Miles said in disbelief, "Bankrupt?! How is that possible… no, on second thought, it's actually very possible."
A shop with absolutely no business closing down was a perfectly normal outcome.
However, the timing was way too cruel.
He'd gone to the trouble of scraping together two million gold coins in a single week, only for this lousy magic workshop to not even last that long?
Compared to the crushed hopes and dreams of Miles, Ren remained relatively calm and continued questioning.
"Sir, do you know exactly when it closed, and where the owner went afterward?"
"I don't know the details. It was like they vanished into thin air. By the time the nearby residents noticed, all that was left here was this pile of ruins. That's why everyone started saying the shop finally went under after never having any business."
It was clearly unrealistic to expect to extract any more key information from this randomly grabbed passerby.
Nonetheless, at least one thing was certain... the so-called 'bankruptcy' wasn't a confirmed fact, but merely a rumor that spread after the workshop turned into rubble.
After all, even if a shop went bankrupt, it wouldn't be demolished this cleanly, building and all, leaving nothing but a field of debris.
"Try to think about it more positively, Miles," Krista comforted him. "Maybe Boss Viel just got into trouble."
"Krista, are you a demon?" Ren couldn't help complaining.
Between the workshop going bankrupt and Boss Viel getting into trouble, she actually preferred the latter.
Anyhow, weighing the pros and cons, that all-powerful grand witch artisan Viel would probably be able to deal with things herself even if something happened. That was indeed better than a straight-up bankruptcy ending.
Standing atop the rubble, Miles carefully searched for clues.
Aisha: "Are you looking for clues, Mr. Miles?"
"I'm looking for the high-tier Magic Directory."
"Mr. Miles, you're a demon too."
If something really had happened to Viel, then the weird tools inside the shop wouldn't have had time to be taken away.
And among them, the most valuable item was undoubtedly the high-tier Magic Directory.
Between her daily earnings and the accumulation from the Republic Knight's Badge, Aisha's Magic Points were already nearing 3000; close to the alchemy requirement for Underworld Circle.
That was also why Miles had been willing to wait an entire week before coming to the workshop.
If he'd come too early, the accumulated imprint Spell Points wouldn't have been enough, and making the trip would feel inefficient.
However, while he didn't find the high-tier Magic Directory, Miles did find something that could genuinely be called a 'clue.'
First, among the rubble that clearly came from the wall, there were charred scorch marks, as if it had been licked by flames.
It looked like some kind of violent eruption had occurred inside the building.
Then, in a gap between the debris, Miles also discovered a Monster Card.
[Witchcrafter Schmietta]
The card art, a cute red-haired girl, caught Miles's eye.
"This card is… Witchcrafter?" Why there would be a card lying in the rubble was something Miles couldn't wrap his head around.
This was the Spirit Continent. According to the rules of the world, all cards were bound to a Duelist's Spirit Eyes.
That meant even if you did something like Kaiser and flung your entire Deck into the sky, you wouldn't need to pick them up yourself; your cards would automatically return to you.
Yet this card had been left behind in the ruins of the workshop.
"Miles, Miles! Come look at this!"
Ren seemed to have found something new as well.
From the innermost pile of rubble, Ren pulled out a small blackboard.
Written on it in chalk were the words: [Miles, owes 133].
"Isn't this Boss Viel's accounting board that used to hang by the door? How is this a new discovery?"
If Miles had his way, he'd rather stage an 'accident' and burn this blackboard.
"The important part is the back! The back!"
Holding up the blackboard, Ren flipped it over to show them.
[Sorry, something went wrong during the experiment. If you came looking for me, just go to the academy's back mountain. (?·?<>]
The note even ended with Viel's trademark tongue-out, blame-shifting self-portrait.
"The academy's back mountain again?"
Miles didn't have a good impression of that place. If anything, it left him with a bit of trauma.
Aisha reminded him, "Though Mr. Miles, the academy's back mountain mentioned here should refer to Synchron Academy's back mountain, right?"
"Krista, what do you think?"
At times like this, asking a local was the most reliable option.
"What do I think?" Krista put her hands on her hips, exasperated. "You can tell just by looking… Synchron Academy doesn't even have something like a back mountain, does it?"
A flat landscape in a modernized technological city, Synchron Academy simply didn't have any raised land that could be called a 'back mountain.'
"A back mountain? There is one, actually."
With Krista leading the way, the group specifically went to Vice Principal Orcus's office.
And they received a surprising answer.
"There really is a back mountain? Headmaster Grandpa!" Krista asked excitedly.
"To be precise, Synchron Academy used to have a back mountain. However, it was completely flattened in a Duel several decades ago."
Krista sucked in a sharp breath. "Just one Duel flattened an entire mountain? Wait… where is that flat land now?"
As far as Krista could recall, there didn't seem to be any large open flat areas around Synchron Academy.
"Oh, the land that was flattened by that Duel was later converted by the government into a scrap processing factory. Then it shut down due to poor management. Now only the building's shell remains."
At this point, Krista finally understood.
If there was a scrap processing plant near Synchron Academy that had long been abandoned, there was only one such place.
It was called the academy's back mountain, while in reality, it was still some distance away from Synchron Academy. And because of its remote location, students rarely approached it.
"If you're planning to go to the scrap processing plant, you'd better be a bit careful."
Although Orcus believed that with the strength of the people before him-one of whom was Aisha Carlos, a Republic Knight-there was probably nothing to worry about, no matter how dangerous it was, as an elder and someone with experience, he still made sure to give all the necessary warnings.
"According to rumors, that Duel from over a decade ago left something unpleasant behind in that area. The scrap factory that the government later established there also kept having mysterious accidents. If you insist on going, being cautious can't hurt."
It sounded like something akin to an Earthbound spirit curse.
However, the Earthbound Immortals within Synchron Academy's grounds should have already been collected by Miles.
That said, Miles was still quite curious, and equally curious about why Viel would deliberately go to such a place.
"Vice Principal Orcus, could you tell us more about that Duel from over a decade ago?" Miles asked through Aisha.
"There are no true eyewitnesses to that Duel," Vice Principal Orcus recalled.
"That said, there are rumors that the Duel involved intelligent machine monsters-Meklord Emperors-specifically designed to counter Synchro Summoning."
...
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