After lunch, Lucimia sent Desty away and went to scout, the afternoon light draping her like warm silk.

Earlier, she’d asked Desty what she’d learned, and the answers matched today’s sights like twin reflections on a pond.

In the Bannubi Empire, every illness gets loaded onto the Sacrifice, and now the Sacrifice ran, so the god’s anger fell like ash on the wind.

One camp wants the Plague God to vent unchecked until the storm quiets; another says ditch the Plague God and let humans stand like pine.

Lucimia asked which side Desty favored, and Desty faltered, her voice fluttering like a caged sparrow.

Of course—Desty’s power comes from the gods, yet some ember in her must imagine humans defying a Dark Deity, like a torch in deep snow.

A mighty step forward.

Lucimia had heard most of this in the morning, but Desty said she’d overheard more, like threads pulled from a crowded loom.

The imperial high ranks split into pro-god and Independents, and the emperor’s stance hangs like a veil in mist.

Desty had a third whisper: there’s no Church here, but a place called the Sanctum—some say Holy Domain—where Plague Knights step out like iron from a forge.

Also, the Plague God shifts others’ sickness onto the Sacrifice; Plague Knights do something similar, shouldering disease like thorns sewn under the skin.

Some are battle-types, and their bodies pay for strength like stone chipped by relentless rain.

Desty poured out everything she had, words tumbling like beads from a broken string.

Lucimia’s first feeling wasn’t analysis but shock, a jolt like cold water—Desty gathered all that in one morning?

Maybe… she isn’t a fool, just a fox in clumsy fur.

Lucimia drifted, mind fogging like breath on glass, until Desty tugged her back with a small, steady voice.

Once steady, Lucimia weighed the pieces; if Plague Knights rot as they use power, that explains Hart’s pale face, a candle drained by midnight.

The thin man on the square fits too, a reed bent by wind, still trying to stand.

They wield their Blessing at the cost of themselves, a bargain inked in bone.

After a moment, Lucimia spread her hands like a bird letting go of a branch.

Fine—don’t overthink; finish the scouting and pry real intel on a true time‑acceleration user from the golden‑haired boy.

She spent a while and finally mapped the prison’s skin, like tracing veins under parchment.

The prison sits under the town’s left-front barracks, the stone belly beneath the soldiers’ nest.

Lucimia flickered forms—bird, cat, soldier, mosquito—like shifting masks in lantern light, and searched the barracks as if combing reeds.

At last, she found a plain hut at the center, an ant‑hill among rocks, that hid the entrance to the underground prison.

She’d only caught it because high officers kept flowing through that wooden door like a quiet tide.

She became a mosquito, draped herself in an Invisibility Spell like dew, and slid after two soldiers in black heavy armor.

They followed a dark path that breathed cold; the prison unfolded like a buried maze, stone ribs and iron teeth.

A main road ran down the middle; iron doors sealed each cell like shut shells, with only a small hatch for food.

Walls bricked off every cell, blocking voices like snow smothering sound.

In that black, only orange lamps glowed like banked embers, and armor clinks rang like cold rain on slate.

The light wasn’t fire but stones that blaze with mana, little suns trapped in rock.

The two soldiers stopped by the front guards, showed a token like a carved fang, and said, “Number 18, shift change.”

The gate guards nodded, then climbed upward like shadows breaking from a well.

Lucimia opened her Magic Eye and sketched the token’s lines in her mind, a sigil pressed into wax.

Then she flew inward, a mote in a cavern, riding the draft like a leaf.

She reached a crossroads and veered left, a pebble rolling down a forked stream.

Another split sprawled ahead—five paths now, like ant trails crisscrossing roots.

Afraid to lose herself in this lattice, she kept sliding left, a needle sewing along the edge.

Soon more forks rose, a forest of choices blooming like bamboo after rain.

This prison was truly a labyrinth, cross within cross, pathways tangled like fishing nets.

It felt designed to make you wander, a maze that eats your footprints.

What prison winds this complex? Don’t the patrolling soldiers get lost, like gulls in fog? she asked herself.

Then she reconsidered; a tangled map is a shield—breakouts stall like beasts trapped in thorns.

But the front gate feels oddly loose, like a latch that swings if pushed.

Maybe the heavier the crime, the deeper you bury it, like stones sunk in a riverbed.

Where would they lock the boy? Iron doors everywhere, and a magic hush that blocks probing like clay sealing a jar.

Flying blind was no plan; the hive hum would swallow her, she felt.

She stopped, still as a droplet, and let the silence settle like dust.

She needed a logbook to pin the boy’s cell like a pin on silk, and a route sketched like ink on rice paper.

She also had to test the alarm gut—open a door and would a Magic Array flare like a spiderweb catching light?

In a world with magic, prisons wear wards like hidden armor; it’s never just dirt and iron.

She retraced to the front, a moth circling back to a lamplit door, and scanned for a gatehouse like a clerk’s nest.

Nothing—no desk, no drawers, just stone and watchmen, a mouth without a tongue.

How to find it? The question pricked like nettles.

She’d expected a guardroom, with a ledger lying like a sleeping carp, names and cells shelved in order.

Maybe a high officer keeps it, like a seal tucked in a sleeve; hard to reach, and she knows no office.

The notes might sit in some bureau, a nest built behind polished doors.

With no better path, Lucimia slipped out and headed for the offices she’d scouted, moving like smoke through reeds.

Clerks would keep the records, paper stacked like straw in a barn.

She slid into a building finer than the rest, cornices gleaming like frost, and prowled its bones.

At last, an archive room opened, a paper forest rustling like dry leaves, where prisoner records slept.

She spent time sifting, fingers like combs, and even used Reversion to stretch the hour like warm taffy.

Finally, the freshest entry surfaced; ink shone like midnight water.

Name: Gendi. Age: 16. Appearance: blond, average build. Crimes: multiple robbery and theft, assaulting soldiers, intentional murder. Cell Number: 1201.

“That should be it,” Lucimia murmured, the words dropping like pebbles, and she shut the book with a soft wingbeat.

She became a mosquito again and rushed back toward the prison, a dart in a bottle.

She still had to confirm the prison’s self‑defense, the hidden thorns under moss.

She roamed the labyrinth for a long while, stitching corridors like black thread, until 1201 rose before her like a marked stone.

Numbers starting with 12 seemed reserved for murderers, a row of graves etched in iron.