“Croft's Meditation Method has leveled up to Lv2.”
The system notification chimed deep within his consciousness. Roger opened his eyes to see the morning sunlight filtering through the gaps in the curtains.
He changed into clean clothes, grabbed breakfast at a nearby tavern that had just opened, and headed straight to Nina's place.
The inner city in the early morning had not yet fully awoken. The streets held only a scattering of merchants heading to the morning market and apprentices sweeping the cobblestones in front of their shops.
The magic lamps extinguished automatically, replaced by the pale golden morning light spilling over the buildings to the east.
Roger knocked on Nina's door a few times. A moment later, the door creaked open a crack, and Nina's face, sporting heavy dark circles under her eyes, peeked out.
Once she confirmed it was Roger, Nina opened the door and stepped aside to let him in. “Come in.”
Roger slipped inside. The living room table was covered with parchment sheets filled with writing; she had clearly pulled another all-nighter.
“What brings you here so early in the morning?” Nina asked as she closed the door, habitually walking over to the table to tidy up the parchment.
“I need some books and materials related to runes and magic circles. Do you happen to have any here?” Roger got straight to the point as usual.
“Only magic circles. I've never studied runes.” Nina turned and headed toward the second floor. “Wait a moment.”
Roger waited in the living room, his gaze sweeping over the scattered documents on the table. Most of them were theoretical derivations and structural diagrams of spell formations related to magic circles.
A few minutes later, Nina came downstairs carrying a stack of parchment in her arms.
She divided the parchment into two piles on the table, briefly checked their contents, and pushed them all toward Roger.
“These are all copies I made at the association library, ranging from introductory to advanced. I've finished reading them, so if you need them, just take them.”
Roger had originally hoped she would bring down a bound book.
But as it turned out, while parchment wasn't as rare in this world as it was in Earth's Middle Ages, actual books were still not something one could easily obtain whenever they wanted.
Not being one to complain, Roger thanked her as he took the dozen or so parchment sheets, then left Nina's residence.
“Oh, by the way, if you want to investigate the cultists, you might want to check out the outer city or the slums. An acquaintance told me last night that there are some strange people preaching there.”
“They don't look like members of any official church, and they always show up at night, specifically striking up conversations with people who can't even afford to eat.”
Nina said this with a yawn just as Roger reached the door. He committed this new piece of information to memory, gave a nod, and pushed the door open to leave.
Returning to his lodging, he sat at the old wooden table in his room and flipped through the dozen parchment sheets Nina had given him one by one.
The pages recorded the basic theory of magic circles, from the most fundamental layout of mana nodes and the mana circuits of the array structure, to how to solidify simple spell effects onto a flat medium.
The bottom few sheets also had drawings of several complete magic circle patterns, accompanied by detailed step-by-step instructions.
After reading all the parchment, the experience bar for 【Magic Circle Specialization】 nudged forward.
By this time, the sun had risen high into the sky.
Since he still had plenty of time today, Roger decided to head out once more.
After passing through the outer city and reaching the edge of the slums, Roger found an empty corner to put on the Mask of a Thousand Faces, changing his appearance to a disheveled face with prominent cheekbones.
The houses in the slums were even more dilapidated and densely packed than those in the outer city, the streets narrower, and the air thick with a sickening stench.
A few raggedly dressed people lay on the ground with flies buzzing above them; it was impossible to tell if they were drunk or dead.
A man walked out of a nearby dilapidated shack, pulling up his pants with both hands, while a woman's muffled, playful cursing drifted out from inside.
Roger intentionally steered clear of them, intending to head deeper into the slums, but his peripheral vision caught several irregular scars on the man's wrist.
He turned to the side, waited for the man to walk a dozen paces, and then followed him from a distance.
The alleys of the slums were intricate and confusing. The man made several turns before finally entering a shack that was slightly larger than the surrounding hovels.
Roger stopped about ten paces from the shack, activated Scout's Eye, and confirmed that only this man was inside. He then walked up and knocked twice on the door.
“Who is it?”
The moment the door opened, Roger swung his fist straight into the man's face. The man fell backward onto the floor, blood spurting from between his fingers as he clutched his nose.
Roger stepped inside, closed the door behind him, and slid the bolt into place.
