The papers in the drawer had increased. Kenji had confirmed it before sleeping last night—or rather, it would be more accurate to say he hadn't slept at all. Gaius's words, the tension in the council chamber, his own back reflected in the foresword's vision. They passed through his mind in sequence, and consciousness finally faded only when morning light began streaming through the window. The fortress dining hall "Sumigarama" was filled with morning aromas. The smell of forest mushroom stew simmering and the savory fragrance of baked black bread mingled together, soaking into the stone walls. The sound of Head Chef Hana stirring a large pot continued in steady rhythm. Kenji settled into a corner seat, cradling the soup bowl in both hands. It was warm. Just that was enough to push some of the clutter in his head to the edges. "Kenji-san!!" A water-colored head burst into his field of vision. Lina sat down beside him with a tray, her expression as if nothing had happened. Her golden eyes sparkled. The council chamber yesterday, Gaius, everything Kenji had been turning over in his mind all night—Lina's brightness passed right through all that weight. "The quartermaster told me everything!! About the council chamber!!" "...I see." "Everything!! Celia-sama stood up, and Gaius-san stood up, and you stood up, and the quartermaster stood up too!!" "Well, that's roughly how it went." "The quartermaster even demonstrated standing up at the same time!! Should I try it too!!" Lina started to rise from her chair. Kenji quickly grabbed her sleeve. "Don't." "But it really conveys the atmosphere!!" "I don't need it conveyed." "The quartermaster said he stood up multiple times!! He said the impact increased each time!!" "I know. You don't need to demonstrate it." "I was already starting to stand." "Stop." When Kenji pulled Lina's sleeve a bit more firmly, she reluctantly sat back down. Her golden eyes still held lingering regret about the demonstration. Dangerous. Really dangerous. Just then, a young soldier approached quickly from the corridor. A relatively new face in the fortress, and Kenji was searching his memory for the name when the soldier caught his foot badly on a step in the corridor. Crash!! "Oh!" The soldier lurched forward. Kenji reflexively stood and reached out his arm—his body moved before he could use the foresword—and at that moment. Bzzzzt!! A small discharge that Lina had apparently been practicing with struck Kenji's right shoulder directly. He wasn't soaked through. Just his right shoulder's clothing dampened slightly. "My accuracy is improving!! Today it was just the right shoulder!!" "...That's not really something to celebrate, is it?" "But yesterday it was my whole body!!" "Please don't hit my left shoulder." "Then should I hit it to balance things out!!" "Don't hit me at all!!!" The supported soldier bowed apologetically while hesitantly opening his mouth. "Um... I have a message from Misha-sama. She's asking if Satou Kenji-sama could come to the medical wing..." "Understood. I'll go right away. Thank you." The soldier started to leave, then turned back. "Do you two... have things like this happen often?" Kenji paused for just a moment. "...Quite often." He had no choice but to be honest. --- The medical wing "Chamber of Silence" was, true to its name, silent. The stone walls were thick, blocking out almost all the fortress's noise. There were no patients at the moment, and thin morning light slanted through narrow windows, creating long shadows on the floor. The dry scent of medicinal herbs drifted through the air. Bottles of medicine made from concentrated healing tree sap lined the shelves. Misha was waiting in a chair. Her silver hair gleamed quietly in the light. Her clouded eyes didn't move, but her face turned toward Kenji the moment he entered. Whether she could tell by footsteps or by sensing his presence—Misha's perception always felt more certain than what could be seen. "Please, sit." Her voice was calm. Kenji lowered himself into the chair across from her. Misha said nothing for a while. The shaft of light from the window barely moved across the floor. Kenji looked at the back of his own hand—the small burn scar on his right hand. With this hand, he had received the visions from the foresword. "I wanted to talk about something called the resonance hypothesis." "...I'm listening." Misha began to speak slowly. About the foresword as a gift. About the possibility that Kenji's gift wasn't "sensing branching points of possibility" but rather "interfering with the branching points themselves." There were parts of Elgaria's world laws where cracks had formed due to the Void's erosion. The hypothesis was that Kenji's existence might be resonating with those unstable parts, amplifying their fluctuations. "...So in other words, my being here makes the world even more unstable?" Misha's gaze fell to Kenji's hands. The light from the window didn't move. "I cannot deny it." Three syllables were quietly absorbed by the stone walls. Kenji received those words somewhere in his body. Not in his chest or stomach, but deeper—in that place where the sensation of "I'm worthless anyway" accumulated over forty years lay dormant. Misha's first words came back to him. "The world is slightly startled just by you breathing." That phrase and "I cannot deny it" overlapped in this room now. Silence continued. Heavy silence that lasted three lines. —Then. "Kenji-saaaan!! Are you there—!!" A water-colored typhoon's voice came from beyond the wall. Misha blinked, ever so slightly. Kenji looked up to the heavens. The heavy silence dispersed in an instant. The door opened and Lina burst in with both hands extended forward. A bandage was wrapped around her right wrist, but it was clearly wrapped incorrectly. "I wanted you to rewrap my bandage!! I did it myself and tied it too tight and now my hand won't move!!" "Why did you wrap it