There has been no news, as if by a lie.

There are no bites. The grand spell was properly cast, and the b*stards must have definitely felt it. They couldn’t have been so incompetent as to not recognize this. Yet, there is no response.

“It’s late⋯⋯.”

Yuna’s allotted time has all been used up. Now, the finals of Group A in the “Courage” tournament are just around the corner. To be specific, it was only about three hours away.

I was inside a dilapidated warehouse, swaying my legs in the guise of Karen.

Could it be that they think it’s a trap and are choosing not to show up? I had judged that I had created a situation where they had no choice but to enter, but… is the red-flavored duke’s foundation stronger than I thought? Do they already possess the succession fable technique?

I don’t know.

Or perhaps… they might be playing a game of wits to the very limit.

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The fact that we’ve never met is significant. If we were sitting at the same table, facing each other, I would be confident in my ability to read into the depths of my opponent.

But I have never faced the red-flavored duke directly. From the way they casually toss out minions like Rodelus or the serial killer, I can only vaguely sense that they are the type who despises stepping into the spotlight themselves.

Next to Sishel is Akshin-chan. Why her, of all people? Because she is the one most closely connected to me. Communicatively.

Akshin-chan’s role is that of a biological communicator.

The distance between the academy and Elmest Young is too far for signals to be caught, but if we remain in the same city, reception is good.

The moment I am kidnapped (not really), I send a signal to Akshin-chan, and she relays my last known location to Sishel… that was the rough plan.

I have many thoughts, but no anxiety.

Anxiety is the feeling that arises when one lacks confidence in seeing a happy ending. I have already gathered enough cards, and you cannot escape. Rather, it is the side opposing me that should feel anxious.

Do you really not need it? Don’t you want to take a bite of this sweet cake and uncover its secrets?

Even if a razor blade is hidden among the crumbs, you would still want to eat it…

“──You’re the magician who unleashed illusions upon the city?”

Correct.

——–

I can see their back.

Sitting atop the materials in the warehouse, a figure with red hair sways their head while humming a tune. I’ve heard her name is Karen. Sunlight pours through the cracks in the broken roof like a spotlight. Like a stage.

Is that real, or just another illusion?

I won’t know until I stab a dagger into it. I can’t distinguish. The magician’s illusion—humans are chillingly intricate.

The urge to plunge a blade into that delicate side and edit it into a mess surged within me, but… she knows how to endure. Always, her father’s orders come first.

Astonishment, confusion, surprise are weaknesses. If I can start a conversation while slightly unsettling my opponent, I can gain the upper hand.

So.

The faceless minions of Duke Redburn moved their arms and legs cautiously. Without making a sound.

And then, as if they had always been there, they casually initiated conversation. As if it were not difficult to position themselves behind you.

“You’re the magician who unleashed illusions upon the city?”

“Oh, you’ve come?”

“⋯⋯⋯⋯.”

Suddenly addressed from behind, Karen showed no signs of surprise. Rather, as if she had been waiting for this moment, she responded with a warmth full of delight.

She turned around in her seat. A smile like a blue rose, a calmness like a lake without ripples. Though it was a brief encounter, Faceless was able to judge immediately.

A bothersome type.

“You’re the serial killer who socially killed my illusions, aren’t you? Thanks to you, I’ve had a bit of a headache. I spent ten minutes just thinking about how to deal with it.”

“Your expression is interesting… So, did you come up with a way to cope?”

“Yes. A perfectly crafted plan!”

“It seems you really want to brag… If you want to say that, will you share it with me?”

It wasn’t a statement made in genuine hope of hearing it. Where in the world is there a fool who would explain their hand and plans in front of a potential enemy?

But Karen opened her mouth immediately.

“Your ability is to edit the human body. If certain conditions are met… you can compress muscles and crush bones, freely enough to stuff a middle-aged woman in her forties into Karen’s form.”

“…How did you know?”

Really, how did she find out?

Until now, no one had ever seen through this trick. Everyone had spun tales about magically disguising the surface or using a doppelgänger, all circling around aspects far removed from the essence.

