The empty rooftop was the ideal environment for performing research on magic circles. In the past, Isaac received visits from his administrative workers to report on the city’s management, but they were few and far in between. But with the arrival of Rivelia, the administrative body opted to report to her instead and stayed well away from the rooftop ever since. The research needed to be performed in secret, and the presence of Rizzly, his personal bodyguard, would have made it difficult to find such opportunities to do so. He, however, was currently being dragged along by Kunette as she adventures throughout the city.

Kunette treated the whole city as her playground, wandering about from one corner to another. But Isaac didn’t worry about her since Rizzly was by her side, and according to Rizzly’s testimony, Kunette was even more powerful than Rizzly himself. Isaac found that claim hard to believe but decided to accept it anyway.

There was one occasion when Cordnell came up to the rooftop, expressing his concern regarding Kunette’s overuse of the funds. Isaac decided to investigate what she was spending the money on, only to find out she was buying all sorts of food and snacks to share with the children of the city.

It was natural for Kunette be popular among the children, since she was sharing all sorts of snacks and lollies in her adorable and tiny physique. She was like their idol, and children flocked to her wherever she went. Not even the adults could treat her disrespectfully. It seemed Kunette found the situation enjoyable and lessened her visits to Isaac. This was, in fact, the perfect time for such a thing to occur.

“… This really is OP.”

Isaac muttered to himself as he looked at the paper in front of him. Others would question Isaac’s act of staring deeply into a blank piece of paper, but in Isaac’s eyes, he could see a magic circle made up of mysterious symbols and lines. What was important was that it had been 3 days since this drawing was first made.

“If it’s absorbed into the user, the user can make permanent magic circles, and in its pen form, it can create magic circles that last about a day…”

Baffled by the sudden absorption of the pen, Isaac thought to himself, ‘Can it come out on its own?’ The pen then suddenly popped out from his finger. The fusion and ejection of the pen was freely controlled by the user, and the user simply needed to draw the circles as seen in the book without having to look through its meanings. The thickness of the lines could be controlled purely by the user’s thoughts. And viola, a magic circle was born. This pen would allow a magical professional to develop magic circles with extreme ease.

It was an object that any who worked in the field would dream about. Isaac didn’t know who the inventor of this pen was, but he was certain that only an absolute madman would create a ballpoint pen capable of destroying the Empire.

“I’m not going to let anyone just take this treasure from me. I need to prepare myself.”

Isaac gave up on the idea of handing over the pen or having it taken from him. This monstrous item was bound to shake up the world no matter who the user was, and the chaos created by such circumstances would shatter Isaac’s ambition of living a peaceful life. Handing it over to Central could be a solution, but it didn’t seem likely that Isaac would receive any form of gratitude in return. It seemed more likely that he’d be closely monitored for the rest of his life or be “dismissed” for confidentiality. So the best choice of action was to act oblivious, since no one was going to find out about it as long as the pen was in his finger.

The North Bears and elves did provide security for Isaac, but simply relying on them for the entire ordeal was a foolish move. It was still likely that Isaac could be abducted and interrogated at even the slightest suspicion no matter how oblivious he acted, considering how valuable this item was. It would be prudent to prepare against such events so that he could enjoy a long and peaceful life.

It was impossible for Isaac until now, but he could finally create a trump card of his own to turn the tide in any situation. A magical weapon was an excellent candidate to do such a thing.

“I’ll need some protection too. And a method to escape from unforeseen circumstances… Hm, I think I’ve got quite a few things to deal with, finally.”

“What is Sir Isaac doing these days?”

Rivelia asked. Kalden, the recipient of the question, carefully answered as he noted Rivelia’s mood.

“He has taken a liking to his new hobby, sculpting.”

“Sculpting? He is wasting his days sculpting while everyone else is busy at work?”

The administrative body did their utmost to avoid Rivelia’s glare of cold fury. Rivelia began to ponder how she was going to bully that man but decided against it. It may be better that he stayed on the rooftop like he was now.

Just when she was about to use the murder incident as justification to mobilise her police force to search for demonic and angelic turncoats, Central reported that the dead victim was the demonic turncoat all along. And with the new decision made in conjunction with the Directorate of Analysis, it was unlikely that she’d receive any more reinforcements, so she needed to finish her assignment with the agents she had at hand. It would be much easier for Rivelia if Isaac stayed on the rooftop, since she needed to watch for any signs of the angelic turncoats attempting to contact him.

‘To think they’d worship Isaac. Either the angelic turncoats are crazier than what we know, or they’re absolute numbnuts not worth our time.’

“Sigh, I’ll leave Sir Isaac for now. He’s helping us by not starting any more unnecessary endeavours.”

On top of a mountain of secret missions she needed to finish, she still had her duties to fulfill as the mayor of the city. She didn’t like it, but it was best not to bother Isaac and let him be engrossed in his new hobby instead, lest he be agitated into creating another abominable business and making everyone’s lives difficult.

“Sculpting is actually quite fun. It’s a great way to spend idle time.”

Isaac muttered those words as he carved at the wood with a small knife. He was so sure that he would just give up on everything if he didn’t routinely hypnotise himself with that monologue. Isaac could activate the magic circles only after he smoked. That was a crucial weakness. He couldn’t simply smoke in leisure during emergencies. He had barely enough mana to activate the magic circle after he finished smoking one cigarette. The use of mana crystals was mandatory in order to maintain the magic circle and activate it repeatedly.

As a test, Isaac drew the magic circle for Magic Arrow on a small piece of wood. When activated, the arrow that formed was much weaker, and its duration was reduced by quite a bit as well. But it was still a success.

However, unless he was going to suck on his thumb after a single attack, he needed a way to attack repeatedly. So he tried the same test again; except, this time, he carved a small circle where the mana crystal was supposed to be placed inside as shown in the book. The test, however, only resulted in the loss of the mana crystal.

Since Isaac didn’t learn this formally, he had no way to know what went wrong. And he couldn’t just grab someone and ask, because that would raise suspicion. So he used city patrolling as an excuse to visit the magical spires and magical engineers in Meta District to ask them a few questions.

Isaac was told that for enchanted magic circles, results varied greatly depending on how smooth the surface of the enchanted object was and how consistent and smooth the depth of the grooves were. Just a single scratch on the edge or incorrectly carving the symbol or the angle of the line would result in a failed activation sequence.

Isaac asked how the wizards performed such a delicate procedure, only to be mocked that drawing a magic circle was a foolish effort in the first place.

Wizards