Chương 69: Rope Play

Maren needed to leave the library. The hidden alcove remained secure for now. The entrance was concealed behind a false wall and a tapestry, the scent trail had been erased, and the guards had already searched the building once without finding anything. Unfortunately, none of that actually made the girl safe. The longer Maren remained hidden there, the greater the chance someone would eventually stumble onto the truth. Celene knew where she was and might accidentally reveal something while trying to protect her.

Hesta already suspected the library and would almost certainly return. Even worse, keeping another person hidden indefinitely came with practical problems. Maren needed food, water, clothing, and somewhere to wash. Every day she remained inside the alcove increased the number of small risks that could eventually expose them both. The fact that Old Marga had quietly given her double rations during lunch without being asked only reinforced that concern.

The old cook had not said a word, and Lira was grateful for the extra food, but she was also realistic enough to understand what it meant. Marga suspected something. The woman had spent decades feeding palace staff. She noticed when people suddenly started carrying twice as much food as normal. If Marga had figured something out, then eventually someone else would too. Lira had come to a simple conclusion: Maren needed to disappear before it was too late.

That meant Lira needed a way to smuggle her out of the castle. Fortunately, Lira had magic. More importantly, whenever she found herself facing a problem without the right tool to solve it, she could simply create a new one. Her mana obfuscation spell concealed magical activity from magical detection. If she could hide magic from magical senses, perhaps she could conceal a person from ordinary senses as well. The concept was not identical, but it felt close enough that it might work.

She pulled out a parchment sheet and wrote down the structure of her existing spell. Kisar. Maja. Veshar. Tarasana. Kurur. Symbol. Magic. Concealment. Pocket. Space. Then she crossed out a single word. Kisar. Yorad. Veshar. Tarasana. Kurur. Symbol. Body. Concealment. Pocket. Space. The alteration looked almost laughably minor. But Lira had learned from experience that it was usually better not to reinvent the wheel.

"Pika. Selan. Tureth." Within the meditation state, she tried to link the magical words with the desired outcome. Lira spent nearly an hour pretending to organize books while repeatedly entering meditation, yet every attempt failed. Magic affecting magic was perfectly logical. A person hiding from sight through magic felt completely different. People occupied space, cast shadows, made noise, and left footprints. Her mind stubbornly refused to accept that a simple substitution could somehow solve all those problems.

Eventually, Prince Lyth arrived for his afternoon reading session, forcing Lira to suspend her meditation spell and return to her duties.

"Ladar. Linasara. Oshkan. Cognar. Turat." While using her divination spell to locate books for him, she also searched for texts discussing concealment, illusions, and optical tricks. While the prince spent his time reading about lost empires and the many ways civilizations eventually collapsed, Lira conducted her own research. Eventually, she found the answer in a travel journal written by a merchant caravan that had crossed the deserts of Kalidon.

Several chapters described heat mirages that distorted entire caravans, making distant travelers appear blurred, displaced, or partially invisible against the horizon. One passage described seeing an oasis on the horizon only to find sand upon approaching, while another explained how entire groups of people could vanish from sight depending on the angle of observation. That was enough to help her understand what she had been missing. The moment Prince Lyth left, she entered meditation once more.

Concealment did not need to erase a person. It only needed to make them difficult to notice. That realization was the final piece that needed to fall into place. Kisar. Yorad. Veshar. Tarasana. Kurur. Click. The spell was imprinted successfully. Lira immediately set to work creating new enchanted bookmarks. Carefully layering runes together using her calligraphy spell, "Asatan. Tir.

Kisar," she created two bookmarks containing three separate enchantments working in tandem: Mana Stabilization, Mana Obfuscation, and Body Concealment. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Testing came next.

"Kisar. Yorad. Veshar. Tarasana. Kurur." Activating the new spell, Lira walked toward a faded mirror she found on the upper floor. The results were encouraging. She remained mostly visible. However, the edges of her body became strangely indistinct. Details seemed harder to focus on. Her outline blurred against the background, almost as though her eyes struggled to maintain attention on her own reflection.

