Roger stood up, gently thanking the kids before heading toward the village gate with Erza by his side.
As they reached the village's edge, just about to step through the gate, a frantic shout came from behind.
"Wait! Don't go out there!!"
They turned to see Kessie running toward them, panting heavily, her small face flushed from sprinting.
"Don't… don't leave the village! If you go more than five meters past the boundary, you'll end up walking in circles, and before long, you'll find yourself right back here!"
"And after you return," she added, "you'll vanish from the village that very night!"
Roger raised an eyebrow, surprised. "How do you know people end up walking in circles?" This was news even the village chief hadn't mentioned.
Kessie bit her lip, hesitating for a moment before pulling a small, unremarkable gray stone from her pocket. It glowed faintly with a soft, eerie light.
"Maybe… maybe it's because of this," she mumbled. "I found it a while back when I was playing in the hills behind the village."
She lowered her voice further. "A while ago, when Uncle Green went out to update the guild request, I was up in a tree by the gate, looking for bird eggs."
"I saw it with my own eyes—Uncle Green walked out a little ways, then started stumbling around like he was drunk, spinning in circles! He kept at it for ages before wandering back to the village, all dazed and confused!"
She glanced down at the stone in her hand. "No one else seems to notice anything. They just know they can't leave the village."
"When Jimmy and the others mentioned it earlier, it jogged my memory. The night I dreamed about ghouls, I woke up in a daze—like something scalding hot woke me. This stone was in my pocket then."
Roger rubbed his chin, deep in thought. "Walking in circles…" It sounded like illusion magic, but illusions typically required the caster to be present.
Villagers could try to leave at any time, so the caster couldn't possibly be watching the boundary 24/7. Something had to be set up at that five-meter mark—something targeting only those who tried to leave.
"Thanks, Kessie. That's incredibly helpful," Roger said with a reassuring smile. "I think I've got a handle on what's going on. If things go smoothly, we'll sort this out in two days, tops."
"But first…" His sharp gaze flicked toward the hills behind the village. "We need to draw out whoever's hiding back there."
As he spoke, a faint purple magic circle flickered in front of him, vanishing in an instant.
"Huh?" Kessie let out a small gasp, pointing toward the gate. "W-Why are there two of you?!"
"You can see them?" Roger asked, surprised, his eyes locking onto the stone in Kessie's hand, which seemed to glow even brighter now.
"That must be a magic tool designed to dispel illusions," he said.
"Is… is this magic?" Kessie stared wide-eyed at the two shadowy figures of "Roger" and "Erza" walking endlessly forward at the gate, her eyes sparkling with awe and a hint of longing.
Once they were outside the village, Roger timed the illusion to make the fake versions of them walk in circles, while he and Erza scoured the area.
His keen eyes scanned every inch of the ground, every rock. Soon, they found something—a grayish-white stone half-buried in the dirt, its base etched with faint carvings.
"These markings…" Erza crouched down, brushing her fingers over the grooves, her brow furrowing. "I've seen something like this in a book at the guild library. This looks like a magic circle."
"You're right," Roger said, crouching beside her to inspect it closely. "This is a node for an illusion array. Multiple nodes like this form a massive illusion magic circle."
"It's designed to make anyone who steps into it see whatever the caster wants them to see."
"There are two ways to break it," he continued. "Either find and defeat the caster directly, or use even stronger illusion magic to disrupt the array's core structure."
Erza's eyes sharpened as she caught on. "But the guild master said mages skilled in illusion magic are incredibly rare!"
"So even if other mages noticed something was off, they'd have no choice but to head into the hills to find the caster!" She snapped her head up, glaring toward the path leading into the mountains, her voice cold. "And the caster… they're probably watching this place! Either with magic or some kind of tool. If they're immune to the illusion array, they'd likely ambush anyone heading up that path!"
"Exactly," Roger nodded. "If the caster is affected by the array and ends up back in the village, it means the person who took the job isn't an illusion mage. In that case, the enemy would come to the village at sunset, using illusion magic to whisk them away."
"For now, we just need to head back to the village and wait for nightfall."
They hatched a plan, pretending to fail at leaving the village. With exaggerated "frustration" and "disappointment," they made a show of trying again and again in front of the villagers before finally returning to the room the chief had prepared for them, looking "defeated."
As night fell over the quiet village, time slipped by. At the stroke of midnight, a faint but unmistakable pulse of magic rippled from the hills, like a pebble dropped into still water, spreading across the entire village in an instant.
A subtle drowsiness tugged at Roger. "This is… powerful sleep magic?"
"So that's how it works," he muttered. "They combine sleep magic with illusions to hypnotize the whole village. The men aren't vanishing silently—they're walking off in a dreamlike trance."
Roger and Erza exchanged a sharp glance, grabbing their weapons and slipping out through a half-open window. Moving silently, they followed the trail of magic, stealthily heading toward the hills.
Soon, behind a concealed cluster of bushes halfway up the slope, they spotted their target:
Two figures holding eerie green lanterns were slowly descending the mountain, muttering to each other.
"Ugh, so annoying, Bard," one grumbled. "Every time a mage shows up, we have to trek all the way out here to deal with them."
"Shut up, idiot!" Bard snapped. "This is all because you lost that insanely expensive illusion orb!"
"If you hadn't lost it, we'd have finished this job ages ago and left this dump!"
"It's been seven days since I've had any fun! Seven whole days! If I wasn't worried about causing a panic, I'd have dragged every woman in this village up the mountain for a good time."
"How much longer do we need for the boss's task?"
"At least two more days. There's only one village around here, and we can't work the laborers to death. Otherwise, it's you and me doing the heavy lifting."
"Why not keep those idiots from the proper guilds?"
"How many times are you gonna ask that, moron?!" Bard's voice spiked in anger before he forced it back down. "Because they have magic! Our hypnosis and illusion spells don't work well enough on them. It's too risky! This time, you'd better keep your eyes peeled. If you let these two slip away like last time, I'll skin you alive!"
"Alright, alright, don't get mad, Bard."
As the two drew closer, Roger and Erza locked eyes, nodding. In an instant, they raised their swords and charged.
"Ahh!! Red hair!! It's a ghoul!!!" one screamed.
"Idiot! There's no such thing as ghouls—that's just the story we made up. It's those mages, quick—!"
Before he could finish, a fist smashed into his nose with a sickening crack!
"Argh!" Bard let out a bloodcurdling scream, pain blinding him as he instinctively reached to clutch his bleeding nose.
In that split second of distraction, a brutal force slammed into his stomach.
"Urgh!" His eyes bulged, his body curling like a cooked shrimp, acid and blood rising in his throat.
Before he could cry out again, a sharp blow struck the back of his neck.
Thud.
Bard collapsed like a felled log, unconscious before he hit the ground.