but then I remembered that the nobles were not a completely united group.
“Not all the nobles cooperate with one another. The group known as the conservatives is by far the largest faction, but there is also an opposing faction known as the liberals. The Adventurer’s Guild would probably be considered somewhat liberal-leaning.”
“I see. So even noble society is complicated.”
“Haha. It really is an unpleasant web of obligations.”
Riana gave an awkward smile.
Judging from her expression, I could vaguely sense just how much mental strain she had endured until now.
“This… There really is a pattern here, isn’t there?”
Luna quietly muttered those words.
She had been studying the documents more intently than anyone else. Perhaps she had noticed something.
“A pattern?”
“Yes. I think the locations of the crimes are more important than the times.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Look at this.”
Luna pulled out a map of the kingdom and began connecting the locations of the crimes with lines.
“This is…”
Riana seemed to understand what she was seeing.
“Is that some kind of pattern?”
“It’s a magic circle. The times of the crimes are all over the place, so they seem unrelated, but perhaps that was intentional to conceal this. Besides, this is a very unusual magic circle, so I don’t think most people would notice it. But something is strange…”
“What?”
“The magic circle was completed a long time ago. If this were some kind of large-scale magical ritual, it wouldn’t be strange if some major phenomenon had already occurred.”
“Hmm.”
She had a point.
The magic circle was complete, yet nothing had happened.
That left two possibilities.
“Either the killer deliberately left it as it is, or it isn’t actually complete yet.”
“…This is just a feeling, but I think it’s the latter.”
“Why?”
Luna answered with a serious expression.
“Up until now, the serial killer’s crimes have occurred throughout the kingdom. In addition, there have also been incidents inside dungeons. The map I’ve drawn only shows the ones within the kingdom. In reality, perhaps this is a double-layered magic circle.”
“Oh… That certainly is a possibility.”
A double-layered magic circle.
It didn’t mean much to me, since I knew almost nothing about magic, but perhaps Luna was getting close to the truth.
“It’s in the documents… Here. The crime scenes inside the dungeons. If I connect these… No, they have to be connected to the ones above? Perhaps it’s an original magical system with multiple layers… Ah, damn it! I’m so close to remembering! I feel like I’ve seen this magic circle before…!”
Luna suddenly stood up.
“I’m going to the Royal Library! I feel like I saw something like this in one of the magical texts there!”
She quickly gathered her things and hurried out.
“Ah! Luna-chan! I’m coming too!”
Riana immediately followed after her.
As for me, I didn’t understand anything about magic, so I decided to leave it to the two of them.
Still, the idea that the serial killer’s crimes were part of a magical ritual…
This case might run much deeper than I had initially thought.
At the time, I would come to regret not following the two of them.
Because Luna and Riana──
would not return that day.
Chapter 26: Encounter
I was rushing toward the Royal Library.
I felt as though all the things I had been wondering about until now were finally becoming clear. Personally, I had always thought there were strange aspects to the massacres committed by the killer.
Why were the crimes being committed in such scattered locations? Why were the times so inconsistent? Yet, I instinctively felt that these were not simply the acts of a random maniac.
There had to be some organic meaning behind them.
That was why I was running now, thinking that I might have found a clue leading to the truth.
“Luna-chan! Did you figure something out……!?”
“Probably……! As long as my guess isn’t wrong!”
Riana-chan called out to me from behind. The two of us hurried into the Royal Library.
“Um. The old magic books…….”
The Royal Library contained everything from ancient magic books to the latest works. Academic papers and other documents were also available for viewing.
I often studied magic at this library, and I was certain that the magic circle I had in mind was in one of the old magic books.
“Old…… the really old ones.”
“How old are we talking?”
“Probably the oldest ones.”
“Could it be this one?”
“Ah! Thank you, Riana-chan!”
“You’re being too loud. Let’s be quiet, okay?”
“Y-yeah……”
Riana-chan gently held her index finger in front of her mouth. I had gotten so excited that my voice had grown loud. Then, after taking out the magic book I was looking for, I began reading it.
“Let’s see…… there it is. This is it.”
“It looks similar. But it isn’t a multi-layered structure, right?”
“Yeah. But I think this is definitely the base……”
“If this is really what we think it is, then this is going to be a serious problem……”
Riana-chan said that with a grave expression. The magic circle depicted before us was considered a forbidden art. It was a technique that used human souls as an energy source for magic.
Human existence itself was essentially like a mass of magical power, making it an extremely high-density energy source. Ancient mages had focused on this fact and attempted to complete that forbidden magic, but they had been unable to make it work theoretically.
That was what was written in this magic book.
At the same time, I remembered a paper I had read recently.
The dots had completely connected in my mind.
“Riana-chan. Let’s go look at the academic papers.”
“The papers? Why?”
“There was a recently published paper whose subject was the theory of multi-layered structures in magic circles.”