The man sat on the floor holding his nose, blood dripping through his fingers. He looked up at Roger, instinctively backing away until his spine hit the wall.
Roger grabbed the man's collar with one hand, pulled his Fine Steel Sword from his system inventory with the other, and rested it against his neck.
“What is the name of the cult behind you? How many of you are there in these slums?”
Roger had a very clear understanding of his own capabilities. He didn't possess any extraordinary deductive reasoning skills; his methods of gathering information were either disguising himself to ask roundabout questions, or using violent coercion and interrogation.
The current situation was clearly more suited to the latter.
“I... I don't know what you're talking about!” The man's voice trembled, and his eyes instinctively darted toward his left wrist.
Roger didn't waste any words. He summoned his Arcane Hand to grab the man's left wrist, turning it over for him to see.
The scars gleamed with a faint purple hue in the dim light.
“Where did this come from?”
The man's face completely fell. His lips trembled, his Adam's apple bobbed up and down, and his eyes stared fixedly at the blade pressed against his neck.
“I'll count to three. If you don't speak, your head comes off.” Roger pressed the blade closer, the cold metal brushing against his skin. “One.”
“I'll talk! I'll talk!” The man's psychological defense completely shattered. “It's the Purple Sun Sect! We're all believers of the Purple Sun Sect! Please spare my life!”
“How many people like you are there in these slums?”
“I... I don't know the exact number... We don't usually gather together, we only meet at set times.”
Roger pressed the blade down half an inch, and a thin line of blood seeped from the man's neck.
“Twenty or so! Thirty at most!” The man's voice shrieked, pitch-shifting in panic.
“Everything I'm saying is true! We don't know each other. Only the higher-ups know everyone's identity!”
“The cult doesn't allow us to ask about each other. If anyone is caught privately looking into someone else's identity, they get punished!”
Their security measures are quite strict, Roger thought, then continued asking, “Who is your superior?”
“I don't know his name.” Seeing Roger's blade move slightly again, the man rushed to continue, “We've never seen what our superior looks like. Every meeting takes place in a different part of the outer city—we never meet in the same place twice. All communication relies on word of mouth from intermediaries.”
“The intermediaries change frequently, too. Last time it was a limping old man, and the time before that was a washerwoman.”
Roger pressed further, “What do you do when you meet?”
“Recruit people.” The man swallowed hard. “The cult wants us to develop new believers in the slums. No matter the method, as long as we bring them in.”
“For every person we recruit, we get a bottle of enhancer. Once we recruit ten, we can participate in the cult's internal advancement ceremony.”
Hearing the familiar term “enhancer,” Roger tightened his grip on the hilt. “What is the advancement ceremony?”
“I've never participated in it. I've only recruited two people so far.” The man spoke faster and faster, as if terrified Roger wouldn't believe him.
“I only heard about it from the intermediary. They said it can completely unlock the body's potential, making it several times more powerful than the enhancer. But one must first prove their loyalty to be eligible to participate.”
“Where did you take the people you recruited?”
As soon as Roger asked, the man rattled off an address.
Deep in the outer city, there was an abandoned warehouse. Every time they gathered enough new recruits, they would meet there at the agreed time to hand the people over to the intermediary, collect their enhancers, and then disperse to wait for the next meeting.
Roger committed the address to memory and asked a few more questions about the meeting signals and the details of the handoff process.
Confirming that this man had no more useful information, Roger pressed the blade back against his neck. The man's eyes widened, and he opened his mouth to speak, but the blade had already sliced into his throat.
After a brief, choked gasp, the man's body went limp and slumped to the floor.
“Points +50. Total: 4,450.”
Roger knelt, stored the corpse in his system inventory, then grabbed a few handfuls of hay from a broken wooden barrel in the corner to cover the bloodstains, stomping on it to ensure it was evenly spread.
Having finished all this, he was about to leave the shack when another raggedly dressed man entered the field of vision of his Scout's Eye.
The other person stopped before the door and knocked.
“Hunter, the higher-ups want us to meet up.”
Well, isn't that convenient?
With a thought, Roger used the Mask of a Thousand Faces to mimic the deceased man's appearance. He cleared his throat and adjusted his vocal cords:
“Hold on, I'll be right out.”
Rate on N.U.
