Chapter 35.

Of course, detecting presence using this method was limited to biological entities, so it was hard to observe the inside of inorganic buildings. But with this many people present, their presence could become a map in itself.

I turned my eyes to the center of the inner palace. My goal was the emperor’s sealing stamp. If it was an area where the emperor frequented, the security would be tight even without him being present. I looked around to see where the security was the heaviest.

Puk!

Ugh... My eyes...

My eyes started to hurt badly when I focused on the inner court. I almost screamed, barely able to endure it. There was definitely nothing wrong with the presence.

What was the problem?

I released my marital aura and looked in the direction of the inner palace. I did not receive any pains from before. I tried looking towards the inner palace with magic power in my eyes this time.

Puk!

Ugh...

Although weaker than before, I still felt the pain.

Ah, I got it now! I hadn’t noticed before because it was so huge, but I was standing inside a large magic circle. I had received damage from the magic circle because I had probably met certain conditions. This condition was probably body parts that could receive information, such as concentrating magic power on eyes or ears would be inflicted damage when the attention of the user was directed towards the inner palace. Even if martial aura disconnected my inner body from external environments, it didn’t matter since I was already under the influence of the magic circle.

As an analogy, you might close the window of a car due to the smell of cow dung, but the smell has already entered the car. In cases such as this, I would have to go out of the magic circle, erase its influence on me, and then enter the magic circle again while using martial arts. However, this magic circle seemed to have a wide range that extended out to even the outer palace. Since it’s a hassle to go outside the palace and come back in, let’s just interfere with the magic circle to make a gap.

I installed a barrier that would prevent the spread of magic power around me then took out my staff from the pocket space. The staff was made out of a thin, long dragon-bone four centimeters in circumference and one meter in length. At its head, it had a fist-sized round jewel floating that had been created by combining seven dragon hearts.

The dragon heart floated in the air and subtly emanated seven beautiful lights at certain intervals. In addition, three different sized mithril rings, as well as five demon crystals compressed to the size of fingernails, spun around the dragon heart. Ten dragons and 50 dragon class demons had been killed to create this staff, but it was an amazing item that had been worth the risk.

I hadn’t been able to use it while leaving the village because I couldn’t wield it in the forest. Olympus Forest was hell for magicians where magic power ran rampant. Using this staff, which presence alone emitted a tremendous amount of magic power, could result in half the forest being blasted apart.

It was a staff I had made secretly in preparation for leaving the village. But upon completion, I realized that it was so powerful it would not be suitable for dealing with the villagers. Due to this, I never had the chance to use this staff. But now that I was out of the forest, I could use this staff freely.

I held the staff and lightly tapped it down onto the roof. I used the staff to contact the magic circle. Reading through the effects of the magic circle as well as its conditions made me wonder if people could even live here with so many restrictions in effect.

Of course, many of these restrictions were created to protect the empire and therefore did not activate unless one was in contact or trying to contact the emperor. Otherwise, people would not have been able to live in this palace because this magic circle could even restrict natural behaviors such as walking, location of gazes, and even breathing. I felt amazement towards the servants who were in close contact with the emperor as they had to endure all the restrictions.

While reading through the magic circle, I took a deep gulp after deciphering no one other than authorized personnel could enter the inner palace beyond a line called a sword line. The magic circle inside the sword line was at another level from the magic circle I was currently interfering with. It was at a level where I couldn’t just create a gap.

How many times had they fixed, expanded, and changed the magic circle over the past few decades or even centuries to reach this level...

It was like writing on a white sheet then overlapping it hundreds of times to write more letters. Even if I was from the battle race, I would die if I were to try to pass through this gruesome magic circle.

Magic circles were like a thread, and whether or not you could find the first magic that was drawn would determine whether or not you could solve it. In short, the magic circle inside the inner palace was basically Gordian’s knot. And in order to solve it, I had no choice but to blow away the entire imperial palace like Alexander the Great. But doing so would result in the sealing stamp being blown away as well. I had to find another way.

I found a loophole while touching around the magic circle. The magic circle was like a program from my past life. It had to be littered with all kinds of bugs and errors as long as it was made by humans. That had to be even more so with a magic circle of this size that had been needlessly overlapped and edited so many times.

