The light from the device turned white, consuming everything. It wasn't just her vision. Sound vanished. The rustling of leaves in the Emerald Twilight Forest, the footsteps of imperial soldiers, the presence pressing in from beyond the stone door—all of it, gone in an instant. Raid realized his mana sense had been painted over only after the whiteness receded. Raid opened his eyes. Stone floor beneath his feet. Cold. Remnants of light still flickered at the edges of his vision. The pale blue scar on his left arm—the mark of damage from mana fusion—held a faint warmth. "—Where is this place..." Aira's voice came from nearby. To Raid's right, close enough that their shoulders almost touched. The sensation of her arm, which had been gripping his until moments ago, still lingered in his memory. Three people. Confirming just that much, Raid surveyed the interior. A circular space. Perhaps fifteen meters in diameter. High ceiling, stone walls carved with geometric patterns. Similar to the designs in the Gray Corridor, but denser. More intricate, deeper layers. Despite no visible light source, the stone itself emitted a faint phosphorescent glow, leaving the room dimly illuminated. Calva wasn't here. Golt wasn't here. None of the villagers. Only three remained in a space where six had been. "I don't sense Calva and the others," Aira said, already drawing her sword. Her reddish-brown hair was disheveled, her green eyes scanning the surroundings swiftly. The movements of a knight. Her body moved before her emotions could. Threat assessment, escape routes, the position of those to protect. Once that confirmation was complete—Aira's sword hand relaxed slightly. There was no hostile presence anywhere. "We've been moved, then," Raid said quietly. "Everyone should have been in the same place when the device activated. Why only the three of us?" Aira asked. Raid had no answer. He looked at his own hands. The heat in the scar on his left arm hadn't faded. The "movement toward filling" he'd felt since entering the Emerald Twilight Forest was far more pronounced here. Not depletion, but a sensation of something being replenished. Despite the exhaustion from their flight, something deep in his mana circuits was resonating quietly. Lilia approached the wall. "These patterns are a little different from the ones in the Gray Corridor," she said. Her silver short bob stopped before the geometric designs. Both hands still held the bundle of specimens and stones she hadn't released even during their escape. Her fingertip traced one of the patterns on the wall surface gently. "Same system, but it feels older. Different layers," Lilia continued. "You know a lot about this," Raid said. "I'm not really knowledgeable. I just... feel it somehow—" Lilia's voice trailed off. Her fingertip went still on the pattern. Her odd eyes—one pale purple, the other a faint amber—took on an expression of looking into the distance. One second. Two seconds. Then Lilia's mouth moved. Syllables emerged. Not so much language as a sequence of sounds. Neither the imperial tongue nor the demon race's vernacular. Something older, with a sharp, angular resonance. As her finger traced the wall's patterns, Lilia unconsciously gave voice to those sounds. Aira gripped her sword tighter. "Lilia," she said. Lilia turned around, looking startled. The expression of someone who had just realized they'd been making sounds. "...Huh?" Lilia said. "What language was that?" Aira asked. "I don't know. The words just came out," Lilia replied. "That's not an acceptable answer," Aira said. Her response was immediate. Her voice was controlled, but something lay beneath it. Confusion, perhaps, or something else. Lilia tilted her head slightly. "But I really don't know. I was looking at the wall's writing, and the sounds just came naturally," she said. "Can you read it?" Raid asked. His voice was low and straightforward. He wasn't trying to suppress his surprise. It was unusual. Aira had rarely seen this old man surprised without wrapping it in self-deprecating humor or disguising it with complaints. He simply asked, "Can you read it?" Lilia turned back to the wall. This time, she traced the pattern's outline slowly and deliberately. After a brief pause—syllables emerged again. More composed than before. The connection between sounds carried something like the structure of meaning. "I can read it. I don't know why, though," Lilia said. "That's not an acceptable—" Aira began. "—answer, I know, Aira," Lilia finished, her expression perfectly composed. Aira paused. The unexpected response delayed her prepared rebuttal by a beat. Raid let out a low laugh. He didn't vocalize it, but his mouth moved. "What does it say?" he asked. Lilia returned to a serious expression and began tracing the wall again. This time slowly, carefully. Syllables continued, broke off, continued again. She was reading at a pace that suggested she was trying to understand what she was voicing as she spoke it. The air in the room changed slightly. The geometric patterns on the wall shifted their light in response to Lilia's voice. The uniform phosphorescent glow that had filled the space grew slightly brighter only around where her fingertip touched. Lilia herself didn't seem to notice. She simply traced the patterns and wove the sounds. Aira noticed. And then—following the knight's habit of damage assessment, her gaze naturally shifted toward Raid. In the dim light of the ruin, Raid's profile received the light quietly. Aira's gaze stopped there. She'd noticed this change since entering the Emerald Twilight Forest. With each run, each use of mana, he changed bit by bit. The exhaustion faded, his movements became smoother, the wrinkles on his face grew shallower. But what she confirmed now at close range in the device's glow—it had progressed one step further. It was clearly different from before they'd passed through the Gray Corridor. It no