“A huge... ‘defective product’?”

Celicia narrowed her eyes and recalled the city wrapped in fog, the one she had been watching all these days.

“Are there any similar cases?”

“Yes. Thirteen years ago, a small town reported to the Church that people were frequently disappearing. The Church sent several teams to investigate, but after three full months, they found nothing. Even during the investigation, the disappearances in the town never stopped.”

“That does sound very similar to what we have now.”

“It does. Very similar.”

“And the outcome?”

“The outcome was that, just as our teams were at their wit’s end and couldn’t even find the enemy, one day they suddenly woke up and discovered that everything had changed.”

The Judgment Archbishop flicked a finger, and the ice mirror shattered into fine splinters.

“The town had become ruins. Its residents had long since died and even turned to bones. When the team woke up, they were lying right in the middle of piles of bones.”

“It sounds like some kind of horror story.” Liya shrank her neck a little.

“Yes, a little frightening. Fortunately, our people were all professionals and didn’t panic. At first, the team assumed they had fallen into some kind of illusion. But they found no signs that their mental strength had been eroded, and every person’s memory matched the others’ perfectly. There was not the slightest inconsistency. In other words, for them, those three months... those three months spent living alongside the town’s residents, were real.”

“But the town and the people in it... had actually ceased to exist long ago.”

Celicia picked up the thought.

“Is that right?”

“Yes. Later investigation revealed that the town and everyone in it had in fact been slaughtered half a year earlier, their souls completely extracted. The town where the team had stayed, and even the residents who had existed there for a full three months, were nothing more than phantoms identical to the real thing. Those phantoms did not even know they were phantoms. They lived entirely according to a state of ‘reality.’ Some of the residents even disappeared as the force maintaining their existence weakened, and the others went to the Church for help.”

After saying that, the Judgment Archbishop let out a soft sigh. It was hard to tell whether she was lamenting the real people who had died long ago, or pitying those phantoms who believed they existed, yet had never existed at all.

“And that was the effect of Ancient Magic?” An suddenly asked.

“We don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“Precisely because we found no trace of any magic from the current system in those ruined remains, and no sign of any Evil God power either, we came to suspect that it was the result of Ancient Magic.”

The Judgment Archbishop said, “Later, according to the testimony of a Salvation Society member we caught by chance, that town really was destroyed by them, and the souls of its residents became materials for one of their experiments.”

“The same phenomenon... the same mastermind behind it...”

Celicia thought briefly, then nodded.

“In that case, it does seem to make sense.”

“After all these years, has the Church found any way to deal with it?” Anna propped her cheek on one hand in a lazy pose, but her fingers moved quickly, recording the case the Judgment Archbishop had just described.

“You can’t have done nothing.”

“Of course not. But Ancient Magic is far too mysterious, and it has been completely lost. Even we cannot deduce its solution just from a few outward phenomena. However...”

“However?”

“However, no matter how profound Ancient Magic may be, it is still magic. It is not the authority of some god, nor is it a law of nature. It cannot operate automatically for long periods of time. So with something this vast in scale and this precise in its arrangement, there must be a caster—or rather, a maintainer.”

The Judgment Archbishop smiled.

“As long as we find that maintainer and eliminate them, even the most exquisite falsehood will burst like a bubble.”

“A maintainer? Your Grace means that within this enormous false construct, there is one single ‘real’ thing? And that ‘real’ thing is like the core of a magic formation—the key to everything?”

“As expected of Your Majesty. Brilliant.”

“Impossible.”

Celicia said it with absolute certainty. “To find that one true existence in an enormous false construct involving several million people, especially when that maintainer has most likely already hidden their true identity, is nearly impossible. It is like looking for a needle in the sea. Worse, the needle has a mind of its own and knows how to hide.”

“It is not very possible...” The Judgment Archbishop nodded. “But unless we destroy this false construct, we cannot see the truth hidden behind it. That is the terror of Ancient Magic. It is the manifestation of a kind of rule, and we can only follow that rule. If we forcefully break it, we may trigger some dreadful and unpredictable consequence.”

“It sounds as though we have no choice but to complete an impossible task.”

“In theoretical terms, yes.”

“Wait. After all that, isn’t there already one suspicious person right in front of us?” Anna said.

“A suspicious person?”

Liya looked blank. “Who?”

Anna said nothing. She merely looked at Liya in silence.

“Y-you can’t possibly mean me!”

Baring her little tiger teeth, Liya snapped, “Do I look suspicious? I think you’re just abusing your position for personal revenge. No, scratch that—you’ve spent so much time eating, drinking tea, slacking off, and thinking about men that you’ve ruined your brain, which is the only reason you’d come up with something that ridiculous—”

“She means Archbishop Ision is suspicious,” Celicia said.

“Oh...”

Liya stuffed a milk cookie into her mouth and nodded in complete agreement.

“I think Archbishop Ision is suspicious too. Extremely suspicious. Suspiciousness itself, really... Anyway, I’m a little hungry, so go on.”

So easily tricked by that yellow-haired bastard. As expected, not very bright.

Celicia withdrew her gaze.

“Archbishop Ision’s abnormality should not exist inside a false construct that perfectly replicates reality. He really could be the maintainer of that magic.”

“But we can’t be sure.”

Anna said, “If the Judgment Archbishop is right, then we only get one chance. The moment we make the wrong choice, the other side will never give us a second opportunity.”

