As soon as Leticia was out of the cage, she used magic to conceal her appearance and to hide the nature of her mana before anyone could see her.
Mana had unique properties, and a skilled mage could identify a person by theirs.
She doubted there was any mage with such talent in this nation, where mages were few and far between, but it was better to make a habit of it in case she ever ran into someone she knew.
Well, no matter how thoroughly she concealed herself, Aerith could still see her, but since she had been created by Leticia, that was only to be expected.
What mattered was whether she could fool the beastmen.
Because the concealment magic was cast through the grimoire, her scent and footsteps were completely erased as well.
It would deceive even the beastmen's superior senses.
She walked up to the door and scanned for any signs of life on the other side.
But there wasn't a single guard.
"They're completely underestimating me."
They were confident there was no way Leticia could escape.
Thanks to that, Leticia opened the door and walked out without a care in the world.
Even though the door had opened by itself, there was nobody around, so no one thought anything of it.
As Leticia strolled leisurely through the mansion with her form hidden, beastmen walked right past her.
Among them were familiar faces who came to her room to look after her, and not one of them so much as glanced her way.
Recalling how she was usually treated, Leticia quietly conjured a ball of water with magic and dropped it on one woman's head.
"Kyaa!"
Drenched from head to toe, the woman looked around in confusion.
Normally, Leticia would have liked to make a far bigger ball of water and slam it into her, but she decided to let her off the hook today.
"Serves you right," Leticia muttered to herself, holding back her laughter as she quickly left the scene.
She carried on making her rounds of the mansion after that, and nobody noticed her.
That was how perfect Leticia's magic was; even the beastmen's keen senses couldn't see through it.
It wasn't simply a matter of having mana.
Her ability to control mana, as natural to her as breathing, was in a league of its own.
There had been plenty of excellent mages in her past life too, but setting the grimoire aside entirely, not one of them was as skilled at wielding magic as her.
Even if one had a great deal of mana, it was wasted if they couldn't use it.
She held great power because of the blessing and the grimoire granted to her by the Supreme God, but that was by no means the only reason Leticia had been called an Archmage.
Her overwhelming talent for magic.
That was why she was hailed as the Archmage at such a young age and became the hope of the people.
And surely it hadn't been only the people who thought so, but even the Evil Dragon who brought calamity down upon the world.
"The dungeon..."
Spreading out her mana to map the mansion's layout, Leticia felt herself drawing closer to the power of darkness.
He was near.
The Goddess of Darkness's presence was close enough that she could be certain of it.
That indicated the existence of someone who had been granted the Goddess of Darkness's blessing.
Following that presence, which only Leticia with her blessing of light could detect, she found a door leading down to the dungeon.
In front of it, however, stood guards.
A stark contrast to Leticia, who had been left unguarded.
Well, she had been behaving obediently of late, so they had likely let their guard down.
If anything, it was as if they were telling her outright that there was something worth guarding beyond that door.
Now then, what should I do?
To reach the dungeon she would have to get past the guards standing there.
Given that she was invisible, she could slip in unnoticed, but if she opened the door to enter, they would sense something was amiss.
This was a job for the grimoire after all.
When she summoned the grimoire into her hand with practised ease, letters surfaced on the blank paper.
《A moment's slumber for these people—》
Dense mana that nobody but Leticia could perceive slowly enveloped the guards, wrapping itself around them.
They immediately swayed on their feet as though struck by dizziness.
"What the...?"
"I'm suddenly so sleepy..."
By the time the guards sensed something was wrong it was too late; their bodies slowly crumpled and slumped against the wall.
But left like that, someone would notice the disturbance.
Leticia cast another spell.
《Puppet—》
The instant Leticia spoke the word, the fallen guards rose unsteadily to their feet and returned to the positions where they had been standing.
Their eyes were open, but their gazes were vacant and unfocused.
Even so, they looked as though they were properly doing their jobs.
"I was worried about whether I could use the grimoire's power the way I did in my past life, but it seems there's no problem."
Judging that she had no trouble handling the grimoire, Leticia walked right past the guards, humming to herself, and opened the door.
But when she glanced back at the guards, a complicated look crossed her face.
"I know I'm the one who did it, but as always, the abilities of this grimoire really are horrifying..."
The men under Leticia's control showed no reaction at all to the door opening by itself; they simply stared straight ahead.
Reaffirming just how extraordinary the grimoire's power to manipulate people was, Leticia prayed that the Supreme God would never, on a whim, decide to hand it over to anyone other than her.
