White light disappeared. With a dull thud, Aira's body was slammed onto the grass. For a moment, nothing made sense. She looked at the sky. Gray clouds hung overhead. Not humid. The smell of dry grass. Wind swept across from the side. The roaring sound that had lingered in her ears gradually faded away. (…The eastern part of the empire.) She pushed herself up. Slowly. The burn mark running across her bare right shoulder stung as it touched the air. The shattered remains of her shoulder guard had been left on the floor of the ruined city. In their place, a red scar was etched beneath her coat. Aira remained on her knees, surveying the grassland. Dry grass stretched endlessly. Before the horizon, the gentle ridge of a low hill continued on. It was a familiar sight. Her body had already judged it to be terrain near the empire's frontier. It was probably quite far south of Kazamidai, but she knew the direction. She tried to stand. She put strength into her knees. Nothing happened. For several seconds, Aira remained sitting on the grass. It wasn't a matter of her body. Probably. Exhaustion was certainly there. Her feet, worn from walking through the ruined city, and her shoulder, bearing the burn marks of magical power, were both near their limits. But it was more than that. Something seared into the back of her eyelids was stopping her body from moving. The final scene she had seen in the white light. Lilia, on one knee, her face both crying and smiling. And then—Raid's face, watching her quietly with those black eyes from the throne. Her own right hand, unable to draw the sword even as it grasped the hilt. Her fingertips, cutting through empty air. Aira looked at her right hand. It was an ordinary hand. Calluses from sword training were hard at the base of her fingers. Her nails were cut short and even. Skin roughened by training. Nothing special about it—a knight's hand. But in that moment, she had not drawn her sword. If asked whether it was correct as a mission—Aira could not answer. It might not have been correct. But she couldn't think it was wrong either. Only that fact existed within her, quietly but certainly. (It was not loyalty to the mission.) The moment she thought that, something pulsed deep in her chest. A quiet, but definite heartbeat. An emotion that should have been processed using the logic of duty existed there in a form that didn't fit. Raid was dangerous. The man with black eyes, swallowed by the throne's memories. But his outline—his habit of sitting, the angle of his arm on the armrest, the way his coat hung—Aira's memory had carefully preserved each detail. That was not the amount of information necessary for a mission. The back of her eyes grew hot. Aira noticed it and was slightly surprised. She hadn't intended to cry. She couldn't quite explain the reason for crying either. But the heat was certainly there. Only the sound of grass swaying in the wind continued for a while. Then Aira stood up. Slowly, taking one deep breath. As she rose, she raised her voice toward the sky. It was more of a shout than a voice. Words came out even though she hadn't intended to form them. "…Those two idiots!" Her voice was swallowed by the grassland. It reached no one. But she hadn't meant for it to. It was simply—a release. Something that had been taut loosened slightly with that one cry. Aira stood for a while, steadying her ragged breathing while looking at the sky. The gray sky didn't change. The wind didn't change. Her right shoulder throbbed with a dull ache. She adjusted the folds of her coat and retied her disheveled reddish-brown long hair. The thin scar on her left cheek touched the cold wind. (I have to go.) The vague emotion still lingered deep in her chest. Unnamed, it remained there. But she understood she could move while carrying it. The time she had spent living as a knight had taught her at least that much. Aira turned her back to the east and walked toward the west. ──── Yoroigisagi Fortress—the eastern frontier outpost of the Imperial Knights' Yoroigisagi Knight Order, thirty kilometers southwest of Tourou Fort, a regular knight order garrison with stone defensive walls—appeared in the gray light before dusk when Aira's feet were covered in dust. She had run through fields and followed roads, though she couldn't say exactly how far she had walked. She was pressing cloth against the burn mark on her right shoulder, but it radiated heat with each movement. Her coat bore the marks of her shattered shoulder guard. Traces of dried blood remained near her left elbow. Two knight sentries crossed their spears and stepped forward. "Halt. Your identification—" Aira didn't stop. Without slowing her pace, she pulled out the advance unit insignia from inside her coat—a metal emblem indicating membership in the small elite unit the empire dispatched to the magical continent for intelligence gathering. The two sentries confirmed it as it caught the evening light with a faint glow, and they lowered their spears. Aira entered the fortress. Her footsteps echoed off the high ceiling as she walked down the stone corridor. The corridors of a regular knight order garrison were wider than those of Tourou Fort, with lights spaced evenly along the walls. The guards she passed paused briefly at the sight of her. Shattered shoulder guard, blood stains, dusty coat. If an advance unit member returned in this condition, such a glance was natural. "W-wait a moment! We need to process your arrival—" "Where is Vice-Commander Bector's office?" Aira asked as she walked. The guard answered, "North wing, second floor," and she was already heading toward the north wing. Hurried footsteps followed behind her. She turned a corner and climbed the stairs. At the end of the second-floor corridor was a wooden door. Nothing was written on it. But there was one guard standing on each side of the entrance. "For a meeting with the Vice-Commander—" Aira pushed the