There had to be a master key or a backdoor that could solve this error. Access error, firewall, avoidance, connection, failure, connection, failure, access error, avoidance... There were a lot of things I had to pay attention to dig through the magic circle without alerting magicians inside the imperial palace.

But there was also a harvest.

By examining the magic circle, I was able to find the map information of the inner palace. While scanning it, I took out a small card from the pocket space and placed it next to the staff. The card was based on the fund record used by the bank and was a kind of external hard drive. No, since it stored the magic power rather than spinning it, it was more like an SSD or SD card.

Anyway, I saved the map of the inner palace and put my full attention to the magic circle. Although I wasn’t able to find any backdoors or a master key, I discovered that there existed bracelets that had the access code to enter beyond the sword line. I found one that was currently located outside the sword line.

The owner of the access code was Arelia von Bahamunt di Oreliang Elia, the Third Imperial Princess.

Trying to hack the magic circle as it was right now could take several days. It was probably better to steal the access code. I was a thief, after all.

-o-

Arelia felt a little dazed and queer when she saw the man wearing the half-white mask.

Could this man actually be real? Perhaps some fairy was showing me a dream?

The man snapped his fingers when Arelia stared at him absent-mindedly.

Tak!

Arelia picked up her skirt per the court etiquette and bowed slightly when the sound brought her back to her senses. Her cheeks were a pale pink.

"Oh, yes, hello, Mr. Lupin."

The lips beneath the mask made a slight smile and Arelia welcomed the man. Lupin jumped slightly from the terrace railing and approached her. Then, gently grabbing her right hand, he kissed her on the back of her hand.

Lupin’s eyes glistened slightly. "It’s nice to see you again. A...ria?"

Arelia nodded when Lupin fumbled slightly and called her by her alias. Her mood improved at the fact that the man was able to remember her name from the brief interaction they had three days ago.

"It’s a lovely day, isn’t it?

Lupin weakly tugged on Arelia’s right hand as he tried to lead her to come to the terrace railing. She followed and approached the railing.

"Yes, it is."

The incomplete moon had risen completely today and the full moon shone brightly in the night sky.

Arelia felt like the moonlight was shining subtle light on her. Her expression dimmed slightly when the cloud moved over the moon and covered the moonlight. She had not expected this situation. The man was a fairy-like person who simply passed by three days ago. It was unknown when they would be able to meet again. Most of all, she was not a person that could freely meet other people.

Yes! It was time to wake up.

She had to wake up from this mysterious daydream when she knew nothing about the other person. Regardless if that was for herself or for the man. As Arelia tried to say goodbye and leave, Lupin put his index finger on Arelia’s lips.

"Are you worried?"

Arelia was surprised by Lupin’s words.

How did this man know her mind?

"Don’t worry. No one’s going to be harmed."

The words caused a small stir in her heart.

"Nobody...?"

That could not be possible. She was the princess of the empire. There was no way such a meeting could be allowed...

"You must have a lot of worries." Lupin made a smile beneath the mask.

Arelia’s eyes saddened at the smile.

"This palace is a large cage. It’s too big to run away....”

Arelia was surprised to hear herself. It was blasphemy to call this palace a cage. For some reason, whenever she saw this man, her inner thoughts would open the door to try and get out.

Lupin laughed and said, "Is that actually true?"

Arelia looked up and stared at the mask. Lupin gently held her waist with one hand and held her hand with the other.

"Shall we see if you actually can’t run away?"

And just like that, the two started to float slowly. Arelia’s eyes widened with surprise. Underneath the half-white mask was a playful smile.

"Slowly, you just have to walk step by step."

When she took a step as he said, her body started to float as if it was rejecting gravity. She felt an unrealistic sense of incongruity as she slowly started to float, but it did not feel so bad. The two completely rose to the sky and flew as if they were dancing at a ball in the capital beneath the galaxy. At the same time, Arelia felt dazed by the fresh breeze of the night sky.

"What do you think? Do you still think you can’t get away?"

The smile below the mask harmonized with the moonlight to turn into a fantastic picture.

Arelia smiled and gently shook her head. "No?"

The waltz in the night sky was fantastic. His arms around her hands and waist felt so warm.