The sound of closing the final page of the grimoire was small. The parchment cover overlapping. That was all. But in the silence before dawn, it seemed oddly loud. Raid kept the book on the desk and rested both hands on it. The scar on his left arm floated pale blue in the lamplight. A mark from magical fusion—the irreversible proof of a forbidden technique that directly merged a caster's magical circuits with atmospheric magical elements, accumulating circuit damage with each use and etching it into the skin—seemed to have a deeper color than usual tonight. "You've got it backwards again, old man." A voice came from behind. Lilia stood there with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, blinking her mismatched eyes while pointing at Raid's jacket. Her silver short bob was sticking up on one side. Her eyes were half-closed. She still looked sleepy. Raid's gaze fell to his own jacket. The left and right were reversed. The right front panel was on the left side. It should have been a jacket he wore regularly, but these kinds of mistakes had been increasing lately. "It's dark anyway." "That's not an excuse." Lilia yawned once and wrapped herself back in the blanket. Midway through that motion, the door opened. It was Aira. She'd apparently been checking the advance guard outside since before dawn, and night dew clung to her leather armor's shoulders. Her green eyes took in the quiet room in an instant and stopped on Raid's jacket. Three seconds of silence. Aira stepped forward without a word. She stood in front of Raid, confirmed which way the jacket was oriented, and began redressing him. Her fingers didn't hesitate. The same way as in the fifth encounter—except this time was different. The moment she tried to fasten the last button, Aira's fingers paused for a beat. A pause that hadn't been there before. Raid noticed it. He said nothing. The button closed. The moment Aira tried to step back. "Thank you." His voice was low. It was a voice with emotion suppressed, which only made it heavier. Raid himself knew he had never said these words before. Aira turned around immediately. "It's part of my duties." The response came far too quickly. That very speed concealed something. Her green eyes lingered for just an instant on the button at Raid's chest, then looked away. "I've never heard the old man say thank you before." Lilia spoke from within her blanket. The young advance guard soldier outside the door, who had been listening, stiffened and tried to cover it up—visible at the edge of Raid's vision. "Don't eavesdrop." Aira said it curtly, facing the door. The soldier snapped to attention. Through that gap, Lilia giggled. Her laughter opened a small hole in the tense morning air. Night was breaking. * * * As night broke, dust rose from the east. The advance guard's lookout shouted from the edge of the plateau. "Three directions, flags confirmed—Steel Corridor Brigade, beginning advance!" The Steel Corridor Brigade—the main force dedicated to the empire's frontier subjugation, an elite unit with a total strength of twenty-two hundred—began moving at the signal of dawn. Three days ago, Brigade Commander Grave Halcion had notified Raid and the others defending Kazami Village: "If you do not withdraw by the deadline, we will resort to military force." It seemed that deadline had already passed as of last night. Raid stood at the plateau's edge and looked at the eastern ridge. An advance from three directions. The natural terrain leading from the Biofeng Mountain Range to Kazami Village—the shallows of the Spinwind River, the cliff at the plateau's edge, the atmospheric current blowing from the east—he had mapped out in his head countless times over these three days. "Aira, central route." "Understood." Aira moved, leading eight advance guards. Her reddish-brown long hair tied back, her green eyes holding the light of battle as she ran. Raid watched her back for just one second, then turned his gaze south. The wooden obstacles set in the shallows of the Spinwind River were guiding the left flank of the vanguard north as planned. The natural cliff at the plateau's edge was squeezing in the right flank. The atmospheric magical element spray Raid had set up last night—a sight-blocking mechanism using the terrain of the plateau—was mixing with the morning mist, delaying the enemy's grasp of formation. Fighting with terrain, not numbers. "Twenty from the south, fast pace, forty seconds." Lilia stood beside him and spoke. Keeping her body low in the shadow of a rock, she narrowed her mismatched eyes. The biological sensing of the demon race—the ability to feel presence and heat through the skin because of magical element density in the body exceeding humans by three times—was reading accurately through the mist. "Accurate." "Faster than the empire's messengers." "Of course." Lilia puffed out her chest a little. Just then, Aira's voice flew from the central route. "Pressure from the left—they've taken the diversion route!" Raid almost clicked his tongue, then nodded slightly instead. Just as planned. The stalemate continued. An hour passed, then two. The defense line held. But it wasn't breaking either. Raid continued observing the whole from above the plateau. No need to use it here. Not yet— "That's strange." Lilia's tone changed. Through a gap in the mist, a white horse appeared. One. A single rider. Followed by only a small escort carrying the brigade flag, moving straight toward the core of the front line. White-streaked short hair, the brigade commander's insignia on the military uniform's chest—Grave Halcion, the old general commanding the Steel Corridor Brigade, a man who had once stood in the same camp as Raid—had taken the front line himself. Raid's eyes narrowed. Not to block retreat. There was an escape route. What Grave was showing was a "place for settlement"—Raid's observant eye read in an instant that this tactician was moving not by logic