In a drawer, a folded piece of paper lay sleeping. Kenji knew it was there. Last night, he'd folded the parchment with its half-written characters and slid it into the bottom of his desk drawer before going to bed. Though "going to bed" wasn't quite accurate. He'd lain staring at the dark ceiling, his thoughts circling endlessly around the same thing. Yoken—the gift bestowed upon Kenji as a transferee, a power that projected fragmented images of the near future—had shown him a vision. A large hand. A folded piece of paper being pushed into the bottom of a drawer. A string of numbers resembling erosion data. It was Gaius, Kenji was almost certain. The size of that hand, the way it moved. There were few people in the fortress as tall and large-handed as Gaius. Gaius Craven—a veteran surveyor who'd held a position in the Fortress of Dawn for many years, long responsible for investigating the void erosion in the outer edges and surrounding territories of the fortress. A man with salt-and-pepper black hair and scholarly bearing, known throughout the fortress as the one who'd confronted the erosion phenomenon of the Void most deeply. A trusted veteran—which was precisely why the meaning of the actions shown in Kenji's Yoken vision wouldn't leave him alone. So today, he would tell Celia. Kenji rose from his bed and opened the drawer. He took out the folded parchment and gripped it once in his palm. He wouldn't tear it. He wouldn't burn it. He would take this, climb the stairs of the Akatsuki Tower, and knock on the door. This time, he would actually do it. It was a weak sort of resolve, but at least his determination was thirty percent stronger than last night. The stone steps of the Akatsuki Tower were saturated with the cold of early morning, and with each step upward, chilly air brushed against his face. Above the fortress, morning mist drifted thinly from the Silent Tree Sea—the vast broadleaf forest that spread across the western side of the Fortress of Dawn. The weather was good. For a morning when he was about to have a troublesome conversation, it was perhaps a bit too clear and pleasant. He reached the third-floor corridor. The upper floors of the Akatsuki Tower, where Celia's office was located. The door was still closed. (Alright, let's do this.) He told himself this and started walking toward the door. That instant— "Kenji-san!! You're going for it today, right?!!" A water-colored head shot out from around the corner at full speed. Lina came sprinting down the morning corridor. At full force. Her golden eyes sparkling. "You came yesterday and turned back! You came the day before and turned back! I saw it all!!" "Why are you keeping watch?" Kenji asked. "Because I'm your caretaker, I keep track!!" Lina said. "Your range of tracking is way too broad," Kenji said. "I was worried! You kept turning back, Kenji-san!!" Lina said. It was, in its own quiet way, something to be grateful for. But right now, he was in the middle of steeling himself to knock on that door. You could call it reinforcement, but it also threw off his pace. "Don't follow me. I'm going alone," Kenji said. "Understood! I'll wait here then!!" Lina said. Lina pressed herself flat against the corridor wall, her face taking on an expression that said "I'm cheering you on!!" Literally pressed against the wall. Both hands on the wall. What kind of ninja was this? Kenji took one deep breath and put his hand on the doorknob. Then he pulled. At exactly the same moment, the door opened from inside. There was no loud bang. It stopped just a few centimeters away, and Kenji and Celia found themselves facing each other in the corridor with their noses nearly touching. Celia Astrid—the Fortress of Dawn's war commander, the officer who unified all the fortress's combat forces—her silver hair caught the morning light and gleamed faintly. The lustrous braid of her hair, swaying from the momentum of her forward lean, moved smoothly. Her ice-blue eyes were right there, just in front of Kenji's face. Their breaths reached each other. For several seconds, time stopped completely. Celia's eyes wavered for just an instant, the briefest moment, as if searching for something. Not narrowing, not turning away, just—wavering. The thin line of the scar on her left cheek appeared strangely vivid. Her fingers gripping the edge of the door tightened almost imperceptibly, so quietly that Kenji couldn't tell. Kenji couldn't move either. He'd stopped breathing. This was simply too close. Their faces were too close. What was he supposed to do in a situation like this? Would Celia-sama get angry? Ignore him? —From the corridor wall came a grand sound effect. The sound of Lina peeling off the wall. "Aww—" With that, the air shattered. Celia's expression snapped back into place. Calm and composed, an iron mask. With a face that said not "in the way" but "didn't exist," she opened the door fully and stepped into the corridor. The 175-centimeter silver-haired war commander glanced at Lina, who'd slid down the corridor wall, then looked at Kenji. "If you have business, come in," Celia said. Short. That was all. She turned on her heel and returned to her office. Kenji took one slow breath to compose himself. Lina, standing up in the corridor, asked in a small voice, "How was that distance just now?!" but he ignored her. --- The office was bright with morning light. Beyond the window, the green of the Silent Tree Sea was visible. Maps spread across the stone desk, several files. Kenji stood in one corner and placed the folded parchment on the desk. "My Yoken showed me what appeared to be Gaius hiding erosion data in a drawer. It was a few mornings ago," Kenji said. Celia, still seated, picked up one piece of paper from the materials on her desk. Her hand movements were completely composed. She turned her gaze toward Kenji. "I know," Celia said. Kenji paused for a moment. "...You already knew?" Kenji asked. "I reached the same