The Handbook for Completing Demi-Human Girls

Chapter 141: Death Trap

"Kasiu's Silver Mirror?"

This was the first time Fisher had heard of such a miraculous item existing. Filled with curiosity, he walked up to the silver mirror, watching its silver surface slowly ripple with layers of waves like a lake.

The elderly Schwari scholar beside him smiled and said to the accompanying Kadu personnel,

"Father Dirk, please demonstrate the mirror's function for Mr. Fisher."

Fisher stepped back a bit, allowing the several Kadu church personnel to approach the small silver mirror. He saw the leading old man extend a finger toward the small mirror without actually touching it. The ripples on the mirror's surface also grew more intense in tandem with the Kadu priest's movements.

Standing behind Fisher, Jasmine looked at the small mirror with great curiosity. In the next second, the small mirror surface began to change shape. An [Air] Circle Head quickly appeared in Fisher's line of sight. And that Circle Head wasn't simply a pattern; the pattern shimmered with light, clearly having been infused with magic power.

This mirror was truly engraving magic just like a human!

Fisher observed the small mirror until a complete magic appeared before his eyes. He recognized that the magic engraved on it was a Medieval version of the three-ring magic, [Small Tornado].

"Medieval Magic?"

Fisher looked at the Kadu church personnel beside him. The man nodded and explained in unpracticed Nari Language,"This silver mirror is a burial object excavated from the mausoleum of Archbishop Kasiu. He committed the church's taboo and fled without a trace. It was only after his death that we learned the location of his mausoleum and brought back all the items he stole from the church."

"This silver mirror is not an item of our church, but was made by Kasiu."

Made by Kasiu?

Fisher had heard of Kasiu. He seemed to be a very famous apostate in Kadu's history. Because he was once a Cardinal Archbishop of the Holy Church, no one expected that an Archbishop only one step away from the Pope would apostatize and flee the Holy Church.

Fisher was a Nali Person, so he didn't understand much about Kadu's history; he had only heard his name.

Just now, Fisher felt very confused when he saw the silver mirror, but at this moment, after hearing the Kadu Church's explanation, he suddenly felt rather curious about how Kasiu had manufactured a [Relic].

Just as Fisher had mentioned before, the manufacturing method of relics had been lost long ago. No one knew how those items filled with miraculous effects had turned from magic materials into their current state.

"Can I observe this mirror up close?"

Regarding Fisher's request, the elderly Schwari scholar glanced at the Carduan beside him. After the man nodded, he then said to Fisher,

"Please do as you wish, Mr. Fisher."

Fisher approached the mirror, only to see that its surface seemed to be made of silver, while the surrounding frame was made of some sort of black metal. This gave the entire mirror an eerie and strange appearance.

He examined the magic crests upon it. This kind of magic was a version from the Medieval period that hadn't been improved yet. The magic power on it was pure. Although the quantity wasn't large, it was indeed genuine magic power. Furthermore, the magic power on it actually belonged to a human?

This phenomenon caught Fisher's attention. He didn't suspect that the people of Schwari and Kadu had joined hands to orchestrate a scam, setting up someone hidden elsewhere to secretly release magic or something similar.

If the people of Schwari played such underhanded tricks, their academic credibility would collapse completely once discovered. Moreover, Prince Lausanne was still here. Fisher was certain these scholars wouldn't dare do such a thing.

Fisher glanced at Lausanne standing by the doorway, only to see him leaning against the door frame, looking out toward the corridor. He didn't know who Lausanne was looking at.

"Are the magics engraved on it all Medieval Magic versions?"

"Ah, yes. But we don't know the specific operating principle either. Perhaps this mirror can only record the magic of that era..."

"Ah..."

While completely focused, Fisher suddenly heard a faint howl by his ear. The sound ought to be that of a human, but it was extremely subtle, making it impossible for him to hear it clearly.

He frowned and looked around. The surroundings were perfectly quiet, and everyone's gazes were fixed on him.

Could it be...

Fisher redirected his gaze back to the mirror before him. The overlapping ripples on the mirror's surface suddenly caused Fisher to develop a terrifying speculation.

"Awooo..."

He looked down at his own faintly glowing Mana Circuits; the faint howling sounds at his ear were becoming clearer and clearer. Since his soul seemed to have been remolded by the Soul Completion Handbook, he appeared to be highly sensitive to magic, magic power... or rather, souls.

Fisher's expression changed. He stood up and looked at Jasmine beside him.

"Jasmine, tear off a piece of paper from your notebook."

"Eh? Ah? Okay!"

Seeing Fisher take action, the surrounding people sequentially focused their attention on him.