yourself?" "Misha-san wasn't there!" "She's here now, isn't she?" "I came back and found her!!" Misha stood and came before Lina. Her movement was quiet and certain. Her silver fingers touched Lina's right wrist bandage gently. "Could you hear through the wall?" Lina paused for a moment. "I heard everything." Kenji looked up to the heavens once more. Misha slowly began unwrapping Lina's bandage. The cloth came undone, one layer, two layers. At the third layer—something fell. Something small and brown, somewhat dried. All three froze completely for several seconds. A forest mushroom lay on the floor, rolling slightly. "...I dropped it during dinner yesterday." "Why is it in your bandage?" "I didn't notice." "How could you not notice!!" Lina began vigorously defending herself with "But forest mushrooms are pretty thin!!" Kenji put his hand to his forehead. Misha quietly rewrapped the bandage, and her mouth seemed to move slightly—she might have been smiling. She might not have been. Misha's expression was always difficult to judge. When the treatment of Lina's wrist was finished, Misha spoke quietly while keeping her hand lightly on Lina's. "When you're nearby, there's a tendency for the laws to stabilize." Lina looked at her own hands. Her golden eyes blinked in confusion. "Huh? Me?" "...Yes. I don't know why. But that's the tendency." Lina looked at her hands again. Her right wrist with the newly wrapped bandage. Kenji heard those words and started to say something—but stopped. Misha, Lina, and himself. There was a strange equilibrium between the three of them. Weight and lightness coexisting in the same space, that feeling. Kenji simply said "...I see" and closed his mouth. --- In the afternoon, Kenji returned to his room and opened the drawer. Folded papers were stacked there. Fragments of foresword visions he'd been recording—crumbling fortress stone walls, Celia's sword stained with blood, Lina's crying face, images from the document room. He confirmed each one and laid them out on his desk. Outside the window, the branches of the silent forest swayed in the wind. Faint voices came from the fortress training grounds. It was an ordinary afternoon. "I cannot deny it" surfaced once more. Kenji stared at the papers. For a long time, he stared. What Misha said was a hypothesis. Not confirmed fact. But it wasn't denied either. If it were true that his existence might be amplifying the world's instability— For the first time, he seriously considered leaving. His belongings were few. He had nothing to begin with in this world. He had no destination. But the destination didn't matter. The point was to leave here— But he didn't burn the papers. Strangely, his hand wouldn't move. The corridor at dusk was filled with low light. As Kenji descended the stone steps of the Dawn Tower, he was aware that his mind still wasn't organized. He had no answer, yet his body was moving. He knew this was his bad habit. When he turned a corner in the corridor, he passed Celia carrying a stack of documents. Her silver hair caught the evening light and gleamed faintly. Her 175-centimeter frame fit perfectly within the corridor's width. Her ice-blue eyes looked at Kenji for just a moment, and only a terse report was exchanged. "The council chamber records are with the quartermaster. Look them over." "Understood." Celia passed by. Kenji followed her back with his eyes for three steps. In the evening light, the outline of her firm shoulders stood out. Her posture was straight, her gait without hesitation. Kenji thought she walked the same way regardless of any situation in the fortress. While he couldn't quite grasp the meaning of that back, something in his chest beat with an unsettled rhythm. "Kenji-san, you were looking at Celia-sama's back just now, weren't you?" Kenji turned around to find Lina peeking out from the shadows of the corridor. "...Why are you there?" "It's a coincidence." "You just happen to be in that position?" "You were looking for three steps." "..." "You were counting." Kenji fell completely silent. As Lina was about to continue with "Three steps is such a perfect amount!!", Kenji began walking down the corridor without saying anything. Lina's footsteps followed. --- Night. The room's light flickered softly. Kenji sat at his desk, holding the folded papers in his hand. The papers he'd laid out during the day, then folded again and returned to the drawer. He'd taken them out once more and was holding them. He considered leaving. This time more concretely. His belongings really were minimal. Thirty-five kilometers southeast from the fortress, if he could reach the town of Cregel, then from there—no, he couldn't think beyond that. But he could think about leaving here. "I cannot deny it" came again. The conclusion that "it would be better if I wasn't here" landed before any counterargument. He'd lived that way for forty years. When he realized he might be causing harm to something, the answer that came first was always that one. His body moved toward that answer before he could think. Footsteps sounded in the corridor. Slow footsteps. They stopped in front of Kenji's room. A faint sound of touching the sliding door. The wood of the door creaked slightly, a sensation that transmitted through the room. Cold air from the corridor crept in through the door's gap—and within that cold air was something like the body heat density of whoever was out there. Someone was definitely there. Two seconds. Those two seconds felt strangely long. Kenji couldn't stand up. Holding the papers in his hand, he listened to the presence in the corridor. He almost opened the door—but didn't. He thought about what might be beyond if he opened it—then stopped thinking. He simply felt that body heat density existing beyond the door. Eventually the footsteps moved again. Receding. Kenji carefully opened the sliding door. In the corridor's corner, Lina's figu