Twin-Faced Tower Izermar: A Fake?

Seeing the surprise on Aoko and Gray's faces, Olga Marie continued explaining.

"My guess isn't without basis. Or rather, this should be the truth of the matter."

She pointed at the cuts covering Tiadra's body.

"Look at these cuts. The person who did this wasn't acting carelessly. They align perfectly with anatomical knowledge. They didn't merely kill Tiadra—they dissected her as well."

"Even a simple dissection would take several hours. Conservatively speaking, Tiadra was killed after returning to her room last night."

"Eh—when you put it that way, it really does seem likely."

Aoko leaned closer to inspect the body carefully, then nodded in agreement.

"Mm, that's right. These are the marks of a dissection."

Gray's eyes widened, but aside from the neat, almost aesthetically pleasing cuts, she could not make out anything else.

"Gray probably hasn't encountered anatomical knowledge yet. But if you study magecraft, anatomy is an unavoidable foundational course."

To magi, the human body contained immense Mystery and had been a focus of thaumaturgical research since ancient times. Though much of the Mystery within humanity had faded in modern times alongside the great advances in technology, understanding the Mystery contained in the human body remained a basic compulsory course for magi.

And there was probably no quicker way to understand the Mystery of the human body than through dissection.

"Someone wanted to study Izeluma's techniques, so they dissected the Golden Princess?"

Aozaki Aoko could not make sense of it. Dissecting Tiadra might indeed allow one to reverse-engineer Izeluma's techniques from her body, but the fundamental Mage Crest was on Byron, the head of the family.

For a few techniques alone, it was hardly worth taking the risk of killing Tiadra in Izeluma's own stronghold for research.

"Could the Golden Princess have died long ago, and the Golden