conclusion independently. I've been aware for three weeks that Gaius was periodically copying the fortress's erosion records and maintaining his own file," Celia said. It was blunt. Celia set the paper back on the desk. In that motion, the way she placed it became just slightly—almost obsessively—careful. A delicate movement, as if aligning the edges of the paper with her fingertips. "Why didn't you tell me?" Kenji asked. "I wanted to verify the accuracy of your Yoken," Celia said. The answer was calm. Her voice was emotionless, but no one touched her fingertips, which were holding too many materials on the desk. Kenji noticed, but said nothing. He wasn't in a position to say anything. Still, it was complicated. He'd been tested. It wasn't that he was dissatisfied. But was Celia's judgment wrong? He couldn't quite say that either. As the fortress's war commander, wanting to verify the accuracy of an unknown transferee's gift before trusting it was sound judgment. Kenji understood that. "...Well, I suppose so," Kenji said. "I convened the council this morning," Celia said. That was all. --- The summons for the council swept through the fortress like a storm. The young messenger soldier assigned to deliver the notices was overzealous and knocked on too many doors. Thirty minutes later, he was nursing a sore hand and had gone straight to the medical wing, the "Chamber of Silence." The supply master—an elderly man who managed all the fortress's provisions and budget, supporting the fortress's daily operations from behind the scenes, always looking up at the sky about something—heard the report in the corridor and said just one thing. "...I thought today would finally be uneventful," the supply master said. While looking up at the sky. Completely. Kenji was heading toward the council chamber just after that. He collided head-on at a corridor corner. "Whoa—" Lina said. It was Lina. She'd apparently just finished morning magic training and come straight from the iron-treading grounds. Her entire body—unfortunately—was still in a charged state from the training. Faint electricity crackled across Lina's body. When she collided head-on with Kenji's upper half in that state, what happened? BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!! Lightning erupted in the corridor. A fire bucket placed near the corridor wall took a direct hit, and its contents sprayed up dramatically, raining down on Kenji's head. SPLASH!!!! A profound silence descended. Only the sound of dripping water echoed through the corridor. Kenji looked up at the stone ceiling while water dripped from his head. The stone ceiling offered no answers. "Huh?" Lina said. Lina was frozen. Her golden eyes had become perfect circles. "...So today was a direct-hit route," Kenji said. "It was outside the buffer formation! If it had been inside the training grounds, the buffer formation would have—" Lina said. "Never mind," Kenji said. It was nihilistic. He had to get to the council chamber, and he was soaked from head to toe. His clothes absorbed water and grew heavy. The fabric of his combat uniform clung to his body. "I'm so sorry, Kenji-san, I'm really sorry, let me get you a change of clothes right away—" Lina said. "There's no time. I'll go like this," Kenji said. "Like this?!" Lina said. "Like this," Kenji said. Kenji brushed his water-soaked bangs back once and headed toward the council chamber. A squelching sound echoed through the corridor. This was his fourth consecutive soaking. He was past being surprised. He'd gotten used to it. He hadn't wanted to get used to it, but he had. --- The council chamber already had Celia, the supply master, and the medical director seated. The medical director—a middle-aged woman who oversaw treatment of the fortress's wounded and management of medicines, responsible for reporting on soldier casualties and the limits of healing in council—had her eyes on the meeting notes in front of her. And Gaius was there. The moment Kenji opened the door and entered, the first gaze to meet his was Gaius's. He was a composed older man. Salt-and-pepper black hair, calm eyes, something of a scholarly air. He looked at Kenji's soaked form for just a second, showed no particular change in expression, and turned his gaze forward again. Celia looked at Kenji for a moment. Her gaze moved from top to bottom, quietly. Soaked combat uniform. Water-heavy fabric accentuating the lines of his body. The next instant she was facing forward, her expression unchanged. Only—Gaius quietly observed the brevity of that pause. Kenji sat in a seat at the end. Water seeped into the chair. It was unpleasant, but he needed to focus now. Celia spoke. "Gaius, I'd like you to explain the matter of independently collecting and storing the fortress's erosion data," Celia said. It was matter-of-fact. The tone was closer to confirmation than interrogation. Gaius showed no sign of disturbance. Not a trace. In a composed manner, he spoke in a calm voice. "I will explain. But first, let me state my conclusion. The erosion cannot be stopped," Gaius said. The air in the room congealed for just a moment. Erosion—the phenomenon where Void, anomalous entities seeping from the dimensional rift of the otherworld, gradually rewrote the very laws of this world. The Fortress of Dawn stood at the front lines of this, existing to prevent the expansion of erosion. And the fortress's veteran surveyor had just said it "cannot be stopped." "This is the conclusion I reached after three years of investigation. The otherworldly erosion—the phenomenon where Void seeping from the dimensional rift rewrites the world's laws—is not something to be stopped by human power. Therefore, I judged that we should stand on the side that can utilize it," Gaius said. The moment those words fell, the supply master's chair made a sound: "creak." The supply master shifted his weight backward, and that single sound from the chair echoed through the co