The Leisurely Established Advertising Agency in the Other World Handles Nobles Adventurers and Merchant Guilds with Ease
The magic circle room, which they reached by descending the stairs, was unchanged from when they had visited it half a day earlier. Only the magic circle, about two meters in diameter with intricate characters drawn on it, stood quietly in the center.
“Well, it’s obvious, but there’s no change, huh?”
“Yeah, but on the flip side, you could say there hasn’t been any bad change either, right?”
“True. By the way, what’s that you’ve got there?”
Taichi, curious about the book Fumino was holding under her arm, asked her about it. She showed him the cover as she replied.
“Oh, this? It seems to be some kind of specialized book on magic circles. Look, I can’t read the text, but the pictures and diagrams are clear enough, right? I skimmed through it, and since this one had the most diagrams that looked like magic circles, I brought it along thinking it might be useful somehow.”
“I see,” Taichi responded while finishing off the water from the plastic bottle he was holding.
“Now, if this thing is the exit like we’re guessing, we’d probably have to step inside it, right?”
“It’d make sense to think of it as some kind of teleportation device.”
“Probably. But jumping right in feels a bit scary, so first, let’s try this…”
With that, Taichi tossed the empty plastic bottle he’d just finished into the magic circle with a casual “Here goes!”
…But it only rolled across the floor with a dry clatter, and nothing happened.
“Hmm. Looks like just throwing something in doesn’t trigger anything… Oh well, guess I’ll step in myself.”
“B-be careful, okay?”
As Fumino watched him with a worried expression, Taichi cautiously approached the magic circle.
He hesitated for a moment at the edge but then took a single step inside—nothing happened.
Silently, he continued forward until he was fully inside the circle, but still, nothing occurred.
“No reaction, huh? Kind of a letdown…”
“If this isn’t the exit, we might be in a bit of trouble.”
“Yeah, exactly. I was banking on this being a way to go back and forth, but it looks like I miscalculated.”
“Should we check that big door again?”
“Might be our only option. If that doesn’t work, the only other place left would be where we were summoned… Well, maybe that old guy could teleport us directly with magic or something—Whoa!!”
“Wha—!?”
As they were discussing their next steps in disappointment, the magic circle suddenly began to glow faintly. Startled, Taichi leapt out of it.
“Phew, give me a break already…”
“Are you okay? But why did it suddenly—?”
Saying that, Fumino stepped into the circle herself this time, but it remained as quiet as if nothing had happened.
“It started glowing while we were talking, right? The last thing you said was… Oh, right, ‘teleport us directly with magic,’ no, ‘teleport’—!!”
Before she could finish, the magic circle lit up again just like before, and in a panic, Fumino jumped out too.
“…Phew. Could it be triggered by words?”
“Seems like it. And the keyword might be ‘teleport,’ huh?”
With that, Taichi stepped back in.
“But just saying it doesn’t seem to fully activate—Whoa, that was close… It doesn’t start up right away. Maybe I’ll wait a bit longer this time.”
“Be careful…”
“Got it, got it. Alright then, ‘teleport’!”
With Taichi’s voice, the magic circle glowed for the third time.
All the characters and shapes forming the circle began to emit light, and a cylindrical curtain of light rose from the outermost ring, like a wall of radiance.
He waited for about 30 seconds, but no further changes seemed to occur.
Stepping slowly out of the circle and watching the light fade, Taichi turned to Fumino.
“What do you think?”
“For one, there’s no doubt this is a teleportation magic circle.”
“Well, yeah, the keyword is ‘teleport,’ after all.”
“And it’s clear that a keyword is needed to activate it. But that alone isn’t enough, right?”
“I agree. Since it reacted to just ‘teleport,’ I think that’s probably the exact keyword—no more, no less.”
“What do you mean?”
“If the issue were the keyword itself being incomplete, what do you think it’d be? There are a few possibilities, but one likely option is a keyword tied to a ‘process.’ Like, ‘activate,’ ‘prepare teleport,’ ‘destination name,’ ‘execute,’ or something like that.”
“Oh, I get it. Yeah, if it were a multi-step process like that, it’d be hard to imagine the circle reacting to just ‘teleport’ on its own.”