After waiting for Jasmine to tear off a piece of scratch paper used for note-taking, Fisher bit his finger and began drawing a Magic Crest on the paper with his blood.

Fisher's decisive actions entered Jasmine's sight. Despite it clearly being Fisher biting his own finger and using his blood to engrave magic, Jasmine oddly pursed her lips, looking worried.

A Soul-Targeting Magic quickly appeared in Fisher's hands. This magic was very similar to the proof magic in his thesis, but its target was not himself.

Once the magic was complete, he stood up and aimed the magic at the silver mirror.

"Mr. Fisher, what is this?"

The Schwari scholars were just about to stop Fisher. Who knew what magic he was using? What if he accidentally broke the mirror?

However, Father Dirk of Kadu generously allowed Fisher to continue with his magic, so the Schwari scholars ultimately didn't make a move to stop him.

The Soul-Targeting Magic in Fisher's hand lit up, instantly surging onto the small silver mirror before him. Amidst the horrified gazes of the surrounding scholars, the magic activated in a flash. Behind the silver mirror, one humanity-shaped phantom after another—varying in size and distorted in shape—was revealed.

Those phantoms seemed perfectly blended together, unable to be separated. The arm of one phantom was the leg of another. Two heads shared a single set of facial features. The entire soul phantom resembled a giant chunk of meat, making one nauseous.

The figures revealed from the illusion incessantly let out howls. The others couldn't hear them, but by Fisher's ear, the exceptionally chaotic human voices reached their peak in this instant, expressing their endless agony.

Even Fisher put on a totally unexpected expression; he had merely taken a random guess, never expecting to truly pry out the essence of this thing.

"Mr. Fisher, this..."

The personnel of the Kadu Church took in the horrifying phantom behind the mirror with astonishment. Immediately afterward, they clasped their hands together in an attitude of prayer, seeking the Mother Goddess' protection.

"This mirror is made from the mixing of human souls. What's more, judging by the fortitude of these souls, they should all have practiced magic; therefore, this mirror can release Medieval Magic."

"Made... made from souls? You mean to say that humans understood the existence of souls long ago? And they also knew the method of fabricating relics?"

Fisher held up the magic crest in his hand—which was already starting to lose its radiance—to indicate that the Circle Head of the magic he used was the exact same one used in his thesis. Following that, in response to the Schwari scholar's questioning, he shook his head and said,

"I don't know either. Perhaps Archbishop Kasiu knew, or perhaps he didn't. It's also possible that someone else gave this silver mirror to him..."

There were currently no records regarding the soul left in the magic tomes. All of them merely documented Mana Circuits and the methods to pry at the world's echo. But ultimately, whether one knew that magic power originated from the soul had no impact whatsoever on using magic. Yet for Fisher, this theory could possibly bring more possibilities to magic in the future.

The Kadu Church personnel standing by sighed. Moving to Fisher's side, he continued their previous explanation.

"The Holy Church does not have any tomes recording whether Archbishop Kasiu was aware that magic power originated from the soul. We don't understand much about him either."

"At that time, he was ranked as one of the church's three great Cardinal Archbishops, right on the precipice of becoming Pope. Yet he discarded his pure belief in the Mother Goddess overnight, apostatizing and vanishing without a trace. It wasn't until his death decades later that we learned the location of his mausoleum from the mouths of heretic cultists."

Hearing this secret trivia from Kadu's Holy Church, everyone concentrated on listening to the Kadu Church personnel's words.

Fisher put down the magic crest that had lost its luster while pondering. As the magic dissipated, the phantom behind the mirror also slowly faded into nothingness.

Faintly, he felt a bad premonition, especially after learning the mirror's origins.

"Father Dirk, are you saying that Archbishop Kasiu betrayed the Mother Goddess?"

"Betrayed the Mother Goddess? Oh, no..."

Recalling the contents of the church's tomes, Father Dirk pondered for a moment before saying,

"On the contrary, his belief in the Mother Goddess was utterly fanatic. He believed the current doctrines of the Holy Church entirely misinterpreted the path to draw close to the Mother Goddess. He thought that ordinary rituals and abiding by personal asceticism could not come close to the Mother Goddess at all. There was only one singular path in this world capable of leading to the Mother Goddess' seat..."

"That is the Witches."

At this very moment, following Bishop Dirk's utterance of this term, countless streams of thought instantly pierced through Fisher's brain. Those disconnected thoughts linked up perfectly. His expression shifting, he stood up, looked at the adjacent Bishop Dirk, and asked,

"You mean, Archbishop Kasiu is the founder of the [Witch Research Society]?"

