“That was from a generation ago… about fifty years back. It was developed at the Sage’s Tower in the west. As a technology, it’s relatively new, but because of how flawed it is, it’s treated as taboo in our country.”

Apparently, she had already organized her thoughts to some extent—when Fiora was asked for an explanation, she began speaking smoothly.

“In the documents I read, they had drawn a magic circle over a much larger hall, but since they couldn’t use that much space here, they drew it on the walls and ceiling too. That’s a technique often used by the church. I didn’t notice it at first either, but I was able to examine it to some degree earlier, so I’m sure of it.”

“…Leaving aside your idea that fifty years ago is a ‘generation ago,’ what exactly does it do?”

Seriana prompted Fiora to get to the point.

“Right… It seems a bit over the top for something that just draws in Undead and absorbs mana and life force.”

Teresa added her thoughts as well.

Well, now we know this place was built by someone affiliated with the church, but that’s not the information we need right now.

Realizing she’d gotten off track, Fiora let out an embarrassed little cough and resumed her explanation.

“It does store the souls of the dead and can turn them into Wraiths… but as Teresa said, that effect is only a secondary one. The original purpose was immortality.”

“…That’s quite disturbing.”

Immortality, coming straight from Fiora’s mouth… In fiction from my previous life, that’s often the end goal of some evil organization’s research.

I hadn’t paid much attention to it until now, but I guess this world has that concept too.

It rarely ends well… Judging from Seriana’s tone, that might be the case here as well.

“The experimental methods were part of it too… First, they’d extract the soul and try to move it into a different body. They tried all sorts of things. But they couldn’t transfer them as planned—other souls would interfere, and it wouldn’t go well, according to the records.”

So it wasn’t about making one’s own body immortal, but rather a study on endlessly transferring into new ones…

“It’s said that even after thoroughly purifying the entire hall where the magic circle was drawn, the same phenomena occurred, which suggests it might have been linked to another place. Or maybe… another space? In any case, the details were vague, but a major accident occurred, and the research was scrapped… though it looks like the church picked it up afterward.”

“Did the church want the secondary effects instead?”

Fiora nodded at Seriana’s question and looked straight upward.

“Directly above us is the orphanage, right? They probably chose this location in case the magical essence alone wasn’t enough. By gradually drawing mana and life force from children with weak resistance, then turning the souls of those who died into Wraiths and gathering them here… Not exactly tasteful, but efficient.”

“…………”

Extracting souls and then drawing in new ones from elsewhere to place into those now-vacant bodies…

I’ve got some thoughts about that, but I’ll think it through later.

“We’ve destroyed everything for now, but if we wait too long, it will probably create Wraiths again. Also… if left alone, the high concentration of magical essence will dissolve into the water and leak from the spring. That might attract monsters from outside… They probably built it into a well for that reason. It’s well thought out, really…”

Fiora said with a sigh of disbelief, paused, then continued.

“The magic circle that activates the effect, and the stone pillars that gather magical essence and feed it to the circle—those two systems are perfectly synchronized and have created our current situation.”

“I understand now that we can’t leave it alone… but how are we supposed to destroy it?”

“Right. Just being in that room for a short time drained us considerably… I don’t know how sturdy that thing is, and even if we had the 【Red Sword】, I’m not sure we could break it.”

“It’s made by shaping monster materials into that form and enhancing it with magical essence, so it should only be slightly harder than the targets I usually make at the training ground… But still. If we fail, we wouldn’t be able to rescue you on our own…”

That’s the real problem, huh… Seems like Fiora doesn’t have a solution either.

While everyone was thinking it over, Seriana suddenly spoke up, as if an idea had struck her.

“…What if we proceed little by little while using Sera’s 【Hideout】?”

“Ohhh!?”

Like a quick-save strategy in a game?

But with healing between attempts, we might actually make it.

Even if we can’t destroy it in one hit, we could try again.

This might be a good idea—

—or so I thought…

“You’d better not do that. …Come to think of it, I haven’t mentioned this yet. This whole thing only started running properly because the bandits dumped chemicals into the well. Then, once the lid was opened, it changed again. And when we entered the passage, it changed again… Then entering that room and retreating here caused further changes. Each time, it used the stored souls to produce Undead. It’s stable now only because we’re here, but we don’t know how the magic circle would interpret 【Hideout】. Depending on the case, we might end up fighting an endless swarm of Undead.”

…What a security system.

It resets and starts eliminating intruders every time the situation changes.

“…Now I understand what you meant when you said it’d be fine for a while. Still… what a pain this is.”

Seriana said with a bitter tone, letting out a sigh.

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

Sera ・ Blessing ・ 【Hideout】 +1 【Prayer】 【Blessing of Mira】 【Wind’s Garment】 Blessed Item ・ 【Floating Orb】 +1 【Shadow Sword】 +1 【Scarlet Bee Needle】 【Fairy’s Eye】 【Lung of the Dragon】 【Amber Sword】 【Danrem’s Thread】 【Serpent’s Tail】 【Ankle Bracelet】 【Amber Shield】 【Purple Wings】 【Red Sword】 【Monkey’s Arm】 ・ 8 cards

Seriana ・ 【Area Detection】 ・ 【】 ・ 0 cards

Elena ・ 【】 ・ 【Green Fang】 【Amber Sword】 ・ 4 cards

Alec ・ 【Power Strike】 ・ 【Red Shield】 【Fierce Horned Trumpet】 ・ 10 cards