door open. The heavily oiled hinges made a heavy sound. The light from the window where the sun was setting, and a desk piled with documents. Beyond it, a man looked up from his papers. Bector appeared to be in his early thirties. Short, neatly trimmed dark brown hair. A well-defined face with sharp, narrow eyes. He wore the abbreviated uniform of the knight order, with the insignia on his shoulder indicating his rank as vice-commander. There was an overall sense of composure, and despite being in the middle of paperwork, he had a presence that tightened the atmosphere of the room. He saw Aira. His eyes took in everything in a single second. His body, which had begun to rise, quietly stopped. Aira knelt in the center of the room. The sound of her right knee touching the stone floor echoed softly in the quiet room. "Advance Unit Vice-Captain Aira. I request authorization for an expedition to the magical continent—the sealed continent to the empire's east where the ruins of the old civilization and the domain of the demon lord spread—and the formation of a demon lord subjugation force." She bowed her head. Her lustrous reddish-brown long hair flowed forward from her shoulders. "Vice-Commander! This person arrived without proper procedures—" "Everyone, leave," Bector said. His voice was low and brief. The guard's voice stopped. Multiple sets of footsteps withdrew down the corridor. The door closed. Silence fell. "Raise your head," Bector said. Aira lifted her head. Her green eyes looked directly at Bector. Bector stood before the desk, watching Aira. His eyes were difficult to read in terms of emotion. But there was no color of rejection. It was the kind of gaze that measured something. "I'm listening," Bector said. Just one word, then he pulled back his chair. Not to sit in it himself, but to place it before Aira as an offering. Aira understood it meant "stand." She stood and sat in the indicated chair. Then she spoke. The structure of the ruined city. The throne room. Memory imprints—an ancient sealing technique that poured the memories and soul remnants of the person who inscribed the spell into the magical circuits of whoever sat in the throne, eroding the user's consciousness through accumulation over multiple generations—had been carved in over many generations. The circumstances of Raid sitting on the throne. Black magical power. The disappearance of amber eyes. Lilia revealing her true nature. Forced transfer magic—a high-level spell that forcibly transported a target to a distant location by the caster's will. The entire sequence of events from Raid sitting on the throne until Aira was blown away from the ruined city, she recounted in order. Bector didn't interject once. He simply listened, his fingers interlaced on the desk. His gaze never left Aira while she spoke. It wasn't the look of someone listening intently—it was the kind of eyes that recorded everything. After Aira finished speaking, silence fell for a while. Then a small voice leaked from beyond the door. "…He sat on the throne?" Bector raised his gaze from the documents and looked only in the direction of the door. He didn't move. Only his eyes turned. The corridor beyond the door went silent all at once. Multiple presences held their breath in unison, a sound that faintly transmitted through the door. Aira felt the corner of her mouth twitch slightly while facing forward. She suppressed it. "…Magical power fusion—a high-level spell technique where the user directly interferes with external magical circuits using their own magical power—was he in a state to perform it?" Bector asked quietly. "Before contact with the throne, yes," Aira replied. "You cannot judge what flowed into his circuits from the memory imprint, but—" "Yes. However—" Aira paused for a moment. "I have a hypothesis based on the memory of continuously treating Raid's wounds." The moment she spoke those words, she felt their weight. She was citing the fact of "continuously treating wounds" as evidence. That was not a mission record. It came from more personal memories—repeated many times, by a dying fire in an abandoned house, by the side of a bonfire, on the steps of a corridor. Her breath caught for just one beat. Whether Bector noticed this, she couldn't tell. But his gaze didn't change. He maintained the posture of continuing to listen. "From the wear pattern of magical power fusion, there may be a critical point that can be affected from outside. With each use of forbidden magic—spells that the Imperial Magic Academy prohibits due to excessive invasion of the human body—the magical circuits show burn damage progressing in a specific direction. If that matches a location that can be interfered with from outside, then—even in a demon lord state, it might be possible to sever the caster from the circuit." ──── The war council chamber was in the main building of the fortress. Officers surrounded a large stone table. Less than an hour had passed since Bector issued the summons. Aira stood at the edge of the table and restated the content she had discussed earlier to the assembled officers. The first to speak was a senior officer with white-streaked hair. "The magical continent expedition has resulted in total annihilation twice before. Do you make this request knowing that?" "I do," Aira replied. "Knowing that and still of sound mind? And a demon lord subjugation, no less—" "If magical power circuit external interference is effective against a demonized caster, frontal combat strength is not the issue." Another officer spoke up. "It's a hypothesis. The evidence is thin." "Thin, but not zero. If I cross-reference the damage records of spells the Imperial Magic Academy designated as forbidden with the progression I directly observed, the accuracy can be improved. The question is whether there's time for that." The officers exchanged glances. Skepticism hadn't disappeared. But it wasn't complete rejection either.