Chương 446: B7—Chapter 27: Circles of Influence

In the morning after breakfast, Al pushed back his chair and rose, brushing an invisible speck from his sleeve.

"I am going to explore the herbs the city has to offer," he announced. Mahya leaned on the table, eyebrows raised.

"You're not coming with us to the circles?"

"I will study them later," he said. I turned toward Rue.

"What about you?" Rue flopped down with a groan, head dropping onto his paws. His eyes narrowed, and he gave me the kind of look teenagers reserve for chores.

"Rue no catch snakes. Rue no catch cats. Rue no chase birds. Rue is bored. Rue stay in room and sleep." I rubbed my forehead and let out a sigh. How the hell did I end up with a drama queen dog? At the square with the circles, the work progressed more quickly. Some of the symbols and runes I'd learned the previous day repeated in other circles, which made them easier to decipher. As a result, I managed to learn three of them. Mahya left before I was finished, saying she was going to explore on her own.

By this point, I had deciphered the purpose of four circles, and the experience turned out to be a mixed bag. On one hand, I always enjoyed learning new runes and symbols, and in this case, it was even more interesting since the runes were unique—or maybe "different" was the better description. All the runes I'd learned so far had a square base. Many of them had wavy lines or circles, but at the foundation, they still either fit into an imaginary square or relied mostly on straight lines.

These runes weren't like that. All of them were very curly and could fit into an imaginary circle, not a square. Some even had square counterparts and shared certain lines, yet at their base, they were different. That fascinated me. While examining them and considering this difference, I remembered a book written by a Traveler. It was about the differences between runes. I'd never studied it in depth since it only contained maybe ten runes in total, most of which I already knew.

The other side of the coin was the purpose of the circles themselves. They carried a slightly sinister edge. Not really malicious, but still unsettling. Three of the circles I examined had exclusions for witches. They didn't affect them at all, only everybody else. One of these circles heightened susceptibility—not toward anything specific, just susceptibility in general. Another lowered caution regarding money. The third one heightened fascination with witches. The fourth circle was different.

It had an exclusion not only for witches but also for their servants. From the way it was laid out, it seemed that people excluded from its effect had to have sworn an oath to the witches. Its purpose was to loosen the tongue. Not enough to make someone spill everything to the first person they met, but enough to lower guardedness or lessen the desire to keep things private when asked. What struck me most was that none of them had any effect on me at all.

I examined myself very thoroughly, even standing right at the edge of the circles. I felt the magic brush against me and flow around me, yet it couldn't penetrate my natural barrier. Before this experience, I hadn't even known I had a barrier. I returned to the inn deep in thought, my mind still circling around the runes, and went straight up to my room. Once inside, I opened the house to search for the book. A minute later, just after the door had materialized and before I stepped through, a knock sounded.

"Yes?" I called, raising my voice. Rue woke up and lifted his head.

"Please open the door," a female voice answered. I ordered the core to close, stored it away, and then pulled the door open. The woman standing there was the same one we'd paid the previous evening but hadn't seen since.

"Yes?" I asked again. She didn't answer right away. Instead, she stepped past me into the room and gave it a thorough inspection. Her gaze swept across the walls, the furniture, and even dipped beneath the bed. I stood there, uncertain, watching her as my confusion built. She inspected Rue with narrowed eyes, and he bared his teeth at her.

"Shh, buddy," I sent to him.

"Don't escalate the situation." He let out a wide yawn right in her face before flopping his head back down. At last, she turned back to me. Her voice was clipped and stern.

"Please refrain from performing any magical activity in the room, be it rituals or anything else."

"I didn't perform anything." Her eyes narrowed, and an angry look flashed across her face.

"Don't lie to me. I can sense every part of my domain. You were doing something." Mana began to coalesce around her, the air growing heavy as the temperature in the room dropped sharply. A faint whiff of snow reached my nose, and my breath misted in the chill as if winter itself had slipped inside. I thought fast, grasping for an explanation, and an idea struck me.

"Please identify me and see my class." Her brow furrowed.

"Go ahead," I urged, gesturing lightly with one hand. Her eyes lost focus for a moment as she checked. When she looked back, her expression was puzzled.

"What are you trying to tell me?" Instead of answering, I began to sing. It was a song the people in the clinic had taught me, about flying on an Ortho—A type of large bird they had in this world. As I sang, I wove illusions to match the verses: wings spread, sky rushing past, the sensation of flight filling the room. After the first verse, I stopped, letting the images fade, and waved at the empty space where the illusions had been.

"As you can see," I said calmly, "I'm not performing some ritual or anything. I was practicing. Is that forbidden too? Because if that's the case, then we'll have to move. I can't stay where I can't practice my art." She studied me with an expression that said she wasn't fully convinced, but after a long pause, she gave a short nod. The mana around her dissipated, and the chill in the room lifted as the temperature returned to normal.