It was not true invisibility by any means, but in dim lighting, the effect became surprisingly effective, especially at a distance. If someone was not actively looking for her, the spell might allow her to walk past a tower sentry without drawing too much attention. From her new knowledge about mirages, Lira thought that adding Riad and Fila, Air and Fire, could probably improve the spell, but that would make it a tier-two spell, and Lira wasn't ready to take that step.

Satisfied with the current result, Lira turned her attention toward the second problem: the palace walls. Using the gates was too dangerous. While testing her magic perception spell, she had noticed traces of mana in some of the guards' eyes. She was not going to walk anywhere near a guard, regardless of how well her mana obfuscation seemed to work. No, she needed to rely on both mundane and magical stealth if she wanted Maren safely outside the castle grounds. That meant climbing the walls.

After consulting several crafting manuals, Lira began cutting sheets of paper into long, narrow strips. There were enough scraps of paper in the library to drown an army, so she was not particularly concerned about materials. One strip became two. Two became ten. Soon she was twisting, braiding, folding, and reinforcing them together until the growing cord began to resemble an actual rope.

The work was tedious, but after thirty minutes of manual effort, the process became almost automatic, which meant she was ready.

"Pika. Asatan. Farshum." Using her magic, the paper began moving on its own. Strips twisted together at incredible speed as though braided by invisible hands. More importantly, the work progressed far faster than any human could manage alone, reducing hours of labor to little more than a dozen minutes. The final result was ten meters of surprisingly strong rope. Magic was completely ridiculous. Still, no sane person would trust their life to a rope made from paper without testing it first.

Lira attempted to tear it apart by pulling from both ends. When that failed, she tied one side to a full bookshelf and threw her weight against the other. The shelf moved, and the rope held without issue. More importantly, it was made from paper, and paper obeyed her.

"Pika. Asatan. Farshum." The rope immediately stirred in her hands. Concentrating carefully, she guided the braided cord through the air. The rope slithered across the room like a curious snake, coiling around chair legs before uncoiling again. Under her control, it tied itself into knots, loosened, twisted into loops, and straightened once more. She was even able to make it fly, though the weight challenged her concentration. Controlling it proved substantially harder than manipulating individual sheets of paper.

The longer structure possessed momentum, and momentum complicated everything. Eventually, she managed to raise the rope, knot it securely around a ceiling beam, and hang her full weight from it. A few moments later, she was swinging like a complete lunatic. Gravity eventually reminded her why that was a terrible idea. She crashed onto the floor hard enough to knock the air from her lungs. For several seconds, she simply lay there staring at the ceiling.

At first, she assumed the rope had broken, only to discover that the knot had simply come undone. The rope itself remained completely intact. Determined to improve, Lira decided she should probably learn how to tie knots properly before trusting her life to them. Out of curiosity, she wondered whether the library contained manuals specifically dedicated to knots.

"Ladar. Linasara. Oshkan. Cognar. Turat." To her surprise, there were hundreds of pings. Half of them came from the sailing section. Some originated from crafting books. A few, however, came from the romance section. Out of curiosity...

"Pika. Linasara. Cognar. Coopar. Nagla." The moment she absorbed one of them, her face became completely red. After a brief internal crisis, she made a mental note never to let Prince Lyth anywhere near that particular book. Deciding some knowledge was best left unexplored, she narrowed her divination toward more practical subjects and absorbed two additional books containing dozens of specialized knots designed for specific purposes. There were knots for climbing, securing cargo, rescue operations, and rigging.

Knots that tightened under strain, knots that released instantly when needed, and there was even a hangman's noose. For nearly an hour, she sat behind her desk, repeatedly tying and untying rope by hand. When it came to material manipulation, she could not do with magic what she could not visualize herself doing. That was why her calligraphy spell obeyed her far more readily than her elemental manipulation spells. Familiarity and visualization mattered a lot when it came to magic.

By the time evening approached, she finally felt more or less prepared. She possessed concealment charms in the form of two bookmarks capable of hiding a person both physically and magically. She possessed a sturdy rope that responded directly to her will. Most importantly, she possessed a plan. Lira was not the type of person who waited for disaster before reacting. She preferred acting first and dealing with the consequences afterward.

And tonight, if everything went according to plan, Maren would finally leave the castle behind.