There's still about an hour until dawn. Yui gripped the edge of the broken window frame of the abandoned cottage, peering into the darkness outside with narrowed eyes. The line of torches she'd seen at the end of the previous night still lined the ridge of that hill—no, there were more of them now. Clearly more than before. The river of light seemed to be slowly encircling the village. (Three directions. Only the east is open.) Yui drew a map in her mind. The abandoned cottage was on the northern edge of the village. The south was blocked by the line of torches. The west opened onto farmland with no cover. The north was forest—but the villagers had mentioned yesterday in a frightened tone that thirty kilometers north lay the Lis Tsone, an active erosion zone where space warped and any creature that approached disappeared. The north was out of the question. Only the east had no light yet. "I'll scout first before moving." She murmured quietly and summoned the syntax for flame. Since yesterday's explosion accident, she'd been handling parameters carefully. This time she set the combustion limit low and the size small. A flame about the size of a ping-pong ball quietly materialized from her fingertip. She manipulated it with her gaze and consciousness, sliding it out through the window. A reconnaissance eye—when she'd incorporated brightness and field-of-view variables into the syntax, the surroundings had begun to reach her vision hazily through the flame. The fruit of last night's trial and error. The small flame drifted slowly around the village's edge. Past the edge of the farmland, beyond the stone wall, beside the storage shed—moving with a soft, fluffy motion unlike the torchlight. The map updated. (There are people on the eastern farm road...) She saw it clearly. Two soldiers carrying torches stood at the entrance to the farm road. She couldn't make out the color of their armor in the darkness, but their regular spacing and stance were those of trained soldiers. The east was blocked too. (All directions, then.) Yui extinguished the flame. She returned to the cottage and leaned her back against the wall. Fatigue seemed to crawl up from her ankles. She hadn't eaten anything since yesterday. Each time she used syntax magic, she could increasingly sense that something called "thought capacity" was being consumed. That vague heaviness at the back of her head—that feeling was becoming clearer. But sitting here wouldn't change anything. "I have to move." Seto Yui stood up and pushed open the cottage door. The air before dawn was cold, and dew on the grass wet her feet. Her white shirt dampened slightly in the mist. Keeping her gaze toward the east, she crouched low and walked along the stone wall. At the corner of the stone wall— "Don't move." A low voice, and a sword point thrust toward Yui's nose. A soldier. A large man in armor stood with sword drawn, looking down at her. His face was hidden by his helmet, but only his eyes gleamed in the darkness. Yui raised both hands. She retreated. One step, two steps, three steps—the stone wall pressed against her back. Her escape route was gone. "A rogue practitioner." The soldier's voice was matter-of-fact. Emotionless. Just doing his job. "We confirmed you moving within the encirclement. If you come quietly, it'll be easy." (If I go quietly, execution is guaranteed.) Yui's mind quickly assessed the situation. If it was just this one soldier, she might be able to startle him with a flame projectile and escape. But if he shouted, it would all be over. She'd have to startle him and run at the same time— Then she heard footsteps from behind. Hoofbeats. The soldier's expression changed. He straightened his posture slightly. Yui turned around. From the morning mist, a horse approached slowly. The rider dismounted and walked through the mist—and the moment Yui saw that figure, she had an intuition. This person was in a different class entirely. What caught her eye first was the silver armor. Even in the dim light before dawn, it gleamed dully—a breastplate and pauldrons of exquisite craftsmanship. Geometric patterns thinly etched along each seam of the armor—perhaps decorations modeled after syntax—indicated this was the finest work in this world. The figure was tall, over 180 centimeters. The gait was silent. Almost no footsteps. Yet it conveyed absolute certainty that the ground was being firmly stepped on—a walk with perfectly centered balance. The face emerged from the mist. Silver short hair with several red streaks catching the morning light. Golden eyes—a beautiful color, Yui's brain recorded irrelevantly—fixed in a straight line on her. A small scar on the left cheek. Perhaps in their early twenties. The features were refined, but there was no hint of a smile. The expression moved minimally, making emotions difficult to read. Not angry. Not hateful. Simply working. That was far more frightening than anger or killing intent. "Syntax registration system violation. Unregistered syntax use confirmed." A low voice that carried well. Perfectly logical, without a shred of unnecessary emotion. "Under Article Seven of the Ordina Kingdom Legal Code, unregistered syntax users are subject to immediate detention. Final judgment is deferred to the Royal Syntax Institute. —Resistance will end this here." "Um," Yui's mouth moved reflexively. "I'm not from this world, so I didn't know about this registration system from the start, but does that still count as a violation?" The golden eyes narrowed slightly. "Sophistry." "It's the truth." Silence flowed for several seconds. Ratharis observed Yui's face without emotion. A gaze like appraising goods—but not contemptuous. The eyes of someone collecting data. "I will execute judgment according to law." Yui's resolve hardened. (If I'm captured here, I'll end without understanding anything. I absolutely won't accept that.) She constructed a flame projectile. She