"You can practice." She turned toward the door, then paused with her hand on the handle.

"You have a beautiful voice," she said at last.

"Thank you."

"Stupid witch," Rue grumbled and burrowed deeper into the pillows. I pushed my mana sense outward and still felt her on the other side of the door. Determined not to give her more reason to pry, I sang the song from the beginning again, this time weaving the illusions to match the words. At the same time, I opened the core behind me, keeping my senses tuned to her. When the song ended, she remained rooted in place, so I launched into it again.

This time I poured more magic into the illusion, making the eagle larger, the wind sharper, and the sky more vivid. By the middle of the third verse, she finally moved away. The moment her presence vanished, I darted inside. I ran up the stairs two at a time, hurried into the library, and planted myself in the center. Closing my eyes, I stretched my senses wide, chanting in my head, come on, come on. Something tugged at me. Ha-ha! Here it is!

I grabbed the book the instant I felt it, clutched it tight, and rushed back down. Quickly, I closed the core and stored it. The hallway outside was empty. She was gone, and she didn't return. The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"Phew," I exhaled, leaning against the wall. Witches are scary! For the rest of the day, I stayed at the inn with the book propped open on the table. Its title was The Linguistic Complexity of Magic. It wasn't very long, which was a blessing, and its best feature was that a Traveler, not a Wizard, had written it. That meant the reading was relatively straightforward. Its worst feature was the author's attitude. He clearly didn't like Wizards. In fact, he seemed to despise us.

One of the first passages I came across made me snort aloud:"Wizards are insane, strange, unbalanced, and utterly unhinged. Their runic systems reflect nothing but their fractured minds." He also had a special hatred for magic script.

"The so-called 'magic script' is nothing but the Wizard's fractured runic system, a maze of puzzles designed to represent their chaotic mental state." I personally thought the writer was an idiot, but at least he gave me one useful realization: it explained why I loved magic script so much and never warmed to runes. It was the language of Wizards. As I read on, his contradictions began to pile up. In the chapter about mage runes, he laid out the standard square-based runes I was already familiar with.

His commentary, though, made me roll my eyes:"Everybody knows Wizards created the mage runic system." So much for calling us lunatics. If we were such "insufferable idiots with fractured minds," as he liked to say, how did we end up creating the very system he mentioned? The chapter on witches was just as bad.

He described their runes in detail, noting how the lines curled into round, looping shapes, and then explained the supposed reason:"The witch runic system demonstrates their unique affinital inclinations, a language of circles reflecting their nature." That sounded almost reasonable until, in the very next paragraph, he claimed the system was originally designed by Wizards and only later modified by witches. The same story played out in the sorcerer section.

Their triangular runes, he explained, were an expression of their power and discipline. Then he immediately backtracked:"Of course, it too was born from Wizard craft before being adapted and perfected by sorcerers." I stared at the page and shook my head.

"If we're such insufferable idiots and fools, how do you explain that we created all these magic systems?" I asked the book out loud. Naturally, it didn't answer. Still, I felt a little vindicated. He even included a chapter on dragon runes, though it was laughably thin. The entire chapter consisted of a single line:"I have heard of the dragon's runic language, but I have never witnessed it with my own eyes." That was the entirety of it. In the end, I didn't learn much new.

The book was mildly informative at best, mostly filled with insults and half-baked theories. Despite thinking the writer was a total idiot, I still scribbled his name down in my notes, just in case I ever met him on the road. Andras Laszlo Feketehazy. In the evening, when the gang returned, I laid out what I'd learned about the circles and told them about the run-in with the inn owner.

As I spoke, both of them grew quiet, their expressions tightening in a way that told me they were troubled, though neither had much to add on the subject. Al, however, brightened once the topic shifted. He set down a small bundle of herbs on the table with an almost triumphant air.

"I acquired the plants needed for the potion to enhance our alcohol," he announced, clearly pleased with himself. Mahya's eyes lit up. She fist-pumped the air and grinned.

"Yes!" Before I could comment, she placed three beaded bracelets on the table with a little clatter, then raised her arm to show she already wore one.

"It's a charm to move unnoticed in a monster-infested area." Al folded his arms and shook his head.

"We do not require it. We have the pendant from Malith." Mahya tilted her head in acknowledgment.

"True. But we still need to reach the Gate, and every little bit helps. Besides, with what John told us, it's better not to take chances." Her words made sense. I had to agree with her. The next day, I examined more circles. This time, five of them. Again, they carried that same mildly sinister quality. One of them, excluding witches and their sworn servants, softened the will.

Those touched by it would find themselves a little easier to sway, a little less firm in their resistance, leaving with the sense that every choice had been their own. Another pressed people in the opposite direction, encouraging silence when it came to secrets or complaints. Words would falter before reaching the tongue, and the conversation would drift away from anything sharp.