“Could it be──”
The words that followed were difficult to say.
The truth behind these massacres was──to complete a form of magic that had never been completed in ancient times.
I was certain of it.
“There it is. This is it.”
A paper published exactly one week ago. Its subject was the possibilities of multi-layered structures and magic.
To summarize, it proposed that by layering magical formulas, complex and powerful magic could be activated. This theory had been studied in the past as well, but layering two magical formulas was considered impossible because it was far too complicated.
However, this paper contained material that might make that impossibility possible.
In recent years, the popular subject in magical research had been the brain, so a topic like this received very little attention. In fact, I had never heard of it being discussed at the magical academy either.
The reason I knew about it, however, was because I had read through every book I could find, wanting to become as admirable a person as Ayame-san.
If I had never met Ayame-san, I probably never would have reached the truth.
“We figured out a lot, but…… what should we do?”
“Shouldn’t we report it to Ayame-san first?”
“That’s true. Let’s do that.”
We were about to leave the Royal Library when, the moment we stepped outside, a magic circle appeared beneath our feet.
“What is this──!?”
“Teleportation magic……!”
Before we knew it, we had been teleported inside a dungeon. It was a completely white space stretching as far as we could see, with faint exterior lights illuminating it.
And then, we noticed.
“Eek.”
“That is……”
It was the corpse of a monster. A gigantic serpent with five heads. That was a Hydra, an S-rank monster. If so, did that mean it was the boss of this dungeon floor?
However, all of its heads had been severed, and green blood was spread across the ground.
It was still a vivid color, and there was no sign of blood coagulation that would occur with the passage of time. In other words, whoever had killed this Hydra was still nearby.
“Oh. You’ve already arrived.”
At the end of our gaze, a man was walking toward us. He looked young and was dressed in a high-quality suit. There was a faint trace of green blood on it, making it clear that he was the one who had killed the Hydra.
“……Neville-san?”
“Ah. It has been a long time, Riana-sama. It seems you’ve grown into quite a fine young woman.”
He spoke to us as calmly as though this were an afternoon tea party. I found something about it deeply unsettling.
“Why are you here?”
“Hmm. The fact that you were able to come here means you reached the truth, does it not? I had made some adjustments to the magic book and my paper, after all.”
So that was it. He had embedded magical conditions into the magic book and the paper so that the magic would activate when someone read them and then left the library.
“However, someone raised as a noble should not have been able to reach that conclusion. It was not Riana-sama, but you, was it? You were the one who reached the truth.”
“……Yes.”
I exchanged words with him. I felt a chill gradually creep down my spine.
“What is your name?”
“I’m Luna.”
“Miss Luna. You are extremely intelligent. You managed to reach the truth behind that incident. Allow me to offer you my heartfelt congratulations.”
“……”
He applauded, but I could not simply rejoice. After all, there was no doubt that the person standing before us was a mass murderer.
“Why did you cause all these incidents?”
“It is a simple matter. To break through the magical critical point.”
“The magical critical point…… Magic as a technology has currently reached its limit. Are you trying to break through that limit?”
“Yes. I’m glad you understand so quickly.”
“Is it really something that must be accomplished even if it means sacrificing people……!?”
I condemned him. Certainly, this world dominated by magic supremacy was distorted. But I could not understand the mentality that would pursue technological advancement to such an extent.
“I have wondered about it since I was a child.”
He continued speaking as though telling a story, gazing somewhere in the distance.
“Why does magic exist? What lies beyond this supernatural phenomenon? Everyone says it is a blessing bestowed upon humanity by God. If so, perhaps God awaits us beyond magic. It is not that I killed them because I hated mages. To me, whether they are mages or swordsmen, all human lives are equal. It is simply that, for me, my intellectual curiosity took priority over everything else. That is all.”
“……”
Ah. I understood.
His manner of speaking was polite, and his attitude did not belittle us. It was simply that he existed on a different level from us.
This humanity, which could only be described as pure evil, was surely one of the forms of darkness that this world had given birth to.
I assumed a fighting stance.
“Oh? Are you going to fight?”
“We have to put an end to your atrocities.”
“Neville-san. Ever since I was little, you were kind to me. Unlike the other nobles, you never looked down on swordsmen. You were equally kind to everyone. I respected you for that. But you are wrong.”
Riana-chan also stepped up beside me and said that.
“Right and wrong. This is not a matter of that sort. I am simply following the instincts within myself. However, I understand. I know that an ordinary human being cannot accept this. If that is the case──then let us remove the obstacles. So that I may reach what lies beyond magic, and reach the presence of God.”
[AN: (you can ignore it or you can go to syosetu link →here←) Thank you for reading this far. If you could bookmark this and leave a point rating from the ‘★★★★★’ below the ads, I would be very happy! It motivates me to keep writing. I sincerely ask for your support!]