That spiraling staircase led to the place where, according to the Old Wizard, he could seek help if he was hungry.
The so-called Bad-Tempered Miss Kailyn was up there too. He still remembered those words clearly, but he had met Miss Kailyn in the garden and even misunderstood for a time. Her supposed bad temper, along with her joke, had led him to believe there was more than one Kailyn here. In hindsight, that supposed bad temper was probably just displeasure directed at the Old Wizard. And Miss Kailyn had indeed brought him a plate of snacks, mildly sweet pastries fragrant with flowers.
He could no longer sense any unusual fluctuations in the laboratory before him. It was as though the workbenches were merely oddly shaped tables or racks, as though all those magic arrays of varying sizes, with their interlocking rings, had faded away. Not a single supernatural material or experimental subject remained.
Ruger turned to leave, then stopped.
After a moment's thought, he extended his mental power and ventured farther into the unusually spacious laboratory.
There was some risk involved, but he still wanted to probe this place with his own mental power. A cursory scan and visual inspection could easily miss things.
Thump! Thump!
His heart was beating.
If something really had gone wrong, why had I been fine while sleeping soundly in the garden?
Was it because this heart couldn't be scrutinized? He raised a hand and lightly stroked his chest, rationally dismissing that guess. It might have some effect, but it probably offered little help against trouble on the Old Wizard's level. Besides, this place already looked terribly dilapidated, which was abnormal. He did not know how long he had slept, but his most primal instinct, his trusty specialty-the stomach clock-was an unfailingly reliable method