"Ah... though we're loath to admit it, it's indeed the truth. The location of his mausoleum was told to us by those damned cultists. This mirror is also perceived as a holy artifact by that group of cultists; for many years, they've constantly sought to snatch this silver mirror back from the Holy Church..."

That was it!

Fisher finally figured out why this mirror used Medieval Magic, and why the Pink Pavilion arranged to have Caro assassinate the Schwari personnel at Saint-Nazareth University, even when they knew she fundamentally could not kill them...

They essentially didn't want Caro to make the kill!

They were fabricating an illusion that the Witch Research Society had attacked the Schwari officials in an attempt to snatch back their holy artifact!

In other words, someone else was going to assassinate these Schwari scholars!

With a cold expression, Fisher stepped out of this tiny room beneath everyone's confused gazes. He examined the sunlit sky outside, feeling increasingly that there was something wrong with the environment spanning outside.

"Mr. Fisher! You are..."

In the ensuing second, traversing everyone's bewildered gazes, Fisher suddenly threw a punch at the front window, shattering the glass.

A shocking phenomenon manifested. The exterior was fundamentally not a school of any sort, but rather a pitch-black expanse, a black expanse akin to the void. Amidst a stretch of dead silence, the glass fragments Fisher knocked down plummeted along the periphery of the building, yet the sound of them landing never echoed. It was exactly as if they had vanished from existence.

And there in that blackness, Fisher perceived magic crests glowing with a blend of dark purple and white magic power, one ring stacking upon another. He identified them as Medieval Magic crests constructed from an Artificial Witch's magic power.

Thirteenth-Ring Magic, [Spatial Cage].

The seminal work of ultra-ring Spatial Magic, Spatial Cage, was also the sole magic among Medieval Magics to attain thirteenth ring or above.

The specific effect was total segregation of the inside and outside of the magic circle's space. That is, it perfectly replicated the environment within the magic circle. When the prey sidestepped into this magic, they wouldn't realize they had entered a magic prison cell whatsoever.

As for the people patrolling on the outside, if they were to stride into this building right at this moment, they would discover everyone inside had vanished, because they were all presently imprisoned inside the magic.

The single method for dismantling the spell was tracking down the magic crest etched within the building. The magic located in the surrounding void couldn't be touched. If one leaped out the window, they would vanish in an instant, and no one knew what would happen if one skipped out of this magic.

This was the Pink Pavilion's true murderous trap. The crux lay in that barring Fisher who was in on the circumstances, not a solitary drop of proof existed to affirm that the Pink Pavilion plotted this string of events.

An Artificial Witch's magic power, Medieval Magic, Artificial Witch Caro, the Witch Research Society holy artifact Schwari delivered from Kadu...

One link latching onto the next, culminating right at this second into an airtight, inescapable death trap!

The complexions of the other surrounding scholars rapidly altered all concurrently. The Schwari scholars, acting entirely indignant, turned toward the Nali Persons standing next to them.

Nonsense! The security detail fell to the Nari New Party. How come you couldn't even discover when the premises were fixed with this ultra-ring magic?

"Impossible! The Nari police did a full sweep of this building right inside and out, absolutely no trace of any magic engravings whatsoever. We just performed it this morning! A magic on this level couldn't have been mapped out this remarkably fast!"

Sporting an expression of disbelief, Kaine stared into the obsidian expanse beyond. Relegated to standing within the window, they were utterly defenseless, like creatures marooned inside a gigantic cage.

Behind him, Father Dirk looked blankly at the Medieval ultra-ring magic outside, muttering to his peers,

"It is the Witch Research Society! They've targeted our holy artifact! They intend to wrest this silver mirror back!"

Fisher turned to survey them. Proceedings had regressed into such a conundrum; it was high time to start unearthing a solution rather than getting hung up on 'why'. Fisher was the sole individual grasping that the strings were pulled by the Pink Pavilion, which denoted their legitimate purpose unequivocally didn't pivot around this Silver Mirror of Kasiu, but revolved around the entirety of Schwalie's visiting constituents, even pointing as far as—

Prince Lausanne!

Prince Lausanne's expression was grim. Fisher had barely opened his mouth before the ambient lights were extinguished sequentially, drawing the surrounding environment inside the sprawling building entirely into darkness. Several bewildered outcries drifted over from the banquet hall below. Fisher had nearly overlooked that the visiting delegation's families were still stationed downstairs!

Quite fretfully, Jasmine stood slightly tighter toward Fisher. She eschewed glaring right into the void-strewn space outdoors, selecting rather to glance into the structure's interior, ostensibly detecting a smattering of anomalous objects enshrouded right into that internal expanse.

"Hehe..."

Following a gust of chilling wind, Fisher's ensemble had definitively been pitched squarely within a death trap.