The two sat down before the fireplace. Rorschach sorted through the information he had gathered since arriving in Storm City. He refused to drink at such a critical moment, merely holding the glass and letting the warmth of his palm gradually heat the cold liquid within.

"Finding someone in this city will be difficult." Rorschach considered another possibility. "And there’s no guarantee she’s even in Storm City... All I can say is that the last trace I could find of her was here."

After listening, Benedict crossed his legs, relaxing into the armchair. "It sounds like we need to do the impossible. And we can’t exactly plaster missing person posters for our target lady all over the streets."

The mention of missing person posters gave Rorschach an idea. "No missing person posters, but since the Iron Crown Knight Order is looking for her, there might be a wanted notice." Rorschach couldn’t imagine what taboo Caroline could have possibly broken in Istani to be hunted down.

"Not bad. A good line of thinking. Especially since you don’t know what kind of trouble the lady got herself into." The Elf stood and pulled a scrapbook from the bookshelf. It was filled with collected information on crimes, along with a paper wanted notice and stacks of case files.

Rorschach was a little confused. "At first, I thought your main profession was an actor, but now it seems you’re actually a detective." The man’s first identity had been a curator, then he’d introduced himself as a moderately famous actor, and now he was revealing a long-standing interest in Storm City’s various cases.

’Is he also a TV host, a writer, a folk singer, an oil painter, a leatherworker, a silversmith, a golden left-face...?’

Benedict’s eyes didn’t leave the documents. "Perhaps in your eyes, an actor and a detective have nothing in common, but both professions share a foundation: you need to be good at observation, especially observing people. Whether I then play a role or dig for the truth about them simply depends on whether I’m on a stage or in my office."

Seeing Rorschach standing idle, Benedict handed him a stack of files to help with the search. "I haven’t seen your teacher yet. Are you sure her name is ’Caroline’?"

"Yes, yes. Do you need me to spell it out for you?" This was the second time Rorschach had heard a similar question, and his tone grew heavier.

He sifted through the cases the detective had collected and found many were disappearance cases, followed by murders.

’For the grand Royal Capital of Istani, public safety didn’t seem to be very good.’

"That won’t be necessary. I’m formally educated; fluent in the Common Tongue, Old Jabber Language, and the Elven Language."

However, the two well-educated men found nothing.

"Are there a lot of disappearance cases in Storm City?"

"Most are cold cases." Benedict gathered the materials. "Many people have claimed their family or friends have disappeared, but no trace of the missing person’s existence can be found on the surface, including proof of identity... Ah, that’s different from your current situation. At least you still have a letter addressed to the missing person in your hand."

"These people who reported the cases were judged by Stran Field to be schizophrenic or to have some other abnormality. Such a fashionable word. In short, everyone believes the missing people were just imagined. Things like, they suffered some mental trauma and developed a split personality, or they constructed a character to keep them company..."

Stirling Field, originally a foothold in Storm City for the nobility from the Stran Region, had now become the office for detectives appointed by the Royal Family to investigate criminal cases.

"No!" Rorschach stood up. "Information about Lady Caroline is definitely being erased! My letter is the exception..."

How could he prove it? Rorschach thought of a way.

"May I use your washroom?"

Benedict pointed in the direction. "Be my guest."

Rorschach went inside and locked himself in the small space. He took out the reply from the Empire Royal Magic Academy and tried to cast [Reversing Beam] on it.

With a wave of distortion, the words "no such person" dissolved into a twisted smear, the original message now illegible.

But this proved one thing: Magic had distorted the information about Caroline, and it could be stopped by [Reversing Beam]!

Rorschach waited for a moment, but the smear didn’t change again. He took out the reply from the Tower of Stars and cast the same spell. Rorschach had seen the original letter, so when the beam hit the paper, Kano’s original words appeared, verbatim.

The young man waited for a while in the washroom. The letter was not altered again.

He went out with the two letters, trying to show them to Benedict.

"Is your stomach bothering you?" The detective had poured himself a little more wine in the interim. He frowned at what Rorschach was showing him. "So, are these two pieces of paper related to our case? I’m sorry, I don’t see it."

Rorschach pulled them back to look. They’d been altered again!

’Damn it...’ He explained to Benedict how the information was being erased.

After listening, the Elf also rose from the plush sofa. He drew the curtains, confirmed no one was in the hallway to overhear their conversation, and then shut the door firmly. "Since you’ve encountered the same situation as those ’mental patients,’ we can talk about the disappearance cases."

"According to my theory, most of them have fallen into this city’s shadow. The Knight Order surely knows about it, but they’re usually powerless, leaving the poor souls to get lost beneath this land."

"Those who fall are burdened with a curse, becoming the Nameless. Do you know what the Nameless are? Their names can no longer appear here. In the memories of others, they are replaced or blurred. Only a gifted few are immune to the curse’s effects and can perceive that their friends and family have suddenly vanished. But everyone else just thinks they’re lunatics."

"Many of those who filed reports couldn’t accept it, and eventually, they really did go mad."

"But the name in my letter wasn’t erased."

"So you stand out even among the gifted. What should I call you? The ’King of Madmen’?"

Rorschach felt like Benedict was deadpanning a cliché urban legend at him. "I can’t believe this."

The Elf set down his glass, a smug smile appearing on his face that gradually turned sinister. "Well then, what if I told you I’m one of the ’Mad Kings’ myself, and that I can invite people into the ’Shadow City’? Would you dare to try?"

"The territory of the Shadow City overlaps with our Storm City, and it has even more space underground. You can even see wondrous biomes! If it weren’t for the curse that makes people disappear without a trace, forgotten by the world, it would be a fantastic place to develop into a tourist destination..."

"Given that you’re unaffected by the ’erasure curse,’ perhaps you could not only return to the surface yourself but also bring your Teacher Caroline back with you."

Rorschach met the Elf’s gaze, staring into his brown irises. He couldn’t glean anything from the other’s eyes or expression, perhaps because Benedict was an actor.

"If I agree, will you come with me?"

The Elf shook his head quickly. "Not right now. I have an important performance coming up. Don’t worry about me forgetting you, my client, after you enter the Shadow City. The Shadow Capital cuts me some slack. Isn’t it better to have someone who remembers you in the world above? If you disappear too, maybe I’ll still remember you and can figure out a way to pull you out."

Rorschach found this amusing. He stood up, this time intending to leave. "Do I need to pay a consultation fee?"

"It seems you don’t wish to continue with the commission." Benedict gave a regretful shrug, the gesture a blatant piece of acting. In truth, he didn’t care at all. "Rorschach Mage, you’ll come looking for me again, just as I said this morning. We will meet again. We can settle the fees then."

"Then you’re about to lose me as a client." Rorschach placed the business card the Elf had given him onto the living room coffee table and walked out quickly.