It would have been impossible to distinguish based solely on appearance.

Karen pretended to cut a steak as she spoke.

“I dissected it.”

“You mean you opened up a corpse?”

“Yes. The internal structure was strangely twisted. It was too obvious that the amount of bones and muscles was either significantly less or more than what would be expected for age and gender to dismiss it as torture.”

“……..”

Faceless felt a slight chill. It was not fear. She had completely eliminated the emotion of fear. So, was this a sense of crisis?

Dissection, that could be.

It is commonly tabooed as an insult to the deceased, but it is often done in secret. If one were desperate to find clues, they might have been able to cut open a corpse.

Especially among dark sorcerers, it was not unusual.

But the process of deduction. To see the twisted insides of a human body and realize that the amount was strange for age and gender… required statistics.

Statistics that meticulously measured countless individuals of different ages and genders, dismantled to the core.

For a moment, Faceless saw the clutter around Karen as a hill of countless skeletons. With a single word, she had proven her mass murder and dissection.

“…How many people have you killed?”

“What are you suddenly talking about? The friends I sent beyond the river of three paths were fewer than ten, you know? It would be troublesome if you made such baseless accusations.”

“So, there’s a separate method for getting your hands dirty?”

“I understand what misunderstanding you might have, but I just figured it out because I’m too clever. With sufficient computational power and information, you can restore the content of a book that has been completely burned.”

It was nonsense.

“Shall we continue the story…? You have a record of approaching my phantom friends. You went out of your way to stab a dagger into my side. It seems you can’t use your powers from a long distance, can you?”

“Well, that might be the case.”

“Then it makes sense that when you showed up here to meet me… you crept in like an assassin. If striking from close range is the trigger, then naturally, you should cultivate your skills in assassination.”

“………….”

It’s fine. It’s still fine. Faceless reassured herself. Her abilities were not limited to that. As long as the most crucial core remained undisclosed—

“—Of course, this can’t be everything, right? Now, how you’ve been able to evade capture until now. And how you appeared confidently before me alone. How could that be? Want to hear an interesting hypothesis?”

“Did you call me out here just to play a quiz show?”

“That body of yours… isn’t it someone else’s? Your abilities actually include ‘distant manipulation.’ Just like I handle dolls with illusions, you were a ‘puppet master’ who manipulated those you stabbed.”

“………….”

She had seen through it.

From a distance away from the abandoned warehouse, Faceless swallowed hard.

So easily, Faceless’s secret had been revealed.

An illusion is a power that defies recognition. Predicting another’s illusion is close to impossible. Because it possesses conditions and abilities that are utterly absurd.

There is also no academic study that researches and records illusions. Because that would be a useless fantasy. No matter how hard you think about it, it holds no meaning.

But why can that woman conjure it up so simply? Where does that breadth of thought originate?

Has she spent hundreds of years living, fantasizing about various and absurd abilities during all that time? And that too… while dissecting people?

“I’ve seen many fights. The scene of the purple and yellow giants clashing, the moment of breaking through crises via back orders, and the scene of struggling under complete hypnotic ability…”

Karen smiled, recalling pleasant memories.

Is it deception, or isn’t it? It doesn’t seem like deception. But if we assume all this conversation is true, then what it signifies is…

The publicly known information about the mad wizard is as follows.

Born in a mountain village, she received love calls from the tower lords who coveted her talent.

Affiliated with the purple tower, she had been reclusive until some point and began to reach out to the world.

But what if that’s not all? The ‘corpse flower that feeds on fear’ was resurrected from death by borrowing another’s body. What if the mad wizard is the same?

Breaking through Rodellus, possessing an unusually high level of magical ability for her age, and being politically savvy enough to quickly establish herself as a key figure in the Second Prince’s faction…

That unsettling knowledge and insight.

In fact, it would make sense if she were an ancient relic of hundreds of years.

Faceless manipulated the meat doll and laughed. With a sneer like someone who had heard a clown’s play, she pretended to be relaxed, as if to say, believe it if you want to.

“It was an interesting story. So when does the main point come…?”

