Chương 101: Chapter 96: Narrowing the Scope

Like a ghost in the night, Lira wandered through the narrow streets of Halthar, her footsteps completely silenced and her silhouette blurred. Based on an educated guess, she headed toward the eastern edge of the city, where Halthar was exposed to waves of cold winds from the Holtarry Mountains. It was the poorest district in the capital, a place where countless transient farming families gathered after being forced to abandon their villages because of bad harvests, harsh winters, or bandit attacks.

Most eventually found work and moved elsewhere, but others remained, building crude homes from whatever timber and scrap they could find. Most of Salvek's victims had come from places like this. His personal journal, which she had absorbed earlier that month, attested to it. He lured desperate young women with promises of stable work, decent wages, and the chance of becoming the mistresses of wealthy men.

It made sense that the survivors would instinctively flee back toward the only part of the city that still felt remotely familiar.

"Ladar. Oshkan. Pika." Her Divine Location spell spread through the district and immediately returned far too many possible locations. Nearly the entire eastern slums shimmered faintly within her mind. Lira sighed. It was to be expected. The spell had a limited scope when she lacked concrete information. The only details she knew about the women were that there were at least eight of them, one had been a turnip farmer, and at least one had been struck with a baton.

"I need more information..." Her eyes drifted upward toward a weathered wooden watchtower rising above the rooftops. Long ago, it had marked the eastern edge of Halthar. Since then, the city had expanded around it, swallowing the tower as the slums spread farther outward. A newer stone watchtower had eventually been constructed closer to the city's new edge, leaving the old structure abandoned. Years of neglect had warped its wooden supports, yet it still stood. It would make a perfect observation point.

Lira slipped past a few loitering youths standing at the foot of the tower before climbing the structure and settling near its highest platform. From there, most of the eastern district unfolded beneath her. She began layering her mental and perception spells.

"Pika. Selan. Tureth."

"Pika. Velar. Syneth."

"Pika. Cipos. Syneth."

"Pika. Cipos. Hishar. Kaldris. Velar." Finally, she added the Life Divination spell over everything else.

"Ladar. Oshkan. Kalaba." The city came alive as clusters of living people were highlighted throughout the district. With her enhanced hearing, hundreds of conversations reached her all at once before her enhanced mind automatically began filtering them. She discarded the sounds of doors opening and closing, barking dogs, and other environmental noise, focusing only on human voices. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Children cried, drunkards mumbled, and somewhere, a husband and wife debated whether they could still afford bread tomorrow. Her Eagle Eyes swept across anyone standing in the open, scanning faces and comparing them to the few women she had seen while spying on Salvek. Five minutes passed. She found nothing. Just as she was about to move, she noticed something unexpected. The area highlighted by her Divine Location spell had begun shrinking. Lira blinked.

"... Of course." She wasn't finding the women, but she was eliminating places where they couldn't be. Every street she observed without discovering them quietly disappeared from the spell's list of possible locations. Her divination was updating itself based on the information gathered by her enhanced senses. Ten minutes later, only a handful of city blocks still glowed within her awareness. By the fifteen-minute mark, the search area had narrowed to a single block.

Most of the buildings there were little more than collapsing wooden shells. Several lacked complete roofs, while others leaned so heavily that they looked as though they might collapse during the next strong wind. Years ago, a noble had purchased the entire district intending to redevelop it, but the project had stalled halfway after he ran out of money. Since then, the abandoned buildings had become an unofficial refuge for travelers with nowhere else to sleep.

Whenever the owner remembered the land existed, the city guards were sent to chase everyone away, only for the squatters to return a few days later. Lira focused every spell she had on that final block, trying to determine which ruined building hid the women. That was when a sharp pain exploded behind her eyes. It felt as though someone had driven a needle straight through her skull. She gasped, suddenly out of breath. Her enhanced vision vanished, followed by the distant conversations she had been listening to.

Both divination spells disappeared as well as her mind spells. One after another, every active spell collapsed. Only the runic enchantments inked onto paper remained. Lira staggered backward, catching herself against one of the tower's support beams as an overwhelming wave of exhaustion washed over her body. Her eyelids suddenly felt impossibly heavy.

"... Did I run out of mana?" It had happened so quickly that she hadn't even noticed the gradual drain. Six active spells. Seven if she counted the passive danger sense she had cast before leaving the castle. Most of them were simple cantrips that consumed very little mana individually, but together, maintained continuously for nearly a quarter of an hour, they had emptied her reserves completely. She let out a quiet sigh.

"I may have overdone it." At least her runic enchantments were still functioning. Mana Obfuscation, Mana Stabilization, Body Obfuscation, and Sound Isolation. Those remained active without drawing upon her own mana. Satisfied that she was still concealed, Lira lowered herself onto one of the weathered beams and began practicing the breathing exercises she had learned from one of the books donated to the library by Mage Emberborn: slow, steady breaths, in through the nose, hold, then out through the mouth.

She had neglected this part of her magical training. Crafting new spells was far more fascinating than practicing breathing exercises. Now, sitting atop an abandoned watchtower with an empty mana pool, she was beginning to regret that decision. She couldn't believe she had failed to notice herself running out of mana. That was terrible.

Granted, this was the first time it had ever happened, at least the first time since she had created her very first spell and accidentally wind-manipulated all the dust out of the library. Still, she doubted a properly trained mage would fail to notice something so fundamental. She spent a few more minutes catching her breath before reluctantly climbing down. Returning to the palace briefly crossed her mind, but she dismissed the idea.

She had already narrowed the search to a single block, and she still needed to spend some time recovering enough mana to climb back over the palace wall anyway. She might as well continue. Lira started walking toward the ruined section of the slums where her spell suspected the women were hiding, continuing her breathing exercises with every measured step.