assembled the variables at three times normal speed, set the firing angle, and deployed a three-shot syntax simultaneously. Not fast, but— She fired. Three flame projectiles flew toward Ratharis. The first was deflected by his sword. Flame scattered. The second was similarly deflected. The third was—struck down with the flat of the blade. (Fast!?) Yui's thought that "the magic didn't work" was a misunderstanding. More accurately: "it was over before the magic reached him." Ratharis hadn't interfered with the flame syntax. He'd simply, purely through sword speed and precision, physically deflected them. He'd processed them before the syntax even activated. (This is fundamentally a different class!) Yui deployed a wind wall. She layered air pressure in front of herself to create a barrier—an applied syntax she'd constructed last night, referencing the fireplace's air-flow syntax. Ratharis didn't stop. He sidestepped around the edge of the wall with barely half a step and closed in. Fast. Too fast. Yui tried to deploy a water blade—but before she could, her right wrist was grabbed. A firm, powerful grip. Her syntax control broke. The water blade dissipated. Yui tried to retreat as she was, but she was a moment too slow noticing the soft earth beneath her feet. She slipped and fell to her knees. Rolling onto her back in the mud, she found herself on the ground. A sword point was thrust at her throat. The cold sensation of steel touched her neck. (My thought capacity—more than half of it's blown away. My head is heavy.) It really was heavy. Looking up at Ratharis's golden eyes through the mist, Yui thought that. Frustration. Fear came second to frustration. She'd come to this world, discovered she could use magic, but without understanding anything, without finding any answers, was it going to end here? That was— Deeply frustrating. Ratharis was opening his mouth when it happened. The ground turned black. From beneath Ratharis's feet, black light crept out. Not light, exactly—shadow. Spreading like ink dissolving in water, changing the color of the ground. A voice came from behind. One of the soldiers said, "The ground—" and The voice cut off. Yui saw it. That soldier—from the feet up—fading away. No time to scream. No sign of suffering. Simply, quietly, like sand blown by wind, existence vanished. Armor, sword, nothing remained. Not a single grain of sand. (It disappeared.) There was a moment when her mind went completely white. Ratharis swung his sword down—trying to cut the black light. The blade passed through it. It couldn't physically interfere. Yui reflexively applied a flame syntax. It didn't work. The black light didn't budge. It ignored the flame and continued spreading. Their gazes met. Ratharis spoke. "I acknowledge a temporary joint operation." His tone was matter-of-fact. Emotions unreadable. But "acknowledge" carried a nuance—that only one side had a choice, and the other's actions were already predetermined. Yui received that clearly. "I value my life, so I'll comply." "Run to the eastern forest." She ran. Standing up covered in mud, not caring that mud dripped from her slacks, she ran at full speed across the farm road. Ratharis was ahead, and the two soldiers at the farm road entrance were confused by the black light—she slipped through that gap. While running, Yui tried to confirm her position. She deployed a coordinate syntax. Trying to acquire her location in the variables—wait. "...There are three X-axes," she said quietly while running. "What," Ratharis said. Ratharis kept his gaze on environmental safety checks while running. His breathing was barely disturbed. Yui's shoulders were already heaving. "When I tried to acquire coordinates, the X-axis variable branched into three—in a three-dimensional coordinate system you'd have three axes for vertical, horizontal, and height, but each is being processed as an independent X-axis—" "There are six directions," Ratharis said. "Huh?" "Heaven, earth, east, west, north, south. Six directions." Yui processed those words while running. It took three seconds. "Heaven and earth aren't directions!" Her voice got too loud. Ratharis glanced at her—his emotionless golden eyes looked at her for one second, then returned to checking ahead. "In this world, they are." "Seriously!?" "Run seriously." She ran. While running, confusion swirled in Yui's mind. Heaven and earth as directions. Up and down as directions. So this world's coordinate system was six-dimensional... no, that wasn't it. Space had six axes... ? Did an up-down axis exist independently in three-dimensional space? Mathematically, how would that even— Crack—a tree branch grazed her head. A stone thrown by one of the pursuing soldiers, probably. Yui reflexively ducked and paused her thinking. They burst into the forest. Evergreen broadleaf trees covered the canopy, and visibility suddenly darkened. Roots jutted from the ground, making running difficult. Ratharis didn't slow his pace. Yui followed, stumbling over tree roots. Fifty meters. A hundred meters. Two hundred meters. Ratharis stopped. "The pursuit has ceased." Looking back, torchlight was visible at the forest entrance, but there was no sign of them following inside. The black light remained in the direction of the village, so they probably couldn't move until the confusion settled. Yui leaned against a tree, breathing heavily. Her entire body was drenched in sweat. Her mud-covered knees ached. More than half her thought capacity had been consumed in the syntax battle. Only her feet felt oddly sharp, the unevenness of the root-filled forest floor transmitting through her soles. Ratharis showed no sign of labored breathing. He leaned his back against a tree, crossed his arms, and observed Yui. The amount of information in his eyes hadn't changed since the erosion began. He'd confirmed surroundings while running, judged escape routes, and continued analyzing the situati