but by will at this very moment. (That's the kind of man you are, always have been.) Something bitter seeped into the back of his throat. Eighteen years ago too, he came straight with eyes like that. Behind the mask of utilitarianism lay genuine will for "settlement." That's what made him troublesome. "Lilia." "Hm?" "Go to Aira. Retreat with the advance guard to the west side of the plateau." Lilia didn't move. One beat, two beats. "What are you going to do alone?" "Handle it." "I hate the way you say that." But she stood up anyway. Her mismatched eyes looked at Raid strongly once. The face of someone with something to say. But she didn't say it. Lilia ran. * * * The highest point of the plateau was windy. Raid stood there alone. True to the origin of Kazami Village's name, the wind blowing from the east continued to sway the hem of his jacket. Beyond the eastern mist, Grave's white horse stopped. At a distance of three hundred meters. The brigade's core formation lined up behind it. Raid closed his eyes. He slowly opened the magical circuits in his body. Starting with the familiar sensation—rust. The catching of the circuit's inner wall. Friction. Magical fusion burned and expanded the inner wall of the circuit with each use, and the damage couldn't be completely healed even with healing magic. The circuit deterioration had been progressing rapidly since the night he processed seven magnetooth beasts. If he used this today, the scar on his left arm would spread again. Part of the circuit would never return to its original state—that consequence had already been determined before today's use. Still, he opened it. The magical power flowing beneath his skin began to change. The blue scar on his left arm grew hot. At the next heartbeat, his entire arm turned white—or rather, beyond white, colorless light. Platinum-white light. There was a sensation of blood vessels swelling from the inside. Heat rushed from the spinal cord toward the crown of his head. It descended again to his back, circling his entire body. In the full deployment stage of the technique, atmospheric magical elements fused until they reached the same density as the caster's body—in that process, the circuit's inner wall literally melted and expanded, and after use, new scars were etched into the skin. The fabric of his shirt trembled finely. The quality of the air changed. The surrounding atmosphere began to have weight. From a distance behind a rock, Aira was watching. She must have returned after seeing the advance guard's retreat. Lilia pulled at her sleeve and spoke in a low voice. "The circuits are completely open." Aira took a step forward. It was unconscious. Her feet moved. But the next moment, she stopped. She didn't understand why she stopped. Because she shouldn't interfere—or because she couldn't reach anymore. Unable to choose between the two, her feet took root in the stone pavement. Raid's outline wavered at the edge of the plateau. More precisely, the outline was becoming ambiguous, as if merging with atmospheric magical elements. The boundary was becoming unclear. Maintaining a human form while becoming the same density as air. Aira knew the name of the forbidden technique as a knight—magical fusion. But there was an unbridgeable gap between knowledge and what was actually happening before her eyes. The technique was released. It wasn't sound. It was pressure. The plateau's stone cried out. The entire bedrock trembled with a groaning vibration for an instant. A directional torrent of atmosphere ran toward the Biofeng Mountain Range's ridge. The mist was blown away, and the morning light was obscured for just a moment. Grave's brigade's core formation—disappeared. More precisely, it was scattered by the blast pressure. People fell, flags broke, horses retreated. Only the white horse barely remained at the edge of the formation. And at the next heartbeat, Raid's knees buckled. Slowly, silently. Like a supporting pillar had vanished, he collapsed forward. The stone pavement drew near— Aira was running. She was running before she could think. Her leather shoes struck the stone pavement, the sound reaching her ears after her body had already moved. She wrapped both arms around Raid's upper body and caught him. She placed her bare hand on his neck— It was hot. Scorching hot. Like grasping a stone with her bare hands, the searing temperature transmitted from Aira's palm to her arm. The residual heat of magical fusion—the abnormal rise in body temperature after a caster's body synchronized with atmospheric magical elements, and in severe cases, heat continued to radiate from the skin for several hours—was radiating from Raid's entire skin. The judgment that she should let go and the feeling that she shouldn't were in conflict for just an instant. Aira didn't let go. He was breathing. His pulse was there. Irregular, but there. Aira wrapped her arm around Raid's back to support his upper body. In that position, Raid's forehead naturally touched Aira's neck. It wasn't an intentional arrangement. But neither of them moved. Raid's body heat spread from Aira's neck toward her collarbone. The scorching heat transmitted directly to her skin. Aira noticed her own breathing had become slightly shallower. She noticed it and tried to steady it, but couldn't. "Armored person, don't move right now." Lilia had arrived. She ran over breathlessly, knelt down on the spot, and placed both hands on Raid's chest. It was a commanding tone—unusual for Lilia. The area around her palms glowed faintly. The demon race's biological healing magic began to flow through the skin. Aira didn't move. This time she didn't step back. She knelt beside Lilia and placed her hand over Raid's wrist, which was burning hot. She continued to confirm his body temperature through the sensation of her hand. Hot. Still hot. But gradually, gradually, the excessively high heat was receding. Healing magic was working within hi