What caught my attention was that it had been laid out so it would not interfere with a neighboring circle whose purpose was to do the reverse. That one lowered caution, loosening guardedness just enough to make people more willing to share when pressed. Together, the pair created a quiet but effective pattern: restraint in one place, openness in another. A different circle had been crafted only for outsiders. Its influence blurred memory, leaving the faces of the locals vague and interchangeable.

Later recollection would reduce them all to a hazy image of "a witch," nothing more. The last one of the set worked along similar lines, another aimed at visitors. Its effect was a softening of suspicion, a false sense of safety that lingered even in moments where alarm should have been natural. It was the kind of thing that made a person lean in closer, convinced danger had been nothing but their imagination. What I was most curious about was how far their effects stretched.

The square sat in the center of the city, and from what I knew about rituals, their influence shouldn't have reached more than a few tens of meters. The amount of work and flowers invested didn't seem worthwhile for such a limited range. I closed my eyes and focused on the "babbling" circle until I had its rhythm fixed in my mind, then followed the strand of magic outward. As expected, it only extended about thirty meters in each direction, but then it brushed against another thread of the same weave.

I traced that one, and it carried me to a restaurant two streets over. After some searching, I found a matching circle engraved neatly on a wall outside, a mirror of the one in the square. Right after I spotted it, a thin man in a green apron stepped out, wiping his hands on a rag that had seen better days. He eyed me.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" I lifted my hand and gestured toward the garden surrounding the restaurant, all neat hedges and bursts of color.

"This is beautiful. I couldn't stay away and had to take a closer look. It's a masterpiece." His suspicion eased at once. He even smiled.

"Yes, the mistress is an artist with plants." I nodded with what I hoped was enough enthusiasm to sell the act.

"Yes. Yes. Please give her my compliments. It's simply amazing." When he disappeared back inside, I picked up the strand again. That little detour turned into an entire day's work. The circles in the square didn't stand alone; they were connected to others scattered across the city. I found them carved into houses and businesses, and in two cases, repeated in flowerbeds just like the original. The witches were serious about their influence. I could understand the reasoning. The circles weren't especially harmful.

They only nudged people in the desired direction, softening them. Still, it sat uneasily with me. It was mental influence, and I'd recently learned the hard way how dangerous that could be. I couldn't do anything about it, but I was left feeling divided nonetheless. One part of me understood the thinking behind it, while the other judged them harshly for resorting to such methods. There was one positive outcome from the investigation. I stumbled across a hairdresser with a line of customers waiting outside.

A sign by the door proudly announced that all biological material would be destroyed in front of the customer's eyes. That one confused me. I waited until a couple came out and stopped them. The man was broad-shouldered, a little sunburned, and looked like the practical sort, still tugging his coat into place. The woman at his side was shorter, with sharp eyes and an elaborate hairdo.

"Excuse me. Can I ask you a question?"

"Yes?" the man said.

"What does it matter that the biological material's being destroyed?" They both gave me the look every Traveler recognizes, the one reserved for someone who's just asked the most obvious question in the world.

"Because witches can use matter from a human body in their spells?" the woman said, her voice clipped and edged with impatience, as if the answer should have been obvious.

"Oh, I see. Thank you." My hair was too long again, way past my shoulders, so I joined the line. The wait wasn't short, but it moved quickly enough, and before long I was ushered inside. The place was simple: a few chairs along the wall, a couple of mirrors propped up, and the steady snip of scissors filling the air. The smell of soap and burned hair hung heavy, sharp enough to sting the nose. When it was my turn, I sat down, and the hairdresser got to work without a word.

She was a wiry woman with quick hands, her dark hair pinned back tight. The scissors moved with unbelievable speed even with skills. It looked like Edward Scissorhands on steroids. Beside the chair stood a brass brazier. Every handful of hair that touched the floor was swept up and dropped straight into the fire. The strands burned, giving off a faint, acrid smoke that vanished almost at once. She didn't ask how I wanted it cut, and I didn't bother to say.

By the time she was done, my shoulders already felt lighter. She angled the mirror so I could take a look, and the result was clean enough, nothing fancy. Before I had a chance to thank her, the last sweep of hair was already burning away. Another worker joined us, a stocky woman with cropped hair and sleeves rolled to the elbow.

She flicked her fingers, and the tiny particles of hair still clinging to my clothes and scattered on the floor quivered, then unraveled into shimmering eddies of mana that swirled briefly before fading away. She made a sweeping gesture.

"Please verify I disposed of everything."

"It's alright," I said.

"I saw the last of it break down and disappear." The hairdresser gave me a strange look, but the other one nodded and smiled.

"Wizard?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Good, good. I like wizard vision. Makes it easier." They both wished me a good day, and I headed over to the counter to pay. All in all, the witch city was turning out to be quite an educational experience.