Upon seeing two Magic Patterns that looked so alike, Rita could barely contain her excitement.
According to Cecilia’s analysis, Dorothy was the mastermind behind both incidents, which made sense.
But if the same pattern was discovered in different places, then there was a real problem.
Rita immediately commanded the little mice she controlled to search for the collapsed spots in the Underground Passage. This wasn’t difficult—there were plenty of such places throughout the passage. It only took her a few minutes to spot a section that had already caved in.
“Should I give it a try?”
Rita muttered to herself, both to encourage herself and to muster her courage.
It takes courage to seek out the unknown.
What Rita lacked was a meticulous mind, but she dared to sneak into Cecilia’s bedroom, to twist the neck of a magical hound atop the City Lord’s mansion, to slash through swarms of monsters again and again, and even dared to face the Lord of Night alone and break its claws.
One could say that courage was the last thing Rita lacked.
Still, she needed some mental preparation. After all, if she moved aside these rocks and a corpse appeared before her, Rita would still feel uncomfortable.
She took a deep breath, then steadied her breathing. Finally, she reached out and stroked the stones piled from the collapsed wall.
Rita grabbed a small piece and tossed it aside. But after just a few scrapes, she felt a strong resistance.
Much of this Underground Passage had already been blown up with something like gunpowder. If she kept digging, the force she felt through her hands suggested the whole passage might collapse, burying her underneath.
That wouldn’t do—she’d need a different approach.
“Go on, you dig.” Rita commanded several mice to look for gaps between the rocks, cleaning away the smaller pieces.
This was also troublesome and not exactly safe, but making a hole big enough for a mouse was far easier—and much less likely to collapse the passage—than clearing all the stones herself.
After more than an hour, a large hole had opened in the pile of rubble. Several mice chittered and scurried around Rita’s feet, clearing out a small, stable area for her to stand.
Rita stepped forward, handed a just-lit piece of wood to a mouse, and watched as it carried the wood inside to light up the scene within.
Sure enough, there were still dark bloodstains inside, with a corpse in such a ruined state that it could barely be recognized. Underneath the corpse, lines of blood-stained patterns were visible.
Now those patterns were completely dyed red with fresh blood, looking especially shocking.
Surely there couldn’t be a Magic Circle near every collapsed spot, right?
With this thought, Rita took the mice to the next site and repeated the process. Once again, a bloodstained Magic Circle appeared before her.
To be certain, she tried a third place. This time, there was no corpse, but the Magic Circle was still there.
At the next site, the mice could crawl through directly, but there was no Magic Circle—until Rita had them run a bit farther and finally found it.
Rita spent half the night checking all she could, but there were still many places she couldn’t reach, and some she simply didn’t have time to examine.
One night wasn’t enough to see everything, but she could already draw a conclusion.
Destroying this passage back then wasn’t just to delay the investigation—there was a more important reason: to hide the existence of these Magic Circles.
Cecilia praised Rita for this deduction, and even her absence from home that half the night was met with understanding.
And one of Rita’s long-standing questions was finally answered.
“Your idea is good, but the order is reversed. It’s not that the Underground Passage was built to house these Magic Circles. Rather, the Magic Circles were set here so that when the passage collapsed, they would hide all traces.
“In other words, it doesn’t matter where the Magic Circles were placed. They’ve already served their original purpose, so they were abandoned.”
So Rita set her next goal: to analyze the function of these Magic Circles.
If this only concerned Solus City, Rita could simply inform Angus and call it a day. But since this involved Cecilia—and Dorothy might already know Rita’s true identity—it was safer to investigate herself.
Luckily, Cecilia agreed with Rita’s suggestion to keep things secret for now, though Angus still needed to be informed.
Rita sketched out the Magic Circle from memory. Fortunately, she hadn’t forgotten everything from her Engineering Drawing class. With help from the mice’s memories, it might not be perfect, but it was close enough.
Of course, she couldn’t do this alone. If Rita could understand the Magic Circle herself, she wouldn’t need all this trouble.
She also couldn’t openly consult other Magisters—it had to be someone trustworthy, who could keep her secret.
But Rita wasn’t alone anymore. After talking to her, Cecilia shared part of the discovery with Angus. After thinking it over, Angus introduced Rita to someone.
The visitor was none other than Old Johnny, whom Rita had met briefly not long ago—the very man who’d advised Angus to conceal things from many of the city’s high officials, and who had dealings with Fat Auntie.
To be cautious, only Rita and Old Johnny attended the meeting, held in a regular reception room.
Once Old Johnny sat down, Rita took her seat opposite him.
“I never expected you to be a Magister, sir.”
“Heh, my magic skills might be a bit lacking, but when it comes to magic research, I daresay there’s little I don’t know. There aren’t many magics out there that I haven’t heard of.” Old Johnny stroked his beard, sounding quite confident.
Could someone with poor magical skills really be a Magister?
Rita took his words as humility and didn’t pursue the matter. Instead, she took out the paper with her sketch of the Magic Circle and spread it on the table.
“So, Lord Johnny, what effect does this Magic Circle have?”
Old Johnny continued to stroke his beard. He opened his narrowed eyes and examined the paper. After a moment, he let out a surprised “Hm?”
Oh no! It’s a dead end!
It might not be the time to cheer, but Rita realized he had just contradicted himself.
“Miss Rita, may I ask where you found this Magic Circle?”
Cecilia had already permitted Rita to share the information with Old Johnny. Since Angus trusted him, there was no need to hide it.
“It came from the basement where the wanderers hid during Riot Night.”
“I see—no wonder Angus dragged these old bones of mine out again.” Old Johnny stared at the paper for a while longer. “Miss Rita, are you sure there’s nothing wrong with this?”
This question made Rita a bit uneasy. The Magic Circle itself wasn’t complicated, which was why she’d chosen to copy it by hand. But thinking it over again and again, she couldn’t find any significant differences from what she’d seen.
“I’m sure. This is what I saw. Even if there are some differences, they shouldn’t be major.”
“That shouldn’t be possible.” Old Johnny thought it over, muttering to himself.
“What do you mean?” Rita asked.
“From the structure of the Magic Circle, you can usually tell its function. Every stroke is pared down for clarity and simplicity. But while this Magic Circle is simple, it’s entirely unlike any magic I know.”
Old Johnny gave Rita a brief explanation. Though somewhat abstract, Rita understood.
First, Magic Circles are like written characters. If Rita encountered an unfamiliar character, she could guess its meaning from its components; Magic Circles work the same way.
Similarly, Magic Circles are a bit like code: as long as they’re arranged in a particular way, they produce the desired result.
Even if the writing is sloppy or the code is convoluted, the meaning should be clear.
Of course, that analogy was just in Rita’s own mind.
If you still can’t make sense of it, it must not be a character of your own language; or the code isn’t a standard programming language.
Now, considering Johnny claimed to have read countless magic books but knew nothing about this, Rita figured her guess was likely correct.
“Lord Johnny, is it possible that this Magic Circle isn’t human magic at all?”