With those prayers, Rasilia moved her steps towards a passage whose destination she did not know.

(This is a time separator.)

“……Huh?”

A senior mage belonging to the royal mage guild tilted his head.

He had been inspecting the sealing and tracking magic circles laid around the Harrios substitution for a week.

Magic was an artifact of a bygone era.

There was endless learning in the field, but the results were not commensurate.

Even operating a magic circle like this would require roughly thirty years of studying magic, when it would be far more practical to simply station a hundred knights as guards.

For various reasons, the number of mages was decreasing. Unless born into a family that could support decades of study, it was impossible.

Thus, most of the empire’s mages belonged to the royal guild.

Once you joined the guild, living expenses and research costs were covered. You could live buried in magic until your death. Although when the royal family called, you had to obey without question, but such cases were rare.

This was one of those rare cases.

Just before the annual research budget was to be set, the guild master had generously sent senior mages.

Today, seven senior mages and their multiples in assistant mages had been dispatched to the substitution.

“The magic circle shows no abnormalities……”

Senior Mage Prian tilted his head again.

There were no breaches in the sealing circle. However, strangely, the tracking circle was moving.

The royal family required a boundary around the substitution. Whoever entered or exited, the royal family needed to identify them.

Thus, sealing and tracking circles were successively placed. If one moved, the others would respond as well.

“Why is only one tracking circle moving?”

“Huh? That means someone broke through and escaped, right?”

“Then why is the sealing circle still intact?”

Prian’s assistant mages also tilted their heads, following their master.

People who had known nothing but magic all their lives, even senior mages, had little practical experience. While they might be proficient in magical theory, their response to unexpected situations was slow.

“Hmm…… Well.”

“The circle was incomplete?”

“Master, did you make a typo when writing the runes?”

Prian grimaced.

“No, I didn’t!”

“Then why?”

“If it’s a linked circle, it’s impossible for only one tracking circle to be incorrect.”

As his students continued to question without finding answers, the master glared.

“Don’t just stand there asking questions, find the answer!”

“Huh? Even you don’t know, Master?”

“Us?”

“Ah, ask someone, anyone! ……Hold on.”
Frian suddenly turned his head to the side.

“Is that front moving?”

“Huh?”

“What?”

“That one too is a tracking formation!”

Having more than one was odd, which meant there was a problem.

The face of the Master, who had separately called me to urge about next year’s research budget, flashed before my eyes.

“If only the tracking formation is moving, it means something escaped from here… But the blocking formation didn’t move… Ah, this was a temple.”

Frian asked his disciples.

“Is there anything like teleportation in divine power?”

The disciples shook their heads.

“No way.”

“It’s entirely different. Divine power only has five domains. Prophecy, Healing, Purification, Prosperity, and Curse. Nothing else.”

“Then what is it! Something that doesn’t interact with mana and can teleport!”

“Uh… that is… Ah!”

“Could it be a spell?”

That was the correct answer.

“Oh, yes! A spell! They broke through the blockade with a spell! The formation was calm because they used a spell to set up the blockade, but the tracking formation moved because the person who set it up disappeared!”

Frian suddenly got excited and raised both his hands.

Again, modern wizards had little practical experience. They hardly had the opportunity to use magic. Such a largescale chain formation was something they only knew in theory; they couldn’t test it in the lab.

“My staff! Bring me my staff! And hurry and notify the royal guard!”

The disciples quickly moved; one brought the staff, and another ran to where the royal guard was.

Frian swung his staff with all his might.

“Track! The tracking of tracking! Block the target!”

Wooooong!

With his gesture, the magic circles densely drawn around the temple began to move.

(This is a time separator.)

“I left a carriage over there.”

Walking through the otherdimensional passage created by a spell felt very strange. It was bright yet dark, time was fast yet slow, thoughts seemed to go on forever yet the mind felt empty.

The strange road ended at some point.

Rasilia realized she was standing against a wall. The low but smooth wall was the wall surrounding the temple.

“Did you leave the temple?”

“Yes.”

Ternadan pulled Rasilia’s hand. It was cold. Cold sweat had pooled.

“We’re almost behind that tree… Ah, there it is.”

Ternadan pointed at a black twohorse carriage that looked far too ordinary to be a noble’s.

“We’re almost done. No one will suspect if you ride that carriage. Just cross the border like this. Let’s head to Trinidad. No one will think my sister went there.”

The chill in her palms slowly began to warm.

She was starting to relax.

‘Yes… I’m going back.’

Just as Rasilia was mentally reassuring herself and quickening her pace.

Woooooooo… Bang!

The ground seemed to shake. A blue light seemed to pool under the carriage.

Bang! Crash!

The light rose, and the carriage shattered in an instant.

“Ah! Hhow?”

Ternan screamed as if he couldn’t believe his eyes.

Above the shattered blue light, a cluster of even deeper lights rose.

Wooooooo… Pop!

When even that light disappeared, a group of people appeared above the broken carriage.

Regrettably, they were all faces she recognized.

“Your Majesty the Empress.”

The one calling me with an awkward expression was Ryan. And then there were Serven, Dekan, and…

“I would appreciate it if you would let go of that hand now.”

The Emperor was there, his gaze sharper than ever.