The grimoire was both a medium in itself and a means of wielding magic that stepped halfway into the realm of the gods, a realm beyond human reach.
《Puppet》 was a prime example.
Magic that completely controlled a person's mind was beyond the reach of an ordinary mage.
Even for Leticia, it was a spell she could only use because she had the grimoire.
The same went for healing; the difference between mending a wound with an ordinary medium and mending one with the grimoire was so vast it made comparison laughable.
But the grimoire's power was simply too great.
Well, it had originally been given to her by the Supreme God specifically so that she could face the Evil Dragon, so it was only natural that its potency was on another level entirely.
If it were ever used wrongly, the consequences would be worse than anything the Evil Dragon had caused.
Leticia herself was surprised that the Supreme God had handed it over so casually.
She at least had no intention of misusing power like this, but there was surely no shortage of people whose eyes would light up at the ability to control others.
If it fell into the hands of a beastman who was trying to create an evil dragon, the world would be doomed.
Surely even the Supreme God wouldn't act that irresponsibly.
To begin with, the gods didn't trouble themselves over anyone but those they favoured, so the Supreme God was unlikely to lend his power to anyone who might stand against Leticia, the only one to whom he had granted his blessing.
If there were an exception, it would be the Evil Dragon's reincarnation, who bore the Goddess of Darkness's blessing.
Beyond the door, only the scattered flickers of candlelight were visible.
Leticia immediately conjured a glowing orb with magic.
It was a simple spell that didn't even require the grimoire.
Even so, producing 'light' rather than 'fire' was a privilege reserved for those who had been granted the power of light.
Since light produced no heat, it was incredibly useful even in an enclosed space, where it wouldn't cause anyone to suffocate.
The mana it consumed was negligible for Leticia. That was how easy the spell was.
She made her way slowly forward, the light illuminating the ground beneath her feet.
The stone steps were slightly damp and could make her slip if she wasn't careful.
The darkness grew stronger as she carefully descended the stairs.
"This will be my first time meeting the Evil Dragon in human form. I wonder what he's like?"
When Leticia had met the Evil Dragon in her past life, he had already lost his human form and taken the form of a sinister dragon.
So Leticia had no idea what sort of person he had been before he became a dragon.
But he had been loved by a god, so he couldn't have been a wicked person.
She thought about the Evil Dragon as she steadily made her way down the stairs and carried on.
In the innermost cell, shrouded in darkness so deep that even the candle's flame couldn't penetrate it, was a young man wrapped in the same dense power of darkness.
The person Leticia had come for.
The young man, sharp as a wild beast and with a deep darkness in his eyes that let no one close, looked expressionlessly towards where the invisible Leticia stood.
"Who's there?"
His voice was low and wary.
The chains binding his hands and feet rattled heavily.
Leticia realised that her presence, which she had concealed even from beastmen with their superior senses, had been seen through in an instant.
But her surprise quickly turned to admiration.
As expected of one granted the Goddess of Darkness's blessing.
What was more, Leticia could feel the power of light within her being drawn towards the young man's power of darkness.
Light and darkness stood at opposite poles, and yet they were two sides of the same coin. Powers that could never be separated from one another.
"...I never thought I'd be seen through this easily."
Leticia dispelled the spell with a chuckle.
As Leticia appeared before him, surprise flashed through the young man's eyes, which until then had held nothing but emptiness.
"A kid?"
Leticia was offended by the young man's words as he tilted his head in confusion.
"I'm not a kid! I'll be sixteen soon!"
She had only found that out recently, but at sixteen she surely wasn't young enough to be called a kid.
In Leticia's village that was an age at which one had long since struck out on one's own.
And yet the young man...
"You're lying. You look about twelve."
The doubt in his gaze stung.
"I'm not lying! Probably..."
Her confidence faltered and she trailed off, because she hadn't actually confirmed it.
It was nothing more than information she'd picked up while eavesdropping on the people who looked after her.
"...I don't really care either way."
The resigned look in the young man's eyes seemed to say it made no difference to him.
There was a hollowness to him, as if he didn't care about the situation he was in right now.
"Hey, what are you doing here?"
It was obvious that he was in an even worse situation than Leticia.
"I tried to assassinate the master of this house but got beaten and thrown in a cell. I don't know why they haven't killed me."
His uninterested account left Leticia startled.
He was surely referring to Kashu when he said 'master of the house'.