2. This is magic, right?

He arrived here with the other four. He barely glossed over them, and for the most part, this is a translation book where he writes down everything he knows about the language of this world. If I have to guess, this might be the first archive he wrote because everything else is written in this world's language with some English remarks.

They arrived in a castle with a lively audience in front of the king. They were called upon by the great priest to help the kingdom defeat the demon army that was attacking the travel route. Each of them was blessed by the god since they were summoned by the priest. From the quick blurt. Veritas was especially great with mana itself.

Veritas wrote, "I observed that rather than getting a deeper understanding, the others' blessings seem to be more rooted in a sense that they are simply heaps and bounds better than everyone else." From what I read, these are the four members:

- Kael, the leader of the group. He is physically blessed by having a strong body.

- Soren, the support of the group. He is blessed at working with others' mana, which makes him a great healer.

- Elara, the magical powerhouse of the group. Veritas noted that while he can understand mana better, she was simply more efficient and stronger.

- Lyra, the nimble one. She mainly keeps to herself, even in the beginning, but Veritas observed that she has an easier time working with her body compared to an average person.

So, four suspects? It has to be magic, so two? No, that doesn't eliminate suspects. Magic can be applied to weapons, especially the ones crafted by a magical blacksmith. If I need to guess with the limited information I have, they might have gotten in an argument, and while Veritas was preparing the teleportation magic, they struck just in time, and the magic went off.

But solving a magical murder? That's impossible. Before I do anything, if I know anything about murder. At the very least, one of the four will come here again. I quickly put Veritas' clothes back on him and did as much as I could to get him back in his original death position.

Now, I should make a note for myself since I need to leave all of his belongings behind to avoid suspicion. Thankfully, Veritas was basically obsessed with understanding the magic of this world. He wrote down things that in our original world would be the equivalent of "When it rains, water droplets fall from the sky."

Magic, at its core, isn't something otherworldly. It is merely an element that exists that people can use to simply help in day-to-day life, but a strong weapon for the people who want to dedicate their lives to it.

Something otherworldly is a "Prayer", Veritas admitted that he was not well-versed with the rules and limitations of this. Simply put, it is something that cannot be logically solved, and he ended his research on this relatively early.

Mana is simply something that is flowing in all living things' bloodstream. He explained this is the reason why physically strong people have a lot of mana, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are good at using it. Opposite also applies, somebody who is great at using mana can strengthen their body, but only to a certain extent.

Understanding mana and using mana are two separate things. Fortunately, Veritas wrote down his basics. It is meditation. I need to feel the mana moving with the blood in my body. I slowed down my breathing, imagined a railway system throughout my body, carrying each of the blood cells that are infused with mana. Focus all of them on my eyes. I opened my eyes to be greeted by the silhouette of the four party members.

"So this is residuals," I said to myself while walking around the almost crystallized version of the party members. Kael is an absolute unit of a man, almost reaching two meters tall, Soren with his backpack full of herbs standing at the same height as Elara with her staff that is almost twice her size, and Lyra, who is somehow shorter than me.

Unfortunately, since the teleportation magic was too strong, it seems to completely swallow the area, and I cannot seem to find any other types of magic residuals. I slowed down my breathing to let the mana flow again, and I was struck by a headache again. As I was trying to recover with some water. I hear footsteps, it was one really quiet footsteps, but maybe the mana meditation helped my senses. I quickly ran away to hide.

"Seven days..." I thought to myself. A small frame walked toward the body of Veritas, and they started... digging? They left a flower at the grave and quickly disappeared into the shadows. As I was training my mana redirection for two whole days, another set of footsteps. One, no. Three? I slowly peeked, and it was Kael, Soren, and Elara. Kael and Soren put down a bouquet, and Elara made a bed full of flowers around his grave.

As I watched them walk out, I couldn't help but think about what happened here. Is one of them pretending to make it look like an accident, or are they all involved? My food and water are running out, and it took the strongest party at least eight days to get here. It must take double that amount for me to get to where they come from. I walked down to Veritas' grave.

All of the members didn't touch any of his archives, so I organized all of them into his bag and prepared myself to walk out of the castle. I paid my final respect to Veritas and thanked him for the information and promised that I would solve this mystery for my amusement if anything else.