“Well, we don’t know the grammar of this world’s language, so I can’t be certain. Another possibility could be some kind of password-like phrase. If anyone could teleport just by saying it, it’d be too easy to misuse, so there’s probably some security measure in place.”
“That makes sense, but if that’s the case, we’re pretty much out of luck…”
“Yeah, so let’s set that possibility aside for now. Then the question becomes: what’s a security measure that isn’t a keyword?”
“If it’s not words, back on Earth it’d be something like fingerprints or veins, right? That big door had something like that.”
“Yep. Biometric stuff is one option. But whether it was that big door or the smaller automatic ones, those had physical devices like plates or scanners attached to them.”
“Now that you mention it… Then maybe a key or a card?”
“Exactly, that’s what I’m thinking. Something physical—or maybe, since it’s this world, a magical item—could be the key to unlocking it.”
“That’s definitely plausible. The problem is figuring out what it is…”
“Something magical, limited to specific individuals, probably to prevent just anyone from using it. And since losing it would be a big deal, it’d be something hard to drop. Any guesses?”
“Something you wear would be hard to lose… Oh! That accessory!”
“Bingo. That’s the most suspicious one. Also, about that book you brought—any hints in there? You haven’t even looked at it yet, have you?”
“I totally forgot… Hold on a sec. The text is still unreadable, but it’s got magic circles, so I’ll check if there’s anything similar… No, that’d take too long. If the key is a ring and it’s used together with the circle, it’d be faster to look for something that mentions both.”
As she spoke, Fumino flipped through the book for entries that included both a magic circle and a ring. She found three possibilities.
Comparing those three circles to the one in front of them, one stood out as strikingly similar despite some minor differences.
While the other two only depicted a single ring, this one showed two rings alongside the circle.
“It looks like this is the one, but it seems we need two rings.”
“Man, good thing we checked. I don’t know why, but since they bothered drawing two, we probably need both. Alright, shall we give it a shot?”
“You’re going to try it like it’s some casual ‘I’m popping to the convenience store’ trip!?”
“We won’t get anywhere just thinking about it, right? But I’ve got a plan to test it efficiently without wasting effort.”
As he slipped the two rings onto his fingers, Taichi outlined his teleportation experiment plan, summarized as follows:
- Since they only had one pair of rings, he’d go alone first.
- He’d place objects inside and outside the circle to test if they’d teleport with him and, if so, how far the range extended (since they’d almost certainly brought food, he wanted to confirm the mechanics).
- If the destination was another magic circle, he’d return immediately but would take up to 10 minutes to ensure safety and scout the area.
- If he could successfully go and return, they’d teleport together with all the portable items they could carry.
- Whether they’d come back here would depend on the situation at the destination.
“Sounds reasonable. We’re pretty sure it’s a round trip and can carry objects, but we should confirm it.”
“Alright, here I go. Don’t want to overdo it with stuff, so this should be enough for now.”
Taichi placed a cloth bag and a few books directly on the floor inside the circle, then slung a bag with two days’ worth of food and water over his shoulder before stepping into the magic circle.
As he did, the red ring on his index finger began to glow faintly. At the same time, a portion of the magic circle on the floor emitted a matching red light.
“Looks like this red one’s the ticket out.”
He stood there for a moment, but no further changes occurred.
“Good to know it doesn’t just whisk you away the second you step in.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty user-friendly in that sense. Alright, I’m off.”
“Take care, okay?”
“Will do. Here goes—‘teleport’!”
The moment he spoke, the magic circle and the ring flared brighter, and a wall of light appeared around the outer edge of the circle.
From the inside, Taichi cautiously touched the wall of light, but his hand didn’t pass through. It seemed to be a physical barrier as well.
After about 10 seconds, the light intensified, flooding the room in white. Then, just as suddenly, all the light vanished.
Looking at the magic circle, Taichi—and the items placed on the floor—were gone. A quiet stillness filled the room.
“It worked, right? I just hope he comes back safely…”
In the first true silence since arriving here, Fumino gave a wry smile as her own muttered words echoed louder than expected.
But even after the planned 10 minutes passed—and then an hour—Taichi didn’t return.