Black light seeped continuously from the device. A low groaning filled the underground space——seven hundred years since the seal had begun to fray, perhaps this place had been making that sound all along. Yui checked her remaining cognitive capacity. Thirty percent. Like water in a cup leaking slowly through a crack in the bottom. This was all she had to work with. "I'm confirming the procedure." Ratharis turned his gaze while keeping his arms crossed. His golden eyes glowed quietly within the black light of the device. The sword scar on his left cheek cast a shadow. "I'll raise my right hand just before I open the passage. Once you see that, step through without hesitation. That's all." "How long before the signal?" "One or two seconds. Any longer and it will close." Ratharis nodded once. It was simple. He asked no unnecessary questions. Once confirmation was done, he would move——that was the kind of person he was, Yui had come to understand over these past few days. Hanne raised her hand from behind the rocks. Stone dust still clung to her emerald hair. "Um, should I wait here?" "Don't move." "Understood. I'm rooting for you." No one responded. Yui stood before the device. Syntactic strings filled her entire field of vision——code assembled by seven systemic-level syntacticians from seven hundred years ago. The spell that had sealed Nox Regalia during the Sealing War. Now the reference point in its circulation loop had shifted, and excess energy was leaking outward. (Open a path with a localized patch. That's all.) Her first attempt was kept simple. She selected the single point where the syntactic density of the corruption was thinnest, concentrated her focus there, and inserted a debug. Just enough width for one person to pass through. Just for an instant. A string of light spread from her fingertips. Within the black light, a thin gap began to form. About a meter in diameter——it opened. She raised her right hand. Ratharis burst forward. The corruption contracted in recoil, and a mass of black light exploded outward from the side. Ratharis was sent flying toward the wall. A heavy sound echoed through the underground space. The shoulder of his silver armor was charred black, wisps of smoke rising from it. Dust swirled as Ratharis slowly got to his feet. He brushed the charred section with his hand in silence——showing no sign of pain. Once he finished, he turned toward Yui. "The timing was off." Hanne's voice came from behind the rocks. "Wow, he really flew." "Be quiet." It was immediate. His voice was emotionless, but that made it all the more commanding. Hanne quickly withdrew behind the rocks. Yui maintained the debug while catching her breath. Her cognitive capacity was depleting faster than expected. But there was something she had to confirm. "Are you alright?" "No problem. Next time I'll step through a bit sooner after the signal." "...By the way, your armor is scorched." "Don't worry about it." It had to hurt. But this person showed absolutely nothing of it on his face——Yui already knew that about him. He wasn't angry. He hadn't given up. He was simply thinking about the next step. That speed of switching gears was strangely reassuring. (For the second attempt, I'll change the approach.) Yui calculated in her head. A localized patch meant the corruption's resistance was too fast. The passage would close before Ratharis could reach the device. If that was the case——she had no choice but to attempt a debug that corrected the reference point shift of the entire sealing syntax at once. Because the scale was larger, the passage would be wider too. She could buy a little more time. The problem was the cognitive capacity consumption if she did that. She knew there was a risk of overload. She might lose consciousness. But small patches wouldn't reach far enough. She knew that too. "I'm changing my approach for the second attempt." "How?" "I'll correct the reference point of the entire sealing syntax at once. Because the scale is larger——there's a possibility I'll collapse midway." Ratharis looked at Yui for one second. His golden eyes were checking her. His gaze was unreadable, but Yui could tell it wasn't an appraisal or condemnation. It was simply a look trying to understand the situation. "Can you touch the device before you collapse?" "That depends on your judgment. Once I give the signal, run without hesitation." "Understood." Three words. That was enough. Yui turned back to face the device. She began reading the seven-hundred-year-old syntax again. Inside the circulation loop——the reference point had shifted in two places from its original position. That was the root cause of the sealing energy losing its destination and leaking outward. She would simultaneously write those two places back to their original positions. Syntactic strings filled her vision. Within the design left by the systemic-level syntacticians from seven hundred years ago, Yui flowed in her own "corrections." This was legacy code refactoring in Earth terms——the people who created it were gone, documentation was fragmentary, but the code still ran, and she had to fix it without breaking it. She felt her cognitive capacity being shaved away. But she saw it. The moment the reference point returned to its original position——the corruption thinned further. A space opened around the device where Ratharis could run through. She raised her right hand. Ratharis burst forward. This time there was no hesitation. He ran in a straight line through the black light——and touched both hands to the activation mechanism at the base of the device. A dull light ran across the entire device. A low vibration sound shook the underground space. The syntactic inscriptions carved into the walls lit up one by one. It was the sound of the seal that had been stopped for seven hundred years slowly, steadily beginning to move again. (It connected——) At that same