“Which means we have to find a way to confirm it.”

Celicia asked, “Can those scout teams find proof?”

“No. With their identities, they cannot even get close to Archbishop Ision.”

“Then only someone from the Church can do this?”

“That’s a little troublesome.”

Liya set her cheek on the table, the cookie in her mouth bobbing up and down as she spoke.

“Figuring out the cause of whatever is strange about Archbishop Ision and figuring out whether he is actually this so-called Ancient Magic maintainer are two completely different levels of difficulty. And if he really is, then when facing someone from the Church... or facing me... he would definitely be on guard. He wouldn’t expose a flaw so easily.”

“That’s true...”

Celicia lowered her eyes. “Very difficult.”

“In the end, the real problem is that the methods available to us are too limited.”

Anna closed her notebook and toyed with the feather pen in her hand.

“At a time like this, brute force is useless. The people we can deploy either can only investigate inch by inch from the very bottom, like the scout teams, and can hardly make contact with someone like Archbishop Ision...

or their status is too high, which would make him fully alert and unwilling to relax for even a moment.”

“Exactly...”

Liya sighed. “What we really need [N O V E L I G H T] right now is someone who can move easily among the lower levels and gather information, get close to Archbishop Ision without him realizing it, has plenty of experience recklessly throwing himself into crises, won’t actually die no matter how hard he pushes it, and can still dig out the truth for us.”

“...”

“...”

Silence fell again without warning. The women looked at one another.

A person like that... seemed to actually exist.

“Come to think of it... where is he?”

Celicia’s voice turned a shade colder.

“After that last letter from Notasia Fortress, I don’t think I’ve received any news about that man at all.”

“Neither have I!”

Liya nodded hard in angry agreement. “The last time I saw him was after Notasia Fortress too!”

“I imagine... knowing his temperament, he is probably already in the most dangerous place possible.” Anna twined a lock of hair around her finger, but a trace of displeasure also surfaced in the depths of her sultry eyes.

He was always running off into danger by himself. Just thinking about it was enough to make her angry.

“I’m going into the city to find the young master right now!”

An was even more direct, rising to her feet and heading outside.

“Report—Your Majesty!”

At that moment, a Royal Knight suddenly rushed in, making An stop in her tracks. It was as if she had sensed something. Her cold eyes fixed tightly on what the knight held in both hands.

“What is it?” Celicia asked.

“The scout teams have sent back new intelligence! Two reports!”

“New intelligence? It isn’t time for contact yet.”

Celicia also seemed to realize something. Her pace quickened. She snatched both reports away at once, and then her gaze stuck to the upper letter, unable to move.

“It seems our guess was right. Some worthless scumbag slipped into Saint Blancfazesiya without a word again. No—more accurately, into that false Saint Blancfazesiya.”

Celicia pointed to an almost invisible mark in the sealing wax.

“It’s from him.”

“What did he say?” “Hurry and open it!” “It had better be an apology, or he won’t be easy to forgive.”

The Judgment Archbishop quietly shifted back a little. She did not know whether it was her imagination, but the eyes of the women before her all seemed to be glowing green.

Terrifying.

No wonder the mighty Lion King would rather go outside and personally oversee troop formations than stay here.

“It’s written in cipher... looks like he doesn’t trust anyone in that city.”

Celicia tore open the letter and read through it, quickly translating the coded message sent by that yellow-haired idiot who loved running off on his own.

Then her expression abruptly turned grave.

“It seems there’s no need to argue any longer.”

Celicia lifted her head. At a touch of her fingertip, moisture condensed in midair and began forming the words conveyed in the cipher.

The content instantly turned the atmosphere in the entire tent solemn.

She looked at Liya.

“How long before you enter the city?”

“O-one hour.”

“One hour? Then it seems we need to draw up a new plan. As fast as possible!”

...

...

An hour later, the discussion of the plan proposed by Muen in his letter, judged feasible by the Judgment Archbishop, and finally approved by all of them together, at last came to an end.

It had been only one short hour, yet Celicia felt as if she had endured a prolonged storm of thought. A faint weariness rose in her chest.

So she stepped outside for some air.

The rain was still falling. In the distance, the false royal capital was completely hidden in the night.

“Right... there was a second report too.”

Only then did she remember that more than one report had been delivered.

That one had not come from Muen, but from one of the scout teams. Yet Muen’s letter and the plan mentioned within it had been so shocking that she had temporarily ignored the other report.

Celicia opened it.

Inside was only a single short line.

“Do not trust...”

Do not trust?

Do not trust whom?

Just as Celicia was feeling puzzled, a strange voice came from inside the tent.

“Is the Saintess ready?”

It was Archbishop Ision, contacting Liya right on time.

“The hour is nearly upon us.”

“That’s right, that’s right, everything’s already arranged...”

Through the voice-transmission stone, Archbishop Ision’s voice sounded kind and gentle, enough to make anyone feel completely reassured.

“Please rest easy, Your Highness. I will personally ensure your safety without fail. All of Saint Blancfazesiya Cathedral is awaiting your arrival.”

“...”

“Heh.”

A mocking little laugh sounded out. It was unclear who it had come from.

Celicia looked down at the words in the letter again, the corner of her mouth curving slightly.

“Do not trust... so they noticed it on that side too?”

It seemed that, just as the Judgment Archbishop had said, a false construct was a false construct no matter what. It could never truly become reality.

Sooner or later... it would reveal a flaw.