longer matched the face she'd seen that morning before parting with Calva and the others. The traces from three days ago had dissolved somewhere. Aira couldn't speak. She'd directed her gaze as damage assessment, as status confirmation. That was her intention. But what entered her vision now quietly exceeded the range that a knight's vocabulary could process. She'd tried to confirm and couldn't. She hadn't meant to look, but she was looking. The moment that recognition was born, Aira's fingertips—though there was nothing to touch—moved slightly. The memory of gripping that arm remained in her fingers. It was at that exact moment that Aira was about to avert her gaze to the wall. She noticed the small device in the center of the room. It hadn't been visible from their position near the wall. On a pedestal roughly fifty centimeters in diameter sat a stone structure carved with intricate geometric patterns. A small subsidiary device bearing the same design as the large apparatus that had been in the deepest part of the Gray Corridor. Its core was now—beginning to emit a faint glow. The light grew stronger in response to Lilia's recitation. And that light's direction—turned toward where Raid stood, growing stronger by one degree. Raid noticed. He slowly extended his right hand toward the device. He didn't touch it. He simply brought it closer. Just that— The pale blue scar on his left arm flared with light the same color as the device's glow. "—" Raid exhaled sharply, a sound that wasn't quite a voice. He withdrew his right hand and looked at his palm. From deep within his mana circuits came a "resonance" he'd never felt before. Different from the ambient mana in the Emerald Twilight Forest—the magical essence drifting through the air. Different from the spell systems he'd learned at the Luminous Mark Academy in the imperial capital. Something more primordial. Something older, like roots, resonating with him. For three years, his mana circuits had only moved in the direction of "depletion," rusted and worn. Now they moved in the direction of "being filled." Aira shifted her gaze to observe the device's reaction. And—on that same line of sight, Raid's face was there. In the ruin's light, his face had changed again. (One more step.) She was observing, but she was seeing. Aira quietly knew that the boundary between those two had almost ceased to function within her. The excuse of a knight's confirmation couldn't even work on herself anymore. She tried to cut her gaze away. She couldn't. The fact that she couldn't taught Aira something. Lilia stopped her recitation. She exhaled shortly and turned around. "That's one section. The general meaning is—" she began. Lilia looked at the two of them. The silver-haired girl with odd eyes looked at Aira for one second, at Raid for one second, then back at the stones in her own hands. Her expression showed she'd understood something, but she said nothing. That silence wasn't feigned ignorance. It was a choice to see and remain silent. "Keep going," Raid said quietly. "Sure thing," Lilia replied, turning back to the wall. Her voice was normal. Bright, unsophisticated, straightforward. In this heavy atmosphere, only Lilia could remain natural. Aira thought she understood the reason a little. Lilia's recitation resumed. Syllables linked together. The room's light flickered in a steady rhythm. Raid looked at his palm once more. His expression was quiet. Not surprise, not confusion, but something turned inward. As if he were calmly confirming what was happening within his own body. Then Raid spoke. "This device responded to my mana," he said. One sentence. Those words fell into the space between the three of them. Like a pebble dropped on still water, creating ripples. Aira tried to respond immediately. What did that mean? Why was it happening? What was its connection to the rejuvenation? The connection to the Gray Corridor's patterns? To Lilia being able to read the ancient language— There were too many questions to ask, and none of them came out. Her mouth opened and closed. A premonition spread before the words could take shape—that all of this was connected by a single thread. If she voiced it, something would change. This quiet would shatter. That sensation stopped Aira's mouth. Lilia tugged lightly on Raid's sleeve between recitations. "Are you really just a retired mage, mister?" she asked. There wasn't a shred of malice in it. A pure question. But that direct hit—quietly touched the foundation Raid had built over three years. "Just a retired mage in hiding." Living in a converted sheep shed in the village of Kazami, complaining about back pain, wrapping his former dignity in self-deprecation, living as nothing more than that for three years. Lilia's single statement, without sound, reached toward the bedrock of that identity. Raid said nothing. He didn't deflect with self-deprecating humor or create a forced smile. He simply looked at his hand. The scar on his left arm, faintly glowing in the device's light. The reason for his retirement three years ago. The time that had continued from there until today. He exhaled slowly, once. Aira felt the quality of that breath change. It was different from his usual breathing. She'd never seen Raid's silence without self-deprecation before. No bravado, no complaints, no irony—nothing emerged. Just looking at his hand, breathing quietly. That image moved something within Aira. The desire to protect had been there before. Something close to a knight's instinct toward those who stood beside her in battle. But what moved within Aira now was slightly different. Something gentler, more personal. To be beside him. Those words took shape within Aira, though they never became sound. She didn't voice them. She made no grand gesture, no meaningful look, nothing. Aira simply didn't change her position. She remained at Raid's side, close enough that their shoulders almost touched. T