Rogue Macabesta was walking down a dark alley with a phone to his ear. A voice on the other end of the line reverberated from the device.
“Question for you—as a detective with the Magic Crimes Bureau. How does one use magic?”
“Recite a chant or inscribe a sigil, then pour mana into it. After that, control it however you please. Why do you ask?”
“Oh,” the voice on the line crooned, “I just wanted to hear your lecture. To feel like a student again.”
“……You were never a student.”
“Rude, Rogue. You have no idea how much I reveled in the student life. Such fine days spent throwing chalk at teachers or vice versa.”
“You clearly know nothing about school.”
The person on the line was undaunted.
“Rogue— No, let me call you Professor. Professor, where, pray tell, does mana come from? It’s hardly generated from nothing, is it?”
She isn’t done with this bit? Rogue sighed.
“It’s in the air around us, according to the textbooks. We take it in like we breathe air. The amount of mana we can accumulate varies depending on the individual, and that affects the power and range of the spells we can cast. It’s just a trait you’re born with. Some people get a pool’s worth, and others barely get a cup.”
Rogue himself was Voiceless—unable to store a single drop of mana.
“A splendid lecture, Professor Rogue,” the person said, laughing. “But it sounds like these ‘textbooks’ are leaving out some important details.”
“For example?”
“The true nature of mana.”
Rogue caught a trace of scorn in her voice. And something ominous.
He stopped in his tracks, listening.
“……Meaning?”
“I’m afraid that’s not for you to know, human.”
The scorn was gone, replaced by warm kindness, like the person was talking to a very young child. And that unnerved him more than ever.
“……What are you up to?”
“I merely wish to know what we are not meant to know.”
“There’s no way you—”
But before he finished speaking, the person hung up.
He dialed back but got no answer.
Rogue glared at his phone for a minute, then stuffed it in his pocket. He began to run. He was surrounded by buildings with dark exteriors. They weren’t exactly nice to look at, and they were built right up against one another with no gaps to slip through. Rogue’s only option was to dash straight ahead.
Fueled by fear, he soon reached the end of the path.
A gate.
Before him stood a truly massive gate, one so tall that he could not see the top of it.
He looked back from where he’d come, down a dizzyingly long road. He found it hard to believe he’d run that entire distance. He’d never seen a place like this before—no signs of life, not even a bird chirping. It felt as if he was all alone in the world.
Where am I? What am I even doing in this alley? Where’d I leave my car? He couldn’t remember.
I have to move on, he thought. So he touched the gate.
The surface was rough and solid, but he pushed harder—and finally felt it budge. Putting both hands against it produced a screeching sound…and the gate slowly opened.
The darkened alley lit up. Rogue squinted.
Light was pouring through the gate.
And beyond it…
Long, white hair.
Blue eyes.
A terrifying beauty. Her form appeared human—yet it was impossible to believe she was. On the inside, she was something else.
_____Rogue knew that all too well.
The black choker she should have been wearing was nowhere to be seen—and there were human-shaped things lying at her feet. The stench of iron assailed his nostrils. Liquid dripped from her fingertips into a red puddle.
“……Did you do this?” Rogue asked.
The girl looked his way, and her lips moved.
“That’s none of your business.”
“……This can’t be real……”
He stepped forward, and the hem of his trousers trailed into the crimson pool. Ignoring that, he advanced on the girl. Why are these people dead? Hadn’t she been talking to me a moment ago? Did she do this while we were speaking?
I can’t believe it.
There was more than one corpse at her feet.
There was a whole mountain piled up behind her. A prodigious amount of blood was flowing from it, dying the whole area crimson.
Why is this happening?
He reached out for her—and froze.
“You should have turned back.”
The girl’s blue eyes glittered.
Rogue’s frozen arm began to move again, and he dug into his pocket. Unbidden, he took out a pen. Gripping it tight, he aimed the tip at his own throat.
“Good-bye.”
Wait.
He tried to speak—but no sound emerged.
“……Shit.”
Rogue’s puffy eyes tried to focus on the clock by his bed. Eight AM. It was his day off, so there was nothing on his schedule. But his heart was still beating a mile a minute.
Another dream. How many has it been now? Three whole weeks had passed. He was sick and tired of this.
With a drawn-out sigh, Rogue heaved his body up and toward the bathroom sink.
In the mirror, he saw long, narrow eyes, a bit of a baby face, and a slight frame; he still had some bedhead, but he thought he looked like a detective. A witch’s collar was around his left wrist, peeking out from the pajama sleeve.
It was a constant reminder of his own sin.
These collars prevented witches from murdering anyone—or rather, should a witch kill someone, the collar would instantly execute the person wearing it. This tech made it possible for the empire to keep those walking disasters around.
But Rogue knew a witch who’d gotten her collar off…and he’d let her go.
Miseria, the Puppeteer.
He wondered why he’d done that— No. At the time, he’d believed it was the right choice. The Puppeteer had saved Rogue’s life. He’d decided she wasn’t evil.
However, the more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that it had just been wishful thinking.
_____There’s no guarantee she won’t kill anyone now that she’s free.
She was actually responsible for the deaths of Rogue’s predecessors. He’d checked with HQ, and all five Sixth Precinct detectives were deceased and categorized as off-duty deaths—health reasons, drug overdoses, etc. The causes of death included suffocation and falls, and there was even one who’d cast attack magic on himself. That was quite the suspicious track record.
All Rogue could do now was pray.
He sighed again and turned on the tap.
He was in the Magic Crimes Bureau dormitory. He’d been living there since he’d first gotten hired. It was a five-story building, and his room was on the second floor—a forty-square-meter studio apartment.
The room contained a desk and a chair alongside the furniture it had come with.
The only actual personal belongings he had were the “personal” investigation files piled on the desk. It was a real bare-bones place. At the academy, his friends had all agreed his room was “boring.”
Splashing cold water on his face, he told himself, You made the choice to trust her. Why fret about it now? That was just a dream. It wasn’t real.
As he dried his face, the doorbell rang.
He put down the towel and moved to the door.
Who’d visit this early? He peered through the peephole—
—and gulped.
“Good morning, Detective!” someone outside said.
There was no use pretending he wasn’t home. Rogue opened the door.
“Sorry to barge in this early!” a girl dressed like a nun said in greeting.
Dark-brown hair peeked out from beneath her habit. She had jade-colored eyes, dreamy features, and the kind of smile that made one let down their guard.
“Why are you here…?” Rogue asked.
The Noble Council had declared her the Third Witch, nicknamed the Saint. She embodied a major contradiction: She longed to save people…but was compelled to betray them.
The Puppeteer claimed to have punished her a million times over, but it was doubtful those efforts had fundamentally changed her nature. And this witch was currently—
“I’m your partner.”
Catherine the Saint spoke as if reading Rogue’s mind.
He could hardly argue with her about it, seeing as the statement was true.
Rogue opened the door all the way.
“……Did I tell you my address?”