Tap. The stage lights went out.

Suddenly, the clouds gathered, obscuring the sun, and the spotlight that had been shining through the cracks in the ceiling vanished. An unusually thick darkness filled the interior of the building.

In the pitch-black darkness, ominous red eyes glimmered. It felt as if every lie was being dissected, revealing its innermost secrets.

“This is the crux of the matter. A warning.”

“………”

“I know things you don’t, and I can do what you can’t. Sometimes, I can be a cruel cat. But this time, I’ll speak to you politely and like a gentleman. Step back and withdraw, Redburn.”

Otherwise──

At that moment, the warehouse door burst open. A silver knight rushed in with a desperate expression.

“──Karen!!”

“Si, Sisel! How did you… Sisel, get out of here! I’m fine! Kya?!”

“………”

A few seconds of silence.

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In an instant, the person transformed.

Faceless froze, unable to accept the sight of the great witch before him suddenly becoming a female.

What is this.

——–

Since hearing the news of Karen’s abduction, Sisel had not taken off her armor. She was ready to dash out at a moment’s notice.

With her Zweihänder nearby, she sat in a position that prevented her body from spreading out. And she pondered.

In the crushed time, all she could do was think.

Thoughts rose and sank repeatedly. Among them, the two most significant concerns were Karen’s safety and her own last leaf.

One left.

Perhaps the doctor’s words could be wrong. Somehow, she might be able to hold on just once more. With such optimism, her heart would lift.

But if the next swing were to be the last… what should she do? How should I conclude this life? She found herself contemplating.

A voice echoed in her ears. Some malevolent being seemed to sense her confusion and sought to exacerbate it. It felt as if the innocent whisper of a young girl was ringing in her ears.

What if you just quit and ran away now?

“No. I don’t want to choose that.”

Why? You found something you wanted to do. You could go down to a place where no one knows you and live as a dancer in a small village, and that would be enough.

“You’d be happy. But you’d regret it.”

If I die, there’s no regret. Everything would be over.

“………”

The whisper was persuasive. If she were to die, there would be no regrets or lingering attachments.

Even so, why does one naturally risk their life?

Is it because of inertia, just as it has been until now? Walking thoughtlessly in the direction pointed out by the gazes and fingers of others…?

“No. No, that’s not it. This resolve is different from that time.”

I.

“My mother said, ‘Once you fill the Wall of Glory, you will surely be grateful to me. You will feast on the joy and ecstasy of that achievement for ten days and nights.’ I believed those words and lived solely for that.”

So I endured. I believed that at the end of all this suffering, there would be happiness. I toiled, carving away at my soul. I gained fame and filled the wall. However, the wall was not filled.

“Because that square expands the more you fill it. It stretches endlessly. At some point, I realized. Even if I slay dragons or cleave the sky, the Wall of Glory will never be filled…”

Madam Yurensto would not be satisfied and would redraw that large square with her brush every time.

It is the Sisyphean punishment of repeating the same task forever, until death.

The knight, who was dying in the gap, clenched his fist tightly.

And then he turned his gaze away.

“Isn’t it strange? Despite achieving so many accomplishments, I felt no joy at all. Now I understand the reason. What I was filling was… my mother’s Wall of Glory. It was never mine.”

When I turned my eyes, a small earthen wall appeared in my heart. It was so cramped that a few certificates could fill it, and it seemed that it would collapse at a single kick.

“Now I will fill my own Wall of Glory. The first step is to save my friend Karen. If I can decorate this wall with that medal… I would risk my life for it.”

Thus.

Even when the announcement of the final match of the ‘Courage’ tournament and the message that Karen’s location had been identified arrived simultaneously, Cissel Yurensto did not hesitate.

She had no interest in winning the final match, becoming a hero, or extending her lifespan.

What she desired to grasp right now was the honor of having saved her friend, and nothing else.

Cissel slung her zweihander over her shoulder and rose resolutely. The path ahead was clear, and what the knight desired was his own honor.

“Please wait for me, Karen…”

To save the princess, the knight would go.