Colin saw that Liami had finished adjusting everything, so he had her go call Sivney and Lavinia while he went with Eireno to check on Captain Larian. For some reason, the magic circle that was supposed to activate immediately still hadn’t started, so he and Eireno went to see what was going on.
Seeing this, Liami didn’t say much and went straight to Lavinia’s side. She had intended to tell her to stop spacing out, but instead saw Lavinia, for some unknown reason, constantly looking down and counting her fingers.
Liami frowned and asked, “What are you doing?”
“…The 35,687.927th sheep, huh? Liami? What’s up? Could it be that damn speech finally ended?!”
Lavinia hadn’t realized what she was counting until she heard Liami’s words, then immediately reacted and asked about the progress of the speech.
“The speech is over. Also, how many sheep did you say you were counting just now?”
“Woohoo! Finally freed!”
Lavinia didn’t answer Liami’s last question but raised her hands in a cheer. Seeing this, Liami didn’t bother asking further. It was probably just something Lavinia did to pass the time.
Liami glanced over at Sivney and found her completely different from Lavinia—she was very calm.
But perhaps too calm. At first glance, she looked like a corpse—like she was dead.
“Uh, are you okay?”
Liami asked with some concern. Sivney calmly replied.
“I’m fine, just processing the content of the speech.”
“Processing what? You didn’t actually listen to Captain Larian’s entire speech, did you?”
Liami said in disbelief, even more shocked when Sivney slowly nodded.
“That’s right. I listened to the whole speech, from beginning to end, without missing a single word.”
Liami was stunned. She didn’t understand the point of doing that, so she instinctively asked, “Why?”
“Because I thought Captain Larian might say something important, so I listened until the end.”
Sivney said calmly, though her eyes seemed to have lost their sparkle.
“Uh, so what important things did she say? I wasn’t paying much attention, so I’m not sure.”
“Nothing.”
“What?”
“Nothing at all. She babbled the whole time, not a single sentence had real value. You should be glad you didn’t listen carefully.”
Hearing that, Liami fell silent. After a moment, she remembered something and asked Sivney again with a puzzled look.
“Then what were you digesting just now?”
“I don’t know either.”
“Huh?”
Seeing that Sivney had no other answer and her eyes looked even emptier, Liami decided to drop the subject.
“Alright, let’s not worry about this for now. Colin told us to go check on Captain Larian. It seems there’s a problem with activating the magic circle.”
Upon hearing this, the light returned to Sivney’s eyes. She immediately sat up and was the first to head toward Captain Larian.
Liami couldn’t help but think inwardly: As expected, the moment Sivney hears anything about magic, she instantly perks up. As for Lavinia…
Liami turned to look at Lavinia and saw that she was also looking back at her. After exchanging a glance, the two of them followed Sivney’s footsteps.
What exactly am I worried about? Lavinia won’t be affected by something this trivial, Liami thought with a bit of silent frustration.
When they arrived at Colin’s side with Sivney, the first thing Liami noticed was Colin’s frustrated expression.
But the moment Colin saw Sivney, his eyes lit up. He quickly pulled her over to the side of their master and Eireno, joining the discussion about what was wrong with the magic circle.
Seeing this, Liami followed Lavinia to the side and spaced out.
This wasn’t because Liami was slacking off—it was just that she really didn’t understand magic circles. If she had, she wouldn’t have been caught in Aric’s labyrinth.
She was curious why Colin was hovering around. He didn’t know much more than she did, yet he stuck close to Sivney and listened to her talk. Couldn’t he be a bit more self-aware? He was just dead weight!
Watching Colin stay beside Sivney and discuss things, Liami suddenly felt an inexplicable surge of anger.
She wanted to go grab Colin and pull him away, but she knew that if she did, the scene would be really awkward. She wasn’t that clueless.
Besides, even though Colin didn’t understand the magic circle issues, it made sense for him to be there. After all, he was also a member of the Holy Knights and had reason to study the problem with his captain, just like Eireno! She didn’t understand magic circles either but stood by Sivney because of her position! So there was nothing wrong with this!
Liami convinced herself with this reasoning and her mood finally improved. The little flame inside her was extinguished.
All of this was quietly observed by Lavinia beside her. Although Liami hadn’t done anything extreme, just gesturing a few times, Lavinia filed the matter away in her mind.
After a while, Liami heard the discussion from Colin’s side cease—apparently they had finally found the problem.
Liami stood and walked forward to ask about the magic circle’s progress.
“So, how did it go?”
As Liami spoke, Sivney was still sitting with her eyes closed, manipulating magic with her hands as she inspected a small visible portion of the large magic circle on the ground. Without looking up, she answered, “It’s aging. It’ll be fixed soon.”
“Aging? Magic circles can age?”
Sivney remained as she was, casually saying, “Of course. When a magic circle is created, it has a lifespan just like anything else in the world. Whether it’s active or inactive, it will continue to wear down until it can no longer function.”
“I see…”
Liami had never thought about this before. Not because she was foolish, but because there was no reason to consider it. She had little exposure to magic circles until that one time in Aric’s labyrinth.
“All right.” Sivney opened her eyes and lowered her hands, stopping the flow of magic. “The problem is solved. We can depart now.”
Seeing this, Captain Larian immediately ordered the knights to stand by. Colin took a deep breath and prepared himself. Liami’s gaze finally sharpened—this was really about to begin.
After Captain Larian gave the order to start the teleportation, Sivney activated the massive magic circle that had been maintained for who knew how many years.
With a blinding flash of light, Liami opened her eyes. But she immediately noticed a very serious problem: why were only the members of Colin’s squad, including herself, present? Where had the rest of the knights gone?!
Was the problem with the magic circle really solved?!
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