moment, something shattered in her head. Trying to witness the completion of the debug correction——the instant her cognitive capacity exceeded zero, she felt it. The light strings at the edge of her vision began disappearing all at once. The sensation in her feet grew distant. Without even noticing her knees touching the floor, her body tilted forward. She felt someone rushing toward her. Just before she fell, her arm was grabbed. "Yui." A voice came at her ear. It was Ratharis's voice. He was calling her by name. He had never done that before, and yet he was calling her name. ——With only that recognition, Yui lost consciousness completely. --- From behind the rocks, Hanne had witnessed it all. Ratharis caught Yui and knelt on the floor, checking her breathing and pulse. His expression had returned to its usual composure. The tone from moments ago was gone. It was his normal face, the one after emotions had been wrung out. Hanne watched in silence for a while, but couldn't help herself. "Your Highness, just now——" "What?" "Your way of calling her changed." Ratharis answered without even waiting a second. "It was your imagination." It was too quick. Hanne thought, "Ah, this is definitely not imagination," but wisely said nothing. Instead, she quietly spread out her bundle of parchment and began reviewing her copies of the characters carved into the underground walls. Looking at the Highness's face made her feel like she might get scolded. The wall inscriptions continued to emit a stable light. --- She didn't know how much time had passed. The first thing to return was sound. The silence unique to underground spaces——the groaning of the corruption from outside was gone. Next, the cold of the stone floor transmitted through her back. The presence of someone nearby, very close. Yui opened her eyes. The underground space was quiet. The wall inscriptions emitted a gentle golden light. The black light that had been seeping out before was nowhere to be found. She understood that the seal's reactivation was complete. Ratharis, who had been leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, looked at her. Their eyes met. "Is your cognitive capacity returning?" It was a practical question. A voice without emotion, a status check. Yui put her hand to her head. "Give me a moment." She checked her mind. The sensation of cognitive capacity was gradually returning. Still somewhat hazy from the overload aftereffects. But consciousness had returned. She could move. The problem was elsewhere. (I collapsed from sleep deprivation——that much I understand. But——) She tried to trace her memories and stopped. She remembered things before collapsing. An error log scrolling endlessly on a monitor. Half-drunk coffee. A colleague's voice. But——nothing after that. What she was looking at just before collapsing, what she was doing, why she came to this other world——that part was completely hollow. "...Something's wrong." "What is?" "Some of my memories are missing." Saying it aloud made her realize the weight of that fact anew. Her memories had been erased by the debug overload——that's what happened. Hanne looked up from her parchment and leaned in to look. Her mismatched eyes——purple on the left, gold on the right——clouded with concern. "Are you okay?" "From my perspective, it's not that large a gap." Ratharis asked in a quiet voice. "How much did you lose?" "My memories from just before the transfer. I know I collapsed during an all-nighter work session. But what I was looking at just before I collapsed——that's gone." Ratharis was silent for several seconds, thinking. "In other words," There was a slight pause. "The clue to knowing why you came here has been erased." "That would be the case." Silence fell between them. It wasn't awkward, Yui thought. They were silently accepting it as a shared problem——that kind of silence. It definitely hadn't existed a few days ago. Hanne hesitantly raised her hand. "Um, can I ask now?" "What?" "Will your memories come back?" "I don't know." She answered honestly. Whether memory loss from overload was reversible was something she didn't know even with this world's syntactician knowledge, and Yui herself didn't know. It went against her nature to claim knowledge of unknowns. "I see." Hanne's face looked a little sad, but she quickly switched gears. She gathered up her bundle of parchment and stood. "Let's head to the surface. Now that the corruption is gone, it should be safe." --- When they emerged from the vertical shaft to the surface, the sky was vast. The northern direction was no longer black. Pale morning light spread across it, with only traces of corruption remaining——blackened and warped ground, half-collapsed house walls, scorched fields. Yet the corruption itself was not there. Light wasn't crawling. Space wasn't distorting. It had stopped. "It stopped, didn't it?" Hanne said quietly. Her voice was slightly different from her usual tone. It was her serious voice, Yui thought. This girl had that kind of switch. "It stopped." From the edge of the village, human voices began to be heard. The evacuated villagers were returning. Someone was crying. Someone was calling out names. An elderly man stood motionless in front of a half-destroyed house. Yet living voices were there. Yui stood before the broken stone wall. There were things that couldn't be saved. That was a fact. Half the village had been consumed before the corruption could be stopped. Villagers had disappeared. That fact wouldn't change. She had managed to stop it, but not everything in time——both of those things remained in the landscape of this village now. Yui simply looked at it. Some distance away, Dietrich was organizing the villagers. Despite being close to seventy, his voice was calm. His pale blue eyes took in the surroundings, and he spoke to each person individually. So this is what a village chief is, Yui thought. No